Rebels Like Us

by Liz Reinhardt

  I flounce to my chair, my heart so light, I warn myself to pull away before I wind up like Icarus, too close to the sun and falling hard.

  “Doyle Rahn. Fancy meeting you here.” I smile at the familiar face sitting one row over, two seats back, and get an eyeful of daggers from every girl in between us.

  Doyle either doesn’t know he’s the object of all the girls’ wanton desire or he’s so used to it, he doesn’t notice anymore. Because the smile he tosses back is all for me. It’s so magnetic, I wonder how I missed it yesterday.

  “Guava, huh? Your yard would be perfect for a guava tree, y’know.” He props his feet up on the crossbar under the desk. He’s wearing these brown boots that are crusted with dirt, no laces, clunky and ruggedly attractive all at once.

  Lincoln would have never been caught dead in dirty footwear.

  “I watered that stick last night. Only because I don’t kick a man when he’s down, and that sad excuse for a plant is so down.” I ball up a piece of notebook paper, double-check to make sure Lovett’s back is turned, and anchor it on the pad of my thumb, then let my index finger trigger it right over some pouty girl’s head.

  Doyle catches it neatly without taking his eyes off my face. “It’s gonna grow. It’s gonna get so big, you’ll be able to climb up in the branches. Maybe kiss. You know, like the song.” The tips of his ears burn red, and I realize he’s flirting. With me. And I’m game to flirt right back.

  One half of the Day-Glo spray-tan twins huffs loudly. I notice her sending Doyle extra eyelash bats across the desks, which he doesn’t pay a single second’s attention to. It’s always sweet when karma pops up out of nowhere and slams a dumb ass upside the head.

  “Like Doyle and Nes sitting in a tree?” I laugh, then shake my head. “Uh-uh. Trust me, that version of the song does not exist. And here I thought you were a gentleman.”

  “I was raised with manners.” His steady words scratch in my ears. “But I was also born with eyes.”

  “Smooth.” I pull the word long so he won’t hear my voice hitch around it. “Anyway, I don’t plan on being around long enough for that sad little almost tree to hold up a hummingbird’s nest, let alone two teenagers. I’m on a countdown to get out of here.”

  “Good riddance,” Queen Bee Mean Girl mumbles.

  I whip around. “Hello? Passive-aggressive?” She looks up at me with furiously shocked eyes. “Before you mutter anything else under your breath, let me introduce myself. I’m Agnes. Oh, but you know that because you made fun of my name before you even met me. The thing is, I prefer my fights in the open. So if you have something to say, don’t mutter under your breath. It just irritates me and makes you look scared.” The indignation on her face causes a pulse of happiness to ripple through me. “Do you have a name?”

  I hear Alonzo snicker. “Hoo, burn. That had to sting.”

  “Ansley Strickland,” she says through gritted teeth. “My daddy always says Yanks like to talk a big game. Don’t think you intimidate me. You think you’re hot shit, Agnes, but my family owns half this county. You better back on up, bitch.”

  “Ignore her, Agnes. Ansley thinks she owns this school.” Alonzo rolls his eyes so hard, all I can see is the bright, ghostly whites.

  “Of course you think she’s funny, Lonzo. Just because someone runs their mouth don’t mean they’re tough.” She grabs the end of her ponytail and twists the shiny blond hair around her finger like a tourniquet.

  “Look, maybe you two got off on the wrong foot.” Khabria sounds like she should be narrating a meditation tape. “Agnes is new here. The Rose Court is supposed to be about welcoming people to Ebenezer.”

  Maybe it was all getting off on the wrong feet, and not the fact that Ansley is a heinous excuse for a human being.

  “I don’t have a clue what the Rose Princess is supposed to do, Khabria, but the Rose Queen upholds the traditions of this school.” She flicks her now-curled ponytail back over her shoulder, and I watch Khabria’s eyes go wild like her pupils are the swirling centers of twin hurricanes.

  Nope. Definitely Ansley being heinous after all.

  “You ain’t the winner of that crown yet, Ansley,” Doyle drawls. “You keep acting like you’re too good for us peasants, you might have a Marie Antoinette moment on your hands.”

