Anya’s Pick
As I walked home from school, I felt lucky and unlucky at the same time. Lucky: Venice was still my friend and she supported my ideas. Unlucky: Leo was a total Venice-clinger. Lucky: Anya had come up with a solid plan for kicking Leo to the curb. Unlucky: Following Anya’s plan meant lying to Venice. Lucky: The What’s Hot section might be able to make an unpopular sixth grader more popular. Unlucky: Our school didn’t have a ton of hot and exciting sixth graders.
The more I walked, the more I realized I needed to call Anya and tell her all about Leo’s idea right away. So I did.
“He is such a turd,” Anya said.
And I really agreed with that statement.
“He and Venice are on the bus together right now,” I said glumly. “Trying to figure out the perfect hot person.” I pictured them sitting beside each other, sharing a seat.
“I’m not sure how much this matters,” Anya said. “If they pick an atrocious person, I’ll just cut whoever it is.”
When I heard this I cringed a little bit. Because I didn’t want Leo and Venice to be 100 percent right about Anya’s snobby personality and impulse to cut sixth graders. So I tried to figure out what she was thinking by asking gentle questions.
“But if they end up picking somebody who actually becomes super popular, why would you want to cut that person?” I asked. “Because wouldn’t they kind of belong in What’s Hot?”
There was a short pause and I worried that my gentle questions might not have been gentle enough.
“Hello?” I said. “Are you still there?” Sometimes I accidentally hung up on Venice with my cheek.
“I’m still here,” Anya said. “I’m thinking.”
I kept walking home, listening to Anya breathe. There was something about the speed and intensity of her breathing that seemed a little scary.
“Okay,” Anya said. “You’re right. If they pick somebody good, it’ll tie my hands.”
But that didn’t seem like the end of the world, even though her voice seemed angry beyond belief. Because we wanted a solid sixth grader, right?
“But if they pick somebody who deserves it—” I started to explain my own thoughts on this, but Anya cut me off.
“No!” Anya said. “You’re missing the big picture.”
I stopped walking. This was the first time Anya had yelled at me. And it stung.
“If they pick somebody who actually deserves it, then they wouldn’t need to make them hot and popular. That person would already be that. It’s a disaster on two levels. First, they’re trying to mess with my section. Second, they’re tampering with a random sixth grader. Just like a lab rat.”
“Maybe I should tell them that,” I said. Obviously, I would leave out her first point. But the second one made sense to share. Because I didn’t think Venice wanted to treat anybody like a tampered rat. She used to have a pet gerbil.
“Don’t tell them anything,” Anya said. “We can’t tip our hand. We can’t let them know that we know.”
“But they already know that I know. I was there,” I corrected.
“But they don’t know that I know that you know,” Anya explained. “We need to turn this around on them. We need a better idea than their idea.”
Oh boy. Going behind Venice’s back and reporting to Anya was making me feel worse than I thought it would. It was turning into a real time suck too. Didn’t she know that deep down I had a loyal heart and had stuff to do? Mitten Man was probably waiting by the door for me right now, dying for an afternoon scoop of dry food. Didn’t she ever think about somebody other than herself? Or possibly that person’s cat? I didn’t have time to think of a better idea.
“It took them about a week to come up with this idea, right?” Anya asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said, climbing up my steps.
“Between the two of us, with our brainpower, we should be able to come up with a better sixth grader by tonight,” Anya said.
I thought of my Depression-era reading assignment I’d hauled home in my backpack. I thought about the topographic map I had to make of Treasure Valley for Idaho History. I thought of my math worksheet folded up in my math textbook. My brainpower needed to tackle my homework. But I didn’t know how to tell Anya that. Because Anya didn’t like being told no. Anya liked being told totally.
“Well,” I said. “Let’s think about this.” As soon as I walked into the living room Mitten Man pounced on my shoes. And I accidentally stepped on him.
“What was that?” Anya asked.
