The Pants Project

by Cat Clarke

  I’ve been thinking about maybe changing my name. Liv might be better than Olivia, but it’s still not quite right. Enzo thinks I should go for Tony because he’s obsessed with Iron Man, but I’m definitely not going to do that. I’m not going to rush into anything. It’s not every day you get to choose your own name, so I need to make sure it fits exactly right, like my favorite pair of Converse.

  =

  A few months ago, I would have dreaded going to school on my birthday, but things are different now.

  Getting dressed for school still gives me a little buzz of happiness, even after two months of wearing pants. At least half the girls at Bankridge wear pants now. Including Jade Evans.

  The PTA vote wasn’t even close. Only two people voted to keep the uniform policy the same. When Mr. Lynch announced it in assembly, he acted like it was all his idea, but I didn’t mind. I knew the truth and that was all that mattered. He hadn’t said a word to me since that day on the steps. I’d half expected him to haul me into his office and shout at me, but he hadn’t. I’m not sure why.

  I’m not going to pretend that everything is wonderful all the time. It’s not entirely a case of “and they all lived happily ever after.”

  But how about this instead? “And they all lived mostly happily ever after…and managed to ignore the occasional idiot saying something stupid.”

  That’s good enough for me.

  It turned out that I was right about Maisie being dumped by Jade and Chelsea. I felt bad when I saw her moping around on her own, but then I reminded myself that she was the one who’d dumped me. Still, I was glad when she started hanging around with Vanessa Durden. Vanessa seems to be a nice person. Maisie is too, and maybe she just forgot that for a while.

  Jade and Chelsea mostly ignore me altogether, which is absolutely fine with me. There’s been some progress though. They haven’t bullied Marion since the Pants Project—not even once. And last week, Jade was one of the team captains in basketball and she picked me first to be on her team. We won; I scored fourteen of our nineteen points.

  Jade likes to win. So do I.

  =

  I arrive early at school, but someone else has arrived even earlier. The room is empty, but there’s a silver helium balloon tied to my chair and an envelope lying on my desk.

  I open the envelope and look at the card inside.

  The front of the card has the most amazing drawing on it. It looks professional—like something you’d find in one of my comic books.

  The drawing is of two superheroes.

  One of them looks like me and the other one looks like Jacob. Superhero Me is dressed in black and red to match the skateboard under my feet. Superhero Jacob is dressed in the same colors, but he’s wearing a skirt. He’s also carrying a walking stick, but it’s a souped-up, turbo walking stick with flames shooting out of the end.

  The drawing has a caption underneath it:

  SUPERLIV & BENDY BOY!

  I open up the card.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUPERLIV!

  From your friend and sidekick,

  Jacob Arbuckle

  I close the card and stare at the picture on the front. It is the best birthday card I’ve ever seen. My name doesn’t seem so bad when it has “super” in front of it.

  “So, are you ready for our next adventure?” I hadn’t even heard him come in. He’s stealthy, this sidekick of mine. “What’s our next mission?” Jacob raises his eyebrows expectantly.

  I smile and do my best to look mysterious and suitably superhero-y. “Now that would be telling.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Julia Churchill, Hélène Ferey, Jennifer Custer, and Allison Hellegers for being entirely brilliant.

  Thank you to Aubrey Poole, Annie Berger, Cassie Gutman, Alex Yeadon, and the entire team at Sourcebooks for believing in Liv’s story.

  Thank you to Glenn Tavennec, Fabien Le Roy, and the Robert Laffont crew for your unwavering support.

  A huge thank-you to those who have shared their stories with me and those who have read and provided feedback.

  Thank you, as always, to Caro Clarke for being my first and final reader (and for still laughing at my jokes even though you’ve read them at least ten times).

  And finally, thanks to you, the reader, for picking up this book. I hope you enjoyed reading The Pants Project as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  About the Author

  Cat Clarke is an award-winning YA author from the UK. The Pants Project is her debut middle-grade novel. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her partner, two ninja cats, and two decidedly non-ninja cocker spaniels.

  Thank you for reading!

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