Duh.
The first period bell rang, but I was getting the feeling Ms. Aggie was going to hold me prisoner until I copped to being the victim of some hideous crime.
Gently, I stood up. “I gotta go,” I said. “I don’t want to be late for…” I glanced down at my schedule. “Photography? Thanks.”
“Be careful out there,” Ms. Aggie warned. “And get better.”
I hoisted my backpack off the floor. “No problem,” I assured her over my shoulder. Then I ducked out of her office and whizzed past Mrs. Hobbs’ desk on my still-throbbing ankle.
It wasn’t until I got to the art wing that I realized Ms. Aggie hadn’t changed any of my other classes. She’d simply swapped Theater for Photography and left me to crash and burn in AP U.S. History and Honors English. How twisted. I guess I should’ve known better than to judge a book by its cover. I mean, Ms. Aggie pretends to be an on-your-side softie, but she’s really just like every other adult in my universe—convinced she knows how to run my life better than I do.
A few minutes late, I slipped into Photography, planted myself on the first available stool, and pretended to be legitly punctual. And luckily the spacey art teacher didn’t notice a thing, since she was off in the corner shuffling through some junk in her tote bag. The rest of the class, however, wouldn’t stop staring at me.
I leaned forward and poked Vivian Fisk (one of the few people not preoccupied with me) in the shoulder. “Ow. What the…?” she complained, swiveling around to glare at me.
I drew my index finger to my lips. “Shh. Can I sit with you?” I whispered.
For some unknown reason, Viv seemed to be in an uncharacteristically bitchy mood. “I don’t care,” she groaned. “Whatever.”
“Why is everyone staring at me?” I asked—mostly of myself—once I’d settled into my new seat.
Viv just ignored me, which is usually the right response when you notice someone talking to thin air. But I wanted an answer. “Are you mad at me?” I tried.
Viv huffed. “They’re staring at you for one of two reasons,” she informed me. “Either they think you’re after Lars, or they’re fascinated by your new cleavage.”
“Huh?” Was she suggesting that I’d stuffed my bra? Or that I’d had breast implants? Or that I was just dressing like a slut all of a sudden?
“Oh, don’t act dumb,” she snapped. “Lars is totally smitten with you. He won’t shut up about it. It’s quite annoying really.”
So that was why Viv couldn’t stand me. “But that’s not my fault,” I objected. “I didn’t even do anything.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she spat, blatantly staring at my chest.
What the hell? I definitely needed a mirror. I mean, as far as I knew, my boobs were still the same size they’d always been: half a cup shy of average. And I hadn’t even bought any new clothes for school, since I’d been so depressed over losing Mick, so it wasn’t like I was tramping up my wardrobe all of a sudden. Maybe Viv was just plain wrong.
With no mirror in sight, I looked down to assess the situation. And what I discovered was pretty alarming, to say the least. My ragged slub tee, which used to be a little baggy, was stretched tight and puckered across my overgrown uni-boob. And as I studied myself more closely, I realized that the extra boob poundage wasn’t my only problem either. It appeared that my hips and thighs had also expanded out of proportion with the rest of my body. For the life of me, though, I couldn’t figure out what had caused the outrageous inflation. I mean, at sixteen, my curves should have already, well, curved by now. There could only be one explanation: the Twinkies. All those damn Twinkies I’d inhaled over the summer must have attached themselves to my formerly normal-sized parts and turned them curvalicious.
I wanted to inform Viv (and the rest of the way-too-interested class) that the Twinkies were to blame, to explain that, despite what everyone seemed to think, I had not gone from Little Miss Ordinary to voracious man-eater overnight. I was still the same old boring Flora nobody but Mick, Jessie, and a few select dorks even cared about. But as the spacey Photography teacher extracted her head from the clouds (and her arms from her tie-dyed tote bag) my opportunity to set the record straight evaporated.
So when class ended, I tailed Viv like a hyperactive puppy. “You’re way off base, you know,” I tried to convince her. “I don’t even like Nordic… I mean, Lars. I have a boyfriend.”
Viv rolled her eyes.
“I do,” I insisted. “His name’s Mick Donovan, and right now he’s in Oregon. But he’s coming to Punxsutawney soon, I swear.”
