Revenge of the Geek (3 page)

“No,”Charlie said. “I was not.”

“Because you can totally say that if you want to. Really, please feel free to admire the Mohawk all you want. I’ll even let you touch it,”Finn said, running a hand over his head.

“I’ll pass,”Charlie said.

“Miranda? I don’t want you to feel left out,”Finn said.

“No, thanks, Finn. I don’t want to touch your head,”I said.

“Suit yourself,”Finn said.

The three of us turned toward the school, and paused for a moment before heading up the stairs. When Geek High first opened, it occupied a three-story Victorian house with large dormer windows and a gabled roof. But as the school grew, two low, modern wings were added that branched out from either side of the main building. The high school occupied one wing, and the elementary and middle schools the other, while the original central building housed the cafeteria and administrative offices.

“Another year of pointless torture is upon us,”Finn said sadly.

“Just think: only two more years before we leave for college,”I said, feeling a bit nostalgic.

“
Only
two?”Finn said, snorting.

“That’s not so long,”Charlie said. “Just imagine how strange it will be when we graduate. I can’t imagine not coming here every day.”

“I can,”Finn said with a shudder. “I can’t wait to get out of here and out into the real world. And by real world, I mean being able to sleep until noon, play Xbox all day, and eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“You won’t miss the people? Your friends?”Charlie asked.

“No way. I’ll be sick of all of you by then,”Finn said cheerfully. “Once we get our diplomas, you’ll never see me again. Unless it’s on the cover of
People
magazine, when I’m named Sexiest Man Alive.”He winked at me. “That’s one of my life goals.”

“It’s good to have goals,”I said.

“Well, if that’s the way you feel and if we really mean so little to you, why bother hanging out with us at all?”Charlie asked testily.

Finn looked at her, blinking with surprise. “Yeesh. I was just kidding. You know I love you guys.”

“Whatever.”Charlie looked around and spotted Padma Paswan heading into the school with Emma Cliff. “Hey, Padma! Wait up! I have to talk to you about something. See you later, Miranda.”

And with a swish of pink satin and black tulle, Charlie turned and jogged up the steps to join Padma and Emma.

“What was that about?”Finn asked, still looking bewildered. “What did I say?”

I shrugged. “Not sure,”I lied. “Maybe Charlie’s not a fan of
People
magazine.”

As Finn muttered under his breath about how he’d never understand girls, we headed up the stairs and into school together. It really was good to be back at old Geek High after the summer away. It was reassuring the way it never changed, from the stern-faced oil paintings of donors glaring down at us from the walls, to the worn oriental rugs in the front hall, to the large trophy case, which now held the Mu Alpha Theta State Championship trophy my MATh competition team won the previous spring. So much in my life had changed in the past year, what with my mom, Sadie, leaving for London, my moving in with my dad, meeting Dex, falling in love for the first time, and, finally, Dex leaving. It was nice to have something stay the same.

And then, just as this thought was flitting across my brain, I suddenly saw something different. Actually not some
thing
, but some
one
. A girl walking down the hall. She had mousy brown hair and was wearing a black T-shirt, faded cutoff jeans, black socks, and worn-looking black Doc Martens boots. The school was small, so whenever a new student came in, he or she always stood out. I had a feeling that this girl wouldn’t be happy to know that. She was tall—nearly as tall as me—but walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped forward, as though she were willing herself to become invisible.

Finn was still ranting about Charlie. “... and I swear she said something mean about Phoebe. I didn’t hear what it was exactly, but I can tell Charlie doesn’t like her. Has she said anything about Phoebe to you?”

“Look,”I said, poking Finn in the side to get his attention.

“What?”

“A new girl,”I said.

Finn perked up. “A new girl? Where?”

“Over there. Heading into the high school wing,”I said. “Do you see her? Over there in the black T-shirt.”

“Oh,”Finn said as he spotted her. From his tone, he was clearly underwhelmed. “Not a hottie.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a pig,”I said.

“I can’t help it,”Finn said with an unconcerned shrug. “As a wise man once said, I yam what I yam.”

