The Aristobrats (4 page)

Parker managed to make it through Mrs. Bernard's European history, Winkle's biology, and French II with Guertner. Eighth grade, however wild it seemed a few hours ago, was now dull as dirt. Tribb wasn't in any of her classes except Virtual (aka
online)
Humanities, which sucked for obvious reasons. And Kiki was her lab partner in Winkle's class, which meant that Parker would be dissecting all the stuff herself.

Classes were driving Parker nuts. Eighth grade wasn't about being stuck in a room. And her tan was fading by the second. She'd practically be a ghost by lunchtime. Time was flying by and nothing was done.

Fourth periowd, Cricket Von Wielding committed a major party foul by sitting in the choice seat in A.P. English (third from the front, window side). But Parker took it in stride. This was a new school for Cricket, she reminded herself. Cricket had probably been perfectly happy where she was. Popular. Comfortable. She'd probably had a best friend.
Or three.

Parker walked to the next best seat, sat down and organized her stuff. She put a hand ever-so-lightly on Cricket's shoulder.

“I just thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Parker Bell,” she said brightly. “And I'm loving the tote.” Parker pointed to the Coral Vines. “Très cute.”

Cricket nodded and blinked. She conveyed no truly recognizable emotion. Parker thought it must have been shyness. Or paralyzing insecurity. According to Gurl.com, “Insecure people often show no recognizable emotions.”

“And I just wanted you to know,” Parker told her, “that if there's anything,
anything
at all, I can help you with, don't be afraid to ask.” Cricket gathered her hair up into a ponytail with her hands then let it go again. Her curtain of blond hair fell down against her back. “It can be really super-difficult being at a new school and not knowing anybody,” Parker went on, putting herself in Cricket's shoes. “But now you know me!”

“Thanks,” Cricket said with a tiny nod.

Mrs. Acklin sat down at her desk, took out her Orion Genius Pen and Tablet.

“And BTdubs,” Parker whispered again, “you're totally invited to Friend me. I'll definitely confirm you.” Parker nodded and waited for a reaction.
I mean, Friends from day one—that's a serious advantage for a noof
.

“Good to know,” Cricket replied.

“
The…Elements…of…Style…
” Mrs. Acklin wrote the title of the first chapter on her Tablet. The words instantly appeared on the Super-Screen in the front of the room.

***

Until Friday, eighth grade wasn't much different than seventh or even sixth grade, Parker thought.

Plum had made it through the week without getting any yellow slips despite the fact that she had a concealed sewing kit in her tote and was chewing gum. (She usually just stuck the gum over her teeth like a custom-designed watermelon-flavored retainer. No one got yellow slips for retainers.) She had tried to lay low and avoid Death Breath, the Medieval Literature teacher, the Grim Reaper of detention.

Ikea had bagsied the corner seat in the back row of Advanced Technologies. She didn't have to pay a ton of attention because she'd already taken Pre-Advanced Technologies last spring and she knew the first three chapters by heart. She'd looked around the classroom and had taken a count, she told Parker. African Americans made up 13.4% of the American population, so why weren't there 53.6 black kids at Wallingford?

And someone had the brilliant idea of putting Kiki and Kenneth Accolola in every single class together. Neither of them would learn a thing all year—they'd just discuss the pros and cons of kitten heels verses wedges and argue about which celebrity “Wore It Better” in
InStyle
. Quel else was new?

But Fridays were different.
Why?
Because the much awaited and highly anticipated
Matin
was on Friday.

***

Like “La Cachette,” “Matin” was a fancy name somebody invented for something fairly simple—the weekly Friday morning assembly. It was also the biggest populartunity of the week.

The Lylas met by the old row of phone booths in the opulent Freeman Foyer and did a quick Hair & Makeup check. Discounting the Duke Ballroom on the top floor, the Freeman Auditorium was the largest and grandest room at Wallingford. It had a huge chandelier, an orchestra pit, a Broadway-quality stage, twelve hundred velvet seats, a state-of-the-art concert hall sound system and the largest indoor Super-Screen of any prep school in the country, courtesy of Fitz Orion.

So a little extra blush was appropriate.

They all confirmed that Parker's tan was still visible—not as Hawaiian Trops as the first day of school, but still really good. They popped a few cinnamint Tic-Tacs before they walked into the crowded space. (
Cinnamint Tic-Tacs before major events
was a really old rule.) And they reviewed the rule created years ago for today's event:
Assume the best seats in the auditorium because we've earned them.

