Class Favorite

by Taylor Morris

  Arlene started in on me when we met outside the cafeteria. All the girls were talking excitedly about who had gotten flowers, who had sent them, and the bigger scandal of who hadn’t received any. (Word was that Kayla Cane, who normally made sure she had a boyfriend around Valentine’s Day, hadn’t received any.) I had come up with a brilliant plan to handle the situation: I would ignore it and hope that it went away.

  At the front of the lunch line, I pulled a five-dollar bill from my front pocket and felt the soft bits of the now-torn card. I had peeked at it in second period, just to make sure I had read it correctly.

  YOU’VE FINALLY ENTERED WOMANHOOD,

  AND I COULDN’T BE PROUDER.

  CONGRATULATIONS . . . PERIOD!

  LOVE, MOM

  It was written in another woman’s handwriting—Arlene’s mom? She owned It’s About Bloomin’ Time, the one florist in Ladel, Texas. It proved that someone else, other than myself and my mother, knew about the flowers and my period.

  This was all my sister’s fault—she was the one who had told on me. Just as we were running out the door that morning, late already, Elisabeth had said, right in front of Mom, “Sara, did you tell Mom you finally got your period?”

  “Elisabeth!”

  “What? God, grow up already,” she said, like it was no big deal after all.

  Mom had inhaled a little gasp and flashed a proud smile. “Sara, honey!” she said. “You finally got it!”

  I grabbed a carton of nonfat milk at the front of the lunch line, took the change for my cheese enchilada lunch from Lunchlady Campbell, who, sorry, looks like a linebacker, and walked with Arlene to a table. Sometimes we sat by ourselves, and sometimes a few of her softball friends joined us. When they sat with us, all they talked about softball: the teams they were playing, who was hitting what average that season—in other words, boring stuff. When they tried to include me in the conversation, it was, “Are you going to try out next season?” They were just making conversation, but it stunk because, as I had thoroughly demonstrated at more than one tryout, I had zero athletic coordination.

  Arlene and I sat down, alone for now, thank God, until . . .

  “Sara! I just saw my roses in the office and saw your name on the white ones. Who sent them? They’re awesome.” Ellen Spitz had barely said a word to me until now. She plopped her beige lunch tray on our table and sat down across from me. She was the shortstop on Arlene’s team, a member of FFA—the Future Farmers of America—and wore extra-heinous boots, jeans, and Garth Brooks–esque shirts. Every single day. That day, it was green Rocky Mountain jeans with purple Justin Ropers. I kid you not. And I thought my Old Navy clothes made me fashionably challenged.

  I lifted my fork to my mouth, cheese and grease dripping from it, and delicately blew on the enchilada. My stomach was all cramped up—I couldn’t tell if it was from period misery or the massive dread of my flower secret being revealed.

  “She won’t even tell me,” Arlene assured Ellen. “What’s the big deal?” she asked, turning on me. “Why won’t you tell us?”

  “Hey, Sara,” said Shiner. He stood in the aisle next to our table, carrying two Cokes on his enchilada tray. He wore a Dallas Cowboys puffy jacket with shorts and a coral choker he got in Tampa three summers ago and hadn’t taken off since. “Nice flowers, mamacita.” He laughed his squawking laugh. “Ha-ha-haaa!”

  I fumed at Shiner for getting a thrill out of my pain and for mentioning anything mother related. To think that I had actually worried that it was just a “Hi! Miss you and love you” gift from the road from my dad. I wondered if he’d call to wish me a happy Valentine’s Day.

  Shiner got his nickname from the sixth-grade baseball guys. He had taken a baseball to his left eye three times throughout the season, leaving him with a black eye for two months. Nobody called him Jimmy—his real name—except the teachers, and I didn’t even like looking at him since that night at the Fall Ball earlier this year.

  I flicked my wrist as dismissively as I could, even though I was cringing with embarrassment inside. “Just walk away.”

  Shiner snorted, and looked like he was about to say something, but he didn’t.

