by Alyson Noel
In the looks department, on a scale from Dougall Clement’s crazy Einstein hair, vitamin D−deprived skin, and skinny body of the type some people call wiry to Josh Frost’s obvious perfection, I’d say I’m closer to Josh.
I mean, we both have the kind of straight brown hair that sometimes flops in our eyes. We both have eyes that aren’t exactly green or brown, so people call them hazel. And as for the rest of our features, well, they’re pretty much standard issue—it’s just that Josh’s are better situated. And even though I had a two-inch growth spurt last summer, it still leaves me four inches shorter than Josh’s five feet nine. But my mom swears I’m still growing, so there’s hope that I’ll catch up.
In other words, the raw materials are all there. And while I’m fully aware that there’s nothing outstanding about me, I think it’s worth noting that there’s nothing especially hideous about me either.
Not like it makes a difference.
Seventh-grade girls like guys who are cool.
What they don’t like are guys who, during the first week of the new school year, shout “Yes!” when their science teacher ambushes them with a pop quiz. Fist pump included.
They also don’t like it when that same guy, oblivious to his classmates’ searing looks of disdain, not only finishes his quiz first, but gets the perfect score that inspires the teacher to grade on a curve, deeming Smart Guy the one to beat.
While it may have made me the undisputed star of sixth-grade science, it’s a move I will never live down. In the eyes of my peers, I became the Brainiac Nerd they should all work to avoid.
Not long after that, I embarked on what I secretly call my Campaign for Cool. I started by replacing that fifth-grade certificate on my wall with a poster of Josh Frost.
It probably seems weird to have the same poster on my wall that most girls tape inside their lockers, but I’m in desperate need of a social mentor. And since Josh is only five years older and grew up in the same town, even went to this school (maybe even sat in this seat!), well, clearly there’s no one better to guide me.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I’m some cautionary tale in the making. I fully intend to maintain my grades so I can get into a good college and live up to the promise of that fifth-grade certificate.
But first I’d really like to get a girlfriend, preferably one named Tinsley Barnes, before the end of seventh grade. Unlike Dougall, who refuses to adapt to the rules of our new social environment.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, hoping to switch the conversation to a much cooler subject, “but I plan to take back the clock for a nice long Christmas break, as soon as this final bell rings.” I lean back even farther, folding my hands behind my head just like Mac Turtledove. Then I glance over at Tinsley and Ivy, willing them to notice, but they’re too busy laughing hysterically at whatever Mac is saying.
“And then what?” Dougall frowns, waving his hand before me so I’ll focus on him. “Soon as we return, we’re right back to it. Heck, look at Sparks….” He nods toward the front of the room. “What’s he, like, fifty—sixty? He’s been chasing the bell his whole life. It never ends.”
“Thirty-four,” Plum Bailey pipes up, and Dougall shifts toward her as I fix my gaze on the clock, urging the big hand to speed up. “Sparks. He’s thirty-four.” Plum swivels all the way around in her seat until she’s facing me.
Even though I refuse to actually look at her, it’s safe to assume that her bony white hands are nervously twisting the sleeves of her sweater as her annoying brown eyes gawp my face, hoping I’ll be dumb enough to accidentally return the look so she can grin at me with a mouthful of braces.
Let me backtrack.
When I said there isn’t a single girl in this entire school who’s remotely impressed by my brain, I wasn’t counting Plum.
In my defense, I don’t really think of Plum as a girl. I mean, she’s got all the usual girl parts. Not that I’ve checked or anything. But she does wear a lot of homemade dresses and skirts, so I think that’s safe to assume. And even though we used to kind of be friends, when it comes to things like social status, Plum isn’t the kind of girl anyone notices.
She’s like Dougall in that she mostly values the kinds of things no one else in this school gives a flying flip about. Reading, extra-credit assignments, good grades, getting excused from PE—same kinds of things I used to care about (and still secretly do), only, unlike Plum, I’m no longer in the business of advertising that part of myself.
