My eyes fall back to the girls. Drew has red glasses. “Is it Drew Reaver?”
Lauren squeezes Pascha’s arm so hard, Pascha makes a face. “How do you know that?” Lauren asks me. “Can you smell that I like him? Or can you smell that he likes me?”
Pascha untangles her arm from her friend’s, and her bracelets jangle. “He’s the only junior with red glasses, dummy.”
“Oh, right.” Lauren has changed the rubber bands in her braces to silver, making her smile extra tinselly.
I look around me, as if I could be the butt of some colossal joke. Lauren likes Drew, but thanks to me, he already has one pant leg caught in the Vicky vacuum, and soon he’ll be whirling around in the vortex of her affections. There will be no room for Lauren.
“Now we have to work on a date for Pascha.”
“It’s okay. I need to babysit my brother. Plus, my dad thinks people just go to dances to make out.”
“He’s sort of right. But you’re on thecommittee. You’ll be too busy working to make out.”
A wave of vertigo passes through me again, and I grab a rail on one side of the pathway to steady myself. The lights hurt my eyes, and my head might explode soon with the combination of Cassandra’s high notes and the noisemakers.
Breathe. I close my eyes and inhale a few more times.
When I open them again, Pascha and Lauren are staring at me.
“Are you okay?” asks Lauren.
“Yes, thanks. I’m fine.” I still have a mission to accomplish and I can’t get sidelined. “Have either of you seen Alice, er, Court’s mom?”
“No,” says Lauren.
Pascha shakes her head. “Why?”
“I have to give her something.”
“There’s an empty seat by us,” says Pascha. “Front row because we’re officers. She might have seats there, too.”
“Thanks,” I murmur gratefully.
I scan the bleachers as I follow the girls, trying not to bump anyone.
Cassandra holds her final note long enough for my clothes to come back into fashion. When she finally cuts it off, the crowd applauds and she spends the next few minutes bowing, her curly tresses flipping up and down like she’s giving the crowd a car wash.
Pascha and Lauren finally park in front-row seats, right at the midline. I slide into the empty seat beside Pascha, then crane my neck in both directions. No Alice.
At last, the announcer hooks Cassandra away. “Now, get ready for the Panther’s own poet laureate performing her poem, ‘The Way We Are,’ Kali Apulu!”
Kali’s appearance distracts me for the moment. She lights up the stage in her neon ensemble and I yell like crazy, finding my second wind. The cheering is especially loud two sections up, where I spot her family, jumping up and down and waving.
Kali adjusts the microphone headset then gives a thumbs-up to the audio guys. A bass beat starts rocking the stadium, and a synthesizer adds a syncopated rhythm. She’s going to rap.
I’m-a get square with you,
Gonna share with you,
Kick a chair, let down my hair, and spare the air with you.
Living out loud is the way we groove it,
If they don’t like our crowd, they can go move it.
Kali bends her knees and begins moving them from side to side like she’s slaloming, and the crowd goes crazy.
