by Laura Preble
“So?” Becca says excitedly. “Isn’t it perfect?”
Elisa nudges a crushed soda can with her foot. “If you’re trying to collect recyclables for loose change.”
“Don’t be so negative.” Amber shades her eyes (done up in full Cleopatra Goth makeup) and studies the screen looming behind us. “I think it will be amazing.”
“Right over here.” Melvin motions toward the screen as he shuffles, dragging his injured foot. “The world premiere of The Drainpeople. It’s going to kick some serious ass.”
“Dad!” Becca grimaces at him. “It’s not all about you and your movie, you know.”
“Sure, sure,” he says, waving away her complaint. “The dance’ll be great, too, honey, but think about it . . . how many of your friends have been able to attend a Hollywood premiere?”
Thea bounces up between them, the Earth Mama to their big ol’ dysfunctional funky family. “Let’s go inside and check it out.”
We walk through the gates (lovely, classy, rusting aluminum fencing). We’re approached by a skinny lady in blue hot pants, a daisy-print tube top, flip-flops, and a hat that proudly proclaims, “Honeymoon Reject.” “Hi there,” she says from behind bug-eye sunglasses, her strawlike, overprocessed hair whipping in the breeze. “I’m Maggie DeFranco. We spoke on the phone.” She extends a wrinkly hand decorated with hot pink talons.
“Melvin Gallagher,” Becca’s dad says, extending a hairy paw.
“We’re just thrilled to be hosting such a great event,” Maggie DeFranco says, then gets caught up in a lung-busting bout of coughing. I get the feeling that a lot of that cigarette dust I saw earlier belongs to her. “Let me show you the electrical layout and the projection system.”
Evie wordlessly follows her as she and Melvin hobble off talking about great old horror movies and dancing buckets of popcorn, and she only throws one resentful glance back at us. I don’t blame her: Maggie DeFranco’s leathery skin and tobacco smell would make me think twice about being with her in an enclosed space.
Becca grabs my arm and dashes off to the flat area right below the screen. “This is where the dance floor will be, after the movie screening. And we’ll have food stations all along that fence, and after the movie, a bunch of music videos synched up by the DJ.”
Amber and Elisa have trailed along, and Elisa hears that last comment. “If we do have a DJ, I am begging you, please, no rap music. It gives me a serious migraine.”
“And please, none of that wannabe hip-hop stuff by kids under twelve,” I say, putting in my two cents’ worth. “If I see one more kid with a milk mustache playing drums on MTV, I will seriously throw myself under a bus.”
Amber grins. “Don’t worry. Jon’s the DJ. He’ll never commit serious crimes against music.”
Thea flits around talking about the silver and black decorations, Amber and Elisa dish about what the crowd will be like and about how to get people to come to the event, and Becca looks on in satisfaction. I’m sort of apart from the whole thing, watching from a distance; I’m thinking about how I’ll be shuttling myself back and forth on prom night, performing illegal driving moves with my robot guardian and my Velcro dress. Dresses, I should say. When Maggie Pink Talons and the power crew come back, I’m more than glad to be out of there, because honestly, the whole idea is starting to make me more than a little nervous.
That Friday we have a Queen Geek meeting, and general mayhem is the result. The Geeks are in a state of ecstasy over the rebel prom, and can’t wait to paper the campus with multicolored fliers. Armed with tape and an attitude, the girls assemble to cover the campus like ants on a sugar donut. Becca stops them with one majestic wave of her hand. “Ladies, before you go out to do your work, I wanted to let you know that Panther TV will be doing a spot on Geek Prom next week, and”—she takes a breath for emphasis—“because of our Hollywood connections, E-Tube Television will be broadcasting live from Geek Prom!”
The screams of joy nearly take the asbestos-laden roof off the classroom. Gaggles of geeks rush out the door armed with information, leaving me and Becca alone in the now-silent room. “Well, that went well,” she says as she tidies up.
“Are they really going to broadcast live?” I ask, skeptical. “Or did Melvin just tell you that to impress Thea?”
