Lemonade Mouth

by Mark Peter Hughes

  That’s when Mo Banerjee who was sitting right in front of Scott stood up and screamed.

  “Aaaaaaaa!” she wailed, swatting the wad off her face and glaring in my direction. “So gross who was that aaaaaa!”

  I cursed George Washington and my terrible luck. How had I managed to completely miss Scott and instead hit Mo right on the nose? I sank deeper into my chair. I wanted to disappear. Scott looked from Mo to me and back again. Then he laughed and so did Ray and Dean.

  Oh man. You screwed up big this time.

  Shut up.

  With a violent cough Mrs. Reznik suddenly seemed to wake up. “Who did that?”

  Since Mo was still screaming I worried I actually might of hurt her. Maybe even broken her nose or something. Was that even possible with a spitball? Oh God. Maybe.

  “Mr. Hirsh” Mrs. Reznik said with her eyes boring a hole right through me. “Did you throw something at Miss Banerjee tell me this instant!” I know I shouldn’t say this but Mrs. Reznik always kind of freaked me out. Especially because she was really REALLY old and had this outrageous swirl of stiff brown hair like a giant chocolate cake on her head. It was lots more hair than I thought was natural and I was pretty sure it must be a wig because it never moved and never changed from day to day.

  I felt my face heat up. I nodded. I knew this meant detention at the very least.

  Behind me Leslie Dern and Kate Bates snickered.

  “What was it?”

  “A spitball!” Mo shouted. Her chin was out and her eyes narrowed at me. “Charlie you are a pig!”

  I slipped further into my chair.

  For once Aaron kept his mouth shut.

  MOHINI:

  Of Vampires and Victorian Ladies

  “Need anything, Mo?” Mrs. Flynn asks from behind her computer screen. “Water?” From the way she’s looking at me it’s obvious she’s as surprised to see me in trouble as I am.

  I shake my head and stare at my knees.

  It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m fighting back panic on the long bench in the front of Mr. Brenigan’s office, my double bass under my feet. I start to gnaw at one of my fingernails but then stop myself. I feel pressure building up behind my forehead—the first signs of a stress headache. I should’ve guessed this day would turn out to be a complete disaster. First I get whacked in the face with a spitball (that space cadet Charlie Hirsh apologized five times, but a ball of saliva-saturated paper is still a ball of saliva-saturated paper), and now this.

  My eyes catch my reflection in the glass of Mr. Brenigan’s office door. I scowl at my brown skin, dark eyebrows and straight black hair that I’ve always felt begins too high on my forehead. As the only Indian person in the whole school, sometimes I feel I stand out like a nigella seed in mayonnaise.

  I want to scream at myself, What were you thinking!?

  Thing is, I have kind of a grand plan, a complete vision of how my life is going to play out. First, I’m going to get straight A’s for the next four years and then graduate high school at the top of my class, maybe even a semester early. Then I’ll go to medical school, where I’ll play classical bass in the student orchestra and, eventually, marry another Bengali doctor or maybe a college professor, somebody my parents will like. A couple of weeks ago I even started volunteering at the Opequonsett Medical Clinic, helping the triage nurses with paperwork and answering questions as people come in. It’s the kind of experience that gives a person a leg up in her Ivy League applications. You have to think ahead like that when you come from a family with high expectations.

  Anyway, everything about today’s situation is horrible. What happened this afternoon definitely doesn’t fit into my long-term strategy.

  Since the previous winter I’ve been secretly mooning over Scott Pickett, high school soccer star and heartthrob drummer for Mudslide Crush, sure he doesn’t know I exist. He’s two years older than me, tall with blond spiky hair and a stare that leaves me prone to walking into walls. But he was never part of my grand plan. Still, at lunch on the second week of the new school year, out of the blue he pulled up a chair next to me and started chatting. After I revived from the initial shock, we ended up talking through my entire lamb curry and rice and his baloney and cheese pita roll. He told me about his band, his friends, and his record-breaking eight goals in a 13 to 0 victory against Bristol. By the end of lunch we’d shared his Twinkies.