James Hunter, still the weirdest kid in the class, was manning the AV booth. Some people weren't even on the populadder; they just stood beside it like it didn't even exist—James was one of those people. Hardly anybody even knew his name except Parker. She'd had him as her maypole partner in kindergarten. Most people called him “that AV guy.” He'd barely said ten words since maypole. Usually he just lurked around with his camera taking photographs of the lunch ladies serving up mashed potatoes or Madame Guertner buttering her bread. With his terminal case of bed head, dark faraway eyes, and never-ending silence, it was impossible to tell if James was truly emo or just thought he was better than everyone else.

The headmistress, Ms. Hotchkiss, made a humongous deal out of the first Matin of the school year. It was when she introduced new faculty members (yawn), announced changes to the Board of Trustees (double yawn), and appointed the new eighth grade production staff for the school's webcast,
Wallingford Academy Today
(too many yawns to count).

Hotchkiss made the webcast assignment out like it was the greatest thing in the world, but everyone knew it was social Siberia. She assigned the same eighth graders every year—the ones who were hallway monitors in fifth grade, on the Uniform Enforcement Committee in sixth grade, and on the Green Team for Garbage Reduction in seventh. In other words, the Wallys who began obsessing way too early about how their extracurricular activities would look on their college applications. This year that most surely meant assigning Allegra Elephant and the Einsteins, her overachieving friends. (Allegra had been waiting for this moment for years.)

Parker chomped the last of her Tic-Tacs and surveyed the lay of the land from the back row of the auditorium. Graham Henry, the sixth grade Wally whose claim to fame was burping the Alma Mater from start to finish, turned around and belched at the Lylas.

“Lovely, Chunder Cheese,” Kiki remarked dryly. “How did you get to be such a disgustoid?” She rolled her eyes.

“How's my favorite daughter?” A deep, kettle-drum voice called out from behind them. It was Ikea's father, Mr. Bentley.

“Dad?” Ikea was surprised to see him there in person. He never did anything in person. She instantly started biting her thumbnail as soon as she saw him. “You came in for the announcements?”

“If something's important to my daughter, I make time for it!” Mr. Bentley did a quick check of his gold Roley.

“You do?”

“That's why I agreed to be board president,” he said. “So I can be more involved in your day-to-day school life,” he explained. “Make sure my baby girl gets into Yale. And not slough off…” Mr. Bentley pat Ikea's shoulder lightly like you might pat something you didn't know you were allowed to touch. “Like you did last year.”

Ikea had one of Kiki's fake smiles frozen on her face. “Great,” she said. “Thanks, Dad.”

Ikea waved to her father as they walked away. She turned to Parker. “You're so lucky, Park,” Ikea whispered. “I would do anything not to have him breathing down my neck all the time.”

Parker smiled and held on tightly to her locket. It was nice of Ikea to say, but Parker never felt lucky about that.

The auditorium was noisy. The chatter bounced around in the three-story space. The Lylas walked down the aisle past hordes of younger Wallys toward the eighth grade section in the front.

“Aristobratshmshshmsh. SssmssmArisotbrat.”
Parker heard the seventh graders whispering to each other behind her back. It was the same thing Parker remembered feeling at the beginning of last year watching the eighth graders take their places—but there was no reason for anyone to feel intimidated. Parker intended to live up to the responsibilities of her title.

Each year the most popular eighth graders inherited the back row of the section. The premier seat was closest to the aisle and then progressed downward from there. Only top tier people sat in the back row—the front was reserved for people like Allegra.

“Assume the best seats,” Parker reminded them for the last time, “because we've earned them.”

When they got there the row was filled, all but the first four spots closest to the aisle: the four best seats in the whole auditorium.
Yes.
Kiki slid on in acting as blasé about the impressive accomplishment as possible. As did Plum and Ikea. But Parker felt the warmth of the accomplishment wrap around her like a blanket. She couldn't help but smile. She was truly unstoppable.

Parker held her kilt and sat down onto the plush velvet.

“We're loving the new hair, Keek!” Laurel Posvar yelled from down the row.

“Thanks, darls.” Kiki gave a regal wave. “It's such a cringe that I'm going to have to see my haircut on everybody sooner or later,” Kiki mumbled to Parker. “I mean, it was my idea.”
She did her best to seem like she was actually dreading the thought of all the WannaKikis running around Wallingford with her haircut.

