Avalon High (7 page)

Even if I broke my heart in a thousand pieces doing so.

I’ve never been a very girly girl. I mean, I’ve never collected stuffed animals or cared too much about clothes. I’ve never had a manicure, and my hair is all one length because I’m too lazy to get it cut or styled regularly. I basically just slap it back into a ponytail most days.

But the night of the game and Will’s party, I really made an effort to look my best.

I don’t know why. I mean, it still wasn’t like Will was available. And even if he were, there was no reason to think he’d like me. I mean, sure, I was the girl who’d made him laugh—who’d sat on a rock in the woods and listened as he’d told me about his problems with his dad.

But he hadn’t been totally forthcoming with
all
the
details about his dad. It wasn’t like I was his big confidante, or anything. I was just a funny girl he’d met. He obviously liked me: The day after he’d given me the rose—the day I made the track team—I got home to find an e-mail from him.

He remembered. I’d only mentioned briefly, as he’d been dropping me off at my house the day before, that I was planning to go out for the track team.

And he’d remembered.

Because that’s what friends do. They remember things about each other. It didn’t, I told myself sternly,
mean
anything. Anything beyond that we were friends, I mean.

I wrote back at once, of course. Well, it seemed only fitting to share the good news.

Which is the kind of thing a friend would say. Because
friends support one another. Just like friends say hi when they pass each other in the hallway (as Will always did). And wave when they see each other in the parking lot (ditto). It’s just what friends do.

And Will had a lot of friends. Everyone at Avalon High, it seemed, loved him. He was immensely popular, not just with his fellow jocks, but with the less athletically inclined kids as well. On Friday, when we were summoned to the gym for a massive pep rally prior to the Broadneck game, and Will’s name was read and he came running out onto the court, the applause for him was thunderous. Everyone in the entire school—including kids who’d been looking sullen about having to be at a pep rally in the first place, the skateboarders and punk rockers—leapt to their feet to give him a standing ovation.

Will, for his part, had looked embarrassed, and then, when the applause didn’t die down, he had to reach for the microphone that Mr. Morton, who was emceeing the event (and generating pep by making us practice the Avalon High rallying cheer, “Excalibur!” which is possibly the lamest cheer in the history of high school), was holding and say, “Thanks, everybody. We’re just going to go out there and play our best, and we hope all of you will be there to support us.”

The roar this statement provoked was far louder than any of the
Excalibur!
s Mr. Morton had elicited from us.

And when Will was handing the microphone back to Mr. Morton, and his gaze happened to fall on me—me, out of all the people in the bleachers—and he gave me a
wink and a smile, I told myself that’s just what friends do. Even though both Liz and Stacy, beside me in the stands, glanced at me sharply, and went, “Did he just—?”

“We’re just friends,” I said quickly.

“Sure,” Liz said, just as quickly. “Sure. Because, you know, Will and Jennifer—”

“They’re, like, the It Couple,” Stacy finished for her.

“Right,” I said. “Will and I are…just friends.”

“Wish I had a friend that hot,” Stacy said. “And nice. And smart. And funny.”

Liz smacked her in the arm. “What about me? I’m hot, nice, smart, and funny.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to stick my tongue in your mouth,” Stacy pointed out.

Liz sighed, and gazed down at Will, who was taking a seat with the rest of his team. “True,” she said. “If Will Wagner and I were
just friends
, I’d make sure we didn’t stay
just friends
for long.”

“Oh, right,” Stacy said sarcastically. “Good luck competing with
that.
”

We looked where she was pointing. Jennifer Gold was doing a series of backflips up and down the gym, in time to the band that was playing a speeded-up version of “What I Like About You.” Her deeply tanned legs flashed like scissor blades. Every time she landed, her lustrous blond hair fell effortlessly back into perfect waves.

“I hate her,” Liz said, without any real rancor, summing up exactly what I was feeling at that particular moment.

But I knew these kinds of feelings were unfair. Jennifer wasn’t a bad person. Everyone liked her. I had no right to hate her. Sure, Will had confided in me, and even given me a rose, and invited me to his party.

