by Alexa Martin
“What happened?” she asked.
“I pissed off some girls.”
“I know the ones you’re talking about,” she said. “If I were you I’d try to stay out of their way.”
Looking around, I saw that the halls were finally clearing out. Teachers stood at the doors yelling at students to sit their butts down.
Mimi sensed my discomfort. “Guess you’re not in Tallahassee anymore, huh?”
“Yeah—well this place ain’t exactly the Emerald City,” I muttered, staring at a poster across the hall that said STOP THE VIOLETS. I really hoped it wasn’t a misspelling.
“My old school,” I began. “It was the all-girls parochial kind. Not that my parents are religious. And they’re definitely not rich or anything. But the school was a bargain and way better than the public high school.”
“Sounds unreal,” she said.
I didn’t tell Mimi that none of my old friends even drank. The only peer pressure I ever got in Florida was to “accept Jesus into my heart.” I imagined Mimi would scoff at this.
“There’s a nicer bathroom upstairs,” Mimi said. “In the GATE wing. I’ll show you later.”
As the final bell rang, I stumbled into my first class, feeling as if I’d just been banished to the ninth circle of hell.
FIRST PERIOD: CHEMISTRY
Our teacher, Miss Gordon—“Call me Anita”—took an “expeoriential” approach to learning. She divided us into groups of four by lab table and handed us a copy of the periodic table along with a “fun” fact sheet about the elements. Then she walked around the room taping the name of a single element to each of our backs. “We’re going to play a little icebreaker game,” she said. “To figure out which element you are, you’ll have to ask your classmates for clues. The first table to figure out all four elements wins the grand prize.”
“What’s the grand prize?” someone asked.
“Do we get cookies?”
Anita beamed. “Each member of the winning team will start out the semester with ten bonus points!” When everyone groaned, she waved her arms for silence. “One of the main reasons we have an obesity problem in this country is that we use food to reward our young people.”
“Bring on the fat!” someone shouted.
This, apparently, was our cue to begin. I turned to the kid on my left. He was cute in a punk kind of way, with blue eyes and dyed black hair. More importantly, he was wearing a Radiohead T-shirt.
“What’s your favorite album?” I asked.
The guy stared at me without blinking. “Um—what are you talking about?”
I bit my lip. “Your shirt? Radiohead? They’re like my all-time favorite band.”
He stared at me blankly. “Never heard of them.”
Mimi, who was sitting across from me, passed me a quick note. Don’t mind Nick. He’s an asshole. Is Radiohead a boy band?
I didn’t dignify this question with an answer.
The other guy at our table, a redhead with a short neck and a receding chin, showed us his back. “Am I a noble gas?”
“No,” Nick said. “But that reminds me—I really have to fart.”
Nick’s element, as irony would have it, was sulfur. He wasn’t kidding about the farting either. Suffice it to say, our table didn’t win the game. So long, bonus points. So long.
When the bell rang, Mimi and I hightailed it out of the chemistry room.
“Yikes,” she said, fanning the air with her hand. “Nick needs to lay off the beans.”
“There’s some bad chemistry going on inside that guy’s gut,” I joked.
She laughed, then glanced at her copy of my schedule. “Shit. None of our other classes are the same. How about we meet outside the cafeteria for lunch?”
To buy myself a minute to think, I pretended to search for something in my backpack. On the one hand, I didn’t want to encourage Mimi. I had a feeling she might be something of an albatross—at least in the popularity department. But at the same time, I guessed that eating alone at Shady Grove would be akin to painting a giant bull’s-eye on your back.
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever.”
She blinked a couple of times. “Are you going to be okay until then?”
“Of course,” I said, bristling. Who was she to pity me?
She shot me a funny look, then said, “Hand me your map.”
She drew on it, circling where we were currently standing (near a gym, where some kids were playing a game that involved lots of screaming), and circling where I needed to go. “It’s kind of a haul from here. You better get going or you’ll be late. Good luck.”
