“No!” Damon yelped.
“Quiet!” Hirsch threatened. “No helping the contestants.”
I checked over the last thing I’d written and found my mistake, then rubbed it out with my thumb and fixed it. I cranked out the last step of the problem. “Done!” I turned around to look at Hirsch. “The answer is x = 5 and y = 4.”
“Very good, Miss Brynn. Even though you got some help.”
My heart sank. He’d take away the win.
Bethany didn’t even bother to finish the problem. She dropped her pink chalk in the tray and sat down with a pout.
“I’m going to let you have it,” Hirsch said. “You’ve come a long way in a short time.”
I won a round.
I erased my work and Bethany’s, then sat down with a strange feeling of accomplishment. I looked over my shoulder at Damon and mouthed, “Thanks.”
He gave me a thumbs-up.
I didn’t pay too much attention to the next several pairs. I’d have to go up against another victor of the first round. Then I’d be out for sure.
Hirsch looked over his notes. “That’s it for this heat. Next up, Damon and Erik.”
How did that happen? Damon and Erik were the smartest people in the class. They should’ve been the two finalists.
They stood at the board, chalk in hand, and grinned at each other.
“You’re going down, Sheppard.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“34x + 27y = 34,” Hirsch began.
Before Hirsch even gave the second equation, Damon turned around. “It’s x = 1 and y = 0.”
Everyone gasped and Hirsch’s jaw dropped a little.
“There’s no other way that equation works, using whole numbers.” Damon explained.
Erik studied the problem on the board. “He’s right.”
“He is right,” Hirsch said. “I can see why Miss Sweeney rearranged your schedule.”
“Does he win?” Erik asked.
“He solved the problem.” Hirsch dismissed them. “Okay. Juliet and Charlie.”
Still mad that Charlie skipped out on the movie Friday, I knew anger alone wouldn’t help me beat him. But I didn’t want Damon to see me quit, either. Help me at least not look stupid, God.
Charlie stared at the board, ready to start.
Hirsch gave us the equations and I worked as fast as I could. I listened for any help Damon might give me.
Charlie, as competitive as anyone I’d ever known, finished first and chucked his chalk into the tray. He spun around and thrust both fists in the air. I wanted to give up, like Bethany, but something spurred me to finish the problem anyway. I wrote my answer and turned around.
“Woo-Hoo!” Charlie cheered.
“Why are you celebrating, Mr. Gant?” Hirsch asked. “Your answer is incorrect.”
Charlie’s face dropped into his shoes and my heart thumped like a sledgehammer.
“If your performance does not improve, Mr. Gant, I predict you will spend your days cooking fried potatoes for a living and bunking over your parents’ garage.”
“Like Miss Sweeney?” someone joked.
Hirsch gave the whole room a dirty look. “Miss Sweeney does not cook fried potatoes for a living.”
“Miss Brynn, please step aside and let me see your solution.”
I moved away from Charlie and crossed my fingers behind my back.
Hirsch smiled. “Bravo, Miss Brynn. You move on to the next round.”
I couldn’t believe it.
When I sat down, Damon leaned forward into the aisle. “I thought you said you weren’t good at math.”
The other first-round winners competed in pairs, then Hirsch drew lines on his clipboard to pair up the finalists. “Miss Brynn draws the bye in this round.”
I don’t want to draw the bye!
Damon beat his next opponent, and the very thing I feared happened.
“Our final match-up of the day is Mr. Sheppard vs. Miss Brynn. The winner of this competition takes it all.”
“Mr. Hirschman. I can’t beat Damon. I shouldn’t even be a finalist.”
Charlie agreed. “Yeah, she drew the bye. That’s not fair.”
“That’s the way the pairings fell. Life’s not always fair,” Hirsch answered. “To the board.”
“Can I forfeit?”
“Never give up, Miss Brynn.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and stood up.
Damon waited in the aisle for me. “After you.”
“Kill me quickly,” I said.
