Chapter 2

I sat in front of the headmistress’s office thinking, not surprisingly, about Jake.

I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Jake. It was like a sickness, really. People were always saying that teenagers don’t know what love is and that we mistake lust for the real thing, blah, blah, blah. I wished I only lusted after Jake. Life would be much easier then. I could get over him if lust were the only factor.

Don’t get me wrong—he was definitely lustalicious. Dark hair, dark eyes, a jawline that looked like Michelangelo himself had chiseled it out of stone. Totally gorgeous. But there was this emotional component there. I cared about him.

Since I spent a lot of time observing him, I saw all the little things he did every day. Like the time he’d helped the girl from the special ed class pick up her books that she’d dropped, and then walked with her to her next class. Everyone else had just walked by. Not Jake.

He routinely stopped his stupid friends from picking on other kids. His friend Scott Martin was the worst. But Jake managed to rein him in.

Jake was always smiling this thousand-watt movie star/model smile and saying hi to everyone who said hi to him. He was so nice. He never tried to make people feel as if they were worthless losers. Unlike Scott and his girlfriend, Mercedes. Their only goal in life seemed to be to insult and belittle everyone around them.

Jake did these things quietly. Not like he was ashamed of his good tendencies, but more like he didn’t need to show off. Or like people seeing him doing it would take away from the specialness of it.

It felt like something we shared, even though he wasn’t aware that I knew what an awesome guy he was.

He was smart and good at everything. I was so in love with him.

And I wasn’t sure if he even knew that I existed.

I sighed, because that’s what unrequited love makes you do. Sigh with self-pity.

I needed a distraction. Besides thinking about Jake, I’d been sitting out there for a while worrying and wondering when the headmistress would call me in. I was pretty sure that Ms. Rathbone made us sit outside and wait this long on purpose. To give us time to work ourselves into a frenzy about possible punishments. She’d probably learned that in one of her doctorate programs. Like everything else at Malibu Prep, she was the best. She had all these framed degree certificate things behind her desk. I suspected that that some of them were fake.

I stood up and started reading the bulletin board that hung outside the main office. It had the usual announcements, the sign-up sheet for marching band (blank), one for an after-hours cooking course with that famous chef on TV who swore at everyone (halfway full), and one for student government candidates. For a second I thought my Jake obsession was now making me see things, but no, there was Jake’s name. As the only candidate for senior class president. Of course. I let out a little snort of amusement. Who would be dumb enough to run against him?

I saw that Scott Martin planned to run for the vice president position. I gave his name the dirty look I wished I could give him. Loud, obnoxious, and crude, he was like the anti-Jake. I couldn’t figure out why they were friends. Most kids got their giggles out on the first day of school when the teachers called me Matilda as they took roll, but then they got over it. Not Scott Martin. He’d called me Matilda since the eighth-grade graduation dance. He had asked me to dance during a slow song, and I’d stammered out a no. Scott was cute but not quite tall enough, and I didn’t know how to dance. We would have looked ridiculous. His face had flushed red, and ever since then he’d hated me. I think it was because I publicly embarrassed him (although that hadn’t been my intent), but Ella claimed it was because he liked me and I’d turned him down. I’d tried to explain to her that she needed to stop seeing the world through pretty-girl glasses. It skewed her perceptions.

I flicked my gaze up and saw the advertisements for upcoming charity events. Other schools had dances and proms. We had galas, masquerade balls, and black-tie affairs.

I should probably mention that Malibu Prep is a really nice (read: expensive and exclusive) school. My dad had even taught a semester there as a guest instructor for the advanced art class.

Wait. I forgot to tell you about my dad. He is only the highly celebrated, world-renowned artist William Lowe. Most artists aren’t famous until they die (mostly because once they die they can’t create any more art, so their work is more valuable). Wikipedia says Dad was a child prodigy (a fact he neither confirms nor denies) and that his fame has only increased since then. I didn’t really get his art. It looked like big blobs of color to me, but critics called it “amazing,” “masterful,” “bold,” and “worth more than your house.”