As she walked away, I felt as alone as Orphan Annie.
I ran to make my Spanish class on time. But when I finally got there I discovered that I’d sweated for nothing, that half the kids weren’t even there anyway, and that it didn’t matter since the teacher was missing.
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so out of breath.
“Guess he’s gone walkabout,” I overhead this kid behind me say.
Another kid snorted. “Yeah. Right. If by walkabout you mean he had a nervous breakdown.”
Nervous breakdown—the idea had some appeal. Not the actual breakdown part, of course. But maybe I’d get to go to one of those luxury retreats where they send the stars for “exhaustion.” After what I’d been through this morning, I kind of liked the idea of lying in a sterile room with nice doctors and nurses checking in on me every few minutes. I sure as hell was exhausted.
Language Arts, my favorite and best subject, was down in the basement. After my first two “regular classes,” I couldn’t imagine what our teacher would have us read. Winnie-the-Pooh, maybe? Walter the Farting Dog? Or would we read abridged classics?
The room was very dungeonlike. Paint was peeling off the pipes and walls. There were no windows. The ventilation was terrible. The oniony smell was getting worse, only now there was a meat loaf aroma as well.
As I took a seat, a girl came up to me and asked my name. This was a plus. She was pretty and a snazzy dresser. She wore knee-high boots, a cute flared skirt, and a V-neck shirt that was just this side of daring.
“Are you excited about this class?” she asked.
I shrugged nonchalantly, having read somewhere that the fastest way to push people away is to seem overeager. “It’s school.”
She gave me this sad look that I had no idea how to interpret. A few minutes later she walked to the front of the room and cleared her throat. “Hello, class. I’m your teacher, Miss Mason.”
It was all I could do not to bang my head on the desk.
At least I wasn’t the only idiot in the room. Halfway through the period, Miss Mason made the mistake of telling us that this was her first year teaching. Even worse, she added, “You guys are lucky. You get to break me in.”
“We’ll break you in!” some guy shouted. “Pop!”
The class erupted with whoops and laughter. Miss Mason tried to regain control by steering the conversation to all the amazing books we’d be reading this quarter, starting with Great Expectations, a book I’d read in the eighth grade.
“It’s a wonderful romance,” Miss Mason said, completely missing the point of the novel.
The class, however, was not ready to learn about literature or romance. A couple of the guys started harassing Miss Mason about her V-neck top. One of them asked if she had a boyfriend, and without waiting for her to answer, he asked why her boyfriend hadn’t broken her in yet. She ended up fleeing the room with her hands over her face. If even the teachers couldn’t hack this place, what hope was there for me?
The vice-principal came in a short while later, yelled at us for causing a disruption, and threatened suspension.
The girl behind me woke up from her nap and tapped me on the shoulder. “Did someone just say something about suspension?” she asked. “I could use a little more vacation. Summer’s never long enough.”
Lunchtime. Finally. “I hope you don’t mind biohazards,” Mim
i said when I met her outside the cafeteria.
“That bad?” I asked.
“Worse.”
Mimi, I was noticing, tended to act very gleeful when delivering bad news. There was a word for that, right? Schadenfreude?
But she was right about the food. You could smell the preservatives on the salad bar vegetables. None of the toppings on the pizza resembled cheese or tomatoes or anything natural, for that matter. The spaghetti, on the other hand, looked all too natural—kind of like swollen earthworms.
“I usually just make a sandwich,” Mimi said, leading me over to a counter where there were loaves of Wonder Bread and jars of generic peanut butter. “If you toast the bread you don’t even notice that it’s stale.”
A fight erupted in the cafeteria line. A moment later a guy stumbled past me clutching a bloody nose. “Isn’t someone going to do something?” I asked.