“It’s just a game.”
We picked up our pieces of chalk and waited. I glanced over at him, jealous of how completely relaxed he looked. Nothing ever seemed to bother him.
“Are the contestants ready?” Hirsch twisted the corner of his mustache between his index finger and thumb.
Damon and I nodded and Hirsch read off the last pair of equations.
I started on the solution and when I got to the end of the first line, I saw that Damon had only finished one line as well. He smiled at me.
I glared. “Don’t let me win.”
He lifted his chalk off the board and leaned against the tray. “What if I want to?”
I put my chalk down and crossed my arms. “I won’t let you.”
Hirsch stood up. “What’s going on?”
“He’s cheating.”
“How am I cheating?”
“You’re throwing the game.”
“Turn around and finish the problem,” Hirsch barked.
We turned back to the board and worked the second line on our solutions, but we kept an eye on each other. Whenever I stopped, he stopped, always just a digit or two behind my solution.
“Quit it.”
He smiled.
“If that’s the way you want it.” I walked over to his side of the board, pushed him out of the way and picked up where he left off.
Everyone started laughing.
“She can’t do that!”
“Does that count?”
Damon bumped me on purpose as he crossed over to my side of the board. “If that’s how you want it.” And he worked my equations.
I guess I’d had enough practice on these, and the equations were easy enough, that I had no trouble at all. I had a slight head start, and I could write pretty fast. I finished first, whipped around and said, “Done!”
Hirsch sat there with his mouth partway open.
“Did Damon get the right answer?” I asked and pointed at the equation I’d just solved on Damon’s half of the board.
“That is correct.”
I smiled at Damon. “You win.”
“It’s your work.”
“Only half of it.”
We both looked at Hirsch.
“That’s either the most chivalrous or the most frivolous game of Math Attack I’ve ever witnessed.” He scowled and jotted on his clipboard. “You each get two and one-half points.”
Some cheered and others moaned at the decision. During the noise Damon leaned over to me and looked me straight in the eye. “You’re feistier than I thought.”
No one had ever in my life called me that.
CHAPTER 13
Amica walked into English along with the bell and sat down in front of me. She looked no worse for her fall last week. Her pedal-pushers and Henley hid her knees and elbows, so I couldn’t tell how those looked. But she still had all her hair.
Too bad.
Mr. Tollin stood in front of the blackboard. “So. What do you think about the geographer?”
I stared out the window at the road in front of the school. On the other side the ground rose out of the ditch up to a tiny, weathered church at the apex of a hill. Between the church and the road stretched a cemetery, fenced with black iron bars.
A bus loaded with kids pulled away. It turned left and passed a sheriff’s car going in the opposite direction. The driver waved and the officer tipped his head.
A few more cars passed by the sch
ool, then I saw a blue Buick Century turn onto the road. I squinted. The light hit the passenger door just right to illuminate the dent I’d made two years ago when I hit it with my bike.
Who’s that?
Some guy rode in the passenger’s seat.
I could only see the back of his head and one shoulder, because he turned his upper body toward my mom. He wore a suit, had a full head of blond hair and gestured wildly with his hands.
Dad only wore a suit on Christmas and Easter, or if he had to go to a funeral. His hair thinned everywhere except at the sideburns and had about equal parts of black and gray. And he only livened up when he talked about medieval history.
Or when he got mad.
“Juliet. Can we have your attention here in class, please?” Mr. Tollin waved The Little Prince at me.
I looked down at my book.
When Mr. Tollin turned to the board to write a prompt for another essay, I glanced back out the window.
Mom’s car had gone, and the road stretched out in either direction, still and silent as the graveyard beyond it.
* * * * *
When we got to the cafeteria Jimmy sat down and I went to get in line. I checked out other kids’ trays as they came out. Corndogs or fish sticks and lime jello laced with shredded carrots. Brownies for dessert. I slid my tray down the line and the lunch ladies dumped stuff on it.
