Rachel Takes the Lead

by Marilyn Kaye

  Alyssa and Kiara were happy, and I was pleased with the news too. But overall, I was still feeling pretty depressed. By lunchtime, I’d made a decision, and I announced it to the others at our table.

  “I’m going to withdraw my name as a candidate for the student representative election.”

  Ellie was clearly not happy. “I don’t think David Tolliver has a chance, Rachel. So it’ll be a landslide for Paige. You don’t want that, do you?”

  I shrugged. “She’ll win no matter who runs against her.”

  Kiara frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Alyssa asked. “Come on, Kiara, you know she’s like the number one most popular girl in seventh grade. And all school elections are popularity contests.”

  “But that’s two things that don’t make sense,” Kiara insisted. “Number one. Why is a mean girl so popular? Wouldn’t people like a nice person better? Number two. Why wouldn’t people vote for the person who could do the best job?”

  Ellie had answers. “First of all, mean girls are popular because everyone is afraid of them.”

  “It’s more than that,” Alyssa said. “If a person is mean to most people, but she’s nice to you, that makes you special. So everyone wants to be that person’s friend.”

  Kiara was still frowning. “It’s illogical.”

  Alyssa nodded. “But it’s middle school. That’s the way things are for girls. I think it stays pretty much the same in high school. Maybe it’s different in college.”

  “And I think it’s the same for boys,” Ellie added. She glanced in the direction of a table in our row and lowered her voice. “There’s a guy over there at Mike’s table, Thayer, who’s not nice at all. I saw him once try to trip this little sixth grader. And Mike says he plays mean tricks on people all the time. But he’s still in the popular crowd because people think he’s cool.”

  “How is he cool?” Kiara asked. “What about anything you just described makes him cool? What makes any person cool, anyway?”

  “No idea,” Ellie replied.

  Alyssa eyed her skeptically. “But you were considered cool at your old school, weren’t you?”

  Ellie sighed. “But I can’t tell you why. I guess it’s just a mystery.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “I just found out that the candidates have to make a presentation at a seventh-grade assembly next week, so that’s another reason for me to quit. I absolutely cannot do that.”

  They all know what torture it is for me even to give oral book reports in English. But Kiara continued to look bothered.

  “But you’d be a better-qualified student representative than Paige or that boy. You have interesting ideas, and you care about people.”

  I smiled sadly. “Thanks, Kiara. But I had one good idea, about improving detention. And maybe I could come up with more ideas. But I can’t picture myself in a meeting with teachers and the administration and other student representatives and actually opening my mouth! You know how shy I am.”

  Kiara had to know that, and she didn’t argue.

  “Besides, even if I did think of more ideas, and even if I wasn’t so shy, I can’t win! So there’s no point to this. I’m going to the office after school and withdrawing my name.”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not today,” she declared. “We’ve got spyglass, remember?”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  Now that I’d made up my mind, I was able to get through the rest of the day without worrying.

  On the way to Ellie’s after school, Ellie got a text message. She stopped to read it, looked pleased, sent a message back, and made an announcement.

  “We can only spend forty-five minutes with the spyglass today. Mike’s coming over to look at birds.”

  Alyssa and I gave each other knowing looks. As much as Ellie insisted that Mike wasn’t her boyfriend, she was always very happy when he took her up on her open invitation to bird-watch from her telescope. Ellie saw the looks, glared at us fiercely for two seconds, and then we moved on.

  We didn’t have a very successful spyglass session. I’d been hoping to get another glimpse of Fifi and me, maybe one that would show us playing in the snow or something. That might mean it was next winter, and that we’d still be together then. Of course, spyglass visions didn’t always indicate the real future, so it might only mean that I wanted to be with Fifi next winter. Which I already knew.

  But neither of us made an appearance. Instead, Ellie only spotted what she thought was a vision. “Ooh, it’s Mr. Clark and Ms. Hannigan, together! Remember what we saw in January?”

  Kiara hadn’t been in the sisterhood then, so I explained it to her. “We saw the science teacher and the art teacher in the school parking lot. And suddenly, they ran into each other’s arms and started dancing.”

  “Why?” Kiara asked.

  “It was a vision, it wasn’t really happening. But we decided it meant they secretly liked each other.”

  Ellie was still looking through the spyglass. “Well, it’s not a secret anymore, because this isn’t a vision.” She let us all look. Sure enough, it was an ordinary March day, and Mr. Clark and Ms. Hannigan were walking arm in arm. They got in a car together and drove off.

  “So you see, visions can really come true,” Alyssa told Kiara.

  “Not all the time,” Ellie said. “Remember when we saw Paige sitting alone and crying? She was really upset in that vision. But we still don’t know anything that’s happened to make her cry.”

  “Not yet,” Alyssa pointed out. “Maybe she’ll lose this election.”

  “Not to me,” I said quietly. “Besides, she’s not the type to cry over something like that. She’d just get angry and claim that someone didn’t count the votes correctly.”

  Ellie, still looking into the eyepiece, sighed. “Well, whatever she’s crying about, maybe we’ll find out eventually.”

