Want to Go Private? Page 2

  Wazzup? I type.

  Did u choose an outfit?

  I groan and my fingers hit the keyboard harder than usual.

  Yes, MOM!!!!

  So, what u wearing?

  Jeans skirt, green tank, white shirt.

  Sounds ok.

  Sounds hot!

  What? That’s not Faith. It’s this boy avatar with spiky hair and sunglasses called BlueSkyBoi.

  AbyAngel99: Ha Ha

  BlueSkyBoi: What about u?

  Faithfull205: Denim skirt & Green Girl T-shirt.

  BlueSkyBoi: Nice. U guys r like twins.

  AbyAngel99: Well, we R BFFs.

  BlueSkyBoi: What grade u 2 in?

  AbyAngel99: 9th. Starting HS tomorrow.

  BlueSkyBoi: Excited?

  Faithfull205: Yes.

  AbyAngel99: Not so much.

  BlueSkyBoi: Why not?

  AbyAngel99: IDK. Scared, I guess.

  BlueSkyBoi: I survived HS. U will too.

  All of a sudden, an MSN chat window opens up. It’s Faith.

  Faithfull205: He’s OLD! R u sure we should talk to him? What if he’s a perv?

  AbyAngel99: Not that old. Just out of HS & it’s not like we’re telling him where we LIVE.

  Faithfull205: I guess.

  We chat with BlueSkyBoi for a little longer. He asks us what are the top ten songs on our iPods. I can’t believe when his are almost identical to mine.

  AbyAngel99: OMG! We’re music twins!

  BlueSkyBoi: Or soul mates.

  Mom calls me for dinner.

  AbyAngel99: GTG.

  Faithfull205: See u tomorrow, Abs! xoxo

  BlueSkyBoi: Later, soulie

  No one’s ever called me a soul mate before, and the thought of it being someone I don’t even know, some avatar with spiky hair and a leather jacket called BlueSkyBoi is just … well, funny.

  I’m smiling as I head down to dinner.

  CHAPTER 2

  SEPTEMBER 1

  My stomach is turning over as Faith and I walk up the steps to Roosevelt High. Everything seems so much bigger here than it did at Western.

  “I hope we have the same lunch period,” I tell Faith.

  “I know,” she says, linking her arm through mine. “Otherwise, how will we share cookies?”

  I feel weird walking arm in arm, even though last year I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Maybe it’s too middle school. We head to the gym, where we’re supposed to pick up our schedules, and I manage to extract my arm as we go through the doors. Whew!

  “I guess we have to go to separate lines,” I say. “Looks like I’m in H to P and you’re in Q to Z. Does anyone’s last name actually begin with Q?”

  “Anna Quintana,” Faith says.

  “Okay, but what about Z?”

  “Uh … I know, Emilio Zapata!”

  “Okay, know-it-all. Go stand in line, and I’ll meet you after to compare schedules. We better have classes together.”

  “Don’t worry, Abs, we will,” Faith says as she heads off to the Q to Z line.

  It’s sweltering in the gym. I don’t know why I let Faith talk me into wearing this stupid hairstyle, with my hair half down my back. I try holding it up in a ponytail to let my neck cool.

  “It is so fricking hot in here!”

  I turn and find myself looking up into a pair of bright blue eyes, set in a deeply tanned face that’s framed by close-cut, dark hair. I swallow, suddenly glad that I bothered to experiment with Mom’s extensive makeup selection this morning.

  “Uh … yeah. You’d think they’d turn up the A/C.”

  “You didn’t go to Eastern, did you?”

  “No, Western.”

  “Thought I didn’t recognize you. I’m Nick. Nick Peters.”

  “Um. Hi. I’m Abby. Abby Johnston.”

  “Yeah, well, figured it had to be something between H and P, right?” He smiles, and his teeth are blindingly white against his tan.

  Maybe Faith’s right. Maybe high school won’t be so bad after all.

  “Nick! Hey, Nicky!”

  Amanda Armitage, queen of all Clique Queens and bane of my middle school existence, is coming across the gym, smiling and waving, and I’ll bet you my favorite Viggo Mortensen poster that it’s not aimed at me. Sure enough, Nick raises an arm and waves back.