She shoots me a withering look. “Please. He doesn’t need to impress Thea. She’s like jelly. It’s actually kind of disgusting.” She grabs a stack of fliers and a roll of tape and gestures to the door. “Shall we?”
We exit the relative quiet of the room and swim into the stream of ravenous high school students eating lunch. With only half an hour to eat, most kids will consume anything portable, which means most of them eat nasty hamburgers, fried chicken patties on white bread, or nachos that have never even heard of Mexico. I generally bring my lunch so I have more control over the crap I put into my body.
The place is also crammed full of kids trying to catch up on their social lives, which are horribly interrupted by school. Couples grope each other (as much as they can without getting scolded), friends sit on the concrete walkways talking, freshman boys gallop around like circus ponies on speed. We just try to maneuver around all these groups and find spots where we can tape in peace.
As Becca plasters hot pink and electric blue fliers all over the glass doors of the library, a large-knuckled hand bearing an oversized gold class ring slams, palm down, into the door next to her head. “What the—” She turns, furious, but before she can say anything else, an overstuffed upperclassman has stepped toward her, effectively wedging her between himself and the wall. He towers over Becca, which takes some serious height.
“Why are you screwing up Carl’s life?” the guy rumbles at her. He’s wearing a letterman jacket, and has the fine stubble of a potential beard roughing up his chin.
“Excuse me?” Becca says, in a tone that definitely doesn’t sound like she wants to be excused. She tries to shove her way past him, but he maintains his mountainous stance. “Please get out of my way, Goliath.”
“Not until you explain to me what he ever did to you.” The guy is immovable; I am afraid that this might come to physical violence (and we don’t need a broken jock on our conscience or on our permanent records), so I butt in.
“Hey,” I say, in as chirpy a manner as I can muster. “Maybe there’s been some mistake?”
“I’m not talking to you,” Athletic Guy snarls, then turns his attention back to Becca. “He’s not concentrating, he’s totally a mess. It’s your fault.” His tone does not sound as if he is inclined to forgive.
“What I do in my personal life is nobody else’s business, least of all some Neanderthal who tries to push me through a plate-glass door,” she spits. “Now move before I kick your ass.”
But before any ass-kicking can occur, Athletic Guy is shoved backward onto the grass by someone who rockets out of the library doors. In a blur of muscle, someone is on top of him, and the two are rolling on the lawn, throwing punches here and there.
Stunned, Becca turns to me and says, “That’s Carl. Quick, get him off there!” She dashes forward and grabs for Carl’s jacket collar, but he jerks to the side and knocks her aside without even noticing. I see a campus supervisor in the distance who has picked up on the fight, and is using the radio to call for handcuffs or guard dogs or whatever they do. (I haven’t been involved personally in any fights before, so I don’t know the drill.) Becca leaps on top of Carl, grabs him around the neck, and squeezes for all she’s worth until he starts to look a little blue and lets go of the jock.
“The narcs are coming!” Becca hisses to both of them and several supervisors begin to trot toward us. “Stop it right now or you’ll both be doing community service on the side of the freeway!”
As the narcs surround the guys, they both act like they’re playing, like nothing’s really wrong. Magically, they’re both grinning, with only a trace of hatred on their unibrows. Seeing the lack of a real fight, the supervisors mill around for a couple
of minutes then disperse, talking importantly into their walkie-talkies.
When they’re out of hearing range, the human mountain whirls on Carl. “What are you doing, jerk?”
“You were assaulting my girlfriend, jerk,” Carl replies.
“I’m not your girlfriend anymore,” Becca says, adding, “jerk.”
Carl, his big blond head bowed in despair, lets a big tear drip down his cheek. “I know that,” he whispers. My heart just about breaks.
How can Becca resist that? But she does. I look at her, and she’s standing, arms folded, looking defiantly like a pissed-off goddess of wrath. “Don’t try that crying stuff with me,” she cautions. “It won’t work.”
“I’m not trying anything,” Carl says, wiping his face on the sleeve of his basketball jersey. “I miss you.”
“Sure,” Becca says as Athletic Guy growls and walks away. She continues taping up fliers as if nothing has happened. “Don’t try to manipulate me.”
