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For Paul and E
CHAPTER ONE
LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
I know that a lot of people would say there are worse things than being completely forgettable, but I bet they haven’t spent much time at Pearce Middle School. Here the “Ests”—the smartest, prettiest, funniest, and fastest—rule the school. More than anything in the whole wide world, I wanted an Est title of my own. Specifically, “Artiest,” which I’ve been chasing ever since it opened up at the beginning of the school year. (Betsy Monroe dramatically abandoned the title. I’ll get to her soon.) This was my dream! This was my destiny! This was—wait, did I hear that correctly?
“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning!”
Yet again I had been lost in a daydream. This time in the middle of a very important audition during drama class.
“Uh, Veronica?” Mr. Stephens, the drama teacher, said.
I flipped violently through my binder with the script for Peter Pan as I rushed onto the stage and it slipped out of my hands and fell to the floor with a loud THWAP! I clambered across the stage, snatched up the binder, and scanned its pages for the right line. Judging by the veins popping out of his fake-tanned skull, I was pretty sure Mr. Stephens was about to succumb to a brain aneurysm.
I was so desperate, I just made up Wendy’s next line. “Uh, but where are we going?” Maybe I’d get points for improvisation.
The silence that followed clearly meant that wasn’t going to happen.
I didn’t want to make eye contact with Mr. Stephens. Instead I stood up as gracefully as my body would allow. Then my stomach let out a grumble. Not just any grumble, though; it was inhumanly loud and echoed through the entire auditorium.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“You know there are plenty of junior thespians who would jump at the chance to be auditioning right now?” Mr. Stephens asked. “To be a part of our distinguished Summer Theater Program?”
“I know,” I said, finally looking up at him. “I’m so sorry. I really think I’d be great for Wendy. And being at school all summer sounds great. I mean, for theater reasons.”
“You are not professional-theater material, Ms. McGowan.” He narrowed his eyes at me.
I didn’t know what to say, but luckily the crisp pop of foam being broken onstage grabbed Mr. Stephens’s attention. Jon, our Peter Pan hopeful, had careened into one of the foam window ledges as he tried to “fly” out the wrong window.
Yep. There’s the pinnacle of professional theater.
Everyone else seemed to love Mr. Stephens. He was one of those young teachers who would invite his students to hang out in his classroom at lunch to watch classic movies or have a party to celebrate the solar eclipse. This was my third try auditioning for his summer play, but I had never been invited to do anything other than paint sets or make copies of scripts. I wasn’t sure why, but my gut told me Mr. Stephens didn’t like me. It was weird. I didn’t feel like he hated me, either. I was just … not cool enough. What teacher gets to decide if you’re cool enough? That was a job for the Ests.
“You would’ve made a great Wendy,” someone whispered as I slunk back into my seat.
“Charlie! How long have you been here?” I whispered back, trying not to disturb rehearsal any more than I already had.
“Long enough to see you in a classic Veronica daze-athon.” My best friend rested his dirty high-tops on the seat in front of him. “Were you daydreaming about the ice planet Hoth? Were there tauntauns? Did you save Luke Skywalker? That’s what I dreamt about last night.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about Star Wars, my daydreams, or the play. All those hours of rehearsing Wendy’s lines and walking around in a fussy nightgown for nothing!
“You did great when we rehearsed,” Charlie reassured me.
“Thanks. I just wish I could have done better here and now.”
“Come on, then.” He picked a loose strand of his red hair off his jacket. “Art lab is callin’.”
“Um, not today. I got permission to … do something else.” I made my way backstage as quickly and silently as my flip-flops would allow. I’d left my backpack in the prop room.
Charlie grimaced as he followed me. “Ugh. Ugggggh. Not the whole Est thing again, Veri, please! You don’t want to be one of them.”
“You mean the most popular and successful kids in school? Why would anyone want that?”
“The Ests are robots,” Charlie said. “I swear. One day the truth will come out.”
I giggled as I eased open the prop-room door. It let out a long creeeeak!
Mr. Stephens turned around, fire in his eyes. He mouthed, Not professional.
Sliding through the door, I found myself in almost complete darkness.
“You looking for this?” Charlie asked, startling me as he shined his phone’s flashlight on my bag.
I reached for it, but Charlie grabbed it first and hoisted it above my head. “Can you complete your stupid Est quest without your gear?”
I squashed down my annoyance. An Est wouldn’t let Charlie get to her.
Instead, I looked him dead in the eye. “I will be an Est whether you like it or not.”
Charlie closed his mouth, and I was quite proud of myself. Shutting Charlie up was a rare, beautiful, mythic thing. A unicorn.
I grabbed my bag, but used too much backswing in pulling it away from Charlie. It flew out of my hands and soared through the air. It was going so fast, I swear I saw a glimmering comet tail trailing behind it. Then it sailed out the door, through the curtain, and crashed into Captain Hook’s ship. The Jolly Roger teetered for a moment before falling on the stage with a booming thud as drama club wannabes scurried for cover, shrieking overdramatically. The spotlight hit Charlie and me before we could make a run for it. Mr. Stephens stood agape.
