The Aristobrats

by Jennifer Solow

  Something not so terrible.

  “I’ve been meaning to give it to you,” James told her. “I like the way you look…” His eyes met hers. “I mean in the photo,” he corrected. “The composition and stuff.”

  “Sure. Yeah.” Parker laughed. “The composition is great.” She tucked the print into her tote. It fit neatly into the side. It was good that totes were still so in, she thought. “Thanks.”

  James lifted his backpack back up and they walked the rest of the way up toward Hotchkiss’s office door.

  “Are you going to Fall Social on Saturday?” Parker asked without thinking. Dumb. Dumb. It was a dumb question, Parker! James would think she was asking him to go with her and that’s so not what she meant—

  “Sure,” James said. “I’m the AV guy, remember? Can’t have a party without me.” He smiled. “Who’d work the sound?”

  He pushed open the door to the first floor. The sound of Arthur’s machine drowned everything else out. Parker was instantly embarrassed in the light. Her face felt hot—she knew she must have been bright red.

  “I thought you kids just about disappeared down there.” Arthur the janitor yelled. His voice vibrated as he worked his oversized machine. Like magic, he left a trail in his wake: the floor behind him was shinier than the floor in front.

  “Nah,” Parker shouted above the noise. She held up the DVD in the blank jewel case. “Just finishing things up,” she said. Finishing things up, she thought again. Why did she feel so bad when the news was so good?

  “I’ll be watching tomorrow.” Arthur held up his iPhone. The oldest man in the world…with the same phone as Parker had. How weird was that? “I subscribe to the show,” he said as he moved on to the rest of the hall.

  “Thanks, Arthur.” Parker smiled. “Our one subscriber,” she whispered to James.

  James adjusted his heavy backpack on his shoulder. “I gotta run, Parker. My mom’s waiting outside.”

  “Oh. Sure. Me too.” Parker stood at Ms. Hotchkiss’s door holding the jewel case. This was it, she thought. She’d push it under the door and it would all be over. Simple as that.

  “You okay?” James asked as he shuffled toward the front.

  “Yeah.” Parker smiled at him as he opened the front door and disappeared into the night. “Totally okay,” she repeated.

  Parker knelt down to the narrow crack beneath the door and put the side of her face on the floor. The space was just tall enough to let the case slip through to the other side of the door. She tried to look through to the office but her face couldn’t get close enough with her nose in the way.

  She felt the vibration of the building like it was alive.

  With just one flick of her index finger, it was done.

  Chapter 24

  The very front row of the Freeman Auditorium was a whole different place than the very back row, or even the second-to-back row, of the eighth grade section. They truly were the very worst seats in the whole room, but they were the only seats that were left. The eighth grade section was completely full. Unless Parker turned around, she couldn’t see anyone (as in Tribb) and anyone (as in Tribb) couldn’t see her. (Well, except for the back of her head, which meant, if she had any plans for staying there more than this single Matin, she would need to contemplate a whole new hairstyle. But she didn’t. So she wouldn’t.)

  She tried not to let her embarrassment show but she thought some of it was probably leaking out. She was embarrassed for all four of them.

  I will never have to sit here again. We will never have to sit here again.

  She repeated the words in her head.

  “Could this be any more humilifying?” Kiki asked with an audible puff of air. “I can’t believe that it’s Fall Sosh tomorrow, only the first black tie event of the school year, and we’re sitting here!” she complained. “And why doesn’t anyone have my haircut yet?”

  Parker kept turning around toward the back of the auditorium. She was sure she’d see Hotchkiss at any moment, storming through the foyer and down the aisle like Miss Gulch in a Kansas tornado, pointing a finger at Parker and signaling that she wanted to see her immediately.

  But there was no sign of the headmistress.