“Parker, you need to put up the vineyard pics on FB! ASAP!” Tinsley added. “We're dying!”

“I know! I know!” Parker smiled and made her crazy-busy face.

Kiki squinted. “Hey, isn't that Curkette Van Helsing down there sitting next to Court and Tins?” Kiki asked Parker.

Parker looked. “You mean
Cricket Von Wielding
?”

“Whatevs.”

A noof in the last row?
It was practically unlawful, inappropriate and at the very least, really confusing.
Good for Cricket,
Parker thought.
She's fighting through her darkest moments.
Tinsley and Courtney were admiring Cricket's headband (pink and lime green Piccadilly—matching today's tote).

Plum took out her notebook and started sketching and popping her gum. Tribb walked by them, and Parker fought back the butterflies. She squeezed the edge of Plum's kilt into her fist and tried to look in a different direction so Tribb wouldn't think she saw him first.

“Hey.” Tribb nodded as he passed.

“
Oh
…Hey.” Parker nodded back.

Tribb moved into a row near the front and sat down. (Boys never cared about the seat thing as much as girls did. Ikea thought it was biological. Plum thought it was typical. Kiki just thought it was weird.)

Ikea reached over and flicked Parker on the knee. “You guys are so massively cute together!”

“Yeah,” Kiki said. “
Adorabla
.”

Kirby and Beaver sat down next to Tribb. Kirby turned around toward Plum and looked like he was about to say something but then only cracked his neck, blinked, and turned back around.

“Retardis Involuntaris,” Plum said to Parker as Kirby made his unusual collection of moves. “I think it's incurable.”

The lights began to dim. The music teacher, Mrs. Rouse, sat at the grand piano. She lifted her fingers and began to play.

In the darkness, Parker looked at what Plum was sketching. It was a self-portrait.

“You're the best artist in the whole school,” Parker whispered. Plum probably would have smiled if it wasn't for the hand suddenly thrust in her face, palm faced upward. It was Death Breath.

“Gum.” Death Breath said before the room grew completely dark.

Plum spit her blue wad into the Medieval Literature teacher's palm. The fruity deposit was traded for a yellow slip that Plum stuffed into her shirt pocket.

“Lovely,” Plum said as Death Breath sat back down across the aisle. “To add to my collection.”

The teacher took out a napkin filled with other colorful wads of chewed gum and added Plum's to the top of the heap.

“Looks like you added to that collection too,” Parker noted. They tried not to crack up but it was impossible to keep a few LOLz from escaping.

“
Shhhhh!
” Allegra Oliphant turned around and pointed. Her eyes were magnified through her thick, bright red glasses. Allegra didn't even care who she was shushing. Parker could relate. After all, this was Allegra's moment and no one was going to spoil it.

It wasn't the total darkness in the Freeman Auditorium or the flourish at the end of Mrs. Rouse's piano playing that shut everyone in the auditorium up—it was the purposeful and recognizable clip-clop of chic but sensible high heels as they made their way across the glossy wood stage. It was a sound that could belong to only one person: Hotchkiss. The sound alone (plus a touch of dehydration) had even made a fifth grader faint at graduation last June.

“Welcome to the commencement of the one-hundred-and-twelfth year of Wallingford Academy. We have a very special year in store for us indeed!”

Hotchkiss stood at her podium clutching her ever-present Orion Tablet. Hers was slightly larger than the teacher's and jet-black—the school's controlling motherboard. She pressed a button and the lights dimmed. She pressed another to illuminate the Super-Screens around the room. Her hand movements were as stiff as her well-coiffed hair (aka, helmet-head), and her voice didn't raise and lower like a normal person's—the words just floated out there above the podium, all strung together neatly, like her pearls.

Most Wallys called Hotchkiss “the Terminator” behind her back: living tissue over a metal endoskeleton—sent back from the future to destroy the world, one Wally at a time. Parker never found the theory all that unreasonable.

“I also have the great pleasure,” Hotchkiss continued, “of introducing the new president of the Wallingford Academy Board of Directors, the Honorable Gardner H. Bentley the Third.”

Hotchkiss waved her pen around the front of her Tablet and photographs of Ikea's father with gobs of super-important people soon surrounded the auditorium. Mr. Bentley held his suit in place and half-stood up for the mandatory applause, then checked his watch again. Despite what he said to Ikea, he seemed fairly ticked to be there.