  “What are you even going on about, Doyle?” Ansley snaps. “You know, you’re only embarrassing yourself showing off like that. You’re the one acting like he’s too good for the rest of us, goin’ on about Marie Whoever like anyone even knows what you’re even tryin’ to say.”

  “Ah, hell no,” Alonzo hoots. “Jest c’mon and admit you’re the only one who doesn’t know what happened to Marie Antoinette, Ansley. Admit it. Everyone knows you failed European history so bad, even your daddy couldn’t help you outta that mess.”

  “Shut up, Alonzo,” she hisses, but her blush is pretty convincing evidence that Alonzo’s dropped the guillotine right on the neck.

  “How does a guy who doesn’t know where Brooklyn is know all these details about European history?” Khabria crosses her arms and shakes her head.

  “Well, if some queen gets her head cut off by a bunch of pissed-off poor folk in Brooklyn, I guess I’ll take notes,” Lonzo shoots back.

  “Really? That’s what you think about me, Doyle?” Ansley’s face has deepened from pink to maroon. “I know you’re pissed about what happened between us, but you really think I deserve to have my head chopped off?”

  “I meant it as a metaphor.” Doyle leans forward and lowers his voice. “And I’m not pissed about…that anymore.”

  But Ansley is twisted in her seat, shredding her notebook paper into confetti. “So now you talk in metaphors? I remember the days when you just said what you meant. Funny you think I’m the one acting like e’rybody else is beneath me.”

  Before the stew of crazy comments can go any further, the late bell buzzes and we all swing around to face forward. Ma’am Lovett seems to sense something more than idle before-the-bell chatter was brewing, but she only gives us her no-nonsense face, and we respond to that look like a class of guava-bearing angels and stay on our best behavior. By the time the bell rings, my hand is cramped from all my Hemingway notes, and my brain feels buzzy.

  As I rise from my desk, Doyle ambles over, wedges a hip close to mine, and leads me out the door. Up close, the way he smells makes me feel, I think, the way guavas make Ma’am Lovett feel. I bend my head so that my nose is close to his shoulder, and his scent is warm and rich, like hay in the sun, but with something crisp on the edge. I’d have guessed aftershave, but a blond prickle of five o’clock shadow covers his jaw.

  “You’re new here, so you couldn’t know, butcha prolly don’t want to mess with Ansley,” Doyle says as we walk. He has one arm circled around my waist, held a few inches back. If either one of us moved closer, his hand would close over my hip and he’d lock me tight to his side.

  But he doesn’t, and I sure as hell won’t.

  “Thank you very, very much, but I think I’m well equipped to handle my own nemesis.” I level him with a hard look and dare him to challenge my badassery. He cannot seriously think Ansley could take me in any form of a fair fight. She doesn’t even know the basics of the French Revolution.

  “She can be real spiteful is all. And she was—” He interrupts himself and rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “The thing is—”

  When he doesn’t finish his thought, I sigh and angle through the crowds, almost losing him over and over. He closes one hand around my elbow before I can go into my next class. I lean against the cinder block wall and roll my eyes when he pulls close. “Listen, I appreciate the concern and all, but I have no interest in listening to some big speech about Ansley or her little idiot friend—”

  “Braelynn.”

  “Okay. Ansley and Braelynn don’t intimidate me. I seriously don’t care who anyone’s daddy is or how much pull anyone thinks they have. Honestly, I think it’s pathetic.” I tug my arm out of
his grasp.

  “I know you don’t. And I admire that about you. But Ansley really does have major pull ’round here, and if she has you in her sights—”

  “Agnes?” Mr. Webster sticks his head into the hall.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir.” Doyle whispers it as a soft reminder for me.

  I bristle, but he puts his hand back on my arm, and his touch steadies me. Which is infuriating. “Yes, sir?”

  Mr. Webster sighs and pinches the bridge of his handsome nose. “They’d like to see you in Principal Armstrong’s office.”

  Doyle’s mouth pulls tight. “Damn,” he mutters when the teacher ducks back into the classroom.

