The Aristobrats (6 page)

There were a few minutes in between Latin Studies and Expository Writing, so Parker stood in front of the Orion kiosk in the empty hallway next to the Munchkin classrooms. She was dying to Spy Feed on Tribb; she even knew what class he was in (Computer Skills) and where he was sitting (fourth row, window side), but that was impossible now. She couldn't afford to stalk Tribb between classes. There was no time to waste.

Parker held her breath as the cursor hovered over the
Wallingford Academy Today
archives folder. (Think presidential command center, nuclear bomb, and red glowing button.) She winced, then just sort of clicked it.

There were sixty webisodes in all—three years worth of Snoozeville. Parker clicked and watched and tried not to groan aloud.

How would someone even
describe
the webcast? she wondered. Think of a news show, a really boring news show. Then think of the super-early version of that really boring news show, the kind that might be on at 5:00 a.m. Since no one's really watching the super-early version of that really boring news show, the station puts the especially pathetic newscasters on it, the kind of newscasters that might pair beige with, say, off-beige, or do the kind of lame stuff that newscasters who make it all the way to the 6:00 a.m. broadcast would never be caught doing.
Then
think of something a thousand times more Retardis Involuntaris than that—and you pretty much have
Wallingford Academy Today
.

Each year, each webisode worked the same way. There was a “host” for each show, usually the fugliest member of that year's production staff and, almost always, the one with the worst forehead-height-to-face-size ratio. The unattractive (and forehead-height-challenged) host said hello and welcomed the audience the same way every show: “Hello, and welcome to
Wallingford Academy Today
.”
Catchy!
That person sat behind a teacher's desk that had been painted beige to match the off-beige backdrop (remember the 5:00 a.m. broadcast?) so mostly the person just looked like a floating, poorly proportioned, head in a sea of weak mud.

Groan aloud!

Parker fast-forwarded through the depressing variety of academically important topics chosen, covered, produced, and starring each production staff member. The highlights in the archive included an inside look at that year's award-winning science fair entries: “The Science behind the Startling Reaction between Mentos and Diet Coke” and “The Genetic Basis for Migration in Monarch Butterflies Uncovered.”

There were some regular features, like an interpretation of the Alma Matter by a musically talented Wally: piano or flute or even spoken word (no JK). And each show, one of the staff members stood in front of the beige teacher's desk and read the school lunch menu for the following two weeks—a completely pointless exercise since A) everyone could see the menu tumble forward anytime on the Orion Super-Screens, and B) nobody cared. Infamously, one Wally, Jeremy Landis, aka “DJ Jazzy Jeremy,” actually rapped the menu. He became an instant cult hero (aka, nobody ever wanted to be seen with him again). Parker wondered if she'd ever be able to order turkey meatloaf with French fries again without thinking of Jazzy Jeremy doing the Worm.

In a word?
Wallingford Academy Today
was pathetic.

The show had no understanding of image. Parker spent more time each morning thinking about the effect her sweater choice might have on her audience than anyone had spent on the whole show in three years. She might as well have walked up to her mother with her suitcases packed and said, “Okay, I'm ready to start my horrible new life now. Take me away.”

The webcast had only one subscriber—Arthur, the floor janitor. And the webisodes had barely been downloaded by anyone. The all-time high count was twenty-seven times for “Determining the Sex of the Common Bull Frog.” Which apparently sounded a whole lot more exciting than it was.

Parker didn't even know how to produce something like that. None of them did. She was speechless.

The period bell rang. Wally Munchkins ran in from recess, hanging up coats and tossing snack-packs into their cubbies. Parker clicked out of the archives and back into Spy Feed so that if somebody went to the kiosk after her, they'd just think she was spying—not watching the webcast. Spying was way less humiliating.
If that's what Hotchkiss wanted,
why didn't she just assign Allegra and the Einsteins?
Parker tried to think of a way not to worry the Lylas too much—they were all in their own classes and each had their own things to worry about.

