“Sage!” My best friend, Ryan, wanders out of Mrs. David’s classroom, falling into step. “You going to Green World tonight?”
That’s our eco-awareness group. Supposedly, we’ll come up with ways to save the planet, brainstorm green technologies, and sponsor community cleanup projects. So far, one month into the school year, we’ve only managed to order pizza and screw around.
“Yeah. I hope we actually do something soon.”
“Ditto that. I signed up to pad my college apps, but this failure to launch is becoming problematic.”
“You sound like you already work for NASA,” I say.
“I try.”
Ryan is over six feet tall with black hair that refuses to lie down, regardless of how it’s cut or combed, and he’s a total string bean. He wears hipster glasses to disguise how much of ginormous dork he is, but so far, this strategy has fooled no one. Not that it matters to me how he looks.
He was the first friend I made when I moved here three years ago. That day, I forgot my lunch; I was a huge mess, and I sat down in the corner of the cafeteria at a broken table, or at least, it was half broken, because it almost collapsed when I leaned my elbows on it. Everyone else at the school knew not to sit there, but after I plunked down, I was too nervous to move. To this day, I have no idea why Ryan came over. I had terminal new-kid disease, which can be mad contagious, but I guess Ryan was vaccinated—or lonely. That day, he gave me half a peanut butter sandwich and the courage not to drown myself in the girls’ toilet. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
“Seen anyone who needs a pick-me-up?” I’ve got my Post-it pad in hand, purple glitter pen at the ready.
It’s super girlie, I know, and faintly ridiculous, but I was into that two years ago, and since that’s what I did the first time with Becky, who has since lost weight and joined the volleyball team, I’m still doing it. I don’t claim I’m the reason she got motivated to change her life, but I believe in the power of ritual. So if I have any positive mojo to give to people who need it, maybe it comes from my pink Post-its or the purple glitter pen. Also, this is how people know the message comes legit from the Princess herself.
Occasionally, there are pretenders.
Ryan groans. “Are you seriously doing that again this year?”
“I’m doing it until I graduate. There are plenty of people who go around being dicks. Not enough go around being nice.”
“That much is true.” He hugs me around the shoulders, then dashes into history class.
This period, I have Mr. Mackiewicz for math. The Mackiewicz math class is the ninth circle of hell, and I’m currently failing. Everyone thinks I’m super smart, but I can’t get geometry. This was a huge revelation, as prior to this year, I skated through the rest of my classes. I made dioramas and participated in discussions; I did extra credit and gave my all in group projects. I’m a good test taker, too. I don’t get nervous or anything, have no trouble memorizing stuff.
But geometry? It’s a foreign language. So the first test of the year is still in my bag. I haven’t been brave enough to show Aunt Gabby yet, but that big circled F haunts me. If I close my eyes, I can see it, along with the smear of red sauce and the grease stain at the edge of the paper. I suspect Mr. Mackiewicz was eating pizza when he graded my exam. Somehow that makes it worse. He’s cramming cheese and dough into his face while decreeing my epic failure? So uncool.
I trudge to the back of the class, wishing somebody would write something nice on a Post-it and stick it on my locker for a change. The classroom hasn’t been updated in forty years, I bet. The globe probably still has Persia and Constantinople and other places that were dissolved prior to 1900. The math trivia cards that have been posted around the room are yellowed at the edges, starting to fray. Mr. Mackiewicz’s desk is crooked.
The jocks have a bet going—every day, they nudge it back an inch, and they’re running a pool to see how long it takes for Mackiewicz to notice that it’s majorly askew. So far that’s half a foot. It doesn’t speak well of the cleaning crew that it stays that way, even less of Mackiewicz that he hasn’t spotted a problem. But the guy’s fairly myopic: thick bifocals, a white monk fringe, and a wispy mustache. If that doesn’t sound enticing enough, he’s also all about baggy cardigans, plaid, and corduroys.
I take my seat, wondering if this is the day when math lightning strikes, and suddenly all of the theorems will make sense. Since fakery seems like the only answer, I get out all my supplies, notebook, pencil, iPad. One cool thing about JFK, we aren’t using textbooks anymore. They’re all available electronically, and the school subsidized iPads. Of course that meant cutting metal shop and drivers ed from the budget. Doesn’t affect me, as I refuse to drive on principle until affordable electric cars are widely available as an alternative; I’d prefer a solar one, but Ryan says I should keep dreaming. As for metal shop? Well, I tried to build a birdhouse in eighth grade. It didn’t end well. God only knows what would happen if I attempted to weld.
I’m fiddling with my supplies when Mackiewicz shuffles into the room. He’s wearing the gray sweater with the red stain. People reluctantly settle down, folding into their desks like grumpy origami dolls. Geometry is the only class where I sit near the burners, who slouch in the back, letting sunglasses and hair hide their bloodshot eyes. Most of them, I suspect, doze off before Mackiewicz sits down at his crooked desk.