7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  “Divorce your parents,” Cerise added.

  “Then you could do what you wanted,” Veronica concluded.

  “There’s no time,” I said. I’d already considered this option on the ride over here. “I start school right after break.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to have a blowout spring break, then,” Tara said. She hooked one arm through mine and the other through Melissa’s. “Come on, ladies. Let’s buy our girl here a giganto-sized caramel macchiato or three.”

  I dragged the sides of my index fingers along my bottom lash line to wipe off any smudged mascara and put on what I hoped was a convincing lady look. “Sounds great,” I said.

  We headed over to the food court and got our caramel macchiatos. Tara also got a handful of chocolate biscotti and passed them around at the table.

  “My parents are actually meeting with a real estate agent as we speak,” I said, dunking my biscotti, “to look for a new house and put ours up for sale, which seems totally surreal. I can’t imagine not living there. I just … I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he’s being so selfish.” I chomped down on the dripping end of the biscotti.

  “I know! What is his deal?” Veronica said, stirring a third packet of sugar into her coffee.

  I swallowed. “All he cares about is his career. Making more money. Getting a higher position. I mean, he didn’t even ask any of us what we thought. It’s like we didn’t even matter.” Tears filled my eyes again. I started dunking violently. Tara passed me a napkin, and I dabbed the corners of my eyes so that whatever was left of my mascara would be spared.

  “I felt the same way about my dad moving us here,” Melissa said. “He got a promotion, so it was like, no question that we’d move. Meriton’s not bad, though. I miss my old friends, but it’s actually kind of cool to start with a completely clean slate, you know? Someplace where you have no history to live down.”

  “Except that she does,” Tara muttered to her cup.

  Melissa eyed us one by one. “So what did happen, anyway? I never heard.”

  I swallowed the last lump of biscotti, and it tried its best to lodge in my throat. I guess I was taking too long to respond, because Cerise jumped in and started babbling.

  “Okay. Well. Over at Ash Grove, they have this yearly tradition where the seniors put on a scavenger hunt for the juniors in spring term. It’s a kind of a race, where they have to find each object and turn it in to hear what the next object will be. Whoever turns in the final scavenger hunt object first wins some huge mystery prize.” As Cerise spoke, Veronica made hand gestures as if she were the one talking. It was one of the more creepy things the pair of them did.

  “Like impossible-to-get concert tickets and a limo,” Veronica said. “Or a weekend at the shore.”

  “Something awesome, you know?” Cerise continued. “So last year, since Blythe’s dad is the principal, one of the clues was to get a picture of him in his regular home life. Doing anything.”

  “Mowing the lawn, getting the mail, whatever,” Veronica added.

  “The stuff they have to find is all goofy,” Tara interjected. “Enema bags, a case of fortune cookies, that kind of thing.”

  Melissa nodded and stirred her coffee methodically.

  Veronica piped up. “So this one kid actually crept up to Blythe’s kitchen window and snapped a picture of her dad inside.”

  “Which, I think, is illegal or should be, and that kid should’ve been charged,” Cerise added. Veronica nodded vehemently.

  I stepped in. “Well, my dad would never press charges and alienate his precious student body, but whatever. The kid took the picture. The problem was, I was in the picture too.” I held up my foamy stir stick. “Now listen. Let me explain something first. I was just getting over a cold and my nose was super sore from blowing it. And I had a tissue right there in my hand, but it was hurting to try to use it, so …”

  Tara jumped in. “She picked her nose! Right when he took the picture!”

  “My nose was sore,” I cried. “And it was only my pinky, which is barely even a real finger! So yes, kill me, I picked my nose, and everyone does it so whatever.”

  Tara was cracking up so hard that she hugged herself in pain. I shoved her, and she held up her hands in surrender. “I know! I know. It was totally scarring for you. And completely unfair.” She snorted. “But it was kind of funny.” She looked to the other girls for affirmation, then turned back to me. “You have to admit it,” she continued. “I mean, it’s not like it was a picture of you naked or making out with your cat.”