  Parker couldn’t understand why Hotchkiss hadn’t summoned them to her office already. She was sure Alexander would have gathered the production staff all together in the waiting room before first bell, but he hadn’t. And if Alexander wasn’t going to find them before first bell, he would have definitely sent a note into Latin Studies requesting their immediate presence—he knew all their schedules. They weren’t hard to find. If not Latin Studies, she thought, then biology. If not biology, then French. Alexander even saw Parker doing her Virtual Humanities homework in the library before Matin. He could have quietly come over to her and whispered in her ear: “Ms. Hotchkiss’s office. Now.”

  But it was Matin and they hadn’t been fired yet. It made no sense. Parker chomped on about a dozen cinnamint Tic-Tacs as they waited. Ikea had tamed her new Afrofabulous hair into two pouffy ponytails on either side of her head. Parker thought they looked like ice skate pom-poms with grosgrain ribbons around them.

  Ikea bit her fingernails. “My dad’s in court today,” she said nervously looking around. “He won’t be here.” She craned her neck again. “Like pretty much for sure.”

  Parker nodded. “Like no way he’s coming.”

  “I thought we’d already be dead by now,” Plum said.

  “I’m sure Hotchkiss has something worse than death planned,” Kiki suggested.

  “We’re just getting fired, you guys,” Parker reminded them. “Not executed.”

  “What if she actually decides to show it?” Ikea asked hesitantly.

  “She’s not going to show it.” Parker pinky swore. “Can you imagine Hotchkiss actually showing your segment?! Or Kiki’s lunch menu?! Or Plum’s discotheque?”

  “Umm yeah, no way,” Plum agreed.

  “Not happening.”

  “Negatory.” They all nodded.

  “Do you think we went too far?” Ikea asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Completely.”

  Parker allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. “Well, that was the point.”

  “Hey.” Tribb, Kirby, and Beaver slid in to the seats two rows behind them. Parker turned around but not so much that her neck got all crinkly and made a double-chin (she’d practiced, and rejected, that pose many times). Somehow, Tribb had gotten even more quantumly gorgeous since soccer season started. He’d look so hawt in his tux. Parker’s stomach was instantly tied in a knot.

  Plum sat back up straight in her chair. Her new 32 B Fantasias really stood out.

  “Hey…” Parker completely forgot to have a more clever response to “Hey” than “Hey.” “…Ho,” she added a second syllable just because she couldn’t think of anything better at that particular moment. “Hey-ho, Tribb.”

  Hey-ho? Smooth move. Brilliant.

  Courtney and Cricket threw a tiny ball of paper at Tribb’s head from their prime spots. “Hey, Tribb!” They giggled.

  Tribb flashed a BriteWhite smile at them.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you!” Tribb said to Parker. “We should totally try and coordinize.” He checked his popped collar. Beaver and Kirby followed.

  Parker was so relieved. He was finally going to bring it up. All really would be well. Matin would be over and she could focus 100% on Fall Sosh. She could almost forget that her mom might move…

  “Right. Yes! Coordinize!” Parker couldn’t have agreed more. “So my dress is blue,” she told him. “Kiki calls it azul.”

  “Your dress is azul,” Kiki added. “Pale azul.”

  “But that’s basically just a fancy word for blue.” Parker fluttered her fingers around her neck where the dress came up to. “It has this really great necklin
e. And I’ve been thinking absolutely no jewelry.” She laughed. “The corsage really says it all.”

  “Your dress?” Tribb asked. His voice was low, like a mallet hitting a big brass gong. “I meant the Ancient Egypt Living Museum project thing. I need to at least get a C.”

  “Virtual Humanities? The project thing?” Parker’s heart dropped. Tribb had no plans at all to coordinate his tux with her dress. She didn’t even know what time he was picking her up. “Sure,” she said. “Living Museum.”

  “Sweet.” Tribb nodded back to Parker. “You’re the greatest, Park.” He winked.

  “Sure.” Parker cleared her throat. “No probs.”

  “What color’s your dress?” Kirby asked Plum. When he spoke, his cheeks turned red in patches that looked like the shape of Pennsylvania. “It’s wicked sick, I bet.”

  Plum turned around and flashed Kirby the mini–evil eye (no serious injuries incurred). “Me no speakum guyanese, Kirby,” she notified him. “But it’s lavender anyway, if you must know,” she admitted. “With little black polka dots.”

