The baby-powder-and-hair-spray trick worked pretty well on the yin-yang tattoo, which has hardly faded. I set up my bedroom like a photo studio with a sheet draped along the wall and down the floor. The white background will make it easier to cut around my form and place myself in different photos. I take a few shots where I’m standing straight on, then walking toward the left and right, à la Waldo. The process is tiring, because I have to run back and forth to the Photo Booth application on my computer to start the timer for each one. I’m getting better, though, at knowing how to hold a pose and set the lighting just right.
I click through them all and save my favorites, then search the internet for the perfect image to disappear into. I end up choosing a crowd scene at a huge outdoor music festival. There are hundreds of people in a muddy field. I don’t even know which band is on the stage, but Vicurious fits beautifully into the sea of people, walking toward the stage with her red-and-white shirt clearly visible. I tweak and save the image and email it to myself, then go digging in my backpack for my phone so I can post to Instagram. The phone is alive, lighting up with new followers, likes, and comments as I take it in my hand. I give the screen an upward swipe, and another, and the notifications keep rolling. With each swipe I think, This will be the last of them, but they won’t stop coming. I open Instagram, afraid to look but dying to know, and when I see the number, I can’t believe it.
Vicurious has 3,755 followers.
I expected to gain a few, but more than double what it was before? It’s more than Hallie Bryce has! I laugh out loud, because I don’t know what else to do. I can only stare at that number and watch it tick upward right before my eyes.
Still not moping, Jenna!
I remember that I’m meant to be posting the Where’s Waldo image, so I save it from email and pull it up in Instagram. I write a short message, and since I’m feeling adventurous, throw on some hashtags, too:
Can you #seeme? #notalone #whereswaldo
The first like comes in less than five seconds. Then three more, then ten. Within a few minutes, people are leaving “I see you!” comments. It makes me feel better. I put on my pajamas and hide my Vicurious costume in the back of my closet, then watch my Instagram feed until my mother knocks on my door and says good night. I quickly log out and crawl into bed.
I lie awake for a really long time, trying to convince myself that gaining thousands of followers who see me makes up for losing the only person who ever really did.
I oversleep because I was awake until four a.m. and don’t even remember turning my alarm off. My mother discovers me still zonked out about ten minutes before the school bus arrives. She hands me a granola bar and a juice box (I swear she still thinks I’m eight) as I race out the door. I spend most of the bus ride worrying that someone will laugh at my stupid juice box.
When I get to world history, I’m just hoping I can put my head down and do my work and be left alone. So, of course there’s a note on my desk, a folded paper with my name emblazoned on the side.
I pull it to my lap as I slide into my seat. Lipton is squinting at the Smart Board as if trying to puzzle out the homework assignment that’s written up there. He’s very studiously pretending to be busy with that.
I open the note. It’s a photocopy, actually, from a book about the Crusades. Several paragraphs subtitled “The Siege of Jerusalem” are highlighted in yellow. There’s a note written in the margin:
Saw this when I was doing my research. Thought maybe you could use it. –L
I glance up, and Lipton grins and gives me a thumbs-up. My eyes dart around to see if anyone just saw that, but nobody’s paying attention. So I smile back at him. I mouth the word “thanks” and he smiles wider.
My face gets hot. Because I’m ridiculous.
I look down to put the paper in my backpack and notice that he’s got his pant leg tucked into his sock, which is bright red. It reminds me of the time I left the house with a dryer sheet clinging to my back. At least Jenna told me before I got on the bus.
I should tell him.
But that could be just as embarrassing. Instead, I push my pencil off my desk so it drops and rolls near his foot. Normally I would never do this because everyone would stare and think I’m a klutz, but they’re all busy talking and nobody will notice but him. He immediately leans down to pick it up, hesitating for the briefest moment before sitting back up and handing it to me with a wobbly smile.
I wobbly smile back at him, and notice a blotchy flush rise to his cheeks. He faces front again, but his arm drops to his side and his fingers find his pant leg and he tugs it out of his sock.
I am the first to arrive at the yearbook office for lunch period, and have just taken a bite of ham and cheese on rye when Marissa blusters in.
“Oh, good. You got my text,” she says. “Now, where’s Beth-vo?”
I freeze, holding my sandwich to my mouth. I threw my phone in my backpack when I raced out the door this morning and haven’t looked at it since.
“Marv-ann?” she tries, crinkling her nose. “Are they coming?”
I blink. Lift my shoulders in a slow shrug.
She flounces into her rolly chair. “Nobody pays attention to me, I swear.”
This statement surprises me. Marissa has to be the most attention-paid student at Richardson High. I put my sandwich down.
“We’ll start without them.” She swivels to face me, opening a spiral notebook in her lap and holding her pen at the ready. “Any ideas?”
“Uh . . .”
“I just don’t want this yearbook to be an exact replica of every other yearbook that came before. I want something different.”
I nod.
“Something besides the usual clubs and sports and class pictures and candid hallway shots, you know?”
I nod again.
“Maybe feature some student artwork or something?” She writes the idea in her notebook.
I don’t nod, because I’m starting to feel like a bobblehead doll. I put on a serious-thinking face instead. Bite my lip. Furrow my brows. One-on-one conversations are less terrifying than talking in front of a class, but Marissa makes me nervous. And I’m afraid one of my Vicurious ideas will pop out of my mouth.
The door opens then, and Marvo and Beth Ann come in laughing. I exhale.
“Finally,” says Marissa. “Did you get my text?”
Marvo pulls his phone from his pocket and reads the text, obviously for the first time. “Yep. Got it.”
“My battery died,” says Beth Ann. “What are we doing?”
“Brainstorming.” Marissa clicks her pen. “I want this to be the yearbook everyone will remember. Like nothing anyone’s ever seen before.”
They plop into chairs and put their own thinking faces on. Then Marvo hops up and starts pacing.
“How about this. We Photoshop naked people into the crowd at a football game, the choir concert, different photos all through the yearbook,” he says. “Nobody will even notice until it’s published and then, whoa. It’ll be like Where’s Waldo. Only, naked.”
My head snaps up.
Beth Ann laughs. “Who’s the naked guy? You?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“Because you’ll get suspended? We’ll all get suspended,” says Marissa.
“I’ll wear a wig or a hat or something. A mustache. Nobody will know who it is.” He winks. At me.
I hold my breath. What are the chances Marvo just happened to think of Photoshopping someone into a Where’s Waldo scene, in a disguise?
But he moves on, striking every possible pose his Naked Dude could be photographed in for the yearbook. The Statue of Liberty. The Incredible Hulk. The Thinker.