How To Be A Perfect Girl (28 page)

“Who, me? No, Miss Andrews loves me; her and
I, we go all the way back to freshman year. The first time I failed
Drawing.”

Sophia giggled, “How do you fail
Drawing?”

“It’s quite easy,
actually. If you refuse to follow any of the rules and if, like me,
you never learned to color inside the lines. Speaking of which,”
Miro looked pointedly at the butterfly Val was attempting to draw,
“
You
definitely
need to redraw that wing. It looks like a duck’s bill.”

“No it doesn’t!” Val argued, “Besides, it’s
an, uh, impressionistic drawing.” Sophia and Miro laughed.

“Ooh, good one,” Miro smiled, “Mind if I
take that? Next time Miss Andrews yells at me for a mistake, just
be all like ‘No, no, it’s impressionistic.’”

Val shrugged, “Go for it.”

“He has a point,” Sophia said, “I’d erase
the whole thing and just draw it again. Look at its body too—you
made the left side a totally different size from the right. It
looks like a zombie-moth or something.”

Val stuck her tongue out at her friend,
“Maybe I was trying to draw a zombie-moth.”

“Oh, well—good job then.”

“Just kidding, I was trying to draw a
butterfly. Here, can you help me?”

“Help you how?” Sophia asked. “You mean draw
it for you?”

“No, just—maybe the outline?”

“I don’t think so. Sorry.”

Miss Andrews, who was walking around the
class, stopped behind Val; she made a coughing noise, “That is
a—hmm, a most interesting piece. You plan on revising it, I
hope?”

“Yeah, of course.”
Or at least, I definitely am now.

The bespectacled teacher moved on, leaving
Val to concentrate on her work; the conversation faltered as Sophia
and Miro focused on their drawings as well. The three of them spent
the rest of the hour in near silence, which Val found soothing;
even though she barely managed to improve her butterfly by the time
the passing period bell rang, it was nice to work in relative
solitude.

After an all-too-short lunch, Val had
English. Miss Donnely assigned every student a role in the upcoming
party scene reenactment. “Miss Hunter, you’ll be Juliet. And for
Romeo, our own resident literary extraordinaire, Mister
Clarke.”

Panic filled Val; “Hang on, can I trade
roles with someone?” she asked quickly.

“Why would you possibly want to trade
roles?” Miss Donnely asked.

“I just—I don’t want to—“
Val tried to think of a nice way to say
I
don’t want to kiss Aiden
; she finally
settled on, “I’m not comfortable kissing someone I don’t know very
well.”

Miss Donnely smiled kindly, “Ah, I see. Of
course. I didn’t expect you two to kiss—you can come up with some
other interaction.”

“Like what?”

“I have no idea, but I’m sure that whatever
you choose to do will be—inspired.”

Val snorted, “Uh huh.”

Miss Donnely turned her gaze upon Aiden,
“Mister Clarke, do you have any solutions?”

“I say we just kiss, but put our hands in
the way. That’s what some actors do,” Aiden suggested.

“Miss Hunter?”

Val shrugged, “I guess that would be fine.
But—oh whatever. Fine, let’s do that.”

Miss Donnely, considering
the problem solved, continued assigning roles; she filled the
period with a description of what the reenactment would be like,
much of which seemed to amount to nothing more than wishful
thinking.
Unless she really thinks we’re
all gonna make our own costumes,
Val
mused.

Mr. Phillips had apparently granted Jenny’s
request to move tables at last, because when Val arrived in
Chemistry she sat down in her usual seat near Keenan and Mason was
sitting in Jenny’s old spot. “Hey, I know you!” he said, “You’re
the girl in my Flag Football class, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, I didn’t even know you were in this
class,” something about the way he said it made Val doubt the
veracity of his statement.

“I’ve been here since the beginning of the
semester,” Val replied, “I was the girl who freaked when I got the
soap on my arm.”

Mason laughed, “Oh yeah, I remember
that.”

Keenan walked in just before the bell, “Hey
babe.”

“Hey,” Val returned the greeting.

“So I was wondering—Alex invited you to his
party, right?”

Val nodded.

