by Katie Nelson
“Oh.” I nodded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“That look. That oh. You’re as bad as the rest of them.”
I could tell I’d said the wrong thing, stepped onto some land mine, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t have a problem with L/D. I just don’t want to do it.”
Wrong answer. Kelsey leaned forward, staring me down like a pit bull. “Of course not. You’re far too intelligent to waste your time doing Lincoln/Douglas debate. It’s only been practiced by history’s most notable statesmen for hundreds of years. But you’re better than that.”
“I’m not better than that.” I raised my voice to compete with the god-awful screeching coming from Jason up on stage. “I just don’t want to spend forty-five minutes in a room whining about values. There’re no such things as moral absolutes, so there’s no way to actually prove your case. The round comes down to who can best quote Plato and Shakespeare and agree with whatever preconceived bias the judge already has.”
“As opposed to what you guys do?” Kelsey looked over at Garrett and Tomas, who were staring at us. “You read card after card until you’re talking so fast that it’s hard to tell whether you’re giving your rebuttal or suffering from a grand mal seizure. And you claim that every case you argue will lead to some kind of apocalypse or nuclear war or worse. Because you get your jollies by thinking that the things you say are somehow important. Yet the second you walk out of that room, nobody cares. And it kills you that the world doesn’t understand your greatness. It’s a good thing you Policy Debaters are so in love with yourselves. Nobody else can stand to be around you.”
Before I could respond, she stood and marched up to the stage, bumping into Jason as he returned to his seat. I glanced around the table. “What was that?”
The guys laughed. Peyton rolled her eyes. “That’s Kelsey. You survived the rant. Welcome to the team.”
Garrett, Jason, and Tomas nodded in agreement, then started talking about something else. I wanted to believe them. I wanted it to be that easy. But from across the room, Tran was glaring at me. Kelsey was on stage, belting out the lyrics to a song called “Boys Don’t Cry” while staring at me the whole time. The Duke was noticeably absent.
My phone had buzzed when I was on stage. I pulled it out and found a text from Abby.
How was the first day? Are you sitting around eating caviar at the country club?
I texted back, Not quite. I’m at a team party though. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
Where?
I didn’t answer right away. Sure enough, my phone started going crazy with a bunch of texts from her.
You can’t leave it at that.
OMG, are you playing polo?
Shopping for a Rolls?
Have you joined the Young Republicans?
If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to get Sam involved.
The last thing I needed was a million calls from my little brother. The kid was relentless. I replied, Karaoke party. At a pizza place. No alcohol involved.
She sent me back a gif of a girl lying on the floor laughing. Seemed about right.
Did you sing?
Yep.
This time, she sent me a gif of a group of howling dogs.
I replied, Much more painful in person.
Sad I missed that. Maybe I’ll come to this epic party after all. Wouldn’t want to miss your next performance. Get the details from James Dean and let me know.
I will. Talk later.
I glanced around the room to see if the Duke had come in. No sign of him. Since Peyton took pride in being Tour-Guide Barbie, I asked her where he was.
“Oh, the Duke never comes to these,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
“I thought it was mandatory.”
“It is.” She stared at me like I was a kindergartener and she was telling me not to eat the glue sticks.
I decided to drop it. Kelsey was walking back to the table, and everyone clapped when she sat down. She took a long drink of her soda, and I waited, wanting her to look at me, to see if she was mad at me. Instead, she elbowed Garrett and told him what a horrible singer he was. Then they argued about music for the next half hour, while I sat there alone, twisting my napkin in my hands.
CHAPTER THREE
FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS of my debate career, my mom genuinely tried to understand what I was doing. She’d ask questions about the resolution we were debating, or ask me how my case was coming along. She even read my ballots after a tournament was over. I doubt she was able to decipher much of it, but she tried.
Then, as things got more intense, and I moved up to varsity-level, we both came to an unspoken agreement: she wouldn’t ask and I wouldn’t have to explain it all. Because the thing was, most normal people don’t get it. Debate, especially Policy Debate, comes with its own language and its own set of rules, and it takes a seriously demented personality to care enough to learn it all.
I was so warped that I didn’t just learn it. I lived for it.
There were a million different clubs and activities at Bannerman. From the chess club to the Asian-pop club to the science bowl, there was a club for every student who needed leadership positions to list on college apps. Every evening, some group was meeting in the common rooms, but from what I could gather, the meetings mostly consisted of eating veggies and hummus and goofing off. It looked like fun. I could have made a bunch of friends that way. But I didn’t have time.
We were required to participate in a sport, so I’d chosen soccer, mainly because I didn’t know the first thing about golf, or lacrosse, or rugby. I’d played soccer for a couple of years, starting when I was seven or eight. Rec-league soccer, where everyone follows the ball in a huge bunch and gets orange slices at halftime and a participation medal at the end of the season. I was terrible then and hadn’t improved since. In the first practice, the Bannerman coach made me a fullback, and I tried to defend the goal as best I could, but it only took about twenty minutes for the goalie to realize I was useless. I spent most of that practice running until my legs wanted to fall off and getting shoved around by the other players. Most of the other guys on the team thought I was about as helpful as a yard gnome. I couldn’t blame them.