  “I’m new here. It’s probably a schedule thing,” I say with way more confidence than I actually feel. “C’mon, you really think Ansley already ran to tattle on me to the principal?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Pissed is a strangely hot look on Doyle. I thought he was working it with the sexy smiles, but scowls? He’s got this whole angry, tortured-youth vibe twisted around a sweet core that does it for me.

  O’frescome, what is this guy doing to me?

  “So, you’re telling me that her family is so almighty, they’ve even got the high school principal in their pocket?” I tease.

  But my joke obviously sucks, because Doyle grabs my hand and marches me to the main office.

  “I just registered the other day. I’m perfectly capable of finding the front office on my own.”

  “There’s something you don’t get, Nes.”

  “More Ansley intrigue? You guys need to get a new obsession. I don’t think—”

  “The principal is her uncle,” he finally grits out.

  “Oh.” My steps drop heavier. Slower.

  “And she and I—”

  “You and Ansley?”

  “Yeah. We, uh…”

  “You two…?”

  “Um…yep.”

  “Oh.”

  Oh.

  It all snaps into hyperfocus and my stomach churns.

  I break the link our hands made and swing the office door open.

  “Nes! Wait a sec,” Doyle pleads.

  “You’re going to be massively late for class. And then your ex-girlfriend will run and tell her uncle, and we’ll both be in detention together.” I shrug at him, every muscle in my back and neck tight. “Just when I think this place might not be so bad, it gets sucky on a whole new level. Shoo, Doyle. I’ve got unjust punishment to deal with.”

  He thumps back a few steps, then jogs away, heavy on his boots.

  I straighten and face the glass doors that lead to my possible doom. It’s not like I’m unused to principals’ offices. I love learning, but the rigidness of school grates on me. It was a problem even in my free-spirited Quaker school.

  My easygoing Dominican father gave me his killer dance moves and quick smile, but I inherited my socially blunt mother’s explosive Irish temper. I plod to the line of plastic chairs—the hallmark of the naughty corner outside every principal’s office from Brooklyn to Backassward, Georgia—and announce my presence to a secretary, who shakes her head like she already knows my verdict.

  Clearly guilty. Guillotine for me.

  “Agnes Pujols?” a voice of manly authority bellows.

  “Agnes Murphy-Pujols,” I correct before looking up at the voice’s owner.

  “Excuse me?” A balding man at least seven feet tall with the crooked nose of a hawk glares down at me.

  “My last name. It’s hyphenated. Murphy-Pujols.” We exchange a long, bristling stare, and I remember Doyle’s whisper outside Mr. Webster’s classroom. “Sir.”

  “Come into my office, Ms. Murphy-Pujols.” My principal holds out his arm like he’s some overlord, el Matatan, inviting me in for war talks.

  I force one foot in front of the other and realize, with a sinking heart, that I’m treading toward my scholastic doom. I’m not afraid to admit I’m scared. I went to a Quaker school for my entire life. Quakers are people known for friendship and brotherly love. I’m now walking into a disciplinary office in a state that was founded as a penal colony.

  Coño, this doesn’t bode well.

  FIVE

  He busies himself with a thousand minute tasks while I sit and stare, the most basic technique in the campaign of intimidation meant to subdue me. I’m used to authority figures looking over their glasses, sighing, and telling me how disappointed they are. Armstrong is introducing a whole new set of tactics, but I’m nothing if not adaptable.

  I just need to remember my sirs.

  “Agnes, this is your…second day at Ebenezer High.” His mouth sours.

  “Yes…sir,” I say, even if it makes the hair on my arms stand on end to say it.

  “And I assume you got the student handbook when you registered.” He folds his hands, desperate prayer-style. On his left ring finger he wears a plain gold wedding band. On his right he wears what looks like a huge class ring, with a sparkling ruby and a screaming eagle etched into the gold.

  “Sure did, sir.” I keep my voice chipper enough to set his teeth on edge. I got the fat packet in the mail, pulled out the few necessary papers, and forgot the rest.

  “Then you know we have rules here at Ebenezer. I know you don’t come from around here, so you may not realize that we take pride in being the best high school in the area.” His smile is smug.