So like everyone else here, we had plenty of money. But apart from my manga addiction, I wasn’t really the shopping type. Ella was the shopaholic of the family, but she would use her own money that she’d earned from her part-time job instead of the credit card my dad had given us instead of an allowance. (That should probably have gone on my List of Grievances, as I’d been lectured about how Ella was such a hardworking go-getter and I was a lazy sack.)

“Ms. Lowe?”

I jumped at the sound of my last name. I got startled frequently, because I spent most of my time in my own head. With Jake. Reality was not nearly as much fun.

“Please join me.”

Honestly, Ms. Rathbone scared me a little. She was like a cross between a drill sergeant and a southern debutante.

“Sit.”

For a second I contemplated asking her whether she wanted me to roll over and beg too, but I didn’t dare. I immediately dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk. She didn’t have one of those stereotypical offices with worn stuffed couches or bookshelves that overflowed with books. Instead it looked like something out of the IKEA catalog. All the furniture in the room was sleek and modern and, like the chairs outside her office, highly uncomfortable.

She opened a file on her desk and started to read it. It was probably my English teacher’s List of Grievances against me. I would own up to my misbehavior that day. I had started out already annoyed because my best friend, Trent, had to park halfway across the parking lot, and I ended up being late for calculus. That was not technically my fault. Seniors should have priority parking next to the school. After suffering through four years of high school, I thought the very least they could do was let us park closer. Neither Trent nor Ella would care that they were late. Trent because he was all antiestablishment and Ella because the teachers probably found it adorable when she showed up after class started.

This, of course, could’ve all been fixed if my dad would’ve just gotten us a car of our own so Ella and I could get there on time, but he’d mumbled something about “character building” and refused.

So I had already been in a mood when Ms. Aprils started in on me. Well, not on me, but how great Mark Twain was. I should have just let it go. But I hadn’t.

Ms. Rathbone continued to read in silence, her forehead furrowing as much as it could despite the Botox injections. She had this very cool shade of silver hair and big brown eyes obscured by her glasses. My fingers itched to draw her as a manga character. I’d make her eyes even bigger, give her a long silver Mohawk and some kind of warrior getup. Black with silver buckles, I decided. I saw a long ruler propped in the corner and pictured altering it to be her samurai sword. I stuck my hands under my legs to keep from reaching for the blank paper and pencils sitting on the edge of Ms. Rathbone’s desk. I figured she wouldn’t appreciate my imagination.

Instead of drawing, I started running my tongue over my teeth. It was my new favorite pastime. I couldn’t help it. Only a few days ago I had been freed from the prison of my braces, and it was a revelation to feel these nice smooth teeth. I had worn braces for so long that it was like I had to relearn my mouth.

“You said that Mark Twain was a—wait, let me make sure I’m reading this right.” Ms. Rathbone put her finger under the writing and read each word slowly. “‘A racist, sexist pig.’”

True. I had also said that I didn’t think he was witty at all, but as that wasn’t in her report, I wasn’t about to admit to it.

It probably didn’t help matters that Ms. Aprils had done her master’s thesis on the works of Twain and that half the English room was decorated like some sort of Mark Twain shrine.

Ms. Rathbone peered at me over her reading glasses, waiting for my response. Her eyes bored into me, and I recognized that look. She was trying to shake me, to read my face to see if I had left things out.

Unfortunately for her, she was unaware of my secret superpower. I have a killer poker face. My dad says he would have been a professional poker player if the artist thing hadn’t worked out, and thanks to all his training, I am sort of a cardsharp and in total control of my outward reactions. I don’t have a tell.

I held my features steady. She wouldn’t get anything out of me that I didn’t want to admit.

“Yes, I said that.”

Ms. Rathbone took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired. “Mattie, it’s only the second day of school.”

It all felt unfair. It wasn’t my fault that Ms. Aprils was singularly obsessed with the idea that Mark Twain was some sort of literary superhero who could do no wrong. She couldn’t fathom that other people didn’t worship him. I disliked him just for what he’d said about digging Jane Austen up and beating her to death with her own shinbone. Because Jane Austen was all sorts of awesome.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rathbone.” I started to say it wouldn’t happen again, but I just couldn’t. Sometimes stuff just came out of my mouth even when I didn’t want it to. I had a low threshold for stupidity.

“You will be serving detention today for your belligerence in class, and I expect you to apologize to Ms. Aprils.”

