Mia the Meek (3 page)

Rolling my eyes under my closed eyelids, I crawled out of bed. After a long, hot shower, I slowly rejoined the land of the living. I buttoned my mandatory white blouse and tucked it into my uniform skirt—green and blue plaid—that all freshmen and sophomore girls were forced to wear at St. Hilary’s. Looking in the mirror, I sighed with defeat. Unless polyester Scottish wear suddenly hit the catwalk in Paris, I was doomed to remain a fashion
don’t.

Turning my back to my reflection, I raced down the stairs and grabbed my backpack and a granola bar from the kitchen counter. Trying to avoid the standard, first-day-of-school picture in our front yard, I yelled, “I’m leaving,” and ran out the back door. Checking to make sure my dad wasn’t following me with a telephoto lens, I opened my granola bar and headed to Lisa’s house. She lived up the street from me, and I think the main reason we first became friends was out of convenience. Proximity was everything then because my parents wouldn’t let me cross the street alone.

Lisa emerged from her front door looking blonde, petite, and perky—as usual. As I watched her four-foot-ten-inch frame bounce down the stairs, I suddenly felt like the Jolly Green Giant, except I’m not very jolly—or green.

She smiled.

“So, are you ready for your big transformation?”

“I don’t know,” I said after a brief hesitation. “Now that the first day of school is here, I don’t think I’m ready to go through with it. Just look at me.”

“You look fine.”

“Maybe it’s better if I don’t go through with it. I mean, high school is a big enough transition as it is. I shouldn’t try to change too much at once.”

“Too late. You already got rid of the glasses and braces. Now it’s time to get rid of Mia the Meek.”

“But what if people don’t like the new me?”

“There’s way too much to accomplish in life to spend time worrying about what other people think. When is some of my confidence going to rub off on you?”

“You have every right to be confident. You’re one of the smartest teenagers in America. I mean, who else in the world organizes their iPods to make their brains bigger?”

“Not bigger, just more efficient. I told you: I read a study that if you alternate listening to different rhythm patterns in music, you can increase the synapses between your neurons, thereby increasing your brain capacity. For example, the number of synapses for a typical neuron is somewhere between one and ten thousand, but I plan to double the synapses in my neurons, so I can learn even more in the future.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lisa sighed.

“All right, I can see I lost you. Anyhow, if you weren’t smart, you wouldn’t have made St. Hilary’s Freshman Academic Quiz Bowl team.”

I chewed on a hangnail.

“I’m convinced Mr. Harrison made a mistake when he corrected our tests last year.”

Lisa pulled my hand from my mouth.

“Stop that. You know he didn’t make a mistake. I ran into Ms. Jackson, the high school TAG teacher this summer, and she said after reviewing our files, she thinks we have a chance to win! So, I spent all summer studying and can easily handle all the science questions. Jason Blevins, that guy from Sacred Heart, is our math guy. Mike Finnegan is freakishly smart in social studies. And you’re an excellent literary source. We’re going to crush the other teams.”

“I don’t think my personality allows me to do much crushing.”

“We’re starting high school, made the Quiz Bowl team, and are going to be on student council.” She put her tiny hands on her tiny waist. “What could possibly go wrong?”

“Math. Mr. Grizzling hates me. Ever since I was a little kid and accidentally spilled coffee on his lap when I was visiting my mom, he’s been out to get me.”

“You’re paranoid. Mr. Grizzling isn’t going to fail you if you do the work,” Lisa said impatiently. “What else have you got?”

“Well, what about the fact I will be fifteen in two months and I’ve never even come close to kissing a guy? It would be a fate worse than death if I actually lived the phrase ‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed.’”

“You could kiss Mike Finnegan any time you want.”

“Yeah right,” I sighed. “You know Mike has the ‘Nice Guy But’ syndrome. He’s a nice guy, but—”

“Personally, I think Mike’s got a nice butt, and if he liked me, I’d be thrilled.”

