Damsel Distressed (6 page)

“I GET IT!”

We almost fall over from laughing so hard.

“Oh crap, I have to get to my meeting! I'm late!” He pulls away from me before I can blink, and he's rocketing toward the school. Over his shoulder, he shouts, “I'll see you at lunch!”

The mild October wind blows and steals away the last wisps of the smell of him, and I miss it before the leaves can settle again on the concrete.

6

C
restwood High is a mega-school that sits on the most affluent side of our city just outside of Dallas. Having tons of funding means we've got amazing arts programs right alongside our state champion football team and handful of National Merit Scholars. Sure, the campus looks more like a small university than a typical high school, with its separate buildings and open campus, but it's the walking past three thousand kids each day that I never get used to.

I watch the crowd seem to part when certain people pass. Their beauty or popularity just clears the way. I'd love to walk to class and not have people pressing on me from all sides. I'd settle for being able to take my seat without anyone watching me wedge myself into my chair.

During the mandatory health screening this year, the rec-center girl who took my statistics was all too eager to flip her ponytail and blurt out at me, “Okay! And you're coming in today at 203 pounds! Let me grab some diet and exercise information pamphlets for you!” Hair flip. Grin. Hair flip. Grin.

After avoiding my actual, numerical weight for at least four years, there it was. Bam. You, Imogen Keegan, weigh over two hundred pounds.

I know it's not the same as five hundred pounds or three hundred pounds, but at barely over five feet tall, I can't kid myself. According to Hair-Flip Girl and those god-awful calipers, I'm almost half made of fat.

I'm not surprised I finally joined the deuce club.

Not surprised at all.

I enter Mr. Reed's junior English class and glance up at the clock. Empty desks are scattered around the room in unkempt rows. Mr. Reed is fumbling around his desk, pulling papers from a filing cabinet that is easily a foot taller than he is. He mutters to himself while he digs through the stacks of books and ungraded essays.

Classrooms are so much more enjoyable before all the kids are in them. I'm pretty sure my teachers would agree. The sounds in the hallway creep under the closed door. Shouts and squeals from friends who haven't seen each other since, “Ohmygod, like, Friday!” We're all supposed to wait for the first bell before going to class, but I'm an exception.

There aren't many good things that come with having an “emotional disturbance,” but if I'm going to be labeled anyway, I might as well use it to my advantage if I can. If I ever need to get away, I just toss out the words “panic attack” or “depression” and every teacher gives in because most of them are afraid of what might happen if they say no. Nobody wants to be responsible for a nervous breakdown.

I take my regular seat, near the back window, overlooking the courtyard. The heart of the Crestwood grounds is a massive open space sitting at the center of the main building. It's walled on three sides, and the fourth is open to the upperclassmen parking lot. Years ago, before my mom set off to give New York a whirl, this was her school, and the main building was the
only
building. Before they graduated—and before they broke ground on the second of Crestwood's buildings—her class got together to paint an incredible, two-story, freestyle mural on the south wall. From Mr. Reed's second-floor classroom, the mural looks like it could just be a small canvas. Colors and shapes swarm the surface of the bricks. Blocks of words and pictures, abstract and realistic, mix together in a swirl of pattern and color. The individual works of each student are lost at this distance.

The dozens of autographed designs are sometimes hidden in shadows or too small to see from the ground, but I feel her colorful scribbles tugging at me from their hiding place. I just can't shake the feeling I'm staring right at the little piece on this wall that is hers. I've spent hours and hours scouring it, trying to imagine what her part might look like. Maybe she painted something about theatre, or maybe she worked on her part with someone else and I'll never know exactly which parts were her design. But it kills me that there's something right in front of me that is hers but not mine. It's like if she had a piece of jewelry or a sweater sitting in someone else's closet. I don't even care that this mural isn't something I can hold—I want to find her piece to carry in my heart.

