Geek High

by Piper Banks

  I opened the e-mail:

  Miranda, darling,

  First of all, congratulations on having your short story entered in the writing contest! Clearly your English teacher has excellent taste. Although, just so you know, the life of a writer isn’t all glamorous parties, darling. I’m up pulling an all-nighter, trying to finish the first draft of A Victorian Widow. I’m far too old to be missing out on my beauty sleep—I don’t want to even think about what this is doing to my skin. If you get a chance, do ask Peyton how she likes those Botox treatments she’s so fond of (and don’t believe her if she denies it—no one’s face is naturally that frozen).

  And speaking of Peyton…how dare she accuse you? You, who are the most honest person I know. I still remember the time when you were five, and I opened that box of cookies at the grocery store before buying them and tried to get you to eat one because your blood sugar was so low. You refused, and said that they weren’t ours until we paid for them. And you told the cashier on me. That’s character, darling, character.

  I’m glad your father stood up for you. It’s about time. But if you don’t get things sorted out, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to call Peyton and tell her what’s what.

  Now. Why don’t you come visit me over your Christmas break? I thought you could fly out the day after the Snowflake (bravo on the black-and-white theme—Truman would definitely approve), and stay until classes start back up. What do you think?

  Love you, XXXXOOOO, Sadie

  P.S. I’ve already bought your ticket!!!

  I let out a little shriek of happiness. I was going to London for Christmas! London! The city of Sherlock Holmes and Paddington Bear! Of the Tower of London and the London Eye! The home of the queen and Madonna! And I was going to see it all!

  Chapter 21

  As the October heat melted away, and we found ourselves in the cooler November temperatures, preparations for the Snowflake were well under way. I could hardly believe it, but the dance was only six short weeks away…and there was still so much to do. Who would have thought that planning a simple dance would be so much work? But there was the food to arrange, and the decorations, and the chaperones (something Headmaster Hughes had insisted on, although I’d bargained him down to having only five). And then there was the biggest problem: We still didn’t have a band.

  Morgan continued to lobby us to hire her boyfriend’s band, but Felicity—the only one on the Snowflake committee who’d actually ever heard them play—had been the one to finally nix the idea.

  “No, Morgan,” she finally said one afternoon, while we were painting posters advertising the Snowflake that would hang in the Geek High corridors. “No way. We didn’t go to all of this work to finally have a real prom, just to have a bunch of pothead losers who aren’t even organized enough to be a real band ruin it.”

  “Snake is not a loser,” Morgan insisted, her voice growing shrill. “He’s an artist.”

  I could have sworn that Felicity snorted at this, but when she spoke, she tried a more tactful approach. “Look, I’m sure Snake’s talented…in his own way. But you have to admit, his music isn’t really…well, suited to a dance,” Felicity said.

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” Morgan said grudgingly. She went back to painting a big purple S on a piece of orange poster board.

  Felicity smiled happily. “Good,” she said. “Now that that’s decided, we have to find a band.”

  “That may not be so easy. A lot of companies will be having their holiday parties that weekend. ’Tis the season and all of that,” Charlie pointed out. Her poster was, unsurprisingly, the most artistic. She flicked her paintbrush to splatter blue acrylic paint all around a curlicued red SNOWFLAKE GALA. A few spots of the blue paint had also landed in Felicity’s hair, and I wasn’t at all sure it had been an accident.

  “Right,” I said. “Well. That’s the assignment for next week’s meeting. Everyone has to come back with at least one band recommendation, and a demo tape. We’ll listen to the demo tapes and take a vote.”

  But Charlie was right: It wasn’t easy. The Christmas party season had put a serious crimp on the availability of local bands. I called every listing under the “Musicians and Bands” heading in the Yellow Pages, and the only acts that were still available were clearly the dregs of the local music scene. One guy I spoke to could barely speak without wheezing, and told me that he liked to think of himself as “Willie Nelson crossed with Eminem.” I told him I’d think about it and get back to him, but as soon as I hung up, I crossed out the listing with my black Sharpie marker.

