Geek High (5 page)

“Yes, Tabitha,” Mrs. Gordon said, nodding to her.

“Is it true that Camus was deliberately copying Hemingway's style when he wrote
The Stranger
?” Tabitha asked in her most serious voice.

I used the opportunity to IM Finn.

     I clicked back to the Web site and read the second entry.

     Ewwww, I thought.

C
harlie's mom, Mrs. Teague, dropped me off at my dad's house after school. She offered to wait until I got inside, but I insisted that I'd be fine, so Charlie and her mom said good-bye and drove off back down the sandy road, while I waved from the front steps.

I turned and opened the door. Or, at least, I tried to. As it turned out, the door was locked. I reached into my knapsack, rooting around for my Hello Kitty key chain (it's meant to be ironic), when I remembered—I didn't have a key. Peyton still hadn't given me one. Her cleaners had a key to the house, and the caterers, and the woman who came once a week to water the plants. But me? No key.

I sighed, closed my knapsack, and rang the doorbell. No one answered, although I heard the scrabbling of nails on marble as Willow bounded joyfully toward the door. Willow doesn't bark, so she just stood there, her body wriggling with happiness as she peered at me through the glass panels that flanked the front door.

“Hi, Willow. Any chance you can grow an opposable thumb and let me in?” I asked.

She just wriggled some more.

“Great,” I said. The driveway was deserted, and there were no sounds of life inside the house, so chances were good that there wasn't anyone home. I dropped my knapsack and sat down next to it, wrapping my arms around my knees as I waited.

It was a typical Florida August afternoon: steaming hot and blindingly sunny, and the air was thick with the late-summer humidity. I was slick with sweat within a matter of minutes, and I could feel my hair growing frizzier by the minute.

At least we're on the beach,
I thought.
If it gets any hotter, I can always go jump in the water to cool off.

I'd always hated the heat, and considered it a true tragedy that I was born and raised in Florida, rather than somewhere cold and snowy, where I could wear cozy wool sweaters and curl up with a pile of good books in front of a roaring fire. In fact, one of the ironies of my current situation—i.e., Sadie deserting me to wing off to London—is that I'd always fantasized about living in England. Or, at least, the England that was featured in all of my favorite childhood books, from
The Little Princess
to
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
to
Paddington Bear
.

But no. I was stuck in hot, humid Florida, living in a house with a stepmother and stepsister who didn't want me there, and a father who thought I was a late bloomer, and making a fool out of myself by falling in front of everyone at school, and basically everything was bleak and grim and not looking as though it was going to get any better anytime soon.

Oh, well,
I thought gloomily.
At least it isn't raining.

Which was precisely the moment when the first boom of thunder sounded, followed seconds later by a crackling flash of lightning that made the hair on my arms stand up.

A dark gray cloud that I swear hadn't been there a moment earlier suddenly appeared overhead, and raindrops began to fall. First it was just a scattering, a drop here and a drop there. But then there was another crack of lightning and another boom of thunder…and it began to pour. I let out a yelp and backed up on the stoop, trying to get as much of me under the narrow overhang as possible. But it barely offered any protection from the downpour. And the whole time I was sitting there getting drenched, Willow stood on the other side of the door whimpering.

The rain was finally starting to taper off when a sporty red Jetta turned into the driveway. By this point I was completely soaked. My T-shirt stuck uncomfortably to my skin, and my hair was plastered to my scalp. I didn't have a mirror, but I had a pretty good idea that the average drowned rat would look positively glamorous compared to me.

The driver's door opened, and a girl slid out from behind the steering wheel. She had a thin face with narrow eyes and a pointy chin. Her black hair was cut into an edgy pixie that suited her catlike features. I didn't recognize her, nor the identical twins who emerged a moment later from the backseat.

Hannah, who had occupied the front passenger seat, got out and slammed the door shut behind her. She gave me a hard stare, as though I were a Jehovah's Witness waiting on her doorstep to convert her.

“Who's that girl?” the driver of the Jetta asked Hannah, as though I weren't standing ten feet away and couldn't hear every word she said.

“She's nobody,” Hannah said, with an eye roll. “Just my stepsister.”

“You have a stepsister?” one of the twins asked her. Both of the twins were tall and lanky, with creamy dark skin, braided hair, and open, friendly faces. They wore identical short denim skirts, although they varied their tops. One was wearing a clingy pink tee, the other a blue baby-doll rugby shirt.

“Unfortunately,” Hannah said. She turned to look at me, swishing her pale blond mane back from her face as she did so. Hannah is the master of the hair swish. She does it so frequently and so perfectly, I've long suspected that she practices the gesture in front of the mirror.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked me.

