“Are we allowed to trade one team member for another?” Preston asks Coach Wolff, his eyes trained on Katie-Rose. “If we’re stuck with a dud?”
“No!” Coach Wolff yells. “A! In this class, you are a single unified team! B! There is no ‘I’ in teamwork! And C! In the Game of Life, you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit! Do we understand each other?!”
Preston snaps his heels together and salutes, which would have been funny if Katie-Rose had thought to do it. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Then let’s begin! Everyone will have a turn to ask the group a question! If the answer is yes, step forward! As your team leader, I will go first!”
Katie-Rose groans, along with most of the class.
“If you plan to attend this Friday’s Lock-In, step forward!” Coach Wolff belts out.
Thomas steps forward, as do Katie-Rose and Violet. Brannen, Becca, and Natalia join them. Preston, Modessa, and Elena don’t. But Elena clasps her hands behind her, reminding Katie-Rose of the way little kids sit on their hands when they know they’re supposed to turn their listening ears on and not ask to be called on, even if they have something extremely important to say and really, really want to share it.
“Losers,” Modessa sings quietly. Elena’s lips wobble spazzily, resulting in an unconvincing smile.
Hmm, Katie-Rose wonders. Does the real Elena want to go to the Lock-In? Katie-Rose would bet dollars to doughnuts that she does. She just can’t admit it and still hold on to the position of evil chick number three.
Oh, well. What’s too bad for Elena is excellent for Katie-Rose. Rivendell has hosted Lock-Ins before, but Katie-Rose has never gone for fear that the cool kids would be there. What if no one hung out with her, and she spent the whole night alone while the other kids ran wildly through the school? Or what if her pj’s were wrong? Because if you go to the Lock-In, you’re supposed to show up in your pj’s, a prospect Katie-Rose finds scary and exciting … kind of like puberty, come to think of it.
With the cool kids absent, Katie-Rose’s puberty concerns won’t come into play. She won’t be judged in terms of bras or breast buds or the fact that she doesn’t have a single boyfriend to Chance’s seventeen across-the-nation girlfriends. And maybe the spin-the-bottle rumor is just that. A rumor. Plus, this is the first Lock-In Rivendell has hosted since Katie-Rose found her tribe of flower friends, and even if her FFFs are being poo-heads about taking trapeze lessons, there’s never been a shred of doubt that they’d attend the Lock-In. All four girls are super excited about it, all four have officially signed up, and all four will have a BLAST.
So ha ha to Modessa and lipstick-wearing Elena and annoying Preston. Their loss is her gain. Now she can feel even more confident about going, which is a much better fit for her self-image, anyway.
“Excellent!” Coach Wolff says to the kids who stepped forward. “So much in common! Now step back into your original positions, and Becca, it’s your turn ask a question!”
Becca looks like she’d rather pet a taxidermied possum. She swallows and says, “Um … if you like chocolate, step forward?”
This time everyone steps forward except Preston, Natalia, and Coach Wolff. Coach Wolff probably doesn’t like chocolate because it’s not made out of wheat germ and exclamation points. As for Preston, if he truly doesn’t like chocolate, then that’s just one more mark on his freak-o-meter. But Natalia? Please.
“Natalia, you do so like chocolate,” Katie-Rose says.
“Nope,” Natalia says. “Chocolate ith fattening, and I don’t like foodth that are fattening. When I want thome-thing to munch on, I prefer carrotth.”
Katie-Rose puts her hand on her hip. Just last month, Natalia made the absurd claim that she’d never had a soft drink in her entire life, but then guess what? Katie-Rose caught Natalia drinking a Coke AND eating green apple sour loops during lunch one day, in front of God and Katie-Rose and everyone.
“Does your ban on fattening foods apply to everything?” Katie-Rose says. “Even … oh, let me think … green apple sour loops?”
Natalia freezes. Her face has possum-about-to-be-taxidermied written all over it.
“’Cause last time I checked, green apple sour loops weren’t on the food pyramid,” Katie-Rose goes on. “I know they have the word apple in them, but I’m pretty sure they’re not really a fruit.”
Someone laughs. It sounds like Preston, of all people. But before Katie-Rose can verify the laugher’s identity, Coach Wolff claps twice, indicating that everyone better shut their pie holes or else.
