Chapter One
“I can’t believe they’re forcing this on us. This was not the plan.”
“Definitely not the plan. Definitely hate it.”
Nadiya and I stood still and squinted up at the freshly christened Huntersville High building. The nervous pit that had been growing in my stomach since the announcement last week that Hirono High was being combined with our rival, Davies High, was expanding by the second. The district had been too cheap to spring for new signage before the school year started and instead opted to hang a vinyl banner in front of what used to be Davies to welcome everyone. Guess the school board wasn’t joking when it said it was strapped for cash.
“We’re going to get so many complaints.” Nadiya stamped her foot, and I would’ve laughed, but this was serious. I’d already heard from no less than half of Hirono’s junior class about how much it sucked to have to change schools. If given the choice, some of my classmates would probably rather have gone to class with the toxic mold at Hirono than show up here.
Worse, I kind of agreed with them. But I was junior class president, the bridge between the administration and the student body, so it wasn’t like I could put Yeah, it blows in an email and send it off.
Instead, I had to be diplomatic, and so far, it wasn’t going great.
“This was supposed to be our year,” said Nadiya, Hirono’s junior class vice president, then started listing off all the supposed-to-happens on her fingers, her electric-blue manicure flashing in the sunlight: “Planning homecoming, student-store policy revisions, updating the dress code…” Nadiya’s general energy was always around a sass level seven, but when she was mad, it could crank up to ten. If someone didn’t calm her down soon, she’d be in the school board president’s office threatening to tie herself to the old building until they revised their verdict. “We were going to make all the important decisions that we’d write about on our college applications. Instead, we’ll be dealing with this.”
“I’m sure we can still do some of that.” I tried to sound enthusiastic as the buzz in the parking lot picked up around us. Nadiya and I had arrived early to greet our classmates and try to win over a few of the Davies students to our voting bloc just in case new elections were held for our combined school.
Instead, we wound up with a front row seat to everyone pointing out that the former Davies Kraken was still proudly outside of the school while the Hirono Mustang was in a junk heap next to our now sealed off old building.
“Hi, Meg,” a fellow junior on the debate team called to me from the back of the parking lot.
“Happy first day!” I waved back, mentally cataloging that she and her boyfriend hadn’t arrived together, which may mean that the rumors of their breakup were true. I’d avoid mentioning him to her until I was sure. Wouldn’t want to alienate anyone on the first day.
“Satan’s favorite Barbie at three o’clock,” Nadiya mumbled out of the side of her mouth.
I turned to see Freya Allanson walking directly toward us and tried to stop my lip from curling. As usual, she was perfectly put together, with her slick blond
ponytail and her long features just a little too pinched to be pretty. “Of course she’s here early. Probably with a list of grievances, too.”
“Where do we think she got that sunburn she’s calling a tan?”
“Likely in hell, but she’ll probably say Barbados.”
I smiled, waved, and put my sunglasses on so she couldn’t see me looking for a place to hide. I didn’t feel like dealing with Freya’s backhanded compliments or outright jabs about how I won class president only because I was “lucky” or because “diversity is in now.”
The idea that I won because people like me and I’m good at this job never crossed Freya’s mind. Harder still was knowing that she’d managed to pull about 25 percent of the votes, which meant that a good chunk of Hirono’s junior class agreed with her.
I was just about to dig deep and accept the fact that I didn’t know Davies’s layout well enough to hide when someone pounced on my shoulders, sending my pulse racing as my knees locked to keep me from collapsing.
“Holy—”
“Got you!” Riley Fischer, our class secretary, shouted, and they bounced around to face me and smiled like they’d won a prize.
“Riley. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Sorry, Meg. Didn’t you hear me calling for you? I’ve been yelling from the front door for, like, five minutes.” Riley’s face faltered slightly as they looked at the two of us.
“Obviously not,” Nadiya said, clutching her chest, then immediately pulling her hand away so she didn’t wrinkle her crisp white tuxedo shirt.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, smiling, and elbowed Nadiya. Riley had been a trickster since we were in the second grade, but they had a heart of gold. Nadiya was really only mad that they scared her and probably forced her to forget whatever she was planning to say to scare Freya off. “How was your summer?”