Not to mention that, also unlike Plum, I had the good sense to hide my own mom-made Christmas sweater at the bottom of my backpack. The second you’re seen in that thing, you’re pretty much dead on arrival.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: the fact that Plum is impressed by my being a Brain only goes to prove that being a Brain isn’t cool.
But Dougall is somehow immune to all that, which is why he actually risks speaking to Plum without even bothering to lower his voice.
“How could you possibly know that?” He squints, as though Sparks’s age is part of a much bigger conspiracy.
“He’s married to my mom’s friend’s cousin Chantal. She’s from France. That’s where they got married. My mom’s friend’s cousin even went to their wedding in Paris, and she—”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Sparks is married? To a French lady? Named Chantal?” I shift my attention back to Sparks, trying to make sense of how this could possibly happen.
Sparks—with his skinny arms and shiny scalp—the unhealthy obsession with diagramming sentences—and expressions so exaggerated he looks elastic, like he might snap at any second.
He’s married to a Parisian lady with a superhot name, and I can’t even get Tinsley Barnes to acknowledge my existence?
Is life seriously that unfair?
“My mom’s friend’s cousin said Paris is just as romantic in person as it is in the movies.” Plum sighs, her gaze never once veering from me, as though she’s imagining me whisking her there in a heart-shaped hot-air balloon. “Someday I really hope to visit—”
The sound of her voice is broken by the much anticipated driiiiiiiing of the school bell, which is all it takes to whip us from a state of complete inertia into an absolute frenzy of bodies stampeding for the door.
I grab my backpack, swing it over my shoulder, and shove off my chair, ready to join the masses, when I discover that the numbness from my butt has spread to my feet. My legs will no longer hold me, and I face-plant smack onto the dirty tiled floor.
“Oh my gosh!” Plum squeals.
“Nick—you okay?” Dougall asks.
I lift my head just in time to see Tinsley Barnes and Ivy Wilburn step right over me like I’m nothing more than a felled tree in their path. The two of them head out the door in hot pursuit of Mac Turtledove.*2
* * *
*1 The deadliest Big Fat Lie of them all—the one that kick-started this mess.
*2 This is clearly the moment when I should’ve called it quits and crawled home.
11:56 A.M.—12:17 P.M.
LUNCHTIME PURGATORY
If you were to survey a group of average middle school students, asking them to name their favorite class, nine out of ten would reply “lunch break,” even though it doesn’t qualify as an actual class. But if you were to ask me, I wouldn’t hesitate to say, “Science, closely followed by math.” Mainly because those thirty minutes between English and algebra pretty much qualify as my own personal hell.
My mom likes to claim that no matter how bad a situation may seem, it could always be worse, and in most cases that’s true. I mean, at least I have Dougall to sit with, and most days Plum too.*1 But while eating on the small square of grass outside the library will never be considered as pathetic as choking down a sandwich in the hallway outside the bathrooms like the lowliest kids at our school, the fact that I’m one step above that untouchable crowd doesn’t really provide the level of comfort you’d think.
I had high hopes when I started at G
reentree. I’d spent most of the summer watching a bunch of teen movies so I’d know what to expect, and I fully imagined myself at the center of the cafeteria action with Tinsley on one side and Ivy on the other, only to instead get rejected from every table I attempted to join. Even the ones that were mostly empty shunned me with shaking heads and rolling eyes. Leaving me to wonder what my peers could possibly find so repulsive about me that they’d discard me on sight.
Maybe I didn’t have the sort of automatic cool-table access granted to people like Tinsley, Ivy, and Mac Turtledove, who’d ruled from the top of the popularity pyramid stretching back to nursery school, but I was wearing new clothes, my hair looked more or less decent, and it’s not like I smelled bad. But when Plum piped up from behind me, suggesting we all head outside, and when Dougall agreed, well, it suddenly became all too clear that my friends were the problem, not me.