  “You know Amanda?” I ask him.

  “Sure, Mandy and I go way back. Our parents belong to the same country club. She’s great.”

  I take it back. High school sucks. Big-time.

  I fake a smile and manage to lie, “Yeah, great,” between gritted teeth.

  Great at being a total beeyotch. Great at making other people feel like crap.

  Fortunately, I’m up next to get my schedule, so I’m saved from any further discussion of the Evil Witch’s greatness.

  “See you around,” I mutter to Nick as I slink away to find Faith.

  “Later!” he says, but he barely looks at me. His eyes are on Mandy.

  Apparently, there’s room for more suckage in my life. When Faith and I compare schedules, we find that we’re only in one class together, PE, and we don’t have the same lunch period.

  “How could this happen?” Faith says, sounding like she’s about to cry. “We’re always together. We’re like peanut butter and jelly. Ice cream and hot fudge sauce. Hot dogs and mustard —”

  “Okay, okay, I get the picture.”

  Faith gets all quiet like she does whenever I upset her.

  “Sorry, Faith.” I sigh. “I’m just really freaking out, okay?”

  “Me, too, Abs. But we’ll meet at the end of the day and tell each other everything, okay? PP?”

  Now that we’re in high school, we agreed not to pinkie promise in public. But old habits die hard, so Faith said we’d just say “PP” instead.

  “Yeah. PP.”

  “And, Abs?”

  “What?”

  “You look really pretty today.”

  I smile, and even though I’m worried about the PDA thing, I can’t help hugging her.

  “Well, you know, someone whose name begins with F gave me all these lectures about first impressions counting.”

  Faith laughs and for the first time since second grade, we head our separate ways.

  I feel like the ball in an Extreme Pinball game as I try to make my way from science class on one side of the building to math class on the other in the three minutes allowed between classes. Whoever dreamed up these schedules obviously never walked in the hallways when there were actually people in them.

  I’m a little out of breath when I get to math, but my breathing quickens even more when I see that Nick Peters is sitting at a desk near the back and there are two seats left, one next to him and one in front of him. It’s my lucky day.

  He smiles at me as I put my books down on the one in front of him. I’m afraid if I sit next to him, I’ll just gaze at him longingly for the entire class.

  “Hey … uh … Alison, right?”

  “Um … close. Abby.”

  “Right, Abby. How’s it going so far?”

  “Okay. It’s a little crazy finding my way around.”

  “Yeah, I know how that is. But we’ll get it, for sure.”

  “I know. I’m just going to have to improve my sprint times to make it to class before the bell.”

  Nick laughs and once again, I feel like high school has potential. Until I look up and see Amanda Armitage has just entered the room and is heading for the seat right next to Nick.

  “Hey, Nicky! I’m sitting next to you so I can copy all your answers,” she says, tossing her blond hair over her shoulder as she arranges her books on the desk.

  Nick grins. “Not so sure you’d want to do that, Mandy. Math isn’t my best subject.”

  “Um … it’s one of mine,” I say, “You know … I mean … if you ever need help with homework … or anything.”

  Nick glances at me briefly. “Thanks, Ally,” he says. “I’ll remember that.”
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br />   He turns back to Mandy.

  He could at least remember my freaking name.

  I feel like plankton. No, I feel lower than plankton, if there is anything lower than plankton, which I can’t remember because I feel so miserable. What was the point of putting on all this facecrap and messing with my hair? It hasn’t made any difference. People like Amanda Armitage are still going to be on top in high school, and people like me are doomed to a life as pond scum.

  Faith and I sit together on the bus home. I just want to forget about my day, but she wants to compare notes.

  “There’s a really nice girl, Grace, in a few of my classes. I can’t wait till you meet her — I think you guys will get along. How about you? Did you meet anyone new?”

  I have a dull headache, and I really don’t want to relive my day from hell, but there’s no way I’m going to get out of it.

  “Well, there’s this really cute guy, Nick Peters, who’s in my math class, but unfortunately he only has eyes for Mandy Armitage. Apparently, she’s an old family friend from the country club and he thinks she’s great.”

