What Would Emma Do? (16 page)

The school band would supply the music for the event, and the TES church choir was practicing in overdrive. It was determined that with high-def TV, new choir robes would need to be ordered. Imagine the shame if Trinity Evangelical was on the national stage and people saw frayed cuffs, faded colors, and nappy velvet. Oh, the inhumanity.

This was the biggest thing to ever happen in Wheaton, and it was all anyone could talk about, including all the students in the TES cafeteria. All around me I could hear people oohing and aahing over the possibility of appearing on TV. It was like they expected Angelina Jolie to show up and adopt a Wheaton kid. I tried to eat my salad in peace and block out the craziness. Besides, I had bigger things to obsess about, like track. I had faith that if I kept my nose clean, my mom would buckle. She knew how much track meant to me. I had missed a meet on Wednesday, but I was hoping not to have to miss any others. She was making a point, and I was attempting to show I got it. While I waited for her to see the error of her ways, I was keeping up with my training regime so I would be ready when she caved. I tried to focus on visualizing the feeling of crossing the finish line.

Darci and her gang sat a table over, gushing over Reverend Teaks and his show, which I strongly suspected none of them even liked until they heard it was coming to town. Of course, now that being poisoned was yesterday’s news, they needed something else to focus on, so why not media celebrity? Joann was sitting with them. She’d waved for me to join them, but I had held up my biology book, indicating I had to study. It seemed more polite than implying that close proximity to Darci would make my gag reflex kick in. I tried to focus on the exciting life of cell structure, but I could still hear them.

“My mother says I might have to take Friday off. She’s going to take me into Fort Wayne to get my hair and nails done for the show,” Darci said. She was sitting in the center of a cluster of girls, and I couldn’t help but notice there were more around her than usual.

“At a salon?” a freshman said in awe, as if that was equal to the Promised Land.

“I’m going to have to sleep sitting up so I don’t ruin my hair.” Darci laughed. “A woman’s hair is her crowning glory, you know.”

I tried not to gag on a crouton.

“I can’t believe you’re going to be on national TV!”

“I know. My dad says the choir will do at least two or three songs during the show. Plus, since Kimberly and I were the first victims of the attack, Reverend Teaks will likely want to pray over us. Give us his blessing.”

“Maybe you’ll be discovered.”

I gave a snort. Darci turned to face me.

“Is there a problem?” she said with a hair flip.

“It’s
Born-Again Today
, not
American Idol
.”

“Envy is a sin, you know,” said Darci.

“Envy?” I rolled my eyes and started to pack my lunch away. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore. “The whole thing is a joke.”

Darci stood up and blocked my path, crossing her arms in front of her. She looked over at the group to make sure she had the maximum audience.

“I’m not surprised you would think so. You’ve always stuck out here, and if you didn’t have Joann keeping you company out of the kindness of her heart, you wouldn’t have any friends at all.”

Joann didn’t meet my eyes. Instead she stared down at her square of pizza and tub of applesauce as if she had never seen them before.

“I don’t like to be friends with people who are fake. So I might not have a ton of friends, but at least the ones I have are real.”

“How interesting. All this talk about real, it makes me wonder what kind of friend you really are.”

I looked at her. I felt the salad in my stomach do a roll-over. Self-tossing salad, not a good thing. I had the feeling she and Joann had discussed more than the spring dance when Darci was over. I had the feeling she knew about the infamous Christmas kiss. Joann had begged her mom not to tell anyone, and up until now I thought we had managed to keep the whole thing a secret. I shot another look at Joann, who was still pondering the mystery of her hot lunch with the kind of concentration shown by biohazard engineers.

“You shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about,” I said.

“I know you were the only person I ever saw Todd talk to. I heard the two of you went for long drives out to the abandoned theater. We all know what he was capable of. I guess the only question is, what are
you
capable of?”

“Todd had nothing to do with any of this. Everyone seems to forget there haven’t been any charges.”

“The school hasn’t charged him yet because they have to make sure the case is solid and that they have all his accomplices.”

“Solid? There are no charges because there’s no evidence. Despite what your dad would have people believe, video games are not really the tool of Satan.”

