Too Cool for This School (2 page)

The gymnasium door burst open again.
Slam!
And the small fifth grader, the one who’d bumped me, came running out like she was being chased by a pack of killers.

“Did you win?” Derek asked.

But she didn’t stick around to answer. Then, before we had a chance to talk about her, another girl raced out of the gym. And she looked weird. Like she was covered in glitter.

“Maybe
she
won,” I said. “Do they glitter bomb you if you win?”

A seventh-grade girl frowned and smoothed her long brown hair. “I hope not. Do you know how hard it is to shampoo glitter out of your hair?”

I did not. My hair was medium long and brown and not terribly thick. I had a tough time making it stay in a ponytail. Plus, I hadn’t used glitter since kindergarten.

“Neither of them won,” Paulette Feeley said with complete certainty.

We all turned to look at her. How could she possibly know that?

Coral looked surprised but offered her own explanation. “I guess their faces did look really freaked out.”

Coral was right. And I made a mental note that whether I won or lost, I would not let my face look too freaked out.

Leslie appeared at the door. “We’re ready for the sixth graders.”

My whole body felt hot and uncertain. “What happened to the other fifth grader?” I asked as I shuffled along behind Paulette and Coral. It was as if the third girl had been vaporized.

“I’m pretty sure winners exit out the back,” Paulette said.

Paulette seemed to know a lot about how this top-secret process worked.

I wasn’t the only person who noticed this. The energy surrounding the competition shifted from excitement to high-stakes tension the minute we entered the gymnasium. As soon as the door clicked closed, Leslie and Robin spun around and began scrutinizing us with their eyes.

“This has never happened before,” Leslie said, pointing a purply-polished fingertip at Coral.

Robin took one step toward us and angrily waved her hand, which was a gesture I wasn’t used to seeing because I came from a mellow home.

“I am stunned and appalled!” Robin snapped, waving her hand more erratically.

“There’s a squealer on the loose,” Leslie blurted out as she rummaged through her bag.

I stood beside my competition and pressed my lips together, trying to look as concerned as possible.

“Get the blindfolds!” Robin said, her voice tinged with urgency. “We’re getting to the bottom of this right now.”

2

It was rare for me to find myself in a situation that required a blindfold. But once we stepped onto the basketball court, things went from tense to weird with lightning speed.

“This is a
major
crisis,” Robin said.

It was enormously disappointing news to hear, because I wasn’t built for crisis. I wished my friends Ava, Lucia, and Rachel were here. They knew how to manage drama much better than I did. Robin handed me a dark piece of oval fabric with a rubber band stapled to it.

“Put this on,” she demanded.

I didn’t argue. After I slid the blindfold over my eyes and nose, I couldn’t see anything. Even light.

“Who said that winners exit out the back?” Leslie asked.

I did not say a word. I even tried to keep my exhalations silent. It was really too bad Ms. Knapp wasn’t around. Because I doubted a faculty mentor would allow students to endure this sort of trauma blindfolded in a gym. Seriously. Our district had banned dodge ball two years ago, and we weren’t allowed to touch each other with more than a finger when we played tag.

“Being a class captain is an esteemed tradition. We’re looking for somebody with integrity,” Robin said.

“Yeah,” Leslie said. “Secret-sharers, spoiler-spreaders, and loose-lipped squealer-dealers need not apply.”

I was certain that I wasn’t any of those, especially not a loose-lipped squealer-dealer. I was a kind sixth grader. All my friends thought so.

“Nothing will happen until we start getting answers,” Leslie said.

Standing inside my own darkness made me feel claustrophobic. Somebody needed to start giving answers.

Silence.

Somehow all the blackness made me feel as if the gymnasium’s walls were falling in on me. How much longer could I take this? Maybe five minutes. But did I need to take it for five more minutes? That was when I saw my chance to get a little bit ahead in this competition. I mean, why drag this out and punish myself?

“Paulette Feeley told us that winners exit out the back,” I said.

I heard three separate gasps. But wasn’t honesty
supposed to be the best policy? Weren’t we going to get to the truth eventually? Plus, the blindfold was starting to make the sides of my nose sweat, and didn’t that cause pimples?

“How did you know that?” Robin asked. “Who squealed?”

That was a great question.

“It’s okay. If you tell us the truth right now, nothing will happen to you,” Robin said.

I really wished I wasn’t wearing that blindfold. Because I was dying to see the look on Paulette Feeley’s face. Dying.

“Yeah. Everything will be totally cool,” Leslie said in a low voice.

When I heard somebody breathing in a spastic and nervous way, I knew it was Paulette. This was so much
drama
. Ava and Lucia and Rachel were going to die when I told them about it.

“By the way,” Leslie said. “Everything that’s happening right now is secret information.”

This news was a huge bummer.

“We can’t even mention the blindfolds?” Coral asked.