  Mrs. Rouse sat down at the piano and the lights dimmed. Parker’s brief social moment was immediately replaced with a feeling of dread. It was too late for Hotchkiss to do anything.

  “OMGeeze!” Ikea grabbed Parker’s arm. “He’s here!” Ikea pointed to the back of the auditorium. Mr. Bentley was sitting at the end of the row. He hadn’t taken off his overcoat and his limo driver was standing behind him. “He’s supposed to be in court! Please say she’s not going to show it, Parker,” she pleaded. “She can’t!”

  Parker looked past Mr. Bentley and his driver at the silhouette of James sitting in the AV booth. McDweebs was back there with him, she could see. The familiar clip-clop of the Terminator’s chic but sensible high heels approaching the podium was even more nerve splitting from the front row.

  “No way Hotchkiss is going to show it,” Parker said confidently, even though her dread had turned to panic. “No way.” She crossed every finger she had as the room went dark.

  Chapter 25

  Fitz Orion once told me ‘I’m going to make a difference in the universe,’” Hotchkiss announced at the podium. “He was just a student at Wallingford Academy at the time.” The Terminator’s demonic buildup gave Parker a horrible, sinking feeling. “And Fitz Orion did make a difference in the universe after all.”

  Ikea turned around. Her father was still sitting there in the back.

  “What is she talking about, Parker?” Ikea whispered, squirming.

  “I can’t tell,” Parker said. “Something about the solar system, maybe?”

  The soft music began on her command. Parker suddenly couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was under water.

  “And speaking of different…” Hotchkiss looked directly at Parker and raised her Genius Pen to her shiny black tablet.

  The world is going to end. Right here, right now, Parker thought. With the touch of her stylus, the Terminator was finally going to annihilate all mankind. Or maybe it was just the Lylas who were going to be destroyed.

  Hotchkiss pressed the pen lightly and the Super-Screen illuminated with the Wallingford Academy Today logo. Parker began to shake so hard she had to hold onto her armrests to keep from falling off her chair.

  Ikea began to shake. Kiki’s head dropped like a deadweight into her lap. Plum curled in her seat like one of those dolls that turns into a backpack.

  Parker felt like the floor fell out from beneath her.

  ***

  The show’s opening song—Liam Davies’s latest hit—blasted out through the finely tuned acoustics of the elegant Freeman Auditorium. It was the loudest thing anyone had ever heard at the school. Years ago a sudden explosion of sound like that would have sent hundreds of Wallys and teachers running for the old bomb shelter. Even Parker had to put her fingers in her ears as the bone-splitting grind ricocheted around the great rotunda, nearly shattering the grand chandelier.

  Those who had not already passed out (like Mrs. Rouse, onto her piano keys) or become coma-toast (like Allegra Oliphant and a half dozen other Einsteins) or popped out a Hollywood Hair Bumpit (like Tinsley Reardon, onto Courtney Wallace’s lap), were thrashed by flashes of silver, swirls of light and fog, and caboodles of Plum’s DayGlo universe.

  The set was downright sedate in real life compared to the way it came off on the stadium-sized Super-Screen. And James’s filming—the “feeling of movement without the whole hand-held trap” and the “compression effect without all the old school distortion”—made the studio feel like a glimpse from a spaceship rather than what it was: a dark spare room in the basement of the school, a couple of cans of bright “door-hinge,” some junkyard furniture and Plum’s mother’s spinning Pilates ball covered in mirror tiles. There weren’t enough yellow slips in Death Breath’s entire collection to even begin listing all the rules that’d been broken.

  Parker wasn’t sure if she’d ever start breathing again. She took her fingers out of her ears, opened her eyes and stared up at the screen.