“Cool. Well I was just thinking—we could go
as a couple. I’d pick you up, and Porter could take us—he’s going
too.” Keenan smiled, as if it were the greatest idea of the
century.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Val hesitated, wary of
accepting any offer that would place her in the same room as
Porter, much less the same car.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. And after,” Keenan
leaned in close to whisper in Val’s ear while Mr. Phillips launched
in on the day’s lesson, “We could go back to my place. My mom is
going to some conference or something, and Porter’s cool—he’d
totally leave us alone.”

“What if your mom gets back early though?”
Val asked.

Keenan shrugged, “My room’s got a lock. We
can just pretend we closed the door to study or something.”

Val came up with a dozen
more problems with the plan—potentially awkward scenarios or minute
details that she tried to make seem way worse than they really
were—but Keenan had a solution for every one she brought up.
Finally, Val realized she would either have to discuss Porter’s
recent coolness towards her or agree to Keenan’s plan. The former
was a conversation she wasn’t prepared to have, so Val resigned
herself to the eventuality of having to get a ride from Porter to
Alex’s party; M
aybe he’ll realize how
stupid his silent game is and give it up.

Without Jenny to shush them, Val and Keenan
talked all period. She looked at her notes at the end of class, and
felt a pang of regret; they barely filled half a page.

“So what?” Keenan commented when Val
mentioned her meager notes, “That’s more than enough to do well on
the test. I bet you there’ll be maybe one question from today on
there.” As always, Val was envious of her boyfriend’s
nonchalance.

Wednesday was the second of Student Gov’s
two normal meeting days; Val hoped Avery wouldn’t be there—or,
failing that, that Avery would ignore her and forget about any
revenge she was planning against Val.

“So, any ideas for Homecoming?” Val asked as
she sat in her usual spot beside Alex and near the Trio; Jenny
hadn’t arrived yet.

“Yeah,” Zoey replied; she pulled a garish
pink notebook out of her backpack. “I looked up Irish Gods, and
there are some cool ones: Morrigan, the goddess of battle, strife
and fertility, Airitech, mother of werewolves, Dagda, who rules
over life and death, and Rosmerta, the goddess of fire. I think
they could be our four.”

Val nodded, “That might be cool. I was
talking with Colin though—he’s a junior—and he suggested that we
could do, like, Irish mythical creatures. Like leprechauns and
fairies and druids. If the Irish had werewolves, we could do those
too.”

“Ooh, good idea,” Alex broke in, “I hope we
get werewolves!”

“Werewolves!” Sophia shook her head, “I
wanna be fairies.”

“What? Why?” Alex asked the pair of
questions like the idea of being a fairy, even for the week leading
up to the Homecoming Assembly, was the most distasteful thought he
could fathom, “Werewolves are ferocious. Fairies are just—gay.”

“Fairies are pretty,” Sophia argued.

“If you say so. But that’s not the point. We
don’t want to be pretty, we want to be ferocious. I vote
werewolves.”

“Well it doesn’t matter,” Val said, “Cause
we’re the only class that doesn’t get to choose, remember?” She
felt a cold hand on her back.

“Hey fellow representatives, how’s your
Homecoming planning going?” Avery asked; Val fought the urge to shy
away from her enemy’s hand.

“Pretty well,” Zoey replied.

“Yeah,” Ella agreed, “We’ve already decided
on a theme!”

“Oh?” Avery smiled at Val, “And what would
that be?”

“Irish—stuff,” Ella answered, less than
eloquently.

“Irish stuff,” Avery repeated slowly, “Pray
tell, whose idea was that?”

“Val’s,” Sophia replied.

“Val’s,” Avery turned to face her; Val could
feel Avery’s breath on her face, “You thought ‘Irish stuff’ would
be a good Homecoming theme?”

“Yeah. Cause our school colors are green and
gold, which seems Irish to me.”

Avery laughed, “Oh, I’m
gonna enjoy watching how this plays out. If you screw up the
Assembly and Dance—
when
you screw up the Assembly and Dance—there are going to be a
lot of angry people.” She left before Val could reply.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do Irish stuff,” Zoey
suggested.

“Just because Avery doesn’t like an idea
doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea,” Grant pointed out.

“Good point,” Alex agreed, “Let’s take a
vote. Who wants to stick with Val’s theme?” The Trio, excepting
Zoey, raised their hands, and so did Grant, Alex, and Val. “And
who’s opposed?” Alex asked; Jenny, Zoey, and Aiden and Noah—who
were seated on the very edge of the freshman table—raised their
hands.