“Fairly excellent. Spent most of it working at Mayfield. Like my suntan?”
“Mayfield? What tan?” Nadiya asked, looking for even a hint of sun on Riley. “You are still exceedingly pale.”
“Jewish summer camp four hours from here.” Riley shook their dark shaggy hair out of their eyes and smirked like they couldn’t wait for the punch line any longer. “The tan I got from working in the kitchen for three meals and two snacks a day, far, far away from the pool, horseback riding, or anything even remotely fun.”
“So, basically, you wish you’d stayed home and been bored with us?” I asked as the
three of us watched the parking lot fill up.
“Pretty much. Nadiya, how was your summer?”
“Let’s see. I spent it being bossed around at my mom’s office and watching Bengali soap operas with my grandma while helping my little cousins with their math workbook. So, pretty exciting.”
“What about—” Riley stopped as Nadiya looked around them toward the parking lot. In fact, it felt like the entire class stopped to watch a red vintage Mercedes convertible pull into the lot, its speakers blaring some old-school music. The wind whipped the driver’s hair around in the impossibly cool way that people’s hair moved in car commercials and not the way it actually got destroyed in convertibles. As the car crept toward the front of the lot, a guy, standing next to the open door of his big truck, shut it, obviously freeing up a spot so the convertible driver could park.
“Clever,” Nadiya mumbled as all three of us realized what had happened. The driver had managed to reserve a good parking space up front without having to show up early or actually do anything to get it.
“Who is that?” Riley asked as the driver shut off his engine and got out to do some kind of complex handshake-hug with the guy who’d saved his space.
“Is that—” Nadiya started, and then stopped as the driver turned to face us.
The first bell rang, and my stomach dropped three inches as students began to file inside. I’d underestimated the Davies junior class president. My social media research had turned up that he was a baseball player who had an awesome sweet sixteen party for his entire class this summer that people were still talking about. (What? Don’t judge me. It’s not my fault some of his friends have open profiles with too much personal info on them.) But I didn’t know about the classic car, which made my vintage-sunglasses collection look mundane. That entrance put me and Nadiya’s smile-and-wave plan to shame.
“That’s him.” I sucked in my breath and tried not to panic. Even with big black Wayfarer sunglasses on and from twenty-five yards away, he was unmistakable. “Let’s go inside.”
“Good thinking. Establish dominance. Make him come to us.” Nadiya tugged Riley’s arm toward the door as if ignoring him had been my plan all along.
“Okay,” Riley said, then grinned. “But then will you tell me who convertible hottie is?”
“Sure, but you aren’t gonna like it,” I said, refusing to glance back at the parking lot. I knew who was there, and the internet hadn’t lied. Chris Chavez
was undeniably cooler than us.
And he had excellent taste in sunglasses.
“Oh, come on.” I had wandered down the wrong crimson-and-gold-striped hallway. Again. Sure, I could admit that Davies was bigger, newer, and shinier and had better air-conditioning, but I missed the old, dented hallways of Hirono. Here everything was so sterile that it was impossible to remember which of the five hallways in this wing would take me to the atrium.
Any minute now, the bell was going to ring, and I would be late for Life Skills, just like I was late for Precalculus and American History—another shining first impression for me, courtesy of a school district too cheap to have an orientation for upperclassmen. At least half of Hirono High would be late right along with me.
I turned in a circle, trying to pick which of the hallways I should attempt next, when I spotted Riley, huddled with someone in a corner.
“Hey, do you know where room fourteen-B is?” I asked.
Riley jolted upright. I realized they were talking to Spencer Lam and tried not to wrinkle my nose. Spencer was walking trouble. He thought it was hilarious to torment me in the third grade. The pranks only stopped after I took matters into my own hands: I’m not proud of it, but I snapped and filled his entire desk cubby with wood chips. Then, to be sure he got in trouble, I typed a note to our teacher saying that Spencer had put the chips there so he could throw them at her later. It was diabolical. I never told him what I’d done, but I’m pretty sure he figured it out, because after that, Spencer treated me with a healthy dose of respect bordering on fear.