  Charlie hadn’t had any more luck than me. “Don’t worry; I’ll think of something,” she said when I called her later that evening.

  “How about Finn? Did he find anyone?” I asked.

  “I don’t think he’s even looked yet,” Charlie said, sounding annoyed. Finn hadn’t shown up to paint posters, either. “Although considering Finn’s taste in music, that’s probably just as well.”

  “We always have Snake as a fallback,” I said, only half joking.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find someone,” Charlie said.

  “I hope so. Or else I’ll be plugging my iPod into a set of speakers, and hoping that everyone likes old Blondie songs as much as I do.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Charlie said. “So…who do you think you’re going to go to the Snowflake with? As a date, I mean.”

  “A date?” I repeated. Her question had taken me completely by surprise. Because somehow, even though thoughts of the Snowflake had been consuming a ridiculous number of my waking hours, I’d completely forgotten that we were expected to show up to the dance with a date. I felt a pang of discomfort. Why hadn’t I thought about whom my date would be? Wouldn’t that have been the normal thing to do? Or was it just more evidence that Peyton had been right about me when I overheard her telling my dad that I was odd?

  “Yes, you know: a date. A guy in a rented tux who shows up at your house with a corsage in a plastic box?” Charlie said.

  The thought caused my stomach to feel like it had been invaded by a pack of butterflies.

  “Yes, thank you, I know what a date is,” I said testily. “I just forgot that I needed one. Who are you going with?”

  Charlie shrugged. “No one’s asked me. I have a few ideas of guys I could ask, but I haven’t narrowed the field down yet. There’s still time.”

  “What about Finn?” I asked.

  There was a weird pause. “What about him?” Charlie finally said.

  “Does he have a date?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “One of us could go with him,” I said. It would be the easy way out—bringing a friend as a date. And Finn was always good for a few laughs.

  But there was just another weird pause. “You want to go with Finn?” Charlie asked slowly.

  It took me a moment to realize what she was implying. “No!” I hurried to say. “Not as a real date date. Just as a friend. But you can ask him if you want.”

  “Why do you think I’d want to ask him?” Now she sounded angry.

  “Why are you so upset?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m not! Look…I just…Never mind,” Charlie said with a sigh. “I have to go.”

  “Charlie, wait,” I said. But it was too late—she’d already hung up.

  I sighed and slumped back on the pillows I’d propped behind me on the bed. Willow looked up at me, and then dropped her head back on her fluffy dog bed with a self-satisfied groan.

  “You know, Willow, sometimes I envy you,” I said. “It must be nice to be a dog. You don’t have to go to school, or worry about getting into a good college, and when you meet another dog, all you have to do is sniff each other’s butts to know where you stand. I wish it were that easy for humans.”

  That night, as I was trying to fall asleep, the nervous butterflies invaded again. I had to have a date. What if no one asked me? I’d have to go to the Snowflake no matter what, since I was in charge of th
e stupid event…and I certainly didn’t want to be the only one there without a date. I might as well have the word loser tattooed on my forehead. But who could I go with? I didn’t have a boyfriend, didn’t even have the potential for one. I’d spent the past two years obsessing about Emmett Dutch, and he obviously wasn’t going to ask me. He’d bring Hannah. Well, that was just great. Hannah would have a date to the Snowflake, and she didn’t even go to our school.

  But, oddly enough, it wasn’t Emmett’s golden-tanned face that kept popping into my thoughts as I drifted to sleep. Instead, the face I was thinking of was freckled, with pale blue eyes, and topped with russet-hued curls that glinted in the sun.

  Dex, I thought with surprise. And suddenly I was wide-awake, staring up into the darkness, while the butterflies flapped their wings faster than ever.

  Chapter 22

  “Bye! Have fun!” Hannah said as Peyton, who was wearing a white pantsuit and teetering on tan high-heeled sandals, leaned over to hug her.

