MEG
I’M NOT NERVOUS.
The guys beside us are both wearing baggy geek shirts and glasses and look like they’re really smart, but their project is about dung beetles, and no one cares about that. Across from us is Marcia, who’s mixed but such a pale brown that she could be white-passing—especially since she’s started straightening her already loose curls. She spends our entire homework time in math period talking to Dylan, which could mean she’s really smart and has already done her homework, but I doubt it, and her partner is this Asian girl I don’t know who looks like she’s about ten years old, and long story short, our project is better than every other project in this entire place.
And there are a lot of them. Our whole grade is here. Thank goodness Grayson’s a grade ahead. I don’t want to have to go out of my way to avoid him like I do in the hallways.
The background of our poster board is splattered with fiery red paint—for the past week, Kat’s been complaining that she keeps finding red splashed in every corner of her kitchen—which looks incredible, like splashes of lava. We’ve pasted screenshots from a speed run around the outside, so it looks like Kat’s character is doing her own stop-motion speed run around our board. Across the top in big bubble letters, it reads, “Are your children eating too much sugar?” and then under that, in slightly smaller print, “Can video games provide the answer?”
My math teacher, Mrs. Brown, the first of our three judges, walks up to us with a clipboard. Her earrings—small, sparkly gemstones—are two different colors. Is she wearing them that way on purpose, or did she grab the wrong one from her dresser this morning? “Well, girls,” she says, “tell me about your project.”
I force myself to stop staring at her ears. “Parents often hate video games,” I say, launching into our practiced spiel—rehearsed so many times, I could probably say it in my sleep. “Violence, obesity rates, all that jazz. But video games can also have many technological, academic, and other advantages. We were able to use the mechanics of a popular computer game to test the effect of sugar on speed and reaction rates.” I explain the tests and the results, Kat goes through our analysis and conclusions, and we both answer questions.
After we finish, Mrs. Brown beams at me. Well, at both of us, but mostly at me. “Great project, girls,” she says. “Meg, you’re really pulling things together—a B on your last math test, and an excellent project. Well done.”
“Why, thank you,” I say, and give a little bow, which makes her laugh.
Our second judge—a stocky white teacher with black hair and a mustache—is much less pleasant. He doesn’t even laugh at my joke about having to take only one person to the hospital due to a sugar overdose, and he asks questions we didn’t practice, about control test placebos or something, which, fortunately, Kat answers without even blinking. But I watch his hand while we talk—he’s wearing a wedding ring, which means he’s probably kissed someone with that hairy-capped mouth of his—and every time he circles something on his paper, he does it on the far right side, which, I know from the marking grid we were given, is where he would circle all the ten out of tens.
Parents are allowed to come to the science fair, and apparently most people’s parents don’t have to work on Friday afternoons like my mom does, so while we wait for our final judge, Kat and I play a game I invent called Guess Whose Parent.
“Ha-ha, I win,” I whisper to Kat when a tall black woman in a plaid suit, who’s a bit darker than Mom, walks up to Marcia and tells her, “Honey, I’m going back to work now. Good job!”
“Man, I would not have guessed that,” Kat whispers back. Considering how few black kids there are in here, people probably think Marcia’s mom is mine. “How do you get so many of these?”
“I’m just gifted, I guess.”
Marcia’s mom turns around just then and smiles at us. “Hello, Meg,” she says. “Is your mom here?”
I shake my head, feeling Kat’s angry villain glare drilling holes in the side of it. “No,” I say. “She had client meetings today that she couldn’t reschedule. She made me present our project for her last night.”
“Well, tell her I said hello,” Marcia’s mom says, and I promise that I will.
“You’re just gifted, eh?” Kat hisses at me when Marcia’s mom leaves.
“Okay, so I might have cheated on that one.” When she doesn’t stop glaring, I add, “All right, all right—you can have one penalty smack,” and hold out my hand, palm down.
She doesn’t even hesitate, just slaps it once, hard enough to make a small thwack.
“Ladies,” comes a booming voice, “no violence in the school, you know that.” It’s Mr. Goldsmith, a science teacher I know for the same reason every girl knows him—his jawline alone, with its perfectly sloped angles meeting at his dimpled chin, deserves its own place on a magazine cover.
“Sorry,” Kat mumbles at her feet as her face flushes bright red.
I just grin. “It’s okay,” I tell him, putting my arm around Kat’s shoulder. “We’re besties. And besides, I deserved that.”
It’s a good thing my part is first, because Kat’s face is still red through my entire presentation. I throw in a couple of extra jokes to stretch my section out a little longer—Mr. Goldsmith actually laughs properly at them, which only makes him more dreamy—and by the time we get to Kat’s part, she looks less flustered. Sure enough, she breezes through it, with barely a stutter.
And then we’re done. I bump my hip happily into Kat’s as Mr. Goldsmith walks away. We have won this. For sure.
KAT
ALL OF THESE PROJECTS ARE CRAP.
Like, seriously, folks, is this really the best you can do?
My fellow classmates have had almost seven months—seven months!—to whip together a thought-provoking, prizeworthy project, and the best they’ve come up with is a couple of projects about watering plants, one about a dung beetle, and way too many about the dangers or nondangers of microwaves.
