Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(25)

xLoupxGaroux: I’m in NYC.

Scarface: NOOOOO

xLoupxGaroux: Yeah!

Scarface: Cannot believe this! I go there all the time! You should give me your cell number, we should hang out next time I’m there! Right??

(xLoupxGaroux is typing . . .)

xLoupxGaroux: yeah def!!

Scarface: I think I’ll be around sometime this month (and hopefully after I graduate, for the rest of my life), what times are you usually free??

(xLoupxGaroux is typing . . .)



I hear the front door open, then slam shut, then hushed giggles: Dawn is home with someone. She’s whispering, tipsy, but the apartment’s small enough for me to catch some of it. “[Something something] not wake her up [something].” More giggles. It’s, like, ten. She thinks I go to bed at nine thirty because by then I’m in my room with the door shut, with no idea I’m on the forum until one or two A.M. every night. Not that she’d care, since I’m not a balding Sears manager who’ll pay for her Sea Breeze and mozzarella sticks at Arby’s.

As I hear them awkwardly shuffle into Dawn’s bedroom, my phone vibrates. It’s Ave.

bad news for you

gideon just asked ashley to the

pls don’t

I try to remember that this kind of stuff doesn’t really matter. I will not ruin everybody’s lunch period tomorrow by repeatedly questioning the fairness of the universe. I will be mature and understanding, gracious and Zen.

I check my Gchat tab. There’s still no answer from xLoupxGaroux.

, I text to Ave.





Chapter 10


I GRAB MY BOOKS AND HUSTLE TO SOCIAL STUDIES, WHERE Mr. Kercher has already started droning hypnotically about Napoléon. I slide into my seat behind Mouth-Breather Leslie, hoping I remain invisible. Jason, Dylan, and—ugh—Gideon have taken to being a little more vocal in class lately. Over the last few weeks, Gideon has grown less startled and quizzical about why the Populars suddenly pulled him into the fold. When I watch him walk with Ashley down the hall, or make some messy ketchup-mayo-mustard concoction out of boredom at lunch with Jason and co., he’s undeniably happy. He’s one of them now.

“. . . few days after he married Josephine, he did . . . what?”

Dead silence.

“He . . . left . . . Paris . . . to . . . ?”

Still nothing. Mr. Kercher is one of the few teachers who still bothers with this spaced-out-words “hinting” business in the hopes that someone read the textbook chapter assigned for the day. It is excruciating.

“Take . . . command . . . of . . .”

Imagine what would happen if he had a home intruder. (“Hi . . . 911? There’s a . . . man . . . in . . . my . . .”)

He was young once, which is weird. Maybe he wanted to be an astronaut.

“The . . . army . . . of . . .”

Nothing. Finally, he concedes, sounding dead as he ends with: “Italy, guys. The army of Italy.”

He looks around, clearly begging for just one person to be like, Damn, Italy! It was right on the tip of my tongue. We respond by staring at him with the glassy eyes of the truly, perhaps even fatally, bored.

“So then, in 1808, he declared that the king of Spain would be his brother, Joseph Bonaparte—”

Snickering from the first-tier popular boys in the back.

“Boner-aparte,” says Gideon, putting his comedic stylings to sophisticated use.

They openly crack up. As he laughs and leans back in his chair, Jason tosses his pencil down on the desk for emphasis and further disruption.

“Guys. Please. Please. I’m begging you,” beseeches Mr. Kercher.

The back of Mouth-Breather Leslie’s head lowers a little, guiltily. She’s a Girl Genius, so she knows the answer—but it’s easier not to speak up. She’s one of those girls whose hair always seems to be hanging in her face in a half-literal, half-metaphorical sort of way. Even if she shaved her head it would still be like that. She does take pity on him, though, and raises her hand tentatively.

“Leslie. Yes.”

“Does the Napoleonic Code still affect certain regions of Europe?” she whispers. “I think I read that somewhere.”

Mr. Kercher looks at her gratefully.

“Excellent. Yes, Leslie. Some jurisdictions of Europe as well as Africa and . . .”

As he goes on, my pen begins to rattle as I feel Dylan Dinerstein start methodically kicking my chair. (We all sit in those awful Frankenstein-y metal desk/chair mash-ups from the eighties, so everything’s connected.) Eventually my pen rolls across the desk and falls.

Instead of telling him to cut it out, I choose the path of least resistance and yank my whole desk and chair farther away from Dylan. It makes a loud, rude noise.

“Yo, Scarlett, did you just fart?” yells Jason.

The other guys snicker, and there are some giggles around the room. Immediately my heart starts pounding like a Biggest Loser contestant’s, but it’s better to ignore him than to dignify it with a response.

I turn around very slightly to look at Gideon, who is not laughing but stubbornly refuses to meet my eye. But then Gideon looks up, smirking, back in the game.

“Nah, I think it was Leslie, man,” he says.

Everybody laughs. Leslie slumps even lower, her head down.

Mr. Kercher holds up his hands. “Guys. Guys.” Nobody listens.