Sticks & Stones (4 page)

I leaned back in my seat and watched Mr. Todd while he kept talking for what felt like years. His longish hair flopped around when he moved, which was a lot. Mr. Todd was almost as excited about this as we were.

I started paying attention again right as he said, “I'll be conducting interviews in early October with the students who have the best attendance and grades between now and then, and the selection process will continue from there. One lucky student will be guaranteed a free pass into this interview round…” He paused and smiled like he had a secret. “And that's the student who wins the brief competition we're going to have right now. Students, please make your way to the stage.”

What? My whole body felt tingly as the room began to buzz again. This was supposed to be a meeting, not a contest. I knew there would be contests, of course—everyone knew there would be contests. But no one had said they were going to start tonight.

I caught Jeg's eye as I stumbled my way up to the stage. She didn't want to be Explorer Leader, but she had come to the meeting anyway to hang out with me—or maybe to hang out with Snotty Ami. It was a little hard to tell, if I was being honest. But the place
was
packed—maybe they didn't sit together on purpose. Maybe Snotty Ami had to grab any old seat she could get, and it happened to be that one.

Once we were all assembled on the stage, Mr. Todd turned back to the audience. “Being the Explorer Leader can be challenging at times. The student will get tired, frustrated, and downright crabby. But he or she must remember that this is a job worth having and fighting for. Tonight, we'll see who wants it the most. Students, upon my go, you will lift one foot in the air and hold the position as long as you can. The winner of this competition will be guaranteed a spot in the next round of the process that will lead to the selection of this year's Explorer Leader.”

“Go, Elyse! You can do it!” shouted a way-too-familiar voice from the audience.

I refused to make eye contact with Mom and hoped with all my heart that everyone would think there was just some random lady in the audience cheering for me, a lady I didn't know at all who didn't have, like, twenty-eight thousand varieties of gross prescription anti-itch cream stashed in her purse in case of an emergency.

“Students ready?” Mr. Todd asked. “Oh, and, folks, please note that flash photography
is
permitted in our theater!” He grinned. Yes, this was hilarious. Let's totally embarrass kids and then invite people to record it. “Get set … go!”

And with that, we were off. I lifted my right foot slightly up off the stage floor. Okay, this wasn't so bad. I could do this. It was just standing. I did that all the time.

“Just so you know, I take dance and gymnastics,” Snotty Ami hissed in my ear. “I could do this all night.”

I ignored her and turned my body to the side.
Concentrate.
The seconds went by, and legs began to drop one by one. Kevin wobbled around for a minute before falling, and then a few other people lost their balance, too. My leg had grown a little heavy, but not heavy enough that I'd let it fall. Not heavy enough to give up this chance for nonstop compliments. I'd made it this long; I'd keep going.

Nice Andy flashed me a humongous grin, the kind where you could see all his teeth, even the big ones way back in his mouth. He looked like a statue, totally frozen in place.

A few more legs fell.
Don't get excited. Stay calm. Focus.

My eyes wandered out to the crowd. Mom had her phone out and was probably taking a video of me to put online. So embarrassing. Liam sat a few rows behind my parents with some soccer-team guys and their families, and I could've been imagining it, but it definitely looked like he was smiling at me. Maybe he was thinking about how he had made a mistake, how he still thought my words were the cool kind of weird, and how we could totally go out again and hold hands in the hallway and do all those other romantic things people do when they're going out.

I forced myself to look away, though it sure wasn't easy.
No distractions. And absolutely no lurchy heart.
Not right now.

The time crawled on and on until I was convinced it was midnight.

“Ah!” Francheska fell to the side. She grabbed on to JaShawn, who grabbed on to Layla, who grabbed on to Elijah, who made them all fall down like a stack of dominoes.

Now it was down to Snotty Ami, Nice Andy, and, somehow, me. The crowd roared like we were in an epic battle for an Olympic gold medal.

