The Mess came into view, a blooming series of brick buildings half-hidden behind the open wrought iron gate. I sat on a planter box near the gate, my Mary Janes sinking into the immaculately cut grass. I flipped open the front of my bag and pulled out my sunglasses and the Buffy comic. Scanning pages, I finally found the point where I’d left off the night before and started reading.
“You haven’t finished it yet?”
Ben West had moved out of a line of other Mess kids and was leaning against the planter a few feet away from me. His polo was wrinkled and he hadn’t brushed his hair. I glared at him for a second and then turned my attention back to the comic.
“No spoilers,” I said.
“Ah,” he said, staring at the groups of incoming classmates. “So, you haven’t reached the point where Xander dies?”
“Damn it, West.” The glossy pages gave a pathetic crinkle as I closed the book.
He laughed loudly. “Kidding. Don’t freak out.”
“Why don’t you leave me alone?” I growled at him. “There is absolutely no reason for us to ever have a conversation.”
He gave me a sardonic look out of the corner of his eye as he reached up and twirled the end of his mustache.
“I was just trying to uphold the school ordinance,” he said. “Everyone is required to try to be pleasant to you in the name of making you seem like less of a dangerous loner.”
“Go to hell,” I said with a groan, stuffing the comic into my bag. “Or whatever hellish dimension you prefer.”
“I’m partial to the world without shrimp. I’m allergic.”
“Name the episode or stop sullying my fandom,” I said. There really should have been a rule about unworthy jerks making Buffy the Vampire Slayer references. I shoved my sunglasses farther up my nose.
“‘Superstar.’ Season four, episode seventeen,” he said drily. “You’re extra shrewish today. Did your friends finally realize that they could do better?”
“Did yours?” I asked, turning to look at him dead-on. “Why are you skulking around alone?”
He gestured vaguely to the front gate. “Waiting for the guys.”
“Then wait with your mouth shut.”
Someone called my name and I spotted Meg bobbing toward us, her shiny black hair leaping around her cheeks. She landed in the grass faintly out of breath.
“Good morning, Trix,” she said. She gave West a confused wave. “And Ben West.”
“Margaret Royama,” he said, inclining his head.
“You guys aren’t going to, like, duel or something, are you?” Meg asked me, cocking her head.
“I submitted the challenge years ago,” I said blandly. “But appealing to his sense of honor is useless.”
“We’re divvying up hell dimensions,” West said. “Trix is taking the world that’s nothing but shrimp.”
“But you don’t eat meat,” Meg said, blinking at me. She brightened suddenly and said, “Oh! Did you guys read the new Buffy? Isn’t it cool when—”
“No spoilers,” I huffed, holding up a staying hand.
“Beatrice is a little behind,” West said in a loud whisper. “There were some very big words in this issue.”
“I have some very short words for you, West. Shut your damn mouth, for a start.” Taking in a deep breath, I turned to Meg. “I was up late starting our costumes.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s okay, then.”
“What will you be dressing up as this year?” West asked me. “Something with a mask, I hope?”
“Maleficent,” I ground out.
“Ah.” He paused. “So, just scraping off your makeup and going in your true form.”
“Perhaps you could follow suit and put on a pair of donkey ears.”
“Oh look,” Meg interrupted with false cheeriness. “Peter and Jack are here.”
The Donnelly brothers were, in fact, walking toward us. Jack sped ahead of Peter, leaving his brother limping behind as he rushed through the gate without a backward glance.
“Asshole,” I breathed.
West nodded in pleasantly mute agreement as he stepped forward. He and Peter clasped each other’s forearms in greeting like a pair of Roman soldiers in white cotton polos.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” I said.
“Hey, Trix, Meg.” Peter grinned, casting around for a second. “No sign of Harper and Cornell?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“The poor saps are probably off somewhere gazing deeply into each other’s eyes,” West muttered. He stared off into the parking lot as wistful wind played at the corners of his mustache. “At least with Cornell distracted with composing sonnets I’ve got a chance of getting valedictorian.”
