7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  I was shocked at how little I cared.

  I finally got moving. As I turned into the hallway of the junior wing, I passed Cy and Jenna heading out. Jenna was wearing her puffy hooded coat over her outfit of a tartan pleated miniskirt with striped leggings. Cy was wearing his black army coat with black pants, but that was basically what he wore all the time. “Where are you guys going?” I asked.

  “Ditching,” Cy said. His shoulders were slack and his hands were deep in his pockets. He didn’t have his normal impish countenance.

  Jenna looked at Cy but spoke to me. “Told you he’d get in trouble for lunch yesterday. For the yogurt? He got two weeks of detention. He watches his little sister after school. Now his mom will have to rearrange her shift at work, and her boss is a dick.” Cy shot a look at her, telling her to shut up.

  “What?” I cried. “Cy, you were defending me! Did you tell my dad that?”

  “We saw the vice principal and the lunch monitor, not your dad,” Jenna answered. “Just now.”

  “Did you at least tell them that the guy had been throwing food at me first?”

  Jenna shook her head, no. The sideways glance she gave Cy told me that she didn’t quite agree with keeping silent.

  “We’re not snitches,” Cy said. He circled Jenna’s shoulders with his arm and tugged her along to walk with him.

  To hell with that, I said to myself. I decided to take a little detour to the main office. When I got there, I gave Gladys a slimy smile and knocked on my dad’s door. It was halfway open, and the smell of fresh coffee drifted through it.

  “Come in,” he said. “Oh, Blythe. Hi.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “How come you’re not in class?”

  I ignored his question. “You know how Cy Mason got detention for dumping yogurt on some kid’s head?”

  He wove his fingers together and leaned forward on his desk. “Yes. Vice Principal Hinkler mentioned it just now. Why?”

  “The reason Cy did it was because he was defending me. That kid was throwing food at me and had nailed me in the chest with a Tater Tot covered with ketchup. All over my clothes.”

  “Someone was throwing food at you?”

  “Yes. Some jerk with a neckless head like a Weeble. His whole table thought it was just hysterical.”

  Dad’s eyebrows squeezed together. “I’m sorry about that, honey. You should have said something yesterday.”

  “Well, I’m saying something now. So can you override the vice principal’s authority and cancel Cy’s detention? He babysits his sister after school.”

  Dad picked up his mug of coffee and leaned back in his chair, which squeaked. “No, I’m sorry, I won’t do that.”

  I couldn’t tell whether I was feeling disbelief, disappointment, or embarrassment. “Won’t? Why not?”

  He sipped his coffee and didn’t answer me for a moment. “Because that’s not how it works. Cyrus Mason committed an act that requires discipline. It doesn’t matter why he did it. I’m sorry about his sister, but he should have thought of her before acting. Look, even if I had a problem with how Vice Principal Hinkler handled the situation, I wouldn’t override her authority. Student discipline is her jurisdiction. I trust her to make the right choices.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. “And the jerk who threw food at me? He’s getting detention too, right?”

  Another sip. Another silence. “I can ask the lunch monitor about it, but she never mentioned anything about it to VP Hinkler, as far as I’m aware, so I doubt she saw anything.”

  “Isn’t my word good enough?”

  He set his mug down on the Formica desktop in a spot that already had several coffee rings on it. Dad was nothing if not methodical and predictable.

  Or so I thought.

  “To be honest, Blythe, I think I’ve played all my favoritism cards with you on the Senior Scramble and the yearbook.”

  “But the kid was—”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s my decision.”

  He shut me down, and that was that. He was perfectly fine with punishing Cy for something but not punishing some egghead moron for the same thing. Unbelievable. I’d always thought that my father was the epitome of reason and high standards. That he was more interested in justice and fairness than in his appearance and reputation. Apparently, I hadn’t been looking closely enough.

  Oh, and guess what else? He didn’t even give me a late pass to homeroom.

  If I had any doubt that it was the right thing to take the Senior Scramble underground, the rest of that day wiped it out. The snickers and pointing from my first day at Ash Grove were nothing compared to the treatment I got for ruining the scavenger hunt. Nobody called me “booger girl.” Instead, they called me “bitch.” They told me to get the hell back to Meriton. I sat alone in the cafeteria since Cy and Jenna ditched. I doubted even they would’ve sat with me. Grapes were on the menu, and all through lunch they whizzed by my head and pelted me in the back. In the hallways, people slammed into my shoulder as they passed. Knocked my books out of my hands. They were sly enough to do it when no teachers were looking, too. What could I do? Go crying to daddy again? No way. I just took it. But I had no idea what I’d do if Luke said no. I wasn’t just embarrassed or humiliated; I was genuinely scared. Luke had to say yes.

  I didn’t get an answer from him until after school. He called to me as I was hiking across the vast, pitted, asphalt wasteland otherwise known as the student parking lot. Most of the sludge-stained patches of snow had melted, but the sun still had the iron quality of winter.

  “Blythe!” Luke called. “Hold up!”

