Geek High

by Piper Banks

  I stared at her. I had been right all along…Peyton really was evil. And not just a little evil, but impressively evil. Like, so evil she probably had a dark altar hidden away somewhere in the house on which she sacrificed puppies to Satan.

  But on the other hand…as awful as she was to suggest it, I had always secretly wanted a nose job. I know that it’s superficial to fixate on your looks, and that surgically altering your appearance to comport with the rigid and narrow standards of modern beauty is a copout, but still. I’ve always hated my nose. It’s just way, way too big for my face. In fact, my nose was so freakishly large, it apparently prompted people to spontaneously suggest I get plastic surgery.

  “Peyton,” my father said again, and this time he sounded really annoyed. I glanced over at him, and was surprised to see he had that pinched-up expression he always gets when he’s around my mom. “Miranda is not getting a nose job. She doesn’t need one, and anyway, she’s far too young.”

  “No, she isn’t. I had my nose done when I was sixteen,” Peyton argued.

  Wait…Peyton had a nose job? I stared at her nose, which had always seemed a bit too pointy, and had a tendency to flare when she was angry. I wondered what it had looked like before, and had a sudden vivid image of Peyton with a hooked, wart-covered witch’s nose. I quickly took a sip of Coke to cover my snort of laughter.

  “Well, Miranda is too young,” my father said firmly. “Besides, her mother would never go along with the idea.”

  Hmph, I thought. Why should Sadie have any say? I think there should be a law that when a parent deserts her offspring to go live in Europe, she immediately surrenders any right to have input in decisions involving minor cosmetic procedures.

  “Actually, I think I might like a nose job,” I said. A bit too loudly. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal…except for the fact that Emmett Dutch had chosen that exact moment to appear at our table, standing just behind me.

  “Hey, Miranda,” he said.

  I spun around and stared up at Emmett. I had no idea that he actually knew my name. Discovering this delicious nugget of information was almost worth the mortification of him hearing my announcement that I wanted to have a nose job. Almost…but not quite. Because surely now every time Emmett saw me, all he’d be able to think about was my freakishly large nose. It’s true. Finn said that whenever he tells someone he was born with a cleft palate, from then on they always stare at the surgical scar just over his mouth, as though trying to imagine what the birth defect must have looked like. So now Finn just tells everyone that the scar was caused by a freak fly-fishing accident.

  I suddenly realized that Emmett was waiting for me to say something.

  “Oh. Um. Hi,” I gabbled nervously. “You know my name?”

  Oh, no. Please tell me I didn’t just say that out loud, I thought miserably.

  “I’m here with my parents,” Emmett said, nodding over toward his mother and father’s table. They were watching us with friendly interest, and so I waved feebly at them.

  “Oh…cool,” I said. An awkward pause followed, during which I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “Miranda, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Peyton asked in her most fakey-nice tone. It was how she used to talk to me back when she and my dad were first dating, and she felt it was important to pretend to like me…a pretense she dropped as soon as they got married.

  “Oh! Right. Sorry. This is, um, Emmett. And this is my dad, and my stepmother, Peyton, and that’s Hannah,” I said, pointing to each in turn.

  “Hi,” Emmett said, looking right at Hannah.

  “Hey,” Hannah said. She tipped her head coyly to one side and began to wrap a sleek tendril of platinum blond hair around one finger.

  Wait…why was Hannah looking at Emmett that way? Almost as if she were interested in…Oh, no. No no no no no no no.

  “Where do you go to school?” Emmett asked, still not taking his eyes off of Hannah.

  “Orange Cove High,” Hannah said. She smiled, flashing her perfect white teeth. “Do you go to Miranda’s school?”

  “Yeah. Notting Hill,” Emmett said, nodding.

  “That is so cool,” Hannah said. “You must be really smart.”

  I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at this. Hannah had never once let the subject of Geek High pass without making a comment about how only dorks and freaks go there.

  But neither my dad nor Payton caught my eye roll. They were too busy beaming up at Emmett. Who, in turn, was beaming down at Hannah.