“I’m not,” Carl says, hovering over her shoulder. “Let’s try to find a way to make this work.”
“Why don’t you just go after Aussie Girl? I guess you have a taste for koala bear, huh?” she spits at him.
“I don’t like Evie!” Carl whines. “I mean, she’s nice, but she’s not you. I was only trying to get her to tell me why you won’t talk to me, Becca. C’mon. Why are you being so difficult?”
Becca turns on one heel, marches past him, thrusts a flier into his hands, and says, “You know what you have to do.”
I follow in her wake, watching behind me as Carl stares despairingly at a lime green Geek Prom flier. “Don’t you think that was a little harsh?” I ask.
“Not really,” she says, her voice clipped. We spend the last ten minutes of lunch posting fliers all over campus, and I notice that they are drawing a bit of a crowd. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
Fletcher’s waiting outside my last class as I leave. “Hi there,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. “What’s up?” His arm fits nicely around my shoulders and we walk in an easy rhythm toward the front of the campus.
“Oh. Nothing.”
We pass several of the Day-Glo fliers pasted on windows and walls, and Fletcher gestures to one as kids rush by. “I hear there was a little problem at lunch?”
“Kind of.” What can I tell him? If I start talking about Geek Prom, I could give away my secret plan. But if I don’t say anything, he might suspect. “Some basketball player kind of hassled Becca about breaking up with Carl, and then Carl tackled him, and then he cried, and then Becca kind of blew him off.”
Fletcher stops in midstride and turns me around to face him. “Why is she being so mean to him? And how are you getting around doing this Geek Prom thing?”
Oh, boy. Here comes the true test of my acting ability: Can I lie to the face of the boy I think I love? I choose to look down at the fascinating cracks in the sidewalk. “I guess she’s being mean because she wants him to do what she wants. You know how she is.”
“Yes, I do.” He continues walking, I guess satisfied by my answer. “But don’t you think she’s being unreasonable?”
“No comment.” In order to draw attention away from the fliers, I turn Fletcher toward me and give him a big fat kiss on the lips. Usually kisses keep boys from thinking too much. We linger for a minute, and then the kiss extends into more of a lip-lock, and it starts to make me sweat, so I break away.
“Was that your way of distracting me?” he asks, stroking my hair as we hold each other.
“Did it work?”
“Uh . . . did what work?” He grins, and steers me toward the front of the school again, and we walk slowly. “Get your dress yet?”
“Oh.” I thought we had successfully steered around any prom discussions! That’s what I get for having a smart boyfriend. “I . . . uh . . . I found something I like, but I have to get it fitted. And it’s bad luck for you to see it before the night of the dance.”
He frowns. “I never heard that before.”
“Sure,” I say, waving away his ignorance of outdated fashion traditions. “Everybody knows that.”
As we approach the Rock, I see Becca, Amber, Elisa, Evie, and a few other Queen Geeks gathered in animated discussion of something. “Maybe we should go our separate ways,” I murmur.
“Ah.” He shades his eyes and scans the group of chattering girls. “Yeah, I don’t think I want to be in the middle of that at the moment. See you later.” He pecks me on the cheek, sticks his hands in his jeans pockets, and walks in the opposite direction, whistling.
“It’s two weeks away,” Evie is saying frantically. “If we don’t start getting the equipment together now, we might as well forget the virtual prom thing. And I’ve already been hooking up with friends all over the place who want to do it, so I think we’d be better off just getting it done.”
“Melvin has everything coming down from L.A., and he’ll have people helping us set it up,” Becca says calmly. “It’s two weeks away. The thing we need to work on right now is getting people there.”
“Hey,” I say. In their Geek Prom frenzy, no one notices me, and, better yet, they didn’t notice me with Fletcher.
Elisa grabs my arm. “Food? What’s the deal with food?”
“Uh . . . it’s good to eat?”
She flicks me in the head. “What food are we having?”
We spend another ten minutes or so drowning in details about the prom, then people start scattering as their rides arrive. After a bit, only Becca, Evie, and I are left. “Listen, I didn’t tell everyone else,” Becca says conspiratorially as we walk toward my house. “But I’ve already given out about one hundred tickets.”