Dougall and Plum might have been okay back in elementary school, but now that we were moving up in the world, there was no denying the fact that, between their weird clothes and even weirder interests, like Plum’s love of reading just for the fun of it and Dougall’s numerous conspiracy theories, they were keeping me from the elite life that should’ve been mine. As long as I continued to stay friends with them, my dreams of popularity would never be realized.
If you think that sounds cruel, then let me remind you that cafeteria politics are a harsh and merciless game. Every table is like a brutal medieval kingdom with a single bloodthirsty ruler at the helm, deciding on a whim who’s in and who’s out. Even the most minor infraction can result in banishment to a lesser table with no hope of return. In case you think that makes for an opening that needs to be filled, think again. In the one and a half years I’ve been at this school, I’ve never once seen someone ascend. But soon that will change, and the throne will be mine.
Until then, I’m left with no choice but to head to my own personal Siberia, which, like the cruel joke it is, requires me to walk right past the cool table.
Usually I duck my head and walk really fast, but today I do the unthinkable: I purposely stop right where Mac Turtledove sits. And even though my heart is beating like crazy and my armpits are all damp and sweaty, I still screw up the courage to look right at him and say, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Turtledove. Won’t be long before you’re eating in purgatory.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t actually say the words out loud.
Maybe I only said them in my head.
Still, just knowing it’s true is a victory all its own.
Only, instead of moving on as I should, I continue to stand there like the nerd they’re convinced that I am. Mainly because they all just continue talking and laughing like I’m completely invisible. Which, as far as superpowers go, would be a pretty cool one to have. But even the Invisible Man is seen some of the time. As far as these people are concerned, I don’t even exist.
It’s only when Dougall comes up behind me and says, “Nick, what the heck?” that I make for the other side of the room, push through the door, and head for the brown and balding butt-shaped patch of grass marking the space where every former Greentree failure has sat through the years.*2 And I can’t help but wonder how Dougall will feel when we return from winter break and he’s sitting here alone or, even worse, stuck with just Plum, since there’s no way I can invite him to sit at the cool table with me. It makes me feel bad, since we’re so used to eating together, but despite how powerful I’m about to become, there’s no way I can bring him along if he refuses to change. Let’s face it, for Dougall to be accepted by the people I’m about to become friends with, he’d have to transform pretty much everything about himself—the clothes, the personality—he’d basically have to become a completely different person.
“What took you so long?” Plum balances a cupcake with pink icing on the palm of her hand as her gaze settles on me. “Everything okay?”
I close my eyes and tilt my face toward the clouds, intent on ignoring her, which seems like the best way to go, even though it practically never works. No matter what I do, she insists on liking me in a way I will never reciprocate.
“Nick was having a staring contest with the back of Mac Turtledove’s head.” Dougall jabs a thumb at me and rolls his eyes.
“You have nothing to worry about.” Plum’s voice is so sincere it annoys me even more. “Mac doesn’t stand a chance against you.”
Dougall grunts, then flips the tab on the Coke he brought from home. And when I see the way it bubbles and spurts out the top, dribbling all over his hands, well, it’s just one more example of why I have no choice but to lose him. There’s no getting around it—Dougall is completely uncool.
“I still don’t get why you’re determined to do this.” He wipes his hands on his jeans, seemingly unfazed by the fact that they’re going to be sticky for the rest of the day.
“Nick has a gift.” Plum shrugs like it’s a fact. “And when you have a gift, you need to share it with the world.”
“Please.” Dougall tips his head back and laughs. “Nick’s just trying to get Tinsley Barnes’s attention.”
I frown. There’s no point in explaining myself when it’s clear we have different ambitions, different visions. When I think about it, it’s amazing our friendship has lasted this long.
“All I know is, Nick’s going to crush it.” Plum bites into her cupcake. “There’s no doubt.” She chases the words with a grin so big I’m practically blinded by the sight of chapped lips and small chunks of partially chewed cupcake stuck in her braces.