  “I don’t have a cat.”

  “Well, if you did have a cat.”

  “It was bad enough,” I said.

  She gave me a soft grin and ran her hand across her short, razor-cut hair. “I know it was. I was right there with you the whole time, remember? I’d have taken that bullet for you in a second, and you know it.”

  I made little rips around the rim of my cup. “I know …”

  “Okay, so someone took a picture,” Melissa said as a puzzled look spread across her face. “How does that translate into some major history you have to live down?”

  I inhaled, preparing to answer, but Veronica beat me to it. “It went viral. As soon as this kid turned it in for the scavenger hunt, some senior jerk noticed Blythe mining for gold in the background. He cropped and magnified the picture and e-mailed it to all his friends.”

  I shook my head at the memory. “Every time I think of Ash Grove, I think of that picture, and this flood of embarrassment and humiliation rushes through me all over again. How am I going to go to school there every day?”

  “It’s so old news,” Cerise added. “Nobody’s going to remember.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “Oh my God, you have got to get over it,” Tara said. She reached across the table and gave my hand a squeeze. “Seriously, Blythe. You’re making it worse for yourself. Just let it go.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. I tipped my cup way back and tapped the bottom, but the last dollop of foam wouldn’t slip down. I gave up and set my cup down hard on the table.

  “The picture even ended up in the Ash Grove school newspaper,” Veronica whispered to Melissa.

  “Hello?” Cerise cried at Veronica. “Not helping!”

  Melissa’s eyebrows knitted together. “Wasn’t there a staff adviser? How could they allow that?”

  “It wasn’t the real school newspaper,” I said, waving the air like the newspaper was nothing more than a bad smell. “There’s this unofficial online student newspaper that supposedly tells the truth about all the hush-hush things that happen in school. You know, like which teacher got a DUI or how some study group turned into a drunken orgy … That’s where the picture was posted. I guess they were making fun of the principal’s kid. Hilarious.”

  “Wow,” Melissa said. “There’s no way that kind of bullying would have been tolerated at my old school. Those kids would be expelled.”

  Bullying?

  To be honest, I’d never thought of it as bullying. I’m not sure why. I guess I never considered myself as the victim type. All along, I figured that the whole fiasco was partly my fault because I did, in fact, pick my nose. And it’s not like it was a sexting picture. Was it bullying?

  “So wait,” Veronica said, “you start right after spring break? So you’ll be there for this year’s scavenger hunt, right?”

  “And you’re a junior,” Cerise said.

  My stomach slipped to the floor. My jaw followed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.

  “But wait, this could be good,” Tara said. “This could be your chance to get back at them. You could sabotage the scavenger hunt. Bring it down from the inside.” She was grinning a bit too enthusiastically.

  I sat in silence. Revenge was never my thing. Just the opposite, in fact. I was all about charity. Charity made for a much more appealing personality. Plus, it comes across super in college interviews. Nevertheless, Tara had a good point. The qu
estion was, was I willing to risk my social life and reputation to make their lives miserable? The answer became obvious. I couldn’t care less about having a social life at Ash Grove. Between the viral picture and Principal Daddy, my reputation was already toast before I walked in the door. It really couldn’t get much worse.

  CHAPTER 3

  LEGALLY, IN ORDER FOR ZACH AND ME TO REGISTER in Ash Grove schools, our parents had to prove that we were residents of the Ash Grove school district. To do that, we had to have a contract on some kind of home. So instead of spending spring break actually relaxing and enjoying my remaining days with my friends, I got dragged around on a hurricane house hunt. We must have seen thirty properties that week. Our real estate agent, Marjorie, took us to see one stories, two stories, raised bungalows, tri-levels. They had big lots, corner lots, walk-out basements, new roofs, replacement windows, upgraded kitchens … but no matter what we saw, nothing was good enough for Mom. It was too small. Too old. Too much work. Too sketchy a neighborhood. Too high property taxes. Too expensive (those two were Dad, really).

