Pretty Read online

  A few months ago, Ducks started saying I was pretty. Not in a creepy way or anything like that, not in a he likes me way. He totally doesn’t. We’re not like that at all. Where a boy like Ryan is all boy, from his sneakers to his endless supply of snot, Ducks is something else. He’s quieter. He gets hurt more easily, and I don’t think I have ever seen him blow his nose more than three times.

  The trouble with the Pretty thing is the way he says it. It’s not, like, just a factual thing like my name or my address or the color of my skirt. It’s more than that. A couple months ago, our friend Ellen told him something about adjectives. That you, like, get one word and you’re stuck with it. It sounds so stupid. But also, really, who cares? If you don’t even get a say in what your adjective is or even get to pick the people who decide it, what’s the point? Ducks worries about stuff like this all the time. So does Ellen. I would, too, but it’s not as important to me. They would say that’s because I got a good one, so everything is easy and fun for me.

  But, Pretty, what does that even mean? It’s not like elegant or striking or beautiful. It’s just cute. Flowers are pretty. I need something extra.

  I guess I’m cute. I mean, I think I can look cute, real cute. Especially when the look comes together and all the little things, like the Madonna gloves this morning, match up and tell a story. When the story I tell is mine and no one else’s, when that happens, I feel great. I feel better than pretty, I feel gorgeous.

  At the front of the school, Ellen is waiting for us.

  “Hey,” she says. Ellen always wears the same things. Once she gets into something, she sticks with it, until she’s totally bored or it’s falling apart. Ellen doesn’t care. It’s been overalls with big sweatshirts over the straps for a while now. Swimming in these clothes makes her head look really small, but I don’t say anything about it.

  “Nice gloves.” Ellen smirks.

  “Oh, I know. They’re great.” I smirk right back. Ellen does this thing to me almost every morning. She almost tries to make fun of me, but it’s not totally like that. It’s like she’s testing me. If I can stand up to Ellen, I’m able to stand up to anyone else. It’s her way with me, and I sort of love her for it.

  Ellen and Ducks start to walk into the school, but I drag behind them, looking for Allegra. She would have waited for me. So I text her.

  Where are you?

  Allegra types back:

  Just pulling around the block, stopped for Starbucks. See what you missed?

  This is so stupid, it makes me laugh. She stopped for Starbucks! Allegra is crazy! Ducks sees me not walking in and stares at me. I can feel his eyes on me before I even look up from my phone.

  “Do you want us to wait for you?” Ducks asks.

  “No, I’m waiting for Allegra,” I say, looking back down at my phone before I can see his face, which I know will be disappointed and upset. Ellen just laughs and pulls him through the double doors. She can take care of him now.

  The first bell rings before Allegra shows up. Her mother drives her to school most days. It’s like she read a book somewhere on what a perfect mom is supposed to be and she’s just following the instructions. You don’t know if she actually likes it or not. I think that’s why Allegra is so mean to her. I hope it is, because if not, Allegra is just plain awful.

  “Whaa-aaatttt?” Allegra says, getting out of the car.

  “Allegra, please. Don’t ruin such a nice morning. I’m trying to make sure you have everything you need for Hebrew school,” Allegra’s mom says.

  “I dooo-ooah.” Allegra stamps like a little girl as I walk over to the car.

  “Hi, Mrs. Bernstein.” I crouch down and wave to her.

  Before her mom can answer, Allegra slams the car door right in her face.

  She walks through the double doors as the second bell rings, never once turning to see if I’m behind her. She knows I will be.

  It’s already starting to be an interesting day.

  CHAPTER 3

  Allegra takes her time getting to homeroom, but Allegra takes her time getting anywhere. She thinks it is actually “her time,” as though it doesn’t belong to anyone else. She walks to her locker like nothing is going on around her, like no one is racing to get to their classrooms, like Ducks isn’t waiting in the doorway of Mrs. Alexander’s room, worried I might be late, but also hoping I won’t see him. She walks like she hasn’t already been warned twice this week about being late. Allegra walks as if none of that matters. Because to her, it doesn’t.