***

Plum sat in front of her easel in Mr. Lewis's art class in the old bomb shelter in the basement. A box of brand new pastels was organized in a rainbow of colors at her side. Since it was the beginning of the year, all the pastels were still big and bright, not the little faded nubs of their former selves like they were by spring.

New pastels were Plum's favorite—inspiring her in a way that could have kept her drawing for hours. And she loved being in the old bomb shelter. The video cameras didn't work in there so no one could Spy Feed on you, and it smelled less like the waxy-lemon stuff Arthur used to shine the Wallingford hallways every night and more like turpentine, linseed oil, and wet paper pulp.

Arthur liked the bomb shelter too, Plum noticed. He liked hanging around in there and always ate his lunch in front of an easel.

Plum put her heart into her picture. Her arms were covered with pastel chalk. Even her face was striped from pushing away her hair with her colorful fingers. She was careful to keep her mouth closed so no chalk would get on her gum. She barely noticed Kirby Vanderbilt sitting at the easel across from her.

“It's good, Miss Plum!” Arthur whispered from the doorway of the room. He nodded to her drawing, which she'd only started. Plum smiled back.

Mr. Lewis looked up but Arthur had disappeared.

The art teacher had set up a still life in the center of the room. The fruit was plastic but you were supposed to imagine it was real. There were seven peaches and a silver jug set at different levels on top of a white tablecloth from the lunchroom. Mr. Lewis had spent the first part of class talking about the artist, Cézanne, and his subtle use of color and shape. He displayed Cézanne's artwork around the room on the HD Super-Screens.

Plum loved the pictures Mr. Lewis had shown. She could imagine being as small as a ladybug and walking in between the pieces of fruit the artist had painted. That's what she was thinking when she used her pastels.

“Neon orange?” Mr. Lewis asked from behind her. He said the word “orange” like it rhymed with “door-hinge.”
Why did teachers always say words fancier than normal people?
“What about today's still life is neon ‘door-hinge'?” He sounded suspicious.

Plum looked up at the teacher with her pastel-covered face, then back at her drawing. She didn't even realize she'd made the whole thing neon “door-hinge.” She'd gotten lost in all the colors and just, um, kept going.

Plum shrugged.

“Your still life looks like a
discotheque
, Miss Petrovsky. One feels ill when one looks at it,” he said. “Did you
not pay attention
to the lecture?”

“Yes…” Plum said.

“Yes?”

“I mean no.” Plum corrected herself because it was a trick question.
Aha!
“No,” she said clearly, “I did not
not
pay attention.” She was confident. “I
did
pay attention.”

“Then why does your drawing look like a…discotheque?” Mr. Lewis asked.

Plum tried to think of the right answer—she really did. But she felt like nothing she could say would be the right answer. She never had the right answer to teachers' questions. Plus she didn't even know what a discotheque was.

“I don't know,” she replied.

“You don't know?” Mr. Lewis paused and looked at Plum's drawing again. “Well, when you have the answer to the question, Miss Petrovsky, please do come and tell me.”

Plum slumped down in her chair. She wiped her bangs out of her face and popped her bubble by accident.

Mr. Lewis handed her a yellow slip. “I can ignore the gum, Miss Petrovsky, because I am a fan of the stuff myself,” he said. “But not the blatant disregard for uniform regulations.” They both looked down at the bright undershirt peeking out from the top of her shirt. All of her white undershirts were dirty this morning, but purple and white striped was maybe not the best alternative.

“Thanks,” she said taking the slip.
Just what I always wanted.

***

Ikea sat at the computer in the back corner of the Advanced Technologies classroom. She had her Asynchronous JavaScript and XML assignment open in one window, but she was more interested in working on a new glitter blinkie design for her MySpace page. She knew if she kept the AJAX assignment open in the background while she worked on her glitter blinkie, she could quickly click to her class stuff when Mr. Boliack came back into the room.

