Tuesday, 10:05 A.M.
The next morning, I trudged down Hemingway alone, head down, while the rest of the student body herded to second period in groups. When no one was looking, I sneaked my glasses from my messenger back and slid them on.
In my defense, I had to. Mom made me triple swear on my broadcast career last night, after Sean called her to break the news about my rehearsal meltdown. She had told him about my glasses, so if I showed up to class without them, I’d be in serious trouble.
So I’d caved, and tried my hand at geek chic. I’d whipped my hair into a high, messy bun. My cropped black pencil trousers fell just above my silver Converse. I’d tucked in a white silky tank and cinched my fitted red cardigan with a skinny snakeskin belt.
And then, there were the glasses.
My steps slowed the closer I got to Sean’s American government class. In the absence of some sort of miracle, I needed a mantra. Something to get me through the day until I figured a way out of this mess. Liv was amazing with mantras. But since she hadn’t called or texted since rehearsal yesterday, I was on my own. So far, all I’d come up with was I will never say any word that begins with, ends with, or otherwise involves the letter s.
When I reached the door, I gave the metal handle a reluctant twist. I could feel the ugly brownish-orange frames on the bridge of my nose mocking me. Waiting to reveal themselves to the entire class. I took a sharp breath and stepped inside.
“Morning, Kacey.” Sean looked up from his papers, but he didn’t smile. “Feeling better, I hope?” His left eyebrow inched over his black-rimmed frames, broadcasting his disapproval.
“M-morning.” My entire body went hot, then cold as I waited for my classmates to point at my glasses. But oddly, no one looked at me. Every single kid in the class was hunched over an iPhone, BlackBerry, or cell.
“Burn.” Quinn Wilder snorted at his Droid screen.
In the back row, Molly squealed with laughter, her volume turned up about ten decibels too loud. Liv and Nessa huddled in close to her, snickering. Wait. Why was Nessa sitting in my seat?
What was going on?
As if she’d heard my silent question, Paige turned around and stared directly at me. Through her glasses, I could see her brown eyes widen, then seem to melt. She pursed her lips together in a small smile and tilted her head slightly.
My banana milkshake churned in my stomach the second I recognized the expression.
Paige Greene… pitied me.
I broke her gaze. This was the girl who used to hold protest marches in my kitchen on Saturday mornings when we ran out of orange juice. The girl who went on a hunger strike for a full forty-five minutes until my mom and dad both promised to vote in the neighborhood watch association’s midterm elections. This was a girl who’d been wearing glasses for years, without even realizing they were ruining her life. Didn’t she have enough causes to worry about without pitying me?
The seat next to Liv was empty. I sat down and, like the rest of my classmates, pulled out my cell and stared at the screen. Zero texts. Zero messages. Zero clues. Not only was my phone cold, it was silent, which was more than I could say for everybody else’s. Jumbled sound was leaking out of various phones at different volumes. Liv leaned away from me, so far over Molly’s desk that she was practically falling out of her chair.
“Hey.” With the toe of my sneaker, I nudged her gold coin ankle bracelet. “What—up?”
I chomped down on my lip. What up? Come on, Simon. Get it together.
Liv straightened up immediately. “Oh, hey, girl. Nothing.” Her eyes flitted across my face, resting everywhere but my glasses. “Cool… accessories?” she said uncertainly. If she thought I didn’t see her kick Molly under the desk, she was wrong.
“Molly?” I pressed. “What’re you guys looking at?”
Molly’s head snapped toward us. She shuddered when her eyes fell on mine, like she’d just gotten a chill. “When did those happen?” she blurted, flicking her braided pink streak indignantly away from her face.
“Molly!” Nessa smacked Molly’s desk, then shrugged apologetically at me.
“They’re temporary,” I said tightly. At least one of my friends had the decency to give it to me straight. “Like the brac—my… mouth problem.”
Then I reached across Liv’s desk and snatched Molly’s phone from her grasp.
“You don’t want to do that.” Liv made a halfhearted grab for the cell, but I turned quickly, using my body as a barricade. “It’s nothing. Really.”
“Morning, Marquette.” My tiny image glowed in an open YouTube window. Liv’s oversized flannel flower was bobbing in the bottom corner. “And welcome to this week’s edition of—”
“Thhhhhhhimon Thhhhhheetttttthhhh,” an unidentified female voice lisped over my moving lips. My banana milkshake did a three-point turn in my stomach and sped toward the back of my throat. I swallowed.
“I’m—”
“Kaaaaytheeee Thhhhhhimon.”
“—here to—”
“Give you people adviiithhhhhhh.”