  It’s strange how people end up. Shiner and I actually used to play together every now and then at recess when we were kids. Then, at this year’s Fall Ball, everyone, including Arlene, who went stag with me slow-danced at the end of the night while I stood sheepishly in the corner, trying not to be noticed. To my surprise, Shiner came over and asked me to dance. We hadn’t talked much since the days of recess had ended, and I was mostly glad that someone had asked me to dance. As we shuffled across the floor of the cafeteria, which served as our dance hall, Kayla Cane and her boyfriend of the night glided by us. Kayla looked me up and down, then looked at Shiner and threw her head back and laughed. I felt like an instant loser. When I looked at Shiner, whose jaw was clenched, I saw the pimples on his cheeks and the way his nostrils flared as he breathed. I felt how bony his shoulders were, and how sweaty his palms. Before the song even ended, I muttered a thanks and went back to my corner. We hardly made eye contact after that, and lately we’ve resorted to smart-aleck remarks.

  “Lovely,” I said, turning back to my grease and cheese as Shiner did, in fact, walk away. “He is such a loser.”

  “I saw him outside in the courtyard blowing his nose,” Arlene said, “without a tissue. Just plugged one nostril and blew out the other.”

  “Disgusting.” I cringed.

  “I don’t know,” Ellen said. “He seems okay. I mean, he never did anything to me. Anyway, the flowers are gorgeous, Sara. You have to tell us who sent them.” She stood and picked up her tray. “I’m sitting with the girls,” she said to Arlene. “We heard that the Crawford pitcher is at least sixteen. See you at practice.” And off she bounced.

  “Did she have to take Shiner’s side?” I asked. “He made fun of me first.” Arlene stared over at the girls softball table and I realized, with another punch in the gut, that she’d probably rather be with them than with me. “If you want to go sit with them, you can,” I said, even though I didn’t want her to.

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. She tucked her hay-colored hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry about Shiner. Or Ellen. She was just saying.”

  “Whatever. Cramps make you moody, right?” I asked as I rubbed my hand across my stomach.

  “God, yes. Still, if someone had sent me flowers, I don’t know how I could let anything put me in a bad mood.”

  I sighed. Maybe I needed an ally in this. Maybe I’d feel better if I told Arlene, who was, after all, my official best friend. Maybe it was her duty to know things like this about me, even if we weren’t as close as we used to be.

  So I took a deep breath and said, “Okay, I’ll tell you who sent them, but you have to swear on your softball glove that you won’t tell anyone. Not a single soul.”

  Arlene’s eyes widened with anticipation, and she nodded furiously. “I swear, I swear, I swear I will not tell another single living soul for as long as I live. Cross my heart.”

  So I told her. I trusted her. Because what had she ever done to betray me?

  2

  Are You the Keeper of Secrets or the Disher of Gossip?

  You’ve stepped out of your sociology class to go to the bathroom. On the way back, you hear Angie Slater whispering into her cell phone, “I can’t believe Joann got suspended for plagiarism.” You:

  a) discreetly walk away, but decide to tell only your best friend, and only after making her swear not to tell another single living soul.

  b) tell no one, since the news doesn’t even affect you.

  c) shuffle away quickly, heart racing with excitement; when you get back to class, you tell what’s-her-name across the aisle what you just heard.

  I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT YOU.

  The ripped and folded piece of spiral notebook paper had been slipped to me during Ms. Cowell’s fifth-period science class by someone in the desk behind me. For weeks
the seat had been empty, and today I’d come in late and hadn’t noticed anyone there.

  “Sara Thurman,” Ms. Cowell had announced when I came in after the bell. “You’re late.” Like it’s such a huge offense.

  I’d been in the nurse’s office trying to score some sweet pain meds for my cramps, but all I got was two generic aspirins with an added dose of questioning about the flowers from Nurse Windham, as well as a maintenance guy who was changing a lightbulb.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled as I slipped into my seat.

  Ms. Cowell was yapping about motion. I wasn’t really listening. For one, I thought it was too early in the second semester for her to say anything test-worthy. Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and how I would deal with her when I got home. I couldn’t believe that only last weekend I had thought my life was so dull.