  I put a tight lid on the snort that nearly bursts out of my nose. Best high school in this area isn’t saying much. The abysmal testing rates were one of the things I threw in Mom’s face. She begged me to consider private schools, but I figured if I was going to have my life fall apart for a few months, I’d do it without the additional torture of a tartan skirt and knee-highs, thank you very much.

  “No, I’m not from around here,” I agree, zero hesitation. “And I understand that there are rules, but where I come from I guess we’re a little more direct. So when I said what I did to Ansley—”

  “Ansley Strickland has nothing to do with this situation, Agnes,” Mr. Armstrong cuts in too quickly, his tone testy. I clap my mouth shut while he lies to my face. “Several of your teachers mentioned dress-code violations. I sense that there may also be an attitude problem.”

  “Dress code?” I echo.

  Which teachers? Why didn’t they tell me? My brain whirs, searching for answers, and then it all snaps together. This is like some John Grisham novel where they can’t get the guys on murder, so they finger them for a million counts of petty mail fraud.

  He can’t let me know Ansley tattled, so he’s going to invent other trumped-up charges.

  “First of all, there’s the problem of your piercing. The rule book clearly states two holes in each ear is the maximum allowed, and any other piercings are prohibited.” He glares at the tiny diamond stud I’ve had on the side of my nose since I was a sophomore. I got it the day Ollie got her Monroe piercing and the studs we chose wound up so small, it was a pretty underwhelming rebellion. “It’s also been reported you have a tattoo.” In front of him is a paper that maps out a never-ending bulleted list.

  “My tattoo?” I squawk the words like a repeating parrot, even though I clearly heard Captain Buzzkill the first time.

  I do have a tattoo… A red A in fancy cursive, my own scarlet letter. On the back of my neck. Considering my bob grew out and my thick, curly hair now reaches my shoulders, no one would have seen that tattoo.

  Except that I do tend to pull my hair up when I’m busy with classwork. Like Hemingway notes. But a person would have to be sitting behind me to notice.

  Huh, isn’t it funny that Ansley happens to sit right behind me?

  “That tattoo is covered by my hair—” I begin to object, totally losing my cool, but my new principal’s face is bland as he interrupts me.

  “I’m glad you mentioned your hair. I hope that color is some kind of washout, Agnes—”

  “This color cost a small fortune and was put in by one of the hair technicians who worked on What
Not to Wear—”

  “Speaking of ‘what not to wear,’ as a young lady trying to make positive first impressions in a new school, you may want to reconsider your wardrobe choices.”

  I yanked on this particular T-shirt this morning because my sunburn made my back and shoulders a tight, itchy swath of irritated skin. I dripped as much aloe as I could on it after sobbing through an icy shower. My choice in clothes was completely comfort based: Ollie and I organized a breast cancer 5k freshman year and completed it in our Save the Tatas shirts, and I’ve worn mine so many times since then, it’s now tissue-weight cotton that doesn’t cling or rub. Perfect for sunburned skin. And to raise awareness for breast cancer, of course.

  Because who wouldn’t want to save tatas? A man who’s willing to play head games on a high school level would clearly be adverse to tata saving. Jerkwad.

  Make that Principal Jerkwad, sir.

  “I’ll give you to the end of the week to sort your issues out, Agnes. We’re not looking to pick on you here at Ebenezer High. We want to help you fit in and have a positive experience. Welcome to our school.”

  He says those last four words without a trace of irony. And just like that, I’m dismissed back into the cold halls of Ebenezer High, the school I thought I could take on. Now I realize those movies about clique-run, autocratic high schools that treasure conformity and beat down the slightest rebellion get made because those high schools exist, and the rebels survive to tell the tale on the big screen.

  I think I’ve just become the president of Ebenezer’s goddamn Breakfast Club.

  Which is fine, except for the fact that I might also be the sole member.

  I look at my pass and realize the secretary scribbled the time illegibly and a person could read the minute spot as a twenty or as a fifty. Which means I can hole up for half an hour and still use my pass.

  Gone are the days when an understanding school counselor I’d known most of my young life would pull me into a cozy office, hear me out, and help me smooth things over. I’m on my own here. And with a so-obvious target on my back, I’ll have to keep my eyes wide-open or I’ll wind up smiling at a cheering crowd while buckets of pig blood get dumped over me.