“You can have him,” I said, slowing my pace. “I think I need to go back home—I don’t feel so well.”

Lisa grabbed my arm and dragged me down the sidewalk.

“No you don’t. You spent all summer preparing to get rid of Mia the Meek, and today’s the day we bury her for good!”

A
sea of voices and slamming locker doors greeted us in the freshman hallway of St. Hilary’s Catholic High School. I’d been down this hallway a million times before on my way to see my mom, but today was different. I wasn’t a visitor—I was a student. I was like a foreigner who’d traded in her passport for a green card. I just hoped the natives were friendly and I could fake my way into their culture.

Finally making it to my locker, I looked across the hallway and whispered to Lisa, “I can’t believe it. There are over two hundred people in our freshman class, and we get stuck with lockers across the hall from Stephanie Rasco, Jessie Carson, and Cassie Foster?”

Lisa immediately turned to look.

“Stop it,” I said. “They’ll see you.”

“Who cares?” Lisa asked, turning her attention back to her combination.

“I care. I don’t want Cassie to notice me. Remember what she did to Maggie?” My mind flashed back to kindergarten. My friend, Maggie Fletcher, used to be crazy in love with horses. Her folders were covered in horse stickers, her favorite movie was
National Velvet
, and every day she wore her hair tied back in a scrunchie so it would hang down her back like a horse’s tail. All the girls fought to play with Maggie’s hair during story time and, even at the age of five, Cassie couldn’t stand anyone getting more attention than her.

One day, Cassie confiscated a pair of scissors from the scissor box, and lured Maggie behind the dumpster by telling her she had a new horse poster to give her. Once they were out of sight from the teacher on duty, Cassie hacked off Maggie’s ponytail. After recess, Maggie was found crying, huddled in a ball behind the dumpster, clutching her severed ponytail in her hand. Every student was called into the office, one by one, and asked what they had seen. No one said anything and Maggie kept her silence. Not long after, Maggie lost her fascination with horses. And ever since that day, I’ve kept my distance from Cassie.

Opening her locker, Lisa replied, “Maggie got her ponytail chopped off a long time ago. And don’t worry about those three. They’ll peak in high school and then spend the rest of their lives reliving their glory days. In fact, by the time they’re thirty-five, I bet they’ll have more plastic in them than a recycling center.”

When Cassie glanced over at us, I averted my eyes, hoping that if I didn’t see her, she wouldn’t see me. Unfortunately, that trick hadn’t worked when I was three, and it wasn’t working now, either.

Striding over to me on legs I swear went up to her chest, Cassie asked, “What’s that big, red, crusty mark on your chin, Mia the Meek?”

“‘Hi to you too,” Lisa replied, staring into Cassie’s icy blue eyes without flinching.

“I—I fell down playing basketball,” I stammered.

“You know, they have make-up for that sort of thing.” Cassie ran her fingers through her newly cropped, white-blonde hair.

“My parents won’t let me wear make-up,” I said.
Now why did I give her that ammunition against me?

“Oh, I’m sorry. Make-up could
really
help your looks.”

“Yeah, but no matter what Mia the Meek does to herself, she’s still so ugly she’d make blind kids cry,” Stephanie said. Her red, curly hair bounced around her shoulders and her green eyes sparkled. Stephanie was never happier than when she was dissing someone.

Cassie crossed her arms across her ample chest.

“And why are you blinking so much? Did you develop a tic over the summer?”

“I got contacts,” I said, looking away self-consciously. “They’re sort of new, so sometimes I have to blink to get my eyes used to them.”

“At least they’re better than your glasses. They were the worst. And I’m glad you grew your hair out,” Jessie said, flipping her own perfectly smooth chestnut brown hair over her shoulders. I’d never seen anyone who could flip her hair as perfectly as Jessie. She must’ve spent hours practicing.

“Whatever,” Cassie said. “I just came over to tell you I saw your mom this morning, and whatever kind of look she was going for, she missed.” Cassie laughed as she and her evil compatriots turned and walked away, their butts swaying in perfect unison.

