We Are Party People Page 5

  “What are you guys talking about?” asks Lola, who’s just come up behind us. “Who’s breaking legs?”

  “Sophie, if she keeps trying to do cartwheels,” I say.

  “You’re doing cartwheels in the halls?” asks Lola. “Awesome idea!” She smiles and launches into a string of them—three in a row, each one perfectly executed. Then she raises her hands above her head in a V-shape for victory.

  “Amaze-balls!” I say.

  Sophie claps and whistles.

  Lola takes a bow.

  “Impressive,” says Sophie. “But how come you’re so late?”

  “I’m not,” Lola says, checking her watch. “We’re not supposed to meet for another five minutes. I’m simply not as early as the two of you. And how come you guys are talking about breaking bones, anyway?”

  Sophie and I giggle.

  “I’m just talking about how every morning brings a gazillion possibilities,” Sophie explains.

  “Yeah, like who knows? Maybe aliens will land on the soccer field and take the debate team to a planet far, far away,” I say.

  “Do we even have a debate team at this school?” asks Sophie.

  “Yes, but it’s an elective and you have to be in the eighth grade,” says Lola.

  “I have so much to learn,” says Sophie.

  “Oh, I have a good one,” says Lola. “Maybe Taylor Swift will helicopter in and perform a surprise concert.”

  “There’s plenty of room on the soccer field,” Sophie says. “And once she’s here, maybe she’ll decide to shoot a video at the school and we’ll all be cast as extras. And if that happens, we can wear these!” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out two T-shirts. One is white and one is blue. Both of them have trophies on the front, and on the back they read VOTE FOR SOPHIE in gold, sparkly puffy paint.

  And they both match the shirt that Sophie is wearing herself. Except hers also has words on the front: SOPHIE FOR 7TH GRADE PRESIDENT. THAT’S ME! I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before.

  The bubble lettering on all three shirts is perfect. I wonder if she used stencils. I can tell that making each one must’ve taken a lot of time. There are even little gold trophies on the sleeves of each shirt.

  “Principal Schwartz said we couldn’t have more than six posters, but she didn’t say anything about T-shirts,” Sophie says, and hands me the white shirt. “As soon as it dawned on me, I got to work.”

  “Wow. Um, thanks,” I say, because that’s the only thing I can think to say.

  Sophie seems so happy, so hopeful, it almost makes me want to cry. All my concerns from earlier come rushing back. How can she not realize that class president is 100 percent a popularity contest? It always has been and it always will be. Hasn’t she ever seen a teen movie?

  It’s not that I’m sad we’re not popular. I’ve accepted that and it doesn’t even bother me so much. Mostly, all I want is to be left alone. It’s more like I’m sad that Sophie doesn’t know any better. And she’s about to be humiliated and she has no idea.

  And worse, Lola doesn’t seem to have a clue, either. At least it doesn’t seem that way based on how she’s gushing over the homemade shirts.

  “These are gorgeous,” says Lola. “Thanks so much.”

  “There’s still time to put them on,” Sophie says, glancing at her watch. “The homeroom bell won’t ring for another fifteen minutes. You can change in the bathroom.”

  She’s got it all worked out.

  It doesn’t even occur to her that we’d object to her plan, and why should it?

  Why should we?

  It’s not that big of a deal. Sophie is our friend. We’re helping her with her campaign. Of course we should do everything in our power to help her get elected.

  Except wearing matching T-shirts? This is not fading into the background. This is not doing everything possible to get through the day unnoticed. People will stare. They’ll ask questions like “Who is Sophie?” and “Why should we vote for her?” and “How come you’re wearing a trophy on your shirt?”

  I can’t believe I’m in the middle of this and there is no way out. Friday cannot happen soon enough. It’ll be bad, but at least it’ll be over. And then we can get back to life as usual.

  Eat lunch in our quiet corner of the cafeteria.

  Sit in the back of class.

  Study hard and keep quiet.

  Be anonymous and safe.