“Hey, Meg,” Riley said, trying to look less guilty. They had zero poker face. The two of them were up to something.
A crooked grin plastered to his face, Spencer said, “Hey, Prez. How do you like our new school?”
“I’d like it better if I wasn’t lost all the time.” I shrugged, trying to figure out what angle he was working. “And I love that the Davies Promise is plastered everywhere.”
“ ‘Pride. Character. Excellence.’ The Davies Promise,” Riley said in their best stern-announcer voice. “It’s like Hirono doesn’t exist.”
“My favorite,” Spencer piped in, “is the giant banner in the parking lot that says davies, where attendance matters.” He laughed and nudged Riley. “Not that those signs will be up there for long.”
Something in the way he said it gave me pause. Why wouldn’t the signs be up? “I don’t get it. Why—?”
“You kids need help?” A teacher I didn’t recognize rounded the corner, and all three
of us stood a little straighter.
“No. Just helping Meg look for room fourteen-B,” Riley called, their tone all innocence.
“It’s down the B Wing.” The teacher raised his eyebrows, sending wrinkles halfway up his bald head, as if the location of the room should have been obvious to all of us. “You better get going. The bell’s gonna ring any second.”
Spencer opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, hoping to keep all three of us out of trouble. “Thank you.”
Giving Spencer a wave, I tugged on Riley’s arm so that they could fill me in. “Where are you supposed to be?”
“There was a mix-up and the computer put me in gym class twice. I’m supposed to report to the counselor’s office for a corrected schedule. And I will, eventually.”
Riley winked, and I knew there was no way I was talking them into going to the counselor’s office anytime soon. I looped my arm through theirs. “Walk with me, then?”
“Why not?” Riley shrugged. “I can always say I got lost.”
“What did Spencer mean about the signs not being around?”
Riley froze for a moment, torn between whatever promise they made to Spencer and our friendship. Finally, they sighed. “It might be better if you don’t know.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“Yes, but, Meg…” Riley trailed off, their eyes wide as if the look alone would convey something to me. It didn’t.
“What?”
“It’s just, you’re such a rule follower.”
“Am not.”
“When was the last time you cut class or were even intentionally late?” Riley looked down at me as we sauntered through the hallway, and I frowned. “It’s probably killing you that I’m walking this slow and might make you late.”
They were right: I did wish they’d hurry up. Not that I would admit it now. “Okay, so I’m not a truant, but I can keep a secret.” Riley quirked an eyebrow at me. I grinned and batted my eyelashes. “Please.”
“Fine. But you can’t tell anyone.”
“Except for Nadiya,” I added, just to be safe—she was the one person I didn’t keep secrets from.
“Obviously.” Riley nodded. “Anyway, me, Spencer, and a couple of the guys from the swim team are going to ‘fix’ the signs.” They put air quotes around the word fix with their free hand just in case the meaning wasn’t clear.
“Oh.” My heart skipped a beat. Riley always had a prank ready, and knowing they
were going to occasionally TP a house or whatever was just part of our friendship. But this seemed like the kind of thing that could go sideways. “How bad?”
“Not super bad.” Riley frowned, then quickly added, “I don’t think. We’re just gonna make sure that Hirono is also represented here. You have to admit, the crimson and gold everywhere is a lot.”
“It’s not great. But I’m sure the school is going to fix it. The plan was always to close Hirono after the tungsten mine finally shut down. They just didn’t plan to do it until after we graduated. The school board is trying to save money and avoid hefty maintenance costs, so…” I let that sentence trail off as Riley leveled a don’t-make-excuses look at me. Clearing my throat, I adjusted the strap on my backpack, which was heavy thanks to my two new textbooks and the fact that I couldn’t find my locker. “Just don’t get caught, okay? I can’t afford to have someone from Hirono student council suspended.”