I gripped the phone harder, the rhinestone snowflake decals pricking my skin like tiny blades.
“Okay. Phones off. Let’s go ahead and get started,” Sean said.
But I didn’t budge. I wanted to. I wanted to throw Molly’s phone on the floor and stomp it into oblivion. Torch it. Throw it out the window. Whatever I had to do to MAKE THE LISPING STOP. But for some reason, my body refused to listen to my brain. My eyes stayed on the razor-sharp image of my public humiliation. Why had I picked today, of all days, to start seeing clearly?
“Kacey. Phone off, please, or it’s mine.” Sean hovered over my desk, extending his outstretched palm. Seconds later, I felt the phone slide out of my grip, and then it disappeared into the pocket of Sean’s khakis.
“Great,” Molly hissed. “Thanks, Kacey.”
Did I hear a lisp, or was my brain playing tricks on me? My glasses started to fog. Stop. Don’t let them do this to you.
Sean headed for the white SMART Board behind his desk and uncapped a red dry erase marker. “Today, we’re going to see what the court system looks like in action by reenacting a legal case study.”
A few rows ahead, Quinn yawned, as if I hadn’t just been ripped to shreds on the Web. How could a guy with hair that soft be so callous? The snakeskin belt around my hips felt like an actual python, squeezing the life out of me. Maybe Quinn didn’t like me after all. Maybe he never had.
Liv nudged my chair leg apologetically, but I pretended not to feel it. Traitor.
“Under your desks, you have a mock trial transcript with your role highlighted in yellow.” Sean rolled up the sleeves of his plaid button-down. “We’ll act out day one of the trial and break into small groups for discussion tomorrow.”
Everyone reached under their desks. My packet said Witness #1. On any other day, I would have believed I deserved a much better part, like the prosecutor, or the judge. Now, I wished I’d been assigned the role of Invisible Girl.
Sean pointed out everyone’s places. Molly, the judge, settled into Sean’s desk and Liv and Nessa huddled together in the jury box, while I crowded behind all the other bit parts at the back of the class.
“We’ll start with the prosecution’s opening statement,” Sean said.
“That’s me,” Paige piped up, throwing her shoulders back. She turned to face the jury box. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” She overacted her entire statement, wrapping up with, “The prosecution calls Kacey Simon to the stand.”
“That’th you,” whispered a guy’s voice somewhere to my left. I stomped to the front of the room and slammed into the chair next to Sean’s desk. My glasses tumbled down the bridge of my nose, and I shoved them back with my index finger.
“Raise your right hand?” Imran Bhatt the Bailiff said authoritatively.
I lifted my right hand. It was shaking.
“I, Kacey Simon, do solemnly swear…”
My vision blurred. No. I can’t use the letter s. I pursed my lips over my braces, but my mouth wouldn’t close all the way. The sharp metal dug into the backs of my lips.
“I, Kacey Simon, do solemnly swear…” Imran repeated loudly.
“I… K-Kaythee Thimon, do tholemnly thwear—” I half choked, half whispered.
The classroom went so quiet, I could hear the creak of the radiator under the window.
“To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me—”
A weird gurgling noise escaped my throat. I glanced pleadingly at Sean, but he just nodded.
“To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, tho—”
Someone snorted in the back of the room.
“Order!” Molly whacked the edge of Sean’s desk with her rolled-up script. “Let the witness… talk!”
I glanced over at her, grateful until I saw that her shoulders were shaking. Her lips were twitching, trying not to break into a smile. In the jury box, Liv and Nessa shielded their mouths with their scripts.
I stared, disbelieving, while Molly leaned back in her chair, drinking in my humiliation. Her blue eyes sparkled, the way they always had when I’d said something hilarious about one of the unfortunates at Marquette. And now, she was the one… I was the…
I couldn’t even finish the thought.
The trial in Sean’s class might just have gotten under way, but the trial in my head was already over. And the verdict was guilty. For everybody. Including my so-called friends, who hadn’t even faked being mad about the YouTube thing. How many times had I saved Molly from wearing some stupid horseback riding/parallel bars–flipping/figure-eight skating outfit to school? Or made one of Liv’s designs so popular she completely sold out? Or helped Nessa study for a test so she could keep her one-hundred average?
“Okay, let’s keep going,” Sean said as a few more giggles rose at the back of the class.
My frames were burrowing into my skin, getting heavier with each passing second. I tore them off. But not before I caught a glimpse of Paige, standing alone behind the prosecutor’s desk. She stared at me for a few seconds, then blinked like she might cry. Quickly, I lowered my eyes to the desk in front of me. MT + RJ was carved in the very center.
It might as well have read U R OVR.