  “I think I’ll wear mine tomorrow,” I say, stuffing the white shirt into my backpack. All the while what I’m really thinking is, Maybe tomorrow I’ll fake sick and try to convince my dad I have to stay home for the rest of the week.

  Sophie frowns at me. “Why don’t you put it on now?” she asks. “Then we can match.”

  The thing is, matching clothes is kind of for elementary school kids. I don’t have a problem with it, per se, but I know that other kids would.

  “Um, shouldn’t I wash it first?”

  “It’s not that dirty,” she says. “The shirt is brand-new and the ink is clean. And actually, if you wash it the ink may flake off. I’m not really sure. Lola, you’re going to wear yours, right?”

  “Of course,” says Lola. She holds up her hands and Sophie tosses her the blue shirt.

  Lola throws it on over her T-shirt, tugging it over her head, pulling her hair loose from the collar and then cheerfully smoothing out the lumps.

  “Looks great. What a fantastic idea, Sophie. You’re gonna be an awesome president.”

  “Thanks. I think so as well. Please make sure you tell that to the rest of the seventh grade,” Sophie says.

  “I’ll do my best,” Lola promises.

  “Oh, me, too,” I add, when I realize both of them are looking at me. “I’ll definitely tell everyone I know. But for now, I have to run to the library. Okay?”

  “But we haven’t even hung up the posters,” Sophie says.

  I feel trapped, and guilty, too. I’m being a lousy friend, but I can’t help myself. “Um, I wish I could but I forgot to finish my math homework last night. And I have it first period, so this is my only shot.”

  “Okay, I guess we can handle it without you,” Sophie says happily, as if she doesn’t know anything is wrong. Maybe she doesn’t realize. Or maybe she’s that good at pretending. The fact that I can’t tell makes me feel uneasy. But not as uneasy as I’d feel if we were wearing matching shirts all day.

  “See you both at lunch.” I wave and take off, feeling awful.

  I hope Sophie doesn’t take it personally.

  I should probably explain, but it’ll make me seem like a big dork. A bigger dork, I mean.

  The saddest part is, if Taylor Swift did helicopter onto our campus to shoot her new video, I wouldn’t even want to be an extra. I’d worry that I’d mess up whatever dance steps we were supposed to do. And even if all she needed us to do was mill around like regular seventh graders, I’d worry that I wasn’t doing it right, that there was something wrong with my outfit, or that I had spaghetti sauce on my face or spinach in my teeth. And I don’t even eat spinach.

  11

  I don’t see my friends until lunch, and by the time I get there Sophie is sitting at a different table—two tables over from where we usually sit. She’s talking to Connor Maxim, Blake Snyder, and Davis Jace, and the amazing thing is that she seems totally relaxed about it. Is it possible she doesn’t realize that they are the three cutest guys in seventh grade?

  Whenever I see Blake I feel weird—light and giggly, as if I’ve sucked on a helium balloon, which is something I’ve only done once, before my parents warned me not to because ingesting helium kills brain cells.

  Blake has floppy dark hair and a sweet, warm smile and big brown eyes and one dimple on his left cheek. More important, I can tell he’s really super-nice. I know this because I once saw him at the mall with his grandma and he was holding a giant pillow she’d bought herself at the Relax the Back store. It was definitely for his grandma and not for him because it was pink with b
unnies all over it, and the same exact size and shape pillow also comes in blue with sheep.

  If Blake were buying the pillow for himself he’d have gotten that one, because his favorite color is blue. I remember from when we were on the same soccer team in PE last year and he wanted to call us the Blue Devils because blue is his favorite color. That’s what he told us, and he had no reason to lie. Both colored pillows are on display in the window at the entrance to the store.

  Anyway, if it were me, I’d feel dorky carrying a gigantic pillow under my arm, especially one that was pink with bunnies all over it, and especially if I were a guy, who, you know, for whatever reason, is not supposed to like pink bunnies or be associated with cuddly, cute pink stuff in any way.

  Fact: In all the years my parents have been planning parties, they have never once planned a pink princess party for a boy. Girls have had pirate parties and race car parties and whatever kinds of parties they want. It’s not totally common, but it’s definitely happened. And yet, for whatever reason, the reverse is never the case.

