Geek High (12 page)

“No, I don't,” I protested. “First of all, nothing that I write is good enough to use for a class assignment. And second, she said to write it in a modern style. I don't do that. I don't even know how to do that.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” Charlie said, sounding annoyingly superior.

“What?” I asked.

“Miranda, sometimes you are so clueless,” Charlie said, shaking her head.

I love Charlie, and she's a good friend and all, but I hate it when she gets like this. It's so irritating.

M
iranda, stay after class for a minute, please,” Mr. Gordon said when the bell rang at the end of the study hall that doubled as my math class. I'd already completed all of the mathematics coursework that Geek High offered, and so I was now enrolled in a special self-study course. This semester I was working on advanced multivariable calculus. Mr. Gordon had gotten my syllabus from the math department at Harvard. Which sounds impressive, I know, but trust me:
yawn
.

I once read a book about an autistic man who could calculate sums in his head, like me. But, unlike me, numbers soothed him. He saw numbers as colors, experienced them as emotions. And he viewed his extraordinary math talent as a gift.

It's the exact opposite for me. I don't love numbers, and I can't lose myself in them, like when I get absorbed in a good book. When presented with an equation, I can solve it easily. But that doesn't bring me any pleasure. All it does is remind me what an oddball I am.

“Sure,” I said to Mr. Gordon. I shoved the heavy textbook into my already bulging knapsack.

Mr. Gordon waited until the other students had trooped out of the room, and then he leaned back against his desk and looked at me thoughtfully. He was tall and gangly and bald on top, with a fringe of hair around his ears, like Friar Tuck. He wore round tortoiseshell glasses and a revolving selection of argyle sweater-vests and bow ties. On cold days he always sported an ancient tweed jacket with worn leather pads on the elbows.

“We had our first meeting for the Mu Alpha Theta team yesterday afternoon, and I noticed you weren't there,” Mr. Gordon said.

I'd known this conversation was coming, and I'd been dreading it. Because the thing is, I hate to let anyone down. And I knew that what I was about to say was going to disappoint Mr. Gordon, who was my second-favorite teacher, after his wife.

“Yeah, I know. I decided not to be on the team this year,” I said.

“I see. Would you mind telling me why?” Mr. Gordon asked.

“I just thought I'd like to try a different extracurricular. I was thinking about signing up to work on the
Ampersand
.” The
Ampersand
was the literary magazine that Geek High published four times a year, and it won all sorts of national awards. I knew I'd never get published in it, not as a sophomore, but I was hoping to get one of the grunt jobs and work my way up.

“I see. Well, we'll certainly miss you,” Mr. Gordon said.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling awkwardly at him.

“See you tomorrow,” Mr. Gordon said.

“Bye.” I headed out of the class feeling like a total heel. Mr. Gordon couldn't have been nicer about my defection from the team…yet somehow that made me feel even worse than if he'd tried to guilt me into staying on.

But right now I had bigger problems to worry about. The first meeting of the Snowflake Gala committee, of which I was chairperson, was to take place that afternoon after school. And the last time I'd looked at the sign-up list I'd posted on the school bulletin board two weeks earlier, Charlie was still the only one who had signed up. And since Finn had pointedly drawn a line through his name, it looked like we were going to be a committee of two.

“I don't think anyone else is going to show up,” I said gloomily.

“Who cares? It'll be fun having just the three of us,” Charlie declared. She gave Finn—whom she had practically dragged into Mr. Aburro's room, where I was holding the meeting—a meaningful look. “Right, Finn?”

Finn looked up from his laptop. He was online, playing a computer game.

“Don't distract me,” he said, waving Charlie off. “I'm conquering Eurasia.”

The door to the room suddenly banged open. I looked up hopefully. A late arrival to the committee, perhaps? But my hope quickly soured to stunned disbelief when I saw who had entered: Felicity Glen and Morgan Simpson.

“What do you want?” I asked ungraciously.

“We're here for the Snowflake meeting,” Felicity said.

