Four of a Kind Part 5

Someone sits down beside me at the table I have staked out for my lunch spot since the second day of school. I don't look up until I hear a girl's voice calling my name. "Reagan?"

The brunette girl from drama cla.s.s has planted herself beside me, dropping a heavy-looking schoolbag on the table in front of both of us. We've never technically met, but she's always sitting with Kent. "You are Reagan, right? We are in Mr. Sullen's cla.s.s together?" I don't answer right away, and the girl looked mortified.

"Yeah. I'm Reagan. And I should know what your name is, but I'm drawing a blank." I do my best to seem friendly, all while trying to figure out why she could possibly have chosen to sit down beside me.

"Jen," she says, sticking out her hand to shake mine. I'm a little unsure of what to make of the formal introduction from a girl my age, but I'm not about to leave her hanging.

"Nice to meet you," I say, trying to make sure it sounds like a statement and not a question. My lunch period has taken a turn for the unexpected, and I'm not sure I like it. I can already see myself saying something stupid and embarra.s.sing myself in front of a whole new cla.s.s worth of people.

"Sorry to bug you on your lunch. I would wait until cla.s.s to ask about this, but when I saw you here, I couldn't resist. We have our first group project coming up next week."

"We do?" I say before I can stop myself. I've been making a point of paying attention in all of my cla.s.ses, and still it looks like I missed something big.

Jen must see how uncomfortable I look because she quickly shrugs off my confusion. "It was in the syllabus. We're not actually talking about it until cla.s.s today. Just getting ahead of the game. We're trying to put together a group, and are one short."

I'm dying to ask why she approached me, but can't bring myself to do it. "I don't know if you want me in your group," I admit. "I've never done any drama stuff before and am pretty sure I will be useless."

Jen nods, studying me. "I'll admit, you're a bit of an unknown factor. And when it comes to my grades, I'm not one to take risks. But Mr. Sullen isn't your typical grader. Kent, Frank and I were all in his cla.s.s last year too, and we never managed over eighty-five. At this point, I'm not sure what will win him over, so I'm mixing things up a bit."

Okay, I hadn't expected that much honesty. But Jen is clearly someone I want to work with if I'm going to have any chance of doing well in this cla.s.s that I shouldn't have been taking in the first place. "What's involved?"

Jen tilts her head, perplexed. I can already see her changing her mind about me. "Well, it is a drama cla.s.s. So, you're going to need to act."

That's what I was afraid of. But I was going to be acting anyway, agreeing to work with Jen would mean that I didn't have to sit around pathetically while everyone in the cla.s.s chose their friends for their group before the teacher had to a.s.sign me somewhere. "I can act. Probably." I close my mouth before I talk Jen out of wanting me in her group. "I'm in," I add, before she can change her mind.

"All right, cool. See you in cla.s.s then?"

"Sounds good."

I wait until Jen has walked away before digging through my backpack for the small folder I've been using to keep my drama files in. Maybe it's time to have a look at that syllabus.

Kent bounces towards me as soon as I enter the drama room. Every day since I joined this cla.s.s, he's made a point of seeking me out and saying hi. When all I can do is fumble an awkward reply, he gives in and goes back to sit with his friends. But today, I'm going to have to be a bit better. I knew agreeing to be in Jen's group meant forcing myself to interact with Kent for more than a few seconds per cla.s.s, but since that was something I was trying to figure out how to do anyway, it seems like a bonus.

"I heard the good news," Kent says with a lopsided smile. "You know, it's not easy to get an invite like this from Jen. She's kind of intense about the whole school thing."

"I got that impression. I take it she'll be acting as group leader."

"Group leader, commandant, dictator. That's her either way." I move to take my backpack off and leave it in one of the cubbies by the drama room door, but Kent takes it from me before I can and hangs it up on a nearby hook. "You might as well come sit with us now. No more hiding in the back of the room."

Heat rushes to my face as I hope I haven't spent the last week looking like a total dork, at least any more than usual. My strategy of not catching Mr. Sullen's attention was working so far, but I hadn't guessed that anyone else had caught on to my plan.

I probably over did my attempt at enthusiastic and friendly as I sat down between Kent and Jen, waving h.e.l.lo as they introduced me to Frank. The dark-haired guy gave a friendly smile and then promptly went back to reading the graphic novel he had spread open on his lap.

I catch a glimpse of the cover of what he's reading and get way too excited way too quickly. "Saga?" I ask. Frank to looks up, his dark eyes wary. "Yeah, volume two. I just started it last week. It's pretty nuts."