  In the library later that day, I told my best friend, Naomi Fishmeier. But her reaction wasn’t what I’d expected.

  “How come you never told me you liked Scott Pickett?” she whispered. She was putting the finishing touches on her first column for the weekly student-run newspaper, the Barking Clam. She was the self-appointed OHS Scene Queen. “You weren’t worried I’d put it in the paper, were you?”

  “No, I know you’d never do that to me,” I said. “I just wasn’t ready to talk about it with anybody. But you’re the first I’ve told. Honestly.” And she was.

  “Mo! You should never hold back on your best friend!”

  I apologized and all was quickly forgiven.

  Naomi narrowed her eyes. “You better be careful about that boy. Don’t you know he has a reputation?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  She leaned back and tapped her pencil thoughtfully on her glasses. She wore the thickest lenses I’ve ever seen. She was almost blind without them. “Well, a good journalist can’t reveal her sources, even to a friend, but I have it on good authority that while he was going out with Lynn Westerberg, he was seeing two other girls on the side.”

  I felt my heart slow down. “Are you positive?”

  She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t personally catch him red-handed or anything, but I think it’s true.”

  I stared at her for a moment, trying to decide what to do with this information. “No,” I said finally. “I don’t believe it. Not Scott. He’s a good guy. He’s sweet. And besides, it’s not like we’re going out or anything. We just talked.”

  And so, swayed by the afterglow of the Twinkie incident, I lived the next few days on a mission. Each morning I took gobs of time preparing for school, making sure to choose exactly the right outfit. Jeans and my red patterned oxford—too casual? Short black skirt with the pink satin blouse—too come-and-get-me?

  To be honest, it was exhausting.

  But it paid off. At first he’d speak to me as we passed in the hallways. Never for long, and just hello and what class do you have now, things like that. I tried to act like it was no big deal. But it was. After a lifetime of social obscurity, Scott Pickett was actually talking to me. The following Thursday he walked me almost the whole way home. After that, we were pretty much a couple.

  It felt like Destiny.

  Which is probably why I am now sitting here in front of the Vice Principal’s office, feeling like I’m about to barf.

  Here’s what happened. I was lugging my bass down to the music room for my fifth-period lesson with Mrs. Reznik when I noticed a flyer on the lemonade machine announcing the dates for the Halloween Bash in October and the Holiday Talent Show in November. Even though it didn’t say so on the poster, I knew from Scott that the band playing at this year’s Bash would be Mudslide Crush. It was going to be a big deal to a lot of kids. Mudslide Crush had almost a religious following at Opequonsett High. Of course, seeing the announcement made me think of him again. Not that I need much prodding lately for Scott to interrupt my thoughts.

  A few seconds later, still studying the flyer, I sensed movement near my left ear. When I turned, there he was. Scott. Out of the blue. Fate.

  Suddenly I felt tongue-tied.

  Looking back on it now, it’s difficult to explain even to myself how what occurred next actually happened. But the facts are the facts:

  Within moments of Scott’s unexpected appearance, the two of us were making out in the bushes behind the new gym.

  Keep in mind, sitting under a rhododendron with a double bass and a soccer star several min
utes after the fifth-period bell had already sounded was an act of madness unlike anything I’d ever committed before. Certainly it wasn’t part of my plan. Up until that moment I’d always pretty much thought of myself as a model of good behavior, a girl who never let her parents down. This little harlot with leaves in her hair was a stranger to me. In fact, other than one brief, hot moment at the end of my street the day Scott walked with me, I’d barely even let him kiss me. But something in the smoldering look in his eyes, the casual way he took my hand and gently tugged me toward the exit took me by surprise and swept me into a moment of pure in sanity. In a way, I didn’t feel like I had any choice.

  I was like one of those helpless Victorian ladies unable to stop herself from meeting the vampire at the window.

