*
By the time I walk into English class with Mr. Davies, I feel like a firecracker dud. I’ve seen a handful of girls with copies of Moxie in their hands, but since Sara and Claudia in first period, I haven’t heard anyone talk about it. A visit to one of the girls’ bathrooms reveals half a stack of Moxie zines sitting sadly on the counter, one haphazardly knocked to the floor, a faint footprint right on the front cover. People seem more excited to discuss the Pirates’ win and the upcoming game against Port Aransas this week.
But as I take my seat in English, I spot Lucy Hernandez in the front row with a copy of Moxie in her hands, her lips locked tight and her brow furrowed as she reads the inside. She flips the zine over to read the back. Then she opens it and reads the whole thing again. I can’t help but watch her as she studies it, and I catch the tiniest sliver of a smile break out on her face.
The bell rings, and Mr. Davies walks in. I’m resigning myself to beginning the worst class of the day when I notice that following him is the new boy from the pep rally. The artists’ son from Austin. Seth Acosta.
“Uh, hey?” Seth says to Mr. Davies’s back. Mr. Davies turns around and stares at Seth.
“Yes?”
“I’m new,” he says, handing Mr. Davies a slip of paper. “I just got put in this class.” His voice is low and thick.
As Mr. Davies looks over Seth’s schedule, I hear snickering coming from the back of the room. Mitchell and his beefy, empty-headed buddies are cracking up, probably because Seth is new and dresses like he’s from Austin and not East Rockport, and this must be amusing to them. But Mitchell Wilson could live a thousand lives and never attain the perfection that is Seth Acosta in his sleeveless Sonic Youth T-shirt and perfectly tousled black hair.
“Take a seat, Seth,” Mr. Davies instructs, nodding toward the desks. Seth chooses an empty one in a corner nowhere near me. He chews on a thumbnail and stares blankly at the chalkboard while I try not to stare too much. I wonder what he had for breakfast and which Sonic Youth song is his favorite and whether or not he’s ever had sex with anyone before.
That last thought turns my breathing shallow.
Mr. Davies begins a lesson that is only slightly less boring than Mrs. Robbins’s from first period, and I spend my time gazing from Seth to my notebook where I’m trying to take notes. Seth takes notes, too, which makes me think he’s smart or at least cares about doing well in school, which is a turn on, honestly, even if I’m pretty sure that East Rockport High is not a place that makes anyone smarter.
I’m so consumed with watching Seth that I almost don’t notice that Lucy has a copy of Moxie sitting on the corner of her desk. But about halfway through the tedious fifty minute class I see it perched there, like a good luck charm. She leaves it there through the whole lecture, but she keeps her mouth shut the entire class, even when Mr. Davies asks questions, so I guess she’s learned her lesson. I can’t help think, however, that there’s something deliberate about the way she keeps Moxie visible, and it’s sort of cool.
Finally, Mr. Davies sits down at his desk to zone out on his computer while we’re allegedly “working independently” (actually messing around with our phones as surreptitiously as possible). That’s when Mitchell Wilson gets up from the back row where he’s almost certainly been sleeping without consequence and waltzes up to the front of the room to throw something away in the garbage can. On his way back, in one smooth motion, Mitchell slides Moxie into his hand and takes it back to his desk. Lucy whips her head around, her mouth in an O as if she’s about to speak, but then she just shuts her lips tight and turns toward the front of the room. I catch her crushed expression in profile, even though her face is half-hidden behind curls.
“What the hell is this?” Mitchell says over the snap of paper that must be him opening the zine. I don’t turn around. It’s one thing to criticize Mitchell in the pages of Moxie. But being in his sightline as he reads my words makes my Moxie secret terrifying instead of thrilling.
“The girls of Moxie are tired?” he asks. “Maybe they should take a nap then.” The guys sitting next to him respond with a chorus of heh-hehs.
I glance over at Mr. Davies, who seems to sort of startle awake at his desk. He glances at the clock.
“Okay, hey, y’all … you can chat for the last few minutes of class, but keep it down, please.”
Great. Now the hounds have really been released.
“Okay, wait a minute, listen to this,” Mitchell continues as most of the class shift in their seats, leaning in toward him. Even Seth is looking over his shoulder, his dark eyes taking in the goon in the back row. Maybe not turning around actually makes me look suspicious. I crane my neck and see Mitchell’s eyes skimming the pages of Moxie. My pages.
“Are you tired of a certain group of male students telling you to ‘Make me a sandwich!’ when you voice an opinion in class?” he reads, then looks up, his grin spreading wide like he’s just been named All-American. “Hey, that’s me!” He shrugs his shoulders all guilty-as-charged. Sorry not sorry!
“Wait, read that one,” says Alex Adams, another football player in the back row. He points a finger at Moxie and smacks at it once, then twice, enjoying himself. “Read that last part.”
I’m trying to keep my face normal and neutral, but I’m pushing my feet into the bottom of my shoes so hard one of them squeaks against the tiled floor.
“Okay, let me,” Mitchell agrees. “It says, ‘Are you tired of the football team getting tons of attention and getting away with anything they want?’” Mitchell laughs out loud like he’s just read the Earth is flat or time travel exists. (Actually, Mitchell might be dense enough to think those things are true.) “Is this thing serious? They’re pissed we’re doing our job and winning football games? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was supposed to lose so a bunch of girls don’t feel all sad and shit.”
Cackle cackle, heh-heh, belchy, burpy dumb-boy noises follow, but the truth is some of the other kids in the class are smiling and laughing, too. Even some of the girls.
Mitchell leans forward in his seat, looking toward Lucy, who is packing her stuff inside her backpack. She stares up at the clock like she’s willing it to speed up.
“Hey, new girl,” he says in the general direction of Lucy’s back. “New girl, turn around, I have a question for you.”
Lucy’s shoulders sink just a bit. But she turns around.
“Yeah?” she says.
“You write this?” Mitchell asks, waving Moxie around between his fingers.
Lucy waits a beat longer than she needs to before offering a cold and clipped, “No,” and then turns around to continue packing up.