"Oh yeah. It gets so much better to, but there is some weird stuff in there. My mom was not thrilled when she saw what I was reading but then she ended up going through the whole thing herself and decided it was worth it. So good!" There was nothing that could bring me out of my sh.e.l.l faster than talking about any of my favorite nerd obsessions and while graphic novels was a new hobby of mine, ever since Nadine's cousin had given her his old collection, I was finding more and more to like. And it wasn't often I found someone out in the real world who could talk about any of these things with me.

Just then Mr. Sullen stood up from his desk and walked over to the blackboard, beginning the day's lesson. So far, I hadn't had to stand up in front of the cla.s.s for any more than two minutes at a time, usually doing some improv warm-up for the day. And I hoped that because we were getting a big a.s.signment, it would mean I could get away with it for another day. All the while I was hyperaware of Kent's knee only inches from mine. Part of me wants to think I catch him glancing over at me out of the corner of my eye more than once, but I force myself to keep my eyes looking forward. I can't wait to tell Nadine about this.

Chapter 8.

Bed really is the nicest place on earth.

I'm lying under the covers, listening to Rhiannon get ready for school and contemplating how I might go about convincing Mom I'm too sick to go to school. The big problem is that I spent most of last night forcing my sisters to run lines with me and getting panicky at the thought of my first drama presentation. Everyone knows what today is for me. Which means Mom would need some serious evidence of illness before she'd let me stay home. And when your mother is a doctor, actual evidence of being sick is hard to come by.

I drag myself out of bed and tap on the bathroom door. "I'm in here!" Reece yells from inside.

Fine, I'm just going to wing the whole faking sick thing because there's no way I'm getting up in front of the cla.s.s of twenty-five people today to embarra.s.s myself. And that's exactly what will happen. I'll have to stand up on the pseudo-stage during cla.s.s, and everyone's going to realize what a cosmic joke it is that I ever signed up for a drama cla.s.s at all. As it is, I can barely speak as myself in front of other people.

Trudging down the stairs, I do my best to come off as sickly and pathetic. Sometimes, the best strategy for convincing Mom I'm not feeling well is not to overdo it. More than once, she has filled in the blanks for me on what might be wrong, without my ever having to fake any symptoms. Of course, ninety percent of the time this plan has ended in her declaring that there's nothing wrong with me at all. It's worth a shot.

But when I enter the kitchen, it's Dad hovering over the stove, cooking up eggs and bacon. "Hey, sweetheart. You're up early." He barely looks up from what he was doing, and I'm not convinced he even knows which daughter I am at this point. Dad has never been what you would call a morning person. Usually, Mom gets up when we do and makes sure we eat-cereal and toast, the extent of her culinary abilities-and we don't see Dad until we get home from school, at which point my mom is at work.

"Where's Mom?" I ask, trying to keep my voice raspy.

Dad looks up, concern shining in his eyes. "She got called into work around five. Mrs. McCluskey has gone into labor. It's exciting stuff. But it means you're stuck with me this morning."

This changes everything. Dad deals with us so rarely in the morning that he's hardly heard any of our excuses for trying to stay home from school. And there's no denying that of our two parents, he's the easier touch. I could actually pull this off. He stands at the stove in the room, studying me and I can tell he's already trying to figure out if something is wrong. It would only take a gentle nudge to get him where I need him.

But when I open my mouth, I hesitate, surprising myself. It's Jen's face I see in my head, frowning down at me from my subconscious. She'll be so p.i.s.sed if I miss this. And even if can convince her that I really was sick, the chances of her ever asking me to be in one of her groups again is almost nothing. Plus, no matter what happens today, I'm still going to have to do this scene. It's part of my grade, and the rest of my group's grades. I can only avoid it for so long.

c.r.a.p. I do not want to have to deal with this today. Or ever. But picturing what it would've been like to walk back in to that biology cla.s.s does the trick, and it's obvious this is the lesser of two evils.

"We both know if getting stuck with you for the morning means getting real food for breakfast no one will complain." I do my best to smile without overselling it. "If you've got anything ready, I'll eat now and then go get dressed once Reece has relinquished the bathroom."

"One serving of real food, coming right up."

I stand behind the curtain and wait for my cue to go out and speak my first line. Our entire performance will last less than five minutes total, and I wrangled myself the roll with the least speaking parts, but it's still way more than I'm comfortable with. And, of course, Jen has volunteered us to go first.

Five minutes. Soon, I'll be able to go sit back down on the floor and clap politely through the rest of the performances.