“Whatever,” Viv said again. “It’s none of my business. It’s not like I like Lars or anything,” she claimed. “I just wish he’d shut up about you. He’s driving me up the freakin’ wall.”
“Well, tell him I don’t like him,” I suggested. “Tell him I’m already in love with someone else. Tell him I died. I don’t really care. Just tell him to get off my case,” I pleaded. “Oh…and, um…Jessie does like him, so maybe you could put in a good word for her. That might help.”
Without even the courtesy of a response, Viv ditched me in the hall. And that’s when I heard two popular girls—Tina Miller and Beth Clarke—talking about me. At least I assumed they were talking about me. I mean, they hadn’t actually said my name or anything, so I wasn’t totally sure.
“She thinks she’s so hot, but she’s just a big fat pig,” Tina jabbed, as I walked by.
Beth snorted a couple of times, and the pair of bimbos cracked up laughing. Then, like a car alarm gone berserk, Tina chanted, “Oink, oink…oink, oink…oink, oink.”
I just kept walking.
“Why doncha hit the gym?” Beth continued to taunt at the back of my head. “Hot guys hate fat sluts.”
Now if I’d been a hundred percent sure they were talking to me, I probably would have…well, I don’t know what I would’ve done actually. Mostly I was just trying to pretend they didn’t exist (and wondering why nobody had invented a magic button you could press to disappear from such sick situations).
And I was almost out of the line of fire, when a gorgeous angel intervened on my behalf. “Good morning, Flora,” Lars tweeted in my ear, surprising me from behind. He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “How’s my girl?”
“Uh…uh…” I stuttered, unsure how to react. I mean, honestly, I’d almost slapped him for violating me, but then I realized he was trying to teach the Plastic Twits a lesson. How clever.
I glanced over my shoulder to see if his move had done the trick. And sure enough, Tina was shaking her head and twisting her face in a sour pout, while Beth just stood there with her mouth hanging open. Perfect.
When I turned back to Lars, he pecked me on the cheek, which caused me to develop an instant facial tic. On a whim, though, I pecked him back.
“Thanks,” I whispered. “You saved me.”
He gently shook his head. “They wouldn’t have been bothering you if it weren’t for me,” he said. “I apologize for that. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have embarrassed you yesterday with the poem.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. You did the assignment, that’s all.”
We were lingering outside AP U.S. History, still holding hands, when the bell rang. “Thanks again,” I said, giving his fingers a quick squeeze before letting go. “See you in English?”
“I look forward to it,” the Nordic hottie said, with a coy smile.
As I ducked into Dr. Emerson’s room at the last possible moment, I couldn’t help thinking maybe I was looking forward to it too. Maybe in some strange way, Ms. Aggie had known best after all.
Eight
IF Mick was going to be in Punxsutawney in a matter of weeks, I definitely needed some new clothes—unless, of course, I wanted to stick with the suddenly trampy, skintight gear that had convinced everyone at Punxsy High I was the reincarnation of Lolita.
I dug through the recycling bin in search of the newspaper, because if I wanted a whole new wardr
obe, I was going to have to get a job. I mean, given the bad blood between me and my parents (not to mention the fact that I still owed them money for bailing me out of jail) there was about a snowball’s chance in hell they were going to treat me to a shopping trip, especially if they found out I needed the clothes to impress my sweet, sweet Mickey D.
The Punxsutawney Spirit was folded up all nice and neat—just the way Mr. Tightwad likes it—and shoved sideways between a flattened Cheerios box and a label-less spaghetti sauce jar. Gingerly, I tugged the thing from its tomb. And with a lump in my throat, I flipped to the classifieds.
Half a page. The entire Help Wanted section was half a page. And the closer I looked, the more dismal it really was. Most of the jobs were work-at-home deals, where you had to assemble like ten thousand finger puppets to make five bucks. No thanks. I needed quick cash for minimal effort—sort of like the scheme Mick’s cousins had cooked up, but without the illegality, of course.
