“I went to Willingham High,” I told her. “In Tyson”
“Ah.”
Already I didn’t much like Valerie—look, I never said I was particularly tolerant, and she was obviously the sort of person who was naturally annoying—but I was impressed with how much she was able to put into that one simple sound: disdain, false sympathy, a smidgen of mockery. It takes talent to be that subtly expressive with nonverbal sounds, and I told her as much.
“Well, you’re about what I expected,” she said.
“I’m flattered. I had no idea that anyone would have any expectations whatsoever.”
Her perfect lips made a perfect moue. She was quite amazing really. A living, breathing stereotype of an in-crowd teenage girl. I wondered if she practiced expressions in front of her mirror at home.
“You think you’re so smart,” she said, “but you’re no different than Chancy. You’re both just dumb.”
Wow. Great with the image, but not so big in the eloquency department. Though maybe I was missing something, because all her clones began to giggle. As if.
“Who’s Chancy?” I asked.
“Your loser lunch buddy.”
“Oh, you mean Maxine.”
“You deserve each other.”
“Good. I like her.”
“What are you—gay?”
“What are you—homophobic?”
“Jesus, you’re weird.”
I nodded. “I’m definitely more weird than gay. Unless you meant cheerful. Then sometimes I’m more gay than weird.”
“Just stay out of our way.”
“I’ll try, princess.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“God, you are so lame.”
And with that last witty rejoinder, off she went, the heels of those perky shoes of hers clicking on the marble floor, her clones bunched in a group around her. I turned back to my locker.
* * *
Jared was waiting for me after school, because Mom had asked him to walk home with me. She was afraid that I’d get lost in the few blocks to our new apartment, but that was just her projecting again. She had actually gotten lost going to the corner store over the weekend. I have a great sense of direction.
“I can’t believe it,” Jared said as we headed off. “We’re not here for more than a day, and you’ve already got a reputation for being weird.”
“What have I done?”
“So far? Befriended a nerd. Sexually propositioned a cheerleader.”
“Really?
“You didn’t?”
“Well, I befriended a girl named Maxine who apparently people don’t like because she’s smart, but I don’t remember the propositioning part. You’d think I’d remember something like that.”
Jared laughed. “You’d think.”
“So how was your day?”
He shrugged. “Oh, you know. Not so much boring as—” He gave me another laugh. “Well, boring. Did you hear the lame-ass music they were playing in the cafeteria at lunch? Real cutting-edge. Not.”
“But you, of course, made a wonderful impression on everyone you met.”
He gave me another shrug. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention. I met a couple of okay guys, and the girls are definitely way hotter than they were in our old school. But it doesn’t look like I’ve got much chance of starting a decent band here. It’s all pap and rap and head-banger crap.”
Decent, for Jared, meant retro. You know, hippie music, jangly and psychedelic, and loaded with words.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’re in the big city now— you’ll find players.”
“I suppose.”
“It’s lucky you’re so charming that no one cares how weird your sister is.”
It was true—even back in our old school. But how could you not like Jared? He was handsome and smart and kind. Sure, he was weird, too, but not deliberately and confrontationally so, like me. With him it was mostly this obsession he had with music—all kinds, but especially the old stuff. And that just added to his cool.
No, that’s only partly true. He got along so well with people because he looked the way he did, handsome but not a pretty boy. Because he was good at sports and the arts. Because he didn’t exactly toe the line, but he didn’t step way over it the way I did. And he was so easygoing that you’d really have to work at disliking him.
“So are you going to stick it out?” he asked.
He was talking about my habit of skipping school. I only ever spent a couple of days a week in classes when we were going to Willingham. I could have aced my exams by studying, but why bother?
“We’ll see,” I told him.
* * *
I called Maxine that evening after supper. I lay on the couch with the TV on at a low volume, flipping through channels while I waited for someone to answer. I thought it was going to go to an answering machine, but Maxine picked up on the sixth ring.
“Hello?”
She sounded a little hesitant, like she was expecting a telemarketer or a wrong number. I guess she didn’t get many calls.
“Hello, yourself,” I said.
“Imogene?”
“In the flesh—no, actually on the phone, if we’re going to be specific. I just thought I’d try your number to make sure it worked.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“Well, you could have given me the number for a pizza joint because you thought I was too weird and pushy.”
I could feel her smiling.
“You’re definitely weird,” she said, “and a little pushy, but that’s okay. My life is so not-weird it could use some of your fantasies to spruce it up.”
“Fantasies? I’ll have you know that I’ll take whimsy over fantasy any day of the week.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d just always rather meet a talking spoon than an elf.” Maxine laughed. “Do you have to practice to be like this?”
“No. Unfortunately, it comes naturally.”
“Don’t say that. I like the way your mind works.”
“ ‘Work’ being a subjective term. Just think how much easier I’d get along in the world if I could be more normal.”
“I got the feeling that you don’t like normal.”