  Finally, this traditional two story came on the market in a decent neighborhood not far from the town center of Ash Grove. It was “three-years new!” (perky agent-speak), bank-owned, and vacant. Some victim of a foreclosure, Marjorie surmised. At any rate, it was move-in ready (which you don’t find with foreclosures normally, so this was sure to be a hot property, said Marjorie, and if we were interested, we should move on it right away).

  It was actually bigger and nicer than our house in Meriton. I guess better school districts like Meriton drive house prices higher there. This place had a big front porch that wrapped around one side of the house, landscaped gardens with paver walkways, and a huge backyard. Mom couldn’t find anything to object to, other than the tacky wallpaper. Dad promised to get it professionally removed and repainted before we moved in, if that would make her happy. So she agreed. I didn’t hate the place. Zach was fine with it. Frankly, if a house had a toilet, electricity, and a basketball hoop, Zach was happy.

  We put in an offer on the house and it was accepted. So, as soon as we sold our Meriton house, we could start our thrilling new lives as Ash Grove inmates. Excuse me, residents. My darling, sweet mother kindly counseled me by saying, “Blythe dear, we must maintain an open mind and attitude about this change in our lives. Each one of us has to make … adjustments to this new situation. Instead of focusing on the negative things, list the positives.”

  List? I couldn’t come up with one positive, let alone a list.

  Of course, the flip side to buying a house is that you have to sell the one you already own. Which means you have to fix all the broken, chipped, dirty, worn parts that you’ve managed to live with contentedly for years. Then you have to clean the places in the house that you’ve never cleaned—or even knew you should clean.

  Who knew you were supposed to climb up onto your kitchen counter and scrub the tops of the cabinets? Who knew that all this time, you should have been cleaning the lint out of the exhaust tube in the back of the dryer? Who ever could have guessed that you’re expected to purge and organize every closet, cupboard, shelf, and drawer? And I don’t mean only the built-in ones, either. I mean all of them. Even the ones in your own personal furniture that you’ll be taking with you and that the buyer has no business poking around in. Because buyers will look everywhere, Marjorie instructed us. Everywhere.

  When your house is for sale, you may no longer have a junk drawer in the kitchen or that one closet where you throw the old shoes and broom handles and dirty buckets and broken things that you were going to fix one day and anything else you don’t want to look at or deal with or smell. You may not leave a single family picture anywhere, no matter how expensive the frame was or how important that dead relative is to you. You may no longer let a load of laundry sit in the dryer for a moment after it’s finished. Please, people, do not leave the toilet plunger sitting right there next to the toilet, out in the open like that … what are you thinking? And for the love of all things holy, never, ever forget to make the beds!

  Throughout the massive cleanup, Dad would make these observations that he probably thought were deeply philosophical but actually were just complaints. “Does it strike anyone as ironic,” he’d call out, “that we’re making the house perfect just before we leave it?” And then, “How come we never could do this for ourselves, but we’ll do it for someone else?” But the mantra he repeated again and again under his breath as he trudged from chore to chore was, “Eyes on the prize, Mac. Eyes on the prize.”

  The prize, of course, was not a good offer on the house; the prize was an appointment to superintendent. I didn’t overlook that.

  Zach and I had each been in charge of our own rooms. Mine wasn’t too bad, since I’d just done my springtime organization. But Zach’s looked like something from a show on hoarders. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he uncovered a litter of desiccated baby raccoon carcasses. On the plus side, by the time he was done, he’d collected a small mountain of dirty odd socks.

  By the end of spring “break,” we were beyond exhausted. I momentarily slipped and caught myself looking forward to school on Monday. The sensation didn’t last long, though. It was quickly replaced with dread. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care if people remembered the picture or not. I mean, it was a year ago. It had to be old news by now. Right?