My hands prickle with sweat as I wander up and down the aisles, searching for a beacon of light.
My mom’s at the end of one aisle, chatting away in the corner to some other parent. She’s stayed mostly out of my way, except to report quietly into my ear, “Your project is one of the best here. You could win this whole thing,” and then sweep away, beaming.
I don’t want to win, I almost said, except that Meg was standing right there beside me, and of course, she doesn’t know that. Because I didn’t think she needed to. Because I didn’t think we would win. I mean, I didn’t win last year, at my old school. Why would we win now? We’re not going to.
At the start of the fourth row, a title pops out at me: “Dog Hair: Superman’s Kryptonite or the Hulk’s Radiation?” Clever. My heart levitates in my chest, unimpeded by the surrounding bone and flesh and sinew. I step toward it for a better look and start to read the introduction.
Have you ever worndered if having a dog meant your allergies were getting beater or worse? We decided to test and find out once for all wether allergies are better or worse with time.
I blink, rub my eyes, reread the sentences. They’re unchanged.
My heart is not floating at all, but tangled up in veins and strips of flesh. They constrict around it, tightening with every beat.
One Devil’s Snare . . . two trash compactor . . .
This project isn’t bad, really, in theory. But not exactly something the school is about to ship off to high-and-mighty Toronto as an example of our brilliance.
“Hey, Kat.”
I turn around to find the voice’s owner. Across the aisle and three poster boards down, Sunil, from my Ancient Civ class, gives me a military salute. I mentally bookmark my place in the aisle, then march toward him.
“You had your three judges already?” he asks. His partner, a nondescript brown-haired guy I don’t recognize, is deep in conversation with the girls at the poster board next to them.
“Yeah. You?”
“One more to go. Hopefully soon, ’cause I’ve got to—well, you know . . .”
I laugh, which jostles my still-constricted heart. And my lungs. I should really continue my search. I glance up at his poster board to keep from rudely looking over my shoulder at the rows of lackluster projects. Their board is simple—sky-blue background and black borders around the text and pictures—but sharp. “Retrofitting for the Future: Energy Solutions,” the heading reads.
“Energy, eh?” I ask.
He nods. “Not as glamorous as yours, but did you know that it wouldn’t make any sense to upgrade everyone’s cars to electric, because so many of the power plants are fueled by coal anyway? The energy savings are minimal unless the power plants themselves are upgraded to wind or water.”
“Water?” I sound like a dunce. I don’t know much about energy efficiency, other than that it’s important. More important than sugar. And definitely more important than video games. My heart starts to disentangle itself. Five windmills . . . six hope . . .
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s not much of a thing yet, but it could be, maybe.”
“Can I—?” I gesture toward the board, and he steps out of the way, allowing me to move in closer. I read the introduction. It’s clear, intelligent, grammar-error free. Judging from our Ancient Civ paper, which we aced, by the way, I’m sure the rest of the board will be the same way.
My heart is fully free and racing. They could win this. They could be the ones trapped in a metal cylinder high above the earth. Is it wrong to wish that on them?
“Excuse me. Sunil? Chris?” Mr. Carter stands in the aisle with a clipboard. I back quickly away from the table as Sunil and his partner stand at attention, but I don’t go far. Oral presentation is a big chunk of the mark. No matter how environmentally consequential or grammar-error free their project, they could still bungle this. I press my hands against my thighs as if pressure could stop the flow of sweat the way it stops the flow of blood.
Sunil’s partner—Chris, I guess—starts the presentation. He’s not as good as Meg—not a single joke to keep it interesting—but he’s clear, succinct. Sunil explains the next section, confidently and smoothly, then it’s back to Chris.
They’re doing well. They can win this. Everything is going to be okay.
Then, in the middle of one of Chris’s sentences, Mr. Carter jumps in with a question, and Chris’s face pales. His mouth hangs slightly open like a feeding guppy. Sunil leans forward, ready to jump in, but Mr. Carter is looking directly at Chris, waiting for an answer from him. The silence grows.
Nine say something . . . ten say anything . . .
I can’t watch. I turn and stride away. And almost walk right into a middle-aged black man.
He’s wearing khaki shorts—even though it’s only March—and a navy golf shirt that says Rick’s Carpentry over the heart. His dark hair is shaved down short, but not short enough to hide the patches of gray sprouting from his temples. Whoever’s dad he is, I don’t recognize him, but that’s not saying much, since I haven’t recognized any parents so far except my own.
“Sorry,” I mumble, and sidestep out of the way. Behind me, Chris is finally fumbling out an answer to Mr. Carter’s question.
“You’re Meg’s partner, right?” the man asks. Sometimes I forget that Meg grew up in Edmonton and knows so many more people here than I do.
“Mm-hmm.” Lalalalalala, I sing in my head, trying to drown out Chris’s voice. If I can’t hear him, his answer will be genius, right? Right.
“You and Meg have a really great project. Top-notch.”
Great. Even other people’s parents are noticing our project. Crap. Crap crap crap.
“I haven’t seen Meg this focused in a while.”