“Oh, ha, ha,” Charlie said. “Very funny. Now why don't you two just scurry along. I'm sure the coven is missing you.”

Felicity dumped her pink tote bag on a desk with a thud. She was wearing a sky blue twinset, and a matching headband pushed back her shiny dark hair. A silver Tiffany Beane necklace hung around her neck. (I knew that it was a Tiffany Beane necklace only because Felicity had one in gold that her dad got her the last time she visited him in Manhattan, and she wore it everywhere.)

“We're joining the committee,” she said stubbornly. “And you can't stop us.”

“But…
why
?” Charlie asked her.

I knew what Charlie was thinking. Felicity was no more fond of us than we were of her. Why would she go out of her way to sign up for a committee that would mean we'd all have to work together?

“Just because you were put in charge—which was totally unfair, by the way—doesn't mean that you should be able to run the Snowflake all on your own,” Felicity said, sounding resentful.

“What? Do you mean…
you
wanted to be in charge of the Snowflake?” I asked, utterly dumbfounded that this could possibly be true. Who would want this thankless task?

Felicity crossed her arms and glared at me. “You don't have to rub it in that you got picked, Miranda,” she said.

Picked?
Picked?
I was just about to open my mouth to point out that I hadn't been
picked
so much as
forced
into heading up the Snowflake committee, but before I could set the record straight, Morgan jumped in.

“And don't think you're going to stick us with all of the crap jobs, either,” Morgan said. “We want to work on something fun. Like picking out the theme or auditioning bands.”

“Huh?” I said. Theme? Bands? What were they talking about?

“Let's face it: The Snowflake has totally sucked in recent years,” Felicity began.

None of us could argue with her on this point.

“What we need to do is make the Snowflake more like a prom…and less like a lecture. In fact, I think we should cut the speakers out altogether,” Felicity continued.

“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking along the same lines. Not the prom part…although actually that isn't a completely terrible idea.”

“Gee, thanks,” Felicity said sarcastically.

“The problem is that I don't know if Headmaster Hughes is going to go along with it. He thinks the speakers are the whole point of having the Snowflake,” I continued.

“Well, it's your job to convince him otherwise,” Felicity said. “Now, what's our budget? Because I know of a great band, but they won't show up for less than a grand.”

“Last year, Headmaster Hughes got Mr. Sanchez to deejay for free,” I said dryly. Mr. Sanchez, who taught Spanish, French, and German, had a music collection that consisted largely of Lionel Richie and Whitney Houston. “So something tells me he's not going to spring for a thousand dollars for your band.”

“Well, my boyfriend's band might do it for free,” Morgan said.

Charlie, Finn, and I looked at her in stunned disbelief.

“What?” she said defensively. “I have a boyfriend. So what?”

“Who is he?” Charlie asked.

“His name is Snake. He goes to Orange Cove High,” Morgan said.

“Is his band any good?” I asked, managing to keep a straight face at the name
Snake
. I hoped for his sake that it was just a nickname, and not what his parents had actually named him.

“They're…not bad,” Morgan said uncertainly.

The expression on Felicity's face suggested that she didn't agree with Morgan's lukewarm endorsement, but just didn't want to say so out loud. Which didn't bode well. Not at all.

“But they are free,” Morgan pointed out. “Snake said they needed more gigs for the experience.”

“Well,” I hedged, “it's certainly an idea. But like I said, I don't know if Headmaster Hughes is going to go for the idea of a live band, even if they are free.”

“I think we should plan as though he will. And you'll just have to find a way to persuade him,” Felicity announced. And then, with what could only be described as an evil glint in her eyes, she continued. “Besides, what will people think if they find out you had a chance to actually do something cool for the Snowflake this year and didn't? Everyone will hate you.”

Her threat was clear: If the Snowflake was the same old boring-speeches-and-bad-music it had been in recent years, Felicity would make sure everyone knew it was my fault. I wanted to tell her not to bother—Finn had already taken care of disseminating this tidbit to the entire student body, although he continued to insist that he did it to “protect” me.