“What wise man?”I asked suspiciously.

“Popeye,”Finn said.

Chapter Three

I
had Nineteenth-Century American Literature first period. Neither Finn nor Charlie had signed up for the class—Charlie had an extra art period, and Finn’s exact words were, “I’d rather have my eyelashes plucked out one by one”—so I headed to Mrs. Gordon’s classroom alone. Many of the same students who’d been in her Modern Literature class last year had signed up for the class. Padma and Emma were both there, along with Tate Metcalf, Sanjiv Gupta, Christopher Frost, and Tabitha Stone. Unfortunately, Felicity Glen was also in the class, along with her equally annoying best friend, Morgan Simpson.

The seats, which were arranged in a semicircle, were already mostly full. There was an empty desk next to Felicity, but there was no way I was sitting next to her. I glanced around and spotted an empty seat between Sanjiv and the new girl. I swallowed back a sigh. Sitting next to Sanjiv wasn’t much of an improvement over Felicity—he was a stress case and obsessed with the Mu Alpha Theta competition team—but at least Sanjiv wouldn’t spend the period hurling whispered insults at me. It was an easy choice.

“Hi, Sanjiv,”I said, sitting down at the empty desk next to his.

Sanjiv had gotten even taller and ganglier over the summer, and his Adam’s apple had grown more prominent. He pushed his oversized, metal-rimmed glasses up his nose, and said, “Hi, Miranda. The first MATh team meeting is being held this Thursday.”

Uh-oh
, I thought. I knew I was eventually going to have to break the news to Sanjiv that I wasn’t going to be on the Mu Alpha Theta team—MATh for short—this year. I just hadn’t thought I’d have to do it before the first class on the first day of the school year had even begun.

“Um, actually, I’m not going to be on the MATh team this year,”I said. “Sorry.”

And I really was sorry. I hadn’t wanted to be on the team the previous year, either—long story, but basically the Geek High headmaster blackmailed me into it—but even so, I had grown fond of my MATh teammates over the year and I was proud that we’d won at State.

Sanjiv stared at me in horrified disbelief, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously in his throat. “Not be on the team?”he croaked. “But you have to be! We can’t win State again without you!”

“I just can’t. I’m going to be writing for
The Ampersand
, which is a really big time commitment,”I said apologetically. “I don’t have any room in my schedule for MATh team.”

I’d been thrilled when I found out I’d gotten one of the few coveted spots on
The Ampersand
. In fact, it was the main reason I hadn’t moved to London to live with Sadie this year. My biggest dream was to someday be a writer. And not a writer like my mom, who wrote paperback novels featuring eighteenth-century heroines whose dresses were being pulled off by long-haired cads—not that there was anything wrong with writing to entertain. But I wanted to write something serious, something that would make a difference. I wanted to write the Great American Novel, in the tradition of John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and J. D. Salinger. And as far as I was concerned, getting published in
The Ampersand
would be the first step toward this goal. I was hoping that if I got one of my short stories published in our prestigious school magazine, it might help me secure a spot at one of the top college writing programs.

“This can’t be happening. It can’t. It’s a nightmare. Does Leila know? Does Kyle?”Sanjiv moaned. Kyle and Leila were also on the MATh team, but they weren’t nearly as hard-core about it as Sanjiv. I was fairly sure they wouldn’t take my defection quite as badly as he was taking it.

“I don’t know,”I said apologetically.

Sanjiv lapsed into silence, his head on his hands, moaning occasionally. Embarrassed, I looked away. The new girl was sitting quietly on my other side, her laptop out, ready for class to begin. When I glanced over, she was looking in my direction, obviously eavesdropping on my conversation with Sanjiv. When I caught her eye, she flushed a dark red and looked away quickly, her shoulders hunching up.

“Hi,”I said. “I’m Miranda.”

The girl glanced back at me, as though wanting to make sure I was speaking to her. I smiled encouragingly.

“Hi,”she finally said. “I’m Nora.”