I grimaced at the idea of apologizing to Ms. Aprils. Malibu Prep had zero tolerance for disrespect to the staff. I had more leeway than some of the other students thanks to my quasi-minority status, but I knew there would still be an apology to my teacher in my immediate future. As far as sentences went, so far mine was pretty light.

I wanted to say I wouldn’t do it again, but we both knew it would be a lie.

“You will try to refrain next time?”

“I will do my best,” I promised. There, that was honest. “So if we’re done . . .” I grabbed my backpack.

Ms. Rathbone held up her left hand, her eyes still trained on my file. “Not yet.”

What now? I hadn’t done anything else. As she’d so helpfully pointed out, it was only the second day of school. I hadn’t had time to mess up.

“I see that you failed to fulfill your volunteer requirements from last semester.” I wanted to groan. We were required by the school to do four hours of community service per month each semester. Last semester I’d been a tad depressed. That was when Ella and Jake had become a couple. How could I have concentrated on doing things for other people when my heart was breaking?

Not to mention that I had never really understood this concept. How was I “volunteering” when they were forcing me to do it? It was more like involunteering at that point. Or unpaid child labor. If they were going to make us volunteer, they could’ve at least given us school credit for it.

“Because from your file I see that you want to go to Wellesley.” I didn’t correct her. There was no point in trying to explain the whole complicated family mess in the space of a few minutes.

I didn’t want to go to Wellesley. My mother wanted me to go to Wellesley. That was where she had gone.

My dad wanted me to go to UCLA. That was where he had gone.

My mother wanted me to study sculpting. My father wanted me to study painting.

I was not interested in any of the above.

Ms. Rathbone was still talking. I forced myself to pay attention. “These schools look at the whole person, not just your grades. You have no extracurriculars. What about hobbies?”

I couldn’t tell her about the manga. I could already hear myself explaining it. “Well, Ms. Rathbone, manga is the word for Japanese comics. Anime is the animated version of manga . . .” It would have been a long conversation. Plus, I would run the risk of not only potentially boring her to death (I’d never met anyone else who liked manga as much as I did, and I could get a little excited about it), but she might tell my dad. I knew my dad loved me and would tell me my work was good (even if it wasn’t), but he was such a serious artist that I would feel embarrassed if he found out. Plus, he might feel obligated to tell my mother, and then things would get very bad very quickly.

So instead I just shook my head no.

“Then it would be my recommendation that you get more involved here at the school. Not only will it look good on your applications, but you need to make certain you’re current on your volunteering hours. Do you have any immediate plans for becoming more involved both here at school and in the community?”

I knew she was right, unfortunately. I didn’t intend to attend an Ivy League school, but the school I wanted to go to, UC Santa Ana, would want more than good SAT scores, decent grades, and an awesome portfolio. I had to show them that I could make the ultimate sacrifice and find some club at school that would deign to have me.

She stared at me, and I wondered how long she could go without blinking. Oh, she wanted me to say something. Immediate plans for volunteering. Right. “I’m, um, helping Ella out with her charity ball.” Total white lie, of course, but I knew I only had to ask Ella what I could do to pitch in and she would immediately include me.

“Ah. Ella.” Ms. Rathbone said her name the way all adults did—with this mixture of admiration and approval. So irksome. “That will help with your volunteering hours, but I think you should still find a way to be even more involved here at school.”

She grabbed a bunch of flyers from the table behind her chair and handed them to me. “These are some clubs and groups you might consider joining.”

As I took the flyers, she added, “This might also be a chance for you to make some new friends.”

She said it lightly, but I got the implication. My cheeks flushed. It was really embarrassing that even the headmistress knew I was a social misfit.

I started to flip through them. Chess club. Um, no. I wasn’t up for social suicide, thanks.

Football boosters? Again, no. Bunch of wannabes who couldn’t make the cheer squad.

Student government. Hmm. I’d never been much of a joiner, but this one had actual merit. Jake was running for president. I was suddenly struck by the amazing idea of running for a lesser office. Treasurer or secretary or something throwaway like that. Then we’d have another class together, and he would have to talk to me and spend time with me because we’d be running the student government together.

Brilliant.

All I had to do was get elected.