  Oh, no no no no no no no!

  But, I realized, my stomach sinking, there wasn’t a chance that Emmett would ever look at Hannah and me standing side by side and choose me. She looked like she’d walked straight out of a shampoo commercial, whereas I was the girl who possessed a nose so large, it inspired discussions of rhinoplasty. Well, okay, one discussion, but still. Surely no one had ever told Hannah she needed plastic surgery.

  “I almost sent Hannah to Notting Hill, but then decided that I’d prefer she have the experience of a more traditional school,” Peyton said.

  I turned to stare at her. For one thing, I’d never heard this before. And for another, just that afternoon I’d overheard Hannah informing her friends that Chicago was (a) a state, and (b) located next to California. There was no way she’d ever have gotten into Geek High.

  Wait…unless that was just it. Had Hannah applied to Geek High and not gotten in? It would certainly explain a lot of Peyton’s hostility. She was the most competitive woman alive. It wasn’t enough that Hannah was prettier than me, and had a killer body, and was insanely popular…of course Peyton would want her to be smarter than me, too.

  But as I looked up at Emmett, who was beaming down at Hannah while she giggled up at him and flirtatiously tossed her hair over one shoulder, I started to feel a little sick.

  People say that it’s who you are on the inside that counts, and that being smart and thoughtful is far more important than being pretty. But that just isn’t true. The pretty girls always beat out the smart girls. Always.

  Chapter 8

  I told Charlie about the horrible Emmett/Hannah flirtation the next day before mod lit began, keeping my voice low so that nobody—particularly the Felimonster—would overhear us.

  “Wait…go back to the part where your stepmonster said you needed plastic surgery,” Charlie said, outraged on my behalf.

  “That’s not the important part of the story,” I said. Which was saying something, since normally I’m more than happy to run Peyton down. “The important part is where you-know-who was totally into the Demon Spawn.”

  Charlie just shook her head sadly and gazed at me with the sort of pity she normally reserves for contestants on The Bachelor.

  “Miranda, I think you really need to take some time to work on your self-esteem,” she said.

  “Are you even listening to me?” I asked. “This is a nightmare. A total nightmare.”

  “Perspective time. A guy whom you hardly know, and yet have somehow persuaded yourself that you’re in love with, spoke to Hannah. I don’t think that quite reaches nightmare proportions,” Charlie said.

  And even though deep down I knew she was right, her condescending tone still irritated me. Just because Charlie has never truly fallen for anyone, and so has never experienced how it throws your entire life into chaos, she thought she was above the whole thing.

  “Hey, Miranda,” a voice said.

  I’d been so distracted by Charlie’s annoying armchair psychoanalysis, I hadn’t noticed that someone was hovering just in front of my desk…and, more important, that the somebody was Emmett. For the second straight day in a row, he’d crossed a room to talk to me! Had I been wrong to assume he was interested in Hannah? Was it possible…could it be…that maybe, just maybe, he’d been nice to Hannah only for my sake? After all, Emmett didn’t know that Hannah and I despised each other.

  “Oh. Um. H-hi, Emmett,” I stuttered, wondering if he could actually h
ear my heart galloping away at full speed.

  “How was your dinner last night?”

  “My steak was too rare. I had to send it back.”

  My steak was too rare? I had to send it back? What was I saying? I sounded like an idiot. Why was it that my supposed genius-level IQ seemed to drop to that of a not-very-bright shoe whenever I was around Emmett?

  “I was wondering…that girl you were with,” Emmett began. “Hannah, right? So…is she seeing anyone?”

  And just like that, the galloping skittered to a stop. I don’t know what a broken heart is supposed to feel like, but for me it felt as though I’d been frozen clear through. I went numb and cold at the same time.

  “Miranda,” Charlie murmured. She surreptitiously poked me in the side, causing me to jump in my seat. I realized only then that I hadn’t answered Emmett.

  “She probably has a boyfriend, huh,” Emmett said.

