Chapter 5
“Stretch and do your one-mile warm-up and then we’ll work on relays,” commanded Coach Smith. With his short salt-and-pepper crew cut and his clean-shaven, no-nonsense Leave It to Beaver good looks, Coach Smith looked like he’d stepped out of the 1950s.
He always dressed in a white pullover, white pants, and black shoes. It was a bit off, but it worked for him. And it wasn’t like I was in a position to be pointing the “Fashion Don’t” finger.
I had forgotten to bring my running shoes, and my only option was to jog in my now multipurpose Chica Speakas. Having done the installation myself I wasn’t too concerned with how the electronic innards would hold up, but the added inches of platform put the test to my stability. And even worse, I looked like a go-go girl gone wrong, and I prayed that no one would pay attention.
“Hey, Fashion Don’t!” Adam said, paying attention out loud.
“Hey, Run Away! Why did you sit at the J+L table today?” I shot back.
“I decided to show Mase what life would be like on his own,” he replied smugly, wiping off an imaginary scuff on his Lacoste sneakers.
“Well, he wouldn’t be mad if you hadn’t nominated him.”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I was going to nominate him but I tore it up, because I’m not that impetuous,” Adam said, dropping another word of the day.
“What? Sorry, I didn’t get this week’s vocab list.”
“I’m not that impulsive, Luz,” Adam said, adjusting into a new stretch position. “Because I thought about it, and if I nominated Mase he would have just taken more of my votes.” Adam turned and broke into a slow jog. And of course I followed.
He had a point. Adam was cute but Mase was dirty secret cute. I could see how girls could be swayed by Mr. Milam’s silent persuasiveness. Still, I was muy curioso.
“If you didn’t nominate him, then who did?”
“I don’t know. I told him I didn’t do it and he didn’t buy it, and now he’s been blowing me off. So, that’s exactly what I’m trying to find out,” Adam said, with a steady pace and breath.
“Dig up anything good?” I asked, knowing that Adam’s the dog with a nose for the best bones of gossip.
Adam slowed to a walk, and as a loyal fan I happily followed. That was, until I could feel my inappropriate footwear beginning to rub blisters on my toes.
“Well, I’ve been hanging out and working as a production assistant for the producer, named Rod, who’s scouting the school before the whole High School Rules video crew comes over. And I overheard him say that he didn’t think there was enough drama here for a show. And that they might need to stir up the pot. I was wondering if maybe they nominated Mase.”
“That’s juicy but too much of a conspiracy theory. The facts are we’re all just freshmen and our lives aren’t that deep. And how would he know to single out Mase?” I said, trying to clear up this crazy talk.
“I don’t know. Not yet,” Adam replied in his in-the-know voice.
Suddenly, Coach Smith barked for us to form lines for a relay race. Adam and I held back so that we could continue our discussion. I was also trying to delay the inevitability of more running.
“Adam, listen up. Por favor, ayudame, I need your help! Dr. Hamrock is forcing me to enter Gamma’s science contest. I have three classmates whom I must make popular and get elected as Homecoming Court finalists by giving them scientific makeovers.”
“Oooh. Por favor, ayudame!” Adam mocked me back in his bad girly voice. “Are you gonna give them Santos’s Gamma Glamma treatment?” he asked, with bad jazz hands.
“You know it,” I said, pulling down his hands so people wouldn’t look at us.
“If you let me cover it for the paper ...” Adam said extra sweetly.
“Well ... Swen is already covering it.”
“What?! You let him instead of me? But I’m your BBF—best boy friend!” Adam gasped.
“I didn’t give him permission. Dr. Hamrock did. I didn’t even want to do this experiment.”
I could tell Adam was not happy about being left out. First, Mase had given him the brush-off and now me.
“Okay, let’s not talk about my dumb experiment,” I suggested.
“You brought it up,” he snapped.
Adam was being such a pain. But I really needed him, so I held my tongue (at least this time).
“Yes, Adam, I did bring it up. But I only brought it up because I need your help. I don’t have time to actively campaign for the Homecoming Court. I wanted you to help me figure out the best way to score votes,” I said, gazing at the relay line, which was growing shorter by the minute.
“What’s in it for me?” Adam replied, not skipping a beat.
“I thought you were my BBF,” I reminded him.
“You’re on probation for not letting me cover your freak-of-nature science experiment,” Adam said.
“Okay, what do you want?”
“My stipulation is that I want you to get Venus Hunter to go to the dance with me.”
“What?” I said, not believing my ears.
“Escucheme! You heard me, sister. Get Venus on board to go to the dance with me,” he repeated.
“What about Bridge? I thought she was your love for life?” I tried to remind Adam of his deep obsession with Bridge.
“She is, but she will only fall in love with me when I am rich and famous. And right now I am neither.”
“But why do you want to go with the person I can’t stand the most?”
“Because, my little Scientific Señorita, as vexing as it might sound, if I go to the dance with Venus, my story will get covered by the video crew,” Adam said, revealing his scheme.
“How do you figure that?” I asked, lacking the brainpower to add it all up as I moved closer to the front of the line.
“Look, we all know that Venus is going to be one of the five girl finalists to represent the freshman class. And you know she’ll probably win because, let’s face it, she’ll get there by any means possible, including murder. If I’m her date, then by proxy I get the first round of press.”
“Uh-huh?” I said, trying to get his drift.
“If she wins, then the video crew will follow her, and of course they’ll want my side of things, and thus I’ll be the narrator of the dirty little secrets of Gamma High,” Adam said with a twisted sense of potential power.
“Very tabloid,” I said, grossed out.
“More 20/20-like.” He tried to make it sound legit.
“Very tabloid.”
“Okay, you’re right, but it’s a shot and it could be really hot.”
“But will you help Bridge and me become finalists?”
“Yes. But it’s gonna take a lot of work,” Adam warned as he took off his glasses and put them in the pocket of his shorts.
“Then, I’m in.”
“Good. Then we are officially a team in this caper.”
“Yes!” I said, beginning to experience some relief. “When do you want to get started?”
“Now! Run!” Adam yelled.
While talking with Adam, I had forgotten I was still in gym class and now at the front of the line. Traci Armstrong came charging to hand me the baton. It took me a second to check back in and finally take off. As I started running, I wondered to myself, Why does it feel like I’m running straight into disaster?