by Kieran Scott
I liked her instantly.
“New Jersey,” I said, twirling my lock. I did the combination, but when I yanked on the door, nothing happened. Then it hit me that I had dialed in the numbers from my locker back home. My eyes suddenly burned with nostalgic tears.
“Do you miss it?” Mindy asked.
“Me? Nah!” I replied.
“I’ve lived here my entire life. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to move and start a new school,” Mindy said. “I’d probably die of nervousness.”
“Come on. It’s not that scary,” I replied.
Just then the crowd in the hallway parted as two older girls strode right down the center of the corridor. I could see why everyone was scurrying out of their way. They were both perfectly put together in the way popular kids always are, and they both looked pissed. Popularity and pissiness? Never a good combination.
“You’re that new girl—Annie something, right?” one of them said, stopping right in front of me. She had short blonde hair and was runway-caliber gorgeous.
Somehow I found my voice in all the surprise. “Annisa, actually.”
“So your dad’s the cheapskate home-wrecker, then,” the other girl snapped. Her blonde hair was of the darker, longer, stick-straight variety, and her small, round face was growing redder and redder.
“Um . . . not that I know of,” I replied.
Everyone was stopping to stare now. Mindy took an instinctive step away from me. Couldn’t blame her. Who wanted to stand next to the new girl while she was verbally assaulted? Any stray insults might ricochet off me and stick to her.
“Well, he is,” the girl said. “And I’m just here to warn you that if you want to have any kind of a life at this school, you’d better stay as far away from me as possible.”
She started to walk off and I almost let out a relieved sigh, but then she whirled around again and the air got all caught up in my throat.
“Which room did you take, anyway?” she blurted.
I looked at the unfamiliar faces around me, but there was no one there that could help. Or that would. They were looking at me as if I’d just shelled the Sand Dune High Fighting Crab with my own two hands.
“The pink one?” I said. Not that it would be pink much longer if I had anything to say about it. Pepto-Bismol is not my color.
The girl burst into tears and her friend led her away, looking back to shoot me an admonishing glance. As if I’d done anything wrong. I was just standing there, wasn’t I? I glanced at Mindy. She looked like she’d just stepped off an out-of-control Tilt-a-Whirl.
“What?” I said.
“Um . . . that was Phoebe Cook. I’m guessing you must’ve moved into her old house,” Mindy explained. “Her and the other girl? Whitney Barnard? They’re seniors and let’s just say you don’t want them as enemies.”
Great. This day just kept getting better. “Okay, but it’s not my fault that I moved into her old house.”
“Oh! I know! It’s just . . . there was this whole, like, scandal,” Mindy said, leaning back into the lockers. “Phoebe’s family was basically booted out of their house by, like, the IRS or something, and no one knows why, but she had to move in with her aunt and it’s supposedly really awful over there and . . . well . . .”
Mindy trailed off and I looked down the hall in the direction Phoebe had disappeared. Seconds ago she was scary, but now my heart went out to her. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be forced from my home in such a humiliating fashion. What had happened to her family? Unemployment? Tax fraud? Insider trading? No wonder Dad had gotten such a sweet deal on our little bungalow.
“Well, I have to get to class,” Mindy said, backing away from me. “I’ll see ya.”
“Yeah. See ya.”
Now I felt noticeably alone again. I yanked my gym bag out, slammed my locker door and turned around to find Daniel Healy walking down the hall with a group of kids. Yay! A friendly face! I started to smile at him, but then some kid with a big ‘fro moved out of the way and I saw that Daniel had his arm around—gulp—Sage.
Ew! They were dating?
Daniel grinned and lifted his hand from Sage’s shoulder. “Hey, Jersey!”
A nickname! My mood was swinging so fast it was gonna give me whiplash.
“Hey!” I replied.
Sage shot me a withering look of death. “You know her?” she hissed at Daniel. A few of her girlfriends snickered. That was it. I was bathroom bound.
I jogged back down to the English hallway and yanked open the heavy wooden door. Luckily the room was deserted, so I had a couple of minutes to collect myself. I even checked under the stall doors—no feet.