  “Um…” I said. I could have said, Yes, she does have a boyfriend. I could have said, She’s dating the hottest guy at Orange Cove High, and oh, by the way, he also happens to be a black belt in jujitsu. But I have my pride, even if it was now currently hanging about me in tatters. “No, I don’t think she does,” I finally said.

  Emmett grinned at me. His smile was just the tiniest bit crooked, and there was a small dimple in his right cheek. I’d spent hours fantasizing about him smiling down at me like that. Never once did I ever imagine that it would hurt this much.

  “Cool. So, um, would you mind giving me her number?”

  Numbly, I wrote the beach house phone number down on a slip of notebook paper, tore it off, and handed it to him.

  “Thanks, Bloom,” Emmett said. He winked and sauntered off, flushed with happiness.

  “He’s calling me Bloom,” I said miserably. “When they start calling you by your last name, all hope is lost.”

  “Actually, I think when they ask you for your stepsister’s phone number, all hope is lost,” Charlie said.

  I looked at her reproachfully. This was heartless, even for someone as unromantic as Charlie.

  “Sorry,” she said, immediately contrite. “But you know what I’m going to say.”

  “I know, I know. You’re going to say that anyone who would choose Hannah over me is an idiot, and not worth getting upset over,” I said. I was trying not to cry, which made my voice sound unnaturally creaky.

  “No. I was going to say that anyone who would ever be interested in such a vain, shallow, self-centered little brat like Hannah isn’t even worth knowing,” Charlie said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know she’s vain, shallow, and self-centered,” I said wistfully, watching Emmett as he pulled out his copy of The Stranger and opened up his laptop. “Maybe once he realizes it, he’ll lose interest in her.”

  “Oh, no,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “Don’t even go there. Life is not one of those feel-good teen movies, where the nice girl triumphs over the horrible popular girl in the end. Just forget about him, Miranda. Seriously.”

  I knew the sort of movie she was talking about. The protagonist is always beautiful, but everyone around her pretends that she’s plain because she wears clunky glasses, dresses in overalls, and keeps her hair pulled back in a ponytail. And then at some key point in the movie—usually at the prom—she puts in contact lenses, wears a slinky dress, and shakes out her hair, and suddenly everyone realizes for the first time that she looks exactly like Lindsay Lohan. It’s because of those propaganda films that every smart but plain girl secretly believes that one day she’ll shake out her hair and the hot guy in school will suddenly see her for the beauty she really is.

  But I don’t wear my hair up, or have glasses. And my clothes are pretty much the same ones from the Gap that everyone else at school wears. And so far, no one’s ever confused me with Lindsay Lohan. I slumped forward over my desk and stared at the glowing screen of my laptop.

  “Why so sad, Miranda?” Felicity asked so loudly, she was practically yelling.

  I ignored her, which was usually the best plan of action when it came to Felicity.

  “I would have thought you’d be excited that a certain someone crossed a room to talk to you,” Felicity continued, in the same too-loud voice.

  And suddenly, my eyes widening with horror, I realized what she was doing. Felicity was talking so loudly, everyone in the room could hear what she was saying. In fact, conversations about whether MIT or Stanford had the better engineering program, or the best extracurricular activities to have on your college applications, were coming to a rapid halt as our classmates looked up, their expressions curious.

  “Unless, of course, he was telling you that he’s taking out a restraining order to keep you from staring at him during class,” Felicity continued.

  She’d timed it perfectly—everyone heard her. They looked from Felicity’s smug face to my white-with-shock one, and then the whispering began.

  “What is she talking about? Who is Miranda staring at?” Padma Paswan asked, gaping at me across the room. I like Padma, but she can be such a gossip.

  “I’m not sure. But Felicity said something about a restraining order,” Tabitha said gravely, regarding me with her big, solemn eyes.

  “Really? Someone got a restraining order? Against Miranda?” Padma asked eagerly. She was sitting on the edge of her chair.