  It may sound weird, but this is the reason I like Allegra best. Nothing fazes her, and she expects nothing ever will. She’s sort of “over it” at thirteen, and that feels so cool to me. It must be nice to be over it. Instead of deep in it.

  “Leg, we need to go,” I say, looking around as the teachers round up the last of the stragglers in the hallway. Mr. Wendell is coming toward us, but Allegra’s looking at herself in her little locker mirror and talking at me about her plans for lunch.

  “Don’t you ladies have somewhere to be?” Mr. Wendell calls.

  I turn and smile, trying to at least acknowledge him, but Allegra just keeps talking and picking out her books, one at a time, as if she has never seen them before. I can hear everyone in all the classrooms start to settle in. I try pulling at Allegra’s sleeve, but she looks at me and says, “Wha?”

  “Leg, c’mon, we have to get to homeroom. We’ll get marked late,” I say, listening to Mr. Wendell’s shoes knocking against the floor a few feet away from us.

  “They can’t. We’re here,” Allegra says, and closes her locker. She walks past me and right into our homeroom like everything is absolutely right on schedule. I wave at Mr. Wendell with a smile and follow Allegra into homeroom, right in time for everyone to sit down at their desks for attendance. For a minute I really didn’t think I would make it, and even as I sit at my desk, I keep worrying about what would happen if I hadn’t. How much trouble I would be in for being late. It takes me a while to stop my head from spinning at the thought of what would happen if the thing I was worried about actually had happened. Allegra never thinks like this. She’s over it. She’s lucky for that.

  First period is math, which is fine, I guess. I like math in that it all makes some sort of sense. It’s not like English, where you get asked what you think something means in a story or a poem. How do you ever know? I mean, the truth is, in those olden times some guy could have been drunk and just wrote things that he thought were funny, and now there’s a poem that we’re all sitting around trying to figure out its meaning, who knows what, but we’re supposed to know. Drunk people say stupid things, things they don’t mean, all the time. It’s even stupider to try to figure them out. Math is much better.

  Ducks, Ellen, Allegra, and I all have third-period social studies together. I don’t mind social studies. It’s stories about people and cultures and history, which are mostly interesting. But then there’s Mr. Gennetti. He’s our new teacher this year. He’s young. He just finished college, and this is his first year teaching. He’s super excited about it. You can tell from the way he dresses. He has really great shoes and his clothes are colorful but not in a, like, trying too hard sort of way. He’s got style. And he’s super cute. Ellen thinks so. Allegra thinks so. Most of the girls in our class think so.

  Mr. Gennetti sits on the side of his desk and starts talking to the class.

  “Well, kids, how are we today?” He always calls us “kids,” which should sound really awful and maybe a little babyish but out of him seems okay.

  “Good,” we all answer.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Did you all do the reading last night?” We all nod at him, even Ducks.

  “So let’s talk about the early days of civilization,” Mr. Gennetti starts.

  I’m interested because it is interesting, but what’s a lot more interesting is watching all the girls react to
Mr. Gennetti. They smile at him. They laugh at his jokes. They’re focused on him, listening to every word, and treating him better than any other teacher in our grade. And why? Mr. Gennetti is cute.

  Maybe this is what Ducks means about being pretty. Maybe it does mean things are easier, but things don’t seem easier for me.

  Gym is dodgeball, which I love. I think it’s hilarious, and I know I shouldn’t, but seriously, seeing Sara Dubwicz get hit with a ball is the funniest thing in the world. It’s why I never aim for her. I’d rather watch somebody else do it.

  By the time the bell rings at the end of the day, I have about three hours of homework, six texts from Allegra about going for pizza after school with Ryan and Brian, and Ducks standing by my locker door waiting to walk me home. Things are about to get hard again.

  CHAPTER 4

  “How was your day?” Ducks asks me as I walk over to my locker.

  “Fine. It’s not really over yet.”

  “I just meant your day at school,” he says back, like he thinks I think he’s dumb, which I don’t.

