“Nope,” I said through clenched teeth. “No ‘special needs.’”
I made the phrase sound good and dirty, and Cassidy shot me a look of sympathy.
“I’m so glad,” Ms. Weng said, handing us each a thick packet. “Now you’ll need to have these permission forms signed by a parent or guardian.”
“My parents are out of town,” Cassidy said. “Yeah, they’re in Switzerland at this medical symposium for the rest of the month.”
I was pretty sure Cassidy’s parents were at no such thing, but Ms. Weng just smiled and assured Cassidy that her old coach could fax over last year’s form for the time being. There was such a finality to her tone that we didn’t dare to question it.
Cassidy and I slunk from Ms. Weng’s room in defeat. The moment the door closed, Cassidy turned toward me, eyes blazing.
“What the hell?” she demanded. “She cornered us back there. And I never signed up to compete—it’s like she was planning this all along. I knew there was a reason I got put in debate class! ‘Oh, there aren’t any other team electives open,’ my advisor said. ‘It’s this or phys ed.’ Yeah, freaking right. I’m not some champion pony they can parade around whenever they feel like it. I don’t compete anymore, and they have no right to force me into it like this.”
“Um,” I said.
“And you didn’t sign up for it, either!” Cassidy jabbed a finger at my chest. “You should have seen your face when Ms. Weng asked if you had any special needs. I wish you’d punched her.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been productive.”
Cassidy sighed. “God, Ezra, you really don’t get it. Our names are already entered. We compete or forfeit on the tournament listing.”
Crap. I wasn’t familiar with the rules of debate competitions, and I hadn’t realized the only way out was to forfeit publicly.
“Um, Cassidy?” I had to tell her. “Remember that day in class with the sign-up sheet and how you were laughing at me?”
“Yeah?”
“I sort of signed you up as a joke,” I admitted.
“You WHAT?”
“I didn’t know!” I quickly amended. “You’d pulled that stupid stunt on me in Spanish and then Toby had signed me up so I just figured—”
“You just figured what, exactly?” Cassidy said coldly. “That it would be funny?”
“Um, I guess? I didn’t know you felt like that about debate. I didn’t know that you’d stopped competing.”
I hung my head, waiting for Cassidy to laugh and say that it was okay. But she didn’t.
“That’s right,” Cassidy said fiercely. “I stopped competing. Just like how you stopped competing in tennis. But you know what? I get that you don’t want to talk about it. Just because I don’t limp around with a freaking cane doesn’t mean I have to explain myself to people I’ve known for five seconds for quitting. So screw you for signing me up for this because you thought it would be funny.”
Her eyes burned with revulsion as she stomped past me. And I didn’t blame her. I felt awful. Like I should go back into Ms. Weng’s office and explain everything. But then the bell rang, and I realized I was going to be late for Spanish.
11
BY THAT EVENING, my weekend was shaping up to be pretty lousy. I’d come straight home from school and spent the day alternating between doing the key terms for Coach Anthony’s class and playing Zombie Guitar God on mute to keep my mind off how badly I’d screwed things up with Cassidy. But it wasn’t working.
Worse, I could tell that my mom kept coming to check on me, hovering just outside my bedroom door and listening. Cooper, who was curled on a bathrobe at the foot of my bed, would glance at the door and then sigh, settling back into his nest.
Well, it is Friday night, old sport, his eyes seemed to say. And there’s a whole world out there.
Cooper was right; maybe I should go to Jimmy’s backyard kegger. I briefly considered it before remembering what happened the last time I went to a house party. So yeah, that was definitely out. And then the little Skype icon on my computer screen dinged. It was Toby, and did I want to come over?
I changed out of my pajamas, grabbed my keys, and practically opened my bedroom door into my mom’s face.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said.
“Well yeah, it’s nine o’clock. I’m going out.”
“Where are you going?” she called after me. “I need to know where you’re going!”
“Why?” I asked, mildly curious as to when this had become a new house rule.
She spluttered over that one for a good ten seconds.
“Look, I’m going to Toby’s,” I said, which was pretty charitable. “I have my phone, and we’re not going to huff rat poison or anything.”
“Ezra!” She sounded shocked. “Don’t be rude. I have every right to worry.”
“I know,” I said in exasperation. “You keep reminding me.”
As I pulled out of the driveway, I wondered what everyone from school was doing. I could pretty much guess the crowd that was headed to Jimmy’s party to drink a few beers in their bathing suits. And everyone else was probably headed to the Prism Center, this outdoor mall with an IMAX cinema and lots of dramatically lit palm trees. The Prism was really the only place to go in Eastwood besides the Chinese strip mall, and even there, the cops would hassle you to start heading home when it was still early because of the town curfew. I privately thought of them as the Prism Wardens, which was funny for about two seconds, and then became infinitely depressing—and not just because the name now reminded me of Cassidy and her panopticon.