  It was like a car accident. No, worse than that. It was like a multiple pileup on the highway. It was a big rig jackknifing in the middle of rush-hour traffic and turning the roadway into real-life bumper cars.

  Charlie made a noise that sounded like a snarl. “Felicity, were you raised by a wire-monkey mother?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Felicity asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “You know, the wire-monkey baby experiment. It was a research project where they took away a baby monkey’s mother and gave it a fake mother made out of wire instead. All of the monkey babies who were raised by wire-monkey mothers became vicious and eventually went crazy. Which sort of reminds me of you,” Charlie finished.

  Padma tittered appreciatively at this. I stole a look at Emmett. He alone was ignoring the conversation.

  “Oh, ha, ha. You’re so funny,” Felicity snarled.

  “I think so,” Charlie said serenely.

  “They were rhesus monkeys,” Christopher chimed in unexpectedly in his robotic voice. “Harry Harlow of the University of Wisconsin–Madison conducted the experiments in 1930. He separated the infant monkeys from their mothers to study the effect of deprivation on emotional development—”

  Charlie glanced at me. She must have read the misery in my expression.

  “Thank you, Christopher, you’re exactly right,” Charlie said, hastily cutting him off.

  Finn slipped in just before Mrs. Gordon walked into class, brandishing her notes.

  “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Eggers,” Mrs. Gordon said to him.

  “My pleasure, Mrs. G,” Finn said, grinning at her. “You know there’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here in mod lit.”

  Mrs. Gordon loves Finn, so she just laughed.

  “What did I miss?” Finn whispered to me as he slid into his seat.

  I just shook my head numbly.

  “Good morning. I’m assuming everyone had time to read the first three chapters of The Stranger, and came to class prepared to discuss them,” Mrs. Gordon said.

  I considered making a run for it. I could plead cramps or a sinus infection, and spend the rest of the morning in the nurse’s office curled up on a cot. And while there, I could figure out a way to escape from my life. Maybe I could run away to Alaska and get a job on a fishing boat. Because clearly things weren’t going so well here…in fact, it was hard to imagine they could get much worse.

  But Charlie—who I could sometimes swear has the ability to read my mind—whispered, “Stay where you are. If you run away, you’re just letting her win.”

  And so I stayed. Even though at that moment, I didn’t really care if Fel
icity won or not.

  Chapter 9

  After the interminably long mod lit class, during which I sat marinating in my humiliation, Charlie insisted I go to Latin, too.

  “Keep your head high and your shoulders back,” Charlie kept hissing in my ear, sounding like a beauty pageant coach. I kept waiting for her to whip out a tube of Preparation H to zap the puffiness under my eyes. “Don’t let Felicity or anyone else know that she got to you.”

  And I kept soldiering on, trying to look serene and unbothered, even though what I really wanted to do was to lock myself in a toilet stall and never come out again.

  But Charlie’s approach seemed to work. The story fizzled and died out before lunch, which was nothing short of a miracle, considering that people still occasionally talk about how Olivia Malkin fell asleep in Advanced Physics last year after pulling an all-nighter to finish up her science fair project, and drooled all over her desk. Gossip does not die an easy death at Geek High.

  “I have something that will cheer you up,” Finn said at lunch. He, Charlie, and I had staked out our favorite table in the corner of the dining room. Lunch is included in the tuition, although we don’t have the typical cafeteria lunch line. Instead, platters of sandwiches, crudités, fruit, and cookies are put out on each table, and we help ourselves, family style. We’d all been careful to grab turkey sandwiches before they ran out (trust me, you don’t want to get stuck with the egg salad), although I wasn’t eating today. Being humiliated in front of one’s peers has a way of ruining the appetite.

  “I seriously doubt that,” I said morosely.

  Two tables over, the Felimonster and Toady had their heads bent close together as they whispered excitedly. It wasn’t too hard to figure out whom they were talking about, as they kept darting sly looks at me and then tittering behind their hands.

  “Keep smiling,” Charlie hissed, and I obediently curled up the corners of my mouth, even though it felt like I was baring my teeth rather than smiling.