After weeding through all the fake jobs, I was left with eight legit openings, most of which weren’t for me. I mean, I was completely unqualified to be a heavy truck mechanic, a certified nursing assistant, or an arborist. If I was lucky, maybe I could nab a gig as a babysitter or a dog walker, but that was about it. And the babysitting thing…well, I’d tried it already. It sucked. Plus, taking care of human beings is a pretty huge responsibility. A responsibility that’s definitely not worth the crappy pay.
So I called the number in the dog walking ad. And even though I’m sure it doesn’t happen this way for most people, I got the job. As it turned out, the Oglethorpes—who needed their dogs walked on weekday afternoons—knew my parents. In fact, Mr. Oglethorpe had even worked with my father when I was little. Apparently the guy remembered me from some company picnic like a bazillion years ago, but honestly, I couldn’t differentiate one stiff, nerdy accountant from another. Still, I pretended like he was my long lost uncle, which must have worked because he offered to pay me ten dollars an hour to walk Snickers and Baby Ruth. Cha-ching!
I decided to text Jessie with the news.
F: OMG! Guess what? I got a job!!!
J: That’s nice.
(Okay…not the response I was going for).
F: Are U OK?
J: Yup.
F: What’s wrong?
J: You lied.
F: Huh?
J: I saw you kiss Lars in the hall.
F: It wasn’t what it looked like, I swear.
J: He’s all yours. I’m sick of the BS.
F: No thanks. I love Mick.
J: Whatever.
F: Whatever.
Okay…was it just me or had the whole world gone mental? I mean, sure, Lars was sexy and talented and exotic and maybe even nice (if you counted the way he’d stuck up for me with the Plastic Twits). But I still loved Mick and always would. Didn’t Jessie get it? I wasn’t the steal-your-best-friend’s-mad-crush-out-from-under-her type—even if, technically, Lars hadn’t shown any interest in her whatsoever. And I really wasn’t the kind of girl who’d betray the love of her life for some passing fling. Not in a million years.
Maybe what Jessie and I needed was a break, since she was totally irrational all of a sudden and I was sick of being accused of things I hadn’t done. Plus, it was probably a good idea for me to get used to spending less time with her anyway, since I was going to be pretty busy with homework, dog walking, and Mick.
Speaking of homework…
I popped open my closet and rooted around for the junky digital camera my parents had bought me for my thirteenth birthday. After months of begging and pleading and, if I remember correctly, some crying and threatening, Mr. Tightwad had finally sprung for the one I wanted. Too bad the thing was now a dinosaur.
Under an avalanche of nasty old shoes, I spotted a shiny slice of blue metal. Bingo. I held my breath, blindly shoved my hand in, and groped. And after hurling most of the smelly obstacles to the other side of Shoe Mountain, I finally emerged victorious with the chunky relic in my grasp. But if I wanted to do my homework, I was going to have to ask my mother for some batteries, since the ancient ones inside my camera were so dead they were starting to ooze.
Now to say my parents were still pretty ticked at me over the floor-scratching, chair-tipping incident would be the understatement of the century. I mean, if I was smart, I’d start checking my Wheaties for arsenic or rat poison. In the meantime, though, I was going to have to break the ice with my mother. Otherwise, my world as I knew it would come to a drop-dead, tire-screeching halt.
“Hey, Mom,” I said softly, as I tiptoed up behind her in the kitchen like a cat burglar. “Do you know if we have any batteries?”
Since my meltdown, the Mental Hygienist had taken to pretending I didn’t exist. And I wasn’t so sure she was giving me the silent treatment as punishment either. Probably she was ignoring me for my own protection, since if she was forced to interact with me, she might just commit justifiable murder.
In the most agreeable, submissive tone I could conjure, I explained, “I…um…need them for my homework.”
Leaving the water running, my mother stepped away from the sink and pulled open the junk drawer, apparently inviting me to look for the damn batteries myself. And after about a minute of sifting through the weirdest, most unrecognizable doodads and thingamajigs on earth, I finally found two double-A’s. In an act of faith, I slipped them into my camera, clicked the door shut, and prayed. And lo and behold, with a whirr and a clunk, the ancient thing chugged to life. How miraculous.
“Thanks,” I said, easing the junk drawer shut.
Once again, the Mental Hygienist acted like I didn’t exist—that was, until I was within striking distance of the front door. Then, out of nowhere, she decided to risk both our lives. “Flora, hold on,” she called down the hall. “I need to speak with you for a moment.”
