Lydia laughed her I-don’t-care-about-anything laugh. “I know, right?”
“You didn’t have to say that to Emily.” Emily was genuinely sweet, the kind of girl who would offer you her notes if you were absent.
“She deserves it,” Lydia said, all la-di-da. “Look, she’s buddy-buddy with Wiley.”
I turned to look back at Emily and Megan, but the first thing I saw was Rory.
He stood motionless, staring across the hall at something; a second later, I realized it was Megan he was staring at, only it was really the other way around. She was staring at him, and from the look of things, he wasn’t all that wild about it. His ruddy cheeks paled, and he cast a nervous look at the kids around him.
“I don’t know, Rory,” Megan said. Her voice was low, but it carried perfectly. Everyone within twenty feet was watching and listening. “It seems really unlikely that any of what you said is true. I mean, considering what Jessica told us after prom last year . . . ? About things going . . . downhill?”
Jessica Xiong, an eleventh grader on the varsity squad, smiled brightly and waved.
Then, in unison, the cheerleaders laughed their tinkly little laughs, which made everyone else laugh too.
Huge rosy patches flooded Rory’s face. He ducked his head and practically ran off down the hall, his crew following in disgrace.
Lydia dragged me away. “Oh my God, you should hear what he’s telling everyone she did last night. It’s nasty. . . . I’m sick of cheerleaders. They’re so shrill!”
If there were a shrill contest, the Doom Squad would probably take the gold medal. At least silver. But I didn’t say so to Lydia. She’d just take it as a compliment.
I happen to know that Lydia was not only in Glee Club last year, but she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in eighth grade, and she used to blog under the alias BRDWYDIVA about all the Broadway shows she wanted to see and all the actors she wanted to meet. Then whoosh, she changed pretty much overnight into the spider-veiled Princess of Doom.
That’s the pathetic thing about high school. Everyone tries so hard to be something they aren’t. It’s gotten so I don’t know who I am, so how can I even try to be who I am, much less someone I’m not?
My problem is that I don’t even fit in with the misfits.
I don’t fit in anywhere.
So there I was, walking next to Lydia, who was waving her arms around and telling a story way more dramatically than she needed to, when a door opened right into my forehead and knocked me down.
Just like that. And when I say down, I mean, like, down for the count. I landed on my butt, which I suppose is better than landing on the back of one’s skull, if one has to choose—but it still sucked.
I sat there for a second, thinking I was all alone in a very dark room that smelled like pennies, and then I started to hear voices all around me, and my vision came back.
Lydia crouched to my left, staring at me, and on the right a teacher was trying his best to take charge of the situation, and in front of me was a guy with blond hair and glasses.
My first thought was: he’s really cute. His curly blond hair, his big, worried, blue eyes.
My second thought was: wait, I know that curly hair and those big blue eyes.
I closed my eyes again, and my head started to hurt.
The teacher, a tweed-clad staple of the history department, took hold of my hand and patted it a few times. “Try to stay awake . . . you could have a concussion.”
Not like closing your eyes helps the pain anyway. I opened them without complaint.
He was still there, looking at me. I don’t mean the history teacher. I mean him.
Carter Blume.
“Do you know your name?” the teacher asked.
Okay, I understand that it’s standard first-aid procedure to ask this question, but if you do happen to know your name, it’s really annoying to be asked. I nodded and started to answer.
“Her name is Alexis!” Lydia shrieked helpfully. “Oh my God, Alexis, are you okay?”
I squinted. “I’m fine.” Her shouting was making my headache worse.
“Alexis Warren,” Carter said.
I stared at him, and after a second he smiled.
“I’m the guilty door-opener,” he said. “Very sorry.” He stuck his hand out, and it didn’t occur to me right away that he actually wanted me to shake it, like we were a pair of old men or something. I just looked blankly at his hand until he laughed and pulled it back.
Lydia tried to haul me to my feet. The teacher helped her, and Carter hovered behind them.
“Haven’t you done enough?” Lydia spat at him. “Why don’t you go back to the Young Republicans?”
He ignored her.
“I am so sorry,” he said, looking into my eyes.
Careful, Alexis. I looked away. Not that there was any danger of me actually liking someone like Carter. I mean, so what if his eyes were really sparkly? And who cared if his blond curls looked as soft as a baby’s hair?
He was not my type. In fact, I didn’t have a type. Not that I was looking to date college guys, but I’d always operated under the assumption that my Prince Charming wasn’t among the available choices at Surrey High.
I realized I’d been kind of staring at him, but thankfully the late bell rang, interrupting the moment.
“You should go to the clinic,” the teacher said. “Check in with the nurse.”
“Can I come too?” Lydia asked frantically. “I’m her best friend.”
No you’re not, I thought.
“I think she’ll be fine on her own,” he said.
“I should go with her, Mr. Daley,” Carter said. “It’s my fault. . . . I won’t be gone long.”
The teacher shot him a suspicious look, but nodded. “Five minutes.”