“Wow!” Nice Andy whispered in his usual overly happy voice. “You're really good at this! Too bad I'm going to win!” He jumped up and down a few times as if to prove how talented he was at standing on one foot. But then, in only a split second, Nice Andy tripped over his own shoelace and landed in a heap on the floor. Everyone clapped politely.

“Whoops!” he said, laughing as he got up.

“And then there were two!” hollered Mr. Todd.

The Loud Crowd practically flew up to the stage.

“You got this, Ami!” Paige squealed.

“C'mon, girl!” Lindsey shrieked. She leaned in close. “You can't get beaten by a loser.”

I squeaked as
LOSER
sprang up on my knee through my leggings.

“Oh, oops,” Lindsey said, as if she'd just remembered she wasn't supposed to say stuff like that. “I was just kidding. It was, like, a funny loser, not a real one. Sorry.”

She didn't sound very sorry.

I shot Jeg a look at the same time and couldn't help but notice her plain black hair. Snotty Ami worked fast; the pink streaks were all gone. It was like they had never even existed.

I hopped up and down on one foot in a circle, hoping that the hopping motion would somehow make
LOSER
go away. When all my hobbling around didn't make it better, I tried to reach down and scratch my knee without falling over. I probably looked like I was trying—and failing—to do that sprinkler dance that my dad always did when I had friends over.

I didn't have friends over too much these days.

“Oh, you want a dance-off?” Snotty Ami said. Before I knew what was happening, she was jumping up, spinning in a circle, and landing perfectly on one foot. “It's on.”

I pretended I hadn't noticed any of it and kept my gaze focused into the audience straight ahead.

“Hey, El.” Jeg came closer to me. “You're doing great.”

“Thanks,” I whispered. Then she moved past me and scooted over to join the Loud Crowd's clump.
Huh?

LOSER
itched again, making me feel awful. And if that wasn't bad enough,
DORK
and
PATHETIC
prickled my skin, too, like they were feeling left out and wanted some attention. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on breathing and forgetting about the itchy words.

It didn't work.

At. All.

Why is it that when you try to forget something, you only end up thinking about it more?

I really was
PATHETIC
. It had to be true. Otherwise Snotty Ami would want to be my friend like she wanted to be Jeg's friend. Otherwise Jeg wouldn't have gone to stand by the cool people instead of by me.

My whole body itched, even though only a couple of words were ruining it for the rest of me. It stung. Everything stung.

But it didn't have to.
If the blue-note writer was right, I could be a really good Explorer Leader, and being Explorer Leader could be really good for me. As an added bonus, it sounded like it would make me really busy. Too busy to think about Liam, Jeg, Snotty Ami, or myself. And if I couldn't think about myself, then I definitely couldn't think about how pathetic I was.

And that was exactly what I needed.

Snotty Ami nudged me with her elbow, reminding me that I was still on a stage in front of everyone, fighting for a shot at something that might really make the itches go away forever.

“Give up yet, nerd?” she whispered.

NERD
pinched my skin. I swallowed hard and stumbled back a little. Between
NERD
,
DORK
,
LOSER
, and
PATHETIC
all trying to out-itch each other, I was getting a little wobbly. I rolled my foot in circles and then hobbled around the stage, but it was no use. I was a doomed Jenga tower, leaning sideways until I had toppled over all the way to the floor.

“And that's a wrap!” Mr. Todd hollered like he was announcing the final score of the Super Bowl. “Congratulations, Ami, you've made it one step closer to being the Explorer Leader! You have a guaranteed pass into the next round. And great job to all participants! Have a wonderful night, folks, and drive safe.”

I didn't get up. Everything itched too much for me to move a muscle.

From my spot on the floor, I felt Snotty Ami's snotty footsteps snottily sauntering away. The Loud Crowd followed her, giggling at the top of their lungs like they had some super-hilarious inside joke that regular people would never understand. Jeg paused for a second, stopping to look back at me. And just as I thought she was about to come over and help me up, she turned the other way and left.

She waved first.

But still.

She left.