  Still, as I gasped for air in the bushes, a secret part of me was ecstatic about this new development. For that moment at least, it felt freeing to let go, to give in to my innermost passions. Plus, one of the undeniable side effects of being romantically connected with Scott Pickett is that it means you’re somebody. Now, I’ve never exactly been at the center of everybody’s radar screen. Being part of the trendy crowd was never my focus—I always had longer-term goals in mind. But now that I actually had a shot at joining the social elite, I was surprised at how thrilling it felt.

  That is, until Mr. Yezzi, the Poli Sci teacher, happened to look out the window. When he saw us he started pounding on the glass.

  So now here I am, summoned to the front office for the first time ever. Scott’s in there with Mr. Brenigan now, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s my turn.

  My headache is stronger now. I pick at a tiny woodchiplodged in the fabric of my Capris. With one unlucky spin of the Wheel of Fortune I’ve plummeted from perfect happiness to absolute despair. There I was, living my perfectly respectable under-the-radar life, but then I had to go and throw it away. Sure, establishing myself as a soccer tramp will probably catapult me into the popularity stratosphere, but at what cost?

  And what about Mrs. Reznik? Odd as she is, I’m lucky she agreed to give me individual bass instructions as an independent study. What will she think when she hears that I skipped Antoniotti’s Sonata No. 10 in G Minor for a smooch in the dirt? Will she change her mind about working with me? The school already cut the Orchestra program this year, and my parents certainly can’t afford private lessons.

  And my parents? I never told them anything about Scott, of course—a fact that sends a gush of guilt through my intestines whenever I think about it. Normally I don’t keep secrets from my parents. But they grew up in Calcutta, the land of the arranged marriage, and they don’t even want me alone with a boy, let alone dating. And as antiquated as their old-world views may sound, I respect my parents and hate to disappoint them. Telling them about Scott and me would break their hearts. So even though I feel sick about it, I’ve been keeping this whole thing a secret—what else can I do?

  If they get wind of any of this, I’m dead.

  The door eventually opens and Scott appears, his confident smile completely at odds with the knots in my gut. Mr. Brenigan waves me in. Scott passes me and whispers, “No big deal. Just detention.”

  Great. Another first.

  I leave Mr. Brenigan’s office about ten minutes later, my head pounding so hard I shoot straight to the bathroom and lock myself in one of the stalls until the feeling passes. After that, I calm down a little. I spend the final two periods of the day thinking about the silver linings: First, I was able to convince Mr. Brenigan not to call my parents. And second, even though we’ll be in separate rooms, at least Scott and I will be in detention together.

  Maybe I’ll even see him again when it’s over.

  STELLA:

  A Troupe of Clown-Faced Mimes

  Dribbling Basketballs to Surf Music

  It was the next day at school when I fully recognized what a terrible mistake I’d made.

  Imagine the scene: There was our heroine, Sista Stella the hopeless reprobate, newly sheared and wrapped in her stepfather’s castaway snakeskin jacket. As she walked the school hallways the other kids drifted to the far side of the corridor as if terrified. Nobody even made eye contact. Our protagonist pretended not to notice, but even the teachers looked at her with suspicion. It occurred to her that when it comes to oversized girls with unconventional hair and snakeskin jackets, it wasn’t as if this town had a corner on the market. But now she felt exposed and naked. What’d she been thinking, cutting her hair like that? Instead of fixing her problem, she made it much worse. Now she felt more out of place than ever.

  Worst of all, there was no going back.

  And now I can hear the cry from the rafters: “Tell us more, Sista! What happened next to the poor, misunderstood girl?”

  All right, my devoted friends. I’ll tell you.

  Just because I knew I’d destroyed any chance I had of fitting in, didn’t mean I’d changed my mind about taking action. For one thing, I was still furious with Mr. Brenigan. In fact, the previous evening I’d mapped out a strategy for exposing him as the thoughtless dictator he was. And as crappy as I felt that day, I decided I would still carry it out.

  Why not? I had nothing to lose.

  I knew that the ninth and tenth graders had an assembly on Personal Safety and Empowerment that afternoon. I made sure I was one of the first through the gym doors so I could take a front-and-center seat on the bleachers. As the freshmen and sophomores piled in, Mr. Brenigan leaned against the opposite wall looking bored. When he glanced in my direction I pretended to be interested in the palm of my hand.