Finn was right: Nora was not a hottie, but I didn’t think she was unattractive. She was just plain, with unremarkable features—brown eyes, a slightly rounded nose, thin lips, mousy hair. Her best feature was her clear, ivory skin.

“You’re new here, right?”I said.

She nodded. “I just moved here from Boston.”

“Cool,”I said. “Did you go to a Geek High there, too?”

Nora looked at me blankly. I realized she hadn’t been here long enough to pick up the shorthand.

“Geek High is what everyone in town calls Notting Hill,”I explained. “Because of the IQ requirement to get in.”

“Oh,”Nora said, blushing again. “No. I went to a regular school. But I was in the Gifted and Talented program there.”

Before I could respond, Felicity Glen’s carrying voice cut across the room: “Oh, my
God
. Is that girl actually wearing Doc Martens? Does she think it’s 1993 or something?”she said, while Morgan snickered sycophantically.

I glared daggers at Felicity. She smirked back at me, causing me to indulge in a brief but satisfying fantasy of picturing what Felicity would look like if all of her hair fell out and her face was covered in angry red pimples.

“Ignore her,”I advised Nora. “Felicity is one hundred percent pure evil. Seriously, I’m pretty sure she spends her free time kicking kindergartners.”

But Nora had stopped blushing. Instead, all of the color had drained from her face, leaving her skin a sickly paper white. She stared down at her computer screen, blinking hard, as though she were fighting back tears. I tried to think of something comforting to say, but just then, Mrs. Gordon walked in, and a beat later, the bell rang, signaling the beginning of class.

“Hello, everyone! I hope you all had a nice summer,”Mrs. Gordon said, closing the door behind her.

Mrs. Gordon was my favorite teacher at Geek High. She was plump, with wispy hair that was forever falling out of an old-fashioned bun. Today she was wearing a yellow cardigan that was misbuttoned, and a floral skirt that had what looked like a coffee stain near the hem. But she had a kind smile, and her literature classes were the academic high point of my day.

“Welcome to Nineteenth-Century American Literature. We’re going to start with an old favorite of mine,”Mrs. Gordon continued. She reached into the box on her desk and pulled out a paperback book. “
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
. Tate, will you pass out the books for me?”

While Tate grabbed a stack of books out of the box and began handing them around, I shot Nora a sideways glance. She still looked miserable. Her eyes were downcast and she was chewing on her lower lip. When she took the book Tate held out to her, I could see that her hand was shaking slightly. I felt another hot rush of anger toward Felicity. It was one thing for Felicity to pick on me—I knew what kind of person she was, so her opinion meant nothing to me. But to pick on poor Nora, who was new at Geek High and probably didn’t have a single friend here, was just plain mean.

Felicity apparently felt the weight of my gaze, because she turned to stare at me, raising her eyebrows provocatively. I rolled me eyes in disgust and looked away.

“
Tom Sawyer
is set in the antebellum South in the fictional town of St. Petersburg,”Mrs. Gordon said. “It’s a classic coming-of-age story. Has anyone read it?”

A few hands went up, including Tabitha Stone’s. Tabitha was widely seen as the literary genius of Geek High, largely because she’d had a book of poetry published two years earlier. I’d read her poems and wasn’t that impressed. Besides, Tabitha took herself way too seriously.

Tabitha kept her hand up, and Mrs. Gordon nodded at her.

“I think one of the most compelling themes in
Tom Sawyer
is the hypocrisy of the establishment. The church, the law, Tom’s school,”Tabitha said, sounding as condescending as ever.

“That’s true. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves,”Mrs. Gordon said. “Today I’ll introduce the book to you—the setting, the main characters, the historical background—so you’ll have a point of reference when you begin reading.”

Tabitha looked disgruntled. She loved showing off, and obviously resented not being praised for her superior knowledge.

Feeling cheered up, I opened my laptop and began taking notes.

When the bell rang, signaling the end of class, there was the usual flurry of activity. Laptops were stowed away, book bags were zipped up, people began chatting. By the time I’d packed up my things and turned around, Nora was gone. She must have scurried out of the classroom first thing.