“Sorry! Again…,” I managed to squeak out.
Mr. Stephens’s mouth was forming words, but no sound was coming out.
BRRRIIIINGG!
The bell! I needed to be in the gym. Now!
Still unable to speak, Mr. Stephens stretched out a clawed hand and pointed toward the auditorium exit. Being the smart kid I am, I ran toward it, and Charlie followed.
In the hall, I could tell Charlie was ready to give me more of a hard time about the Est activities of the day. Charlie hated the Ests. He thought they were snobs, jerks, stupid, and … you know, any negative word you want to shove in there. He was lucky; he didn’t want to belong. Charlie was exactly who he was and couldn’t be happier about it. Charlie didn’t seem to notice if anyone made fun of his red hair or how he was the smallest boy in our grade. He wanted to wear torn jeans and gigantic headphones, so he did. He wanted to speak with a fake British accent, so he did. He was just himself, everyone knew it, and he didn’t care. In fact, he seemed to rather l
ike being different from everyone else.
Meanwhile, no one would notice me even if I had a unicorn horn spiraling out of my forehead. Even when I tried to stand out, it seemed like I was permanently average—average height, average weight, average grades, average talent. My brown hair could be curly and wild in the best way one second and curly and wild in the worst way the next. Spoiler alert: the “best way” curly hair rarely correlated with picture day.
I was set on becoming something. Someone. An Est. I had tried everything—and I mean everything—to make myself one of them. From studying to be the Smartest (an abject failure on my part) to slapping on makeup to be the Prettiest (I cannot look at photos of myself from that time), I’d failed miserably at each attempt.
Today was it. It had to be. I only had two more activities that might bring out my inner awesome. My plan B was making the volleyball team so I could be the Sportiest, but it was a long shot. Tryouts were during the last period of the day. But right after school was my bigger, scarier, more exciting mission: to get into the Spring Formal Club, or SFC, as everyone called it. Every single member was an Est. Word on the street was that they needed someone to take on decorations. This, my friends, would be the swiftest path to Artiest!
But first, volleyball.
I changed as fast as I could. Keesha Goldman (Fastest) was running tryouts, and I was hoping to get in early and avoid the peeping eyes of Keesha’s Est friends who might stop by to watch the new recruits before SFC. I knew I wasn’t that good at volleyball, and a public mess-up could affect my SFC chances.
There were about ten other girls ahead of me, each rotating into the team and showing their stuff before Keesha marked her thoughts on a clipboard and sent them away.
Behind me, Madison Eckberg and her best friend, Reggie, were whispering nervously.
“Do you think she’ll notice?” Madison tittered.
“She better,” Reggie replied. “Mine are killing me.”
“We shoulda known as soon as she wore them they’d sell out of normal sizes.”
I snuck a glimpse. Both Reggie and Madison were wearing some pretty amazing gold sneakers. If you ignored their pained expressions, they almost looked cool. Not as cool as Keesha, though, who’d apparently started Pearce Middle’s latest fashion trend. Now, looking down, I realized that I was literally the only girl in the gym without the gold sneakers. My shiny orange high-tops suddenly looked like a pair of traffic cones I’d slipped my feet into. I had spent a whole month filing dental records for my dad to earn enough for them, and I loved them. Or at least, I used to.
I took a moment to envision myself victorious. That’s what all the self-help books say to do.
I was up and in place to serve. That was good. It was the only thing I knew how to do fairly well. I lobbed the ball over the net with ease just in time to spot Kate Cunningham (Smartest) walk into the gym and sidle up to Keesha. Was she watching? Nope. They were giggling and not even looking at us! I hustled, determined to get their attention. I hit the ball and let out a loud “Ha!” as it sailed over the net. No reaction from the Ests.
A new player rotated in on the other side and my heart sank.
It was Betsy Monroe. She had been the Artiest our whole lives, and she never let me forget it. It didn’t matter if it was a gold star for stick figures in kindergarten or the Pearce County Fair blue ribbon for her watercolor still-lifes of livestock two years ago, Betsy always won first prize and wasted no time telling everyone about my losses. I typically managed second or third or—the kiss of creative death—“Honorable Mention.”
This past year she had focused solely on photography, which had afforded me a slight break from the constant torture. She was also unceremoniously dumped as Artiest when she came back to school this past year with a major attitude and a new Goth style.
It was Betsy’s demise that had inspired me finally to go after an Est of my own. With Artiest up for grabs, my chances were good—except I still couldn’t get the Ests to notice me. Hence my focus on every other possible activity in the entire universe.
I did everything I could to avoid Betsy at school—she was still my nemesis—but right now I was trapped. The only salvation was to make an amazing play that both Keesha and Kate would notice and applaud me for. Then they’d announce I automatically made the team, had fantastic hair, and was the Sportiest. Simple, right?