  A lot of guys I know would be way too embarrassed to carry around a gigantic pink bunny-patterned pillow for their grandma, but not Blake. Blake didn’t appear to care one bit. He seemed totally happy lugging around that pillow.

  Later on I saw them at lunch at the food court. The pillow sat on its own chair and it towered over both of them. That’s how big the pillow was. I happened to walk by—I had no choice because I was on my way to Bendy’s for cheese fries and their table was right in front of the restaurant.

  I didn’t plan on acknowledging Blake, but he actually noticed me and said, “Oh, hey, Pixie.”

  And he even waved to me, casually, like seeing each other out in the real world was no big deal. But it was—for me, anyway. I waved back but was too shocked to speak.

  His grandma smiled at me, too, and I sort of grinned back, hardly believing this was happening.

  From then on, Blake and I always said hi when we passed by each other in the halls. It went on for a long time—an entire week! At first I’d see him and smile, but not too much, and look past him a little. That way if he didn’t smile back I could always pretend I was smiling at someone else behind him. But soon I realized that whole trick wasn’t even necessary because Blake was smiling at me. I could tell because he always looked me squarely in the eye.

  Like I said before, this went on for five whole days, Monday through Friday. I figured it was the beginning of something big. Like we really understood each other and would eventually one day have a real conversation. Maybe even hang out after school sometime.

  Except then the weekend happened and when we got back to school on Monday everyone was talking about how Blake and June Willoughby had gone to the movies on Saturday night on an actual date. I overheard June telling Allie about it during science. He paid for her ticket, she said. And they held hands during the show. And afterward, she kissed him good night on the cheek. And now they were going out.

  June Willoughby is not nice enough for Blake. She would never carry around her grandma’s gigantic pillow from Relax the Back. She wouldn’t carry a pillow of any size for her grandma, I can tell.

  June copies Sage Jacobson’s math homework almost every single day. And the cheating part would be bad enough, but what makes it even worse is that June makes fun of Sage behind her back.

  Just last week I overheard June in the bathroom saying to Allie, “Sage keeps trying to copy my look but it isn’t working for her.” Like copying is something that June should be criticizing. That’s when I realized that if June is the type of girl Blake is interested in, then he is clearly not as great as I thought he was and he’s obviously not for me.

  Maybe we could’ve continued saying hi to each other, but I was so disappointed, I did my best to avoid him.

  Anyway, Davis and Connor are Blake’s best friends. Davis is tall and thin and black, with short dark hair and big brown eyes. Connor is short and skinny and white, with green eyes and shaggy blond hair that touches his shoulders.

  Davis has a pet turtle, I know, because once I saw him at the vet when we were there to take Penelope, our cat, in for her medication. She has asthma. Penelope, I mean. Davis’s turtle stepped on a thumbtack and it got lodged in his foot. He needed three stitches and antibiotics. His name is Mac.

  The four of them are laughing about something Sophie just said. The boys seem to think that she’s hilarious. Meanwhile, I still can’t believe she’s actually sitting at their table.

  Suddenly Sophie looks up and notices me and smiles and waves. The wave isn’t merely a “hey, how’s it going?” wave. It’s more like a “come on over and join us” wave.

  If I were a normal girl I probably would join them, except I can’t do that. I can’t wander over and sit down and eat my lunch with them like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Sitting with cute boys? There is nothing natural about that situation.

  Luckily, Lola has just gotten to our regular table. Phew.

  I hurry to join her, as if Sophie never even waved me over. If she asks, I’ll tell her I didn’t see her.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Sophie’s campaigning pretty hard, huh?” Lola asks.

  “I guess so.” I shrug, and then I notice that she’s still wearing the VOTE FOR SOPHIE shirt. “You’re making me look bad,” I say.

  Lola glances down. She knows exactly what I’m talking about. She shrugs. “It’s no biggie. People read it but hardly anyone has asked me about it. You should put yours on.”

