school-system recipe. I pick up a tray, then an apple and a piece of lemon meringue pie.
“But Maggie is dating you.”
“Try telling Maggie that.”
We carry our trays to our usual table. The Pod People sit at the opposite end of the cafeteria, near the vending machines. Being seniors, we should have claimed a table next to them. But Walt and I decided a long time ago that high school was disturbingly like India—a perfect example of a caste system—and we vowed not to participate by never changing our table. Unfortunately, like most protests against the overwhelming tide of human nature, ours goes largely unnoticed.
The Mouse joins us, and she and Walt start talking about Latin, a subject in which they’re both better than I am. Then Maggie comes over. Maggie and The Mouse are friendly, but The Mouse says she would never want to get too close to Maggie because she’s overly emotional. I say that excessive emotionality is interesting and distracts one from one’s own problems. Sure enough, Maggie is on the verge of tears.
“I just got called into the counselor’s office—again. She said my sweater was too revealing!”
“That’s outrageous,” I say.
“Tell me about it,” Maggie says, squeezing in between Walt and The Mouse. “She really has it out for me. I told her there was no dress code and she didn’t have the right to tell me what to wear.”
The Mouse catches my eye and snickers. She’s probably remembering the same thing I am—the time Maggie got sent home from Girl Scouts for wearing a uniform that was too short. Okay, that was about seven years ago, but when you’ve lived in the same small town forever, you remember these things.
“And what did she say?” I ask.
“She said she wouldn’t send me home this time, but if she sees me in this sweater again, she’s going to suspend me.”
Walt shrugs. “She’s a bitch.”
“How can she discriminate against a sweater?”
“Perhaps we should lodge a complaint with the school board. Have her fired,” The Mouse says.
I’m sure she doesn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but she does, a little. Maggie bursts into tears and runs in the direction of the girls’ room.
Walt looks around the table. “Which one of you bitches wants to go after her?”
“Was it something I said?” The Mouse asks innocently.
“No.” Walt sighs. “There’s a crisis every other day.”
“I’ll go.” I take a bite of my apple and hurry after her, pushing through the cafeteria doors with a bang.
I run smack into Sebastian Kydd.
“Whoa,” he exclaims. “Where’s the fire?”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I’m suddenly hurtled back in time, to when I was twelve.
“This is the cafeteria?” he asks, gesturing toward the swinging doors. He peeks in the little window. “Looks heinous. Is there any place to eat off campus?”
Off-campus? Since when did Castlebury High become a campus? And is he asking me to have lunch with him? No, not possible. Not me. But maybe he doesn’t remember that we’ve met before.
“There’s a hamburger place up the street. But you need a car to get there.”
“I’ve got a car,” he says.
And then we just stand there, staring at each other. I can feel the other kids walking by but I don’t see them.
“Okay. Thanks,” he says.
“Right.” I nod, remembering Maggie.
“See ya,” he says, and walks away.
Rule number one: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who’s in crisis?
I run into the girls’ room. “Maggie? You won’t believe what just happened.” I look under the stalls and spot Maggie’s shoes next to the wall. “Mags?”
“I am totally humiliated,” she wails.
Rule number two: Humiliated best friend always takes precedence over cute guy.
“Magwitch, you can’t let what other people say affect you so much.” I know this isn’t helpful, but my father says it all the time and it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“By looking at everyone like they’re a big joke. Come on, Mags. You know high school is absurd. In less than a year we’ll be out of here and we’ll never have to see any of these people ever again.”
“I need a cigarette,” Maggie groans.
The door opens and the two Jens come in.
Jen S and Jen P are cheerleaders and part of the Pod clique. Jen S has straight dark hair and looks like a beautiful little dumpling. Jen P used to be my best friend in third grade. She was kind of okay, until she got to high school and took up social climbing. She spent two years taking gymnastics so she could become a cheerleader, and even dated Tommy Brewster’s best friend, who has teeth the size of a horse. I waver between feeling sorry for her and admiring her desperate determination. Last year, her efforts paid off and she was finally admitted to the Pod pack, which means she now rarely talks to me.
For some reason, she does today, because when she sees me, she exclaims, “Hi!” as if we’re still really good friends.
“Hi!” I reply, with equally false enthusiasm.
Jen S nods at me as the two Jens begin taking lipsticks and eye shadows out of their bags. I once overheard Jen S telling another girl that if you want to get guys, you have to have “a trademark”—one thing you always wore to make you memorable. For Jen S, this, apparently, is a thick stripe of navy blue eyeliner on her upper lid. Go figure. She leans in to the mirror to make sure the eyeliner is still intact as Jen P turns to me.
“Guess who’s back at Castlebury High?” she asks.
“Who?”
“Sebastian Kydd.”
“Re-e-e-ally?” I look in the mirror and rub my eye, pretending I have something in it.
“I want to date him,” she says, with complete and utter confidence. “From what I’ve heard, he’d be a perfect boyfriend for me.”
“Why would you want to date someone you don’t know?”
“I just do, that’s all. I don’t need a reason.”
“Cutest boys in the history of Castlebury High,” Jen S says, as if leading a cheer.
“Jimmy Watkins.”
“Randy
