Gorgeous. Part 2

3.

"LEMON!"

My eyes flashed open as Dad knocked on my door and added, "Rise and shine!"

I saw my clock and started cursing.

It was too late for a shower, which I desperately needed. It was also too late to figure out a better costume for my presentation or, obviously, a change of topic and thesis for my end-of-year twenty-percent-of-my-grade social studies project. Not that I was ever considering dumping Gouverneur Morris, my one-legged s.l.u.tty brilliant hideous hero, but still. As if it's not bad enough to have my paper (another twenty percent of my grade) dissed by the teacher in front of the cla.s.s yesterday-well, and then shredded by me-I now had to present it, in all its Bglory, to my whole cla.s.s.

In costume.

As the one-legged hideous s.l.u.tty genius himself.

A normal person (Phoebe) would have done somebody easy. Actually, Phoebe would probably do a movie star so she could go in looking even more beautiful than usual. Quinn did Galileo last year. She just wore her hair in a bun and held a pendulum. She had hers totally memorized, of course, having practiced it in front of Mom and Dad a thousand times.

Not only was Jade's Eleanor Roosevelt costume perfect, she even had a great bonus prepared. I had helped her make little business cards to hand out to everybody after her project with a quote: "Do one thing each day that scares you." E. Roosevelt. "Do one thing each day that scares you." E. Roosevelt. Did I have handouts? No. I had a plunger. Did I have handouts? No. I had a plunger.

"Why didn't you wake me earlier?" I yelled to anybody who was listening. Or wasn't.

I whipped open my closet to find my loose brown cords and the white blouse I had "borrowed" from Quinn, who sometimes does dress, luckily, like an eighteenth-century guy, all frills and velvet. Usually just for piano concerts, but I am convinced she actually enjoys it.

"Who took the plunger?" I screamed, when I realized it wasn't beside my couch where I'd left it. "I need the plunger!"

Dad wandered by with some crack about stuffing up the toilets. He thinks he's such a guy, so laid-back and cool.

"It's for my costume, dude! I have a project today?" If it had been Quinn's project, the whole family would've been expected to be gluing cardboard buckles onto wingtips, but since it was my project, it was obviously a joke.

"Where the f-"

Before I could finish, our housekeeper, Gosia, was at my door with the plunger. I grabbed it from her. "I left it here on purpose," I told her.

Gosia raised one perfectly tweezed eyebrow and tiptoed silently away toward the back steps, down to deal with lunches. She totally favors Phoebe. Maybe it's a straight-shiny-hair/perfect-skin/skinny-girl-bonding thing. Or that Phoebe doesn't scream at her. Not sure which.

I'd had an idea about doing a ponytail-flip thing to make myself look more like Gouverneur Morris, but my hair, like the rest of my life, was refusing to cooperate. I had the scissors out from under the sink and in my hand before I talked myself down off that crazy ledge, reminding myself of past horror shows that were the result of self-induced haircuts. I tucked the huge ma.s.s of it all into the cap I had taken from Dad's closet. It was completely anachronistic, but would have to do because Dad didn't actually own any tricornered hats. Or if he did, they were all in the kindergarten cla.s.sroom where he is king and jester all rolled into one.

I made my bed, straightened my room in three seconds flat, and flew down the back stairs to hit the kitchen just as Quinn was threatening to leave without me. Gosia thrust a disgusting nutrition bar into my bag as we left.

"Are you seriously getting on the bus with a plunger?" Quinn asked.

"You are so mean," I said. "It's my peg leg." I tried to demonstrate but almost fell over, and had to jog to catch up to her. "The bus isn't even there yet."

"And where's your hair?" she asked.

"Am I repulsive?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Awesome," I said. "Thanks. After I spend the night finding your c.r.a.p for you."

That got her attention. "You found the baby monitor?"

"I left it on your desk!"

"Oh," she said. "I didn't see it."

"Maybe if you ever filed a paper, you'd-"

"Shut up, Allison," she said.

"What kind of project are you doing with a baby monitor, anyway?"

"Nothing."

"I don't see what you could make for chemistry with a baby mon-"

"It's not for science, okay? Jeez, Al, you almost touched me with the plunger."

