Mom’s car turned the corner around the school and passed a red Fiat on its way in. Erik. His mom pulled up to the station wagon and dropped him off. He waved, slung his backpack over one shoulder, and came over. “Hey, Mr. Hirschman.”
“Five down, one to go.” Hirsch checked his watch.
Erik tossed his bag in the back of the car and headed straight for me. “Can I talk to you a second?”
“Me?”
I was about to throw my bag in the back, but Erik took my arm and led me away. We stopped at a light pole.
“What happened with you last night?”
When Erik and Tammy showed up at the Ferris wheel, Ginger tried to hold it together while Kelli threatened to do things to Mark that I couldn’t repeat, and I promised Ginger over and over again that I didn’t know Mark was cheating on her.
Well, I didn’t know he was still cheating on her.
“I could kill my brother, Erik.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He looked at me with this sort of puzzled, sort of amused expression on his face. “Drew said you guys totally made out behind the concession stands. I thought you and Damon were together. What’s the deal?”
I closed my eyes. The rage I felt at Mark didn’t even touch what I wanted to do to Drew Barony right now. I shook my head and gritted my teeth. “We didn’t.”
“He said you did.”
“He’s lying.”
Erik just looked at me.
“Why does it matter to you, anyway?” I asked him.
“’Cause they’re both my friends. And you are, too.”
My stomach churned. “Drew tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t let him and he got mad.”
A white pick-up pulled in and stopped beside the station wagon. Damon got out and lifted his bike out of the bed. He leaned back in the cab to say something to a guy who looked just like Damon probably would in twenty years. Then Damon locked up his bike at the racks while his dad drove away.
“I swear, Erik. Nothing happened,” I whispered.
Damon came up beside me and smiled at both of us. “Morning.”
“Hey,” Erik answered.
“Let’s go people!” Hirsch yelled. “In the car. Go, go, go!”
I would’ve liked to sit in the third row with Damon, but Kim grabbed Lucas’s hand and pulled him into the back with her.
Mia shook off her mom’s grip and climbed in after them.
“Window or aisle?” Damon asked me.
“Huh?”
“Where do you want to sit?”
“I guess I’ll take the middle.”
Damon walked around to the other side of the car and got in while I slid across from the right side and into the middle of the bench. Erik got in beside me. They both closed the doors at the same time and my ears popped.
I had looked forward to a couple of hours with Damon, even if we were anything but alone, but now I fought just to keep this ugly, primal scream inside of me. I spent the trip with clenched teeth while Damon and Erik talked over, in front of and behind me.
After a while Damon shifted to face me a little more and stretched his arm out on the back of the seats. It felt possessive, and I liked it, but then I wondered what Erik thought. Should I lean back and let Damon’s arm touch my shoulders, or keep my distance, so I didn’t look completely boy crazy?
Stupid Drew. Why did I let myself get stuck alone with him? It was his word against mine now.
Stupid me.
Then Damon looked straight into my eyes. “Nice to see you.”
I glanced over at Erik. He turned to look out the window.
Damon put his hand on my shoulder. “Where have you been all morning?”
“Nowhere.”
“You okay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Okay. But if you do.”
I shook my head and shrugged again. But deep down this horror gnawed at my stomach that Damon would hear about the midway and believe Drew. Why wouldn’t he? They were kind of friends, too.
He’s so going to hear about it.
I wanted to go somewhere and cry.
We finally pulled up to the hotel next to the conference center that hosted the Academic Olympics. Another carload of kids parked across the lot and several buses lined up along the street.
“Can we go see our rooms?” Erik asked.
“Do we each get our own room?” Kim called up.
“Two rooms,” Hirsch said. “Girls in one, boys in another.”
At least we got Mrs. Teele instead of Hirsch.
“We can’t get into them till 3:00. We park here, check in, then head over to the conference center for the first rounds at 9:30.”
We climbed out of the car and stretched while Hirsch went in to the front desk.