  “We will. Now, you’ll be okay here on your own?” Peyton asked. I’m sure her brow would have wrinkled in concern, had it not been frozen by Botox.

  “They’ll be fine,” Dad said. He was holding two Louis Vuitton overnight bags, and had a matching garment bag slung over one arm. “After all, the girls have each other.”

  Hannah and I both cringed at this. Despite my dad’s many efforts, Hannah and I were not—nor would we ever be—BFFs. And now that he and Peyton were heading off for a romantic weekend in South Beach, I think he actually thought Hannah and I would spend our Saturday night bonding over ice cream and face masks. That was so not going to happen. I had my thrilling night all planned out—I had to finish reading The Great Gatsby for mod lit, and then I was going to start studying for my astronomy final. And even though Hannah hadn’t divulged her plans to me, I suspected that they probably involved Emmett and seeing how long they could kiss without coming up for air.

  “That’s right; we’ll be fine,” Hannah said, echoing my dad. “Now go on and have fun, and don’t worry about us.”

  “All right. Well. We’re off,” Peyton said, smiling at Hannah. And then, as her eyes moved to me, the smile disappeared. “And stay out of my closet,” she said coldly.

  “Peyton,” my dad said reproachfully.

  The TSE sweater had still not turned up, and it remained a sore subject in the house. Peyton still thought I’d taken it. I think she even went through my room one day looking for it while I was at school. When I came home, my drawers looked as though they’d been tossed and then hastily straightened. I still thought Avery had pinched the sweater, although Hannah continued to insist that her friend wouldn’t do that. My dad continued to stick up for me, and Peyton had—for the most part—finally dropped the subject. But she couldn’t help getting a dig in here and there. I guess that’s what comes of having a soul that’s ten percent Botox and ninety percent pure evil.

  I crossed my arms and glared at her. “Don’t worry,” I said, my voice just as icy.

  My father looked concerned, his eyes darting from Peyton to me and back to Peyton again.

  “We should go,” Dad said.

  After a final round of good-byes, Dad and Peyton finally left. Hannah stood at the open door waving as Dad and Peyton drove off. Once they were gone, she closed the door with a thud and turned to face me.

  “Just so you know, I’m having a few people over tonight,” Hannah said.

  “You’re having a party?” I asked, wondering why this surprised me. It was exactly what I’d have expected her to do, if I’d had thought about it.

  “Not a party, exactly,” Hannah hedged. “More like…a get-together.”

  “And you don’t want me around,” I said flatly. “Right?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t care. Stay if you want. I was just giving you a heads-up,” she said. And then she tossed her pale blond hair over her shoulders and walked off in the direction of the kitchen, leaving me to decide whether I should clear out for the evening.

  If Hannah was throwing a party, I certainly didn’t want to stick around for it. A houseful of her drunk friends lurching around and puking in closets was not my idea of a good time. Property damage was inevitable. I didn’t want to get the blame when the five-thousand-dollar flat-panel television ended up crashing to the ground.

  But a get-together…that sounded relatively harmless. No doubt there would be drinking, and where there was drinking, there was usually puking…but what were the chances that I’d even hear them in a house this size?

  As it turned out, Hannah and I had very different ideas of what a “get-together” meant. To me, a get-together is five or six people hanging out, and maybe playing some music or watching a movie. A hundred kids and a keg? That’s a party. And that party had taken over the beach house.

  I was in my room reading The Great Gatsby when the doorbell began to ring. At first I just ignored it, sure that it was Emmett, Avery, the Wonder Twins, and a few other of Hannah’s assorted friends. But then the noise began to get louder…and louder…and louder. Someone turned on music and cranked it up until it was so thunderous, my teeth started to vibrate. When I heard the crashing sound of metal against marble—it sounded very much like a keg being dropped in the front hall—followed by shrieks of laughter and applause, I put down The Great Gatsby and tried to decide what to do.

