The Class

by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Of course Cammi had stuck with Becca. Who else was she supposed to stick with? They lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same pool, rode the same bus to school, were in the same grade, and this year they both had Mrs. Herrera for their lead teacher. It was like they were living the exact same lives.

  Except that they weren’t. For one thing, here it was eight forty-five and Cammi was just getting up. Plus, she was going to watch One Tree Hill on Netflix, a show that Becca disapproved of because it was junky, even if it was from a million years ago. That was one of Becca’s mom’s words. Junky. As in “a bunch of junk.” As in “a big waste of time.” But what was wrong with wasting time every once in a while? Or eating Chips Ahoy cookies for breakfast on Saturday mornings?

  Cammi scrolled through Becca’s texts. Need to plan the Carson campaign, she’d written in the first one. Cammi rolled her eyes when she read this. Carson Bennett was the cutest, most popular boy in their class. To him, girls like Becca and Cammi were bugs on the windshield of life. But for some reason, Becca thought she had a chance to become Carson’s girlfriend or even just his friend. Why don’t you come over at 10? the next text, sent at 6:59, read. In her last text, Becca’s plans get specific. Bring your GL mags with you. We can make a scrapbook for stuff like clothes and what to do with our hair. I bought some makeup at Target yesterday, so we could experiment as long as we wash everything off before my mom sees.

  Cammi wondered how Becca managed to buy makeup without her mom noticing. Well, that was the funny thing about Becca’s mom, she thought. Either Mrs. Hobbes was totally on Becca’s case for the littlest things (“Becca, I see three hairs in the bathroom sink, and they look like yours!”) or she was kind of weirdly absent. She was also the only mom Cammi knew who drank wine at lunch or took long afternoon naps. “Her grandmother was from Europe,” Becca liked to say whenever there was an open wine bottle on the kitchen counter in the middle of the day or they found her mom asleep on the couch. When they’d been little, Cammi had accepted that as a reasonable explanation. Now she’d seen enough movies and watched enough TV to think Riiiiight whenever Becca used some ancient European relative to explain her mom’s strange behavior.

  Cammi heard the upstairs toilet flush and scrambled to shut down the computer. She pulled her copy of Wonder out of her backpack and opened to a random page. They were reading Wonder in LA, and Cammi thought you could tell a lot about people by how they reacted to it. Henry Lloyd had brought in pictures of people with the main character’s condition he’d printed out from the Internet, and a lot of the boys had started yelling stuff like, “Dude, how rude is that?” and “Who puked up that face?”

  Bart Weems had looked at the pictures and shaken his head. “If we weren’t reading Wonder, I’d be totally grossed out,” he’d said. “But if I pretend these are pictures of Auggie, they don’t bother me so much.”

  Cammi had wanted to go up to Bart Weems and shake his hand, but unfortunately, Bart chewed his fingernails and his fingertips always looked waterlogged and mushroom-y, so Cammi didn’t actually want to touch them. Maybe she could write about that for the journal entry she was supposed to do for LA this weekend. She wouldn’t use Bart’s name, of course. But she could write about how you could like someone and see that they were a great person but still sort of be grossed out by them. She knew it wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to admit, but she felt like Mrs. Herrera would understand.

  Her phone buzzed. Cammi didn’t have to look to know it was Becca. She sighed. No offense, but she was starting to think it was time to take a Becca break. Her entire life, Becca had been making plans and Cammi had been following them. Some of Becca’s ideas over the years had been great—the lemonade stand they’d had this summer, where they made enough money to buy matching phone cases—and others had flopped big-time, like when they set up a sidewalk beauty parlor and dyed Flora Foote’s hair with cherry-flavored Kool-Aid. Good or bad, interesting or really stupid, Cammi always ended up going along with Becca’s plans because—because why? Because that was her role in life, she guessed. Because Becca pushed and pushed and pushed until it was just easier to say yes to whatever scheme she’d come up with than to resist.