Mia’s mother leaned out of the passenger window and wagged a finger at us. “Now, you children all stay right there in that empty space. This is a parking lot. It’s no place to play.”
Everyone looked at Mia, who rolled her eyes.
“You nervous?” Damon asked me.
“What about? No. Why would I be?”
Lucas pretended to dribble a basketball around Erik and shot over his head. Erik held up one dinner-plate sized hand and said, “Denied.”
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Damon said.
Hirsch called us to come across the street. “Let’s go sign in!”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and we walked across the street to the Capital Conference Center. An enormous banner hung across the bricks above the front entrance. “Welcome 1982-83 Academic Olympians.” The AO emblem, five interlocking geometric patterns in as many colors, mimicked the real Olympics’ logo. The front of the conference center teemed with people.
“Are they all here for this?” I asked.
Hirsch patted me on the shoulder. “This is bigger than the national spelling bee.” He pointed to a white van parked beside the entrance. WTKR Channel 11. “This gets on the news.”
My knees locked and refused to move me any closer to the building.
Kim bumped into me. “Juliet, go.”
Damon pushed on the small of my back. “Come on. The light’s changing.”
“I don’t want to go in there,” I whispered.
He grabbed my hand to drag me across the street. When we stepped onto the curb I stared up at the bright, fluttering, building-size banner.
“What’s wrong?” Kim asked.
“I thought this was going to be like practice.”
Erik laughed. “This is way cooler than practice.”
“Cool?” I asked.
“Use the adrenaline,” Erik said, and made a tight fist in front of my face. “It’ll sharpen you, put you on your A-game.”
“I don’t have an A-game. I don’t have any game.”
Damon squeezed my hand. “Erik’s right. You’ll see. The nerves give you an edge.”
I stared at the back of Damon’s head as he pulled me through the crowd with the rest of our group. Hirsch led, Mrs. Teele brought up the rear, and I got carried along in the tiny raft of our Parnell Junior High team, dropped into an ocean of people who belonged there way more than I did.
Mia stepped up behind me and whispered into my ear. “Damon’s all over you.”
I looked over my shoulder at her.
“You like him, right?” she asked.
Behind Mia the crowds closed in on us and blocked my view of the exit.
Mia squinted at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You didn’t tell me it would be like this.”
We made it up to the table and Hirsch got our paperwork and six little bags full of stuff, kind of like you get at the dentist. Then we worked our way to the edge of the room and circled Hirsch.
“The regional matches are in the hub of smaller rooms on the upper floors. Our first round is against Ballard in room 2785.”
Hirsch passed out the bags and some plastic badges with our names on paper in
serts. I put my name tag on and looked through the bag: a pen, a pencil, a little notebook and some other odds and ends. I stuck it in my bag.
Damon handed me his. “You mind keeping this, too? I left my backpack in the car.”
I nodded and dropped it in.
“You okay?”
“Do we have time to go to the bathroom first?” Mia asked.
Hirsch checked his watch. “I want you up there in ten minutes. Stay together. If anyone’s late to a match,” he tapped his chest with his index finger, “I’m your buddy for the rest of the weekend.”
Kim and Mia each took one of my arms and led me down the hall. They sat me on a couch in the bathroom foyer and looked down at me.
“What is going on with you?” Mia asked.
“There are so many people here. They’re all going to be watching.”
“Take a pill, Juliet,” Kim said. “The first rounds are small. Only the chaperones and teachers are there, besides the judges.”
Mia walked over to the mirror. She ran her little fingernail along the outside of her mouth to wipe off a smudge of lip gloss. “And the afternoon semi-finals aren’t that big a deal, either. The TV stations only do their local schools.”
I leaned back and took a deep breath. That didn’t sound so bad.
“It’s only if we make it to the finals tomorrow that we’ll be in the main auditorium with everyone watching. And on TV,” Kim said.
I clamped my hand over my mouth and dashed to a stall. I just made it.