“Felicity, why don't you take your prom idea and stick it up your—” Charlie began, but I cut her off before she could complete the thought. Like it or not, we'd need all the help we could get on the Snowflake committee. Even if that help was in the form of the Felimonster and her Toady.

“Charlie, it's okay. Look, I'll talk to Headmaster Hughes and see what I can do. But I'm not making any promises—he has the final say. Okay?” I said.

“Excellent,” Felicity said with satisfaction. “Now, what should we do for our theme? Would it be too lame to do Under the Sea? Because another idea I had is the Enchanted Forest.” Felicity made a game show hostess sweep of the hand in emphasis. “We could fill the entire auditorium with trees and twinkle lights. How does that sound?”

“Expensive,” I said. “I think our budget is more along the lines of streamers and balloons.”

But Felicity just waved at me. “Details, details,” she said airily. “Don't worry about that yet. Let's just try to come up with a theme, and we'll worry about the specifics later.”

A
fter the Snowflake meeting, Charlie's mom dropped me off at the beach house. I had to swallow back a groan when I saw a familiar Jeep parked next to Avery's Jetta in the driveway. I sighed. Emmett was here. Again. He'd been over every day after school for two weeks straight. I was handling it the only way I knew how—avoiding the happy couple. Whenever Emmett was over, I made a point of staying in my room. Or the “guest room,” as Peyton continued to refer to it.

I wasn't in denial any longer. It was pretty clear that Emmett and Hannah were an official item. But that didn't mean that I wanted to see them snuggled up together on the couch, his arm draped casually over her shoulders, either. I wasn't a masochist.

I let myself in the house as quietly as I could, and was about to head down the hallway toward my room when I heard someone calling my name from the direction of the living room.

“Miranda? Is that you?”

I recognized the voice. It was Avery. I could hardly suppress my groan. I'd been just as intent on avoiding Avery. Avery always had an angle. A few weeks earlier—the day after the shopping trip, as a matter of fact—she'd tried to cajole me into helping her with her book report on
Romeo and Juliet
. I'd agreed—unenthusiastically—only to find out that when she'd asked for help, what she'd really wanted was for me to write it for her. I refused, of course, but it hadn't dampened her enthusiasm for trying to enlist me into service as her own personal homework slave.

I was about to make a run for it, but Avery appeared in the hallway, an ingratiating smile stretched across her face.

“I'm so glad you're home. I totally need your help,” she announced.

“Sorry, I can't. I'm crazy busy this afternoon,” I said, although I really wasn't at all sorry. But it was true that I was busy. I had a ton of homework, including finishing up the short story Mrs. Gordon had assigned us to write for mod lit.

“Oh, this won't take that long,” Avery said. “Come on.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me after her.

I hesitated, but finally allowed myself to be led back to the living room. I knew at once that this was a mistake, and that I should have found an excuse to get out of there. The room was awash in couples. Emmett and Hannah were ensconced on the couch, wrapped around each other as usual. Hannah's cat, Madonna, was curled up next to them, her creepy yellow eyes open just a crack. The Wonder Twins, Britt and Tiffany (I still couldn't tell them apart), were there with their hulking and not very bright-looking football-player boyfriends. One twin was perched on her boyfriend's lap; the other was lying down on the floor resting her head on her boyfriend's leg while she watched E!. And off to one side, sitting on a modular cream leather chair, was Dex.

I hadn't seen Dex since the afternoon my dad and I had watched him parasurfing, and he smiled at me in that slightly mocking way he had. I could feel myself flushing red under his gaze, and looked quickly away…but not before I noticed that Avery's purple knapsack was resting just a few inches away from where Dex was sitting. It wasn't hard to figure out that the two of them had gotten together after all.

Not that I cared. Obviously. It wasn't any of my business who Dex dated.

“Hey, Miranda,” one of the twins said with a lazy wave.

“Hi, Bloom,” Emmett said. “Did you finish your short story for mod lit? It's due tomorrow.”