“Okay, just chill,” I told myself quietly. “It’s just the first day and it’s almost over.”
Suddenly, the stall door directly behind me slammed open and Bethany unfolded her legs. She had been sitting on top of the toilet seat, fully clothed. Doing what, I have no idea.
“Do you always talk to yourself?” she asked with a smirk.
“Only when my life is flashing before my eyes.”
The bell rang and my heart jumped. The gym was clear on the other side of the school. I was going to be so late! I grabbed my gym bag and raced for the door. My hands full, I used the side of my body to shove it open, but it hit something. Hard.
What the—
Suddenly the hall was filled with an inhuman screech that probably had seagulls everywhere winging it home. Everything happened at once. Bethany carefully pushed open the door and gasped. Hunched over in the hallway was a bawling girl, her hands held over her nose, blood gushing out between her fingers. I was going to hurl.
“You biiiiidge!” she shouted. “You boke by dose!”
“Omigod.” That was pretty much all my brain could produce at that moment.
The girl took off at a run and I looked at Bethany, who was now laughing so hard, she was actually doubled over, holding on to the metal garbage can for support.
“What? What is so funny!?” I asked, my voice sounding shrill.
“You . . . are . . . the best,” she said between gasps.
“What? Why?”
“That was Tara Timothy,” Bethany said, straightening up and patting me on the shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be consoling or congratulating. “The most popular girl in school.”
Slowly a pit of black tar opened beneath my feet. I had to do something.
“Where’re you going?” Bethany called after me as I rushed out the door.
“I really don’t know!” I shouted back.
Following the sound of Tara’s screeching, I ran down the hall. Faces gathered in classroom windows to watch me as I flew by. I could only imagine what the gossip was going to be the next day.
“Yeah. It was the new girl. She was tearing down the hall, all wild-eyed. I heard she just got out of some special school for the brunette and criminally insane. . . .”
The nurse was one of those soft-looking older ladies with her hair piled on top of her head and a bright pink sweater pulled over her white shirt and pants. She was just ushering Tara into a back room when I burst through the door.
“Is she . . . is it . . . all right?” I asked, desperately trying to catch my breath.
“I don’t know yet, sweetie, but why don’t you just get yourself back to class?” the nurse said.
“But I . . . I’m really sorry!” I shouted as I was backed out of the office.
“Go do ‘ell!” Tara shouted back.
Yeah. She wasn’t happy.
The nurse smiled and told me she’d pass along my concern, then closed the door on me. For a moment, I just stood in the hall, my gym bag clutched against my heaving chest, listening to Tara’s cries. They were just all too fitting a soundtrack to go with the dirge in my head.
My life at Sand Dune High was over before it had a chance to begin.
JerseyGirl531: im sure u didn’t break it
***Annisa***: Jordan—there was blood EVERYWHERE!
JerseyG
irl531: ok look at it this way . . . now ppl know who u r!!!
***Annisa***: And to stay as far away from me as possible.
JerseyGirl531: i sorry sweetpea! member what u always say! tomorrow is always fresh w/no mistakes in it!!!
****Annisa***: You hate when I say that!!!
JerseyGirl531: that’s what i say but secretly i luv it! and remember! at least you met a cute boy!
****Annisa***: Yeah. w/a evil girlfriend.
JerseyGirl531: not 4 long! ;-) gotta go! rickys bugging me 4 food XO
****Annisa***: xoxoXO!
I sighed, imagining Jordan in her beat-up Celica heading out to Wendy’s with her little brothers. Her family eats fast food four times a week because her mom works doubles at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital all the time. At least Jordan knows enough to make Ricky and Matt eat salads or they’d all be part of those childhood-obesity studies I keep hearing about.
At that moment I missed home so much, I could have cried. Why had I let myself get comfortable there? I always knew moving again was a probability. But somehow I’d pushed that fact to the back of my mind. I’d made real friends and starting thinking of New Jersey as home. Now here I was, all depressed and trying to assimilate in a place where they apparently ate peroxide for breakfast. Where I couldn’t seem to do anything right.
“Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.”
It was my favorite Anne of Green Gables pearl of wisdom. I’d been writing it on textbook covers, in journals and yes, in the occasional school bathroom stall since I was about eight. And it usually made me feel better. But not this time. The damage was done. All I could do was sit there and dread the following morning.
“Dinner in five!” my father shouted up the stairs.
I inhaled the tangy scent of my dad’s chicken tacos, and turned off the computer. I’d spent an hour surfing the Web for private schools in our area. Our Lady of Peace Catholic Girls’ School seemed promising what with the uniforms and the strict anti-jewelry rule to keep me from making fashion faux pas. Bet you couldn’t even tell who was popular and powerful around there. But it didn’t matter. We didn’t have enough money to send me to private school, especially not with Gabe at Miami U.
Nope. Tomorrow morning, it was back to the blonde school of death.
“Annisa! Come help me put everything on the table!” my mom called.
I hauled myself up and trudged down the stairs. At least it was one of my father’s nights to cook. Whenever Dad was cooking, you knew it was one of four things—chicken tacos, chicken stir-fry, roasted chicken or hamburgers. With Mom, however, you never knew what she was going to put down in front of you and whether it was still breathing. She tried sushi once. No one left the house for days.
Mom and Dad stood at the kitchen counter, transferring the tacos to a platter. Dad was wearing his standard plaid shirt and khakis combo, his brown hair shaggy all over and in desperate need of a shaping. Mom was still dressed in the sleek putty suit and white silk blouse she had worn to work that morning. Her red hair was pulled back in a loose bun and her makeup looked perfect. It was really no wonder that every upscale department store in southern Florida had courted my mother. She was a personal shopper. People always bought stuff she recommended because they thought it would give them a slim chance of someday looking like her.
“How was your day, sweetie?” my mother asked, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear.
“Remember the final battle scene in the last Lord of the Rings movie?” I said. “It was kind of like that. Blood, guts and all.”
“Oh, it couldn’t have been that bad,” Dad said, clucking his tongue.
“Dad, just because everyone, like, worships you at whatever school you go to, that doesn’t mean we’re all so lucky,” I said, grabbing the Brita pitcher out of the fridge.
My father cleared his throat and held out his hand, palm up. I blinked, thinking back to everything I had just said, and then it hit me.
“Just because everyone, like, worships you . . .”
I pressed my eyes closed, irritated with myself, then stuffed my hand in my pocket, fishing through my change from lunch. When I found a quarter, I slapped it into my father’s hand.
“Thank you!” he said.
“My pleasure.”
Every time I use the word like in a superfluous manner, my dad charges me a quarter and he never, ever misses one. I really hoped he was putting that money into my college fund. At this point he’d probably have no problem paying for the Sorbonne.
“Where’s Gabe?” I asked.
“Well, the food will be done in T-minus-five seconds, so let’s see,” my father said, raising his watch to his glasses. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two—”
The buzzer went off on the stove, and the kitchen door flew open at precisely the same moment. There stood my brother, his red hair lightened from the sun and grown out to just below the ear, his green eyes sparkling. He was wearing an orange-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt, baggy shorts and Tevas.
“Dudes!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, God. You’re a surfer now?” I said, scrunching my face up.
“Don’t knock it till ya tried it, li’l sis,” he said, reaching out and tousling my hair. He dropped a massive canvas bag full of laundry onto the kitchen floor, then stepped over it to hug my mom.
“Hey, Mama! Give me some loooove!”
Unbelievable. He sounded like the sea turtle from Finding Nemo. When had this started?
“Dinner is served,” my father said, by now immune to the shock of his ever-changing son. He picked up a platter of tacos, and my brother leaned in to sniff them.
“Tacos! Righteous!”
“Do they even have surf-worthy waves in Florida?” I asked, following the rest of the family to the table with the water pitcher.
“Totally,” Gabe said.