“Gross!”
“Juliet, get a grip!”
I spit the last of it into the toilet as the waves of nausea passed.
“Here. Ew.” Kim handed me some wet paper towels.
I wiped my mouth and stuffed the towels in the little waste bin inside the stall.
“Come on.” Mia took me over to the sinks to wash up.
“I don’t belong here.”
“So not true,” Kim said. “You’ve been doing great. And remember, no one else on our team knows the stuff you do.” She reached over to push my hair out of my face, then jerked her hand back. “Gross! It’s in your hair!”
In my hair? I checked the mirror. Sure enough, a chunk of partially-digested something clung to a strand next to my face. I grabbed another wet paper towel and pulled it out, then cleaned the hair with a few more towels.
“Great. Look at me.” I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home and cry.
Kim dug in her bag and pulled out a scrunchy. She gathered my hair up into a ponytail and twisted the scrunchy around it several times. Then she pulled out a few wisps here and there around my face. “There. You look fine.”
Mia pulled a compact out of her bag and powdered me, then brushed some blush on my cheeks. “Put some gloss on,” she said, and handed me a tube of sparkly pink. “You look like death.”
“We’d better go, or we’re going to be late,” Kim said.
They walked on either side of me, probably afraid I might bolt if I got the chance. We went upstairs, found room 2785 and pushed open the door.
A long table sat in the middle of the conference room, six chairs on either side of it and one on the end. Each of the twelve chairs had a buzzer in front of it. More seats lined the walls around the perimeter of the room. Our team, in black pants and red “Team Parnell JHS” shirts sat on one side. I stood in the doorway until Kim and Mia pulled me in. As the door closed I saw Ballard’s team along the opposite wall.
“You okay?” Erik asked me.
“Juliet hurled,” Kim told them.
“Thanks so much for sharing that, Kim,” I said.
Hirsch squinted at me. “Are you sick?”
“She’s just scared,” Mia said.
“I don’t think the nerves are working for her,” Erik told Damon.
Erik scooted over and I sat between him and Damon.
The Ballard team had four boys and two girls, and both of the girls stared at me with total stink-eye.
I leaned across Damon to Mia. “What’s with them?” I whispered.
Mia cupped her hand over her mouth so only I could see it. “It’s so obvious. They’re drooling over Erik and Damon.”
They called the teams to the tables, and I started to shake.
Damon put his hand on my back to push me up out of the chair. My knees threatened to buckle, and he held me up. The exploding soda feeling in my stomach had nothing to do with him this time.
“You’re okay,” he whispered.
“I’m going to throw up again.”
“No, you’re not.”
We sat down at the table in the same order we’d been at the wall: Erik, me, and Damon in the three chairs closest to the official, followed by Mia and Lucas, with Kim on the far end. The other team shuffled around as the girls grabbed for the chairs opposite Erik and Damon.
The official read the rules, asked if everyone was ready to begin, and read the first question.
I want this to be over.
“Name the tertiary colors on the color wheel.”
Mandy, the girl across from Damon, smacked her buzzer.
I closed my eyes. I could’ve gotten this one so easily.
“Ballard,” the official called.
Mandy cried, “Green, orange, purple!”
“Incorrect. Does Parnell have a response?”
Everyone on my side of the table turned to look at me.
My hands shook and I saw stars in the outside edges of my vision. I reached forward and touched the button so lightly it didn’t even buzz. I tried again, it went off, and I jumped a few inches out of my seat.
“Parnell?”
“The tertiary colors are amber, vermillion, magenta, violet, viridian and chartreuse.” I sounded like a mouse with laryngitis and a speech disorder.
“That is correct. Point to Parnell.”
If Mandy wanted to kill me before, the look in her eyes now said she’d like to torture and maim me, then kill me. Slowly. With a dull, rusty knife.
“Name the two bones that make up the lower leg.”
Mia slapped her buzzer. “The fibula and the tibia.”
“Point to Parnell.”