Meg looked appalled. I’m sure I did, too, but only because I hated hearing my own secret desire to up my place in the ranking coming out of Ben West’s mouth.
Peter laughed, ever the picture of amiability. “Whatever keeps you from getting in their way, Ben.”
West’s mouth twisted into an unconcerned smile. “I told him that if he let his guard down, I’d sweep him. I’m not going to get distracted by some chick.”
“And all of the chicks on Earth thank you kindly for that,” I said. “What could be worse than being courted by that mustache? You could start prospecting for gold any minute.”
He flushed to a pernicious shade of scarlet. “You really should examine your obsession with my facial hair, Trix. It’s becoming a problem for you.”
“It seems wise to keep an eye on anything that could gain sentience and go on a killing spree,” I said, peering at him over the tops of my sunglasses. “It wouldn’t be difficult for it to surpass your diminutive IQ.”
“Hey,” Peter said, dragging the syllable out into a heavy warning. He glanced around for eavesdroppers before lowering his voice. “The gag rule.”
“Eff the gag rule,” West snarled. He took a threatening step toward me. “You want to throw down numbers, girly? We aren’t on campus yet. Let’s do this.”
“We’re on school property,” Meg squeaked. She shuffled her feet against the grass in a sort of manic jig. “See? Official Messina Academy grass. Our tuition pays the landscapers.”
“No,” I said, jumping off the planter. “We’ve been dancing around this for years. Go ahead, West. Inflate your IQ points to try to win this once and for all.”
“I’ll tell the truth if you will, Beatrice,” he growled.
“The IQ test really isn’t a reliable test of intelligence,” Peter said imploringly. “That’s why the entrance exam is so long. It measures more than the standard—”
“Meg, count to three for us,” I said.
“I knew this was going to turn into a duel,” Meg whimpered. “You could both be suspended for this, you know.”
Peter scrubbed a hand over his forehead, mussing his hair. “I really shouldn’t be a part of this. Ben, you could lose your seat on student council—”
“Worth it,” West barked, not taking his eyes off me. “Meg, count us off.”
“Okay,” she sighed. She gave Peter an apologetic frown. “Unos, duo … tres.”
“One hundred and seventy-eight.”
I paused at the sound of the echo. My voice had never been on the dulcet side of things, but I was sure that I hadn’t woken up as a baritone. I tilted my head at West, who looked as though he’d been slapped.
Peter and Meg stared at us in abject horror. I reached up and pulled my sunglasses off, squinting through the sunlight.
“You’re a damn liar,” I said.
He slapped a hand to his chest. “I’m the liar? There is no way—”
“You have the exact same IQ,” Meg breathed, holding onto her cheeks.
“That explains some things,” Peter murmured.
There was absolutely no way that it was true. What were the chances of having the exact same score? It defied imagination. I doubted that even our old statistical anomaly teacher could have given us the odds on it.
�
��It explains nothing,” I said. “Because it can’t be true. West is just a—”
“A what?” He laughed, but there was no color in his face. “We’re at the Mess, not Hogwarts. I’m not a gorram wizard.”
Blistering heat rose to my cheeks. I clenched my hands into fists. “Then you snuck a look at my file or—”
Cornell appeared out of the crowd moving toward the front gate, holding onto the straps of his backpack as he approached us. He frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Nerd duel,” Meg answered. “Where’s Harper?”
“I thought she’d be here with you guys.” His frown deepened and he rubbed a hand over his shorn scalp. “What’s a nerd duel? I don’t see any Magic cards or polyhedral dice.”
“The gag rule,” Peter said.
“Oh.” He swung his head to look at me and West. “Who won?”
“It’s a draw,” West said numbly.
My brain was lagging, as though the proceedings had somehow shorted a circuit in my head. I had never assumed that I had the highest IQ on campus, far from it. I was above average, but not in the mad-genius range of 190 or above. And there was no logical way for Ben West to have hacked into my file. The only answer was the most impossible—we were exactly the same.