I thought that was a great question for Coral to ask, because it made her look like a person who
really
wanted to be a secret-sharer.

“Absolutely not,” Leslie said.

“Tell us what we want to know,” Robin insisted.

Silence.

“Was it Maya?” Leslie asked in a soft, kind voice.

All the pieces were coming together. Paulette’s sister, Maya, had tried out for class captain last year and lost.

“Maybe,” Paulette said.

“All we want is the truth,” Leslie cooed. “That’s the foundation of this organization.”

And then Paulette spoke the four words that changed the course of everything.

“Yes,” she said. “Maya told me.”

“Oh,” Robin said with a ton of disappointment in her voice. “That’s too bad. I really liked her.”

“Yeah, she was totally, totally great,” Leslie said.

I found it spooky that they kept referring to Maya in the past tense.

“Okay,” Robin said. “You’ll need to leave, because from this point forward you’re absolutely ineligible. And so is your entire bloodline.”

“What?” Paulette asked. “My bloodline?”

“All your relatives. That’s a bloodline,” Robin explained.

“For how long?” Paulette asked. “A year?”

“Basically forever,” Leslie said.

I heard somebody start releasing a terrible whine and I knew it was Paulette.

“Ouch,” Robin said. “That hurts my ears.”

Paulette immediately stopped making that awful sound. “Should I just leave right now?” she asked.

“No,” Robin said. “We’ll send the other loser out with you. Hold tight for three minutes. And keep your blindfolds on.”

“Lane Cisco,” Leslie said. “Follow us.”

Did this mean I was the other loser?

“Do I keep the blindfold on?” I asked.

“Yes,” Robin and Leslie said in unison.

“Okay,” I said. I swung my arms out in front of me, trying to feel for them in the dark. But I didn’t need to do that for very long, because their arms grabbed me.

They led me almost one hundred steps before we stopped.

“Sit down,” Leslie commanded.

I reached behind me for a chair and when I felt the metal seat, I quickly lowered myself into it.

“Take off your blindfold,” Robin said.

I did.

“You are underneath a disco ball,” Leslie said.

I looked up and watched the rainbow-colored lights swirl across the room.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s top-secret and nobody knows it yet, but this is going to be the year of disco,” Robin said, pointing at the ball and then shimmying her hips.

“Totally,” Leslie said. “It’s retro and cool.”

“Um, yeah,” I said, even though I barely knew anything about disco.

“Just standing here underneath it,” Robin said, gesturing to the spinning ball, “makes me feel so much better about this whole disaster.”

“Maya is so gross,” Leslie said. “What’s wrong with her?”

I saw my chance to gain a little more ground. “She’s a spoiler-squealer,” I said, messing up the phrasing a little.

Robin leaned over and whispered something in Leslie’s ear. Then they both smiled at me.

“You’re exactly who we want,” Robin said.

Whoa. Did this mean I didn’t have to give my speech?

“Really?” I asked. Ava and Lucia and Rachel had led me to believe that the competition for class captain would be brutal. Maybe even bloody. And Todd had said, based on an Internet rumor he’d read, that I needed to brace myself for something excruciating, possibly a competitive eating contest involving waffles. But this had been easy. I basically had just had to show up and behave like myself and they’d picked me. And it just kept getting better. Because they started giving me compliments.

“Let’s face it,” Leslie said. “You’re totally class captain material.”

“Yeah,” Robin said. “You dress cute. You’re smart. You’re mellow. And you’re friends with that girl who plays the cello.”

“Cellos are so cool,” Leslie said.

“Um, they really are,” I said. It seemed a little weird that Ava’s cello-playing abilities scored me additional points, but whatever.

“Do you have any questions?” Leslie asked.

Did I? Should I? In my mind, this wasn’t how I thought things would happen. I felt caught off guard that they’d even expect me to have questions. Hmmm. “So you don’t want to hear any of my speech?” That seemed like a solid question. I’d put so much work into memorizing it that it seemed like a total waste not to be able to use any of it.

“We only make people give their speeches if we’re undecided,” Leslie said.

Robin blinked as if maybe I’d offended her. “We just told you that you’re class captain. We’re totally decided.”

What was I doing? I’d won. Forget my speech. Forget asking solid questions. Why wasn’t I acting totally thrilled? And that was when I exploded in excitement. I jumped into the air and yelled, “Oh my gosh! Thank you!”

“Group hug!” Robin cheered as she opened up her arms wide. The disco lights swirled across her body.

I didn’t give my speech a second thought. Winning felt great. And so did getting complimented and hugged by two popular eighth graders. As we finally released one another from our group hug, I knew that sixth grade was going to be a mind-blowing experience.

“Don’t forget to exit out the back,” Leslie said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“And don’t tell anybody about our theme yet,” Robin said. “Not even your cello friend.”

“I won’t!” I promised.

I left the gymnasium that Friday certain of one thing: My life felt perfect. I didn’t want a single thing to change.

3