The sound of the first period bell startles my attention away from the mural. Little clumps of students enter Mr. Reed's class. They're laughing and joking and continuing conversations from the hallway as they stand by their desks. Books and bags are tossed on the floor and hung on the backs of chairs. Pens are passed from the well-stocked to the unprepared as if it's surprising that they'll need something to write with in English class. Jonathan enters and heads to his seat in the other back corner of the room. I catch his eye and give him a little wave, but he doesn't wave back. He just smiles and does that annoying thing where boys lift their chin in greeting.

I watch as he reaches down with his right hand and pulls out his notebook and a small square of paper. He withdraws his other hand from his pocket and begins to fold the paper back and forth onto itself.

Mr. Reed's desk is so packed with papers and binders he can scarcely be seen at all, but he's there, tiny and mostly bald—except for his impressive comb-over. He's a little paper boat floating on a sea of academic clutter.

The bell rings, and the other twenty-seven kids sit and chat. Jonathan sits and folds. Just like always. When Grant is beside me, I'll clown and squawk and jump around like an idiot, but on my own, I'd rather they pretend I'm not here than make fun of or misunderstand me. Being ignored means nobody's making fun. It means nobody's making comments under their breath about me being overweight. It means less anxiety. It means they're not thinking about the rumors.
“Didn't she have a nervous breakdown last year?” “I thought she tried to kill herself.” “She's gained a lot of weight since junior high.”

To be ignored is way better than the alternative.

“Good Monday, juniors,” Mr. Reed snivels.

I prop my head on my hand to give, I hope, an air of acceptably minute interest.

“Let's get to it, shall we?”

He scans his clipboard and mumbles names as he glances at his seating chart.

“Stephen? And Marnie? And—”

He points to a few more names.

“Andrew?”

“Here.” Andrew leans so far back in his chair his head is resting on the desk behind him. The kid thumps him in the forehead with an ink pen.

“Oh, and I have a note that we're expecting a new student!”

The room falls away as if I've just rocketed off the face of the Earth. The twist of my stomach feels like I'm falling, on my way back down. Oh God, no. Oh, no. Ohnonononono. I scan the room; she isn't here. Is it her? Maybe it's someone else. I close my eyes. Please don't let her be in my class.

“Miss Cinder? Ella Cinder?” He scans the room and chuckles to himself as the kids start mumbling about Cinderella and asking if they heard him right.

I feel every trace of color slip out of my face.

The door opens in a rush, and there stands my stepsister. Everything seems like slow motion, like she's being revealed to the audience of a teen party movie as “the knockout.” She is taller than average, thinner than average, and definitely more beautiful than average. She's perfectly poised, with glowing skin and flawless makeup. Her golden blonde hair hangs around her face and cascades in magazine-coverperfect ribbons of beachy, effortless waves. Her rose-colored skinny jeans meet her thin ankles at four-inch nude pumps, while her floral blouse hugs her figure in all the right places. I hear an audible intake of breath from the entire population of Mr. Reed's English III class. Her eyes scan the room, and when she sees me, I instantly drop my head. I bring my hands to my lap and begin to rub them back and forth on the legs of my jeans.

I exhale and try to fill my lungs again.

Mr. Reed gestures for her to step further into the room. “Hello, dear. Are you—” He glances back to his list. “—Cinder, Ella?”

“Yes,” she beams. “Yes, I am.”

Whispered catcalls and chauvinistic comments drift from the male students, while the girls are dumbfounded. In typical fashion, the class bursts into a dozen different conversations.

“Where did you move from?”

She hails from Shallowville
.

“Is that your real name?”

Of course it's not her real name. Ugh
.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

I'll bet there's a sign-up sheet on her locker
.

As the volume rises, the boys leer and bite their bottom lips or just let their eyes bug out. Some of the girls run their fingers through their hair. They press their mouths closed and re-cross their legs. Some fold their arms over their chests and raise one eyebrow while others look like they're sending up a silent prayer that maybe she'll want to be a part of their group.