Ick. I really couldn’t stand it when my mother got all prim and proper, like she was teaching an etiquette lesson to a bunch of baboons. It creeped me out. “What?” I asked, with my hand hovering over the doorknob.
“The SATs are coming up soon.”
Gee, really? No duh. “Uh-huh,” I said, nodding like a freakish suck-up.
“So I registered you for a prep course online.”
“Okay…”
Despite my solidly average GPA, I’d scored pretty well on the PSAT, so I saw no need for a prep course. As usual, the Mental Hygienist was overreacting.
“It’s Tuesdays and Thursdays from six thirty to nine and Sundays from three thirty to six,” she said. “It lasts about a month, starting this Thursday. I’ll send you an e-mail with the details.”
“I guess,” I agreed, running through my schedule in my mind. With everything I’d already committed to, it was going to be tight. Tight but hopefully doable. At least my mother had gotten one thing right, though: She’d picked a class that got over just before Mick was set to roll into town.
“Oh, and we won’t be able to attend the drug task force for a few weeks,” she added with a frown.
Okay, so she’d gotten two things right. Yippee.
“That’s okay,” I said, when I really wanted to shout, Praise the Lord! “And…um…just so you know, I’m going to be walking the Oglethorpes’ dogs after school,” I threw in.
My mother squinted, like I’d taxed her brain with an unsolvable riddle. “The Oglethorpes?”
“Yeah, remember? He used to work with Dad,” I explained. “They need a dog walker.”
A light bulb went on over my mother’s head. “That should be fine, I suppose,” she agreed. “As long as you keep up with your schoolwork.”
I turned the doorknob and yanked. “Will do.”
And on that congenial note, I stole the opportunity to escape before our conversation deteriorated into a nasty fight. It was a miracle, really, that my mother and I had been able to tolerate each other for five minutes straight. I, for one, didn’t want to press my luck. Because if I couldn’t get back on her good side, we w
ere going to have serious problems come October. And if push came to shove, I’d choose Mick. I’d always choose Mick.
It was a gorgeous early-September evening, and I was on a mission. A mission to take the most spectacular photographs anyone had ever seen. And since Miss Jillian had given us a pretty open assignment (to bring in our three best shots for the class to critique), I was liberated to get creative, to explore, to capture something exciting. Not that anything exciting was likely to happen in Punxsutawney, but hey, you never know.
I was about two blocks from home when I got my first flash of inspiration: a church. Even though I hadn’t set foot in one since elementary school, there was something about churches that fascinated me.
I lingered on the sidewalk, trying to pinpoint just the right feature to memorialize. The steeple? The cross? An archway? Too predictable.
Haphazardly, I scuffed along, kicking pebbles into the street and trying to unfocus. It was a lesson Mick had taught me over the summer: Sometimes it’s easier to see things when you’re not looking so hard.
And, as usual, my sweet, sweet Mick was right, because suddenly I recognized the thing that told a story. It was a small basement window protected by a grate of iron bars. I wandered onto the church lawn and stretched out on my stomach for a better view. And with a few simple clicks, I became the proud new owner of some interesting, artsy-looking photos that made me wonder about church basements and protecting things. I had a feeling Miss Jillian would appreciate the unusual subject matter, or at least give me credit for originality.
But with only an hour left before sunset, I had to keep hunting. I mean, sure, the photos I’d already taken were okay, but I didn’t really know if they were knock-your-socks-off good. And I didn’t know if they were portfolio-worthy either. To be honest, I’d been secretly sort of panicking ever since Ms. Aggie mentioned the whole portfolio thing. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if every school I applied to rejected me? What the hell was I going to do then, become a nurse?
As I turned the corner past the church, thank God I was blessed with another idea. I remembered a strange little brick wall out behind the elementary school that was covered with some pretty cool graffiti. Maybe if I was lucky, nobody had gotten excited enough about the vandalism yet to clean it up. I mean, Earth Day wasn’t until when? April? That’s when people around here usually got all indignant about litter and such. Until then, maybe I’d get the chance to snap some edgy shots of urban decay right here in good ol’ Punxsy, PA.
Film at Eleven Page 6