“Teachable moment!” she booms. She turns to Katie-Rose. “Katie-Rose! Who taught you about the food pyramid?!”
What a strange question. Who did teach her about the food pyramid? It seems like one of those nuggets of information she’s always known and was most likely born with. “Um … my parents?”
Coach Wolff snorts. “As I suspected! Well, times have changed, kids, and now it’s your turn to teach them about the food pyramid!” She scans the room. “That’s your after-school assignment, got it?! When you go home today, I want each and every one of you to tell your parents that the food pyramid is gone!”
“Oh no!” Preston whispers. He somehow snuck up behind Katie-Rose without her noticing. “Someone stole the food pyramid!”
Katie-Rose’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t smile. Smiling at Preston’s comments, even if they’re funny, isn’t an option.
“It’s gone?” Becca asks. “Where did it go?”
Coach Wolff seems flummoxed by Becca’s question. “What?! Nowhere! It simply turned into my plate!”
Now everyone is flummoxed.
“Huh?” Chance says.
“Why does it get to be her plate?” Preston whispers. She can feel his breath on her ear. “That’s a little selfish, isn’t it?”
Katie-Rose clamps her lips together. She will not smile, she will not smile, she will not smile.
Coach Wolff gives Preston the beady eyes. She strides over and barks, “Not my plate! MyPlate!”
Everyone gazes at her dumbly.
“Capital ‘M’ My!” she says. “Capital ‘P’ Plate! MyPlate, got it?!”
Everyone gazes at each other dumbly.
“‘Say good-bye to the food pyramid, and say hello to MyPlate!’???” Coach Wolff says, as if this is a quote they all should know. She throws up her hands. “Do none of you read the annual report issued by the USDA?!”
There are a lot of consonants in Coach Wolff’s question. One of them sends a spit droplet flying through the air, and it hits Katie-Rose’s cheek. She recoils, Preston snickers, and Katie-Rose glares at him. That spit droplet should have gone to him. That spit droplet was his.
“I’ve heard of MyPlate,” Natalia says goody-goody-ishly.
“Oh, bull-pooty,” Katie-Rose mutters.
“And chocolate ithn’t on it. That’th one reathon I don’t like it. The other ith that it maketh me faint.”
“Natalia, it does not,” Katie-Rose says.
“Oh yeth, it duhth.” Natalia stands taller. The metallic bits and bobs of her headgear gleam. “It wath at my cousin’th bar mitthvah.” Her eyes take on a faraway look. “I fainted dead away.”
“For real?” Becca asks. “You honestly and truly fainted?”
Katie-Rose doesn’t know whether to believe Natalia or no. Either way, she’s jealous. She’s always wanted to faint.
Natalia puts her hand to her heart. “My poor parenth … Can you imagine? I am an only child, you know.”
Coach Wolff blows her whistle. “Moving on! Modessa! Your turn to ask a question!”
“Hmm,” Modessa says, touching her index finger to her berry-colored lips. Elena’s lips are the exact same shade. So vile. “Step forward if you think you’re normal.”
She saunters forward. When Elena doesn’t immediately join her, Modessa shoots her a look, and Elena jumps like she’s been stung by a wasp. She practically falls over herself in her rush to obey her master. Natalia steps forward, too.
So do Becca, Ava, Brannen, and—now, this is unexpected—Cyril.
Katie-Rose assumed that Cyril liked being not normal. That he understood what so few fifth graders do: That “normal” is b-o-r-ing boring.
Violet does not step forward, and Katie-Rose gives her a high five. Katie-Rose also stays put. So there, Medusa, is the message she sends silently through the air.
Modessa’s head swivels toward Katie-Rose, and Katie-Rose’s heart skips a beat. Did she speak the words out loud without realizing it?
Modessa’s gaze flicks to Violet, but briefly, because Violet is blessed with a miraculous mental Saran Wrap that she can drop over her features at will. Meaning, Violet appears unfazed by Modessa regardless of the situation and regardless of what her real feelings might be. Katie-Rose would give anything to possess that skill, but she doesn’t. Meaning, Katie-Rose is a far easier target. Katie-Rose knows it, and Modessa knows it. She’s been toying with Katie-Rose for years now, after all.