  Faith rolls her eyes. “Wow. He must be seriously gullible.”

  “And despite this whole making-an-effort thing, he couldn’t even remember my name for more than three minutes. He kept calling me Alison.”

  Faith manages to look sympathetic for all of three seconds before she bursts out laughing.

  “I’m sorry, Alison, I mean Abs. That sucks. But he isn’t the only guy at school. This is just Day One. You shouldn’t give up on the hair and makeup thing because one idiot didn’t remember your name.”

  I sigh and lean my aching head against the bus window.

  “Maybe you’re right. But it felt like middle school all over again. Seriously, Faith, do you really think putting this stuff on my face and doing my hair differently is going to turn me into someone new, someone who people like Mandy won’t look down on? Someone whose name Nick might actually remember?”

  Faith takes my hand and squeezes it.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I mean, what the heck, it can’t hurt, can it?”

  “I’m not so sure,” I mutter.

  “Try not to let Amanda get you down, Abs. You know what she’s like. What she’s always been like.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. I’ll try.”

  “So promise you’ll wear makeup again tomorrow?”

  “Okay, okay, okay.”

  When I get home, I go straight up to my room, drop my backpack on the floor, and throw myself on the bed. I watch the afternoon sunlight dapple patterns of stripes and leaves on the ceiling, the dust motes swirling in random patterns that seem to mimic the confusing, uncomfortable feelings I have inside.

  There’s no homework, so I grab my laptop and log on to ChezTeen.com. Within minutes, I’m surrounded by friends, even though I’ve never met any of them. There, I can pretend that my first day of school was fantastic, because no one is going to know anything different. I can be anyone I want to be when I’m online and I don’t even have to wear makeup.

  “So, how was everyone’s first day at school?” Mom asks when we’re all seated around the dinner table.

  “Great!” Lily chirps. “Seventh grade is awesome. I don’t know why Abby hated it so much.”

  My little sister is such a freak.

  “Mom, Dad, now do you believe me that Lily’s weird? No one normal likes middle school.”

  “Abby …” Mom warns.

  “I liked middle school, or junior high as it was known then,” Dad says.

  “Yeah, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth,” Lily says, rolling her eyes.

  “Watch it, sprite,” Dad tells her. “This dinosaur is the one who pays for your trips to the mall.”

  The fact that Dad liked middle school just proves my theory. He’s not exactly a poster child for Normal. He’s obsessed with becoming a millionaire before he’s fifty, and when we go on vacation he reads all these business strategy books for fun. On the beach. It’s so embarrassing. And he’s been a serious workaholic ever since he left Strickham and Young, the major accounting firm where he’d worked even before I was born, and started his own practice. A major league workaholic — barely ever home and always totally stressed out. I can’t believe he’s actually here for dinner tonight. Mom must have read him the riot act about it being the first day of school and ordered him to come spend some face time with Lily and me.

  “What about you, Abby?” Mom asks. “How was your first day?”

  For a minute, I’m tempted to tell my parents the truth about my first day, how it was basically the same crummy scene as middle school in a bigger building. But I know that if I do, Mom will start listing the thirty zillion ways I need to change in order to be a success, and Lily will join in and that will be the cherry topping on my Cruddy Day Sundae.

  So I lie.

  “It was fine. Except it sucks because Faith and I aren’t in any classes together except gym.”

  “Omigod!” Lily shrieks, throwing up her arms in exaggerated horror. “How will you live?! You guys are joined at the freaking hip!”

  “Lily. That’s enough,” Mom says, giving my sister a stern glance. “Abby, I know that’s tough for you, but maybe this is a good thing. It’ll force you to branch out and make some new friends.”

  So now Mom’s not happy with my friends, as well as with me?

  “What if I’m happy with the friends I’ve got?”

  “It never hurts to make new ones,” Dad says. “Who knows where some of these kids might end up in the future? One of them could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for all you know.”

  Trust Dad to bring everything back to business.

  “Not everyone has, like, one special friend since second grade,” Lily says. She does little air quotes when she says special, whatever that’s supposed to mean. “Some of us like to be popular.”