“Wouldn’t dream of getting caught.” Riley grinned. “Does this mean you won’t tell?”
“May as well let the administration know who’s really running this place.” I smiled up at Riley as we reached room 14B. “See you at lunch.”
“Assuming I have a lunch,” they snorted, unlacing their arm from mine.
With that, Riley wandered back down the hallway at the same slow pace. At that rate, they’d get to the counselor’s office halfway through third period. Taking a deep breath, I pushed my curls over my shoulder and opened the door to Life Skills right as the bell rang.
I was overwhelmed as I looked around and tried to figure out where to sit. The Life Skills class was almost double the size of the other classrooms and packed with stuff. In one corner sat two rows of sewing machines, with a series of tiny cubicles staged to look like kitchens on the opposite side. Another corner held several older desktop computers and a copy machine, and the last held a half dozen massive metal filing cabinets that likely held tools for the shop unit. In the middle, the teacher, a balding man with dark skin and big glasses, had jammed all the desks together.
The issue that had me bothered was that the only available desk was next to Freya and her pack of Hungry Girls. We didn’t call them that because they all looked hungry, although that was true, too. It was more that they seemed to want to consume everyone’s soul. They would destroy your pride if you had so much as a stain on your shirt; if you wore the wrong designer or got dumped, they would be the first to laugh at you from behind their manicures.
Not that I cared what they and their circle of pseudofriends thought of my breakup. I was done with dating in this too-small town of Huntersville anyway. I couldn’t have any distractions if I was going to get into a good college and get out of here.
“Welcome to Life Skills. Take a seat,” the teacher said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Sighing, I dropped into the open chair between Freya and Christine, aka the Brunette Hungry Girl, praying that the teacher, who’d just written mr. aggarwal on the whiteboard, wouldn’t do that thing where you’re forced to sit all term in the same seat you first sat in. Four desks over, Nadiya mouthed Sorry, not looking the least bit sorry as she rested comfortably next to some girl I’d never seen before. If I had to guess, I’d been abandoned for one of Nadiya’s infamous love-at-first-sight crushes that would fade in a week. I wrinkled my nose at her, then widened my eyes so she knew exactly what kind of grilling she was in for at lunch.
“Since some of you are new to Dav—Huntersville this year, I’ll just go over what Life Skills is, and then we’ll jump into our sewing unit.” Mr. Aggarwal cleared his throat as if he hadn’t just forgotten about the merger, then started speaking again, interrupting my nonconversation with Nadiya.
I put on my best I-am-engaged smile and let my mind wander as Mr. Aggarwal went over the old Davies High commitment to “producing whole adults,” an ethos that had miraculously survived the school merger. He sure seemed excited as he talked about learning how to budget, change our cars’ oil, put together a résumé, cook, and about fifteen other skills I was almost positive none of the adults in my life had and I, therefore, would never need. Not that I wouldn’t learn them: if I had to get an A in fixing drywall or frosting a tiered cake to get into college, then I would.
“I’m sure we have a whole host of sewing skill levels here today,” he said. “Can any of you use a sewing machine?”
The closest I’d ever come to sewing was watching my dad stitch up Bell Pepper, my ratty old teddy bear. It’s one of the few clear memories I have of him from before he passed. My dad, I mean. Bell Pepper still lives on my dresser.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freya’s hand shoot up, along with those of a few other students. At the same time, Christine stage-whispered, “Ew.”
It felt like everyone in the room turned to watch the two of them, trying to figure out which of the Hungry Girls would back down. After a moment, Freya shrugged, put on a bored expression, and said, “What? My grandma sent me to a fashion camp a few summers ago.”
“Right,” Christine said, her forehead still creased, as if Freya’s diplomatic solution
to a Hungry Girl battle didn’t really change her opinion of sewing.
“It was in the Berkshires,” Freya volunteered, then crossed her legs the other way, as if trying to brush off the conversation and everyone’s gaze at the same time. ...
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