Populazzi (2 page)

"My God, Claudia, when did you do all this?"

"You were busy packing; I had time on my hands." She scooted next to me to read over my shoulder.

"The whole book is filled with evidence," she said. "Tons of situations where the Ladder led to success. Like in the musical
Evita
—how does Eva Peron go from poor villager to First Lady of Argentina? The Ladder. Or
Cinderella
—a million different Cinderella stories from a million different places in the world and a million different points in history turn a scullery maid into royalty. How? The Ladder. And it's in real life, too! Would anyone care about Yoko Ono's art or music if it weren't for John Lennon? Would anyone care about Sharon Osbourne's opinion if she weren't married to Ozzy?"

"Since when did you play Carnegie Hall with Yo-Yo Ma?" I had just flipped to a perfectly Photoshopped picture of them on the famous stage, their heads bent over their instruments in twin concentration.

"Metaphorical Ladder," Claudia explained. "Happens in music and sports all the time. You always want to practice with people just a little better than you so they pull you up to their level."

I smiled at Claudia's implication that Yo-Yo Ma was only a little better than she was at the cello. A lack of confidence had never been one of Claudia's issues, and she seemed
extremely
confident about this Ladder idea. I had to admit it sounded intriguing. And going into Chrysella with a specific mission would certainly be less intimidating than just being myself and nervous and shy and hoping that people would see through to the real, fun, fascinating me.

Still, I had major doubts that I could pull it off. "I don't know, Claude..."

"You can do this, Cara," she said, leaning in close. "I know you can. And you won't be doing it just for yourself; you'll be doing it for me, too. For everyone who has ever felt like a misfit, or was ever picked on, or laughed at, or treated like they weren't good enough. You can prove we're no different than the Supreme Populazzi by becoming one of them. And you can do it with the help of the Ladder."

Claudia believed every word she was saying ... and in that moment I almost did, too. I wanted to believe it. If I did, then maybe starting a new school didn't have to be scary at all. It could be a chance to make a statement, to show something to the world, even if Claudia and I were the only ones who ever knew about it.

But was it really possible?

As if reading my thoughts, Claudia rose and walked to my night table, where a small replica of the Liberty Bell sat next to an unopened pack of Tastykakes. She put one hand on the replica and looked into my eyes. "This will work, Cara. I swear it will work."

She was swearing on the Bell. It wasn't something we did lightly.

For just a second I let myself really imagine it: me walking down the halls of a brand-new school with a huge smile on my face, completely at ease and at home. Me: the Supreme Populazzi.

"Okay," I said. "I'll do it."

Four days later it was September 7, and I was about to walk into a school where I knew absolutely no one. I told myself it would be fine. I was strong, confident, and fearless.

I reached for the door handle ... and panicked.

My cell phone chirped with a text from Claudia. "
Fear not, C—the Deer Friends are with you!
"

I laughed out loud. It was a reference to Shakespeare. In
Henry V
before the battle of Agincourt, the king stirs up his troops by shouting, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more." But when Claudia heard it and told me about it in second grade, she thought it was "
deer
friends," which made us think a team of ferociously loyal woodland creatures was rallying behind King Henry to power him through. We liked the image; whenever we faced a challenge, we imagined the Deer Friends were along to help us out.

I may have been in an unfamiliar place, but I wasn't alone. Claudia was with me. And we were on a mission. I pulled open the door to Chrysella Prep, found my locker, then strolled down the halls with purpose, constantly taking pictures and video clips with my phone and sending them to Claude. I had to be subtle about it: even though cell phones were allowed before and after school, I'd score major dork points if anyone noticed.

Despite its seemingly normal brochure, I expected Chrysella to feel like a strange alien planet. It didn't. I already saw familiar representatives from every tier of the Popularity Tower. It was kind of comforting.

"I feel a great disturbance in the Force."

Uh-oh. I wheeled around to see a guy with his eyes closed and his fingers to his temple, not only quoting
Star Wars
in casual conversation but doing so while dressed in a floor-length, hooded brown cloak. "You must be new," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Robert Schwarner."