“Oh, someone will call security,” Mimi said, sidestepping a mound of something that might have once been a hard-boiled egg. “You have to understand, though—fights are more or less white noise around here. Kind of like the morning announcements. If you stick close to me and give everyone else a wide berth, you’ll be fine.”
As we wove our way through the lunchroom, Mimi gestured around at the various tables, narrating their various idiosyncrasies. “We’ve got jocks, preps, goths, gangsters, ghetto babies, skaters, emos, losers, whatever.”
“What are you?” I asked.
Was it my imagination or did Mimi stiffen at the question? After a minute she said, “I get along with everybody. You could say I’m a floater.”
Wasn’t floater a police nickname for people who’d drowned?
Mimi eyed me speculatively. “We should hang out sometime after school. What’s your number?” she asked, whipping out her phone.
“I’m getting a new cell,” I lied. “I don’t know what the number will be.”
We sat down at an empty table near the back of the cafeteria. Surveying the room, I tried to figure out who the GATE kids were. If nothing else, Mimi was a decent mind reader. “They have their own cafeteria,” she said.
I tensed. “What—are they spoon-fed catered gourmet as well?”
She giggled at this. “Now you’re catching on.”
We ate quickly, then took our trays over to the dishwasher. “C’mon,” Mimi said, adjusting her backpack. “We still have some time. I want to show you something.” She led me to the third floor. Topping the landing, she waved her hand before her as if showing me some great buffet.
“This is it,” she said. “Home of the GATEs.”
Now this was more like it. Though it wasn’t the Barclay School or anything, the GATE wing was clean and bright and lit by skylights. There were couches and alcoves where students could hang out. Groups of kids sat around with textbooks and laptops—reading, typing, and quizzing one another. Apparently if you were a GATE, it was kosher to care about your grades. Teachers mingled with students, smiling benevolently and bantering in a fun way. The students up here looked a lot more like me. Had I made it into GATE, my preppy outfit would have been closer to okay.
Skimming my fingers along the freshly painted lockers, I tried to mask the yearning I felt. I was supposed to be here.
“Feels like an oasis, huh?”
I could only nod.
Suddenly, I heard this rhythmic clomping sound. Shuffling down the hall in wooden clogs was a girl with a mane of hot-pink hair. On anyone else it would have looked absurd or cheap. But for her it worked. Tremendously. It was like her hair was a reflection of some inner radiance.
“That’s Amanda Munger,” Mimi whispered. “Otherwise known as Girl Wonder. Last year she spray-painted a giant penis on the school gymnasium. The only reason she wasn’t expelled was that her grandfather—some big-time executive for Microsoft—donated a bunch of money to the district. She’s been kicked out of all the private schools.”
Amanda was wearing this cool hobo hat and a vintage T-shirt that said lucky across the bust. It hit her curves in just the right places. Her green eyes glittered in a feline way—there was a lot of thought going on behind those eyes. Bossiness beamed from her like a blinding light. She looked neither to the left nor the right, but you knew that she knew that everyone was staring—and that this fact amused her. She was polished and cool. You knew she broke hearts, right and left. I wanted to be the kind of girl who could break hearts. I felt a tug of envy. I’d never seen anyone like her before, so instantly and flawlessly compelling.
“We should get going,” Mimi said. “The warning bell’s about to ring.”
I was late to Precalculus—they’d put the wrong room number on my schedule—which meant that the only seat left by the time I got there was the one right in front of the podium. Most of my classmates were in a food coma—or poisoned.
If only our teacher had been too.
Mr. Johnson sputtered when he talked—and I was sitting dead center in the splash zone. I wasn’t sure what was worse—this or the fact that his PowerPoint presentation on linear functions was as foreign to me as hieroglyphics. He was nothing like the teacher at my old school—a woman who explained math so well I didn’t even need a tutor. It wasn’t fair. My other classes at Shady Grove had been babyishly easy. How many ways could one stupid subject ruin my life?
Toward the end of the period, he announced that the current seating arrangement would be the permanent seating arrangement. Did this mean I was going to have to buy a wet suit?