But we were
just friends.

But telling myself that over and over again didn’t stop me from fishing out my shortest skirt and using eyeliner and even mousse on the night of the Broadneck game—enough so that when my dad saw me, he went, “All I ask is that you stay away from downtown,” on account of the middies.

Then, when I ran out of my house to get into Stacy’s car—she was driving Liz and me to the game—both girls let out hoots of mock admiration, and Liz asked me if I would still sit near them, being such a glamour queen, and all.

I didn’t mind their teasing me, because I knew it meant I’d been accepted. And that felt way better than if they’d said, all politely, “You look nice, Ellie.”

I had never been to a football game before. My brother Geoff had been on the basketball team at my old school, so I’d been to quite a few games to cheer him on…not out of any sense of sisterly support, but because Nancy had always had a big crush on Geoff and had insisted on going to his games.

Nancy hadn’t had a crush on any of the football players, so she’d never made me go to any of those games.

I honestly can’t say I missed out on anything much—at least if the Avalon-Broadneck game was any indication.
Oh, it was fun hanging out in the bleachers, under the vast night sky, eating popcorn.

But the game itself was way boring, and practically incomprehensible. And the players wore so much padding, you could only tell who anybody was by their names on the backs of their jerseys.

Still, I appeared to be the only person in the stands who was of this opinion. Everybody else—including Stacy and Liz—was way into the game, joining Jennifer Gold and the other cheerleaders in their chants, and screaming hysterically every time our team got a point or a down, or whatever they were called.

Liz tried to explain the finer points of the game to me. Will’s position, quarterback, was like the brains of the operation. His friend Lance was a guard, whose job it was to keep Will from getting flattened every time he was holding the ball—which was fairly often.

Apparently Avalon High had a good team—so good they had even gone to the state championship the year before. It was widely believed they’d go again this year, if they played as well as they had last year.

But we were not doing as well against the Broadneck Bruins as everyone had hoped we would. At halftime, we were down by fourteen points, and a lot of people in the stands were grumbling about it.

I have to admit, I didn’t much care whether or not we won. I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time watching the game. Mostly I just watched Will. It was hard not to notice that he looked very cute in his tight white pants
while he was out there making up plays and telling everybody else what to do. There’s something sort of intoxicating, I guess, about a guy in a position of power…at least one with a butt that looked as good as Will’s.

I didn’t mention my crush on Will to Liz or Stacy, of course. I mean, for one thing, I’d gone to great lengths to convince them that Will and I were
just friends
(which, in his case, anyway, was actually true).

But I knew if I’d confessed to them that in my own case, I longed for more than
just friendship
with him, they’d look at me all pityingly for being stupid enough to fall for such a popular guy—especially one who was dating Jennifer Gold.

Besides, they still seemed to think there was something going on with me and Lance (so not), if the way they elbowed me every time Mr. Morton said his name over the loudspeaker (besides emceeing the pep rallies, Mr. M also announced the game) was any indication.

I didn’t tell them to cut it out, or that I didn’t like Lance, or anything. It just seemed easier to let them go on thinking that than to let them in on the truth.

Anyway, I was so bored by halftime that I volunteered to get us all hot dogs, and was making my way to the concession stand when I heard someone call my name.

I turned, not having the slightest idea who could be talking to me, since I still barely knew a soul at AHS. I was more than a little surprised to see Mr. Morton, having emerged from the announcing booth, trying to flag me down.

“Hey, Mr. Morton,” I said, wondering what he could want. I mean, there were lots of his other students milling around. What was he singling me out for?

“Elaine,” he said, in a stern voice. Since he was British, and all, my name sounded even more old-fashioned than if he’d just said it in an ordinary American way. Sort of the way that whenever he said the word “Excalibur” it sounded extra important.

I realized from the sternness in his voice that I was in trouble. What for, I couldn’t imagine. I mean, I was only trying to buy a couple of hot dogs, for Pete’s sake.

“I read your proposal,” Mr. Morton went on.