I have to admit the surfer look actually worked for him. Much better than the grungy punk thing he had going on the last time I’d seen him. Under his freckles his skin was a bronzy tan that brought out his smile and the color of his eyes. Gabe had tried on a lot of personas over the years—prep, skater, jock, fashion victim . . . the ill-advised Spring of the Cowboy—but he’d never tried one that wouldn’t attract the ladies.
“So, what’s up, li’l sis? You look down,” Gabe said, serving himself four tacos before anybody else had a shot.
“Bad first day,” I said. “Way bad. And don’t tell me to re-create myself, because it won’t work. Unless you can get me a new face.”
“You’re talking to the guy who went from dreadlocked Phishhead to country-club argyle boy in one weekend,” Gabe said. “With my help, you can be anything.”
“Oh, I loved your country-club phase,” my mother said nostalgically. I think she liked my brother’s chameleon nature because it meant she got to pick out a whole new wardrobe for him every few months.
“Never know, Mama. It may come back,” Gabe said with a grin.
I rolled my eyes. This was not helping me.
“I know what’ll cheer you up,” my father said. “Why don’t you and I make an ice cream run after dinner? You never turn down an ice cream run.”
I took a deep breath. This problem was too deep for ice cream.
“I saw a Ben and Jerry’s truck parked outside the 7-Eleven on my way home,” my dad singsonged.
Unless, of course, we were talkin’ Ben & Jerry’s One Sweet Whirled. It was like happiness in a carton.
“Okay,” I said to my dad. “You’re on.”
The first thing I noticed when my dad pulled the family truckster into the convenience store parking lot was a large group of kids hanging out between two parked cars, music pounding from the speakers of a red convertible. A couple of girls in SDH cheerleading jackets leaned back against the hood, smoking cigarettes. My heart immediately thumped with foreboding.
Why me?
Dad got out and slammed the door, attracting the attention of the crowd. I jumped out and hurried
after him. From the corner of my eye I saw one of the guys tip his head back to drink out of a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. Apparently this was not a Smart Food and Pepsi crowd.
Dad gathered some snacks while I hit the freezer and, eureka!, found a pint of One Sweet Whirled. I pulled it out and cradled it in my arms like a baby, then, on impulse, grabbed another. Just in case tomorrow sucked too. I joined my father on line, and the guy in front of us glanced around. It was none other than Cheerful Cuccinello, the peppier-than-pepper guidance counselor. Could this day be over now? Please!?
“Why, Annisa Gobrowski! What a pleasant surprise!”
“Hey, Mr. C,” I said lacklusterly.
“And you must be Mr. Gobrowski!” He straightened up, then settled in his firecracker way on the word mister. “I’m Annisa’s guidance counselor, Tony Cuccinello.”
Mr. C shifted two of four two-liter bottles of Coke he was carrying over to one arm so he could shake hands with my dad. I couldn’t help wondering what anybody needed with eight liters of Coke on a Monday night.
“So, Annisa, how was your first day?” Mr. C asked as he paid at the register.
“Great,” I said. “It was just great.”
Mr. C grinned. “I told ya! Didn’t I tell ya? You fit right in.”
Right. What kind of psychedelic Coke was this guy drinking, anyway?
“Well, see ya around campus,” Mr. C said, pocketing his change. He lifted his free hand in a wave as he walked out.
Five minutes later, Dad and I emerged from the store to an oddly silent parking lot. The music that had blared from the convertible on our way in had been cut dead, replaced by a palpable tension. Mr. C was talking to a group of now obviously snagged kids, his voice more serious than I would have thought possible for him. The guy who had been swilling some unknown substance had his hands behind his back and his eyes trained on the ground. Reprimanded by a teacher-type figure in front of your friends. It was never fun.
As I got into the car, I glanced over one last time and saw the two cheerleaders glaring at me. They looked like they wanted me dead, on a slab, right there in the 7-Eleven parking lot. Had they heard about what I’d supposedly done to Phoebe? Or what I’d actually done to Tara Timothy? I hunkered down in my seat to save myself from the heat of their gaze. What was that about?