  For a long time nobody sat near me. Finally, having no other choice, a group of five girls, every one of them wearing hip-huggers, shuffled over. But when it looked like a tight fit for all of them, they tried to shove me to one side like they owned the place. “Find another seat, freak,” barked one of them, a particularly beefy girl.

  I didn’t say anything. I just gave the girl the evil eye.

  It wasn’t long before the pompous princess looked a little less sure of herself and backed down. Soon, her friends exchanged worried looks, and a moment later, they squeezed into their seats without another unkind word. It occurred to me that there was at least one advantage to having crazy hair and a snakeskin jacket in the beehive of cliques and tyrants known as Opequonsett High School.

  Eventually the principal, Mrs. Ledlow, an undersized woman with giant round glasses, appeared at one end of the room. She raised her hands and her voice boomed from four giant overhead speakers. “Boys and girls,” she said, “I hope you’re enjoying our brand-new, modern gym!”

  During the applause that followed, I scanned the room. The gymnasium really was spectacular, with a glass cathedral ceiling, a shiny new floor, cushy bleachers, a mammoth sound system and even an impressive snarling quahog, the school’s clammy mascot, painted in majestic gray and blue at center court. Everybody knew that building this new gym had ended up costing the town much more than they’d budgeted. Their solution was to cut back on other programs, like music.

  Which spoke volumes about screwed-up priorities.

  Finally Mrs. Ledlow asked everyone to show respect for our award-winning guest presenters by giving them complete silence. She went back to her chair and the lights dimmed. Then in a sudden torrent of sound, Dick Dale and His Del-Tones came roaring through the overhead speakers. I was pleasantly surprised. For a few seconds everybody sat in the dark listening to delicious middle-eastern guitar riffs like the start of an Arabic surf adventure. It was “Miserlou,” and my hands knew every twist and turn. But then, from unseen corners of the room, five or six wide-eyed men and women dressed in black overalls and white face paint wordlessly bounced, unicycled, danced, crawled and pretended to swim their way to the pyramid of sports equipment arranged at one end of the gym floor.

  Apparently a troupe of clown-faced mimes dribbling basketballs to surf music had something to do with safety and empowerment.

  By then my heart was poundin
g in my chest. What I was about to do was a risk, a bold act of defiance that would undoubtedly have repercussions. In my unhappiness and confusion, I admit I considered chickening out. But the moment passed. Within seconds, before the clowns got too far into their act, I stood up and strolled four or five paces onto the parquet floor, then turned around and threw off my jacket. I was wearing the very same T-shirt that had so traumatized the delicate sensibilities of the administration only the day before. Next I unfolded a cardboard sign I’d prepared, holding it up for everybody to see. In case there was anyone at the back with bad eyesight, I shouted the words over the music:

  MY SHIRT, MY DECISION!

  DON’T LET THE SCHOOL TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS!

  As I’d expected, there was an immediate uproar.

  Some of the teachers jumped out of their seats and ran toward me. At first most of the kids in the bleachers just looked surprised, but within seconds it seemed like the entire wall of them stood up and yelled. Some laughed, some waved their fists, and a few grinned and applauded.

  “We’re human beings, not cattle!” I called out, surprised at the pleasant rush I felt. I was enjoying the chaos.

  The music stopped and the lights came on. Suddenly Ms. Stone, the algebra teacher, stood very close. “What do you think you’re doing?” she spat up at me. “You’re disturbing our assembly!”

  I could feel the blood pulsing through my veins. In the excitement, it took a moment to focus my thoughts. What exactly was I doing? But then it came to me.

  “I . . . I’m trying to change the world.”

  Mr. Brenigan, his face purple, appeared huffing and puffing behind her. Less than thirty seconds later, they walked me to the exit doors. I glanced over at the mimes as we passed them. They didn’t seem overly concerned. They were just following my progress across the floor, apparently waiting for the anarchy to work itself out so they could start again. In fact, I could almost swear that one of them gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  But my newfound boldness was short-lived.