“Well, no,” I said. “Not being who I am right now. But if I was normal, then I probably would like it.”
“I’m pretty normal. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“No,” I assured her. “You’re extraordinary.”
That got me another laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“No, really.”
“How can you be so sure of that? We only just met this afternoon.”
“A spoon told me.”
“Of course.”
“So are you watching TV?” I asked.
“No. Are you?”
“Mm-hmm. Switch to channel twenty-two.”
“Just a sec. I’m going into the other room.”
“You have a cordless phone, don’t you? I’m so jealous. Mom won’t let us have one because she thinks it’ll give us brain cancer.”
“She’s probably thinking of a cell phone, which is what I’m on. And nothing’s been proven one way or another. What channel did you say?”
“Twenty-two.”
“That’s just the weather channel.”
“I know. Can you believe that woman’s hair? It doesn’t move.”
“Oh, my god, you’re right. It’s just like a helmet.”
“We should send her a letter. Maybe she doesn’t know.”
“How could she not know?”
We spent a while channel flipping, keeping up a running commentary on everything we saw. Maxine might have thought she was normal, but she had me giggling hysterically more than a few times with her observations, and that’s something normal people never seem to do. At least not intentionally.
“I should go,” she finally said when we landed back on the weather channel for mayb
e the fifth time. The weather woman’s hair still wasn’t moving. “I need to study.”
“I thought you were naturally smart.”
“Mensa material, apparently. But you still have to stick information in your head so that the big brain has something to work with.”
“So that’s the step I’ve been missing. See you tomorrow in school?”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s not like we could just blow it off.”
I let that go. Just because I had bad habits was no reason to share them. One of the teachers at my old school used to call me a virus because of how the trouble I got into always spilled over onto whoever happened to hang around with me. I was going to make a valiant effort to not let that happen with Maxine.
“I wish we had some of the same classes,” I said. “Or at least the same homeroom.”
“No, you don’t. Your friend Valerie’s in my homeroom.”
“God, does everybody know everybody's business in this school?”
“Why are you surprised? You’re the new girl, and she’s the captain of the cheerleader squad.”
When Jared told me she was a cheerleader, I should have realized she’d be the captain. No rank-and-file for that girl.
“You might want to be careful around her,” Maxine added. “She can be pretty mean, and people tend to follow her lead. Trust me, I know.”
“I’ll be the very model of a careful, well-behaved mouse and stay out of her way.”
Maxine laughed. “I think this is going to be a very interesting year.”
“Good night, Maxine.”
“Good night, Imogene.”
We hung up. After I cradled the receiver, I lay my head back on the arm of the couch and smiled happily. This felt so much better than it had been back in Tyson, where for some reason I’d always had a chip on my shoulder. Maxine made everything seem so different. Better.
I loved Jared, but I needed a girl in my life. Someone my own age. Mom liked to act like she was our sibling, but while I loved her too, it just wasn’t the same because, at the end of the day, there’d always come a point where she’d feel the need to play the mother card.
And who knew? Maybe if I hung around with Maxine enough I’d get smart, too. But it’d have to be by osmosis, because it wasn’t something I could ever see myself actually working on. Do as much as you need to get by—that was my motto. I’d leave it to somebody else to put in all the effort to become valedictorian.
* * *
Of course, keeping out of Valerie Clarke’s way proved to be impossible. I don’t know if it was some holdover of the way I was this trouble magnet back in Tyson, or if she’d just decided to make a project out of giving me a hard time, but I seemed to run into her everywhere. At first I managed to keep my mouth shut when she made her snide little comments, but that got old fast, and being a mouse was never really a big part of my repertoire.
I’d tried dressing normally the first few days at the new school in hopes of not standing out—jeans or slacks, a simple top, one of Jared’s jackets that was only a little long on me and looked okay with the sleeves rolled up—but Valerie made that impossible. With her on my case, the last thing I could be was invisible, so by the end of the week, I was back to my old nostyle style. I showed up Friday morning in a plaid skirt with striped socks, clunky shoes, a black T-shirt, and my old Army surplus olive green jacket. I’d used a veritable militia of barrettes to transform my black pageboy into a thicket of little hair tufts that stuck up every which way.
And you know, I didn’t really stand out that much. This being a high school, fashion went from one end of the spectrum to the other, holdover punks and hippies to skateboarders, preppies, headbangers, and everything in between. Just an endless array of cliques and small gangs with as little mixing as possible except when actually in class.
But my punk-grrl-cum-thrift-shop look still gave Valerie plenty of fuel. As soon as she saw me that morning, she started right in on me—at least until I took her aside, just far enough from her little coterie of clones so that they couldn’t listen in. I have no idea why she even stepped out of their hearing, because half the satisfaction for someone like her is playing to an audience. I guess she was curious.
“You’re having your fun,” I told her, “and so long as we’re on school grounds, I’m going to let you say any damn thing you want.”