  But this whole Carson Bennett campaign might be where Cammi finally put her foot down. Really, she was supposed to help Becca find ways to make Carson fall in love with her? Come on. Why couldn’t Becca see that boys like Carson didn’t like girls like Becca and Cammi?

  Or maybe he just didn’t like girls like Becca. Had Cammi ever considered that?

  She fell back as though the force of this idea had pushed her into the couch cushions. Did she actually have any evidence that Carson Bennett didn’t like her? Not like like, but like as in “didn’t actually find her all that irritating” or “had friendly feelings about her.” Last year they’d done a Spanish project together and gotten a B-, which was not a great grade for Cammi, but Carson had high-fived her and yelled, “All right, pardnah!” (This was something Carson could get away with, saying “pardnah” instead of “partner,” even if it was super dumb. If someone like Bart Weems had said it, the whole class would have gone quiet until someone started snickering behind their hand, and then everyone would have laughed until they were rolling out of their seats.)

  Maybe she should text Carson, just to say hi. She wouldn’t say anything stupid (definitely not Hi, pardnah! or even Hi, partner!). She could text something like Hey, have you studied for the Spanish quiz on Tuesday? It was the sort of question that didn’t have any secret meaning, and it wouldn’t be a big deal if their conversation didn’t go anywhere. She could just act like she was trying to figure out how much time she should spend on getting ready for the test.

  Cammi had to admit that it felt a little disloyal to text Carson, especially since she was totally ignoring Becca. Carson was Becca’s crush, not hers. But she wasn’t trying to get Carson to like her, not like her like her. She just wanted to see if Carson saw her as someone separate from Becca Hobbes. Someone who was kind of normal and fun and maybe even had her own plans and ideas. Good plans and ideas.

  She could hear her dad in the kitchen, making coffee. She didn’t want to text Carson in front of him, so she slipped her phone into her back pocket and tiptoed out of the family room and up the stairs. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to have her phone in her bedroom, but technically, only her mom remembered to check and her mom was still asleep.

  Her room was a mess, something she’d deal with after she sent Carson a text. It would keep her mind off waiting for him to text back. But wait—what if he didn’t text back? Then what?

  Then nothing, she decided. It wasn’t like he’d come up to her in homeroom on Monday and say, Hey, I got your text but I decided not to reply because you’re a big social zero. If Carson didn’t text back, Cammi would just pretend she’d never sent a text in the first place. No biggie.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and flopped down on her unmade bed. Carson was already in her contact list, because Becca had decided they should have all the popular people’s numbers in their contact lists. That way, if Carson or Petra or Garrison ever texted one of them, they wouldn’t have to text back, Who is this?

  Hi, this is Cammi. Are you going to study for the Spanish quiz this weekend, she wrote, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears, or are you going to wait until Monday night.

  She tapped send and then realized with horror she had put a period instead of a question mark at the end of the sentence. Would Carson think she was an idiot? Okay, she told herself, take a breath and calm down. What was the likelihood that someone like Carson Bennett would even notice? He wasn’t Ben McPherson, after all, Mr. Brainiac of the universe. To be honest, Cammi wasn’t even sure Carson was smart.

  She was kicking the clothes on the floor into a pile when her phone pinged. Barely thirty seconds had passed since she’d sent the text. Cammi’s hands started shaking. Had Carson Bennett really replied that fast? No, it was probably Becca again. Camm
i sighed and rolled her eyes. Why couldn’t Becca go five minutes without sending her a text? Could she be any more annoying?

  But when she picked up her phone, the name at the top of the screen wasn’t Becca’s. It was Carson’s.

  Carson Bennett had texted her back.

  Carson. Bennett.

  Yeah, I got a D on the last test and my moms really made, he’d written. You want to come over tomorrow and study? Unless you got a D too!

  Cammi took a deep breath. This could be a prank. She could say yes and Carson might text, You thought I was serious? He could be hanging out with his friends—his pardnahs—and they might all be laughing hysterically right this very minute. Still, what choice did Cammi have?

