by Nancy N. Rue
“Most American History classes never get much past the Civil War,” she went on — eyes sparkling like we were about to leave for the Bahamas. “But what’s going to be important to you is what has happened in the last seventy-five years. So those of you who are set for the reports, I want you to read and outline the next five chapters. I’ll be fleshing those out in my lecture series.”
Egan’s hair actually seemed to spike up farther. “You’re going to lecture?”
“Lecture, challenge you to question, offer you a chance to express your views.”
If anybody in there had a view about anything besides how to get out of doing work, it would be a total surprise. Right now everybody’s view was of me. They were all glaring like I had personally imported this teacher who was expecting them to get off their rears and be honors students.
“Is there a problem?” I said to YouTube, who was opening and closing his history book and staring me down.
“You need to talk to her,” he said.
“You talk to her. I have to read the next five chapters.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I liked Sunny’s approach. But it did mean Valleri and I didn’t get to do much more work on our plan that day, and she had some kind of church thing that night. So when I arrived at school the next morning, we still didn’t have much more than a list of questions that looked like a work of art. I was just discarding the idea of trying to get a pass to the library to work on it during math — like Mrs. O’Hare would see a connection between geometry and the media center — when Patrick was suddenly there at my locker. I automatically looked for Alyssa.
“I thought you’d want to see this before everybody else got it at lunch,” he said.
He wore the same sleepy look he had on Wednesday, but he was losing it fast — like it was Christmas morning or the first day of vacation. He put a folded newspaper in my hand.
“Is this —”
“The Castle Heights Herald,” he said.
For a school newspaper, it was pretty impressive. I had seen some lame ones, but this one was almost professional. Ms. Dalloway’s staff won awards every year. Right now, however, I was concerned about what they did with the prom queen piece.
I didn’t have to look far. Right on the front page was the headline: Prom Queen Finalists Announced.
Below it were two pictures with columns beneath them above the fold, and two under the fold. Mine was on the top right, although I had to stare at it for a few seconds to make sure it was me. I didn’t look that gawky up there on the ladder, looking down with an expression of — what could you call it? Amused wisdom? The photo was in color, and the red of Valleri’s top popped and made my smile and my eyes sort of rise from the page. It may have been the best picture I’d ever seen of myself.
“Great pic, huh?” Patrick said. He had a whole kick line going in his eyes right then.
“Ms. Dalloway did a good job,” I said.
“She had a good subject. And you’ve read the article — they didn’t edit anything out. So are you ready?”
“You mean with a plan?”
He nodded.
“I wish. I have a friend working on it with me, but so far all we have is what needs to happen — not how it’s going to.”
“You need more help, then.”
I started to agree, but movement at the end of the hall caught my eye. Blonde hair was rounding the corner.
“I’ve got to go,” I said. “And listen, thanks for this. At least it’ll raise some awareness, huh?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer, because Alyssa was gaining on us. I clutched the newspaper and pretty much ran down the hall until I got to the girls’ restroom and darted in.
“Cheated death again,” I said to my face in the mirror.
“I wasn’t planning on killing you. But don’t tempt me.”
Alyssa was in the mirror with me, green eyes flashing. She must have blown right past Patrick without even telling him to “shut up.” I decided to do the same thing to her and turned from the sink, but she stepped into my path.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “We’re not in some cheesy teen movie. Look — I don’t want your boyfriend, I don’t want your prom queen title, I don’t want anything that’s yours, so can we just not do this every time we see each other? It’s a really small school.”
“I didn’t think you wanted the title.” She couldn’t seem to help looking past me at her reflection and fluffing her hair. “If you don’t want it, why haven’t you withdrawn your name?”
“I have my reasons,” I said.
“You have one reason.” She cut her eyes back to me, and her nostrils flared. How had I ever thought this girl was pretty? “And that’s Patrick.”
“I just told you I don’t want your man.”
“He’s not my man.”
“Then why do you care if I have a conversation with him?”
“Let’s just say I’m protecting someone else’s interests.”
“Then you can chill,” I said, “because I’m not ‘interested’ in Patrick that way.”
“Huh. Every girl is interested in Patrick. And if she’s not, he works at it until she is. Just so you know.”
A little piece of me caved somewhere, but I’d have to get back to it later. Right now, I was completely done with this.
“I’ll make a note of it,” I said.
I tried again to get around her. This time she put the heel of her hand on my shoulder, which I stared at until she moved it.
“Look, you didn’t grow up here,” she said, “so you don’t know how it works.”
“Nor do I want to.”
“But you need to, or somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“Enough with the movie script!”
“No — I am dead serious.” She got her face so close to mine I could see the veins in her eyes, irritated by those green contacts. “Everybody has their group and nobody’s out to bring anybody else’s group down. It’s always worked fine that way, and the only time we ever have any trouble here is when people come in and start trying to mess with that.”
I forgot about trying to get past her as I planted my feet, toes touching hers.