I nodded. “I just have to spell-check it one last time, but it's mostly done. You?”

“Yeah, finally, but it was tough. What did you write about?”

This I didn't want to answer. Because my short story was about a girl whose boyfriend had been stolen away by her awful stepsister. And—other than the part where Emmett had never been my boyfriend, of course—I'd borrowed quite heavily from my own life to write it. At least, the emotions were all mine.

“Just, you know…a coming-of-age story,” I lied, and gave a silent prayer that Mrs. Gordon wouldn't ask us to read our stories aloud.

“So, is there any way you could possibly look this over for me? Pleeeeease?” Avery asked, thrusting a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced down at it. It was a homework assignment. The directions instructed that the students were to graph out a series of geometric equations. The only part that Avery had filled out so far was her name at the top of the page.

“Check what? You haven't done it yet,” I said.

Avery laughed. “I know! But aren't you supposed to be a math genius? Emmett said you're the best math student in your school.”

I felt myself blush even darker. Emmett had said that about me?

“Well…I don't know about that. But I can't check an assignment you haven't done yet,” I said.

“I thought maybe you could just do it for me,” Avery said in a wheedling tone. “It would only take you a few minutes, right?”

Of course. Typical Avery.

“But don't you have to learn this? Aren't they going to test you on it eventually?” I asked.

Avery shrugged. “I'll worry about that later. Anyway, homework counts for forty percent of our grade.”

I stared at her, disliking her more and more with each passing minute. If it wasn't bad enough that she was trying to get me to cheat for her, she was putting me on the spot in front of everyone. Inadvertently, I glanced over at Dex. He was watching us, and when our eyes met a thrill shot through me. It was that zing again, the same one I'd experienced the first time we met.

What was that? I wondered. And had he noticed it, too? Or was it a one-sided zing?

Dex raised his eyebrows and cocked his head slightly to one side, as if to say,
How are you going to handle this?
I felt my cheeks grow hot.
Great.
And now he was going to mock me.

Well. It didn't matter. Because either way my answer would be the same. Forcing myself to look away from Dex, I handed the paper back to Avery.

“I'm not doing your homework for you,” I said firmly.

Avery's smile slipped off her face, and her lips extended into a bratty pout. “I guess you're not as smart as everyone thinks you are,” she said pointedly.

I almost laughed at this. Did she really think I was going to fall for that?

“Miranda's amazing in math,” Emmett said. I turned to stare at him, shocked that he was coming to my defense. Emmett was frowning at Avery. “She's the star of the Mu Alpha Theta team.”

Okay, that wasn't so helpful. I really didn't want it broadcast to Dex…I mean, to everyone, not just Dex…that I had been in Mu Alpha Theta. I might as well have the word
dork
tattooed on my forehead.

Avery's nose crinkled up. “Mu Alpha what-a?” she repeated. “What's that? I've never heard of it.”

“Isn't that, like, the
math
club?” Hannah asked, looking horror-struck.

Suddenly everyone was staring at me as though I were some sort of sideshow freak. I could feel the stain on my cheeks darken and spread down over my neck and chest.

“Yes,” I said crisply. “It is. Excuse me, I have to go walk my dog,” I said, and then I turned and stalked out of the room with as much dignity as I could muster.

Willow was sleeping on the flokati rug when I walked into my room. She didn't get up, although she opened one amber-colored eye to see who'd come in, and her tail went
thump-thump-thump
against the floor when she saw it was me.

“Lazybones,” I said.

Willow yawned and stretched, arching her spine up like a cat.

“Come on. Let's go for a walk,” I said, grabbing her leash off my bed. I leaned over and slipped the martingale collar over Willow's narrow head, and she finally deigned to stand up.

I decided to go out the front door and walk around the house to the beach, rather than head through the living room to the sliding glass back doors. I didn't want to have to have to see Hannah and her friends again. Besides, knowing my luck, I'd end up tripping over one of the twins sprawled out on the floor.

