The week of the harvest festival, no one talked about anything else. During lunch, Harper, Meg, and I watched as Jack Donnelly begrudgingly climbed a ladder and strung fake cobwebs from the rafters. Mary-Anne France flounced around the quad, pinning up orange-and-black glittery signs that listed the price of admission, a herd of junior officers following behind her holding tape. Peter cheerfully greeted the lowerclassmen in the halls with his most presidential wave and fist bumps as he declared that the festival was the must-see event of the year.
I had to admit that I was excited. In exchange for using my bedroom as a sweatshop, Meg had handcrafted my headpiece. It was sleek and black with massive curved horns attached to a hood that meant I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair. I’d strapped it onto my Iron Man pillow and propped it on my desk so that I could admire it while I was doing homework.
Harper and Cornell provided hours of entertainment on campus by being the most awkward noncouple of all time. They continually checked in with each other to make sure they were still meeting up at the harvest festival. Cornell would pass our table in the cafeteria and say, “See you Friday?” And Harper would try to look composed and say, “Yeah?” as though they were not literally seeing one another in the present.
“You don’t understand,” she groaned at me the day before the festival. “It’s weird.”
“Oh no,” I said, giggling with Meg. “I understand that it’s weird. I am ensconced in the weird. Why don’t you go ask if he needs help putting up the decorations or something?”
“I could use some help,” Ben West said, appearing next to our table with an armful of what appeared to be plain black trash bags. “My frosh disappeared.”
“Move along, Grizzly Adams,” I said without looking up.
One of the bags slipped from between his arms and fell to the floor. Harper leaned over and handed it back to him.
“Many thanks,” he said, tossing the bag back onto the stack.
“You have your own frosh?” Meg asked, glancing around the caf as though she could spot a miniature West somewhere.
His mustache gave a mocking twitch as he hoisted the bags higher in his arms. “All of the officers do. We have to show them the ropes.”
“What is it you do on student council anyway?” I asked. “Just haul the trash bags?”
He glared down at me. “I’m the treasurer.”
“Really?” I turned to Meg and Harper. “Did we vote for him?”
“I think so,” Meg said. “It was him or Mike Shepherd.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’m sure I voted for Mike. Who knows what kind of accounting failures West could be responsible for. By the time we graduate, our budget will look like Somalia’s.”
West gave an unconcerned shrug and said, “Yo-ho-ho.”
Before I had a chance to point out that references to Somali pirates were completely in poor taste, a small figure similarly dwarfed in trash bags streaked across the cafeteria to our table. I could barely make out the face hidden under the black polypropylene.
“Sorry, Ben,” the frosh squeaked. “I dropped all of them outside and—”
Lowering the bags away from his face, I could see the frosh’s stricken expression. It made him look remarkably like a Jack Russell terrier, which made it easier to recognize him.
“B. Calistero.” I grinned. “You’ve survived another week at the Mess! Congratulations.”
West looked around at us, his jaw set in such a way that I could tell he did not like that I knew his minion. Harper and Meg turned to me in surprise. I didn’t often befriend the freshmen. Or anyone.
“Meg, Harper, this is the frosh I stopped Kenneth from maiming,” I said, gesturing to the pile of bags in front of the frosh’s face.
“Nice to meet you, froshling,” piped Meg.
“I’m Brandon,” said the tiny frosh. “Freshman class treasurer.”
West tucked his chin back in horror, turning his body to stare down his helper. Brandon cowered slightly, taking one step of rearward retreat.
“The hot girl who saved you was Trixie Watson?” West asked, his voice heavy with disgust. “They had to take her entry out of the last D&D Monster Manual. Illustrators kept dying trying to capture her essence.”
I felt myself flush in embarrassment and tried to shove the feeling aside. It was just as flattering to be referred to as a hot girl as it was horrifying to have West discredit the statement.
“Oh, suck it, West,” I said, too preoccupied to think of something more clever.
“Wow, Trix.” He guffawed. “That’s all you’ve got?”
I rolled my eyes. “Suck it, you loquacious loser. Or would you prefer I think of something referring to the fact that your mother left you and started a new family on the other side of the country?”
Ah. A hit. A palpable hit.
It was Meg’s comment about the treasurer race that had brought back the memory of the end of junior year. The quad had been wallpapered in campaign posters. Mike Shepherd had stood directly in the center of the M mosaic, screaming. It was easy to forget that Mike was a big guy. He was normally so docile, a gentle giant. Like Fezzik in The Princess Bride, only blond and pimply. But he’d lost it in the middle of a hot summer lunch period and started tearing down West’s posters left and right. The rest of the role-playing club had tried to stop him, begging him to remember that he and West were friends.
“He’s not my friend,” Mike raged. “He’s a loser. His own mother moved to the other side of the country to get away from him. She replaced him with a new baby. I can replace him, too.”
Mike got a week’s worth of detention. West had won the sympathy vote.
I wouldn’t normally use the information to my advantage, but I was feeling a little stab happy after the dig at my appearance. West had set the tone of this exchange. I’d just matched him.
In stereo, Harper and Meg sucked in pained gasps. West’s back straightened and his arms braced painfully against his stack of trash bags. He jerked his head to Brandon and stormed off across the cafeteria.
“Bye, B,” I called after the frosh. “Don’t forget to be awesome!”
Brandon stumbled and stammered, “Bye, Trixie!” before scampering after West’s long strides.
Harper watched them go, a small frown appearing in the corner of her mouth. She turned back to me. “Is that the first time you’ve spoken since the nerd duel?”
“No,” I said.
Admittedly, the nerd duel had become a kind of stalemate between us. For at least two days afterward, we had tacitly ignored each other altogether. But at some point he’d made a snide comment to me in the hall and I’d called him Benedick again.
“Don’t look so tense about it,” I said to Harper. “I promise not to do anything to destroy the fragile construct that is your relationship with your not-boyfriend. Even if he does have poor taste in friends.”
Harper’s mouth fell open. She struggled for a minute before managing to say, “I wasn’t worried about—”
“Yes, you were,” Meg hummed.
Harper’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, maybe I was a little worried. I just want tomorrow night to be—”
“Magical?” I offered, failing at concealing a grin. “Would you like me to accidentally trap you in a supply closet?”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Please give up the supply closet idea,” Meg begged me. “It’s really never going to work.”
“Fine,” I said with an exaggerated flip of my ponytail. “I’m just looking out for your future children, Cornell Jr., Cornelius, and Cornelia.”
“Those are terrible names,” Harper said. “Juniors are the choke chain of the patriarchy. It invalidates motherhood. I would lean more toward…”
She trailed off, her eyes going wide behind her glasses as Meg and I giggled. She clucked and flapped her hands at us, begging us to disregard all statements about any hypothetical children.
[5:46 AM]
Meg
I have makeup, shoes, and my crown all packed and ready to go. What am I forgetting?
[5:52 AM]
Harper
A sweater?
[5:55 AM]
Meg
Nope. My ticket money. Oops. That would be embarrassing.
[6:07 AM]
Me
I *shiver* to think. Ha ha ha.