Hotchkiss droned on with her yearly comatastic Welcome Back Wallys Address.
Intellectual development
this,
and
embark on life's journey
that
.
She reminded the students that her door was always open.

Why did people standing at podiums always say the exact opposite of what was true?
Parker wondered.

She glanced at Kiki, who was thoroughly enterdrained—as were most of the Wallys in the room. Only Allegra and the Einsteins were sitting at attention, nodding in agreement with everything Hotchkiss said.
Two words: Suck and Up.

And then, for the moment nobody was waiting for: Hotchkiss waved her pen and the screens around the room rippled with the
Wallingford Academy Today
webcast home page. With another point of her stylus, a montage of the eighth grade producers from years past appeared.

Who were they? Who remembered?

Parker did feel sorry for them. They'd all wasted what could have been the most important year of their lives in a dark studio. But they probably didn't even realize it was wasted. They didn't have three-hundred-and-ninety-four Friends depending on them. Or a content-rich profile to maintain. Or meaningful Tweets to Twitt. Or an Aristobratic title to live up to. They didn't need to get every moment just right because at any second they'd have to pack up everything they owned (including their Steiff teddy bear collection, an empty goldfish tank, and dozens of flannel pajama bottoms) and leave everything and everyone they knew behind.

Long story short? They didn't have a life to lose.

But Parker was actually happy for Allegra—it would be the best thing that ever happened to her.

“An enormous amount of thought and consideration went into this year's decision,” Hotchkiss continued, staring directly at the Einsteins. “Fitz Orion, my good friend and esteemed alumna, was
personally
involved in this year's appointment.”

Allegra smoothed out the pleats of her polyblend kilt.

“So it is my pleasure to announce this year's…”

“You wanna go to World of Beauty after school?” Kiki asked Parker with a yawn. “I need a new mascara wand.”

“Shhhhh!”
Allegra turned around. Even in the dark, her huge Hairy Eyeball gave Plum's a run for its money.

“
Shhhhh
yourself!” Kiki hissed back. “Jeeze la weeze.”

“
Parker Bell…
” Hotchkiss announced.

Parker frowned. She was imagining things, right? At first, it sounded like Hotchkiss had said her name. But that was impossible. Hotchkiss
couldn't
have said Parker's name because she wasn't an Einstein and because it was the most important year of her life and because if she had, it would have ruined the entire plan. Hotchkiss couldn't have said her name.
Parker
had things to do!

Wallys everywhere turned to Parker and started clapping.

Everyone was moving in slow motion, their hands coming together and moving apart again.

Hotchkiss
had
said her name.

No. Wrong. Impossible. Parker Bell had
not
been assigned to produce the
Wallingford Academy Today
webcast: the Vortex of Darkness. It wasn't even noon on Friday and already her life was over.

“
Katherine Allen…
” Kiki was still set on stun-mode about Parker when her name was called. The info didn't compute—too many programs trying to open at once.

“
Plum Petrovsky…
” Parker's head was spinning.
All of us!
All the Lylas!

“
Ikea Bentley…
”

It was done. Hotchkiss had taken them all. Stolen them away to the dungeon like an evil child-catcher.

The slo-mo applause continued. Parker held onto her arm rests to keep from fainting. Allegra looked like she might fall right into the orchestra pit.

“And our technical staff,” Hotchkiss called James from the AV booth. “
James R. Hunter…
” James looked shocked, the first recognizable emotion Parker had seen from him since his pinch pot exploded in the art room kiln.

“And
Leonard Schlaterman
.”

Kiki's head wouldn't stop vibrating. She looked like she might need temporary hospitalization.
McDweebs
Schlaterman.
Greeeat
. Parker could hear Kiki's faux British accent in her own head: “How utterly smashing.”

Hotchkiss asked them all to stand. “The
Wallingford Academy Today
Staff !” she repeated.

The Lylas stood. Their faces instantly projected larger than life around the room. Mr. Bentley applauded. As did everyone in the audience.

Mrs. Rouse began to play and the Wallys sang. Parker could hear Graham Henry belching somewhere off in the distance.

Hail our Alma Mater, Wallingford we sing.

Cherished are the mem'ries, which 'round thy old walls cling.

May thy glorious spirit ever stay thy loyal ones,

And lead us to our future, with friends un'numbered come.

Then what e'er betide us, we will together stand,

By one bond united, common impulse grand.

Call us there together, while we raise our voices high,

O' Wallingford Academy, thy spirit cannot die.