  After forty-five minutes of no visions, Kiara asked Ellie if she’d like us to leave now.

  “So you can be alone with Mike.”

  She got the brief glare that Alyssa and I had received earlier.

  “No! Why would I want to be alone with Mike?”

  Alyssa smirked, but Ellie ignored it and continued.

  “It’s just that he can’t know about the spyglass visions. We have to act like it’s a regular telescope. We’ll just watch Mike look for his birds, and then we’ll all go downstairs and have snacks together.”

  While we waited for Mike to show up, we each took one more turn at the spyglass. Ellie’s father must have let Mike in, because Alyssa was still looking through the spyglass when he entered the turret.

  “Are you a bird-watcher too?” Mike asked her.

  Alyssa, as usual, had one of her smart-aleck responses. “No, I’m looking for dragons.”

  Mike grinned. “I don’t think you’ll find many of them flying over Lakeside.”

  “You never know,” Alyssa said darkly.

  Ellie shot her a look and then turned to Mike with a completely different expression. “What kind of birds are you looking for today?”

  “Well, it’s a little early for the spring migration,” Mike said. “But the weather’s been pretty mild, so I might spot a woodcock or a red-winged blackbird. Or if I’m really lucky, a yellow-bellied flycatcher.”

  He took his position at the spyglass—no, I had to think of it as a telescope now. But it didn’t turn out to be a very successful day for him there either. He let us know what he saw—robins and sparrows—but according to him, these weren’t very interesting. Turning away from the telescope, he looked at me.

  “So, you’re running to be our class rep?”

  I froze. This always seemed to happen when someone I didn’t know very well spoke to me directly. I was supposed to be working on this. But before I could find my voice, Kiara responded.

  “She’s dropping out.”

  “How come?”

  I saw Ellie open her mouth and forced myself to speak
first.

  “Because… because I hadn’t planned on running for student representative. Kiara nominated me.”

  “So you don’t want the job?”

  This time, Alyssa beat me to a response. “It doesn’t matter, she can’t beat Paige.”

  Mike didn’t question this. “Yeah, you’re probably right. No offense, Rachel.”

  I managed a smile. “None taken. But there’s still David Tolliver.”

  “Do you know him?” Ellie asked Mike.

  “Not really. He’s new at Lakeside this year, like you, but he came in the fall. He kind of keeps to himself. Some of the guys think he’s strange.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Mostly because of the way he dresses, I think. And because he talks like an adult. Big words and all that.”

  “There is nothing wrong with having an impressive vocabulary,” Kiara said sternly.

  “Yeah, okay, but most kids think it’s weird,” Mike replied. “No offense.”

  Alyssa eyed him seriously. “You know Paige pretty well, right? No offense to you, Mike, but don’t you hang out with the same people?”

  I had to smile at that—Alyssa saying “no offense,” as if Mike should consider it a possible offense to be accused of hanging out with that crowd.

  Mike shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Do you think she’d do a good job as student rep for the seventh grade?”

  “Not really.”

  We were all looking at him now, so he must have known we expected more from him. He looked at Ellie a little nervously, but she nodded, as if to encourage him to share his thoughts.

  “The thing about Paige is… she’ll do something if she wants to do it. But not if it’s something someone else wants.”

  Kiara, naturally, wanted specifics. “For example?”

  “Well, like… you know Jim Berger?”

  We nodded. “He’s in our English class,” Alyssa said.

  “And my homeroom,” Kiara added.

  “Well, he’s a friend of mine,” Mike said. “Back in September, he wanted to start a chess club. Something official, so the group could use a classroom to play games after school. He passed around a petition for signatures that he could present to the administration, and Paige refused to sign it.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She told him chess clubs were for nerds and she didn’t want her name connected to nerds.”

  I gasped. “What a terrible thing to say! What did Jim do?”

  Mike actually grinned. “He told me later that he wasn’t surprised and he didn’t care. Honestly, she’d probably say the same thing to me if I told her I wanted to start a bird-watching club.”

  Alyssa wasn’t smiling. “But you’d still vote for her, right? Because she’s popular and you run in the same crowd.”

  Mike’s grin disappeared, and now he looked really uncomfortable. And Ellie looked nervous. I figured she was afraid Alyssa was going to continue to challenge him and start an argument, so she quickly changed the subject.

  “Has anyone noticed how bad a social studies teacher Ms. Koster is? She is so boring! She’ll assign a chapter in the textbook, and the next day she practically repeats it out loud word for word. We don’t learn anything except what’s in the book.”

  “Someone should tell her,” Kiara said.

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Right. ‘Hey, Ms. Koster, you’re boring.’ We should have student evaluations like they do in high school.”

  “What kind of evaluations?” I asked.

  “It started a couple of years ago, when my stepbrother Josh was first elected to the student council. At the end of the year, everyone in each class gets a form to fill out, and they answer questions about the teaching, the homework, and what they think about everything. Then the teachers get the forms, and maybe they’ll change stuff about their classes based on the feedback. And since the students don’t put their names on the forms, they’re really free to say whatever they think.”