  “I know,” I say. She’s right, but I’m not going to listen and I don’t even need to explain why. Lola and I have been friends since we were in preschool. She knows all about me and my extra-strength shyness.

  Lola and I used to go to this cool hip-hop dance class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except two years ago I had to quit. The problem was, there’s always a recital at the end of the term, and everyone in the class is forced to wear some crazy costume, and the owner, Miss Brandi, rents out a gigantic auditorium and all her students are expected to dance in front of a huge crowd.

  It wasn’t a big deal performing with a bunch of other kids when I was younger. Every kid wore the exact same costume, so I didn’t have to worry about standing out. I’m good at blending in with the crowd and that’s what dancing with a group is all about. I studied hard and I always knew the routine. I could perform it in my sleep, practically.

  Except then Miss Brandi introduced a new policy. Once dancers turn ten years old, they get their own solo, and I mean an entire song performed by themselves, and that’s not the kind of thing I would ever do, even though I practiced. I tried, but in the end I couldn’t go through with it. The morning of the show, I told my parents I was too sick to perform.

  They believed me and I’m lucky it didn’t occur to them that I might be shy or embarrassed about performing in public. Their love of performing, of getting attention, is so ingrained into who they are, they can’t imagine I’d be any different.

  After the show, they asked me if I wanted to do the dance for them, on video, so we could show Miss Brandi. My mom even offered to post it on the We Are Party People website. As if!

  I said no, and the next day I quit hip-hop completely.

  It’s not like I was in love with dancing, anyway. It was something I mostly did because Lola was so into it and I like hanging out with Lola.

  I should probably explain this to Sophie because I don’t want her to get mad at me for my non–shirt wearing. But it’s complicated. Annoying, too, because a large part of me wants to wear the shirt and even go around talking to kids about her in the cafeteria, but I can’t. I’m not that kind of girl.

  A few minutes later Sophie joins us, throwing her lunch box down on the table. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is messy but in a good way. It looks nice. She seems more animated than her usual self, and certainly more animated than I am, ever.

  “I’m starving,” she announces.

  “I’ll bet,” says Lo
la.

  Sophie fills us in as she unpacks her lunch. “Connor and Blake said they’d think about voting for me and Davis said he already promised his vote to someone else.”

  “Who?” I wonder.

  “I asked him but he wouldn’t tell me,” Sophie says. “He says he has a right to privacy.”

  Lola frowns. “Even though he’s got a point, technically, that’s kind of an annoying answer.”

  “Agreed,” says Sophie.

  “How many kids have you talked to?” I wonder, truly amazed.

  Sophie shrugs. “Don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

  “And you seriously just go up to them and introduce yourself and say, ‘Hi, I’m Sophie and I’m running for seventh grade class president’?” I ask.

  Sophie smiles. “Something like that. Yes. But I like the sound of that, Pixie. I think I’ll use it.”

  She turns around quickly and stops Lisa Green, who happens to be walking by our table, eating a churro. “Hi. My name is Sophie and I’m running for seventh grade class president.”

  Lisa looks to me and Lola, as if wondering if Sophie is joking. I shrug slightly, as if to say, “It’s weird, but it’s totally real.” Then she turns back to Sophie, who seems completely, 100 percent sincere.

  “What did you say?” Lisa asks, a hesitant smile on her face.

  “My name is Sophie and I’m running for seventh grade class president.”

  “Huh,” says Lisa, tilting her head to one side. “That’s cool.”

  “I think so,” Sophie says.

  “Me, too,” Lola says.

  I nod. “Me three.”

  Lisa shrugs, still processing, I guess, and then she walks away.

  Sophie smiles and turns to her food, which she’s lined up in front of her: snap peas and carrots, strawberries, grapes, a turkey roll-up, and a cheese wedge. She eats her veggies first, then the turkey and cheese, saving the fruit for last.

  Once she finishes, she wipes the corners of her mouth with a bright green napkin. Then she says, “Okay, gotta go do more campaigning. See you both later!” And with a wave, she is off. I hear her introducing herself to the people at the next table.