I got into position, waiting to spike the ball and earn my spot on the team, but I could feel Betsy’s stare drilling into me. I couldn’t look; it would throw me off my game. Eyes on the prize, McGowan. The ball sailed through the air, right toward Betsy. This was it. She’d send it back over the net, and I’d be in a perfect position to spike.
I was so afraid to look directly at Betsy that I didn’t notice that she spiked the ball—until it was headed for my face at about eight thousand miles per hour!
I screamed in a muffled, yet still quite shrill, voice as the volleyball inverted my nose.
Did anyone see? Then I realized how silly it was to think no one would notice me getting pegged by the volleyball, which was literally the one thing everyone had to keep an eye on. I wanted to act like nothing had happened, but it was too late. I was falling to my knees.
From my new favorite place on the floor, I felt the sides of my nose. There was some alarming warmth, some blood, but luckily it didn’t feel … crunchy. I had broken my nose a few years ago when I lost a dare with Charlie that I could swing so high I’d go all the way around the top of the swing set. My sniffer certainly felt crunchy then.
I peeked out from between my fingers. The other girls had formed a circle around me. Some of them were covering their own noses in horrified sympathy while others looked bored, whispered to their friends, or outright giggled. Kids these days, man. I saw a bright flash of light—a camera phone! No!
“I’m fine. I’m totally fine,” I lied as I stood up, still cradling my nose. Betsy, of course, was watching from the other side of the net. Kate and Keesha were staring, too.
It wasn’t until I moved my hands from my nose that the blood really started to flow. As my dad often says, “The head bleeds a whole freaking lot.” Having a dentist for a dad leads to some gory stories at family dinner.
A small pool quickly formed at my feet as I tried to pinch my nostrils shut. Various shrieks, “ewws,” and snarky comments rang in my ears as another camera flashed. Keesha handed me a towel with the tiniest tips of her fingers as I stumbled off the court, leaving a trail of bloody sneaker prints in my wake.
The nurse got the bleeding stopped pretty quickly and assured me it wasn’t broken. I tried to explain that I already knew that, but I guess describing your nose as “not crunchy” doesn’t hold a lot of meaning in the medical community.
When I got back to the gym, the janitor was just finishing up. He was treating my little bloody mess like a disastrous chemical spill. There was even a yellow barrier tape like cops use to mark off a murder scene. I scanned the room. Such was my Est mania that I needed to know for sure what Keesha thought. Maybe she’d admired my lack of fear?
“Hey … you?” Keesha said, spotting me. “I thought you’d be with the nurse?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Totally fine,” I lied, trying not to touch the giant wad of gauze taped to my nose. “I just, uh, wondered what you thought about my tryout?”
The instant the words left my mouth, I realized how wrong and stupid they were. I imagined reaching out into the air and grabbing the whole sentence, stuffing it in my mouth, and swallowing it before anyone could hear it. Unfortunately, more words were already flowing. I couldn’t stop the idiotic dribble. “I mean, if my face hadn’t been there, I would have hit it.” I felt my cheeks rise up; I was smiling like a freak.
“Well, yeah,” Keesha said, “but your face was there.”
I nodded stupidly.
“The other players had more plays … and less blood. Sorry.” Keesha looked back at her clipboard.
“Oh, no, I totally understand.” I s
lowly backed away. “It’s cool. It’s cool.”
I didn’t turn away from her until I was halfway out of the gym.
Ugh.
Out in the hallway, I put my head in my hands and did my best to suck it up. Sure, I was humiliated, but there was one more shot at redemption. And I had to nail it. Like, seriously had to nail it, or my whole middle school existence would be completely worthless. This was the end of seventh grade. I had to leave my mark.
In the bathroom, I carefully picked the tape off my bandage and finally got to see the damage to my nose. Yuck. I washed my face and tried to get the crusty blood out of my hairline. My nose was still swollen and red, but at least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. I needed to hurry—I had things to do. I quickly changed into my jeans and favorite striped shirt. I stepped back from the mirror, taking a moment to really look at myself. Swollen nose aside, there wasn’t much of note. My brown hair lacked the highlights of the popular girls and grew outward in a poof. It wasn’t horrible—it just wasn’t good. Same went for my height, which was boringly average. I wasn’t cute and tiny or gloriously tall and statuesque. I sucked in my belly to see if I could force some curves. I had the extra padding; it just needed to shift to the right areas.
Baby fat or bust, it was time to go. I left the bathroom to find Charlie waiting for me, like always.
I covered my nose with my hand. “Don’t even ask.”
“I don’t need to.” Charlie clutched his phone to his chest, a pained expression on his face.
“What?” I cried as I grabbed at his phone.
“Betsy,” Charlie said. “Turns out she is as good with a camera phone as she is with an actual camera.”
“Noo!” I punched at the apps on Charlie’s phone. The picture was everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but a small tick of a smile was starting to show around the corners of his mouth.
“It’s not funny.”
“No, no. It’s not funny at all,” he agreed, “but why does stuff like this always happen to you?”
My So-Called Superpowers Page 1