"Sorry!" I held the plunger down. We were steps from the bus stop and, of course, no bus in sight. She always worries we'll miss it, so we're always there way early. "So then, why did you need the baby monitor? To spy on somebody?"

"Yes," she said.

I stopped arguing, stopped swinging the plunger, stopped everything. "I was kidding," I said. "Are you?"

"No," she said.

Quinn is the most straight, moral person who ever walked G.o.d's green earth. She doesn't curse or cheat; she doesn't even whine or complain or eat ice cream right from the container. She works hard and plays by the rules. She flosses, for goodness' sake. She would never spy on anyone. "Who are you spying on?"

"You can't say anything."

"You know me," I said. "I would never tell; you know that."

"True. Okay. Mom and Dad," she said.

"Oh." I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or disappointed it wasn't me. "Why are you-"

"What was that?" Quinn asked. "Did you just turn your phone off?"

"No," I said. "You paranoid spy. That was yours." But when I grabbed my phone out of my pocket to check, it was off. "Weird," I said, and tried to turn it back on. Nothing.

"Maybe it's dead."

"I charged it last night," I started to protest, but then it turned back on by itself, in my hand.

"You just have to hold down the thing for three seconds," Quinn instructed me in her slow-talking way that makes it sound like everybody is stupid except her.

"I know," I protested. "Why are you spying on them?"

She rolled her eyes but leaned close, like the trees might overhear. "I heard them arguing last night, and then I heard Mom tell Dad that...Allison!"

My phone turned off again, making its loud sign-off music.

"Will you quit it?" Quinn demanded impatiently.

"I didn't do anything!" I told her. "Oh! I know what happened! I had the weirdest dream last night. I sold my-"

"Allison," Quinn growled. "I honestly don't give a c.r.a.p about your dream. Do you want to know what I think is happening with Mom or not?" The bus was finally screeching and jolting its way down the hill toward us.

"Yes," I said quickly, slipping my phone back into my pocket. "Of course. Chill, would you?" She is always telling me to chill. She is the most chill person in the world. Normally. It was odd-and, I have to say, sort of great-to be the one telling her to chill for once.

Quinn took a breath and leaned close. "Last night I heard her arguing with Daddy about-"

She interrupted herself to glare at me. My phone was beeping inside my pocket.

"I'm not doing anything!" I told her. I yanked the phone out again and showed her what was happening on the little screen: It was scrolling down a list of options I didn't even know existed on my phone, choices of modes like Outdoor and Pager. I tried to get it to stop, but it wouldn't.

"It's dying," Quinn diagnosed.

"No," I said. "I sold it to the devil."

"Forget it."

"Fine, don't believe me," I said. "You are so nasty. Do I look different today?"

Quinn shook her head and exhaled, without really looking at me.

"Seriously," I said. "Do I?"

She looked. "You're wearing a hat," she said. "And holding a plunger."

As I was. .h.i.tting her with the plunger, the bus squealed to a stop in front of us and farted. While we waited for the doors to wheeze open, I tried to catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection from the windows. I couldn't really see anything conclusive. Not that I expected to. But my phone was squawking in my clutch again, so I was kind of cracking myself up by thinking, Maybe it really happened Maybe it really happened.

Quinn got on ahead of me and made her way up the aisle to where the tenth graders were sitting. I plunked down in my usual seat, three back from the driver, and stared out the window. Jade and Serena were waiting at the next stop. I could see them as we came over the hill.

The bus screeched and jolted still. I looked up. Jade looked at me and then away. Serena did the same. Instead of sitting down with me, Jade took the seat in front of me, and Serena giddily bopped down beside her.

So that's how it was going to play out. I should have known there'd be the silent treatment. Maybe I had known. You don't suddenly throw your report at a teacher and cut a cla.s.s with the wild new girl and, worst of all, turn off your phone and then just go back to normal. Not with Jade.

I was on my way to first period, alone, when Roxie bounded up and grabbed me, talking before I could even listen, telling me a long, convoluted story about how she missed the bus as always because, this time, she'd been tearing through everything in her parents' closets coming up with a costume since 6 a.m. She was laughing straight through the telling, so I missed some of what she said, but I had to smile anyway, she was enjoying herself so thoroughly. We were almost at the door of social studies when she interrupted herself with a gasp.