And so she focuses her attention once more on Katie-Rose. She cocks her head and studies her, slowly, deliberately, and cunningly. Katie-Rose pleads with herself not to blush—don’t, don’t, please don’t—but her body betrays her, and she feels the blood rush to her face.
Modessa smirks. She nudges Elena, and the two of them laugh. Elena’s laugh starts off timidly, but grows stronger as other kids follow Modessa’s lead. They’re laughing at Katie-Rose, because yes, she’s just that pathetic.
“Personally, I think they’re full of it,” Preston says into Katie-Rose’s ear, and she’s so startled, she squeals.
He laughs. “You, though. You know you’re not normal, and I gotta say, I admire that in a girl.”
Oh, he is so awful! But at least his insult snaps Katie-Rose out of her fog. She turns around, shoves him, and says, “You creeper! You shouldn’t sneak up on people. Don’t you know anything?”
Coach Wolff blows her whistle. She points at Katie-Rose and yells, “You! No shoving!” She points at Preston and says, “And as for you, young man!”
Katie-Rose waits, eager to gloat when he gets in trouble.
But Coach Wolff doesn’t seem to know what to reprimand Preston for. Finally she says, “You need to be more of a gentleman, young man!”
Preston laughs harder, and Katie-Rose thinks Coach Wolff should use that as his crime. Laughing at a teacher is surely punishable by death.
Except Preston makes it seem like he isn’t laughing at Coach Wolff, or even at Katie-Rose. His laughter is round and happy and contagious, and the kids who were already laughing keep laughing, while the kids who weren’t laughing join in. Violet holds her ground for a good two seconds, and then she bursts into laughter, too. She apologizes with her eyes, but Katie-Rose finds she can’t even be mad. It’s so good to see Violet laugh that the reason why doesn’t matter.
A space opens between Katie-Rose’s ribs, and a bubbly lightness rises within her. Oh no. She balls her hands into fists, because she knows this feeling. Normally she would welcome it, but not now and not here. There is no way she’s giving Preston that satisfaction!
“Yes, Preston, I do know that I’m not normal,” she says. Her back is to the rest of the class, but she can feel them watching. She presses on. “I will never be normal, thank you very much, because I do not care to be normal.”
“She doesn’t care to be normal,” Modessa repeats. “Did you hear that, Elena? As if she has any choice in the matter.”
Briefly, Katie-Rose closes her eyes. She knows, in the grand scheme of things, that Modessa matters less than a fruit fly. Even so, she’s scared of her. She probably always will be. But when push comes to shove, Katie-Rose will shove, regardless of how light-headed it makes her.
She turns back around. “Actually, Medusa, I have all the choice in the matter. I choose to be original, just like you choose to be an ‘evil chick’ who likes to put people down. And for the record? You think you’re so hot, but you’re not.”
“Katie-Rose!” Coach Wolff barks. “Young ladies should not use the word hot! Young ladies should only say they’re hot if their body temperature is elevated due to exertion or conditions of the climate! And in such conditions it is far more proper to say you are toasty! Or overheated!”
By now, almost everyone is laughing except for Katie-Rose and Coach Wolff. Oh, and Modessa, who glares at Katie-Rose as if she’s trying to scorch her with rays of evilness.
“You said ‘hot,’” Preston whispers in a singsong voice.
She whips around again. All this back-and-forth-ness is making her seriously dizzy.
“Listen, Preston,” she says. “You just shut up.”
Preston grins, and it’s such a great, big grin—such a delighted grin—that despite herself, she almost grins back.
And then his words sink in. She replays her attack on Modessa, and she sways, because she did say “hot”! She feels like she might faint, which on the one hand would be awesome because she’d join the fainting club, but on the other hand would be awful, because when she came to, she’d be temporarily confused. She’d say, “Auntie Em? Auntie Em?” and for a moment she’d think she was a happy farm girl with a dog and a rainbow and an amazing singing voice. Then, when Preston threw cold water on her face, it would be all the worse, because she wouldn’t be in Kansas. She’d still be in stupid California, and she’d still be the stupid girl who said “hot” during PE. She CANNOT believe she said the word “hot” in front of the whole class!