I tolerated most of my classes at Bannerman. They were more intense than what I was used to in public school, but though the teachers piled on the homework, they didn’t seem to grade it very hard. I was generally able to keep up, but in my competitive speech and debate class, I was all in. The karaoke night had brought that out in me. Call it the fight-or-flight reflex, or my super-competitive nature—whatever it was, I was ready to win.
A couple days after the karaoke party, Watterson broke us into groups. The kids doing Public Forum or Congress spread out and sat on the floor in opposite corners at the front of the room, Lincoln/Douglas debaters took one side of the table, and the rest of us—the Policy Debate group—moved to the back of the room. As I grabbed my things, I took a good look at my group. For the first time, I realized that Shari Prasad, the girl that Watterson had said would be my partner when he recruited me, wasn’t there. I counted everyone in the group. Eight people. Four teams. Two varsity and two JV. Who was going to be my partner?
As if sensing my panic, Watterson approached the Policy Debate group. “All right, listen up. We’ve got two new freshmen this year.” He nodded at the group in the corner, a scared looking guy and a heavy girl with hair covering most of her face. “I want you to go over some theory with them. Explain the rules, especially in the context of this year’s resolution. Throw out some case ideas. Talk about possible counter plans and topicality arguments.”
Tran’s hand shot straight into the air. Without turning to acknowledge it, Watterson said, “You don’t have to give them your whole case, Tran. Talk in general terms. They’ll get their chance to beat you soon enough.” Tran put his hand
down and scowled. Watterson turned and walked to the next group. “I’ll post who you’re partnered with in a few minutes.”
Garrett took charge of the group, not the Duke, as I’d expected. He pulled out his laptop and opened it up while the Duke sat in the back corner, staring at Peyton and flirting with her from across the room. She managed to simultaneously toss her hair and make faces at the Duke and the guys on either side of her. I suddenly understood how she’d become so successful in Congress.
“Okay,” Garrett said, “Policy Debate. You’ve at least watched a few rounds, right?”
The girl nodded, and the boy grunted in agreement.
“Good. So you know the general idea. One team, the affirmative, argues in favor of the resolution, and the other team, the negative, argues against it. The affirmative presents a plan, the negative attacks it.”
The freshman guy raised his hand. His hair was so white he looked almost bald, and his voice shook a little as he spoke. “It’s easier to be the affirmative because you get to decide what the debate is about, right?”
Tran jumped in. “Yes and no. When you’re affirmative you present the plan, and your first constructive speech is prepared, so you have that advantage. But the negative only has to win one argument to win the round, so in that way, they have the advantage.”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Tran threw his pen down. “What don’t you understand?”
She bit her lip. “All of it.”
The Duke spoke without taking his eyes off Peyton. “Give her an example.”
Tran let out a long breath and pulled out his tablet.
Garrett turned his laptop screen around so everyone could see it. He had a sample ballot on the screen. He tried again: “The resolution this year is about the homeless.”
Tran interrupted. “It’s ‘Resolved: That the federal government should significantly increase social services to homeless individuals in the United States.’”
Over the top of his computer screen, Garrett glared.
“What?” Tran said, shrugging. “They need to know that.”
“Anyway,” Garrett continued. “The affirmative comes up with a plan that meets the resolution. Their plan can be food stamps or health care or housing or substance-abuse treatment or giving the homeless all puppies or whatever. And then the affirmative has to argue their plan and why the judges should vote for it. The negative attacks the plan. They argue that there is no need for the plan, that it won’t work, that it doesn’t fit the resolution, or that it will cause more problems than it solves. For the affirmative to win, they have to win every one of those arguments. The negative only has to win one, because if they can win just one argument, there’s no need to pass the plan. Understand?”
I looked over at the freshmen, remembering when I was in their place. Ms. Vandergrift had spent two weeks teaching us theory, and even then, I still hadn’t understood it all. This was Bannerman, though, and these two would learn by watching us. They’d be lucky to compete much at all this year. On a team like this one, there was no room for those who were still learning.
The girl nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”
Garrett smiled. “Good. So, yeah. The beginning of the debate is the constructive speeches. The affirmative goes first and presents its case. Each constructive speech is eight minutes long. Followed by a three-minute cross-examination.”
“The Aff gets the first and last speech, but it has the burden of proof,” Tran added. “It makes everything fair to both teams.”
The freshman girl spoke again. “So, it’s better to be affirmative? Or negative?”
Everyone started speaking at once.
“Negative.”
“Affirmative.”
“Depends on your case.”
It was hard to hear anything over all the buzz. I didn’t realize that Watterson was behind me until he spoke. “Tanner, what do you think? Who has the advantage? Aff or Neg?”
Everyone went silent, waiting for my response. I had no way of knowing what Watterson wanted to hear. I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t get to pick what side you argue. You need to be able to win either way.”