“You okay down there? You did a great job, sweetie. That was a tough competition.” Of course, I couldn't just lie here by myself for a minute. Mom stood over me, her ginormous purse in one hand and a life-size bottle of lotion in the other.

“Grrmrmrrrugh,” I said, which meant
Of course I'm not okay! Does it
look
like I'm okay?
But Mom took it to mean,
Please roll up my sleeves and slather me with the smelliest anti-itch cream
ever
and totally embarrass me in front of everyone who's still here.

“It's okay, sweetie,” she said. “Right?” She elbowed Dad in the stomach. “You can still get the job. And you should be really proud of yourself for how long you lasted up there. Second place is fantastic!”

“Right.” Dad glanced up from his phone for about a millisecond. “You did … you were … Hey, just think about something else for now. The average person eats thirty-five thousand cookies in their lifetime. That's pretty interesting stuff, don't you think?”

I answered with an eye roll. Cookies are awesome. Talking about cookies right this second? Not so much.

“You did a great job, Elyse,” said Nice Andy. He was the only person left on the stage who wasn't related to me.

Yeah, so great,
I thought sarcastically.
That's why I look like a ghost right now because of all this cream.

Nice Andy, Mom, and Dad all smiled these huge, wide smiles at me that kinda made me want to cry more.
A whole bunch of other people lost, too,
I wanted to remind them. Why couldn't they go smile at someone else?

I knew they were just trying to be nice. And I liked nice, usually. I
needed
nice.

Times like this—when I'm surrounded by smiles I don't deserve—always made me think about chocolate frosting, for some reason. I ate a whole container of it once. It was the most amazing thing, at first. But after a while, it just made my stomach hurt.

That's how it was with me. People were either too mean or too nice. The only
real
people, the people who always acted good and normal, were Jeg and Liam. And now Liam was gone and Jeg was— Well, I didn't know what she was, but she wasn't here.

But maybe if I got Explorer Leader, she and Liam would give me some good words.

Slowly, I let Nice Andy pull me up.

I'd lost, but it wasn't over.

 

8

NICE ANDY

Nice Andy and I had become friends on the first day of kindergarten, when Dr. Patel came to my class during show-and-tell and talked about CAV. After everything that had happened in preschool, Mom and Dad thought it would be a good idea for him to come talk to the kids in my class, and I totally agreed that it was the most awesome idea ever. A real live person for show-and-tell totally beat a stuffed animal or a light-up race car or any of the other stuff people brought in, no contest. He told the class how CAV made a person very special, but sometimes you had to be careful around special things.

“Can we see it happen?” Liam had asked.

Dr. Patel looked at me, and I nodded. The class was pretty new to show-and-tell, but everyone already knew that you couldn't bring something amazing and then refuse to show how it worked. “Elyse is awesome!” he said.

The letters popped up on my wrist one by one.
A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
The entire class oohed and aahed. Best. Show-and-tell. Ever.

And then everyone started talking at once, and soon I was completely covered.
AMAZING. COOL. PRETTY. SUPER-DUPER. FUN. GREAT.

Words popped up all over my arms and legs, and since you never know where on my arm or leg one will appear, my body suddenly became like a scavenger hunt. Kids jumped out of their seats to run around me in circles and point at things.

“I found
FUN
!” someone hollered from behind me. The word was right below my knee.

“
COOL
is over here!” Someone grabbed my arm and held it up for everyone to see. I laughed along with the group. Kindergarten was the best.

“Calm down,” our teacher said. “Remember, Elyse is not a toy!” And then she said, in a very scary voice, that anyone who chose to call me a bad name would face serious consequences.

“Like no stickers?” Nice Andy asked, horrified.

“Like no stickers. Among other things.”

And then the party ended a little bit, because we had forgotten all about the whole bad-words aspect of my amazing show-and-tell, and everyone got kinda depressed over the thought of no stickers ever again. Our teacher had given us really amazing scratch-and-sniff ones that morning, so it wasn't really a risk anyone wanted to take.