  “Allegra wants us to go with her and the boys to Pizza Plus,” I say, opening my locker and not looking at Ducks’s face, because I don’t want to see it. He made this huge deal about my birthday and best friends and all that right before we went back to school. He thought Allegra was stealing me away from him, which is just a stupid thing to even think. People can’t be stolen, but he made this huge deal about it for weeks without ever really asking me why I didn’t want a big party or anything. I probably wouldn’t have told him even if he had asked. I didn’t want a party because I didn’t want Janet to ruin it.

  “I don’t really have any extra money,” Ducks says with a sigh in his voice.

  “What did you do with your money today?” I ask him.

  “I’m buying a record,” he says, smiling and probably hoping I will ask him about it. But I don’t. “And besides, I don’t need the pizza anyway.”

  Ducks always complains about being bigger than he should be. He thinks he’s fat, but he looks fine. It’s his whole problem, he thinks, but I could tell him some other ones. One problem would be moping at my locker when he wants to hang out with me.

  I close my locker and move down the hall to meet Allegra. Ducks follows me out, sulking the whole way.

  When I get to Allegra, she starts telling me everything about her day, even the stuff I was there for. She talks about it all like it’s some thrilling adventure that happens only to her. But it’s just a normal day.

  “I mean, Ms. Kirkpatrick should stop wearing plaid if she’s going to talk like that,” Allegra says, not looking over her shoulder at me. We’re in our usual triangle, walking down 7th Avenue. Allegra walks in front, and then me a little behind her and to the side. Ducks is behind me but farther over, almost right behind Allegra, I think so he can shoot her dirty looks without her seeing. He doesn’t know that even if she saw them, she wouldn’t care or think they were even about her.

  Ryan and Brian run in front of us, joking around in that loud-and-pushing Boy way. Ryan keeps looking back at me, though, and smiling. Maybe he does like me.

  On our walk to Pizza Plus, I say about twelve to fifteen words to Allegra, she’s doing all the talking. Ducks has said nothing, and now both earbuds are in. Allegra’s told me about Gina Broccoti in civics, who keeps picking her nose and thinks no one notices, and about the homework she has to do, and about Ryan. Allegra really wants me to like Ryan, mostly because she likes Brian and she thinks getting one means the other will follow. But Brian isn’t even nice to her. He comes over to her house to watch movies and stuff, but I think that’s it. He never smiles at her. He doesn’t really seem to even notice her.

  Ryan opens the door to Pizza Plus for us because at least he’s nice. Going to Pizza Plus is this cool thing about being older: getting to go out on your own and pick what you’re going to eat and talk to all your friends. It’s like for an afternoon the whole world gets taken over by us, and we can do whatever we want. How could you walk away from that? But Ducks wants to, I can see it on his face.

  “I think I might just walk and get my record,” Ducks whispers in my ear.

  “Are you sure?” I ask him over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Ducks says, backing out the door.

  “Are you not coming?” Allegra asks, noticing Ducks move out the door.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ducks says, opening the door as other kids pour in. Allegra scrunches her nose about Ducks leaving but then starts right in again about something funny that happened to her in gym, which I was there for and laughed at, at the time. But I’m expected to laugh all over again.

  Brian grabs us all a table or says he does, but he just wants to sit down, while Ryan and I wait for the pizza and sodas. Allegra sits down with Brian, who mumbles a few things to her that make her laugh her loudest and fakest laugh. Allegra never orders anything because she can’t have gluten, which she tells us every time. Ryan carries over the sodas and places them on the table, while I carry over the slices, pretending to almost drop them, which makes everyone except Allegra lunge forward to save me. Brian laughs, which makes Allegra annoyed at the joke.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Allegra says, looking at her phone.

  “Sorry, Leg.” Allegra smiles at this, but I don’t know why.

  I like coming to Pizza Plus. They’re my last moments before I have to head home and be alone with Janet. We never really stay that long. The boys wolf down their pizza and barely come up for air. Allegra gets on her phone, as though she hasn’t been able to use it all day. I just pick at a slice and wait for one of the boys to talk to me with his mouth full.