“I don't have a key,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Oh.” Hannah stepped past me and unlocked the door. “Try not to track water in the house,” she said to me over her shoulder.

Willow was so excited that we were finally being reunited that she pushed past Hannah to greet me, sticking her long nose in my hand.

“Ewwww,” one of the twins said, cowering back. “That dog is so weird-looking.”

“Tell me about it.” Hannah sniffed.

“She's a greyhound,” I said with dignity. “And she's beautiful.”

Unfortunately, Willow chose that exact moment to let loose a noisy and particularly stinky fart.

“Ewwww,” all of the girls said in unison, as they pushed past us to get into the house and downwind of Willow.

I had no interest in hanging out with Hannah and the Barbie Squad—and even though it was only the first day of school, I already had a pile of homework—so rather than follow them back to the living room, I started to turn left down the corridor that led to the guest room.

“I don't recognize you. Do you go to our school?” the driver of the Jetta asked me. I had no choice but to pivot back around.

“She goes to Geek High,” Hannah said before I could answer.

“Wow,” one of the twins said, looking impressed. “You must be really smart.”

At this Hannah looked annoyed.

“What's your name?” the driver asked, looking at me with more interest. Her heavily made-up eyes were an unusual color: hazel brown and flecked with gold. I got the feeling that she was the leader of their little group.

“Miranda,” I said.

“I'm Avery,” the girl said. She bobbed her head in the direction of the twins. “And they're Tiffany and Britt.”

“Hey,” the twins said in unison. I had no idea which was which, and probably never would, unless they started wearing name tags.

“So you're living here now?” Avery asked. She glanced sideways at Hannah, as though questioning why this important nugget of information had been kept from her. An inner conflict began to rise within me. I instinctively didn't like Avery—there was a hard, almost mean glint in her eyes—and it really wasn't any of her business why I was staying in the House of Demons. On the other hand, I was enjoying Hannah's obvious displeasure.

“I'm just staying here while my mom is out of town,” I explained.

“Oh-hhh,” Avery said, drawing the word out into two syllables. “So we're going to make some popcorn and watch a movie. You want to hang out with us?”

Hannah looked horrified at this suggestion, and I toyed with the idea of accepting Avery's invite just to torture my stepsister. But since that would mean hanging out with the Demon Spawn all afternoon, I shook my head.

“Thanks, but I really should start my homework.”

“You got homework on the first day of school?” Britt—or maybe it was Tiffany—asked, her jaw dropping open.

“Yup,” I said, shifting my soggy knapsack up to my shoulder. “Have fun.”

“Why did you ask her to hang out with us?” I heard Hannah hissing at Avery as they headed to the kitchen.

“Are you kidding? She could totally get me through chem. I'm going to need all the help I can get in that class,” Avery replied.

I shook my head, glad I'd followed my instincts not to hang out with them. Hannah's friends were as awful as her. Big surprise.

T
o celebrate our first day of school, and my forced confinement in their home, my dad announced he was taking us all out to dinner. Hannah and Peyton didn't seem any happier about the idea than I was, but Dad insisted.

“I want to show off my girls,” he said.

And despite everything that had happened with my dad, and that I'd hardly seen him over the past few years, I still felt a twist of jealousy. Dad considered Hannah to be one of his “girls”? But I was his daughter, his
real
daughter. Hannah was just a step. Didn't genetics count for anything anymore?

Besides, Hannah already had a father of her own. A really glamorous dad who was an investment banker in Manhattan. Hannah went to visit him two or three times a year, and spent those trips eating out at swishy restaurants and shopping with her impossibly chic stepmother, who—unlike Peyton did with me—treated Hannah like a daughter.

Life? Totally unfair.

We went to Swordfish for dinner, a steak-and-seafood restaurant with a huge window along one wall overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway that winds past Orange Cove. My dad had reserved a table right next to the window, although Peyton and Hannah grabbed the seats with a view, while my dad and I had our backs to the water. The waitress took our order. Dad and I ordered steaks, while Hannah and Peyton, after moaning about the calorie content of each and every entrée, ordered salads.

I couldn't help feeling a little smug. As much as I moan about my scrawny frame—I'm about as curvy as a plank of wood—it does have an upside: I can eat whatever I want, and I never gain weight. Sadie always tells me to enjoy it while I can. Apparently all of the women in our family are skinny right up until they hit thirty, at which point their metabolisms crap out on them.

“So, girls, tell us all about your first day of school,” Dad said brightly. Clearly he wanted this dinner to be Quality Time. I felt another stab of resentment. Did he really think one lousy dinner was going to make up for three years of neglect? Because if so, I had news for him: It
wouldn't
.