  When I heard him call my name, I immediately spun around. The way he half-jogged toward me showed that he was more athletic than he’d seemed at first. I caught myself doing the supermodel runway walk in his direction. I’m sure Mom would have advised me to be coy and wait for him, but that would’ve been phony.

  When we finally reached each other, the crisp wind gusted and we both ran our hands through our blowing hair simultaneously.

  “Okay, so I asked around,” he said, “and everyone thought it was a good idea, even if it came from you. You’re going to do the hunt yourself, right?”

  “Of course. Don’t worry; there’ll be plenty of blood on my hands too. Lady Macbeth will have nothing on me.”

  A quizzical look and a half smile were on his face for a fleeting moment. He swiped a strand of hair out from behind his wire-framed glasses and straightened them. “How do you know nobody’s going to turn you in?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I have to take that risk.”

  “Well, if they turned you in, the hunt would be off again, so it doesn’t make sense that anyone would.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty sure some of the juniors would do anything to get me kicked out. Or just kicked. It was rough today.”

  “I bet it was,” he said. “I’m not surprised, though. Ash Grove isn’t Meriton, Blythe. Once word gets around that the Senior Scramble’s back on because of you, it’ll die down.”

  “Does that mean you’re in?” I asked. Luke winked and it shot right through me. His blond curls bobbed in the wind. My long hair whipped around my face. I let it go. There was no use in trying to keep it in place.

  “I’m in if you’re in,” he said. “Two things, though. The list of items and clues for the hunt took forever to put together. The seniors who compiled it say they can tweak it to work online, but there’s no time to make a new one. They’re worried that if word gets out that the underground hunt is using the original list, they’ll be implicated. So if that happens, they’ll just say the list got stolen.”

  “If they get in trouble, I’ll blow my cover and say I found it somewhere at school,” I told him.

  I thought for a second he was going to object, but he just said, “Cool. And second, I can’t monitor the site twenty-four seven, so a couple of my closest buddies are going to take shifts. I’ll make it so that they can’t see any of the real identities.�
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  “Okay,” I said. “I trust them if you do.”

  “I’ll set up the forum tonight. I figured we could incorporate that Sherlock Holmes ‘The game’s afoot!’ quote.”

  Oh my God, Luke Pavel was actually a geek. In a kind of adorable way. He was also wrong. “That wasn’t Sherlock Holmes,” I said.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Not originally.”

  “Of course it was.” His tone clearly indicated that he thought I was an idiot.

  “Oh yeah?” My tone told him to prepare for an intellectual smackdown. “Want to bet?”

  He cocked his head slightly and narrowed his eyes at me. “Something tells me I shouldn’t. But my honor and masculinity say otherwise. What do you have in mind?”

  Don’t do it, I told myself. Don’t say something even remotely personal or quasi-flirtatious, Blythe. Say something inane like a pack of gum or a dollar. Say a dollar, Blythe! A dollar!

  “An apology,” I said. “An apology for being rude on Monday and calling me ‘kid’ and ‘McMussolini’s daughter.’” There was teasing in my voice and he could tell, so I pushed it a bit further. “And for hiding behind the First Amendment like a coward.”

  His face was bright, his mouth half-open like a comma on its side. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to one hip. “Fine. And what do I get if I’m right?”

  I took a step closer to him and coyly mirrored his crossed-arm posture. “You’re not.”

  He slid both hands into his back pockets. “Prove it.”

  I pulled out my iPhone and opened the web browser.

  “Wow,” he said. “Nice phone. By Ash Grove standards, I mean. By Meriton standards, I’m sure it’s garbage.”

  I ignored him and brought up a website of Shakespeare quotes. I typed in Once more unto the breach. When the passage came up, I handed the phone to Luke.

  He glanced at the first line. “Shakespeare? This isn’t it. I know this speech.”

  “Then you should recognize the last four lines. Scroll to the end and read,” I said, and then added, “Out loud, please.”

  He straightened his glasses and pursed his lips at me but did as I said. His voice was low and resonant, like a bass drum.

  “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

  Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:

  Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

  Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’”

  “Well, crap,” he said. He scrolled up and down to read again. “I guess Meriton really does give you a better education.”

  He tapped the screen a few times to close the browser and handed the phone back to me with a sly smile. His bright eyes bored into mine and I forgot to breathe. I knew why. Even as I admitted it to myself, I tried to mentally beat the idea into submission. I already had way too much to handle without getting a crush on Luke Pavel. He was a senior. He had a god complex, probably. Maybe. Maybe not. I didn’t have time for this! He wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. Not after seeing so many of my flaws. So why was he still grinning at me like that?

  Luke checked an invisible watch on his wrist. “Well, I’d better bolt. See ya.” He started to go.

  “Hey!” I laugh-squealed and grabbed his arm. Immediately, I realized it was a mistake to touch him because instead of pulling away from my grasp, he moved into it. And that sent sparks up my arm and into my body.

  “Did you need something else?” he teased. He was too close. Too familiar. I wasn’t ready to be that open and honest. I didn’t even know Luke Pavel.

  I let go and pulled back. “I believe you have a debt to settle?”