“Oh,” I said. It dawned on me that I probably wasn’t in trouble after all. I didn’t inherit my dad’s bad eyes or his slow-but-steady running habits, but I had inherited his excellent research skills, as well as my mom’s talent for mega-organization. Nobody writes a better, more exhaustive term paper than I do. I’ve never gotten less than an A on one. Ever. Mr. Morton probably wanted to compliment me on the supremely excellent job I’d done on the proposal I’d handed in about
The Lady of Shalott
.

Only that wasn’t why he’d stopped me at all, it turned out. He wasn’t a bit pleased with what I’d handed in. Not a bit.

“That was not,” he said, in the same clipped tone, “the topic I assigned you.”

For a second I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Then I realized what he meant.

“Oh,” I said. “Right! I’m sorry. That’s my fault, Mr.
Morton. I’d already read
Beowulf
”—I thought it safer to say this than the truth, which is that I hate
Beowulf.
You never know with lit teachers…they can be really touchy about that kind of thing—“so we traded topics with someone else. Is that not allowed? I don’t remember hearing you say so.”

Mr. Morton frowned. Clearly I’d stumped him. Because he’d never said anything about trading topics being a no-no.

Still, that wasn’t the only thing he was sore about.

“Did you work with your partner at
all
on that proposal?” he demanded.

My partner?

Then I remembered. Lance. Of course.

“Sure,” I said, lying through my teeth. “He helped gather some of the source material—”

“I highly doubt that,” Mr. Morton said. He was totally outraged. I could tell by his eyebrows, which were way lowered. An older guy—well past retirement age, if you ask me—Mr. Morton’s eyebrows were gray, like his neatly trimmed beard.

“I assigned you to work with a partner for a reason, Elaine,” he said severely.

“I’m sorry,” I said, truly taken aback. Teachers never yell at me. I’m pretty much a model student—like with my driving. I’m afraid to break the law. Mostly. “I…um…we…uh, we divided the paper up. I wrote the proposal, and he’s supposed to do the oral report—”

But Mr. Morton wasn’t falling for it. He said, “When
I assign you to work with a partner, you’re supposed to WORK WITH THAT PARTNER. You and Lance are to be together. I am not accepting your proposal.”

This caused me to make a shocked noise, because no teacher had ever rejected anything I’d ever written before.

But Mr. Morton didn’t seem to notice my shock, since he went on with, “And on Monday morning, I want to have a word with both of you. I’ll expect to see you and Mr. Reynolds in my classroom, first thing. You can let him know when you see him.”

I was stunned. What was this all about?

“All right,” I said.

I said “all right,” but I wasn’t feeling all right. I was definitely freaked. How had he known? How had he known Lance and I hadn’t worked together on the proposal?

By the time I got back to my seat in the bleachers, I had calmed down a little…but not much.

“Where’re the dogs?” Liz wanted to know, when I slumped down into my seat beside her. And that’s when I realized I’d been so upset over my conversation with Mr. Morton that I’d forgotten to get the hot dogs.

“Sorry,” I said. “Listen to this.” And I told them both what Mr. Morton had said to me. “I mean, can you believe it?” I asked, when I was done describing what had happened. “Does he have a reputation for being a stodgy old crank? Mr. Morton, I mean? Or is it just me?”

The question had been rhetorical. I’d fully expected them to say, “Oh, yeah, he’s a crank.”

But they didn’t. Stacy went, “I don’t know. Everybody
has always seemed to love Mr. Morton.”

“Yeah,” Liz said. “He’s been voted best teacher every year since he started at Avalon, practically. And everybody gets a real kick out of the way he says ‘Excalibur.’”

“Really?” I found this extremely hard to believe.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad,” Stacy said. “I mean, he’s practically ordering you to spend more time with your loverboy. Where’s the tragedy in that?”

Liz laughingly agreed. “Seriously,” she said. “I’d pay cold hard cash to be told to spend more time with Lance Reynolds.”

I slumped in my seat. There was no point in telling them that my lack of enthusiasm at having Lance as a research partner stemmed from my being completely in love with his best friend.