While it may have made me the undisputed star of sixth-grade science, it’s a move I will never live down. In the eyes of my peers, I became the Brainiac Nerd they should all work to avoid.
Not long after that, I embarked on what I secretly call my Campaign for Cool. I started by replacing that fifth-grade certificate on my wall with a poster of Josh Frost.
It probably seems weird to have the same poster on my wall that most girls tape inside their lockers, but I’m in desperate need of a social mentor. And since Josh is only five years older and grew up in the same town, even went to this school (maybe even sat in this seat!), well, clearly there’s no one better to guide me.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I’m some cautionary tale in the making. I fully intend to maintain my grades so I can get into a good college and live up to the promise of that fifth-grade certificate.
But first I’d really like to get a girlfriend, preferably one named Tinsley Barnes, before the end of seventh grade. Unlike Dougall, who refuses to adapt to the rules of our new social environment.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, hoping to switch the conversation to a much cooler subject, “but I plan to take back the clock for a nice long Christmas break, as soon as this final bell rings.” I lean back even farther, folding my hands behind my head just like Mac Turtledove. Then I glance over at Tinsley and Ivy, willing them to notice, but they’re too busy laughing hysterically at whatever Mac is saying.
“And then what?” Dougall frowns, waving his hand before me so I’ll focus on him. “Soon as we return, we’re right back to it. Heck, look at Sparks….” He nods toward the front of the room. “What’s he, like, fifty—sixty? He’s been chasing the bell his whole life. It never ends.”
“Thirty-four,” Plum Bailey pipes up, and Dougall shifts toward her as I fix my gaze on the clock, urging the big hand to speed up. “Sparks. He’s thirty-four.” Plum swivels all the way around in her seat until she’s facing me.
Even though I refuse to actually look at her, it’s safe to assume that her bony white hands are nervously twisting the sleeves of her sweater as her annoying brown eyes gawp my face, hoping I’ll be dumb enough to accidentally return the look so she can grin at me with a mouthful of braces.
Let me backtrack.
When I said there isn’t a single girl in this entire school who’s remotely impressed by my brain, I wasn’t counting Plum.
In my defense, I don’t really think of Plum as a girl. I mean, she’s got all the usual girl parts. Not that I’ve checked or anything. But she does wear a lot of homemade dresses and skirts, so I think that’s safe to assume. And even though we used to kind of be friends, when it comes to things like social status, Plum isn’t the kind of girl anyone notices.
She’s like Dougall in that she mostly values the kinds of things no one else in this school gives a flying flip about. Reading, extra-credit assignments, good grades, getting excused from PE—same kinds of things I used to care about (and still secretly do), only, unlike Plum, I’m no longer in the business of advertising that part of myself.
Not to mention that, also unlike Plum, I had the good sense to hide my own mom-made Christmas sweater at the bottom of my backpack. The second you’re seen in that thing, you’re pretty much dead on arrival.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: the fact that Plum is impressed by my being a Brain only goes to prove that being a Brain isn’t cool.
But Dougall is somehow immune to all that, which is why he actually risks speaking to Plum without even bothering to lower his voice.
“How could you possibly know that?” He squints, as though Sparks’s age is part of a much bigger conspiracy.
“He’s married to my mom’s friend’s cousin Chantal. She’s from France. That’s where they got married. My mom’s friend’s cousin even went to their wedding in Paris, and she—”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Sparks is married? To a French lady? Named Chantal?” I shift my attention back to Sparks, trying to make sense of how this could possibly happen.
Sparks—with his skinny arms and shiny scalp—the unhealthy obsession with diagramming sentences—and expressions so exaggerated he looks elastic, like he might snap at any second.
He’s married to a Parisian lady with a superhot name, and I can’t even get Tinsley Barnes to acknowledge my existence?
Is life seriously that unfair?
“My mom’s friend’s cousin said Paris is just as romantic in person as it is in the movies.” Plum sighs, her gaze never once veering from me, as though she’s imagining me whisking her there in a heart-shaped hot-air balloon. “Someday I really hope to visit—”
The sound of her voice is broken by the much anticipated driiiiiiiing of the school bell, which is all it takes to whip us from a state of complete inertia into an absolute frenzy of bodies stampeding for the door.
I grab my backpack, swing it over my shoulder, and shove off my chair, ready to join the masses, when I discover that the numbness from my butt has spread to my feet. My legs will no longer hold me, and I face-plant smack onto the dirty tiled floor.