I hesitated in telling her as I scooped up Mitten Man to comfort him.
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Was that one of your eight cats?” Anya asked. “Do your parents rescue a lot of strays?”
I didn’t know why Anya always thought the cat population in my house was on the rise. It sort of offended me. Because I didn’t collect them. I just owned Mitten Man. And I took great care of him. Except when I stepped on him.
“Let’s talk about Venice and Leo’s idea,” I said, steering the conversation back to where it belonged. I tossed my backpack on the floor and flopped onto my couch. “I don’t think this is going to work. Because they can’t even figure out who to pick.”
“They’ve already been floating names?” Anya asked, sounding freakishly alarmed. “They’re farther along than I thought.”
“I guess,” I said, kicking off my shoes and picking up the remote.
“Whoa!” Anya said. “Are you near a television? Do you get cable?”
It was almost like she was watching me on a hidden camera. “Yeah,” I said.
“Turn to channel three-thirty-one,” Anya gushed. “Am I losing my mind or is this the most amazing thing ever?”
I clicked to channel 331 and watched as Fletcher Zamora sang a song about toothpaste while riding a blue bicycle down a snow-covered road.
“He must be freezing,” I said. “Look at his breath.”
“Those angles. Those cheekbones,” Anya said. “The cameraman must be on a crane. See how they’re looking down on him. See how it makes his arms look longer?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“No way!” Anya said. “Turn to six-sixty-five.”
I did. I watched Fletcher eating a hot dog at a giant, fake family picnic with a very photogenic family.
“I think this cameraman is elevated too,” Anya said.
“Huh,” I said, clicking to another station to find something I wanted to watch. Because I was tired of Anya telling me exactly what I should do.
“When I take his picture for the What’s Hot section, I’m going to do something amazing,” Anya said.
“Right,” I said. I was wondering how much more talking about Fletcher we actually needed to do. “I should probably get started on my homework.”
“But you haven’t even talked about the list of sixth graders!” Anya protested.
I tried to remember all the way back to lunch. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“They came up with people like Chet Baez, Drea Quan, and Penny Moffett.” I thought mentioning these people who had almost no chance at popularity would ease Anya’s mind and help me get off the phone.
“Feather boy and the hot-dog puker?” Anya asked. “That’s funny. You’re right. Those two will never make it. But who’s Penny Moffett?”
“Um,” I said nervously. Because I’d remembered that Penny had been my pick, and I didn’t want to tell Anya that, because I didn’t want to look like a traitorous spy. “She’s a sixth grader with shiny hair who made the local news by building a teepee with her family and making beans.”
Again, there was a pause. “Hello?” I asked. “Did I lose you?” Because sometimes when I watched TV and sat on the couch, I lost people. “Hello?” I didn’t know why talking to Anya made me feel so nervous. I didn’t feel that way talking to anybody else.
“I can’t even picture Penny Moffett. Are you sure she goes to our school?” Anya asked.
I zoomed through the channels unt
il I got to a nature show about swordfish. I was a sucker for nature shows.
“Absolutely,” I said. “We’re in Science together. She cried when Ms. Stott brought out a sheet of dead starfish.”
A shark drifted onto the screen and bit off the swordfish’s silver tail. Click. I had a rule when watching a nature show—once the main-character animal died, I turned the channel. But this other program looked like a show about deer. Which didn’t thrill me. Because I saw those animals all the time. But these deer had giant teeth that looked like fangs and they lived in China. So I kept watching.
“You’re making me feel better,” Anya said.
“Good!” I said. Because I liked to think of myself as a lifter.
“And you’ve helped me come up with an idea,” Anya said.
“Great!” I cheered. What a relief that we had an idea. Because after I finished watching the deer with fangs, I could start my homework.
“You know what would be fun?” Anya asked.
She’d never asked me that question before. It was a nice break from all this yearbook scheming.
“I’ll pick this sixth grader,” Anya said. “And it needs to be a real loser.”