"Why do you look like that?" she asked me.

"I'm Gouverneur Morris. Didn't the Fascist say you couldn't be a fictional character?"

"Who's changed the world more than Harry Potter?" Roxie demanded, shoving her wire-rimmed gla.s.ses, octagonal instead of round, up her nose. "Man, I can't see in these at all." She whipped them off and stared at me. "No, seriously, Allison. You look different."

"Hat," I said. "Plunger."

"Hot," she argued.

"Really?" I asked. "Um, can I hide behind you? I have to lose half a leg."

"Sure." The bell rang. Roxie spread her arms to turn her mom's poncho from Harry's robes into a makeshift changing room. I had to scrunch low and hide inside Quinn's blouse while I pulled down my pants to wiggle my right leg out, bend it, and tuck my foot next to my b.u.t.t. Then, while barely managing to zip my squishy pants, I stood up and stuck in the plunger, plunger-side up, all the while praying n.o.body had used the thing since I'd scrubbed it the night before. I was in a soaking sweat.

The Fascist picked on me to present first, probably as revenge for having been confettied, so I was in a total sweat as I limped up to the front of the cla.s.sroom.

Maybe that was a good thing, though, because I forgot about the fact that my best friend was totally glaring at me and that I hadn't gotten around to memorizing my paper. I just acted p.i.s.sed off and superior and told the first-period ninth-grade social studies cla.s.s about my (well, Gouverneur Morris's) theory that only the aristocracy could be trusted to run the country, but that, at the same time, yes, I was the one who wrote the preamble to the Const.i.tution, starting with "We the People" rather than, as some of the twits in the Const.i.tutional Convention had wanted, "We, the Several States of the Union" or some uninspired c.r.a.p like that. And I further denied categorically that all of my mistresses were murderers, insisting that not even a majority of them ever killed anybody of note.

It was fun.

After I finished, n.o.body said anything. I just stood there and suddenly felt off balance, awkward, humiliated, and sweaty again. "Whatever," I said. "Anyway, that's it."

Then Roxie started clapping, and a few other people joined in. Including the Fascist herself. Not Jade, though. No way.

"Wow," the Fascist said. "Allison, that was, well, remarkable. That is, I felt I was listening not to a ninth grader reciting a report, but to this historical figure as a real person." She squinted at me.

I could tell she was thinking maybe Quinn had written it for me or performed it for me or something. Maybe she was trying to figure out if Quinn had actually come to the cla.s.s dressed as me dressed as Gouverneur Morris. "What?" I said, yanking the plunger out of my pants leg and knocking myself off balance into her desk.

"Excellent," she said, and turned to the cla.s.s. "That will be a hard act to follow. Who's feeling daring?" she asked them.

I couldn't get my leg free, is why I had to ask to go out into the hall for a second. It wasn't because I needed to recover from the shock of getting a compliment from the Fascist.

At least, not only that.

I hopped out into the hall and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. That's when Tyler Moss sauntered by.

"Hey," he said as he pa.s.sed.

"Hi," I said back. He couldn't wreck this day for me. I had just totally rocked in social studies. What does it matter that the boy you have had a crush on for months doesn't know you exist, when you have just stood with your knee in a plunger for ten minutes in front of the cla.s.s and...Hmm.

I could feel my buzz being killed.

He looked at me, then stopped and looked again, and said, "I know you." He squinted slightly, like he was trying to decode me.

"Allison Avery. I was at Roxie Green's with you yesterday," I said, and managed not to add, Also you hit me with your glove last February eleventh. Also you hit me with your glove last February eleventh.

He tilted his head slightly, evaluating the bit of information I'd said aloud. Clearly, he was unconvinced. "You look different."

"I wasn't holding a plunger," I said, swinging it. "And I had both legs."

He looked down and, seeing only one foot on the linoleum, opened his deep blue eyes wide with alarm.

"It's a costume," I quickly explained. "Gouverneur Morris?"