Ikea had gotten super-good at blinkie alphabets—her design generator was one of the most popular apps downloaded from her profile.

It was always funny to see how people used the lettering to suit their personalities. Suzanne Hoechstetter took Ikea's Diamond Dust design and wrote “Drama Queen” at the bottom of her profile with big, blinking stars on either side of the words.
Like Suzanne needed Flash animation to make that point clear to people.
Cosima Adrianzen-Fonseca turned the Cowgirlz Sparkle alphabet into her favorite quote: “To Live is to Dance and to Dance is to Live.” Even Tribb Reese spelled out his name on his profile in her glittery Blu Lightning letters.

But this one was Ikea's best blinkie designs ever. She'd gotten the animation just right. It was so subtle that the letters really
did
look like they were made out of zillions of diamonds. She wanted to use it for something really special.

Be the change
…

Ikea rubbed her eyes as she worked. Her eyes were bothering her. The optometrist told her that she could keep her new contacts in for longer than the old ones, but she thought these new ones were seriously uncomfortable. There were always trade-offs in this world.
Right?

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

She finished typing the words. They shimmered on the screen.

“I like your blinkies.” A new student walked by Ikea's computer monitor so quietly that Ikea didn't even have time to click back onto the AJAX assignment.

“Oh!” Ikea jumped. “I didn't see you!”

“No one here does…” The girl smiled and looked around at the chattering room of Wallys, sitting on each other's desks instead of working on the assignment. “I'm kind of invisible around here.” Even covered in braces, the new girl's teeth were bright against her burnt-caramel-colored skin. “I'm Divya,” she said with a small hand out toward Ikea. “Divya Venkataraghavan.”

“I'm Ikea.”

“I know who you are.” Divya laughed. “Everyone in this school knows you.” She smiled again and pointed to the sparkly words on Ikea's screen. “That's Gandhi.”

“It's one of my favorite quotes,” Ikea said. “I'm thinking about using it for my yearbook page.”

“It's one of my favorites too,” Divya told her. They both tilted their heads to the right and stared at the dazzling letters. “It's a good choice for the yearbook.” Divya smiled and shook Ikea's hand. “It's nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Divya shuffled back to her desk. Her kilt was nearly to her ankles, she wore dusty, brown loafers instead of the blucher mocs that everybody else wore, and her hair was longer and more beautiful than anyone's at school. But Divya was right—nobody in the room noticed her.

Ikea
stared at the shimmery lettering on her monitor once more before she hit the return bar and typed:

Be the change you wish to see in the world

—Gandhi

***

“I
can't believe
I'm actually sitting in front of an Orion 2000 XZ, 27.9 gigs, Nova Core 4 Duo, 7400 GBs with Quartz Extreme eighty-two inch Cinema Display, four-trillion pixel capabilities and THX EX 360º surround sound!” Leonard “McDweebs” Schlaterman was standing in front of the editing computer with his arms outstretched like he just found land after being lost at sea for a hundred years. “Be still my heart.”

Kiki rolled her eyes and propped her legs up on a spare chair. She'd changed out of her brown school shoes and into the red Valerie Juene platform pee-toe pumps she bought in London. She hadn't seen them in days and missed them.

“I know, right?!” McDweebs murmured, not joking in any way.

The sad part? The only thing McDweebs loved more than the Orion 2000 XZ was Kiki. He was Kiki's boyfriend in second grade before she knew any better. There really wasn't a populadder back then so people like Kiki and people like McDweebs intermingled freely. They even got “married” (Major Secret. Embarrassing-city) with rings made out of green twisty ties and Bunny Allen's Schnauzer-Doodle, Snickers, as the flower dog. Kiki got over their love affair in about four hours, but McDweebs took his vows seriously—“in sickness and in health” and all that…and clearly until the “death do they part” part.

How on earth did the Lylas get chosen to do this? Kiki wondered for the thousandth time. What had they done to deserve it?