I didn’t think Venice would go for that. Worse, I didn’t want Venice to know I’d been talking to Anya behind her back. Plus, I wasn’t sure what made this plan fun.
“You’re going to tell them that I told you about this?” I asked. Because I knew Venice would feel betrayed and probably be furious with me. Which seemed unfair, because the whole reason I’d been dishonest was to improve our friendship by getting Leo out of our lives.
“I’m smarter than that,” Anya said. “I’m going to tell you who to pick. And it’s going to be a person with zero potential to be popular. And you’ll give them that name. Problem solved.”
That actually did seem pretty smart. “We should probably just say Chet Baez,” I said. “Because I think I could convince Venice and Leo to pick him.”
Anya laughed. “Chet Baez has a chance. Girls think he’s cute. And do you know how many rare woodpeckers that kid has spotted? Girls love nature dudes.”
“No,” I said. Because I didn’t even know he was out looking for woodpeckers and I wasn’t sure why that made him hot.
“I’m going to pick somebody awful. Just terrible. Somebody who will suck all their time and never become an inch more popular no matter how much effort those two weasels put into this insane projec—”
“Well,” I interrupted. “I’m actually going to be spending time on this too.”
“Totally,” Anya said. “I’ll be able to hear about every awful moment of it. It’s going to be hilarious.”
But then she laughed again. I watched the tufted deer on television gently wind its way down a mountain path. I thought for sure the beast probably ate other tufted deer, but the narrator said they were shy vegetarians.
“I know who I want,” she said. “He is such a dweeb!”
It surprised me that she could think of the perfect dweeb this quickly. But Anya was like that. Her mind was always running high-speed toward the thing she wanted most.
“Who?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t somebody I liked. I was pretty sure some of my friends were dweebs.
“It’s a theater geek,” Anya said.
Click. I couldn’t concentrate on Anya’s plan and watch the fanged deer eat interesting plants, so I turned off the TV.
“I hate those kids,” Anya added.
I started to breathe a little faster. Maybe Leo was telling me the truth about Anya hating the theater kids. Because she just told me that she did.
“Hate is a strong word,” I said.
“Yeah,” Anya said, sounding meaner than I’d ever heard her sound. “But it’s accurate. Those kids think they’re so special because they act. Basically all acting boils down to is lying. Actors are liars. Trust me. I know. My mom was in local theater and she got totally burned by those people.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Maybe Leo was telling the truth about that, too. It bugged me that he might be a partially honest person. Because I really wanted him to be a total jerk all the time. It was easier for me to dislike him that way.
“So which theater kid were you thinking?” I asked. I didn’t know any of them that well. I mean, Poppy Lansing was taking drama this year, but I doubted Anya would pick her. She was pretty nice, and cute, and she had a popular older sister. Poppy was the sort of person who had potential.
“Derby Esposito!” Anya blurted out.
The name hit me like a bag of bricks.
“Wow,” I said.
Anya laughed so hard I didn’t know whether or not she was still breathing. “He’s negative famous.”
“Oh,” I said. Anya was right. There was no way Derby Esposito could become hot enough for the What’s Hot section. The fact that Anya, an eighth grader who’d only gone to school with him for a month, knew this meant that his reputation had followed him from elementary school in a big way. All of this was mostly his own fault, but I still felt worried for him.
Every tragic nerd has an equally tragic story about how he or she became a nerd. Here’s Derby’s:
1. In third grade he dressed like Harry Potter for two months until Principal Wolff changed the official dress code, banning caps and wizard wands.
2. In fourth grade he tried to raise a duck in his locker, and the smell got so bad they had to evacuate an entire wing of the school.
3. In fifth grade he fell asleep during movie Friday in the gym, and when he went to use the bathroom he stumbled half asleep into the girls’ restroom, and when Drea Quan saw him and screamed, he woke up all the way, bolted, slipped, banged into a sink, and broke his arm.