  So the next morning, I got up, made my bed, of course, and then did the one thing that helped me feel confident and together: I put on a new outfit. It was an adorable pink silk blouson top with a camel stretch pencil skirt that I’d gotten at the mall after my cry fest with the girls. I fixed my hair and makeup, slipped into a pair of pumps, and went downstairs to eat some cereal to settle my jumpy stomach. It was getting late, though, so after a couple of minutes, Dad and I headed out so I could follow him to school in my car. It’s a gold 1995 Honda Civic in all its scratched and dented glory. It’s not exactly a smokin’ ride, but it’s mine. It was a gift for my sixteenth birthday from Dad. My grandparents had wanted to get me an electric-blue Mini Cooper convertible, but Dad shut that down. He was adamant that the car should come from him and should be something that wouldn’t crush like a soda can or eject me fifty feet if I happened to get into a fender bender. Hello, safe, reliable Honda.

  When we got to Ash Grove, I parked in the student parking lot in one of the last free spaces, approximately 150 miles from the building. As I schlepped with my messenger bag across the enormous parking lot in heels, I kicked myself for not riding with Dad since he got the sweet principal’s parking spot right beside the door.

  No, I told myself. It’s better to distance myself from him. Better to be Blythe.

  When I got to the door, I paused to take a cleansing breath, straighten up, and arch my back slightly for good posture, as Mom always emphasized. This also was definitely a time for the lady look, so I put one on, opened the door, and walked inside.

  The first thing that hit me was the smell of the place. It was a smell unlike anything at Meriton. In fact, Meriton didn’t really have a smell at all, except after they polished the floors on the weekends. But Ash Grove smelled like ancient mildew and disinfectant mixed with bad cologne over BO.

  It smelled like academic mediocrity.

  I knew I had to go to the office first, and Dad had told me how to get there from the student parking entrance. But twenty seconds after I entered the building, all memory of his directions evaporated.

  My heart was a madman pounding out of its cage of bones. Pinpricks of sweat bloomed on my upper lip. Why was I nervous? Surely I was at least as intelligent as these people. And … now, I’m not saying I was necessarily better than they were or of a higher ilk or anything … but let’s just say there wasn’t a tailored pant in sight. God, there wasn’t even a belt. Meriton might not be a private school, but at least we dressed the part.

  I tried to swallow, but my gummy throat stuck to itself. Bodies everywhere pushed around like re
fugees jostling for heels of bread. It was a rising tide of fake tans and bad fashion. I noticed that I’d started to draw some looks. Some at my face, some at points farther south. I was, in fact, the only girl wearing a skirt. The glimmering thought sped through my mind that maybe this was the only skirt they’d ever seen at school. Okay, so they don’t dress for school here, I thought. I can deal with that. I don’t like it, but I can deal.

  I started to muscle my way through the crowd, trying to remember where Dad had said to go. Was it the second or third hall on the left? I finally broke into a clearing and knew I was lost. I picked out a fairly friendly-looking girl a few feet away and walked up to her. “Hi,” I said. “Could you please tell me how to get to the main office?”

  The girl looked at me for a few seconds, and then her over-tanned face lit up with a huge openmouthed grin. Her hand flew up and cupped her mouth as she took a step backward. Then she dropped her hand, pointed one of her bedazzled fake nails at me, and squealed, “Oh, my gawd. You’re that booger girl!”

  CHAPTER 4

  FACES SPUN TOWARD ME AND MELTED INTO SNICKERS as I inched my way down the hall. This was insane! The picture wasn’t that big a deal that they’d remember it so well a year later. How did they recognize me right away? I started walking faster past the smirks. One guy doubled over into that phony, exaggerated imitation of hysterics. Some trashy-looking girls eyeballed me up and down like I was a fungus, then giggled. What were those little kids over by the wall laughing at? Me? But they had to be freshmen. They weren’t even here last year! What was going on?

  In my mind, I could hear my mother’s voice repeating, “Dignity, Blythe. Dignity.” She would know how to handle this situation. She was unflappable. So I pretended to be her. I set my jaw like Mom would. I kept my line of vision just above everyone’s head. Eye contact with no one. I pinned my shoulders back and strode like Moses parting the Red Sea. Only, this was a sea of synthetic fibers and cheap hair extensions.