I sat down with Jimmy and Lula just as Damon walked into the cafeteria.
With Amica.
Limping, she wrapped her arm through the crook of his elbow and leaned on him.
Limping?
Damon walked her to her table and pulled out her chair. She gazed up at him with this angelic smile and he put his hand on the small of her back to help her sit down.
When he touched her back fire shot up mine.
“What a faker,” Jimmy said.
If only there’d been alligators.
Damon passed our table on his way to the lunch line. He leaned down and put his elbows on the table next to me. “Hey Jimmy. Lula.”
The traitors said, “Hello”.
Damon turned to me and I couldn’t even look at him. “I’m serious about the Academic Olympics.”
“So am I.”
“So, you’re coming?”
I turned and his eyes almost melted me. Almost. “So, I’m not.”
Tammy came over with her lunch tray and sat down. “Amica, huh?” she said to Damon.
“She’s hurt pretty bad. She asked me to get lunch for her.”
Jimmy and Lula rolled their eyes.
Tammy picked up her brownie and ate it first. “She seemed fine playing hockey this morning. She even scored a goal.”
Damon frowned and looked over at Amica. She laughed at something a guy at the next table said to her and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Then she pretended to just happen to notice Damon and she smiled.
“Why would she fake being hurt?”
Can someone that smart really be that stupid?
I stood up. “Excuse me. I’m going to the bathroom.”
When I got there, I landed right in the dragon’s lair. Bethany and Tori leaned in front of the mirror and applied mascara. Bethany looked me up and down when I walked in.
“Well, it’s the little math whiz. Two and a half points. Yippee for you.”
I slunk past them and went into a stall.
“I think Juliet’s got a little crush on Damon Sheppard, don’t you?” she asked Tori.
Under the stall door I could see their pastel-colored canvas Keds. One of Bethany’s tapped on the floor.
“I asked you a question, Tori. Don’t you think Juliet’s sweet on Damon?”
“Maybe,” Tori whispered.
“I think it’s cute. She probably thinks he likes her, too.”
“Bethany.”
“As if!”
“Come on. I want to eat lunch.”
A purse snapped shut and their Keds moved toward the door.
“I know,” Bethany exclaimed. “I think I’ll tell Lucas Emberry that Juliet talks about him all the time.”
I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. The bathroom door swung shut and muted Bethany’s laughter.
Why would Damon like me? Amica obviously had him already. I couldn’t compete with her.
What would Ginger say?
I should’ve laughed at Bethany and Tori and told them that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. I should’ve blown them off.
A toilet flushed and another door opened just as I stepped out of my stall. Mia.
“They had me trapped in there for almost ten minutes,” she said.
“We’d probably better go eat lunch before the period’s over.”
She nodded and washed her hands. “I didn’t know they were mean to you, too.”
“They’re mean to everybody.”
Mia studied her hands as she rubbed them under the water. “I thought it was just me. They make fun of my hair all the time.”
Mia’s hair pulled straight down from the wide part on the top of her head, and fell into fuzzy, shaggy strands that kind of disappeared, rather than ended anywhere.
“Why don’t you get the split ends cut off?” I suggested.
She laughed in her small, quiet way. “Mom won’t let me. My hair has never been cut.”
I stared at her. “You’re thirteen, and you’ve never had a haircut? Jimmy gets his hair cut.”
She shook her head. “It’s this thing with my mom. Her mom always cut her hair really short, and she looked like a boy. So she wants mine long.”
“Long is one thing. That’s kind of crazy.”
Mia dried her hands and turned to me. She leaned back against the wall, looked at me and grinned. “Want to cut it for me?”
“What?”
“I’d let you. I’d love it if you cut it.”
“I don’t know how to cut hair.”
“You’re so artistic. I bet you’d do a great job.”
I leaned against the sink. “Wouldn’t your mom be furious?”
“Yeah. I don’t care. I wouldn’t tell her who did it.”