  “Oh, that. Yes.” He stayed silent.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to apologize?” I tried not to sound as rattled as I felt.

  “Absolutely.” Luke smirked and backed away from me. “But I never said I’d do it today.” He shrugged, turned, and loped off.

  What?

  Had I just been played? Was Luke Pavel actually an infantile jerk after all? It sure looked that way. What an idiot I was for giving him the smallest amount of consideration as crush material. I was glad I’d let go of his arm. I just wished I’d been the one who walked away.

  I texted Tara and arranged to meet her at the Daily Grind, the coffee shop in Meriton. I couldn’t wait to tell her about Luke and what a tool he seemed to be. Apparently, he was not an adorable geek; he was an ass. And so was I, but for different reasons. She’d understand. Best friends don’t need that kind of explanation. Still, I wanted to tell her everything.

  I spent the whole drive back to Meriton composing the perfect monologue about my day that only Tara could fully appreciate. So you can imagine my shock when I got there and she wasn’t alone. Melissa was there too. Sitting across from Tara. Sitting in my spot.

  I have to be honest: I didn’t feel terribly charitable at that moment. I should’ve been gracious to Melissa. I should’ve dismissed my jealousy as unwarranted. Yet, I did neither of those things. I closed up, walked over, and sat down.

  “Hey girl!” Tara sang. She slid a tall cup across the table to me. “I got you a peppermint and white chocolate chai latte. Taste. It’s orgasmic.” I took a sip as Tara kept talking. “Isn’t it good? Melissa turned me on to them. I tried hers yesterday, and I was totally craving one all day today.”

  I swallowed hard. Tara got coffee with Melissa yesterday too?

  My disappointment must have shown on my face because Tara covered quickly. “We ran into each other in front of the library. I was coming out, she was going in.”

  Melissa caught on. “I had to get rid of the latte anyway. I couldn’t bring it inside the library.”

  “Total coincidence,” Tara added, with a fake “no big deal” gesture that was a bit of overkill, in my opinion. Why did it suddenly seem like I was the charity case for those two? “So what’s up with you?” she asked, obviously trying to change the subject but sincerely interested, I could tell.

  The next thing I did surprised me at the time, but looking back, it makes sense. I plastered a huge, garish lady look disguise over the gigantic imperfection of a day I’d had. I smiled a perky smile and said, “Nothing.” Then I cheerfully agreed that the peppermint white chocolate chai latte was exceptionally yummy and let them believe everything was fine and dandy with me.

  I justified it by telling myself that I was trying not to be selfish. But really, I was trying to hide. I know that now.

  I sat and listened to Tara gab about everything at Meriton. Fill me in on all the news. Catch me up on all the gossip. The irony is, I’m sure she thought she was trying to keep me connected to Meriton, but all she really did was underscore the fact that I was set apart from them.

  I didn’t let on, though. I knew Tara’s intentions were good. So I listened attentively until my phone on the table pinged, telling me I’d gotten an e-mail. When I glanced down and saw who it was from, well, let’s just say that my attention got diverted from Tara. As inconspicuously as possible, I slid the phone onto my lap and opened the e-mail.

  from: lpavel@hotmail.com

  to: blythespirit@gmail.com

  subject: Settling up

  To Blythe:

  “The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

  Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;

  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

  ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

  The throned monarch better than his crown;

  His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

  The attribute to awe and majesty,

  Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

  But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

  It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,

  It is an attribute to God himself;

  … We do pray for mercy

  And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

  The deeds of mercy.”
/>   —Luke (and William S.)

  P.S. Hope you don’t mind that I gacked your e-mail addy

  while you weren’t looking.

  His apology. He hadn’t wanted to blow it off. He’d wanted to get it right. With Shakespeare! Adorable geek status officially reinstated.

  I read the e-mail again. And again. And again, until I noticed that Tara had stopped talking. Oops.

  “Hellooo?” she sang. She could tell I was reading something on my phone. So much for being inconspicuous. “Anything you want to share with the rest of the class?”

  I thought about it. It should be. But was it? Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell Tara all about a semi-non-jerk possible crush. I switched off my phone and dropped it in my bag. “Nah,” I said. I took another sip of my chai latte and Tara went back to her gossip.

  I tried to follow her conversation, but my mind kept sneaking back to Shakespeare and ocean-blue eyes and blond curls blowing in the wind. I had to stop thinking about him. My life was already complicated enough without adding a guy into the mix.

  Back at Meriton, I’d been very careful not to get so involved with someone that it would interfere with my future plans. Bryn Mawr didn’t accept average students who spent their entire high school career video-chatting or getting felt up in the bowling alley parking lot. I went out with guys all the time, but I didn’t get serious with anyone. I never saw the point. It’s not like I was going to marry someone I met in high school. Especially if the guy didn’t want to go to Haverford. So it seemed like a waste of time.

  Now that I was going to graduate with Ash Grove on my transcript, I had to step up my game. Work harder. Focus more. I had to be at the top of my class. I had to have some seriously worthwhile extracurricular activities. As it was, the Senior Scramble was going to eat up a huge chunk of time. There simply wasn’t room in my life for a crush.