“That is not true on any level I can think of,” I said. “First of all, your ‘group’ did everything it could to bring Izzy down yesterday, and not one single person lifted a finger to help him because they were all afraid they would be next. Second of all, your same ‘group’ had nothing but humiliation in mind for me when you nominated me for prom queen. Thirdly —”
“Are you serious?” Alyssa’s bigger-than-average teeth all showed as she gaped at me. “That thing with Izzy didn’t ‘bring him down.’ He knows we were just messing with him.” She raked her hand through her hair. “See, that’s what you don’t get. We’ve always done stuff like that — it’s like we gave Izzy his fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Or infamy,” I said.
“Whatever. Nobody even got in trouble for it. If it was a big deal, Mr. Baumgarten would’ve busted them.”
“Oh, well,” I said, “then why are we even talking?”
She didn’t look the least bit fazed by the sarcasm dripping from my voice. It took me a second to realize she hadn’t heard it.
“Exactly,” she said. “So, anyway, your little ‘thing’ with Patrick? It isn’t going to last. You might as well give it up and let somebody who really cares about him have a chance.”
“Someone from the right ‘group,’ “ I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but do you even have a group?”
“What way am I supposed to take it?”
She blinked several times and then tossed her hair and let it lead her to the door. “I’m done,” she said.
I looked at the newspaper I was still holding. She wasn’t going to be done when she saw that. She was just going to get started.
I was right. Before Valleri and I even got to the cafeteria at lunchtime, people were passin
g us saying everything from, “Is that really you in that picture?” to “I didn’t think you were actually running for queen. I thought it was a joke.” That didn’t bother me. What made my stomach juices stir were the people who glanced at me and hurried on, whispering, and the one Kmart Kid who just said, “Good luck with that.”
I stopped Valleri before we reached the door. “If you want to bail, this is the time to do it.”
“Why would I?”
“You haven’t even had a chance to get adjusted here and all of a sudden you’re going to be the target of every RC in the school.”
“I can’t quit,” she said, eyes round. “This is a God thing.”
“You’re going to have to explain that to me.” I looked at the doorway. “Later.”
The entire Ruling Class was headed toward me, newspapers folded to my picture in angry creases, some held out in front of them like pieces of evidence.
“You’d better start praying,” I said to Valleri.
Alyssa was the first one to speak, although I wasn’t sure how she could with her lip curled all the way up to her nostrils. “You just don’t get it, do you?” she said.
But Egan stepped in front of her, looking like he was ready to spit. “You don’t know what we had to go through to even get a prom this year. My committee’s working their tails off so it won’t be lame, or even close to lame.” He shook the paper in my face. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. This is all —”
He swore and snatched the paper away. I was surprised he didn’t spit.
“You totally made the rest of us sound shallow or something.” That came from Joanna, who was fanning her eyes with her hands. The whine in her voice was enough; she didn’t need tears. “I didn’t know it was supposed to be like a college interview. I thought we were just talking about prom!”
The fanning didn’t help. She cried anyway, and a confused-looking Hayley put an arm around her.
“So what do you want?” I said. “I mean, is there some purpose here?”
“Yeah,” YouTube said. “We just wanted to say thanks for ruining prom for us.”
“How am I ruining it? I’m just pointing out the inequities in it and encouraging people to get the thing back into perspective.”
He looked at the rest of the Ruling Class. “What the — What is she talking about?”
Alyssa drilled her eyes into me. “She’s saying we should all feel bad because we can afford limos and the Kmart Kids can’t.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, I don’t.”
Egan shook the newspaper again. His eyes were watering. “So is this it? Or are you going to try to have it cancelled or something?”
“I don’t want to cancel it.” I looked at Valleri, who was still standing next to me, hands folded under her chin. She nodded so slightly I hoped I didn’t just imagine it. “I want to give everybody a chance to make it special,” I said.
“It already is!” Egan said.
“It won’t be for some people if we don’t help.”
Alyssa clapped her hands over her head. “Y’know what? Why are we wasting our time talking? Nothing is going to happen, because she doesn’t even have any friends to help her pull it off.”
“Yes, she does.”
Every head turned to the door behind them, where Patrick was standing with a rolled-up newspaper, tapping it in the palm of his hand.
“Who?” YouTube said.
“Me,” Patrick said.
“She’s gonna make the prom lame and tacky and stupid, man!” Egan cried. Literally. With tears in his voice. “Aw, come on, Egan. Does Tyler look stupid to you?” Why did he have to ask that question?
But Egan was shrugging, and swallowing so hard it looked painful.
“I think the idea rocks and I’m in,” Patrick said. “Anybody else?”
I looked at Joanna and Hayley, fully expecting them to raise their hands and giggle. It was Patrick, after all.
But they were looking at Alyssa, who wasn’t as subtle as Valleri. She shook her head so many times they would have had to be missing some serious brain cells not to get the message. Their hands stayed down.