It’s all the right words spoken by the exact wrong person. If that kind of support came from anyone else, like, seriously, anyone else, it might hold some meaning. Maybe even help boost my confidence. But coming from Plum, well, it just makes me desperate to leave. It may be the last day we’ll all eat together, but I see no point in prolonging the inevitable.
I chuck my half-eaten sandwich back in my bag and stand.
“Where you going?” Dougall squints. “Bell hasn’t even rung yet.”
Again with the bells.
“I need a little prep time,” I say, stealing the line Josh Frost always uses when he slips away for a few moments of silence before a big show.
Plum nods like she totally gets me, while Dougall screws up his face like he doesn’t even know who I am.
And that’s how I leave them—one nodding, one squinting—as I head back inside. And the funny thing is, I’m not even tempted to look back and wave goodbye.
* * *
*1 If it were up to me, Plum wouldn’t sit with us. This is entirely Dougall’s fault.
*2 On snow days we eat in the library. As long as we clean up our crumbs and don’t spill, the librarians don’t mind.
12:48 P.M.—1:49 P.M.
GOOD OMEN #1*1
In honor of Greentree’s most famous (and only) homegrown celebrity, the gym received a makeover. There are blue and yellow streamers (our school colors) hanging from the ceiling and big yellow stars and WELCOME banners posted all over the walls. When Josh Frost takes the stage, well, even the most die-hard, self-proclaimed haters can’t keep from getting caught up in the excitement of being in the same room as a real live, flesh-and-blood celebrity.
Everyone is shouting, clapping, and stomping their feet, and the girls are all screaming, “Josh—omigod, I love you!”
I’m too busy studying Josh to join the hysteria. The way he stands before the mike, arms hanging casually by his sides, chin tilted ever so slightly, gaze moving slowly along the bleachers as though he’s actually looking at each and every individual…well, it’s clear why he rocketed straight to the top. For someone so used to screaming fans, he still manages to appear as though he’s surprised by the attention.
The guy’s a pro.
I can really learn a lot from him.
When the crowd starts clamoring for him to sing his new Christmas single, “Twelve Days,” Josh just laughs and says the show’s about us, not him. Which only makes the screams g
row louder.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Twelve Days” is the song I’ve been rehearsing, and Josh is such a superstar, I can’t risk being overshadowed by him.
While he’s busy charming the crowd with funny stories about his time here at Greentree, the teachers gather the performers backstage and make us line up in order of appearance.
Chloe Fields, a B-list seventh grader (she eats lunch at the second-coolest table), goes first. When she finally takes the stage and starts belting out a song, I’m shocked by how many people start clapping and singing along, because her voice isn’t that great and it’s clearly off-key. But no one seems to notice. They just act like they’re enjoying it.
I shake my head, amazed at how low the bar is already set. Still, no matter how much they pretend to like it now, by the end of the show, Chloe Fields will be no more than a blur.
There’s a strategy for everything in life, and talent shows are no different. If you have any hope of winning, you’re better off going near the end. It guarantees a lasting impression.
I’m up second to last.
I consider it Good Omen #1.
Five sixth-grade guys go next, doing a pretty poor rendition of a boy-band song, if you ask me, but once again, other than a few boos quickly shut down by the school administrators, everyone gets into it.
Which only goes to show how boring Greentree can be.
We’re so desperate for entertainment we’ll clap for any lame act they stick in front of us.
“Nick, you sure about this?” Dougall, having snuck around the back, yanks on my hoodie, his expression clearly revealing what he’s really thinking: You’re about to make an epic mistake by taking that stage—you’re not nearly as gifted as you think. Truth is, Dougall’s never really supported my dreams, and he definitely doesn’t get the importance of fully imagining the life you want to live. Not to mention, he’s not a Josh Frost fan. When I put it all together, it’s amazing we still get along. “We could bail right now. No one will even notice.”