Take Me There

  “You’re so retarded.”

  “That’s not metamorphic.”

  “It’s schist.”

  “My stomach hurts.”

  “Try eating sometime.”

  “Is it shale?”

  “Dog. I told you. It’s schist.”

  “This isn’t rocket science, people.”

  Alrighty then.

  I was expecting to wake up today even more depressed than I was the day Steve broke up with me. But it’s not like that. I’m wicked angry. Angry at Steve, angry at Gloria, angry that this is my new reality. Basically, I’m angry at the whole world.

  But I don’t want it to be like I’m angry and I just have to get over it. I want to do something about it. Because how can Gloria do this to me again? And get away with it like it’s nothing?

  I want karmic retribution.

  Heather’s looking at me funny. I try to pay attention.

  But it’s like, when will Gloria learn that you can’t go around hurting people this way? That if you do, karma will never allow you to achieve true happiness? And yeah, I’m seriously mad at Steve, but she obviously has him under some spell. It’s her fault he’s treating me like this.

  The anger bubbles up so harshly I feel sick. I shift in my chair. Heather’s completely given up on trying to figure out any of this stuff. She’s doodling a water fountain in the margin of her paper.

  Tony starts making his sound effects. He especially likes to imitate the way Marion laughs. Or this one kid with asthma who coughs like a truck horn.

  Eliezer laughs his har-huh! laugh.

  Tony imitates Eliezer, all like har-huh!

  We all think Tony’s imitations are hilarious because he sounds just like whoever he’s imitating. Sometimes I’ll be on the subway or sitting in a different class and I’ll think of him going har-huh! and I’ll crack up. But then I feel bad that I’m laughing at him, because how he makes fun of everyone is just too wrong.

  Ms. Parker is getting angry. Tony is always interrupting her with the sound effects, and it drives her crazy. Or he’ll ask some really hard question she doesn’t know the answer to, but he only does it to bother her because she’s not even a real Earth Science teacher. We just have her because there’s a serious shortage of science teachers who actually know what they’re doing.

  As she’s ranting, I’m thinking that there has to be some way to expose Gloria. But in a fair way, or else I’d be just as bad as her. Some way where Gloria would be forced to realize how wrong she is.

  I want revenge, but I don’t want to screw up my karma. I have no idea how to do this. I just know it’s something I have to do.

  The election is tomorrow, so Danny’s in the hall doing an impromptu crowd razz. He’s running for next year’s senior-class president and has already done two crowd razzes this week. They’re kind of these random speeches in the hall that are always hysterical. He also does spontaneous TGIM rallies on Mondays and Random Hallway Polls, where the results get printed in the school paper. Which comes out like never because Ms. Portman resigned as faculty advisor when she got mad about kids on her staff not doing anything. The Random Hallway Poll he did Tuesday was hilarious. But apparently it was all controversial, and he got called to the principal’s office. Nothing happened, though. Nothing ever happens when you push the rules. You have to totally break them to get in any kind of serious trouble.

  Out of everyone running for student council, Danny has the best posters. He took images from the Jon Stewart America book and superimposed them over photos of himself trying to look like he’s on The Daily Show. Not that anyone watches that show besides Danny. But that’s what makes the posters weird enough to work. And the tag lines are completely irreverent. They’re all like, DANNY TRAGER. PRESIDENTIAL. A FAN OF NACHOS. Or, VOTE FOR DANNY. FRIEND OF TREES. Everyone thinks he’s totally going to win. I definitely think he should. Politics is his life. As long as I’ve known him, he’s talked about revolutionizing the world one day. His ultimate goal is to make everyone realize that world peace is possible.

  Danny’s standing on a plastic milk crate in the middle of the main hallway, waving around a head of lettuce.