“Yeah, well, you know, when you get the right motivation.” When I talk, I can’t hear Chris still stumbling through his answer. “There’s this convention for this game we like—LotS. Have you heard of it? Of course you have. Everyone’s heard of it. Anyway, LotSCON is in Toronto the day after the national fair. It’s never been in Canada before, which is pretty cool. Meg wants to go.”
And then that’s it. I’m not telling this random stranger that I’m afraid of flying or that LotSCON’s sold out when I haven’t even told those things to Meg. And I’ve got nothing else. Even when I babble, I have no idea what to say.
But it’s okay. From behind me floats Sunil’s rich tenor, then Chris’s almost smooth bass, confident again, and musical. Whatever lapse in brain function they had, it’s over. Hopefully it’s enough.
“I’ve got to go.” I sidestep around the guy for real this time and stride off down the aisle.
I left Meg on the other side of the gym, chatting with some girls from our science class, but when I round the corner, she appears out of nowhere and grabs my arm, jolting me toward her.
“Ow, Meg, be careful.”
“Why were you talking to Stephen?”
“What? I wasn’t—”
“I don’t know why he’s even here. Mom must’ve told him. I’m going to throttle her. Do you think if I asked the principal, she would make him leave? Everyone’s going to think he’s my dad.”
I follow her gaze across the rows to Sunil and Chris’s project. Mr. Carter has disappeared, replaced by the man in the golf shirt.
“Wait, that’s your stepdad?”
“Ex-stepdad.”
He’s past Sunil and Chris’s project now, meandering down the aisle. His shirt is tucked into his shorts, but the back tail has escaped and hangs lazily behind him. It never even crossed my mind that he might be here.
“Screw him,” Meg says, taking my arm and turning us both away from him. “I’m not going to let him ruin my day. Did you notice that teachers keep going by to look at our project? Like, not our judges. Other ones. We are so going to win this.”
If we did win this—which we won’t—maybe instead of telling her, I could just suck it up and get on the plane like a normal person. The thought makes my heart drop straight through my stomach to my feet, like an airplane spiraling out of the sky. Seventeen Amelia Earhart . . . eighteen seat belts . . . nineteen life vests . . .
Of course, then I’d still have to tell her LotSCON’s sold out. We can’t win. We can’t. “I don’t know,” I say. “There are some other good projects. Sunil’s—”
“None as good as ours!”
“You haven’t even looked at any—”
“I don’t need to. We’ve got this. I just know it.”
I hope she’s wrong.
It doesn’t take that long to find out. We head back over to the far end of the gym, where Meg chatters away to Emily and Kayla from my English class while I try not to look at any other projects. Then Mrs. Naidoo, one of the science teachers, climbs up onto the stage and takes the microphone.
As she delivers her introduction, greeting to the parents, and thank-yous, all the students and parents and teachers wind their way through the rows to clump up near the stage, as if the floor is tilted in that direction. I stick out my elbows to preserve as much room around me as possible. People are too close. If there was a stampede, we would all die for sure.
Eighty-seven suffocation . . .
Mrs. Naidoo finishes with her pleasantries, having skipped entirely over the part where she should have warned people not to cluster together so deathly close, and moves on to the actual awards announcements.
She reads out six honorable-mention projects first. Ours is not one of them. Meg grabs my arm. “LotSCON’s sold out and I don’t fly!” I want to scream at her. I pinch my lips together so the words don’t come tumbling out.
Third place goes to some project about lasers that must have been down the final row that I never got to. Maybe that was the genius row, lined with project after project of sheer brilliance.
“Our next project,” Mrs. Naidoo continues, “took a unique look at technology and nutrition. With a clever topic and top marks for presentation, second place goes to Megan Winters and Katherine Daley!”
Oh, thank goodness.
Relief floods through my body like water through a collapsed dam. Followed immediately by a wave of worry. Meg will probably need consoling.
I turn toward her. “I know you were—” I stop when I see her face. I expected disappointment, but it’s worse than that. That eerie deadness is back in her eyes, like it never left. Ha-ha, you’ll never banish me. I know where to hide.
“Are you okay?” I whisper. She doesn’t say anything, just stares straight ahead, like a lifeless corpse.
Mrs. Naidoo begins announcing the winning project, drawing my gaze in her direction. First place goes to Sunil and Chris. They must have kept it together after I left.
“The winning team,” Mrs. Naidoo reminds us, “will travel to Toronto in just two weeks’ time to represent our school at the national science fair. Let’s all give them a big round of applause!”
“I’ve gotta go,” Meg says, not even bothering to whisper. I turn to follow her, but she’s already slipped halfway through the still-clapping crowd. Before I can take more than a couple of steps, the crowd breaks up, and it’s as if the room doesn’t know which way to tilt, with some people pushing past me to the doors, others bumping my shoulders as they wind back down the aisles to their projects.
Some people start packing up their poster boards, and I glance down the long aisle at ours. Are we supposed to pack them up now? Is that a rule?
It doesn’t matter; I’ll get it later. Meg first.
I push through the crowd, to the door, and out into the hallway. But by the time I get there, Meg is long gone.