  “Hello, and welcome to Wallingford Academy Today! I’m your host, Parker Bell, and we’re streaming to you from the studio here in the bowels of our dorky school, Wallingford Academy…”

  Even before Parker finished delivering her opening line, the entire audience broke out in laughter. Parker cringed. The voices were unmistakable: Kirby, Courtney, Cosima, Tinsley, Laurel, Natalie, even Tribb. All laughing at her. She could even hear Barn Yard’s cackling behind her.

  There was nothing worse, Parker realized—no terrible disease, no dissected cow eyeball guts—nothing more gruesome and paralyzing than the feeling of the whole world laughing at you. Parker’s insides felt like they had just melted onto the floor never to be gathered up again.

  The footage cut away from Parker’s public humiliation to the video clip of Graham Henry belching the Alma Mater beside the portrait of Miss Thistle in the foyer of the school. Only this was supposed to be funny—but not a single person in the room was laughing. (Except Graham Henry himself, of course.) In fact, the Freeman Auditorium was so painfully silent, it felt like the whole school had turned into one giant ice cube. Everyone’s faces were stuck in a single position, like the entire room was playing a giant game of Freeze Tag.

  Allegra Oliphant smirked from her spot down the row.

  “Mind your own beachwax, Allegra!” Kiki snapped.

  Parker had almost forgotten that Ikea’s sharp fingernails were digging into her arm. She was glad her body was completely numb or else the ten tiny vice grips would have sent her screaming.

  Please let the computer crash, Parker prayed. Please let the electricity shut down in the whole school. Please let a random train come crashing through the stage. Please let an alien spaceship abduct me right now…She glanced over at Ikea, whose hands were clasped in silent prayer, as well.

  But the webcast just kept rolling.

  Kiki had decided that she simply couldn’t do the lunch menu and shop for dresses for Fall Sosh—so she just shopped for dresses (quel surprise). She did, however, do it in front of the camera, so they just edited her bit in.

  “We’re here in the Langdon’s designer frock salon picking out something fabu for Fall Sosh, the first truly major event of the season!”

  Kiki sashayed through the fancy boutique. Kenneth came along while Kiki shopped because Kenneth always came along for things like this: haircuts, mani-pedis, Fake-n-Bakes. Somebody had to sprawl out on a grand divan (even when the cameras weren’t rolling) and read magazines aloud. That somebody was Kenneth.

  “Now lace is evil. It truly is. You think it’s going to be smashing, but really it’s a horrendous material. It makes everyone look like a stuffed sausage. So this is why we won’t even be looking at lace.”

  There were uncomfortable murmurs coming from the back of the eighth grade section. Parker assumed from the girls who were planning to
wear lace. The audience’s game of freeze tag continued. On screen, Keeks & Kenneth gabbed about dresses and shoes, gossiped about celebrities, and played “Who Wore It Better?” with the webcast audience. Kenneth showed the camera the pages of his magazine inviting everyone to submit their opinions online.

  “Do you think I look fat?” Kiki asked Parker. “That side’s my fat side I think.”

  “Who cares what you look like, Kiki? Our lives are over!” Parker hissed, unable to contain her hairy nip. “Who cares?!”

  “You don’t have to be such an insultosaurus, Park. What’s the matter with you anyway?” Kiki slumped down into her seat. “And, I was just testing you, F-Y-I. The other side’s my fat side!”

  Ikea’s hand was all clammy on Parker’s.

  “I can’t believe this, Parker,” Ikea said softly.

  “I’m so sorry, Ike,” Parker said. “I really didn’t think she would show it.” Together, in the giant ice cube that was the Freeman Auditorium, they continued to watch.

  James had the idea of filming Ikea from just slightly below a normal level. It made her seem even larger than she would have on the Super-Screen. Her Afro alone looked as big as the moon. No one had ever seen Ikea like this before. There was a collective OMGasp in the auditorium.

  “A friend of mine told me that everyone in this school knows me already, so I guess I don’t have to introduce myself. But the are a few other people I’d like you to meet…”

  Ikea (the one shivering in her seat, not the one stomping a suede boot on the screen) closed her eyes. Her sweater sleeves were pulled out away from her arms and twisted limply around her like she was in a straightjacket.