“Yes, Hannah, how were your classes?” Peyton asked, as though I didn't exist.

I thought I saw my dad frown at her a moment.

Hannah shrugged one pretty bare shoulder. “Fine, I guess. Boring mostly. I can't believe I got stuck with Meloni for English. He's the
worst
. He has waxy ears,
so
gross, and he wears the same pair of pants to school every single day.” Hannah snorted. “We call him ‘Same-Pants-New-Shirt Meloni.'”

Peyton let out a tinkly little laugh of appreciation for this witticism, but my father's frown deepened.

“I'm not sure—” he began.

But Peyton cut him off before he could complete his thought. “How are your friends, honey?” she asked Hannah. “Did Avery have a nice summer? She was in Maine, right?”

“Yeah. Her parents have a summer house there. Well, her mom does, anyway. Her parents are in the middle of a divorce, and I think her dad is under court order to stay away from Maine,” Hannah said.

Peyton's eyebrows shot up. “
Really
? The divorce is that contentious?” she asked, clearly eager to get all of the dirt.

Hannah nodded. “They were getting along for a while, but then Avery's dad piled all of her mom's shoes in the front yard, doused them with gasoline, and set fire to them.”

Peyton gasped in horror. “How is poor Avery handling it?” she asked.

Hannah rolled her eyes. “She's
thrilled
. Her parents are both totally sucking up to her, hoping she'll take their side in the divorce.”

Hannah launched into a detailed description of the car Avery's dad had given her for her sixteenth birthday to one-up the Prada handbag her mother had gifted her with. Having lost interest in this conversation, I glanced around at the other diners, wondering if any of them were as miserable as I was.

And that's when I saw him:
Emmett Dutch
. He was sitting two tables away, eating dinner with his parents. My mouth gaped open in surprise. And just then, just as I was ogling him, Emmett turned and looked right at me. As our eyes met, my heart lurched and then began to skitter around in my chest as though someone had just shocked me with CPR defibrillating paddles. We were actually making eye contact!

And then—I could hardly believe it—
he waved at me
. Okay, so it was more of a raised hand than an actual wave—he didn't waggle his fingers, for example, although I maintain that the finger waggle is highly overrated—but, even so, for the first time ever, Emmett Dutch was actually acknowledging my presence.

There were many things I could have done at that moment. The normal reaction would have been to smile and wave back. Or to mouth the word
hi
. Or to wink saucily. But did I do any of those things? No, I did not. Instead, I blushed…and looked away.

Emmett Dutch waved at me, and I
looked away
.

I sat there, staring down at the half-eaten crust of butter-smeared sourdough bread on my plate, feeling completely traumatized. Peyton was right…I was hopeless, so socially backward I shouldn't be allowed out in public to mingle freely with normal people.

“Miranda, are you all right?” my father asked me, interrupting Hannah's transparent attempt to talk her mother into buying her a car for her upcoming birthday. Not that it was taking much work. Peyton was happily discussing the pros and cons of having a beige leather interior versus chocolate brown leather.

“Fine,” I muttered.

When I finally had the nerve to look back up at Emmett, he was engrossed in a conversation with his parents. I don't know what they were talking about, but they were all laughing and chiming in, and looking like a typical happy family. If there was such a thing as a typical happy family. I certainly didn't have one. But then, it didn't look as though Emmett had an evil stepmother and stepsister to deal with, nor a mother who had deserted him.

“You have a sixteenth birthday coming up, too, Miranda,” my dad said.

I blinked up at him. Why were we talking about my birthday? “Not until February,” I said.

“That's not so far away.” My dad smiled at me. Apparently he was still trying to pretend that he was an interested, committed parent. I wondered how long he'd be able to keep up that act. “Is there anything you'd like for your sweet sixteen?”

“I don't know,” I said, shrugging. “I hadn't really thought about it.”

Actually, I had, and what I really wanted was a new laptop—mine made a weird grinding noise when it started up—but I didn't want to sound grabby. Then again, Hannah was angling for a new car, so compared to that, a laptop seemed like an almost modest request.

“How about a nose job?” Peyton suggested.

It took a long beat for her words to sink in.

“What?” I asked, sure I had misheard her.

“A nose job,” she said, enunciating the words.

“Peyton,” my father said warningly.

“What? Lots of girls get them. And I think it would do wonders for your face if your nose was a bit shorter, Miranda. And maybe they could do something about that bump.” She pointed vaguely at my nose.

I stared at her. I had been right all along…Peyton really
was
evil. And not just a little evil, but impressively evil. Like, so evil she probably had a dark altar hidden away somewhere in the house on which she sacrificed puppies to Satan.