Lydia breathed out through her nose and looked at her watch. “I guess I have to go to class, Alexis. . . .” It was a clear prompt for me to invite her along.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “See you later.”
The teacher ducked into his classroom and Lydia trudged away. I was alone with my assailant.
“This really isn’t necessary,” I said. “I can get there without help.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
IT ALL STARTED IN SEPTEMBER OF LAST YEAR.
There used to be this show, Surrey Survey, that was broadcast once a week during homeroom, run by a couple of A/V nerds.
I was on the last episode ever to air.
It was a show about student government elections. The A/V guys were in my Spanish class, and while we were talking one day, they told me their next show was about elections. I said the whole concept of student government was a sham and a farce and a popularity/beauty contest. All the candidates claimed to be committed to change, to making things better, but I suggested that the A/V nerds do a hidden-camera setup and ask the frontrunners why they were really running. So they did. When the nonhidden camera was running, the answers were textbook—helping the school, getting involved, taking a stand, blah blah blah.
When that camera was off and just the hidden one was rolling, that’s when the real reasons came out. Motives as varied as “the faculty sponsor is hot” to “you get to skip class whenever you want” to “Tim MacNamara’s parents always buy beer when he has meetings at his house.”
When the guys asked me (on camera) who I’d be voting for, I told the truth, which was that I didn’t give a flying bleep (that’s how it came out on air, at least) who the candidates were or what they stood for, and neither did anyone else in the school.
I also suggested that, just for fun, everyone who was sick of the pretty people using school elections to perpetuate the social dominance of their tyrannical clique should make a point of voting for a person they’d never heard of.
I wasn’t really serious. I just thought I was being . . . you know, funny.
But I guess people have different definitions of funny. I hadn’t counted on them using all of that footage of me c
ondemning my fellow students as the basis for the entire segment. I was just a freshman, the girl with the bright pink hair, nobody to get excited about.
That was the day Surrey Survey got the ax.
It was also the day I made my second appearance on the cheerleaders’ Public Enemy #1 list.
Because the front-runner for Student Council VP was Pepper Laird.
And she lost the election to the new kid nobody had ever heard of—Carter Blume. Pepper may have been knocked off her throne, but Carter’s popularity soared. Soon he was the pack leader of the preps—the buttoned-up speech-and-debate-obsessed clones. Preps are like cheerleaders, only with less jumping.
I had no idea how easy it would be to create a monster—in fact, I had created two monsters. Carter and myself. Suddenly, the freshman anonymity that had softened the public’s image of me was blasted away, and once again, I was That Girl.
So.
I started to walk toward the clinic. He came wandering after me.
“So, okay,” he said at last. “Clearly you have no idea who I am.”
“Clearly.”
He wanted me to ask. He was dying for me to ask.
He held open the clinic door for me. The nurse was standing at the counter behind her desk, trying to fish the last cotton ball out of a jar. “Be right there,” she said, without looking at us. Then she disappeared behind the curtain.
I planted myself in one of the guest chairs, and Carter sat next to me.
He leaned over and spoke in a confidential tone. “Are you proficient in the Heimlich maneuver?”
It took me a second to realize he was reading from one of the posters on the opposite wall. “No,” I said. “Sorry to say.”
I looked at the next poster over, a cartoon about helping your friends fend off depression. A little cartoon girl was looking at her friend and asking, HOW ABOUT YOU, DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE HURTING YOURSELF? “How about you, do you ever feel like hurting yourself?”
He paused and let out a half-laugh. “Well . . . only on turkey tetrazzini day.”
“I don’t think they serve that here.”
“Right,” he said. “Lucky me.”
He didn’t say anything else. Neither did I.
The nurse came bustling out.
“Carter!” she said. “Are you hurt?”
“No . . . I’m just here to make sure Miss Warren gets the level of care she needs,” he said.
He was totally flirting with the nurse, and she was lapping it up.
“And I thought chivalry was dead!” she replied.
He stood. “Maybe it is. I opened a door into her head.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure it was probably an accident,” the nurse said absently, sitting down at her computer. “What was the name?”
“Warren,” Carter said, looking right at me.
Forget this. Not about to let him stand around and play hero, I went to the desk, moving closer to the nurse so that Carter had to edge away. “Alexis Warren.”
She asked a couple more questions, and I kept shifting so that eventually Carter was completely blocked from the desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take a self-conscious step backward and felt a pang of guilt.
“I should get to class,” Carter said. He patted a stack of papers on the desk and leaned down a tiny bit toward the nurse. “I’ve done my civic duty.”
Civic duty? Was he just using me as a cog in the oppressive machinery of the white male hierarchy? A line on his college application? Part three of a Boy Scout badge?
To think I almost felt sorry for him. All so he could enjoy the smug satisfaction of being a good citizen, get into a fancy university, become a lawyer, and help sleazy rich guys dump toxic waste wherever they felt like it.
He looked at me. “If there’s anything I can—”
“There’s not,” I said.
The breezy look on his face faltered.
“Stop.” My head was starting to throb, and my mood was souring by the moment. “I can take care of myself.”