  I looked over my shoulder to see who had written the cryptic note, and all I could see was a mop of black hair. I guessed it was the girl who had been in the office earlier. She had held the folded paper out to me low, by my waist, with long, natural nails gripping the sides. When a note is offered, you accept it.

  “What do you think, Jimmy?” Ms. Cowell asked Shiner. I snapped to attention, quickly folding the note back and clutching it under my desk.

  “Ma’am?” Shiner’s eyes were glassy with disinterest. When he leaned forward to search his textbook for an answer, the numbers from his Emmitt Smith jersey peeled off the back of the chair.

  “Please, everyone.” Ms. Cowell sighed. “Let’s pay attention. If this notebook is sitting in the front seat of a car,” she continued, her voice raised a little louder, waving her teacher’s notebook at us, “and the car is traveling at sixty-five miles per hour, is the notebook moving? Jimmy? What do you think?”

  Shiner tapped his black Bic pen on his desk, thoughtfully and unsurely. “I’d say . . . no?”

  “No, the notebook is not moving?”

  “Yeah. No.”

  I wondered where the new girl came from. I wondered why she’d had to move to a new school midyear and start on a Friday, no less. Mostly, though, I hoped her note wasn’t about the flowers. I slumped down in my chair and watched Shiner squirm under questioning.

  “The book is stationary,” Ms. Cowell coaxed Shiner, “even if the car is traveling at sixty-five miles per hour, correct?”

  “Yeah?” Shiner shrugged.

  “Does everyone agree with this?” Ms. Cowell asked, looking to the rest of us.

  I looked around the room. The six even rows of sandbox-brown desks with attached chairs held students slumped in various forms of boredom: Some leaned forward, chins rested in hands, while others sat back, their hands stuffed in their pockets. I sat with a stiff back, panicked with curiosity, clinging to the note in my now-sweaty palm.

  “Although that does make some sense,” Ms. Cowell continued, “the notebook is in motion, because it is being propelled by the car. The notebook, you, your backpack—everything that’s in the car is in motion. This is called relative motion. And that will be on the test,” she added.

  Laboriously, in unison, we uncapped our pens, opened our notebooks, and wrote this term down. I underlined it and put stars on either side of it. TEST!! I wrote.

  For the rest of the period, I tried to pay attention to Ms. Cowell, but it was impossible. Who was this girl, and what did she know?

  Finally, the bell rang. Ms. Cowell, jolted out of her lecture euphoria, quickly hollered out, “Please write a two-page summary on motion. And don’t forget your worksheets are due next Friday!”

  I stacked my textbook on top of my spiral, dropped my pen in my bag, and nervously turned to the girl behind me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  We stood facing each other, holding our books to our chests like shields. I was immediately transfixed by her eyes—they were bright green, like a traffic light, and lined in black. She wore a tight sweater, the ends of the sleeves covering her hands.

  “Sara?” she asked as she swung her big black leather bag over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. You’re the girl I saw in the office this morning, right?”

  “Yep, that was me. I’m Kirstie Luegner,” she said.

  As we walked down the hall, I could feel other students’ curious eyes on her. I’d gone to school with the same people since kindergarten—we rarely got new blood. One glance at Kirstie and you could instantly tell she wasn’t from around here, and it wasn’t just her high-heeled boots. It was something about the way she carried herself—she seemed a little more self-assured than the rest of us.

  “Can you help me find my locker?” she asked. “All these halls look the same.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. Not that I ever gave much thought to architectural design, but I always thought a box-shaped building was aiming a little low.

  “It took me a month of going into the wrong classrooms,” I confessed. “Three times in one week I sat in an honors algebra class, wondering why I didn’t understand anything the teacher said.” Kirstie laughed, and I was encouraged. “I kept going back, because I was recognizing the people in there. When I finally realized what I was doing, I was all, ‘Oh! I thought this was honors calculus!’ Like our school even offers calculus.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “In the five hours I’ve been here I’ve gotten in trouble for chewing gum and I already know the gossip. I feel totally pathetic.”

  “Yeah, so . . . ,” I began. “What gossip do you know?”

