by K. M. Hayes
“You hungry?” I asked Holly.
She looked at me weirdly. “Yeah.”
“Nuggets?”
She nodded.
I went to the kitchen and turned on the oven. I could have microwaved them, but I wanted an excuse to be away from that show longer. I had to cleanse my palate was all. There was probably some kind of addictive property about the ponies to keep girls wanting to buy the toys. So I got on my phone and watched some dumb videos, but I could still hear the show . . . and soon I noticed I was listening more to that than the videos on my phone.
“What is wrong with me?” I whispered. In desperation to block out the ponies, I connected my phone to the speakers by the sink. Mom used them to listen to music while she did dishes. I turned on a playlist of loud country rock.
Before the first song was over, Holly stomped into the kitchen and turned the music off. “I can’t hear my show!”
“That was kinda the point,” I grumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I sighed. She thought I would hate her show, but here I was trying very hard to dislike it. “Look, can we watch something else for a little bit? You’ve been watching that for almost two hours.”
“But it’s the best show. And it’s almost at the coolest part.” She whirled around and went back into the living room.
I balled up my fists. I wanted to call her a spoiled brat, to take the remote and change the show, to eat all the nuggets myself. Why Holly brought out the worst in me, I didn’t know. It took everything in me to put her food on a plate and set it in front of her instead of dumping it in her lap. Then I headed for the stairs.
“You’re supposed to stay with me,” Holly said in her whiny voice. “Mom said!”
“You’ll be fine on your own.” I kept going.
“Drew . . .” She whimpered, sticking her lower lip out and everything. “I’m scared to be alone.”
I almost left anyway, but then guilt set in. Besides, if she told Mom and Dad I hadn’t watched her, I would get grounded. After tonight, if I survived, I could go back to Quincy’s and beg my parents never to make me do this again.
“You suck,” I said as I sat back in the recliner.
Holly’s smirk was seriously evil. She didn’t say anything, just ate her nuggets and watched her show. But I could tell she enjoyed my suffering.
I tried hard to dislike My Little Pony. I told myself the pony Pinkie Pie was annoying, but she was kind of funny. The songs were horribly catchy. The stories weren’t that great. It wasn’t that cool when they fought evil with the magic of friendship.
But I lied to myself. Even as Holly drifted off to sleep before the “coolest part” (at least I hadn’t seen anything that I thought was the coolest part), I wished I could watch more. If she would stay awake a little longer, until this one season was over, I’d be in a good stopping place and wouldn’t be curious to watch more.
As it was, the temptation to take the remote and start another episode was strong. I stood up, tiptoed over to Holly to pry it from her hand while she slept. She gripped it tighter, and I froze. Then she relaxed and the remote was mine.
Was I really going to do this? Did I need to watch My Little Pony that badly?
Yes.
And no one was around, so who would know? I pressed the button to play the next episode, but as it loaded Dad’s truck pulled up the gravel driveway. My heart jumped, and I quickly pressed the back button. If he saw me watching this on my own—I didn’t even want to know how he’d react.
I got my butt in the recliner right before my parents came through the door.
Mom came over, smiling at Holly as she stroked her curls. “How did things go?”
“Fine,” I said. “She just watched her dumb show the whole time.”
“She’s been really into those ponies lately,” Mom said as Dad hefted Holly to take her up to her room. “It’s adorable.”
Adorable. I had a feeling if they knew I had enjoyed the evening way more than I had expected, they wouldn’t use the word “adorable” to describe me.
Chapter 9
TO THE AVERAGE person, it probably looked like Skye had dressed fairly normally. She wore a jean skirt with lace at the hem and a country-style, button-down shirt with little apples on it. Her boots were worn brown leather, and her cowboy hat matched. The only thing was, the hat had peachy-orange ears attached to it.
I knew she was Applejack today, and I kind of wanted to kill myself for knowing it. And for thinking she’d done a good job capturing something Applejack would wear if she were a person.
I forced myself to look at my notebook and listen to the daily Bronco News. They announced stuff for Homecoming—the game day, assembly, dance, and all. I got this strange urge to draw a guy pony in football gear because my stupid brain had somehow latched on to the desire to imitate the My Little Pony cartoon style. I liked doodling, and suddenly I had a million ideas for pictures . . . of cute little horses.
I’d only drawn one pony over the weekend though. Just to get it out of my system. It wasn’t even very good. And I couldn’t draw one here where people might see it. So instead I sketched a football and goal post.
“Okay, guys,” Mr. Rivera said, clapping his hands together. “We’re going on a field trip. To the auditorium!”
Several students offered confused noises.
He held up his hands. “I know, I know, you were so looking forward to learning about prepositions, but the school counselor decided that, instead of visiting each freshman homeroom, it’d just be easier to have one big career planning assembly. And with Homecoming stuff coming up, it has to be today.”
People groaned, myself included.
“I know, thinking about the future sucks.” Mr. Rivera motioned for everyone to get up. “C’mon. It’ll be over in just forty short minutes.”