“Given out? Aren’t we selling them?” I ask.
She shakes her head, steps over an upraised crack in the sidewalk, and claps her hands like a little kid. “Guess you didn’t actually read the latest flier! Nope, we aren’t selling them. It’s even better. Because Melvin is premiering his movie, he can write the whole thing off as a business expense, so all we have to do is get people to come. And who wouldn’t rather come to a great free groundbreaking party instead of a stuffy, expensive, boring old prom?”
“What are you going to do about Carl?”
She stops walking. “What do you mean?” Glancing sideways at me, she tilts her head defiantly, daring me to tell her she was too harsh.
Evie, sensing the tension, fumbles in her backpack and says, “Oops. I forgot my geometry book. Gotta go back to get it. I’ll see you guys later.” She abruptly turns and starts to scoot back up the street.
“Hang on, hang on,” Becca says, grabbing her arm. “Look, Carl told me that he only talked to you because he was trying to get to me. I’m sorry I reacted like such a . . . a jealous moron. I realize that he doesn’t like you, and I’m sorry I treated you so badly.”
Evie, whose face displays the mix of emotions someone would feel after being told they’re not even remotely attractive to a guy, smiles crookedly, and says, “Uh, thanks, I guess. But either way, I do have to get my book. I’ll catch up with you all later.” She shuffles, somewhat dejectedly I think, back toward school.
Now Becca has turned to me, arms crossed, and she’s staring me down. “There, are you happy now? I made nice with the international contingent. Now, if we could just rescue you from Fletcher’s attempts at mind control . . .”
“That’s kind of insulting, you know,” I answer as I begin walking again. “Like I can’t think for myself.”
“Well, I’m not saying you can’t survive without him, but it does seem like you’ve become a little distant lately.” She scuffs a stone with her pink tennis shoe, sends it skittering into somebody’s yard where it sensibly takes shelter.
I hear footsteps pattering behind us, and two girls trot up beside us. “Hey, are you Becca?” one asks hesitantly.
“Yep.” She crosses her arms, armored for battle just in case.
The taller of the two, a jockish blonde in a volleyball
uniform, sighs with relief. “Cool. We wanted to get tickets to Geek Prom. Do you have any on you?”
Becca arches an eyebrow at me, then digs into her pocket, producing two tickets from a cardboard envelope. “Here you go. Hope you have a great time.” The girls pocket the tickets, smile, and turn to go.
The friend of the volleyball girl stops and says, “Becca, I just want you to know . . . a lot of us think it’s a great idea. No matter what the student government people say.”
“Thanks,” she says, genuinely warm. “I really appreciate that.”
We walk on in silence, Becca beaming like a saint who’s just been prayed to. “That’s what I’m talking about. That’s why I’m doing this. There are lots of kids who feel the same way about the established student government. We’re just filling a need.”
“Speaking of unfilled needs, why were you so bitchy to Carl?”
“Why?” This time her voice gets louder, and her cheeks go pink. “He’s trying to ruin everything with his ‘oh, poor me, I really like you’ act. I’m trying to achieve something amazing, groundbreaking, something no one has done, and all he cares about is this stupid fascist dance party.”
“Well, to be honest, it looks like all he cares about is you,” I say softly. “I mean, the guy was crying.”
“Oh, don’t fall for that,” she says bitterly. “He’s just trying to manipulate me.”
We walk on in silence, but what I’m really thinking is that she’s actually trying to manipulate him. And possibly me.
Over the next two weeks, school is barely a footnote in my consciousness. I go through all the motions: homework (sometimes), eating lunch (always), Queen Geek meetings, occasional stolen kisses with Fletcher. Every once in a while I see Carl ambling across campus like a big, sad giant who’s lost his beanstalk.
One other distraction to the complete importance of my high school education is the escalation of the ongoing civil war between the Queen Geeks and the student government kids. Obviously, the Samantha Singers of the world do not appreciate it when the little people butt in on their total domination of teenaged culture.