my-trip-to-the-Cape type photos. And you must not show your model the photos until the end of the quarter.”
It’s six weeks into the quarter now, and so far I have no evocative pictures of anything. They’re not Julie’s-trip-to-the-Cape photos. More like Julie’s-trip-to-the-tree, Julie’s-trip-to-the-couch, oh—here’s a creative one, Julie’s-trip-to-the-mirror. That was Julie looking in the mirror so that I got the back of her head and the reflection of her face. I thought it’d be so artsy and “literary.” Mostly it was just out of focus because I didn’t know whether to focus on her head or her reflection. The frame of the mirror is looking pretty good, but that’s about it.
The biggest bummer about the class, other than having to have pictures taken of me, of course, is that we can’t use digital cameras. Miss Shepard says we have to learn to really feel the camera and to see the image and to experience the chemicals and the magic of developing. I think it’s just a way for the school to save money by not buying digital cameras. We use the school’s ancient Canons.
We take turns in the classroom lab. Julie’s signed up to develop film on Tuesdays and I’m in there on Thursdays. That’s so we don’t see each other’s shots.
It’s kind of an odd class because, unlike math where I get daily reminders of how poorly I’m doing, in photography we don’t get a grade until the final week of the quarter when we all display our photos and get critiqued. I’m thinking that’d be a good week to have instant chicken pox or mono or the flu or something else contagious.
“Where should we shoot today?” Julie asks as I deposit my book bag on a table. She already has our cameras loaded with 200-speed black-and-white film.
“Does it really matter?” I say, taking a camera.
Julie gives me the stink-eye. “Of course it matters, but only if you want to pass this class,” she says, like she is reading my mind.
“Okay, how about the caf?”
“Food pictures?” Julie wrinkles her nose.
“Then the gym,” I suggest. This has a double benefit. I know Julie’s into the gym scene, and I’m pretty sure Sean is there now.
“Great.”
Oh, I’m so devious.
Julie grins at me as we walk down the hall. “You don’t think Sean has gym this period, do you?”
Devious, not. Julie knows way too much about me.
I shrug like I don’t have any idea and I don’t care, but Julie just laughs and nudges me with her elbow. She does that a lot, and I have the bruises to prove it. Of course they’re all up around my shoulder, seeing as she’s a giant compared to my barely five feet of height.
We have to show our “art pass” to only one hall monitor. Miss Shepard lets us wander the school for location shots as long as we don’t disrupt other classes, run in the hall, smoke in the bathroom, or get caught by the principal.
The gym is cavernous, which makes it loud and breezy. Only the breeze doesn’t blow away the stink of rubber soles, “newly pubescent boys” (lingo care of Mrs. Flint, the health teacher) who haven’t yet been turned on to deodorant, and the high-octane stench of Ms. Daniel’s perfume. She’s the gym teacher and kids call her Bertha Butt on account of her rather large rear end. I think she wears a bottle of perfume every day to cover the other odors, only it doesn’t work that well. It’s like eating a breath mint after a clove of garlic. All you get is minty garlic. Here the stink is perfumy B.O.
I’m still trying to decide what’s the worst smell in this place, when I catch sight of Sean. Not that I was looking.
He doesn’t see me, or if he does, he doesn’t wave or smile. Now I’m sure his smile at the end of math must have been for Mr. Driggs and not me. Depression settles in.
“Sit over there,” Julie says, waving me toward the bleachers.
I sit and ignore her as she walks and crouches all around me, clicking away. Mostly I just look away. I despise having my picture taken. I should have dropped out of this class. I hate it. Almost as much as I love Sean O’Malley, who likes Mr. Driggs, the drippiest teacher in the school, more than he likes me.
thre e
I love Sean? Yeah, right. How can I love someone who obviously doesn’t even know I exist? I’m totally annoyed with myself.
“Nice face,” Julie says as she clicks away.
I want to grab her camera and hurl it across the gym, but throwing things isn’t my strong suit. I admit it: I throw like a girl, however sexist that sounds. I’d probably make a fool out of myself.
It’s time to go back to class. I take one last look around the gym as we’re heading for the large double doors. There he is, looking right at me. I think. He smiles and waves. I glance around for Mr. Driggs. When I look back at Sean, he’s walking toward the locker rooms, his back to me. On impulse I raise my camera. No time to focus. Click.
“Come on, we’re going to be late,” Julie says, grabbing my arm. “You can flirt with your crush later.”
“What? I wasn’t flirting. And I don’t have a crush on him! But do you think he was waving at me?” I’m such a contradiction I can barely stand myself. I know if Julie were carrying on like this about some boy, I’d probably have to dump her. How does she put up with me?
She rolls her big, blue eyes. See, Caucasians can do that. The eye rolls right around in a circle. Me, when I roll my eyes, they look like they just go back and forth. I know this because I’ve watched Maia try to roll her eyes. And even though hers are Chinese eyes and mine are Korean, the slant is very similar.
I suddenly realize I haven’t taken a single shot of Julie all period. Yikes. Time to get busy. As we head back to class, I pose Julie next to a fire extinguisher, next to a poster for Just Say No, in front of the girl’s room, in front of the boy’s room with her hand on the door like she’s about to enter (I kinda like that one). I shoot her walking from behind, her feet, from the front. Twenty-four—make that twenty-three—frames seems to be an awful lot. The second-to-last one I shoot up at her from the floor, as if I’m not short enough. I just hope something’s in focus. I still don’t get that f-stop business.
“Hurry up,” Julie says, ruining my last shot by moving.
With a sigh, I crank the film back into the canister. I have to wait till next Thursday to develop it.
The bell clangs above our heads. I’m off to English, Julie to science.
“Out front after school, right?” she says as we exit left.
I nod. I have to hurry to make it from the art wing all the way up to the third floor for English. I zoom off, and I imagine my short legs churning like a cartoon character’s.
Mrs. Hobbs is my English teacher. It seems kids have mean names for everyone, even the nicest, best teacher in the whole school. Hobo Hobbs, they call her, on account of her weird clothes. Nothing matches. Everything is patched. Her black men’s shoes must be at least two sizes too large. Put a stick over her shoulder and she really would