Leave it to me. The first person I meet at my new school and he's a Happy Hopeless, the very basement of the Popularity Tower. Happy Hopeless are so socially out of it, they don't even know the Tower exists, so they don't notice or care about their less-than-stellar position on it.

Robert may have been a perfectly nice guy, but hanging out with him on my first morning would be instant social suicide. Claudia would be horrified. I quickly shook his hand, then excused myself and moved on. As I did, I checked out the throngs on the next Tower tier: the Cubby Crews. Little groups so into their own thing that they geek out on it, and everyone assumes that's all they're about.

Of course, not all Cubby Crews are created equal. Some barely rank above the Happy Hopeless, while others are only that little bit of cachet away from being Populazzi.

At Pennsbrook, Claudia and I were a lower-echelon Cubby Crew. Even though we were always up for hanging out with other people, everyone assumed we weren't, so they pretty much stayed away. The more they stayed away, the closer we got and the more inside jokes we had, so the harder it was for anyone else to break in. Eventually they stopped trying.

Picking out the individual Cubby Crews was easy.

The low-key guys and girls in jeans and ironic T-shirts chatting and laughing easily with the faculty? The Geniuses.

The proud eccentrics in bizarro clothes talking in goofy voices with huge full-body gestures? The Theater Geeks.

The polished fashion-forwards who reeked of cigarettes and breath mints, sipped lattes, and gave a running catty commentary on everyone around them? The Cosmopolitans.

The stringy-haired, glazed-eyed androgynes with no books who sat against the wall leaning heavily on one another? The Wasteoids.

There were other Cubby Crews, too, including ones without titles—scattered partnerships, trios, and quads that were clearly islands unto themselves. Yet all of these moved out of the way when a lone guy strode down the hall.

If they hadn't moved, I think he'd have plowed right through them without even realizing it. He was the hottest guy I'd ever seen, but I got the sense he didn't care about that kind of thing. His eyes were a million miles away, and his long black trench coat and the guitar case slung over his shoulder seemed totally out of place, like they belonged to another era. He was different, but he was no outcast. He had a force field of cool around him. People went silent when he got close, then stared and whispered after he passed.

I snapped a picture and sent it to Claudia with the text "
DZ?
"

"
DZ!!!
" she shot back.

DZ stood for DangerZone, the next tier on the Popularity Tower. DangerZones can pull off the "different" thing because they're so dark, troubled, and fascinating. It's tough to call DangerZones popular. They're above labels like that. They do whatever they want, and all the others—from the Happy Hopeless to the Supreme Populazzi—feel honored if a DangerZone wants to talk to them.

I turned away so the DangerZone wouldn't see me watching him ... and was almost blinded by the glow of the uppermost tier on the Tower: the Populazzi. I saw them through a large picture window. The Populazzi lazed among the branches of a sprawling oak tree, basking in the leaf-filtered sun. It had to be the best spot on campus, and I wasn't surprised they'd claimed it. They were the Golden Ones: beautiful, confident, and admired.

I snapped a picture of them and sent it to Claudia. At Pennsbrook, she and I had criticized the Populazzi a lot. They were too cliquey, too judge-y, and way too tyrannical about keeping the rest of us stuck in our spots on the Tower...

...and I'd be lying if I didn't admit we totally wanted to be them.

Okay, maybe not them
exactly,
but we wanted to be in their position. Who wouldn't? They sat around their tree, on display for the whole school to see, yet none of them looked the slightest bit self-conscious. In fact, they radiated ease and happiness. Going through life like that ... it would be like living a fairy tale.

Of course, the problem with all the Populazzi we'd ever known was that they'd been born into the fairy tale, so they didn't appreciate it. The people who'd make great Populazzi were people like Claudia and me. We knew the other side, so we'd recognize how good we had it and wouldn't be harsh to anyone on other tiers.

As I continued watching the Populazzi, I noticed one girl stood out more than the others. She sat on the lowest branch of the tree. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair had beautiful waves and highlights that I swear seemed to sparkle in the sun. Perfectly white teeth beamed out of her sun-bronzed face, and her cowl neck white sleeveless top and jeans looked both casually thrown together and catalog-model flawless.