  “I summon the energy of the lettuce to stimulate world peace!” Danny yells. “No more war! No more massacre!” He waves the lettuce over his head. “Praise to the lettuce!” Kids stand around him in a circle and cheer. Brad sticks out his arms in front of him and makes worshiping motions at the lettuce. Another kid yells, “It’s the apocalypse!”

  Mr. Pearlman comes running down the hall. Kids are crowded three deep around Danny, so he can’t get through. He gets shoved into someone so it looks like he just pushed a kid.

  “You best step back, son!” this boy goes. Because he knows he can get away with it now.

  “Hey!” the kid yells. “Yo, lettuce god! Mr. Pearlman just pushed me! That’s physical abuse!”

  A surge of booing engulfs the hall. Some hard-core stoner guys yell at Mr. Pearlman to lay off. In the rare event that a teacher breaks the rules, you can shout them out as loud as you want and nothing can happen to you. They could totally lose their job for even touching you. And if an administrator does it, it’s ten times worse.

  Mr. Pearlman looks nervous. He looks like he’s scared we’re all about to stomp over him in an angry stampede. He backs away and motors down the hall. He’s probably going to get the AP to break it up.

  But in the meantime, Danny still has the floor. And everyone’s attention.

  “A vote for Danny! Is a vote to end the senseless physical violence perpetrated at Eames Academy! We’re taking back the academy, people! Let me hear you say, Oh, yeah!”

  And the crowd goes wild.

  It’s only five minutes into the math test and Brad is already trying to cheat.

  I mean, it’s subtle. Brad’s an expert at subversive activities. But I can see it. I can tell.

  Brad sits next to Jackson, and I can see him sneaking looks at Jackson’s paper while Mr. Farrell reads a book at his desk, oblivious. Brad’s technique is so good that Jackson doesn’t even know what’s going on. It’s so unfair. I hate when burnouts get away with doing nothing, plus use people like me who actually do their work. It’s like, Yeah buddy. I’d like to sit in front of the TV for six hours every day, too. There’s a reason I don’t.

  Maybe there’s a way to let Jackson know what’s happening without Brad finding out. Ratting him out to Mr. Farrell isn’t an option. Unless I want to coincidentally find everything in my locker totally destroyed or someone lurking outside my house. There has to be another way.

  Someone has a bad cough. I hate how that’s all embarrassing, when you’re taking a test and you’re sick and you have that dry-throat thing and you’re coughing but trying not to so you start making those retching noises and everyone gives you evil looks. Or when your stomach is growling all loud and you cough to cover up the noise.

  Coughing. Hmm.

  I try coughing all ragged to see if that will make Jackson look up. Four people whip their heads around, but not Jackson. He’s completely into those inverse functions. A nuclear bomb detonating in the hall wouldn’t stop him. The boy is a machine.

  Direct contact is the only way to do this.

  I put down my mechanical pencil and reach into my bag for an old-school one. I do the legal looking reach where you unzip your bag all slowly to be quiet and watch the teacher while you’re feeling around inside for what you want so he doesn’t think you’re scamming on some cheat sheet. But Mr. Farrell doesn’t even look up from his book.

  So then I get up to sharpen my pencil, but I time it so it’s in between Brad’s peeks. I already figured out he has this rhythmic pattern to his peeks going on. I sharpen my pencil and do a sideways glance at Brad. Then I start walking back to my desk. I decide to walk by Brad’s desk, on the other side of Jackson.

  The timing is perfect. Right when Brad is looking at Jackson’s paper, I cough in this loud, spastic way. It works. Jackson snaps out of his test haz
e and glares at me. And he totally catches Brad looking right at his paper.

  But Jackson’s not stupid, either. He knows what will happen if he tells Mr. Farrell. So he slides his paper to the other side of his desk and tilts his desk away so Brad has no chance of seeing.

  I sit down and sneak a look over at Brad to see if he knew I had anything to do with it. He’s clueless.

  A few minutes later, I look over again. Jackson snaps his head around to see if Brad is still trying to cheat off him. Then Brad mouths something to Jackson that makes my arms break out in goose bumps.

