She frowned. I couldn’t tell if this was a bad or good sign.
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Well, they call me a skank, too. Because of these.” She pointed to her breasts. It was hard to deny they were pretty enormous. The black cotton shirt she wore had ruffles all down the front. This might not have been helping the situation.
“Some people are just stupid,” I said, my gaze going involuntarily to the two girls with the straight-ironed hair, who were still standing over by the steps to the stage. They were staring in my direction…only now they didn’t look contemptuous. They looked stunned.
One, noticing that I’d glanced her way, lifted a white-nail-tipped hand, smiled, and waved. At me.
For a second I couldn’t figure out why. Then I saw the guy in the white polo shirt walking away from them, and all became clear.
“There’s no shortage in stupid around here,” the girl next to me was saying sarcastically. “Hey, aren’t you in my econ class?”
“Yes. I’m Pierce.” I carefully avoided saying my last name. I had a feeling that’s what the two girls over by the stage had just found out. That’s probably what accounted for their sudden attitude adjustment where I was concerned.
It’s a small island, Mom had warned me. And not everyone is going to be as sophisticated as they were back in Westport. People in Isla Huesos might decide they like you for who Dad is. Or not, considering. It all depends. Just be careful.
“Kayla Rivera,” the girl next to me said, indicating herself. “You’re Alex Cabrero’s cousin.”
It was a statement of fact. So either Alex had been talking about me, or Kayla remembered my name from somewhere else. Had Tim or Jade been urging all the other New Pathways kids to be nice to me? That was the most charitable spin I could put on it. How pathetic, if it were true.
Well, at least she didn’t seem to know who my father was. I really hoped when I got my phone back, I wouldn’t find all sorts of stuff about me online. I didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter page or blog or anything like that. I had enough people following me in real life. Although I guess not anymore.
“Yeah,” I said. “Listen. Can I ask you something?”
“Oh, they’re real,” Kayla said, indicating her breasts. “My mom’s insurance covers breast reduction surgery, and I’m getting it, as soon as I turn eighteen. Not for cosmetic reasons, either. I don’t care what kind of names they call me. It’s just that I’m sick of my knees hitting my nipples whenever I try to pedal a bike. Plus, my back hurts. I’d get it done now, but the doctor says I could still be growing. Can you believe that? These things could still be growing.“
“Wow,” I said. And I thought I had problems. “But not about that, actually. What does it mean when people call you D-Wing?”
Before she could reply, there was a thump on the back of our seats, like someone was kicking them. I spun around fast, sure it was him.
But of course it wasn’t. It was only my cousin Alex, clambering into the row behind ours.
“Hey,” he said to me. “There you are. I was looking all over for you at lunch. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Tim took it,” I said. “He said I would engage better without it.”
Kayla laughed. “Oh, man,” she said. “You really are new. I can’t believe you fell for that one. You never surrender the phone, chickie, no matter what Tim says. Never.”
I shrugged. “No one ever calls me, anyway.”
This was sad but true. Did John even have a cell phone? Doubtful. How would he pay his bill? In gray diamonds? That would probably go over well with the phone company.
Alex climbed into the seat beside me, then sank into it.
“Thanks,” he said. “I guess I don’t count as anyone.”
“You know what I mean,” I said.
He shoved me companionably in the shoulder in response.
“Simmer down, people.”
That’s what the man — the school principal — said in a tired voice when he climbed up onto the stage and stood there behind the podium, waiting for everyone to take their seats. As he flipped through a bunch of note cards he’d brought with him, checking to make sure they were in order, I heard Alex heave a sigh. I didn’t blame him. I looked around, already bored. I needed another soda. I’d only had six since breakfast. This guy had better make his speech snappy.
“So,” Alex said to me, “how’s your first day been so far?”
“So far?” I shrugged. The girls who’d sneered “D-Wing” to me, I saw, had found seats…on either side of the guy in the white polo shirt, who’d held the door open for me. Interesting. “Fine.”
“Wow,” Alex said. “You lie almost as convincingly as my dad. Really. I’m inspired.”
“This place sucks,” Kayla said, squirming. “I know the Florida State Department of Education is, like, out of money. But I think there are bedbugs in my seat.”
“People.” Principal Alvarez’s voice boomed into the microphone. “As long as this juvenile behavior continues —”
Someone yelled something unflattering about Principal Alvarez’s parentage and then suggested he go do something incestuous with his mother.
That’s when the doors to the auditorium were thrown open, and police officers in short-sleeve uniforms — out of deference to the heat — appeared at every exit. They walked into the auditorium and leaned against the walls.