We beat Ballard so easily I couldn’t believe it. But Hirsch told us they weren’t out yet. Each team competed against two schools during the morning regional sessions, and then got ranked by total points.
We beat another school, Bishop Sholes, by a smaller margin, but ended in the top five in our region by lunch. Hirsch led us out to the hall and pointed his finger at each of us one at a time.
“Stay all together or in pairs. Do not leave the conference center,” Hirsch instructed as he dismissed us for lunch. “And Miss Brynn.” He pointed at me. “No greasy or heavy foods for you.”
Mia’s mom grabbed for her, but Mia pulled Kim around the corner and they took off.
“Oh, that child.” Then Mrs. Teele looked at me.
Lucas jogged away after Kim and Mia.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Mrs. Teele said to Hirsch and spun around chase after Mia.
Hirsch went back to the main hall to check on the afternoon match-ups while Erik, Damon and I went downstairs.
At least five times the size of our school’s lunchroom, the conference center’s cafeteria didn’t look like it could hold one more body. Kids squeezed around tables in groups of twelve to fifteen, or more. Lines that led to the various food bars snaked across the room and into each other so you couldn’t tell where one line ended and another began. More people pushed through the doorway and the current of bodies carried us into the thick of the chaos.
I closed my eyes and gripped Damon’s hand with both of my sweaty palms.
“This is crazy,” Erik said.
“Come on.” Damon pulled me to one side and Erik grabbed my arm.
We worked our way toward the doors at the side of the cafeteria. Someone tripped past me and knocked into Erik, who started to fall backwards. I turned back and reached for him.
“Go!?
?? he called.
Erik stayed on his feet and continued to move in our direction. Damon and I pressed forward until we got to the door. He pushed against the stream of bodies and I huddled in his wake till we squeezed out of the room and into an elevator lobby.
Erik came out just after us. “Good night. I don’t need to eat that bad.”
“There are like a million people here,” I said.
The elevator next to Damon chimed, the door slid open and a new flood of bodies spilled out. They filled the lobby and struggled against each other to get into the cafeteria.
When it emptied, I dove into the elevator.
Damon followed me and grabbed the door before it closed.
“Where are we going?” Erik asked. He stepped halfway into the elevator and held the door open.
“Get in or get out,” I told him.
“Where are we going?” Damon pushed the button to keep the door open.
“Anywhere but here.” I stabbed at the door-closed button. “Let go!”
Erik got in and the door shut behind him. He leaned against the wall and looked at the buttons. “Pick a floor.”
I punched the top floor.
“Hey, Restaurants,” Erik read the plaque next to the top floor button.
The elevator began to ascend and I leaned back against the handrail.
“Not a fan of crowds?” Erik asked.
I just stared at him and shook my head.
“That’s because you’re little.”
“I’m not little.”
“I mean short.”
“I’m not short either. You’re just gigantic.”
Damon stood beside me. He put his hand on top of my head, then slid it over to his shoulder. “You are kind of short.”
“You’re both beasts.”
The elevator chimed again and came to a stop. The door slid open and the atmosphere on the other side couldn’t have been more opposite to downstairs. Soft classical music. Thick, oriental rugs. Bronze and ceramic statuettes on plaster pedestals. Pastoral paintings in broad, ornate frames. A few well-dressed, slow-moving adults who spoke in soft voices.
A placard on an easel pointed to La Marchande at the end of the long, wide hall. We checked out the menu on the display.
“Whoa,” Erik exclaimed. “Six-fifty for a cup of soup? Fruit is seventeen bucks?”
“That’s fruits de mer. It’s shellfish,” Damon said.
“How do you know?”
“He grew up speaking French,” I said.
Damon stuck his hands in his pockets. “I only have twenty dollars for the weekend.”
I shrugged. “Hirsch said he’s taking us out for pizza for dinner. Breakfast comes with the hotel room.”
“It’s this or downstairs,” Erik agreed.