I could chop off all those split ends. Mia would look so much better. “Why me?”
She shrugged and looked down at her shoes. “You always look cute. And you’re, like, I don’t know. A really good friend.”
I do? I am?
“And like I said, I think you’d do a good job.” Her eyes pled with me. “My parents are never going to let me go to a salon.”
“When would we do it?”
“Maybe after Academic Olympics practice.”
I folded my arms. “I’m not doing that.”
“What? Why not?”
I turned away. “I don’t belong there. I’m not brainy like you guys.”
“Is it because of Damon?”
Everybody knew. Absolutely everybody.
“Don’t worry. Everyone likes Damon. It’s not a big deal.”
“Everyone likes Damon?”
“Pretty much.”
Then I’d be an idiot to think there could be anything between us.
“I just don’t want to do the Academic Olympics.”
Mia crossed her arms. “Let me ask you one question.”
“Sure.”
“Renoir’s The Swing is an example of what style of painting?”
“French Impressionism. Duh.”
Mia’s eyebrows popped up to her hairline. “That question came up last week. No one knew the answer. No one knows any of the fine arts questions.”
“Those are the kinds of questions they have?”
She nodded. “That’s one kind. They added fine arts and lit this year.”
I chewed on the inside of my lower lip and knocked the insides of my knees together. “How does it work?”
“It’s fun. All the schools’ teams go for a weekend in October. Regionals are the first day and state is the next. The team that wins there goes to the nationals in January.”
“Is
it like taking a test?”
She shook her head. “No way. It’s more like a game show. The whole team sits at a table opposite another team, and the judges throw out questions. Each person has a button in front of them, and if you know the answer you hit the button.”
So I only had to give an answer if I knew the answer.
Still, it meant seeing Damon all the time. I closed my eyes and pictured him arm-in-arm with Amica.
“Just come tonight. Please. If you hate it, you don’t have to come back.”
I opened my eyes and met Mia’s shy brown ones.
“Please. We’re really good, but we can’t win this year without you.”
“Why don’t you get Jimmy or someone else from art?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Jimmy’s got chess club and band. Plus, everyone knows you’re the best at art.”
By the time Mia and I got back to the cafeteria only we only had five minutes left to eat. I snarfed down my lunch.
I didn’t see Damon anywhere, and Amica sat alone with Tori.
The bell rang and I hurried back to art class. I passed Bethany and Lucas in the hall. Bethany grinned like the Cheshire cat, and Lucas like the one that ate the canary.
I reached the art room door at the same time I saw Damon wave from down the hall. He dodged around a couple of people and headed straight for me. I pretended not to see, ducked into the classroom, closed the door and locked it.
CHAPTER 14
I didn’t go to the Olympics and Mia wouldn’t look at me the next day.
I managed to avoid Damon for the rest of the week, and by Friday morning he didn’t even try to talk to me anymore. Somehow that hurt even more than seeing him with Amica, and I felt stupider for ignoring him than I did for liking him. I ruined everything.
As if.
Pam slid in next to me on the bus ride home. She leered at me with this wild-eyed, toothy grin.
“What?”
“Tomorrow’s my party,” she whispered.
“Not coming.”
“Please!” She laid her head on my shoulder. “You won’t regret it.”
“I’m sure I would. You will, too. Just wait.”
“I invited Damon.”
His name struck some taut, dry nerve inside my brain and it snapped into a million shards that splintered into my eyes and ears. My throat emitted this feral growl through my clenched teeth and I spun toward her.
“Who cares? I don’t care about your stupid party! I don’t like Damon Sheppard! And I don’t ever want to hear his name again!”
The kids in the next seat glanced over at me, and Pam’s eyes, even wider than before, looked like glossy blue and white bowls filled to their brims with saltwater.
“You are so in love with him,” she whispered.
My legs went cold and my heart skipped a few beats. I turned away and looked out the window. “Shut up, Pam.”