Cinder-effing-Ella stands with flawless posture at the front of the class, basking in her admiration for another few seconds before Mr. Reed says, “Settle down class. A brief introduction, I think, Cinderella, is it?” He giggles like he just thought of that punchline all on his own. “Well, you could certainly pass for a princess, my dear.”

Gross.

“Won't you please tell us a little bit about yourself?” he says as he perches himself, front and center, on the edge of his desk.

Carmella reaches up and brushes back a strand of her hair, as if it's actually out of place. She smiles and says, “Oh, well, I'm Ella. I just moved from Austin where I attended Conteé Academy.”

A.K.A. Stuck-Up High.

“I studied colloquial French, modern dance and ballet, and Renaissance literature.”

Obviously. Who doesn't?

“Of course, Crestwood doesn't have any of those courses, so my schedule has been simplified to include French IV, drill team, and of course, Mr. Reed's junior English class among others.”

Poor darling, forced to take normal classes with the peasants.

These words drip from her perfect mouth with so much grinning and saccharin that I want to reach up and slap her for being so fake. The rest of the room eats it up. No one seems to realize she's practically insulting our whole school by saying it's not up to her standards.

Carmella continues. “I'm sure I'll need help figuring things out around here, as I really don't know anyone, except, of course, for my stepsister—Imogen—who tells me she's very popular.”

She raises her eyebrows in a smirk and gestures to the back of the room where I sit, my mouth slightly agape as heads turn toward me. Some boys snicker, and I turn toward the sound in time to hear one say, “She must be Cinderella 'cause she's sure got an ugly stepsister.” Andrew Bates turns his head away from me quickly so I won't see him laugh at the other kid's joke. How nice of him.

The chuckles spread across the aisles. I can't think of anything else to do but force myself to breathe as I look down at my desktop.

Mr. Reed obliviously continues, “Well, Miss Cinder, that's wonderful. I'm sure there'll be no shortage of volunteer tour guides. You may take the seat in the second row. I'll just finish taking the attendance.”

Ella turns back to her audience and flashes a coy smile to the boys before setting her bag down and taking her seat. She lithely crosses her legs and subtly turns her body so that, with just the right movement, she can glance back at her new fans.

Once Mr. Reed has regained most of the attention again, he starts walking up and down the rows, distributing a handout.

Whatever it is, I have no intention of working today. I'll take the zero. I don't care. I'm just about to push up and get out of my seat. All I'd have to do is slide him a note as I leave that says, “Going to see the school counselor. Emergency.” By special ed law, he'd have to let me go. But just as I start to grab my bag, Mr. Reed starts to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we're starting a partner research project today. You'll be pairing up and performing extensive research about a specific literary archetype.”

Perfect. Interacting with another human. Just what I need today.

“Together, you and your partner will identify the usage of your given archetype in all of the assigned readings we'll be discussing this year, as well as in other works you may uncover in your studies.”

As soon as the word “partner” is uttered, the class begins to fidget and twitch toward each other as everyone begins to mentally pair off in an attempt to avoid that last-one-picked feeling.

This is my chance. I'll grab my bag and get out before I have the chance to
not
be picked as a partner.

The sound of chairs scraping against the floor as students rush to stand causes Mr. Reed's delicate voice to fade into near nothingness.

“Hold on, class!” Mr. Reed shouts, his loudest tone recapturing their attention. “I'd like you to tell me your partners first.” He gestures to Carmella. “Miss Cinder, perhaps you'd be most comfortable partnering with your sister?”

Without missing a beat, Carmella bats her lashes and then stares straight at me.

“Oh, that's okay, Mr. Reed. I know she was really hoping for a chance to work with a certain guy in class.” She ends with a faux-whisper that the whole class can hear.

She gives me a smile, as if this is innocent sisterto-sister gossip, but the class slams to a standstill for a single second before breaking out into a chorus of
ooooohs
and whistles as the guys in class begin taunting each other and praying they're not the boy I'm looking for.