I'd spent hours figuring out my own look for the first day of school and had felt really good about my mop of brown curls tucked behind a funky headband, my cute new jeans, my ballet flats, and a fun textured vest over a basic tank. But watching this girl, I felt ridiculous, like I was trying way too hard and looked dorky anyway.

I wasn't the only one looking at her. All the other Populazzi girls kept darting their eyes her way, as if checking in to make sure she approved of what they were saying, doing, and thinking. That settled it: the girl was the Supreme Populazzi. The others were Penultimates. And if she was the female Supreme Populazzi, it stood to reason that the guy next to her with his arm slung over her shoulders was her boyfriend, the male Supreme Populazzi. He wore preppy-cool clothes, and his hair was short, dark, and wavy, brushed back from his face, and ... Uh-oh...

He was looking right at me.

The guy's face scrunched up. He tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder and pointed to me. She turned and squinched her face like she smelled something nasty.

Why was I still staring at them???

I dropped to my knees so I was below their sight line and crawled away from the picture window. My phone chirped. Claudia had cropped my earlier picture so it showed just the male Supreme Populazzi. "
Say hello 2 your prom date!!!
" her text read.

"Yeah, right," I muttered, and kept crawling as the bell rang. I was almost clear of the window, when—

"Ow!"

I had crawled right into a pair of khaki-clad shins. And they were hard.

"Oh—sorry," a confused male voice said. I looked up. The khakis were attached to one of the Theater Geeks. I recognized him because he wore a gray 1920s Gatsby hat. He frowned and cocked his head as he studied me for a second, then asked, "I'm sorry, are you ... crawling to class?"

"No, I..." I went for the obvious. "I lost a contact lens."

"Oooh." Gatsby Hat winced. "Been there. Let me help you." He dropped to his knees and started poring over the floor. The halls had already emptied out. We were both going to be late, but he was clearly a true Samaritan and was not going to give up until he helped me find my lens ... which didn't exist.

I sat back on my knees. "I don't wear contacts."

Gatsby Hat peeked up at me from his position on all fours. "You don't?"

I shook my head. "I ... I'm new here."

"I see," he said. "And at your old school you crawled everywhere?"

I sighed. How exactly was I going to explain this to him? Then I saw his sly half smile and realized I didn't need to.

"Yes," I said, "we did. It was an underground school. Literally underground. Tunnels everywhere. Very low ceilings. They said it was once part of the Underground Railroad."

"Ah," Gatsby Hat said. "Sounds very edifying."

"Very. 'Experiential Education,' they called it."

"'Experimental Experiential Education,' no doubt," he said.

"Exactly."

Gatsby Hat and I smiled, taking goofy delight in our mutual powers of alliteration. Then he sat up and held out his hand to help me.

"My name's Archer," he said, "and we're both very late for class. What do you have first period?"

"Cara." I of course responded to the question he
didn't
ask. Oops. "My
name's
Cara. First period I have..." I rummaged through my funkadelic brown and orange paisley messenger bag until I found my schedule. "English. Mr. Woodward. Room ten."

"Me too. We're lucky; he's the best in the school. I'll walk you there. Or we could crawl, if it makes you feel more comfortable."

"That's okay. I think I'm getting used to the standing-erect thing." Like an idiot I blushed. I waited for Archer to pounce on it.

He didn't, though he did raise an eyebrow and smirk almost imperceptibly before leading me down the hall.

Claudia had
way
too much faith in me. I could already imagine my next journal entry. "I really thought this would be the year everything changed, but even though the place is new, Cara Leonard is exactly the same."

"My reputation precedes me," Mr. Woodward boomed as Archer and I tried to sneak in. "You were afraid to enter my class. You were wise."

The room tittered as we sat, and Mr. Woodward retreated to a closet. He pulled out a two-foot-long billy club. Archer gave me a knowing look. He had told me Mr. Woodward was infamous for this: "the Bat." No one knew what the Bat was for or what horrors it could unleash, but it was legend. A chill ran down my spine and my palms started to sweat. Was he taking out the Bat because Archer and I were late?