I watched them walk into Mr. Benson’s American History classroom and groaned.

“They’re all in my first period class this year? What did I do to deserve this?”

“If we have first period together, we probably have the same class schedule. It looks like we’ll have to put up with the Easy Bake Oven cakes for the year,” Lisa replied.

“‘Easy Bake Oven cakes’?”

“Think about it: The cakes that come with an Easy Bake Oven look cute and sweet on the box cover, but once you bake them, you realize they’re small, nasty, and not worth the time,” Lisa explained as we walked into the room.

“Lisa, Mia, over here,” Maggie called, waving us over to a group of desks. “We saved you some seats.”

We climbed into the seats behind Maggie and her best friend, Kelly Martin.

“Did you guys have a good summer?” Maggie asked as we got settled.

“The best,” Lisa said. “I got to go to a camp for junior MENSA members.”

“MENSA?” Kelly asked.

“It’s for people who score in the top two percent on a standardized IQ test,” Lisa explained. “I took an IQ test just for fun at my mom’s office, and I scored so high, my mom enrolled me in this camp.”

“You took an IQ test just for fun?” Maggie asked.

“Your IQ is in the top two percent?” Kelly added.

“The camp was awesome. We spent the week working on logic, philosophy, math, science, and a little bit of Latin.”

“And to think, I was proud of myself for reading a book this summer,” Kelly remarked.

I grabbed Lisa’s arm.

“There truly
is
a God. Jake Harris’s sitting right over there!”

Lisa turned to look.

“Are you ever going to get over your obsession with him?”

“Or do something about it?” Kelly said.

“Don’t you remember when I joined the track team in middle school?” I asked, bringing up my short-lived attempt at organized sports.

“You only joined because I made you,” Maggie said.

“True.” But secretly, I wanted to fulfill at least one of my fantasies involving Jake. My running fantasy consisted of winning a city-wide track meet while looking fabulous, my hair flowing behind me like a shampoo commercial. Jake would be on the sidelines, cheering me on as I crossed the finish line way ahead of my competition. At the end of the race, he’d sweep me up in his arms as the entire city broke into thunderous applause.

So, I joined the track team. But after the first practice, I came to the realization that running sucked. I probably would’ve given up that very day if Maggie hadn’t urged me to keep going—and I hadn’t seen how great Jake’s legs looked in shorts. Fortunately, as the season progressed, every practice got a little easier and Jake got better looking, so all of my pain seemed worth it—until the afternoon my running fantasy with Jake came to a screeching halt.

It had been a particularly grueling practice, and I was doing my usual cool-down routine of walking around the playground with my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath. Runners, I’d discovered, are fond of spitting, and I was secretly proud of how good I’d become at spewing spit. I’d just hurled a particularly impressive lugey across the grass when Jake walked by and said, “Nice shot, dude!”

I freaked out. The future father of my children had just seen me hawk a lugey! Not knowing what to say or do, I panicked and sprinted inside the school. Then I hid in a bathroom stall until I was sure everyone had left.

My track team career ended that afternoon. But surprisingly, I developed a passion for running, which I continue to do on my own—of course, only in places where no one can see me hawking post-run lugeys.

I sighed, gazing across the room at Jake.

“Just look how gorgeous he is. I mean, he’s perfect: blonde hair, a body to die for, a great smile, and green eyes with tiny specks of gray in them.”

“How do you know his eyes have specks of gray in them?”

“I studied his yearbook picture,” I said.

Maggie interrupted. “Did you hear that Jake and Cassie broke up?”

“No way! Where did you hear that?” I asked eagerly. “They’ve been going out for two years.”

“Collin Dewhurst—that cute guy sitting next to Jake—told me last week at our first cross-country practice that Jake and Cassie had some sort of fight and broke up. I guess they’re still friends and stuff, but Jake’s available, Mia.”

“Like I have a chance with him. The last words Jake spoke to me were back in seventh grade, when he complimented me on a lugey.”