We walked in a vague kind of line. Friends chatted next to each other. Emma was with a girl named Mary, who I now knew went to her father’s church. For the first time outside of the library, Emma glanced at me and my heart twinged. I wondered if she wanted me to walk with her or something.
But I couldn’t. It would draw attention and seem random when we sat on opposite sides of the classroom. So I walked alone. Skye’s boots clomped behind me, bringing up the rear. For a second I worried she’d yell at me, but I was beginning to think girls would only talk to me when no one else was looking.
The auditorium was covered in green velvet. Chairs, curtains, and even the carpet looked like old trampled forest green. Sure, it was the school’s color, but even this was overkill.
“Gag me,” Skye said behind me.
I wasn’t sure what she referred to, but since she was into fabric I wondered if she noticed it, too. Then I got worried about noticing it myself. Why did I even care? Why did I find myself noticing and caring and even liking the same things as Skye? She was the weirdest of the weird . . . it couldn’t be my destiny to be a loser forever.
We sat with the other freshmen who’d been corralled to this “career planning” thing. A woman in a pastel suit stood on the stage, smiling extra wide. “Welcome, everyone! I’m Miss Overly, the school’s guidance counselor. This is a very important year for all of you! It’s the year people start to tell you that things ‘count’ . . .”
Miss Overly was painful to listen to. She had a sugary sweet tone to her voice that would have been better for Holly’s age than mine. And she tried hard to make the whole “you have to get good grades and go to college and pick a career right now” thing sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but it felt like a lie.
When I was a kid, thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up was easy. I could say almost anything—fireman, president, pro ballplayer, superhero—and adults smiled and told me it would happen if I tried really hard. Now? I knew better. Not everyone was cut out for everything. They could still fail even if they tried hard. And more than that, people judged you based on your job. If I wanted to be a nurse, people would look at me
funny. Musician? Have a backup plan.
And if I didn’t know what I wanted to be? People would think I was a loser with no goals.
I kind of was.
“Here are some sheets to help you explore what you might want to pursue as a career,” Miss Overly said, as some of the teachers passed out stacks of papers.
It didn’t seem like there was much help to be had. One sheet was a list of potential careers. Another listed the highest paying, because of course that’s how you determine what to do in life. There were some personality tests and correlating careers according to your score, which seemed hokey. Then there was a questionnaire. I started with that, since I hoped it might get me thinking logically.
What is your favorite subject in school? None.
Do you participate in any extracurricular activities? No.
Does your family own a business? No.
Is there something you have interest in but haven’t tried yet? I thought about My Little Pony, about how I wanted to draw them like a total nerd. So I skipped that question.
What did you want to be when you were little? This question wasn’t much better because I had wanted to be like Dad when I was little. I had thought he was the coolest person in the world with the coolest job. He got to play a game all day and people paid him for it. Except I hadn’t been able to do what he did—I was awful at it.
This was a stupid questionnaire and no help. In desperation I moved on to the quizzes. They told me I should be a motivational speaker, an engineer, or a teacher. So that was super helpful and clearly a trend of no trend.
“Okay,” Miss Overly said after several minutes. “Does anyone want to share what career they’re interested in?”
No one raised a hand.
“Come now . . .” She looked over the crowd, and my stomach flopped because I knew she was about to call on people. “No one in this whole auditorium has an idea of what career they want?”
I shrunk in my seat. Please not me. Not me.
Miss Overly pointed in my direction, and I cursed. “You, in the cowboy hat, stand up. What career are you thinking about?”
A breath of relief whooshed out of me. I looked down a few seats at Skye, a full ring of seats around her unfilled. She stood, putting her hands on her hips. “I want to be a costume designer, ideally on Broadway.”
Some of the people around me snickered. “More like a designer for clowns.”
“Maybe she could make costumes for real horses.”
Miss Overly gave the look I’d seen before. The one that said she didn’t believe Skye could do what she wanted. “That’s a good dream to have. But it’s one not many are able to achieve, so a backup plan would be—”
“It’s not just a dream! There is no backup plan,” Skye interrupted, a surprising amount of anger in her words. “Backup plans make you weak and lazy.”
“Oh, well . . .” Miss Overly didn’t have an answer for that.
“If you really want something,” Skye continued, “you don’t let anything or anyone get in your way. You try until you succeed. You don’t let the haters get you down. That’s what I’m doing with my life, and you won’t talk me out of it.”
Skye sat back down. There was utter silence for about five seconds before people started whispering. Miss Overly cleared her throat and moved on to ask other students what they had picked. She predictably praised the practical choices and the desires to go to college. Even entrepreneurship got more praise than any artistic venture.
No one seemed particularly motivated as we headed back to class to grab our things. I dragged my feet, wanting no one to see how much I hated every second of the assembly and wasn’t any closer to knowing what I was good for.
Before I knew it, someone was next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Skye. “Hurry up. You’re going too slow.”
“Only if you tell me where you get all that conviction,” I blurted out. “I could use some.”