  “Too bad we can’t do that,” Ellie commented. “Maybe Ms. Koster has no idea how boring she is.” She stood up. “Hey, who’s hungry? I made banana bread yesterday and my father said it was more like a cake.”

  Everyone headed for the stairs, but I hung back for a minute. I wanted one more peek into the spyglass, just another chance to see Fifi.

  She wasn’t there. But I did catch a vision. It was in front of East Lakeside Middle School. Hundreds of girls were pouring out of the building. And they all wore high-waisted black jeans, short red sweaters, and red-and-black-striped headbands.

  I WASN’T IN A VERY GOOD MOOD THE NEXT morning.

  The day didn’t actually start off badly. I woke up to Fifi licking my face, which made me smile. I tossed an old stuffed teddy bear off my bed to make more room for her, but she jumped off my bed and went after it like she would chase a squirrel. When she got to the teddy bear, though, she just stood still and stared at it. It was as if she was waiting for it to run off, and when it didn’t, she didn’t know what to do. I started laughing, but then Mom, looking particularly anxious, appeared at my door.

  “Rachel, I can’t walk you to school, I’m way behind on a deadline, something I’ve absolutely got to finish by five o’clock.”

  I jumped out of bed. “That’s okay, Mom, I can walk by myself.”

  “No, no. Mami will drop you off on her way to the high school, but you have to be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”

  This meant no play time with Fifi, and no breakfast either. I hurried to get dressed. When I went downstairs to the kitchen, Mami gave me one of her precious granola bars, which I can’t stand, and I stuffed it in my backpack. Then we jumped in the car.

  I knew my friends wouldn’t be at school when I got there, and I wasn’t surprised to find there weren’t any kids at all hanging out in front. It was too early. The only activity in the area was the arrival of teachers.

  I went inside, expecting to find the building empty of students, but I was wrong. In every hall I walked down, two or three girls were busily taping posters on the walls. I recognized some of the girls, and I was pretty sure they were in the cool crowd. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw what the posters read: PAIGE NAKAMURA FOR 7TH-GRADE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE! There was a photo of her in the center, surrounded by pink hearts. With my head down and my eyes averted, I made my way to my homeroom.

  I was surprised to see that there was already one other person in the room, and it was David Tolliver. He looked up, and when he saw me, he grinned. I smiled back uncertainly. I sat down at my desk, on the other side of the room from his. Then he got up, came toward me, and sat down at the desk next to mine.

  As usual, I froze, unable to even say hello, but it didn’t matter. David started talking immediately.

  “So, what do you think? How are we going to defeat Paige?” he asked cheerfully.

  David hadn’t been at East Lakeside long enough. Clearly, he didn’t know the situation at this school very well.

  “Nobody can defeat Paige,” I told him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Paige is the most popular girl in the seventh grade.” Actually, I should have said the most popular person. I couldn’t think of any boy in our grade who was as popular as she was.

  He nodded. “That’s what I figured. And I suppose she always gets what she wants.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, maybe we can change that,” he said.

  “Do you really want to be seventh-grade rep?” I asked him.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “To tell the truth, I’m not really interested in what goes on here at East Lakeside. In fact, I might be transferring out pretty soon. My folks are thinking about moving again.”

  Now I was puzzled. “Then why do you want to win the election?”

  He shrugged. “I just don’t want her to win it.”

  “Because…?”

  “She has stupid ideas, for one thing. Weight lifting? Dances and yoga? I mean, I’ve got nothing
against dancing or practicing yoga, but her suggestions aren’t exactly realistic priorities for improving middle schools, you know?”

  “What do you think the priorities are?”

  He shrugged again. “Not a clue. But maybe you know what they are.”

  He was looking straight into my eyes, which was making me distinctly uncomfortable. I looked down at my desk.

  “I’m dropping out of the race.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I can’t win…”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” he said.

  Now I could feel my face going red. “And I’m shy,” I confessed.

  I still couldn’t look him in the face. He had to be thinking I was totally pathetic. But when he didn’t respond immediately, I glanced up.

  Once again, he shrugged. And he grinned, but not in a mocking way.

  “Get over it,” he said.

  That was when the warning bell rang and other kids began filtering in.

  “Better get to my seat,” David said. “Good luck.” And he strolled away.

  What was it Mike said the boys called him? Weird? Yes, weird and strange, I thought. I wouldn’t call him weird or strange, though. Different, maybe. And definitely interesting.

  Mr. Greene came into the room with a loud “Good morning!” Before beginning the roll call, he quickly scanned the room and said, “David, Paige, Rachel, please report to the office for your meeting.”

  Immediately, my heartbeat quickened. Maybe I could just tell Mr. Greene right now that I was dropping out, and then I wouldn’t have to go. But he was taking attendance now, and I couldn’t interrupt. David and Paige were already halfway to the door, so I got up and followed them.

  There are strict rules at Lakeside about talking in the halls when classes are in session, so we walked in silence. This gave me time to consider my options. I could announce as soon as we went into the meeting that I didn’t want to be a candidate. No, not announce, in front of the whole committee. I would go up to whoever seemed to be in charge and tell him or her quietly.