“Oh, like you could stop—”
“Because I just don’t need the grief of detention and visits to the office and crap like that. But here’s the thing, princess.”
“I told you not to call me—”
I leaned in close, a friendly smile on my lips.
“Keep this up,” I told her, “and you don’t ever want to see me out of school because I will so beat the crap out of you.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Princess, you don’t know the first damn thing about what I would or wouldn’t do. So you just think on that.”
“You are so—”
“Now go tell your little friends how you really put me in my place, and I’ll look suitably chastised, and we can get on with our respective days.”
She got this look in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. Some weird mix of anger, fear, and relief. But she didn’t say anything. She just went off with her little friends, their giggles trailing behind them, and I figured that was that. But then she had to go sic her boyfriend on me.
* * *
His name was Brent Calder, and of course he was the football team’s quarterback. Who else would the captain of the cheerleader squad be going out with? I suppose somebody, somewhere, might have considered him to be a lovely young man, but I pegged him for a big dumb jock the moment I saw him. What can I say? I can be as guilty of stereotyping as the next person.
He was taller than me, naturally, and good-looking in the same plasticky way that Valerie was, except he had this whole boy thing going for him. You know, rugged, while she was soft. His hair was short and brushed back, and he filled out his shirt the way a guy does when he exercises regularly. Seeing him made me realize I had to change my personal nickname for Valerie. I was forever going to think of them as Barbie and Ken.
He stopped me on the west stairwell, giving me a little push that banged me up against the wall. One of his teammates, a dark-haired guy named Jerry Fielder, stood a couple of stairs up from us, arms folded, a little smile of anticipation playing on his lips. The other students just went by, looking away, nobody wanting to get involved.
“I’ve heard all about you, Yuck,” he said.
Like making that joke with my surname, Yeck, was even remotely original.
“And I don’t like what I’m hearing,” he added.
I started to straighten up from the wall, but he stepped in close, totally invading my personal space. I knew I had to talk my way out of this, but I’ve never been able to stop from being a smart aleck.
“Gee, I’m sorry to hear that, Ken,” I told him.
“The name’s Brent.”
“Whatever you say.”
Sarcasm obviously went right over his head. Smart, just like his girlfriend.
“You got it,” he said. “That’s the way it works around here—just whatever I say. And what I’m saying right now is, keep out of Valerie’s way.”
“Or?”
“What do you mean ‘or’?”
“Well, what are you going to do if I don’t? Are you going to beat me up? That’ll look really good, won’t it? Smacking around a little thing like me, half your size and a girl in the bargain. That’s going to impress just about everybody with what a big, tough guy you are.”
I was talking way braver than I felt, but talking was all I had. His face went dark, and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. I knew a couple of tricks for taking down a guy his size—I had to, hanging around with the crowd I had back in Tyson—but none of them were foolproof, and standing on the stairs like we were wasn’t exactly the best place to implement any of them.
&n
bsp; “Anyway, I’m trying to stay out of your girlfriend’s way,” I went on. “But for some reason, every time I turn around, there she is.”
“You’ve got a smart mouth, Yuck.”
“I know. And the rest of me’s not so dumb either.”
He grabbed my arm and squeezed hard enough to bruise. I didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but I wasn’t going to let it cow me either.
“That bruise’ll make an interesting photograph,” I told him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“As evidence.”
He laughed, but he let me go.
“You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?” he said. “You actually think the principal would take the word of some loser reject like you over that of his star quarterback?”
“I have no idea,” I told him. “I’m thinking more judge, lawyers, civil lawsuit, that kind of thing.”
“Like that would ever happen. Just stay off my radar, Yuck. You don’t want to get on my bad side.”
“Or you’ll ...?”
“Or I’ll squash you like the weird little bug that you are.”
Then he laughed and gave me another shove, banging me back up against the wall once more. Turning away, he went on up the stairs with his friend Jerry. Throughout our little encounter, no one else ever stopped or looked once in our direction. They continued to just go by as I leaned against the wall, but I knew they’d taken it all in. Knew they were all as scared of him as I was supposed to be.
I rubbed my arm where he’d bruised it. All kinds of little revenge scenarios played through my head Road Runner cartoon style, except Brent and Valerie took turns being the coyote, and they didn’t bounce back the way Wile E. did.
It was dumb, but they were comforting to consider as I continued on down the stairs, still rubbing my upper arm, and I knew I wouldn’t put even one of them into practice. I wouldn’t say boo to either of them.
Unless they got on my case again.
Then maybe I wouldn’t be able to stop myself, and the next time, I’d probably get beat up for real, instead of just pushed around the way I’d been today.
I know exactly the moment that I fell in love with Imogene Yeck. It was that Friday afternoon on the stairwell—the first time she ran into Brent Calder. Standing up to him didn’t help her any more than it had ever helped me with Woody and Trevor and Mac and all those guys who were always on my case. Brent still pushed her around. He was still in control. But she wasn’t intimidated. She looked him right in the eye, even when he was hurting her.