But on the other hand…as awful as she was to suggest it, I
had
always secretly wanted a nose job. I know that it's superficial to fixate on your looks, and that surgically altering your appearance to comport with the rigid and narrow standards of modern beauty is a copout, but still. I've always hated my nose. It's just way, way too big for my face. In fact, my nose was so freakishly large, it apparently prompted people to spontaneously suggest I get plastic surgery.

“Peyton,” my father said again, and this time he sounded really annoyed. I glanced over at him, and was surprised to see he had that pinched-up expression he always gets when he's around my mom. “Miranda is
not
getting a nose job. She doesn't need one, and anyway, she's far too young.”

“No, she isn't. I had my nose done when I was sixteen,” Peyton argued.

Wait…Peyton had a nose job? I stared at her nose, which had always seemed a bit too pointy, and had a tendency to flare when she was angry. I wondered what it had looked like before, and had a sudden vivid image of Peyton with a hooked, wart-covered witch's nose. I quickly took a sip of Coke to cover my snort of laughter.

“Well, Miranda is too young,” my father said firmly. “Besides, her mother would never go along with the idea.”

Hmph,
I thought. Why should Sadie have any say? I think there should be a law that when a parent deserts her offspring to go live in Europe, she immediately surrenders any right to have input in decisions involving minor cosmetic procedures.

“Actually, I think I might like a nose job,” I said. A bit too loudly. Which wouldn't have been a big deal…except for the fact that Emmett Dutch had chosen that exact moment to appear at our table, standing just behind me.

“Hey, Miranda,” he said.

I spun around and stared up at Emmett. I had no idea that he actually knew my name. Discovering this delicious nugget of information was almost worth the mortification of him hearing my announcement that I wanted to have a nose job. Almost…but not quite. Because surely now every time Emmett saw me, all he'd be able to think about was my freakishly large nose. It's true. Finn said that whenever he tells someone he was born with a cleft palate, from then on they always stare at the surgical scar just over his mouth, as though trying to imagine what the birth defect must have looked like. So now Finn just tells everyone that the scar was caused by a freak fly-fishing accident.

I suddenly realized that Emmett was waiting for me to say something.

“Oh. Um. Hi,” I gabbled nervously. “You know my name?”

Oh, no. Please tell me I didn't just say that out loud,
I thought miserably.

“I'm here with my parents,” Emmett said, nodding over toward his mother and father's table. They were watching us with friendly interest, and so I waved feebly at them.

“Oh…cool,” I said. An awkward pause followed, during which I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

“Miranda, aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?” Peyton asked in her most fakey-nice tone. It was how she used to talk to me back when she and my dad were first dating, and she felt it was important to pretend to like me…a pretense she dropped as soon as they got married.

“Oh! Right. Sorry. This is, um, Emmett. And this is my dad, and my stepmother, Peyton, and that's Hannah,” I said, pointing to each in turn.

“Hi,” Emmett said, looking right at Hannah.

“Hey,” Hannah said. She tipped her head coyly to one side and began to wrap a sleek tendril of platinum blond hair around one finger.

Wait…why was Hannah looking at Emmett that way? Almost as if she were interested in…
Oh, no. No no no no no no no.

“Where do you go to school?” Emmett asked, still not taking his eyes off of Hannah.

“Orange Cove High,” Hannah said. She smiled, flashing her perfect white teeth. “Do you go to Miranda's school?”

“Yeah. Notting Hill,” Emmett said, nodding.

“That is
so
cool,” Hannah said. “You must be really smart.”

I couldn't help rolling my eyes at this. Hannah had never once let the subject of Geek High pass without making a comment about how only dorks and freaks go there.

But neither my dad nor Payton caught my eye roll. They were too busy beaming up at Emmett. Who, in turn, was beaming down at Hannah.

Oh, no no no no no no no!

But, I realized, my stomach sinking, there wasn't a chance that Emmett would ever look at Hannah and me standing side by side and choose me. She looked like she'd walked straight out of a shampoo commercial, whereas I was the girl who possessed a nose so large, it inspired discussions of rhinoplasty. Well, okay,
one
discussion, but still. Surely no one had ever told Hannah
she
needed plastic surgery.

“I almost sent Hannah to Notting Hill, but then decided that I'd prefer she have the experience of a more traditional school,” Peyton said.

I turned to stare at her. For one thing, I'd never heard this before. And for another, just that afternoon I'd overheard Hannah informing her friends that Chicago was (a) a state, and (b) located next to California. There was no way she'd ever have gotten into Geek High.