Fred practically snorts out his last line and saunters off stage, which is the signal for my character to start her nonchalant walk across to the other side of the room. The a.s.signment was to put a modern spin on a cla.s.sic performance, tailoring it to the style and issues of today. By the time Mr. Sullen had told us to break off into groups and brainstorm, Jen was already handing us our scripts. She had decided for the rest of us we would be reimagining the cla.s.sic battle scene from Romeo and Juliet as though it was playing out between a democrat and a republican. Frank had tried to point out that no one in our cla.s.s could even vote yet, but Jen insisted, and there we were.

I try not to look at the audience as I reach my place on stage, doing my best to embody an outraged, left-wing activist, attempting to stage a protest. My first two lines tumble out of my mouth, in-eloquent and probably hard to understand. I stand frozen as Kent and Jen continued their fake romance between two people with drastically different political leanings, finding common ground.

The next two minutes happen so fast that by the time Mr. Sullen dims the lights, indicating that it is all over, I am completely dizzy and can barely remember any of what just happened.

But it's over. And no one seems to be pointing and laughing at me, at least not yet. I doubt anyone would call what I had done acting, but I said my lines and stood where I was supposed to, and not screwed anything up for anyone else. Which was a better result than I would've guessed.

My heart continues to race through the next few performances and it's only as the cla.s.s is winding down for the day that I feel like myself again. Except, now I'm a version of myself who survived acting for a crowd. And if I'm honest, it wasn't much more uncomfortable for me then having to give an oral presentation. At least this time I'd had other people up there with me, prying away some of the attention.

I'm collecting my bag when Kent comes up behind me. "We did it. I'm not sure anyone else understood what Jen's point was supposed to be, but it's over, so whatever. And you did great."

I glance down at my feet for a second, unsure of what to say. We both know that what he said was a dirty, stinking lie. "Thanks," is all I can come up with. "But you don't have to say that. I'm sure my joining a drama cla.s.s was one of my stupider decisions this year. And it hasn't even been a month."

"You're overthinking this," Kent says, still smiling encouragingly. "There's not a single person in this cla.s.s who is a Hollywood cla.s.s actor. We're all just kind of making it up as we go along and trying not to look ridiculous. Most of the time, it doesn't work." Kent casually eyes a scrawny black guy whose name I don't remember. For his group's performance he dressed up in several different colors of bed sheets and wore a towel on his head. I didn't get the significance, but maybe I wasn't supposed to.

"Well, either way, hopefully I'll do better next time. I'm hoping I didn't scare Jen off the idea of working with me. Because let's face it, I don't know anyone else yet."

"Ouch."

"I didn't mean it like that!"

Kent grins. "Yeah, yeah. Actually, that's kind of what I'm here about. We were wondering if maybe you wanted to go into town with us after school. We'll just grab something to eat and call it a celebration of our success," Kent shrugs, "but you're welcome to come."

I can't help the smile that pushes its way onto my face. Someone is asking me to spend time with them after school. Kent! If I take out Elise and Nadine, this is the first time this has ever happened to me, let alone at this new school. Kent must take my smile as a yes because he's already pulling a notebook out of his backpack and scribbling his number down on a piece of paper. He rips it out and hands it to me. "Awesome. We're meeting at the front doors after next period, but if you can't find me, you can text me and I'll find you. You know where the front doors of the school are, right?"

"Yes, I think I can find that much. But I'll hold onto your number just in case."

And with that, I'm off to math cla.s.s, all the horrors of my drama performance forgotten with the excitement of my plans with Kent. And Jen, and Frank. I'm so glad I didn't stay home sick. One, the cutest guy I've met in Fairview wants to hang out with me after school. Two, there are people now who have spent a decent amount of time with me, and might want to be my friends. That's not something that happens to me that often.

As I unload all of my math stuff from my bag onto my desk, I'm trying to imagine what I can talk about to make me seem somewhat cool, or at least not uncool, when I go get food after school. I wish I had time to talk to Reece before this, although she might have just psyched me out and make me worry more than I will already.

As I think about my sisters, I look around the room for Rhiannon. Her desk near the front is still empty and cla.s.s is starting in less than two minutes. She comes to math cla.s.s from lunch, so it's not like she could've been sidetracked by a teacher, which is the only thing that will make Rhiannon late for anything.

Reagan: Hey, where are you?

The response comes so quickly that I know something is up.

Rhiannon: Walking home. Didn't feel like dealing with math today.

I stare at my phone for so long that I have to shove it under my desk when the teacher pa.s.ses by a few minutes later, handing out the day's worksheet. I'm not sure if Rhiannon has ever skipped cla.s.s before. If she has, she's covered it up better than the rest of us, but either way this is completely unlike her.

I move slowly until I can get my phone in my lap so I can text a response. Because to be fair, skipping cla.s.ses isn't like me either and I did it not that long ago.