She stopped walking. I looked back at her staring at me like I was even stranger than her. For a moment I thought she might say something because I had never seen her appear so vulnerable, even through the crap of the last couple weeks.
I wanted her to talk. So badly. Maybe she had the answers.
In the end she walked past me and disappeared into the classroom. The bell for class change rang, and she was gone before I had a chance to put on my backpack.
Chapter 10
QUINCY HAD OPTED for PC games today. He sat at his desk and intensely focused on a game. It was a pretty popular one with a team of five players who tried to kill the other team’s base. I played it with him sometimes from my computer at home, but Mom didn’t like me to play more than one game at a time since it might rot my brain.
Quincy’s brain must have been a pile of mold at this point. Which I didn’t think was true because he did all his homeschool work before I got off school . . . and then some. He was already in sophomore classes even though he would turn fifteen a month after I did.
While he was so preoccupied, I pretended to do some homework for history. But really I tried my hand at drawing Applejack. She wasn’t as girly, so I figured it wouldn’t be so bad.
I remembered she had freckles and a cowboy hat, and three apples were on her flank. But I couldn’t remember her mane or tail. I tapped my pencil on my notebook, trying to recall. A braid would be logical with the country getup, and yet I was pretty sure she didn’t have a braid. If I watched one more episode, I would see it. It couldn’t hurt to watch one episode. Could it?
“Hey, Drew.” Quincy quickly pulled off his headphones and turned to me. I jumped, closing my notebook in case he came over. He smiled. “Did I scare you?”
“I was concentrating . . .” I gulped. “What?”
His face lit up in a big smile, and his nostrils ticked. “Should I be a pro gamer?”
I blinked a few times. “Is that a real thing?”
He nodded. “There are pro teams for this game. There’s like a bunch of them in America and all around the world. And they get paid to play video games. All. Day.”
I smirked. I wouldn’t be Miss Overly and tell him that a backup plan might be a good idea. He’d probably hear it a million times anyway. “Sounds pretty sweet if you ask me.”
“It sounds amazing.” He turned back to the computer screen. “You can’t be pro until you’re seventeen, so I have a few years to practice. Maybe I should start streaming, see if I can get a following or something.”
“You could. What game? This one?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. This one is fun, but there are other games people play pro, too. If I put in that much time, I better really like the game.”
I nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”
“You really think I can do it?” Quincy looked down, but it didn’t hide his wincing tic. I realized he wanted this but he was scared he couldn’t have it. It made me think of Skye and how fearless she was in her choice. How did she do that? Even Quincy, who at least had some kind of dream, had doubts.
“Why not?” I said, and I believed it for Quincy. “You’re already ahead in school, and you’re really good at video games. You could probably graduate before seventeen and be a pro.”
His eyes met mine again, relief filling them. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you’d think it was dumb,” Quincy said with a short laugh. “I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but I haven’t told anyone.”
“How long?” I had no idea he wanted this even though I’d known forever he loved gaming. It never occurred to me that he could turn that into a career.
“A little over a year, at least. I thought maybe the idea would go away, but it hasn’t yet. It’s only become something I want even more.” He glanced at his door with concern. “It’s just . . . you know, parents.”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll want me to go to college even though I haven’t been in normal school in forever. I don’t even remember what norm
al school was like.” Quincy started up his “sh-sh-sh-ing” tic, the rarest of his tics, which meant he was more concerned than I realized. He was worried his parents would be mad at him for wanting to be a pro gamer. Or maybe worried he’d have to go to college and he didn’t belong there. “Sh-sh-sh . . . gah! Sorry.”
I shook my head. “Hey, I get it, okay? I didn’t turn out how my parents wanted at all. I’m already a disappointment at fourteen.”
Quincy frowned, but he didn’t argue about it. “How do you do it?”
“I don’t know.” I lay back on his bed, looked at the blank ceiling, and thought about my blank future. For the briefest moment, I almost told him that I couldn’t stop thinking about ponies and drawing them. He had the guts to tell me he wanted to be a pro gamer.
But pro gaming and liking My Little Pony were not the same things.
So I said nothing. Because if I told Quincy and he decided I was too weird and lame, I’d lose the only friend I had.
Chapter 11
I COULDN’T SLEEP. Sometimes my legs hurt too much, all achy and sore. I hoped this meant I was finally growing taller, but I hadn’t seen any results. More likely, I probably just needed a glass of water and some pain medication.
When I couldn’t take the discomfort anymore, I dragged myself out of bed and down the stairs. The house was quiet with everyone else sleeping. It was peaceful, relaxing even, knowing I wouldn’t have to face any of them right now. I grabbed a couple pills from the medicine cabinet, popped them in my mouth, and washed them down with a swig of water.
It would take at least thirty minutes for the meds to start working, and now I was wide awake.
A My Little Pony episode was about that long.
No one was awake to catch me.
I’d avoided it for awhile, but in that moment I was weak. One episode. I’d watch just one. I wasn’t stupid enough to watch it on the TV where someone might see me. No, I’d watch it on my smart phone in my bed. It might be a smaller screen, but I could use headphones and no one would know.