Later, she’ll find eight crescent-shaped wounds in her palms from digging her fingernails so tightly into her flesh. Later still—during lunch with her besties—she’ll inhale sharply and a half-chewed Oreo will lodge itself in her throat, sucked in when Katie-Rose is hit with a realization so shocking it makes her gasp. She’ll have a coughing fit, and Violet will pound her on the back, and a cloud of Oreo crumbs will fly from her mouth and land in places unknown, never to be seen again.
Her realization, however, will remain.
During Coach Wolff’s silly bonding game, Modessa said, “If you think you’re normal, step forward.” Everyone started off in a circle, and then Modessa asked her question, and then she and most everyone else proceeded to do exactly that: They stepped forward.
But while the majority of the class basked in the fake rays of their fake coolness, Preston stayed put in order to make his little joke about Katie-Rose—the joke about how she, at least, knew she wasn’t normal. He whispered it into her ear just as he’d whispered his other dumb comments into her ear.
Only at the beginning of PE, Preston wasn’t in whispering range of Katie-Rose. Of course he wasn’t, because why on God’s green earth would Katie-Rose plant herself next to him? Yet somehow during the course of the hour, he weaseled himself over to her, and there he stayed for the rest of class.
The fact that an annoying boy snuck behind her might not faze any normal girl, since boys are, by definition, annoying. So why did this realization nearly make Katie-Rose choke to death? Because it dawned on her that unless Preston possesses remarkably stretchy lips (unlikely) or a ghostly double that allows him to be in two places at once (even more unlikely), the rules of physics leave zero room for interpretation.
Preston was behind Katie-Rose when Modessa asked her question. Preston remained behind her when Modessa and the other “normals” stepped forward. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to whisper dumb comments into her ear.
Therefore, only one conclusion could be drawn: Preston, like Katie-Rose and Violet, chose not to identify himself as a bland blob of Cream of Wheat. Preston, unlike Cyril and Modessa and the other kids in their PE class, did understand what so few fifth graders do: That “normal” is b-o-r-ing boring.
Or, infinitely more likely, he just wanted to mess with Katie-Rose’s head.
and drags her to Ms. Perez’s room. “We have to gather information about her so we can set her up with Mr. Emerson,” Yaz tells her.
“We do?” Milla says.
“And you’re better at
girl stuff than I am. You know you are. And out of all of us, you’re the only one who has any experience with, you know, romance.”
Milla bites her lower lip.
“Milla, I mean that in a good way!” Yaz says. She stops in the hall and puts her hands on Milla’s shoulders. “Max is really nice, and you are, too. And you make each other happy, right?”
Milla hesitates. “Um … I guess?”
Yaz leans closer and presses her forehead against Milla’s. Now Milla has one huge eye instead of two regular size eyes. Yaz assumes she does, too, and that eventually the googliness of it will make Milla giggle, or at least smile.
“Mill-a,” she says, stretching it out. “You. Are. Allowed. To be. Happy. Okay?”
Milla stares at Yaz with her big, blue, and slightly wobbly eye. She has yet to smile or giggle.
“Are you still thinking about … you know?” Yasaman says, referring to Modessa, Quin, and Elena. She doesn’t want to say their names out loud, because as far as Yaz can tell, talking about them is what made Milla sad to start with.
It was during lunch. When the FFFs first sat down to eat, Milla was downright giddy. She’d spent all of morning break with Max, and her words bubbled out of her as she shared the details with Yaz and Violet and Katie-Rose.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Katie-Rose interrupted. “Only I think what happened to me is more important, so will you hush and let me tell it?”
It wasn’t the nicest way to change the subject, but that’s Katie-Rose. And when she told the story of Coach Wolff and the circle game, it did sober everyone up … until Katie-Rose got to the part where she called Modessa out for being a big jerk, that is.
“That’ll teach Modessa not to get all up in my grill,” Katie-Rose huffed, and Yasaman giggled. She tried to turn the giggle into a cough, but it didn’t fool anyone, and Katie-Rose got even huffier.
“Why do you find this funny?” she demanded. “This isn’t funny. She got all up in my grill because I refuse to be a clone, and I could have died, and you’re laughing?!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Yasaman said. “It’s just”—she paused, thinking back to something she’d heard her cousin Hulya say and wanting to get it right—“I didn’t know you were so gangsta, yo!”
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