I walked away without a word, unable to endure everyone staring at me for another minute. I heard footsteps behind me and assumed it was Meg, but as I climbed the steps toward the front door, I saw West’s face reflected in the window. He followed me silently into the American Immigrant classroom. We sat down in our usual seats, feigning ignorance of each other’s continued existence.
I took out my binder and set it down on my desk, going over the previous day’s notes in case Mr. Cline decided to spring a quiz on us. After a few minutes, Harper slid into the empty seat next to me. As I’d expected, she was more coiffed than usual. Her hair was pulled back with a handmade Batman logo headband and she smelled vaguely of raspberries.
I glanced over at her. She gave me a tentative smile that plainly said that someone had updated her on the results of the nerd duel. Cornell skulking to his seat and folding his hands guiltily on his desk confirmed this suspicion.
“Don’t,” I grumbled, turning back to my notes.
“I had no plans to,” she said lightly.
“Uh-huh.” I reached into my bag and extended the Buffy comic across the aisle to her. “Take it and swallow your gloating.”
She took the comic and tucked it into the pocket of one of the many folders in her binder. “I’m not gloating. Just thinking.”
I rolled my eyes and did not ask her to elaborate. Whether she was thinking about Cornell or the best way to force me to keep my mouth shut, I didn’t need to know.
* * *
For the first time, I was thankful for the Mess staff’s undying love of pop quizzes and spur-of-the-moment essays. There was very little time to dwell on my morning when I was digging through my notes on the national debt of Zambia and struggling to remember the metaphorical significance of the train in Anna Karenina.
Of course, after I was excused from Russian Literature, I faced the long walk across campus to the cafeteria. Alone with my thoughts for the first time in hours, I considered the events of the nerd duel. Now that the shock had mostly worn off, I was left with an unshakeable determination. More than ever, I wanted to crush Benedict West. Now I knew that beating him in the ranking would be a true victory. We’d grown up in the same town. We’d had the exact same education. And, apparently, we had the exact same IQ, give or take an unknown decimal.
This was so much bigger than the monkey bars. This was the Rebels versus the Empire. This was the Doctor versus the Daleks. This was Ripley versus the Xenomorphs.
This was a real, true, full-scale war.
With the strap of my messenger bag slung across my chest, I slipped my sunglasses on and stepped into the open-air quad in the center of campus. Dozens of other students were zigzagging across the mosaic M emblazoned into the concrete, some scurrying out of the chemistry labs, some heading toward the library for lunchtime studying.
I spotted Kenneth Pollack shoving a small dark-haired boy against one of the many decorative sycamore trees that dotted the edges of the quad. The smaller boy went rigid as Kenneth’s hands braced into his shoulders. There was a rolling backpack toppled on the ground beside them.
Swerving slightly, I moved toward them. Hazing was, of course, forbidden at the Mess, but that didn’t mean that meatheads like Kenneth didn’t occasionally rough up the freshmen. As my shoes tread against the grass, the frosh made a pathetic whimper of dissent, his round face pinched.
“I didn’t,” the frosh protested. “I don’t even know—”
“Kenny,” I said, coming up behind them. There were only about a hundred people in our class and Kenneth had gone to Aragon with us, so I was fairly sure he at least knew who I was. “Isn’t it a little hack to push around the freshmen? It’s so expected.”
If we’d had a football team—instead of basketball, cricket, and chess—Kenneth would have been a linebacker. As it was, he’d taken Peter’s place on the basketball team, but he lacked the natural grace that the sport required.
“He told Cline that I cheated,” he snarled at me.
“I don’t know who that is,” the frosh protested, remaining against the tree as though he hadn’t realized he’d been released. “I don’t even know my lunch number.”
“Kenneth,” I said, resting my elbow on top of my bag. “Cline doesn’t have any contact with the lowerclassmen. He doesn’t even have office hours this year. He went back to teaching poetry at the university.”