  I can just imagine Lily and Amanda Armitage having lunch together in the cafeteria, plotting ways to make my life miserable. Not for the first time, I wonder how two people could be raised by the same parents and one end up as a future Clique Queen and the other … well, the other end up like me.

  “It’s not that I expect Abby to become wildly popular overnight,” Mom says.

  “Yeah, as if!” Lily snorts.

  “Lily …” Dad warns.

  “I just think that you’ve been such close friends with Faith for so long, it would be good for you to spread your wings a bit and meet some new people. Faith’s a wonderful person, but it wouldn’t hurt you to meet some … different … kinds of girls.”

  So, what, they want to try and turn me into Lily? They want me to start hanging out with Amanda Armitage? Not. Going. To. Happen.

  “Okay, okay, I’ve got the message. You want me to be different. Can we talk about something else?”

  Mom and Dad exchange glances.

  “It’s not that, Abby. Your father and I just want you to expand your horizons. We don’t want you to … limit yourself unnecessarily.”

  I stare at my plate, no longer hungry. Why can’t my parents just love me the way I am?

  “Can I be excused?”

  “But you’ve hardly eaten anything!” Mom says, all worried.

  “I’m not that hungry, and I’ve got some reading I want to do,” I lie.

  “That’s good,” Dad says. “Get your studies off on the right foot. Grades really count now that you’re in high school.”

  Sometimes I think my parents majored in cluelessness.

  “Mom, can I have some more steak if Abby isn’t having any?” Lily asks.

  “Sure, sweetie.”

  I escape to my room and log on to ChezTeen.com. Almost immediately, a chat screen pops up.

  BlueSkyBoi: Hey, wut up, soulie?

  Soulie? It takes a second or two, but then I realize it’s that guy Faith and I were chatting with last night, the one who was my musical “soul mate.” I grin and type back:

  AbyAngel99: Not much.
>
  BlueSkyBoi: How’d the 1st day go?

  I wonder if I should lie to him the same way I’ve lied to everyone else. But then I figure, What do I care? It’s not like I’m trying to impress him. I don’t even know this guy.

  AbyAngel99: It kind of sucked.

  BlueSkyBoi: Yeah. HS blows. Did your friend like it? Fairyfall or whatever. You always seem to be online together.

  It strikes me as kind of … I don’t know … weird that he would notice that, but only for a second. It’s true, after all.

  AbyAngel99: You mean Faith? I mean,

  Faithfull205. She’s my BFF.

  AbyAngel99: And SHE thinks it’s great. All these new people to meet and stuff.

  BlueSkyBoi: So what made your day such a

  suckfest?

  AbyAngel99: Well, Faith & I aren’t in any classes 2gether xcept 4 gym.

  AbyAngel99: It’s like the 1st time ever since 2nd grade!

  BlueSkyBoi: That does suck.

  AbyAngel99: And there was this really cute guy but it turns out he’s friends with this girl

  AbyAngel99: who is the biggest beeyotch EVER

  AbyAngel99: & they’re both in my math class and he DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER MY NAME!

  BlueSkyBoi:

  BlueSkyBoi: I would never 4get ur name.

  BlueSkyBoi: If I knew it in the 1st place, that is ;-p

  AbyAngel99: LOL! It’s Abby.

  BlueSkyBoi: I’m Luke.

  AbyAngel99: Hi!

  BlueSkyBoi: Hi!

  BlueSkyBoi: So, this jerk, what’s his name?

  AbyAngel99: Nick. Nick Peters.

  BlueSkyBoi: Well, Nick the Prick is clearly too much of an idiot to know a good thing when he sees it.

  “Nick the Prick” makes me giggle. I know Luke’s just flattering me, because how would he know if I’m a “good thing” or not? For all he knows, I could be hideously ugly with a really horrible personality. Or a guy even, like they always told us in the Internet Safety lectures at school. I could be some forty-year-old pervert pretending to be a teenage girl.

  But even though I know it’s just a line, it’s still good to hear after a day of feeling like plankton. Right now, I’ll take my compliments where I can get them. Anything to feel like I’m not the lowest link in the social food chain.

  AbyAngel99: LOL!

  BlueSkyBoi: I mean it. If I were at ur school, I’d remember everything about u.