  Ryan sees me pulling apart the crust of my slice and asks, “Don’t you want it?”

  “Yeah, I just like to take my time,” I say back. Ryan gets a little nervous at this and swallows his mouthful of cheese in one big gulp.

  “How did you do on the test in Mrs. Carpetti’s?” Ryan asks.

  “Oh, good. I like that stuff,” I answer.

  “I hate it.” Ryan smiles at me. “Only because I’m not, like, as smart as you.”

  “I’m not, like, smart smart,” I answer.

  “Sophie is, like, a sick genius, it’s insane,” Allegra says, not even looking up from her phone. I’m not. Not even in the, like, smallest way, but I get good grades.

  “Maybe you could, like, help me study for the next one?” Ryan asks.

  “Sure,” I say back.

  Brian makes a big snort-laugh over his pizza and almost blows sauce out his nose, which makes us all laugh even more. Allegra laughs at him again and hands him a napkin.

  I knew Ryan was going to ask me to hang out, I just wasn’t expecting it to happen so easily. I thought there would be more to it, really. I mean, it took weeks to just get to this. And where am I going to teach him math? I guess I’ll have to go to his house.

  After we finish, the boys say they’re going to walk down to 4th Avenue to a basketball court there. They ask if we want to come, but I say no, which I think makes Allegra a little angry. We leave Ryan and Brian at the corner as Allegra pulls me up 7th Avenue. She waves goodbye to Brian, who doesn’t even turn around.

  “So you guys are, like, totally going out now,” Allegra says, beaming, as soon as the boys are down the block.

  “Leg, we are not.” I laugh.

  “Soph! You are!” Allegra says. “He’s, like, in gooey gross love with you and wants to have your babies and everything.”

  “Wouldn’t I have to have the babies?” I laugh again.

  “Oh, so you want to? I knew it. You love him right back!” Allegra smiles, looking at her phone.

  “I don’t. He just wants me to help him with math,” I say, really close to her face to let her know how serious I am.

  “Sure.” Allegra smirks from her phone. “It’
s okay, Soph. Seriously, like, you and Ryan would be the Best Evah.”

  “There’s no Ryan and me to be the anything evah,” I say.

  “Not yet.” Allegra smirks again.

  Allegra walks me to my corner, but I hold her there. I make her get into a cab, so there’s not even a chance of her coming into my house. Luckily, the cab comes quickly, and she gets in without looking up from her phone but shouting to me, “Call me, text me, message, every five minutes. I mean it.”

  When I get to the front gate of my house, I can hear music. It’s loud, from the back of the house, her office. Maybe she’s working. Maybe she’s writing a lot and busy getting ready for a deadline. If it’s a deadline day, I probably won’t even see her tonight. She’ll lock herself in the office to keep working, and all I will have to do is wait until she stumbles to her bed. It might be an easy night. I hope so.

  I take my last breath, turn the knob, and walk in.

  CHAPTER 5

  The minute I open the door, I know it’s bad. The air’s different, I can’t explain it any other way. It’s heavy and still, thick like no one has been here for years. Like it has been waiting for someone, and I’m afraid it’s me. But I’ve opened the door. So I have to go in.

  “Is that you?” Janet yells from the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I say quietly. I can hear her whispering to herself as I answer. I can picture her making faces and getting angry at me for answering her question, madder still that I came home at all. “I’m just going up to my room,” I say, hoping that if I can make it up the stairs before she says anything else, I’ll be safe, but the minute I hit the first step, I hear her hurrying out to me.

  “Oh, no. I’m going to have some words with you, miss,” Janet says, barreling out to the hallway. She looks gone, like she’s had more drinks than I can count, and there’s even one still in her hand. She’s still in her bathrobe and pajamas from the night before. She takes a big sip out of her coffee mug, never taking her eyes off me. “You’re a spoiled little thing, you know that. Spoiled rotten.”