I got Anamica Patel’s paper. At the top of it, she’d written her name, the date, our teacher’s name, our class period, and “Gatsby Quiz #1” in the neatest handwriting I’d ever seen.
Mr. Moreno went over the short-answer questions and the true-false. Anamica missed one of the true-false.
“All right, hand them back and then pass them forward. I’ll grade the long-answer questions myself,” Mr. Moreno said.
I passed Anamica’s quiz forward and she scowled at me, as though it was my fault she hadn’t gotten a score as perfect as her handwriting.
“Hey, uh, Luke?” I asked. “Can I have my quiz back?”
“Nice essay, Faulkner,” he said, leaning back in his chair, still holding my paper. “Which version of CliffsNotes did you use?”
“I didn’t know there were different versions,” I said. “Which one do you recommend?”
Luke muttered something under his breath and passed back my quiz. There was a piece of computer paper beneath it, folded in thirds.
I was about to mention it, but Luke shook his head slightly in warning, so I slipped the piece of paper into my bag and passed my quiz to the front.
“MS. WENG WANTS to see both of you,” said Toby, when Cassidy and I arrived at the lunch table with our minipizzas. “By the way, that means now.”
I crammed a slice of minipizza into my mouth and indicated that I was good to go.
“Great, now when he does eat, it’s disgusting,” Phoebe noted.
Cassidy sighed and sat down. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t get that message until the very end of lunch. How about you, Ezra?”
I swallowed thickly. “What message?”
“Good boy.” Cassidy put on her sunglasses and nibbled her way through half of her pizza before getting up.
“Are you seriously not finishing that?” I asked.
“Why?” Cassidy grinned, dangling the pizza half over a trash can. “Do you want it?”
“I want it,” Austin said, finally glancing up from his game console. “I’m broke. I spent all my money on MP Three.”
“I knew that’s what you were playing!” Toby said. “Dude, what level are you? Is it true the Eyes regenerate twice as fast if you Infinity Drop them?”
“Let’s go,” Cassidy said with a sigh, and I followed her to Ms. Weng’s classroom.
Ms. Weng was eating last night’s leftover spaghetti out of a plastic container at her desk and reading a celebrity gossip magazine. I’m not going to lie; it was pretty sad.
“You wanted to see us?” I asked.
She startled and guiltily slid an attendance folder over the magazine. I pretended not to notice.
“Yes, our two new recruits! I’m so happy to have both of you on the team.”
Suddenly, I remembered that sign-up sheet the first day of class and how I’d put Cassidy’s name down. I was screwed. I glanced at Cassidy, and her expression was a mixture of shock and horror.
“Um, about that?” I began. “I don’t think—”
But Ms. Weng wasn’t listening. She rambled on about how wonderful it was to have a seasoned pro like Cassidy, and how she was sure Cassidy or Toby could answer any questions I might have about competing.
Cassidy’s face had gone gray. “Ms. Weng,” she finally said. “I think there’s a mistake. I didn’t sign up.”
“Oh, I’ve already registered both of you for the San Diego open tournament in two weeks,” Ms. Weng said, misunderstanding. “And I’ve reserved the school van to drive everyone down for the weekend, unless either of you have any, er, special needs you’d like to discuss privately?”
“Nope,” I said through clenched teeth. “No ‘special needs.’”
I made the phrase sound good and dirty, and Cassidy shot me a look of sympathy.
“I’m so glad,” Ms. Weng said, handing us each a thick packet. “Now you’ll need to have these permission forms signed by a parent or guardian.”
“My parents are out of town,” Cassidy said. “Yeah, they’re in Switzerland at this medical symposium for the rest of the month.”
I was pretty sure Cassidy’s parents were at no such thing, but Ms. Weng just smiled and assured Cassidy that her old coach could fax over last year’s form for the time being. There was such a finality to her tone that we didn’t dare to question it.
Cassidy and I slunk from Ms. Weng’s room in defeat. The moment the door closed, Cassidy turned toward me, eyes blazing.
“What the hell?” she demanded. “She cornered us back there. And I never signed up to compete—it’s like she was planning this all along. I knew there was a reason I got put in debate class! ‘Oh, there aren’t any other team electives open,’ my advisor said. ‘It’s this or phys ed.’ Yeah, freaking right. I’m not some champion pony they can parade around whenever they feel like it. I don’t compete anymore, and they have no right to force me into it like this.”
“Um,” I said.
“And you didn’t sign up for it, either!” Cassidy jabbed a finger at my chest. “You should have seen your face when Ms. Weng asked if you had any special needs. I wish you’d punched her.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been productive.”
Cassidy sighed. “God, Ezra, you really don’t get it. Our names are already entered. We compete or forfeit on the tournament listing.”
Crap. I wasn’t familiar with the rules of debate competitions, and I hadn’t realized the only way out was to forfeit publicly.
“Um, Cassidy?” I had to tell her. “Remember that day in class with the sign-up sheet and how you were laughing at me?”
“Yeah?”
“I sort of signed you up as a joke,” I admitted.
“You WHAT?”
“I didn’t know!” I quickly amended. “You’d pulled that stupid stunt on me in Spanish and then Toby had signed me up so I just figured—”
“You just figured what, exactly?” Cassidy said coldly. “That it would be funny?”
“Um, I guess? I didn’t know you felt like that about debate. I didn’t know that you’d stopped competing.”
I hung my head, waiting for Cassidy to laugh and say that it was okay. But she didn’t.
“That’s right,” Cassidy said fiercely. “I stopped competing. Just like how you stopped competing in tennis. But you know what? I get that you don’t want to talk about it. Just because I don’t limp around with a freaking cane doesn’t mean I have to explain myself to people I’ve known for five seconds for quitting. So screw you for signing me up for this because you thought it would be funny.”
Her eyes burned with revulsion as she stomped past me. And I didn’t blame her. I felt awful. Like I should go back into Ms. Weng’s office and explain everything. But then the bell rang, and I realized I was going to be late for Spanish.
11
BY THAT EVENING, my weekend was shaping up to be pretty lousy. I’d come straight home from school and spent the day alternating between doing the key terms for Coach Anthony’s class and playing Zombie Guitar God on mute to keep my mind off how badly I’d screwed things up with Cassidy. But it wasn’t working.
Worse, I could tell that my mom kept coming to check on me, hovering just outside my bedroom door and listening. Cooper, who was curled on a bathrobe at the foot of my bed, would glance at the door and then sigh, settling back into his nest.
Well, it is Friday night, old sport, his eyes seemed to say. And there’s a whole world out there.
Cooper was right; maybe I should go to Jimmy’s backyard kegger. I briefly considered it before remembering what happened the last time I went to a house party. So yeah, that was definitely out. And then the little Skype icon on my computer screen dinged. It was Toby, and did I want to come over?
I changed out of my pajamas, grabbed my keys, and practically opened my bedroom door into my mom’s face.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said.
“Well yeah, it’s nine o’clock. I’m going out.”
“Where are you going?” she called after me. “I need to know where you’re going!”
“Why?” I asked, mildly curious as to when this had become a new house rule.
She spluttered over that one for a good ten seconds.
“Look, I’m going to Toby’s,” I said, which was pretty charitable. “I have my phone, and we’re not going to huff rat poison or anything.”
“Ezra!” She sounded shocked. “Don’t be rude. I have every right to worry.”