  He goes, You’re dead.

  We just had ten minutes to discuss who we picked for our poetry projects. Which basically means Tatyana and I spent nine and a half minutes gossiping about what happened with Mr. Pearlman and the lettuce thing and thirty seconds on what we were supposed to be talking about.

  When it was Tatyana’s turn to explain about her project, she pushed over a poem by Allen Ginsberg, copied onto gorgeous stationery in her arty script. The poem was about a llama with a bamboo backscratcher.

  Enough said.

  Then she asked me about the sidewalk thing and I admitted it. Which I’m not worried about. She knows how to keep a secret. Anyway, she was in the middle of telling me something about it, but we had to break up.

  Now we’re supposed to be writing a description of our project ideas. We have to justify why we picked who we picked. So far I have three sentences.

  I tap my pen on my notebook. I lean over to Tatyana.

  “How long does this have to be?” I whisper.

  “One page,” she whispers back.

  Hmm. Maybe I should put in part of my favorite poem. That’ll take up like four more lines. And I don’t write huge or use ridiculous margins like some wingnuts around here.

  I flip back in my English section for my favorite E. E. Cummings poem. I pick out the best parts and write them down.

  I’m trying to think of what to write next when a note flies over my desk. The note was apparently supposed to land on my desk, but Tatyana spazzed and now it’s on Jackson’s desk.

  Fabulous.

  Tatyana is trying not to laugh, but it isn’t exactly working for her. She’s hysterical, smooshing her hands over her face and hoping Ms. Portman won’t see. Meanwhile, I’m giving her a look like, How hard is it to aim a note at the right desk?

  I glance over at Jackson, waiting for him to toss me back the note. But that’s not what happens. What happens is that Jackson unfolds the note.

  What a dick!

  He sees Tatyana having a conniption. I can imagine what’s going through his head. He’s thinking she’s laughing at him and, therefore, the note is all about him. Jackson has been picked on for being a geek for as long as I can remember. He’s used to this kind of treatment by now. I don’t even know what the note says. But I’m pretty sure it’s about the sidewalk-chalk thing, since Tatyana got interrupted when she was trying to say something else about it. Which means that in about three seconds, Jackson will know I did it.

  Not that people didn’t figure it out. But as long as it’s just a rumor, I can’t get in trouble for graffiti. If the note’s about that, it means there’s hard evidence on paper that I did it and Jackson could get me in trouble.

  “Here,” I whisper to him. I hold out my hand.

  No chance. He’s reading it.

  Tatyana notices what’s going on. That shuts her up. Her eyes get huge.

  Jackson shoves the note into his binder and goes back to work.

  I hiss, “Give it back!”

  But he totally ignores me.

  I rip off a corner of the next page in my notebook and write:

  I pass the note to Tatyana. Then I try to get Jackson’s attention. He ignores me.

  Tatyana passes the note back. Now it says:

  I write:

  She writes:

  I write:

  My nerves are twanging to the extreme. I jump when the bell rings.

  “Hand in your papers on the way out!” Ms. Portman yells over the noise of everyone suddenly talking. Mine is, naturally, still incomplete.

  “But why would Jackson do that?” Nicole says.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “God.” She slams her locker shut. “What is his damage?”

  We just can’t figure out why Jackson kept that note. Why would he want to get me in trouble? I try to think if I’ve ever been mean to him. I can’t think of anything.

  “Anyway,” Nicole says. “I’m sure he’s just being his usual weird self. No worries.”

  “I hope so.” I really wish this were the only crisis I had to worry about. Because the humiliation from yesterday has seeped into my skin so deep I can barely feel anything else.

  Nicole knows. She’s like, “Forget Steve. He’s so beneath you I can’t even with it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s going to be kicking himself that he let you go. Seriously. He’ll be walking down the hall one day and see you go by, and he’ll have to take his big stupid head and bang it into the wall, he’ll be hating himself so much.”