So did everybody else’s, but Patrick continued to grin as if they’d all jumped right on board.
“I guess it’s on, then, Tyler,” he said to me over their astonished heads.
“I guess it is,” I said.
Chapter Eleven
I woke up the next morning, Saturday, to find my mother sitting on the edge of my bed. I bolted up, heart pumping. Something major had to have happened, because she hadn’t even done this when I was a kid.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “Did Dad get in an accident or something?”
“For heaven’s sake, no. I just wanted to talk to you about this.” She held up a copy of the Castle Heights Herald. “Where did you get that?” I said.
If she’d been digging through my bag, I’d have to assume this woman had tied up my mother somewhere and stolen her face. But even the face didn’t look like the Mom I knew. Her lips were all pursed and disapproving, and her forehead was in furrows so deep you could have planted seeds in them.
“Sunny showed it to me,” she said.
Somebody remind me to thank her later.
“How long have you known you were a prom queen nominee?”
“About two weeks.” I squirmed. “Could I just go to the bathroom?”
“As soon as you explain why you didn’t tell us about this.”
“Mom, it’s not like a suspension or something.” I held up my hand before she could remind me about my “tone.” “Sorry. You’re just making it sound like I did something wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything ‘wrong.’ I just want to know why you kept it from us.”
I licked my sleep-dry lips. My breath was probably pretty nasty about now. It occurred to me that I more than likely did not look as cute as Patrick did when he woke up.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” I said. “You were pretty wrapped up in Sunny.”
“Try again.”
“It was a joke, okay? On me. I just wanted to handle it and move on.”
Mom looked at the paper. “It doesn’t look like a joke to me. This is a lovely picture, by the way. Where did you get that top?”
“My friend Valleri.”
“And she is …?”
“A new girl. Mom — “ I dug some crust out of my eyes. “Did you read the article?”
“I did.”
“Then you know why I stayed in the contest. It’s giving me a chance to speak out on something. You and Dad are always telling me to do that.”
“On something significant.”
I stared. “This is significant.”
“It’s the prom, Tyler. I didn’t even know you planned to go.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t even want to go through with this until I went shopping with Candace this one day.”
“Your dad said something to me about that, but —”
“We had a half day, so she and I took the bus to the mall. Anyway, she’s the one who told me how out-of-hand the prom is and how — well, everything you saw in the article.”
She nodded. I had to give my mom credit: she was a fair person.
“So,” I said, “one thing led to another and Valleri and I decided to do something about it. And now this guy Patrick is helping, which is huge because he’s one of them — I mean, he has money, he’s popular, all that.”
“What do you mean by ‘do something about it’?”
“I’m not sure yet. We know what needs to happen but we don’t exactly know how to do it, but now that Patrick’s behind it, I think we can make a difference.”
I stopped, because Mom was no longer nodding. “It sounds like it’s going to take a tremendous amount of energy,” she said.
“Yeah …”
“Are you sure this is where you want to channel it?” “It’s about equality. You and Dad are all about that. This is going to make more of
a difference than trying to get more AP classes.”
Mom shook her head. “We want you to stand up for what’s right, but this — I don’t know, I can’t wrap my mind around it yet. I need to talk to your dad. You need to talk to him.”
She stood up.
“Wait,” I said. “Are you saying you don’t want me to do this?”
“Not saying that at all. I’m saying I want you to really think about it and discuss it with us. We have always let you make your own decisions whenever we can.”
“There’s a ‘but’ in there.”
“Maybe. I just don’t know what it is yet. Your dad had a breakfast meeting, but when he gets home, we should all talk.”
“All?” I said.
“You and your father and me.”
“Okay,” I said. At least she wasn’t bringing Sunny into it. I was already prepared to smack my sister the next time I saw her.
I couldn’t go back to sleep after Mom left, but I couldn’t lie there and try to sort this out, either. Mom was the second-to-last person I’d think would stand in my way on something like this. Dad was the last.
That actually made me feel better. He’d see the principle behind this and tell Mom to relax.
But I still felt sullen when I went downstairs to scavenge for something to eat. Mom had left a note saying she was grocery shopping, so I had the kitchen to myself to pout in. I almost didn’t answer the landline when it rang — until I saw Patrick Sykes on the caller ID.
“Hey,” he said when I picked up. “You ready to get started on this today?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “When?”
“Now?”
“Oh. I’m still — “ I squeezed my eyes shut. Should you mention to a guy that you’re in your pajamas? I had no idea. “Give me an hour,” I said. “I need to call Valleri.” “An hour’s good. Your house?” “Sure,” I said. “I bet you know where it is.” “I looked you up.”
“This could be construed as moderately creepy,” I said. “Man — I love the way you talk.”
“So you’ve said.” In the back of my mind, I heard Alyssa saying, Every girl is interested in Patrick. And if she’s not, he works at it until she is.
