The Nowhere Girls(10)
“I heard Lucy Moynihan had a nervous breakdown after she left school,” a dark-haired girl says next to Grace. “She just, like, lost it. She’s in a mental institution in Idaho or something.”
“That’s not true,” the girl’s blond friend says. “Her family just moved to Portland because they were embarrassed and couldn’t deal.”
“Serves her right,” the other girl says. “For all the trouble she caused. Like, couldn’t she think of a better way to get attention?”
The two girls laugh. Grace wants them to stop. She doesn’t know Lucy, doesn’t know the whole story, but she knows in her heart that the girl who carved those words Grace found in her room was not just looking for attention.
But mixed in with her annoyance is also the hope that these girls are possible friend contenders. She can tell they’re not popular, but they’re also not the bottom rung. They’re like her, the kind of girls no one notices. So what if they gossip? Grace may have to look past things like that. She’s doesn’t have a ton of other options.
Grace closes her eyes. She tells herself, Say hello. She prays for strength. She opens her mouth, but just then a tall, thick, clean-cut man enters the room carrying a pile of tattered textbooks.
“Yo, Coach Baxter,” says a beefy dude in the front row.
“Aarons,” says the teacher. “You ready to win on Friday?”
“Hell yes!” Then a few other guys in football jerseys high-five and whoop.
“Here, McCoy,” he says to one of the football guys, dropping the pile of books on his desk. “Pass these out.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“All right,” Mr. Baxter says, rifling through a stack of papers on his desk. “Attendance. Attendance. Where’s my attendance sheet?”
The loudspeaker crackles. “Good morning, Prescott High School, and happy first day of school,” says a female voice. “This is Principal Slatterly.” Half the class moans. “I speak for the teachers and administration when I say we’re glad to see you and hope you are returning from your summers well rested and ready to learn.”
Her voice turns somber: “I want to emphasize that in addition to education, the mission of Prescott High is to instill in its students a respect for authority, discipline, and order. Without these things, your school, your community, society as a whole, would fall apart. We aim to nurture and grow constructive members of society, young men and women who want to contribute to, not disrupt and destroy, the spirit of the school community.” She clears her throat, and her voice turns chipper once again. “Our varsity football team is looking stronger than ever this year, and we’re looking forward to the pep rally Friday afternoon. Remember, students, only you can take charge of your own future. Go Spartans!”
Half the class cheers while the rest stare blankly out the window. The blond gossiping girl smiles at Grace. Grace worries that her smile back is crooked. The girl says, “Are you new?”
“Yeah. Hi. I’m Grace.”
“I’m Allison. Nice to meet you.”
Her friend says, “I’m Connie.” Grace feels the flutters of hope in her chest. All girls gossip, don’t they? Even nice girls are a little bit mean.
“All right,” Coach Baxter says from the front of the classroom. “This class is American Literature. Before we get started, there are some things I want you to know. I believe in the canon. I believe in reading great works of literature that have endured through the ages because they explore universal themes. I’m not going to waste our time with work that is popular because of passing fads and political correctness. My job is to give you a strong foundation in the classics, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We will start with selections by Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Then we’ll read Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.”
“Isn’t that about a whale?” says a guy in the front row.
“It’s about obsession and man’s eternal struggle with himself and God,” says Mr. Baxter. “Among other things. But yes, there is a whale. Is that all right with you, Clemons?”
“Yes, coach.”
“Good. After Moby Dick, we’ll move on to selections from American greats like Mark Twain, Henry James, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. Then we’re in for a real treat with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which most intelligent people consider the greatest American novel. If we have time at the end of the semester, we’ll hopefully be able to read selections from a few great living authors, including my personal favorite, Jonathan Franzen.”
“Now,” he says. “Open your textbooks at the beginning, and we’ll go around the room taking turns reading. Page four: What is a novel? Who wants to start?”
Grace opens the textbook on her desk to a pencil-drawn doodle of a penis wearing sunglasses.
*
Grace gets lost trying to find her locker, so by the time she gets to the lunchroom it’s nearly full. She looks around for Connie and Allison, the girls from her homeroom, but they must have a different lunch. She searches the room for other potential friends—not too pretty but not too ugly, somewhere in the middle of being nobodies and somebodies, the kind of friends she could dissolve into. For a moment she considers turning around and finding a hidden spot under a stairwell to eat.