  Everybody’s been telling me to forget Steve. How he’s totally lacking and a bonehead and not worth my time. And how it’s not me, it’s him. But, clearly, it was me. Because he dumped me. And he picked her.The spontaneous and exciting girl. The gorgeous and perfect girl.

  I can’t believe I was such an idiot. Here I was thinking it was all about Steve going away next year, when the whole time he just didn’t love me the way I thought he did.

  My brain won’t stop playing a continuous loop over and over of 1.) Steve and Gloria making out in his room with John Mayer playing and 2.) the whole school laughing at me for writing that sidewalk-chalk message and 3.) every single sweet thing Steve ever did for me, all condensed into one humungous lie.

  “Do you think my nose is too big?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “My nose? Would you get a nose job if you were me?”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “Maybe I’m not pretty enough.”

  “Oh, yeah! I’m sure he broke up with you because of your nose. Which, by the way, is perfect.”

  “Maybe if I—”

  “Look,” Nicole interrupts. “You could be Marion and he wouldn’t care. No one is good enough for him right now.”

  “Except Gloria.”

  “No, she’s just some skanky ho-bag who he’s gonna be over yesterday.” She switches her bag from one shoulder to the other.

  “I am so over these boys. Who do they think they are? It’s ridiculous what they get away with.”

  “Seriously.” I can’t wait to get home and take a nap. “Let’s go.”

  “We’re not leaving yet.”

  “Why?”

  “We have a surprise for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Hey,” James says, walking up to us. Danny’s with him.

  It must be really hard for Nicole, knowing Danny still likes her. Or maybe he even still loves her. I could never be just friends with someone I loved. We’d be hanging out and I’d want to kiss him and then what? But I guess Danny thought having part of something was better than having nothing at all.

  “Hey, Nicole,” Danny says.

  “Hey, Danny,” Nicole says.

  Then there’s this look between them. Nicole smiles a little at Danny. He smiles back.

  “You guys ready?” James asks us.

  Danny’s cell rings. He flips it open and goes, “Talk to me.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Not here,” James says. “Let’s go to Westville.”

  The four of us only go to Westville when something big is about to transpire. This is because Westville has the best hot dogs and fries anywhere. Which is the all-time best combination of comfort food to reduce stress. They even have these awesome veggie dogs for Danny.

  “Wait,” I say after
they tell me about this note they found and their plan for how to use it. “We’re supposed to meet back at school for this tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Nicole goes.

  “How are we supposed to get in?”

  “Aha!” Danny pulls his keys out and jangles them around. “Remember when the secretary gave me a key to come in on Saturdays? When I was doing that yearbook stuff?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Guess who still has the key?”

  “She never asked for it back?” Nicole says. “That’s so classic.”

  It really is. All the secretaries love Danny. To the point of giving him a key to the school and trusting him so much they forgot he even has it.

  “So we’re in,” Danny reports.

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, you guys,” I say.

  “What are you talking about?” Nicole says. “It’s totally brill.”

  “No, it is. And I appreciate it and everything, but—”

  “If you’re worried about getting caught, don’t,” James goes. “Because we won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We thought of everything. There’s a volleyball game tonight, but by seven everyone will be out of there. If we show up at seven thirty, no one will be around.”

  “Even the teachers with no lives who stay late,” Danny adds.

  “It’s not just that,” I go. “Isn’t this unfair to Jackson?” The plan is all about Gloria getting back the same kind of energy she’s been putting out, which is cool. Especially since I couldn’t think of anything good and here it is, all planned out for me. But it also involves Jackson. And not in a good way.

  “He might see it differently,” Nicole says.

  “Like how?”

  “Well . . . it’s not like he was the one who wrote the note.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t deserve this. And wouldn’t it just make him mad? Then he’ll totally want to get me in trouble.”