  Yeah, that sounds good, she wrote. What time?

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Took another deep breath. Waited.

  How about after lunch? Maybe like 1?

  Cool, Cammi texted back. See you then.

  Cool. C YA!

  Cammi stared at her phone. Was this really happening? She took a screenshot and was about to send it to Becca, but then she thought better of it. Becca would insist on coming over and planning what Cammi should wear and forcing her to brainstorm a list of ten conversation starters. She’d want to plot out a strategy for getting Carson to ask Cammi to the Fall Ball. She’d probably want to dye Cammi’s hair with cherry-flavored Kool-Aid. She’d probably ask to come along. No, Cammi decided. She’d better keep Becca out of this.

  She clicked on Becca’s last text. Sorry, she wrote. I’m not feeling so good. My mom says I better stay home this weekend.

  Then she fell back against her pillow and started to laugh. She was going over to Carson Bennett’s house tomorrow! Where next? The White House? Buckingham Palace?

  Carson Bennett’s house? Cammi sat up straight. What if she went over there and said stupid things and Carson ended up hating her? Okay, don’t panic, she thought. Carson likes sports. You like sports. You could talk about how cool it is that Mrs. Herrera has a football signed by Jim Brown. Cammi hadn’t actually known who Jim Brown was until she asked her dad, who told her he had been a running back for Cleveland in the 1960s and was one of the greatest football players ever. Maybe Cammi could spend time this afternoon doing some research on Jim Brown and use it as a conversation starter. So I guess you probably know all about Jim Brown, she’d say casually, and if Carson said no, he didn’t really know all that much, then Cammi could impress him with her extensive Jim Brown knowledge.

  Down the hall, the toilet flushed in her parents’ bathroom. Cammi scrambled out of bed, shoving her phone in her pocket. Her mom was up. Time to go downstairs and restart her morning. She grabbed the September Girls’ Life on the way out of her room. A little football talk, some lip gloss… Tomorrow could be a very interesting day.

  Chapter Five

  Ben

  Sunday, October 1

  When Ben’s mom knocked on his door Sunday morning, Ben pretended to be asleep, even after she’d peeked into his room and said, “Ben? Honey? Are you up? Because I’m leaving for church in thirty minutes, and I’d like you to go.”

  Ben thought about asking if his dad was going, but that was risky. On the one hand, if his mom said no—and Ben knew there was a slightly higher than average chance that she would—then Ben could say, “I’m going to stay home with Dad” and get away with it. His parents were putting a serious emphasis on father-son time now that Ben was about to turn twelve, one year short of becoming a terrible teenager.

  But if she said yes, then Ben would have no choice. His best option, he decided, was to pretend to be asleep. His mother would go downstairs, make his sister Sadie breakfast and then braid Sadie’s hair, and by the time she remembered to check on Ben again, it would be too late. A year ago she might have made him go anyway, but that was before Ben had started giving a running commentary of the service and Pastor Alamance’s sermons. “I’m trying to pray here,” his mother would hiss at him. “Prayer is highly unscientific,” Ben would whisper back, and she’d smack his knee and ignore him for the rest of church, even as he continued his critique.

  As soon as he heard his mother sigh and shut the door, Ben sat up. He took his glasses off his nightstand and put them on, bringing his room into focus. Right now his plan was to stay in bed and read until his mother and Sadie left for church, after which he’d go downstairs and ask his dad to make french toast.

  From outside his window came the sound of bottles crashing into a bin. He bet it was Lila Willis’s mom emptying out the recycling from the party yesterday. He still couldn’t believe his mom had made him go. Why oh why did the Yangs have to move this summer and make their house available to anyone who wanted to buy it? And if they had to move, why did someone like Lila Willis have to move in and make Ben’s life miserable?

  “You’ve been invited to a party!” Ben’s mother had declared the minute he’d walked in the door on Friday afternoon. “Lila across the street is having a special and supersecret birthday party tomorrow and you’re one of the special people she’s invited!”