“How sweet. Are you protecting your lover?” Darci drew out the last word, and a few of the younger girls gave a gasp. The accusation of fornication hung in the air. Anyone who hadn’t been paying attention was turning around to see what was going on.

“You better watch your mouth, Darci Evers,” I said. She sneered and turned back to her friends. “You get out to the Barn much these days?” I asked, matching her sneer.

Darci turned back slowly to face me. Her face was flushed red, and she was breathing in deep puffs like a dragon ready to go off into spouts of flame and smoke.

“What did you say?”

“I asked if you got out to the Barn.” I snapped my fingers as if I had just remembered something. “Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t go out to the Barn, what with all the things that go on out there. The parties, the drinking, I hear even drugs. Why, people could get themselves into real trouble out there. Lucky for us we have you to act as TES’s personal role model.”

As for what happened next, you could argue it was my own fault. I turned my back on an angry Darci.

25

God, I would like to argue that humility as a virtue is over-rated and should not be confused with humiliation. I don’t think that I’m better than other people. I really don’t. Perhaps you could lay off on lessons designed to teach me humility. For example, the time I sat on those raspberries in my white capri pants and then walked around all day with a giant red target on my ass. There was no point to that. It was just cruel.

I’ve known Darci Evers since first grade. I thought I knew a lot about her.

• She has the world’s largest hair scrunchie ribbon collection in the school, one to match every outfit. (And hello? Who wears scrunchies anymore?)
  
• She has underwear with the days of the week sewn on the butt. (She’s not the kind of person to get all wild and crazy and wear a Wednesday on a Thursday.)
  
• She thinks she sings like an angel, but the truth is she should stick with lip-synching. (What can you expect from someone who considers Britney Spears her vocal mentor?)
  

The one thing I didn’t expect was that Darci Evers was a dirty fighter. I didn’t see her as the type to fight at all. Plunge a figurative dagger in someone’s back, sure. Hire a hit man, possibly. But a fighter? I never saw it coming. I turned my back on her for a fraction of a second, and she sprang on me like a crazed, rabid weasel. Her pink nails wound their way in my hair, and she jumped onto my back with a squeal that would shatter glass. We hit the floor, my lunch went flying, and the cafeteria chairs spun out of our way.

“CATFIGHT!” someone yelled out.

Darci had ahold of my hair and she seemed intent on yanking it out in one big hunk. We rolled around on the floor amid the cheering and screaming. My face rolled past what I am pretty sure was a dollop of dropped sauerkraut, and I felt it end up in my ear. Darci’s hand—scratch that, talon—came out and raked across my face.

“Let go of me,” I yelled as I kicked, trying to take her shins out or at least roll over so that she wouldn’t have me pinned down.

For someone who is supposed to be full of Christian love, Darci was quite the scrapper. She was doing her best to pound my head against the floor in some kind of deranged WWF move when the fight was broken up. I like to believe that if I hadn’t been surprised, or if the fight had lasted longer, I would have come out on top in the end. However, I had been surprised, and the fight hadn’t gone on very long, so Darci was the one who drew the most blood. I could tell my nose was bleeding, and there was a huge scrape on my knee. The crowd gave an appreciative gasp. I had the sense that if my fellow students had lived in earlier times they would have enjoyed such wholesome sports as bearbaiting or watching gladiators fight to the death.

The group around us parted. It was like the Red Sea on speed, only instead of Moses, Mr. Reilly was standing over us. He bent down and pulled Darci up and off of me by her skirt waistband. He stood her up and looked her over. Her hair was pulled out of her ponytail holder, there was a smear of blood across her upper lip, and a shiny string of spit hung from her lower lip. Her eyes had a wild and crazy Lindsay-Lohan-on-a-bender look to them. I noticed that Mr. Reilly did not help me to my feet. I scrambled to stand up by myself. I stuck my pinkie in my ear to try to dislodge the hunk of sauerkraut.

The sleeve of my shirt was torn, and my uniform skirt was twisted around. My head hurt, and I was afraid that when I looked in the mirror I would discover a giant bloody bald spot.

“Ladies. I am astonished and disgusted,” Mr. Reilly said.