Reagan: Is everything okay?

Rhiannon: Yeah, everything's fine. I had better things to do then go over a lesson plan I've already understood for a week.

She doesn't say anything else, but I stop myself before texting Reece or Riley. I don't know if Rhiannon would want me blabbing that she skipped cla.s.s to anyone else. And if something is going on, I don't want to be the one to point anyone else in her direction because I know she won't appreciate the gesture.

At the end of the period, I find Riley coming out of her own cla.s.s across the hall, and tap her on the shoulder. The two of us try to sidestep out of the flow of teenagers trying to escape the building as soon as possible at the end of the school day. Reilly has tied her hair back in a half-ponytail that still shows off the waves she'd curled into her hair that morning, causing her to miss dad's breakfast. We have the same face, but it's impossible not to notice how much better she makes it look.

"So, it looks like it may just be you and Reece walking home today," I say. I hadn't thought this part through when I'd decided not to rat out Rhiannon to our sisters. They would notice when she wasn't with us to walk home.

"Oh?" Reilly's eyebrows shoot up. "Reece is staying late too. I'm pretty sure there's a boy involved."

Okay, I hadn't thought any of this through. Usually the four of us walk home together before Reece inevitably went off to hang out with the friends she already has. Something maybe I might be able to relate to sooner rather than later. "Are you okay to walk home on your own?" I ask. Part of me is desperate for her to say it's fine, because the walk home isn't that long and we were all going to have to do it eventually. And another small part of me knows how much easier things would be if I let my sister guilt me in to keeping her company on the way home. Talking to Riley will always be easier than even sitting in the same room as Kent.

"No, no. I'm fine. What are you getting up to?"

"Would you believe me if I said I had plans? My drama group..."

"Right! How did that go? I can't believe I forgot. This morning we were all taking bets on whether or not you'd find a way out of it."

I don't have to ask who was betting in which direction, but since I had considered faking sick to avoid the presentation, I can't judge. Much. "I sucked royally. But some people from my group asked if I wanted to hang out after cla.s.s, so I didn't turn myself into a total social leper with my performance. I figured I should just do it."

Riley squeals, clapping her hands together and drawing the attention of almost everybody left in the hallway. "Oh my G.o.d, that's so exciting. Will Kent be there?"

I shush my sister and step in closer, not wanting to be overheard. If someone mentions to Kent that I was talking about him in the hallway, I'd have to give up and leave town. "Yes. Not that I care." I emphasized the last line, hoping Reilly will take the hint.

"Sure. But as soon as you get home, I want to hear everything."

I shrug. I was probably going to tell her everything anyway, but if things go badly, I want to reserve the right to sulk about it on my own.

"So where is Rhiannon then? Some study group?"

"She's..." I debate how much to share, but in the end I'm not willing to lie to Riley. Not about something like this, especially since Rhiannon hadn't said anything. "She skipped cla.s.s. I don't know when she went home, but she wasn't in math, and when I texted her she had already started walking home."

"No way." Riley stares at me but when I don't contradict myself she continues. "You're serious?"

"Yeah, apparently she didn't want to deal with math today. As if any of us ever want to deal with math."

"Rhiannon even likes math. As much as that's actually possible."

"Well, she should probably be home when you get there so maybe you can figure out what's going on. I thought she was starting to act more like herself again, but you never really know with her."

"Probably just having a bad day. It would've been weirder if she'd made it all the way through high school without skipping a cla.s.s."

"Fair point. So you're sure you're okay walking home by yourself?"

"Yes, mom. I can manage to walk home all by myself." She sticks out her tongue. "You'll have the best time. If you need anything, just call. You can do this."

"I hope so," I say as the two of us walk toward the front of the school. "If not, then you'll be stuck with me as your weird, spinster sister forever. I hope you're planning to buy a house with enough s.p.a.ce for me and my books, because if I screw this up I'll probably die alone, friendless."

"Don't even talk like that. You put way too much pressure on yourself and I'm guessing you're way overthinking all of this. These people asked you to hang out, they want you to be there."

That's the second time today I've been accused of overthinking things. "You're not about to tell me to be myself, are you?" I ask as we push open the door from the main lobby. Immediately, I spot the green in Kent's hair close to the parking lot. Everyone is already waiting for me.

"Do whatever you want. Just don't worry so much. You're great and everyone will see that."

I resist the urge to give my sister a hug. If only everyone else was as nice as she is, I'd have no trouble meeting people. But neither she nor any of my other sisters are going where I am now, so I will have to figure this out all on my own.

Chapter 9.