Everyone was quiet. The second hand on the old wall clock was the only sound.
“Just go to class,” I said.
“You’re the boss,” he said, touching his finger to his forehead in a tiny salute.
Then he disappeared.
ON MY WALK HOME FROM SCHOOL I heard a car horn and looked around for the honker, even though not once in my entire high school career had someone honked for me.
The responsible party was Carter Blume, in all his J. Crew glory, driving a shiny green Prius. He pulled up next to me, and the passenger window rolled down with a happy hum.
“Can I give you a ride home?” he asked.
I leaned down to look at him across the car, but didn’t answer.
He shifted into park. “Hi,” he said. “How’s the skull?”
“I have a bump,” I said. “But I got some sweet aspirin out of the deal.”
“Seems like they’d at least let you sleep through one class when you’ve been knocked in the head”—he paused—“by an evil Young Republican.”
“They like it when kids get minor head injuries. They think it builds character.”
He nodded. “Glad to see I didn’t knock any of the pink out of your hair.”
I reached up to brush a strand of hair off my forehead and winced when I touched the lump.
“Please let me drive you home,” he said again. “It’s really the least I can do.”
“You mean it’s Section Four of your ‘How to Be a Good Citizen’ handbook?”
He scrunched up his forehead.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ve completely fulfilled your civic duty.”
His eyes widened. “No—that was a joke. You didn’t think I really meant it, did you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Trust me,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “There are a lot easier ways to serve my community than dealing with you.”
Hmmph. Young Republicans have weird senses of humor.
“As a personal favor,” he said. “Please let me drive you home.”
All right, then. Fine.
I sighed and opened the door. “You’re the boss.”
“What if your friend sees you?” he asked. “Are you willing to deal with the consequences?”
“Oh, please. I am not afraid of the Doom Squad,” I said.
“That’s an excellent name for them,” Carter said, smiling. “Maybe we can arrange a rumble between the Young Republicans and the Doom Squad.” He shifted into drive. “So where do you live?”
I pointed down the street. “Three houses down, the one with the yellow shutters.”
He laughed. “I guess I have bad timing.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “You seemed pretty determined. I hated to disappoint you.”
He pulled into my driveway and put the car in park again.
“Wow,” he said, looking up at the house.
Our house is pretty cool, I must admit. It’s the oldest house on the block—probably the oldest one in town. It’s big and ornate, with elaborate details everywhere—not just shingles, but little scalloped pieces of wood, and not just columns holding things up, but arches connecting the columns—that kind of thing.
The oak tree in the front yard adds to the effect. It’s enormous and gnarled; it hangs over the house like an overprotective boyfriend. It’s lush and vivid in the summer, tangled and bare in the winter. In the fall it turns from green to red to yellow to brown so fast you hardly have time to notice, but right now it was one-third yellow, one-third brown, and one-third bare.
My sister actually flipped out the day we moved in, eight years ago. She thought our parents had somehow bought the haunted house from Disneyland and transplanted it to Surrey. She spent the whole day screaming. Mom even thought there might be something in the air that was causing her physical pain. But no, as is always the case with Kasey, it was purely mental.
Trying to appease Kasey’s fear, my parents repainted the house’s
exterior with a sunny yellow-and-white color scheme, but it didn’t really cut down on the overall spooky look. We get huge crowds at Halloween.
Sadly for me, the coolness is diminished by the fact that my family lives here.
“Home sweet home,” I said.
“It’s where the heart is,” Carter said, craning his neck to see out the top of the windshield. “This is quite a house.”
I bent down to pick up my bag off the floor. “Yes, it is.”
“It’s kind of a mess,” he said.
I dropped my bag and bumped the back of my head on the glove compartment. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, it’s really a jumble of architectural techniques.” He pointed to the bay window. “That window is Gothic, and the shingle detailing is all Queen Anne, which kind of go together, but the columns on the front porch are neoclassical, which is just plain . . . wrong.”
Silence.
“Really?” I said coolly. But to be honest, inside I was kind of “lights and sirens.”
I narrowed my eyes and shot him a glare, just so he wouldn’t suspect anything.
“Yeah, I mean, whoever built this house just kind of picked random elements from all of those styles.” He squinted up at the top of the house. “And don’t get me started on the mansard roof. That’s pure Second Empire.”
I stared at him.
“My mom’s an architect,” he said, shrugging.
I slumped back in my seat. I really, really, really hate to admit it, but I was sort-of-kind-of-maybe the tiniest bit intrigued. It wasn’t often you met kids my age with an appreciation for architecture.
“I’m Carter Blume, by the way,” he said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Oh.” He sat in confused silence for a few seconds. “Can I ask you a very serious question?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.
He stared straight into my eyes. “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
Wait, what? “Wait, what?”
“It’s a classic icebreaker.”
“If I were an animal . . . ?”
He faked a sigh and checked an imaginary watch. “Your inability to answer the question doesn’t bode well for—”
“I refuse to answer that,” I said. “On the grounds that it’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever been asked.”