When class was over, I waited until all the other students had left the room, then approached Mr. Johnson’s desk. “Do you know of any good tutors?” I asked.
“This is a very basic curriculum,” he said, straightening out his already immaculate desk. “If you need extra help, try the Special Ed lab.”
By my last period—Political Science—I was all maxed out on mediocrity. I convinced my teacher—one of the football coaches—that I was in imminent danger of puking. Then I hightailed it for the lavatory in the GATE wing. Whenever someone came into the restroom I pulled my feet onto the toilet seat. It was at once disgusting and oddly comforting to hear the sound of other people’s bodies. At least in this regard, we were all the same.
I spent the final minutes of school texting my old friend Kara.
Even though my family had left Boston more than four years ago, Kara and I had remained friends. She’d remained loyal to me even after I’d been diagnosed with my learning disability, and had tutored me in math. I, in turn, helped her write papers. Kara was a terrible proofreader.
Kara: How is life in the great Northwest?
Me: The inmates are running the asylum.
Kara: That bad?
I thought carefully before answering. From her e-mails and texts I could tell Kara was getting to be quite popular. She wrote about football games, parties, and the stupid things boys did. I doubted she’d have time for me if she knew I was lost in loser-land.
Me: Nah. Kidding.
Kara: Give em hell!
For a long time I stared at the phone, rubbing it with my fingers like a talisman, hoping that Kara might buzz me back with something she’d forgotten to say.
In spite of her low-fat, mostly vegetarian diet, my mom had recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure. She was supposed to be working on “reducing stress” in her life. So when she picked me up after school, I tried to make light of getting shafted from GATE.
“Being a plebe is plenty educational.”
“That’s optimistic,” my brother piped from the backseat.
“This is unacceptable,” Mom said, putting the car into reverse. “I’m going to talk to that guidance counselor right now.”
“Kick some ass!” James Henry shouted.
“Language,” Mom warned. “Shit!” she exclaimed, nearly hitting a kid.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to park right here.” I put my sunglasses on and brushed my hair down around my face. “People are staring at us.”
She hopped out of the car. “Let them watch. I’ll be back.”
“Famous last words,” I muttered, watching her stride away.
My brother pointed. “Those guys are checking Mom out.”
He was right. Four cute guys were leering at my mother’s ass.
“Gross.”
He shrugged. “Mom’s a babe. Dad scored big-time.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said distractedly, wondering if I was doomed forever because of my inability to grasp the language of numbers.
“It’s the truth,” he said matter-of-factly, climbing through the middle of the car to the driver’s seat. He cranked the keys in the ignition to turn on the radio. Led Zeppelin—our mom’s favorite band—came blasting out of the speakers a second later. James Henry banged on the steering wheel as if it were a drum, keeping time to “Communication Breakdown.”
Halfway through the song he accidently honked the horn—right as the gang of girls from the bathroom walked by. Hands on hips, they glared at me, mouthing what looked like death threats.
“Damn,” James Henry said. “This place is scary.”
“Don’t look them in the eye,” I said through clenched teeth. Finally, they ambled away. The car was starting to feel like a vault. Clawing at the door, I said, “I’m going to make sure Mom hasn’t gotten arrested.”
James Henry stopped the engine and came jogging after me. “Don’t leave me alone!”
We walked into the school and headed up to the front office, which was just off the main corridor. A group of cheerleaders was sitting in the hall making posters for Friday’s football game. They looked more like Hooters waitresses than cheerleaders, in their too-tight shirts and too-short shorts.
There was a do not disturb sign on the guidance counselor’s door. We sat down in the tiny reception area. On a coffee table there were pamphlets about STDs, teen pregnancy, drug addiction, and peer pressure. Our mom was definitely with the guidance counselor. Her voice rose audibly from the other side of the door.
“Charlotte’s education is very important to us.”