  Ben had dropped his backpack on the foyer floor and brushed past his mother on the way to the kitchen. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Lila hates me.”

  “How could she hate you?” his mother chirped. “You’re neighbors!”

  His mother was always saying things like that. Half the time she made absolutely no sense at all.

  “Trust me, Mom,” Ben said as he opened the fridge and searched around for something to eat. “Lila Willis does not like me. She thinks I’m a geek. Which, strictly speaking, I am. But in my opinion, being a geek is a good thing. In Lila’s opinion, it’s the worst thing in the world.”

  “Then it’s up to you to change her opinion!” Ben’s mother reached around him and pulled out a bowl of grapes from the refrigerator. “Eat these, honey. Or something healthy.”

  Ben took the bowl of grapes. Maybe that could be their trade-off: he would eat grapes and she would leave him alone.

  But no.

  “What I don’t understand is why Lila would invite you if she didn’t like you,” his mother said. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Sitting down at the kitchen table, Ben picked up the book he’d been reading that morning and started where he’d left off. Sometimes if he ignored his mother, she’d go back to her office upstairs, with the warning that they were not done with their discussion.

  Not today, unfortunately. She sat down at the table across from him and said, “Seriously, Ben. I think it’s nice you’ve been invited to a party. You need to make some new friends now that Justin has moved.”

  “Stefan is my friend,” Ben said. “What’s wrong with Stefan?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Stefan, but all you boys do is play on the computer.”

  “We play Settlers of Catan and Risk,” Ben pointed out. “And sometimes we play Dungeons and Dragons.”

  His mother raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, I’m not crazy about that.”

  Ben shrugged and continued to read.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” his mother insisted. “Why would she invite you if she didn’t like you?”

  This was the fascinating thing to Ben about his mother: she just couldn’t believe that someone might dislike him. The idea that many of his classmates disliked him was incomprehensible to her. Ben didn’t have the heart to explain that kids like him and Stefan were just too geeky to fit in, and even more importantly, they didn’t want to. Why would he care if Lila or that idiot Carson liked him? They had a combined IQ of three.

  He could see from the look on his mom’s face that he was going to have to go to Lila’s party. There was no getting around it. “Okay, fine, I’ll go for an hour,” he said with a sigh, ignoring his mom’s victorious smile.

  At four p.m. on Saturday afternoon, he’d gone across the street with a book for Book Harvest in one hand and a birthday card with a Barnes & Noble gift card in the other. He’d picked a book he’d
read at least five times and wouldn’t mind reading again at the party. He hoped there was a comfortable lawn chair he could move to the corner of the yard, because that was his party plan: read for an hour and then go home.

  The look on Lila’s face when she saw him told Ben everything he needed to know. Her mother had made her invite him. “Food’s over there,” she told him, pointing to a table on the deck. “Pool’s there, obviously. We’ve got extra towels.”

  “I might swim later,” Ben said, which was a big fat lie. He hadn’t even brought his suit. “It’s a little chilly right now. Did you ever consider that fall is a strange time to have a pool party?”

  “Whatever,” Lila said, and then ran back to the pool, yelling, “Watch out, Matt, because I’m going to get you when you’re not looking!”

  Ben knew exactly where he wanted to hang out. When he and Justin Yang had been in third grade, they’d built a kingdom under the willow tree in the back corner of the yard. They’d called it Willowland, and they ruled it together, organizing their armies against the evil Lion Monster (also known as Justin’s cat, Sally, who usually avoided them as much as possible when they were occupying Willowland). By fourth grade, they’d moved inside, into the world of Minecraft, but for a while Ben was obsessed with the world they’d created. He’d even had dreams about it.

  Dragging a lawn chair across the lawn, Ben was hardly aware there was a party going on behind him. Third grade was the last time he’d spent much time in Justin’s backyard, and now it was all coming back to him, how the air you breathed under the willow tree seemed different from regular air. It was cooler and fresher and somehow more alive.