“Five to four,” Val totaled, “Looks like we
stick with the Irish theme. And let’s take a vote on the mascot
choices; who wants to go with the gods Zoey looked up?” There were
two votes, from Zoey and Jenny. “Who wants to have our mascots be
mythical creatures, like Colin suggested?” Everyone else at the
table voted for the second option. “Good, so we can get to work on
that. Should we announce it to everyone else?”

Alex nodded, “Yeah, you should.”

“I should? Why me?”

Alex laughed, “Because you’re the freshman
class President silly. You’re supposed to be our spokesperson.”
Jenny coughed loudly.

“Alright,” Val nervously climbed up on the
stage, “Can I have everyone’s attention?” It took a minute for the
cafeteria to quiet down; the process was helped when Grant shouted,
“Quiet!”

Once the remaining whispering had stopped,
Val cleared her throat and made her announcement, “We—we being the
freshmen—have just decided on the Homecoming theme. We’re going
with an Irish theme, because of our school’s colors and because it
hasn’t been done before. For the mascots, we chose to do mythical
creatures; so, werewolves, druids, fairies, and—um,” Val frowned at
the floor as she tried to think of the last one.

“Leprechauns,” Alex whispered, loudly enough
Val could hear.

“Oh yeah, and leprechauns.” Val took a deep
breath, “So, I guess we decide who wants what mascot now--?”

Avery stood from her seat at one of the
senior’s two tables, “That’s right. We’ll decide first. Give us a
minute to talk it over.” Val stayed where she was while the seniors
whispered about what they wanted to be and finally put the matter
to a vote. “We’ll take werewolves,” Avery announced, “Juniors?”

They repeated the same process twice; the
juniors chose leprechauns and the sophomores druids, leaving Val
and the freshmen with fairies. Sophia and Val seemed to be the only
ones who were alright with the result; “I wanted to be werewolves,”
Noah complained.

Avery skipped to the front of the stage; Val
envied the way the cafeteria quieted when it became apparent the
senior was about to talk. “Now that we all have our mascots, it’s
time to compose our class songs. This has taken a while in the
past, so don’t be the Student Gov group that lets your class down
by not finishing. Select a pop song to put your lyrics to, and run
it by Raelyn or myself for approval. Looking at the time—“ Avery
looked up at the big clock hanging on the cafeteria wall, “It’s
about time to finish. I’ll see you all next week; if you think of a
song between today and Monday, and it absolutely can’t wait, run it
by your class representative and they’ll ask me if it will be
okay.” Val couldn’t help but be amazed at the way Avery spoke to
the assembled group; it was as if she were a normal person, with
normal responsibilities and no hint of the abundant avarice Val
knew was hidden just below the surface.

Chapter 19

Algebra was nearly always a tiresome way to
start the day; Thursday’s class was no exception. Val found herself
wishing the hour would be over; even though she didn’t want to deal
with Porter’s silent treatment again, being outside was more fun
than sitting inside listening to Miss Stevens lecture. The hour
seemed to drag on, but finally the bell rang; Val felt like
cheering.

The team Mr. Sharp had paired against Val’s
was better than the freshmen they’d faced Tuesday. Porter didn’t
pass to Val, and after two trips down the field she got tired of
it; “Should I just go sit down?” She asked angrily, “Because you
obviously don’t need me.”

“No we don’t,” Porter shot back, “And I’m
not going to sabotage the game just because of your incessant need
to be the center of attention.”

“I don’t have an incessant need to be the
center of attention!”

Porter sighed and turned away from the
football he’d been about to hike; “Yes you do. You’re an annoying
brat.”

“Excuse me?”

Porter worked his jaw, “You’re just an
attention whore, and you can’t play football worth a damn. It’s a
wonder you’re on the soccer team; they probably let you on just to
fill their dumb blonde quota.”

Val swallowed back the tears coming to her
eyes, “They didn’t,” she protested quietly.

“Val, don’t you get it? I don’t care about
you—no one here does. Why don’t you just go play with your retarded
Gentry friends and leave us alone?”

The words stung, even
though Val told herself they weren’t true, “Porter, why are you
being so mean?” The members of both teams had stopped play, and Val
felt their eyes on her;
mustn’t cry,
she told herself.