“The email came from this kid’s account,” Kenneth blustered. His cheeks were blistered with impotent fury, pushing a whitehead on his chin into the foreground. “B. Calistero at Messina Academy. There aren’t any other Calisteros on campus.”
“We have school email?” B. Calistero asked.
“How do you know he sent the email?” I asked Kenneth. “Cline wouldn’t have told you.”
“I just know,” Kenneth said darkly. “He emailed Cline and said I copied Mike Shepherd’s Ellis Island essay. They’re threatening to bench me.”
Of course his outrage was unrelated to the sullying of his academic record—a mark of cheating would almost undoubtedly revoke any incoming college acceptances. No, it all came down to basketball. Why did his parents even bother writing his tuition checks?
“B. Calistero,” I said, peering over Kenneth’s shoulder at the frosh. “Can you name the gentleman who introduced the back of your skull to that tree trunk?”
The frosh’s eyes were wide and raced between me and Kenneth as though trying to figure out which of us was more likely to hurt him in the event that he gave the wrong answer.
“I don’t,” he spluttered. “I mean, this is only my second week here. I was in public school before and—”
“It’s okay,” I said, mostly to keep him from vomiting down the front of his polo. I looked back at Kenneth. “See? He doesn’t know anything. And the freshmen are still turning in hard copies of all of their homework.”
“So?” Kenneth asked.
“So he doesn’t know who you are and he hasn’t touched his shiny new email account,” I said, a tad exasperated. Honestly, sometimes talking to my classmates made me wonder how useful the entrance exam was. “Someone probably hacked him as some kind of start-of-term prank. We are at a school for geniuses. Stuff happens.”
Kenneth considered this, his forehead indenting around a smattering of zits.
“But who would have done it?” he asked finally.
“How should I know? I’m no Veronica Mars.”
He stared at me with vacant, glassy eyes.
“She’s a detective on TV. And there was a movie,” blurted the frosh. And then, in a much smaller voice, “The movie was really good.…”
I offered him a grateful smile. “Thanks, sport. Now, run and be free.”
He bobbed his head to me
, scrambling to grab the handle of his rolling backpack. It leapt behind him as he charged toward the cafeteria. Kenneth watched him go.
“But I still don’t know who told Cline I cheated,” he said with a smidge of petulant whine lurking underneath.
“Did you cheat?” I asked.
He blew a raspberry of disdain. “No. And even if I had, it wouldn’t have been off of Shepherd. He’s an idiot.”
“Well. Best of luck to you. Try to stop roughing up the newbs. They’re delicate.”
“Whatever,” he grunted. “Put a few of them in line and the rest will learn not to screw with their betters.”
Gee whiz, why was it so hard to find a suitable male companion when there were gems like Kenneth around?
“Wow. You would have been a swell slave owner.”
I turned on my heel and walked into the cafeteria, where I promptly put together a spinach-and-egg salad. I found Harper and Meg whispering together at our usual table, tucked into the corner as far away from the door as possible to keep from being interrupted by traffic.
I set my tray down across from Harper, doing my absolute best to ignore how she and Meg had stopped speaking at the sight of me. I was sure that they’d been discussing the nerd duel and I had no intention of prompting them to continue.
“Why, Miss Harper Leonard,” I said, cracking open a can of cola. “I didn’t expect to find you here. Shouldn’t you be claiming your position as the senior class’s Second Lady?”
Meg tittered into a potato chip. “Does she count as the Second Lady if Peter’s still single? I mean, if the president doesn’t have a First Lady, doesn’t that automatically make her First? There isn’t any precedent for it in history. James Buchanan used his niece.”
I laughed. “Maybe we could vote on an incumbent if Harper isn’t feeling up to the job.”
Harper couldn’t stop herself from giving her glasses a telltale adjustment of embarrassment. “We’re just going to the harvest festival together. It’s not like he’s my boyfriend now.”
“Well, there hasn’t been enough time for him to pin you.” I smirked.
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You Page 5