“Oh my gosh!” Plum squeals.
“Nick—you okay?” Dougall asks.
I lift my head just in time to see Tinsley Barnes and Ivy Wilburn step right over me like I’m nothing more than a felled tree in their path. The two of them head out the door in hot pursuit of Mac Turtledove.*2
* * *
*1 The deadliest Big Fat Lie of them all—the one that kick-started this mess.
*2 This is clearly the moment when I should’ve called it quits and crawled home.
11:56 A.M.—12:17 P.M.
LUNCHTIME PURGATORY
If you were to survey a group of average middle school students, asking them to name their favorite class, nine out of ten would reply “lunch break,” even though it doesn’t qualify as an actual class. But if you were to ask me, I wouldn’t hesitate to say, “Science, closely followed by math.” Mainly because those thirty minutes between English and algebra pretty much qualify as my own personal hell.
My mom likes to claim that no matter how bad a situation may seem, it could always be worse, and in most cases that’s true. I mean, at least I have Dougall to sit with, and most days Plum too.*1 But while eating on the small square of grass outside the library will never be considered as pathetic as choking down a sandwich in the hallway outside the bathrooms like the lowliest kids at our school, the fact that I’m one step above that untouchable crowd doesn’t really provide the level of comfort you’d think.
I had high hopes when I started at Greentree. I’d spent most of the summer watching a bunch of teen movies so I’d know what to expect, and I fully imagined myself at the center of the cafeteria action with Tinsley on one side and Ivy on the other, only to instead get rejected from every table I attempted to join. Even the ones that were mostly empty shunned me with shaking heads and rolling eyes. Leaving me to wonder what my peers could possibly find so repulsive about me that they’d discard me on sight.
Maybe I didn’t have the sort of automatic cool-table access granted to people like Tinsley, Ivy, and Mac Turtledove, who’d ruled from the top of the popularity pyramid stretching back to nursery school, but I was wearing new clothes, my hair looked more or less decent, and it’s not like I smelled bad. But when Plum piped up from behind me, suggesting we all head outside, and when Dougall agreed, well, it suddenly became all too clear that my friends were the problem, not me.
Dougall and Plum might have been okay back in elementary school, but now that we were moving up in the world, there was no denying the fact that, between their weird clothes and even weirder interests, like Plum’s love of reading just for the fun of it and Dougall’s numerous conspiracy theories, they were keeping me from the elite life that should’ve been mine. As long as I continued to stay friends with them, my dreams of popularity would never be realized.
If you think that sounds cruel, then let me remind you that cafeteria politics are a harsh and merciless game. Every table is like a brutal medieval kingdom with a single bloodthirsty ruler at the helm, deciding on a whim who’s in and who’s out. Even the most minor infraction can result in banishment to a lesser table with no hope of return. In case you think that makes for an opening that needs to be filled, think again. In the one and a half years I’ve been at this school, I’ve never once seen someone ascend. But soon that will change, and the throne will be mine.
Until then, I’m left with no choice but to head to my own personal Siberia, which, like the cruel joke it is, requires me to walk right past the cool table.
Usually I duck my head and walk really fast, but today I do the unthinkable: I purposely stop right where Mac Turtledove sits. And even though my heart is beating like crazy and my armpits are all damp and sweaty, I still screw up the courage to look right at him and say, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Turtledove. Won’t be long before you’re eating in purgatory.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t actually say the words out loud.
Maybe I only said them in my head.
Still, just knowing it’s true is a victory all its own.