Darci promptly burst into tears. Mr. Reilly reached over and grabbed a stack of paper napkins from the table and gently passed them to her. He looked at me and shook his head. I wiped my nose with my sleeve and tried to straighten my skirt. I’m sure he would have handed me a napkin if he hadn’t given all of them to Darci. Ha ha ha.

“Emma, I want you to go down to Mr. Karp’s office.”

“Me?” I looked around to see if anyone else was appalled. “She hit me. She attacked me.”

Darci didn’t disagree, but instead wailed louder. Kimberly stuck to her side like a tick. She led Darci away down the hall as if Darci was a tragic victim of random violence. Everyone in the cafeteria was doing their best to act as if they hadn’t noticed a thing, suddenly very interested in the contents of their lunches. I looked at Joann, waiting for her to say something. She stood there staring at me like she had never seen me before.

“I am not going to have this discussion with you. I want you to go right now.” Mr. Reilly pointed dramatically down the hall toward Mr. Karp’s office. He looked like he was God pointing Adam and Eve out of the garden. Banished. I looked around, seeing if there were any friendly faces, but when no one met my eyes, I shuffled down the hall.

Considering that before last week I had never been to Mr. Karp’s office, I was suddenly starting to earn a lot of frequent visitor points. While I waited for my turn to see him, the secretary took pity on me. She brought me some wet paper towels and a Kleenex before going for her own lunch. I blotted the blood off and gave my nose a big honk. The door to Mr. Karp’s inner sanctum was closed. I could hear the murmur of voices through the wood. I wondered if he had already called my mother. Any hope I had of earning my way back onto the track team by keeping my nose clean wasn’t going exactly according to plan. I was determined not to cry, though. I wouldn’t. I stared straight ahead, focusing on counting how many cement blocks were in the far wall.

“Psst.”

I turned around. I didn’t see anyone. People wandered by in the halls, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to me at all.

“Psst.”

Great, now I was hearing voices. I rubbed the side of my head. I wondered if I had some kind of brain injury. Darci had whacked my head pretty good against the floor. Maybe it had resulted in some kind of clot in my skull. While I sat there, my brain tissue could’ve been dying. I swore if I ended up as a drooling, voice-hearing blob I’d sue that Bible thumper, so help me God.

“Hey.”

I turned around again, and this time I saw him. Colin was just outside the office, pretending to get a drink from the fountain.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Darci attacked me in the cafeteria.”

Colin laughed, spraying water back into the fountain.

“It’s not funny,” I clarified, but he kept laughing.

“We need to talk. Meet me after school?” he asked.

“I can’t. I have to go over to the church. My mom has me volunteering.”

“How about I meet you there?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I’ll explain later.” Colin gave me a nod and then slipped down the hallway. He hadn’t said anything to make me feel that way, but I had the sense that it was going to be bad news. Maybe it was just the way the day was going.

26

God, I hope when you were a kid you weren’t perfect all the time. I mean, you would have been the most annoying classmate ever. Everyone would be like, “Don’t hang with that Jesus kid.” It would have been a miracle if you made any friends at all, let alone twelve of them. No one likes someone who’s perfect all the time. A couple of nice flaws might round you out. Of course, if you have too many flaws you can end up like me, with no friends at all.

The meeting with Mr. Karp went better than expected. There were no threats of expulsion or damnation, which made for a refreshing change. Instead, the focus seemed to be on understanding what was going on with me. I imagine Mr. Karp had been reading up on books that extol the virtues of understanding and reaching today’s troubled youth. I suspect he’d been role-playing how to “get down and rap” with teens. No doubt, with the official story being that Todd had been on the cusp of wiping out the student population, Mr. Karp was feeling the need to connect with those of us on the fringes. There were a lot of comments about how it must be hard for me to be from a single-parent home and how he deeply understood how it could be difficult to be outside of the popular group. He included (at no extra cost) a touching story of his own youth, where apparently he was called Mr. Potato. This cruel name appeared to be related to both the general size and shape of his head (frighteningly misshapen once you noticed it) and the fact that his parents were potato farmers. I think this story was meant to bond us, two different generations, both experienced at being losers.