I tried to clear my thoughts and focus on how Emmett had called me Miranda—not Bloom!—for the first time,
and
he'd defended me when Avery was bullying me. That was progress. Of course, there was still the not-insignificant problem of Hannah, but surely Emmett would eventually—someday—figure out that my stepsister was a narcissist.

And yet…my thoughts wouldn't stay focused on Emmett. Instead, totally against my will, they kept flitting back to Dex, and those startling pale blue eyes, and that sardonic smile, and the zing that always hit me when I saw him. Which was really freaking annoying. Shouldn't I be able to decide which boy I was going to obsess about?

Willow and I had just started down the beach when I heard someone calling my name.

“Hey, Miranda! Wait up!”

I turned to see who was hailing me, and my mouth nearly dropped open. It was
Dex
. It was as though I'd been thinking about him so intently, I'd conjured him out of thin air.

“Hey,” I said.

“Do you mind if I walk with you?” he asked.

“Well…sure. I mean, no, I don't mind,” I said, although I was thinking:
What? What?
“But what about Avery?”

“What about her?”

“Won't she mind that you're with me? I mean, not
with me
with me, obviously—I didn't mean to imply that we were together in anything other than a proximity sort of way.”
Gah
. “But…just that you're not, um, with her, I mean,” I finished lamely.

“Why would she mind?” Dex asked. His brow puckered in confusion.

“Well…aren't you two going out?”

“You think I'm going out with Avery?” Dex repeated, and then he laughed and shook his head. He set off down the beach, and Willow and I had to trot a few steps to catch up with him.

“Why are you laughing? Avery's really pretty,” I said. And it was true—Avery may not have been my favorite person, but there was no denying that she was attractive.

“For a shark,” Dex said. “She'll make a great lawyer someday; that's for sure.”

I smiled at this—I could see Avery striding around a courtroom, terrorizing her opposing counsel—but glanced over at him. “Does
she
know you're not dating?” I asked.

“Let's put it this way—she made it clear she was interested, and I made it equally clear I was not,” Dex said. “But that's as much detail as I'm going to give you.”

Which, of course, made me insanely curious to know all of the details. Had Avery thrown herself at Dex? Asked him out? But then another thought occurred to me.

“So why'd you come over today?” I asked. “I had the impression it was a couples thing in there.”

“Yeah, well, I didn't know that before I got here. Geoff and Roy are friends of mine, and I came along with them,” Dex said.

“Those guys are your friends?” I asked.

I assumed that Geoff and Roy were the two mouth-breathers that the twins had been draped over. If so, they looked like they had the combined intelligence of a sneaker, and probably enjoyed crumpling soda cans against their rocklike skulls in their free time. But why was I surprised? Dex was a jock, and they were clearly jocks, and it was common knowledge that jocks hung out together.

But on the other hand…Dex didn't strike me as the typical jock. I didn't know him very well, of course, but he just seemed…sharper than that. Like there was more to him than just muscles and testosterone.

“Yeah, we're friends. Why?” Dex asked.

“I don't know. They just seemed…” I stopped, searching for an adjective that wouldn't offend him, but also wouldn't make it sound like I was lusting after him. “…not like you,” I finished.

“Maybe not. But then, you don't know me very well, do you?” Dex said, his lips curving up into a half smile. He leaned over to pick up a small pink shell off the sand, and threw it overhand into the surf.

“I guess not,” I said.

“So what do you want to know?” he asked, winging another shell.

“About you?” I asked. I wasn't sure where we were going with this.

“About anything,” Dex said. “Go ahead…ask me anything.”

I tried to think of something interesting and witty, but I couldn't think of anything.

“What's your last name?” I finally asked.

Dex chuckled, and I flushed. Okay, it wasn't the most original question I could have asked him, but at least it was better than something really stupid, like,
If you were an animal what would you be?
(For the record, I'd be an elephant. They're really smart, and beautiful in a pachyderm sort of way, and they trample anyone who screws with them, which is a definite bonus.)