“So what do you think?” Anya asked me. “Am I brilliant?”
I couldn’t imagine Venice or Leo being dumb enough to pick Derby. He was too socially damaged to become popular and everybody knew it.
“Um,” I said, trying to find a supportive answer that also pointed out all her plan’s flaws, and possibly defend Derby.
“There is no way Venice and Leo can make that kid hot,” Anya said. “It might sound cruel, but he’s a zero.”
And I didn’t like Anya referring to Derby that way. Because while it was true that he would never be hot, I didn’t think that made him a zero. Because a zero meant nothing. And nobody was nothing. Except, I mean, maybe Leo.
“Why would Venice and Leo even pick Derby?” I said. “They know it wouldn’t work.”
Anya laughed again. “That’s where my infiltrator becomes invaluable.”
“Are you talking about me?” I asked. Because I really thought she should just use my name.
“Yes, Perry,” Anya said. “I’m talking about you. Here’s what’s gonna happen. These two think they’re doing something honorable. They think they’re making things at our school more fair. Would you agree with that?”
I nodded. “I agree with that.” Originally, I had thought I could do that too. Until I realized it was impossible.
“So we exploit their motives,” Anya said. “You’re going to convince them that redeeming Derby Esposito, and turning him into a popular person, somebody worthy of being featured in What’s Hot, is the honorable thing to do.”
“Maybe,” I said. Because it was pretty powerful what she was saying. But I wasn’t convinced that was enough to convince Venice and Leo. “I think they know it’s just going to be a massive waste of time.”
“Perry, do you believe in second chances? Do you believe that people who’ve experienced misfortune should be given the opportunity to experience something better?”
And I totally believed that. Especially for myself.
“I do,” I said.
“That’s what will motivate Venice and Leo,” Anya explained. “Play to their sense of justice. Trick them into caring about Derby’s future. Make them believe they can actually help him be something more than a dweeb.”
It seemed like this was going to requir
e a ton of lying and manipulation. And I didn’t really feel up for it. Wasn’t Anya supposed to be teaching me about shutter speeds and aperture settings and ambient light? And how was Derby going to feel at the end of this? Probably dweebier than ever.
“Do you want to take Leo down and break those two up or what?” Anya asked.
“Yes,” I said. Because that was a no-brainer. But I didn’t want to take Venice down with him. Or Derby.
“Listen, our deadlines are firm. What’s Hot gets submitted for final approval to Ms. Kenny in three weeks. It’s part of the second signature. Leo and Venice will end up getting so frustrated by all this that they’ll end up hating each other’s guts. Group work does that to people.”
That sounded fantastic. But then I remembered that I’d be helping them. Did that mean they’d hate my guts too? Or I’d hate theirs? Or by the end of this would I hate my own guts? And what about Derby and his guts? My mind spun thinking of all the hater options.
“I don’t want to make Derby feel worse than he does about being Derby,” I said.
“Don’t look at it that way,” Anya said. “He’s a theater kid. He’ll probably love the attention.”
That was a better way to look at it. “Okay. I’ll float Derby’s name,” I said. “But I’m not sure Venice and Leo will bite.” Really, Venice and Leo were smart people. They might sense a setup right away. Because choosing Derby for What’s Hot was crazy. Nobody could make him popular.
“I think you’re underestimating them,” Anya said. “Leo’s ego is totally big enough to take on an impossible project.”
“I can’t stand Leo’s ego,” I said.
“Cool,” Anya said. “You should float Derby’s name tomorrow, for sure.”
Anya was so aggressive. We’d just come up with the plan. Couldn’t she give me a couple of days to figure out how to make this work?
“My advice would be to tell them when they’re together,” Anya said.
Crash.
“What was that?” Anya asked.
I didn’t even know. The biggest boom I’d ever heard in my life had just come from the kitchen.
“Something in my kitchen crashed,” I said. “But I’m in the living room so I don’t know what it is.”
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