“Why does it feel like Len has it out for me this year?”
“He’s always had it out for us,” Charlie says. “He’s nobody. We’rerelevant.” She really will take any excuse to use that word.
Olivia starts chomping on her salad, handing me a sandwich. She opens a bottle of sparkling water, and the entire thing explodes over the table and all over Charlie.
“For the love of God!” Charlie shouts. “This is, like, the fourteenth time today.”
“Second,” Olivia corrects, grabbing napkins off Ben’s plate. She starts mopping up Charlie’s shirt, and Charlie swats her, and then they are tossing napkins back and forth, water flying everywhere.
Jake leans way back in his chair and surveys the scene. “Goddamn, I love high school,” he announces.
Charlie gives him a wilting look and drops the napkins onto the table. “What do you have after lunch?” she asks me.
“Bio,” I say. “I have no idea why I’m even in this class. I should be taking physics.” Like stats versus calc, everyone knows AP Physics is way easier than AP Bio. Mostly because it’s taught by Mr. Dunfy, who is about eighty and forgets to show up to class half the time. He’s been at San Bellaro for, like, fifty years, so they’re not firing him or anything, but he gives As out like candy.
“Yeah,” Charlie says, “weird move.”
“I’ll see you guys at SAC, though?”
“We have our first meeting today?” Olivia wails. “I wanted to see Ben.”
Ben looks up from his sandwich and grins. “She totally digs me,” he gets out before Charlie throws her sopping napkin at him.
Scene Five
When I get to bio,most people are already in their seats. That’s the thing about taking AP classes. You’re forced straight up against all the other übercompetitive kids, so that even if you’re early, you still end up being late. Just being in the room gives me hives, and we haven’t even started yet. Lauren is already there, and Jon Chote and Stacy Tempeski, who have taken the SATs every year since the tenth grade. Jon is, like, a musical prodigy and is for sure headed to Juilliard next year. Stacy won a national essay competition last year and got to spend a week at the UN in Switzerland. That’s the kind of thing I’m dealing with here.
Mrs. Barch, our teacher, is the kind of woman you don’t want to mess with. I think she actually used to be a researchdoctor. She’s probably in her late forties, and as far as anyone at school can tell, she doesn’t have a spouse or kids or anything. So you can see why biology would be really important to her. If she likes you, you’re in, no problem, but if she doesn’t, she’ll make your life impossible. And I don’t think I’m exactly at the top of her list. I’ve had her before, and it hasn’t gone too well.
I sit down next to Lauren, who already has her notebook open. It’s filled with all of these charts and graphs and things written down in color-coded pens.
“Was there homework?” I ask her.
She squints at me. “Homework?”
I gesture to her notebook.
Oh, Lauren mouths. “Nah, just getting a jump start.” She takes out a pen and starts copying down the schedule Mrs. Barch is putting on the whiteboard.
“Hey, babe. Miss me?” I whip around to catch Len sliding into the seat next to me.
“What are you, stalking me now?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” He holds up his course schedule and points to bio. “See, I’m legit.”
“I heard you forged those.”
“Forged?”
“Or changed, whatever.”
Len raises his eyebrows. “Been asking about me, huh?”
“You’re perverted.”
He sighs and takes out a spiral notebook. “Must we always fight?”
“Must you always be so intolerable?”
