“What? Beat them with a book of manners?”
“My dad’s message for today: Imagine your competitors are hay. They’ll stay if you let them. Mow over them, roll them up, take charge of them by the superiority of the engine that drives your business. Drive that tractor.”
“We aren’t a business. By the way, what does your dad do?”
“He’s in the business of annihilating all Indian sweet makers in the world. He’s already cornered the North American market.”
“Sweet.”
“His stuff is amazing. Melt in your mouth.”
“So what does that have to do with your friend and the losers on her case?”
“Let’s mow over them.” I watch Robby pretend to aim a pencil at me. Such an immature fool.
“I don’t have the time with this exam and all.” Soon-Lee looks up at me. She turns to look behind her just as the pencil ricochets off the back of her chair. “I was wondering why your eyes were narrowing like that.”
She picks up the pencil and cracks it in half. “Okay, I wish I had that tractor now.”
“Remember how we started freshman year with four girls in enriched math? Now it’s only the two of us. Because of them and their comments. And the heckling when you get something right that none of the boys did.”
Soon-Lee leans over the table. “What if we mess with them? Let them think the exam is different?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if we tell them that Mason found out they’ve got the exam and he changed it.” Soon-Lee raises her eyebrows and smiles. “That’ll throw them off.”
“But they’ll wonder why we’re trying to help them.” I’m sitting back, keeping my eyes on Robby. Pradeep’s busy watching something on his laptop, earphones on, but he’s the mastermind who makes Robby dance to his tune.
“Chill, I know how to do this. I’ve got three brothers.” She gets up and sweeps the broken halves of the pencil off the table, into her left palm. “You stay. You’ve got a give-away face.”
She walks over, deposits the pencil bits on their table, and puts her hands on her hips. Pradeep ignores her, plugged into headphones, but Robby’s eyes are on her as Soon-Lee nods at their strewn papers. She relaxes her arms as she listens to him and then begins to laugh. She walks away, continuing her laughter.
“So that’s why Mason said he’s gotta change the exam . . . ,” she says loudly as she gets closer to me.
Robby’s out of his seat and by our table. “What’re you talking about?”
Soon-Lee ignores him. “Remember, Janna? How we heard him saying to McConnell that he’s got to make a new exam now that some kids accessed the site? He’s talking about these goons.”
“How would he know?” Robby looks at Soon-Lee, then at me, as she opens her textbook, situated carefully over our copy of the exam. I nod toward the checkout area and shrug my shoulders.
He glances at Ms. Lionel at the library desk, and she looks up at that moment, her face in its typical pose: angled, with one eyebrow raised in perpetual curiosity.
He goes back to their table and yanks the headphones off Pradeep’s head.
Soon-Lee draws a tractor on the top margin of her notes. I lean over and scribble Dad’s e-mail address under her tractor. She grabs her phone and adds it into her e-mail app. I hide my smile, turning to the window. Jeremy’s walking to school from the parking lot. Farooq’s by his side.
Ugh. How are those two even friends?
“Ah, there’s your boy.” Soon-Lee watches my face.
“He’s not mine.”
“Lauren’s cousin. How quaint.” She picks up her iPad. “You’d be moving on up. Do you want to? is the question.”
“He’s not tight with her. Anyway, there’s nothing happening between us.”
“Her homeys are onto you.” She’s scrolling on Facebook. “I’m friends with Marjorie, and she put up like eight pictures of you. Well, not of you, you’re just majorly photo bombing them.”
She hands me the iPad. Marjorie and Lauren, in the hallway at school, with me in the background, face scrunched tight, eyes closed but mouth open wide mid-word or screech, judging from my expression. From behind Marjorie, the back of Tats’s head is visible. What was I saying to her? It looks painful. And ugly.
I hover on my face. It’s tagged “J.Y.” and a click reveals a ghost account.
I scroll through the other J.Y. pictures on Marjorie’s account. The more gruesome the photo, the more likes it’s garnered. There’s one in gym, a nice-hair day matched with a mutilated face, framed by a Marjorie selfie. The pictures were posted this weekend.
“So, why would Missus Marj be posting photo bombs of you?”
“How would I know?” I look at Marjorie’s friends list. Sure enough, Jeremy’s on it.
“Come on. There must be a reason.”
“Maybe they’re telling me to back away from Jeremy.” There’s no way I’m going to that party on Friday.
“That’s a weird way to do it. Without you aware of it.” Soon-Lee resumes writing notes. “That bunch are as crazy as the goonies behind us. Pringles is what I call them.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It just came to me. But when I thought it over, because my mind is extremely logical, I figured out it must be because they’re pr-etty—or at least the guy population thinks so—but they’re also flaky, like chips.”
“I don’t think Lauren’s flaky. She’s got one of the best grades in history.”
“I don’t mean flaky as in not smart. Marjorie’s in my English class. She’s cleaning up there. I mean soulless.”
“Soulless.”
“Yeah, no awareness, no substance.”
I think over what she’s saying. Maybe there’s some truth to it. I did move onto Lauren’s radar on account of not taking part in picking on Sandra. That’s soulless. Or, as Mr. Ram would say, devoid of fruit. Or would it be devoid of a kernel?
Sandra moved onto everyone’s radar because of a mark on her face. Well, because a few guys decided to home in on it. Because the art teacher chose Frida Kahlo as a topic of study?
If Sandra had worn a niqab, no one would’ve even known. If I wore a niqab, the Pringles wouldn’t get any pictures of me.
“Maybe I should just cover my face.”
“Like a ninja?”
“No, like a niqabi.” I google it and show her the image results.
“Um, no.”
“Can you imagine them trying to get a pic of me then?” I laugh. “I’d be in control of my image.”
“But you’d also be gagging yourself. That’s a steep price to pay for avoiding getting bad pictures of you.”
“Hello? How would I be gagging myself? My mouth would still work, you know. Plus most girls who cover their faces do it because they want to be the ones to decide who gets to see them.”
Soon-Lee pauses from writing to consider that. “Well, when you think of it that way, it sounds kind of powerful. Like no one can sum up your identity without permission. Your real identity, I mean.”