  Kirstie looked at the bank of lockers we had arrived at and found hers. “Well, I feel weird telling you—I don’t even know you. But I heard some girls talking after lunch,” she said as she tossed in her science book and grabbed a history book. “First of all, remember that I’m just the messenger, okay?” She eyed me eagerly.

  “Yeah, I know,” I answered anxiously.

  “Okay. These girls were laughing their butts off—at you. I couldn’t hear all of the conversation, but they were saying something about period roses. Then one of them said how great it’d be to bring you a huge gift-wrapped box tomorrow . . . of the biggest, fattest, granniest Kotex ever. Practically diapers. So big, this girl said, that it wouldn’t even fit in your locker and you’d have to carry it around all day. She said it’d be a great follow-up to the roses your mother sent. I can’t believe your mom did that,” Kirstie said as she slapped her locker shut. “That’s rough.”

  “Wait,” I asked. “You know about those roses?”

  She looked at me guiltily and said, “I thought everyone knew.”

  My heart pounded and my breath quickened. “Well, what did they look like, the girls you saw?”

  “There was a blond girl. Oh, and the other was a brunette.”

  “Great. You just described every girl in school.”

  “Sorry to deliver such awful news,” Kirstie said sympathetically. “I feel horrible telling you. I know how terrible it is to be gossiped about. I just thought you’d want to know. I know I would.” She looked down the thinning halls. “I’m gonna be late. I’ve got history with Mrs. Hanson. Is she a witch?”

  “No. She’s old. Look, are you sure . . .”

  “Listen. Come over to my house tonight and we’ll talk about it. You can spend the night and we’ll do spa treatments. My mom just got this facial stuff from Sweden. It makes your skin feel like silk.”

  I felt like I had to reshift my mind. I was trying to process what she had just told me, and then she was asking me over to her house. I have to say that it was the first time someone other than Arlene had asked me to spend the night since I don’t know when. It felt good, if a little odd. “Thanks,” I said, “but I have plans.” My plans involved yelling at my mom before having a total and complete meltdown in the privacy of my own bedroom.

  “Then come over on Saturday,” she said.

  “Actually, I have plans with my best friend on Saturday.”

  “Then Sunday,” she said. As she waited for me to answer, I felt like her eyes were challen
ging me. I wasn’t sure what her deal was—just one hallway back I was thinking how self-assured she was, and now she was grilling me about coming over. I wasn’t trying to blow her off, but I got the feeling she thought I was.

  “The thing is,” I began, “my best friend and I have this movie thing that we do. We start it Saturday night and it goes until the Academy Awards on Sunday.” I smiled to show her that I was sincere, because I was. It was a big event for me and Arlene—I even got special permission to stay over at her place until the awards ended late on Sunday night.

  “We have a huge TV and an amazing sound system at my house. You could both come over and watch. We could even dress up like the stars. I’ll order Italian—I’ll pay.”

  The thought of watching the Academy Awards with someone other than Arlene would be like having a family portrait taken with your neighbor.

  I guess I hesitated too long, trying to think up a nice way of explaining it to her, because she quickly said, “Oh, forget it. I don’t mean to be pushy. I was just trying to be nice. Because, no offense, but you look like you just lost your best friend.”

  I didn’t know what to think, except that she had to be mistaken about what she had heard. For three years I’d been a nobody at this school. No one teased me and no one sang my praises (of which I had none). Suddenly I wished I were as invisible as I had been yesterday.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Kirstie said, walking toward the stairwell as I stood immobile. “It’s going to be fine, I promise,” she called, the last word echoing off the stairwell.

  I didn’t have much time to think about what Kirstie had told me.

  When I got to Mrs. Everly’s algebra class, I noticed a tampon wrapper beneath my desk. I stood frozen in the aisle, staring down at it. I tried to tell myself that it was only an unfortunate coincidence while trying to look normal and unfazed.

  As everyone settled down and the bell rang, Sean Hurley, who could be cool when he wanted to but apparently never felt the need, coughed. He got a good laugh out of the people around him, so he did it again.