  I called Charlie for advice.

  “Hey,” she said, talking very quickly and sounding distracted. “I’m just finishing up the sketches for a new installation piece. I’m thinking big. Like, really big. Three stories of nothing but undulating waves of black and purple.”

  I never have any idea what Charlie’s talking about when she gets like this.

  “Cool. So guess what? Dad and the Demon are out of town for the night, and the Demon Spawn is having a party,” I said.

  “Of course she is. Could she be any more of a cliché?” Charlie asked.

  “Listen to this,” I said, and I held out the phone toward the ruckus for a moment before returning it to my ear. “Pretty bad, huh?”

  “Do you want to come over here? I’m going to be up all night painting. You can crash in my bed.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Let me go out there and see how bad it is. Maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds,” I said.

  “I seriously doubt that. Call me back,” Charlie said, and we hung up.

  Willow was sleeping on her bed, happily oblivious to the comings and goings in the house. (She’s the world’s worst guard dog. She doesn’t even bark when the doorbell rings.) I left her in my room and went down the hall on my recon mission to find out just how bad this party was.

  The answer: pretty freaking bad.

  There were people everywhere. In the kitchen, the living room, out on the back deck circled around the dented keg that had been set up there. The music blared, and everyone was drinking beer out of red plastic cups. A lot of Hannah’s friends looked like they were already drunk—faces were red and sweaty, hair was starting to depouf, voices were getting louder. I saw the Wonder Twins dancing in the living room. Avery was in the corner wrapped around a guy I didn’t recognize. He appeared to be eating her face. And where was Hannah? I looked around for her, finally spotting her ensconced on the couch, perched prettily on Emmett’s lap.

  I wondered if Dex was at the party. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, not since the day that he’d walked with me on the beach. He hadn’t been over since. I’d overheard Hannah and Avery talking one afternoon, and Avery had mentioned that Dex had joined the cross-country running team in order to stay in shape for lacrosse season. I had to admit, I was a little disappointed I hadn’t bumped into him. While I knew that there was no way a guy who used to date a model would be interested in someone like me…still. There had been that zing.

  But zing or no zing, Dex didn’t appear to be at the party. I tried to ignore the resulting thud of disappointment, and decided I had to get out of the house before the party got even crazier. It wa
s already way too big, and—as the door opened and more kids streamed in—getting bigger by the moment.

  Someone tapped my shoulder, and I spun around. A guy I didn’t recognize was standing there, grinning blearily down at me. He had a chubby baby face and hair so blond, it was nearly white. His brown eyes were bloodshot and unfocused.

  He said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the music.

  “What?” I asked.

  He leaned forward, so that his lips were about two inches from my ear. “I said, you look way too sober! You should definitely drink more! Want a beer?” he shouted. The explosion of noise actually hurt my eardrum. Plus, he stank of stale beer and sweat. Gross. I stepped back and shook my head.

  But Sweaty Drunk Guy wasn’t so easily put off. He grabbed my hand and tottered toward me. His palm was sweaty and hot, and he was suddenly standing so close to me I felt claustrophobic.

  “Come on, dance with me!” he yelled over the music.

  And then before I could stop him, he suddenly pulled me forward and began grinding against me. I suppose he thought we were dancing, but I just felt like I was getting mugged.

  That’s it, I thought. I’m out of here.

  I pushed Sweaty Drunk Guy away, sending him careening off into the crowd, and turned to leave. I just needed to fight my way back up to my room, and once there I’d call Charlie. Maybe her mom would come pick me up.

  A hand tapped my shoulder. I closed my eyes and felt my temper bubble up. Great. Sweaty Drunk Guy wouldn’t take the hint.

  “Look, I don’t want to dance, okay!” I said furiously, spinning around so that I could tell him off face-to-face.

  But it wasn’t Sweaty Drunk Guy I was yelling at…. It was Dex.