Page 6 of No Capes
The senior class has four hundred students, and Damian Scott Jr. has the locker diagonally across the hallway from mine. Out of all the possible lockers, did I choose mine because of this and beg Kristen to be next to me instead of by her first class, where she’d be less likely to get detention for being late? Possibly. 2:30 P.M. is approximately when Damian strolls by to catch his bus. Bus 3, in fact, which drops him off nearLeague of Comics,the bookstore where he works every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. (Never underestimate the research skills of a girl with a crush.)
Shouts echo down the senior hallway as stir-crazy teenagers sprint to escape the gloom of existence known as Capital City High: boring teachers, classes that are basically naptime, and the grimy substance the administration calls food, which is barely edible on a good day.
“Get ready. Here he comes.” Kristen steps on my foot as she’s jostled by the stampede of students. I almost miss the half-second window when Damian can still see me. Today, he has on a red sweater and blue jeans, and the only natural light in the school shines behind him, catching his chestnut hair so it glows. I swear he walks right through a sunbeam.
“Hi.” I smile when he passes.
“Have a good one.” Damian nods. His hazelnut eyes flicker with faint recognition, and giddy warmth floods my chest as he strolls away.
Kristen whacks my arm.
“Ow.”
“Oh my god.Again, it’s ‘Hi, Damian.’ That way he’s forced to wrack his gorgeous brain for your name too, which—”
“—Establishes a foundation for the rest of our relationship,” I finish.Yeah, yeah. I turn back to my locker and stuff the textbooks I’ll need for tonight into my backpack, which is still damp from last night’s adventure in the rain. “Except he knows my name. We’ve had eleven classes together since freshman year. Plus, he has a girlfriend.”
“It seriously sucks that she’s nice. It would be easier to hate her if she were awful.”
Kristen wipes dust off her denim jacket and pulls a tube of lip gloss from her pocket. Underneath the jacket, she has on a sequinBe QUEERiousshirt that she designed herself, and streaks of lavender blend into her dark hair. My personal uniform is leggings and a t-shirt. Today’s shirt is navy.
“Be nice to other girls, Kris,” I say. “First rule of feminism.”
Kristen scoffs. “Even Arielle?”
“Hey.I’mnice to Arielle.”
“Uh-huh.” Kristen prattles on about what she would do if Molly Woods, our class president, the editor ofCapital High Daily,and Damian’s bubbly girlfriend of two years, ever hurt me.
Kristen and I became best friends in sixth grade, when we were the only kids in Capital City whose parents wouldn’t buy them gingham sneakers. I begged my parents for a pair, but they’d already bought me sneakers for the year. So then I begged Arielle, but she said, “I’ll buy them after every other pattern on earth has been destroyed by the apparent uprising of people with no taste,” and thus my family doomed me to be forever uncool. Around that time, Kristen sat next to me in pre-algebra, wearing white shoes that she’d drawn on with permanent marker. Stars and cats. She’d offered to draw on mine, and I forgot all about gingham whatever.
A yowling laugh drifts down the hall, and my shoulders tense. Unsurprisingly, Damian and Molly stand at Fox’s locker. They lean toward Fox like he’d told the most hilarious joke of our generation.Guess Damian’s not taking the bus today.
Duh. It’s Tuesday.
“Damian’s best broisawful,” I say, as Fox whoops again. That wild,I’m better than youlaugh makes me remember the first time he’d been “cool” at my expense.
“High school isn’t too bad,” I said to Kristen while we ate lunch—what the school called “chicken nuggets” but was definitely not that—in the cafeteria.
“It’s day four.” Kristen scrunched her nose. “Anything can happen.” As if to prove this, something brown and crunchy plopped on our table. Someone giggled, and I poked the squishy, unidentified flying object. It was a tater tot.Plop.Another tot hit me in the head, and its mushy insides slid down my face.
“Crud,” a second person said. I turned around and saw Fox and two sophomore guys snicker and duck underneath the table behind us. It had been three days since the worst day of my life, so my next move may have been an overreaction, but I also had potato in my hair.
“What the hell, Fox?” I shouted. The cafeteria quieted, and Fox glanced around, feigning confusion. I turned back to Kristen, who gave him her best glare, then her eyes went wide.
A mini carton of chocolate milk hit the middle of our table, a perfect bullseye. It exploded on impact and sticky liquid blew onto our food and clothes. All I could hear was Fox’s rambunctious laugh. “God, Madeline,” he howled. “You’re such a joke.”
Fox has mostly ignored us since the Chocolate Milk Incident, and I often forget there was a time when we had actually been friends. Our families had, anyway. Before.
His laugh must hurt Kristen the same way, because she watches him like he’s number one on her hit list. “Want me to cyberbully him?”
I’m pretty sure she’s kidding, but sometimes it’s hard to tell.
“Detention starts soon, right? I don’t think you should be late again, Kris.” I turn away from watching the boys. A part of me knows it doesn’t matter that Damian has Molly, and he’ll do anything for Fox. A part of me knows the gingham sneakers wouldn’t have changed this.
“Thanks, Mom.” Kristen blows her bangs off her forehead. “You don’t know what it’s like in that smelly detention room. Yesterday, there was a dead frog in the air vent. A dead frog, Madeline. How does that happen?”
“Maybe if you show up on time, Mr. Tills will decide you’re reformed and you can leave.”