Watterson looked around the group, waiting for a rebuttal. The Duke leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs. “Nice try,” he said with a cocky smile, “but you didn’t answer the question. Who has the advantage?”
The Duke’s hair flopped forward, falling into his eyes, but I could see it. The challenge. I knew that in almost everything that mattered here, I was no match for him. He was better looking, better connected, better dressed. Better everything.
But not at this.
“Negative,” I answered, my voice loud and confident. “Negative has the advantage. You should always be able to beat your own affirmative case.”
Tran laughed. “Maybe yours. Not mine.” He patted his laptop like a puppy. “I don’t quit working on my case until it’s unbeatable.”
There were nods among the group, and somebody hit Tran on the back of the head and coughed, loser.
But I wasn’t done. “Then don’t expect to ever win a tournament.”
Rubbing the back of his head, Tran said, “Yeah. We’ll see.”
“Here’s the thing.” I leaned across the table. “If your case is unbeatable, then someone else will be running it, too. They’ll use it against you. And you’ll lose. You should always be able to beat your own affirmative case.”
Watterson bit his lip, suppressing a smile, and walked back to the front of the room. Tran muttered something about proving it to me when we got to our first tournament. I wasn’t really listening. I was looking across the room at Kelsey, who’d overheard the end of our conversation. She was smiling—really smiling—at me. When we made eye contact, she shook her head, but I could tell she was impressed.
And I gotta admit, it felt good. Really good.
Then she looked up at the screen in the front of the room and gasped. The entire room went silent.
Watterson had listed the pairings. In the first varsity slot, it read: Tanner McKay/Andrew Tate.
CHAPTER FOUR
DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS TENSE.
If I hadn’t been so hungry, I probably would have stayed in my room. Not that being there was much better. Huang and the three other members of the robotics team hung out most nights, ignoring me and building who-knows-what, and even when they left, the smell of burnt metal lingered. There was no way I’d make it until breakfast, and I’d already eaten all of the cookies my mom sent in her care package earlier in the week. Without permission, I couldn’t leave campus, and I didn’t have the money to go off campus to eat anyway. So I stood in line, clutching my tray with both hands, trying to pretend that I didn’t care that everyone on my team hated me.
Garrett had lit into Watterson as soon as class was over. I could almost see the smoke pouring out of his ears. Apparently, he and the Duke had been partners last year. I didn’t stick around to hear what Watterson had to say about it all, but when Garrett came in late to American lit, stomping around and scowling at everyone, it was obvious it hadn’t gone his way.
Tran was mad, too. He and Jason were supposed to be the number-one seed. Tran was a senior, and they’d been top seed last year. They’d made it further than any other Bannerman team at State, losing only once. In the final round. To me.
Careful not to spill my Dr. Pepper, I surveyed the dining hall, looking for a place to sit. There was only one table that didn’t have a dorm parent already seated there. I made a beeline for it. I didn’t have it in me tonight to talk to adults about “how I was adjusting.” A couple of guys from my chemistry class were at the table, and I set my tray down without asking if I could join them. Definite breach of Bannerman Dining Hall etiquette. I didn’t care.
Both guys looked up at me, but didn’t say a word. I sat and started into my vegetable lasagna.
After a few minutes, Tomas took the seat across from me. “Hey,” he said. I had
n’t talked to the guy since the karaoke party, but at least he was willing to be seen with me, so I guess that was something. He talked to the other two guys about a history assignment while I ate my garlic bread, pretending not to eavesdrop.
I spotted Kelsey at the salad bar. Though I tried not to, I couldn’t stop looking up every few seconds, checking where she was in line. She was with two other girls, and I couldn’t tell if she’d seen me or not, but I took slower, smaller bites and wiped my greasy fingers on my napkin. When she finally walked by our table and sat at the one to the left of us, Tomas nodded to her. “What’s up, Cinco?”
“Hey, Tomas,” she replied. Meeting her eyes, I raised my hand and waved, then realized how ridiculous I looked. She was ten feet away from me. I should’ve said something, instead of giving my impression of a Miss America contestant. I ducked my head and started eating my salad.
“So,” Tomas said, in between large bites of garlic bread. “You fight a lot back home?”
“What? Because I’m from Hollister you think I’m some kind of gang member?”
“Could be.” He shoved the last piece of bread in his mouth. He was grinning, but I didn’t get it until I felt the hand on my shoulder. I didn’t look up.
“I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Watterson,” Garrett said, his voice low so the adults at the other tables couldn’t hear. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to work. You two won’t win. You’re not getting my case, and the Duke has never written a single brief on his own.”
I picked up my glass and took a slow sip before responding. “I don’t need your case.”
Garrett snorted. “We’ll see about that.”
I could feel my pulse racing. My toes curled inside my shoes, but I wasn’t going to give Garrett the satisfaction. “Guess we will.”
Tomas was watching from across the table, his eyes wide, waiting. I really didn’t want to fight Garrett, but if he hit me, I’d have to defend myself. Fighting would get us both at least a week of detention and extra chores, but so be it. I was not backing down. I waited, my body tense.