What I Wore to Save the World

“In the words of Shakespeare, he means,” Sarah hissed in my ear. “Polonius was fictional! God, that ex-boyfriend of yours is such a dweeb—”

Raph stepped back from the mike and adjusted the tassel that hung over the edge of his mortarboard an eighth of an inch to the right. Apparently it had slipped from the perfect photo op-ready angle.

Some goofball guys in the seats up front whooped with fake enthusiasm, but I couldn’t see who they were. Sarah and I were seated in the back with the rest of the juniors, way out past where the white tents cast some badly needed shade over the graduating seniors and their guests.

The metal folding chairs were heating up in the sun. My cotton sundress was sticking to my legs, my legs were sticking to each other and my ass was sticking to the seat. If the school administration had actually buttered the chairs before the ceremony they could have served sunny-side-up juniors for lunch. “Hot East Norwich Teens Actually Fry to Death,” the headlines would read.

At least that would have put me out of my misery. Instead, I had to watch cool-as-a-cucumber Raphael, my onetime boyfriend, now senior class president and valedictorian, as he wrapped up the Speech of His Awesome Lifetime So Far.

This was his perfect moment, the one he’d fantasized about since he was voted Most Likely to Color Inside the Lines in kindergarten. Raph on the podium. Raph at the microphone. Raph telling his classmates how to live the rest of their lives, while his proud parents snapped one flash photo after another.

“My fellow graduates of East Norwich High School!” He was practically yelling now, as he built up to his big finish. “You are ready, you are willing, you are totally able! Be true to yourselves and you cannot fail!”

The black-robed seniors jumped to their feet, cheering. Following Raph’s lead, 522 square black hats flew into the sky. Raph grinned and pumped his fists in the air like a rock star.

His girlfriend du jour, a bubbly, pretty junior named Alyssa, was sitting two rows in front of Sarah and me. She was the only junior to leap up from her seat and clap along with the seniors.

Leave it to a cheerleader to show excess enthusiasm, I thought. I wondered how long Raph would wait after graduation before ditching her. When it came to girls, Raph liked to wipe the slate clean at the end of the school year. Like emptying out your locker. This I knew from personal experience.

The senior class of East Norwich High School had been set free. The boys yelled and pounded one another’s backs; the girls hugged and cried. There was some comical ducking and evasive maneuvers as the mortarboards crash-landed back on earth.

“so obnoxious. it’s like he’s the freakin’ king,” sarah muttered as she washed her hands. “Why do they make the juniors sit through the ceremony, anyway? I have more valuable things to be doing on a beautiful day like today.”

Now that we were inside the air-conditioned chill of the school, I was too busy trying to peel my sweaty dress away from my body to answer right away. My face felt like it had spent the morning in a toaster oven, right under the broiler.

“Can you believe all those people are waiting outside for the Porta Potti?” Sarah shook the excess water off her hands. “Guh-ross.”

Of course, none of those poor shlubs were on a first-name basis with the school janitor. He was a major b-ball fan who was only too happy to let Sarah, star center of the school’s undefeated girls’ team, and me, her unathletic but needing-to-pee friend, into the building to use the facilities.

“Yikes. Your face is really red.” The soap dispenser by my sink was empty, so Sarah gave me a squirt from hers. “Ever hear of sunblock?”

Sarah, always sensible, had been wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat all morning. On her it looked ironic-retro-glamorous, like she was the star of one of those made-for-cable movies based on a Jane Austen novel. On me, a hat like that would look like a stack of pancakes had fallen on my head.

“If I’d known they were going to leave us stranded in the desert to die . . .” I bent over the sink and gently splashed cool water on my scorched cheeks.

“I know, right?” Sarah laughed. “Why does the school administration hate the juniors so much? Maybe they’re still punishing us for what happened at prom.”

I lifted my head and saw Sarah watching me in the mirror, waiting for some kind of reaction. It’d been three months since the junior prom. All Sarah knew about my adventures that night was that, ten minutes after I’d arrived, I was sprawled on my butt in the lobby fountain of the East Norwich Country Club, dripping wet in my ironically pink prom dress and looking like I’d just woken up from a truly excellent dream.

I’d never told her what really happened, but what was I supposed to say? Should I tell her that, while she and her boyfriend, Dylan, and all the rest of our class were ooh ing and aah ing over the streamers and balloons, I’d swum through a portal to the faery realm?

Where—surprise!—I’d arrived at my own seventeenth birthday party, thrown by Titania, Queen of the Faeries, with music provided by Kiss and mosh-pit diving provided by a happy leprechaun? I’d even scored a truly magical birthday kiss from my one, my only, my true love, Colin, the freckle-faced hunk o’Irish hottie who pwned my heart, even though he lived an ocean away.

Nope. I’d never mentioned any of this to Sarah, or to anyone else, either. She and the rest of my classmates had interpreted my pink taffeta-clad water ballet as a cool and rebellious act of anti-prom performance art. So much so that nearly all of the other prom-goers had repeated the stunt at some point during the evening. Truly, it was the soggiest junior prom ever.

The school administration had not been pleased. Neither was the management of the East Norwich Country Club. The owners were frantic that those “awful teenagers” might have damaged their precious fountain. Little did they know: It takes more than some pranking kids to mess up a portal to the faery realm.

But when the principal, Mrs. Calhoun, tried to suspend any student who’d been seen going home wet, a bunch of parents (some of whom were lawyers) sent threatening letters about “the school’s liability in endangering our children by placing them in an environment known to contain hazardous bodies of water.” After that the incident was mysteriously dropped, which just goes to show that the ability of the Faery Folk to conceal all evidence of their existence pales next to the ability of East Norwich parents to protect their kids from the consequences of their own stupid behavior.

I patted my wet face gently with a paper towel before answering Sarah’s questioning look. “They just want to give us something to look forward to. Graduation: proof that our suffering will someday end.”

Then I crumpled the paper towel, tossed it at the trash can and missed. Sarah chuckled as I retrieved my bad toss. Sarah had once settled a bet between Dylan and some wiseass by burying twenty free throws in a row. The ball never touched the rim, and the wiseass had to wear Sarah’s “Chicks Rule!” T-shirt to school every day for a month.

“A year from today it’ll be us throwing our goofy black hats in the air. Oh my God, I can’t wait! College is going to be so awesome compared to this.” Sarah fluffed her hair and put the pancake hat neatly back in place. Then she looked at me with her legendary I-have-a-great-idea-that’s-against-the-rules expression. “Hey! Let’s go look at the college wall.”

the college wall was right outside the school’s main office. It was where the guidance counselors posted copies of the seniors’ acceptance letters as they came in.

Personally, I hated the college wall. To me it was just another way for the seniors to put themselves in rank order, and I’d had enough of that kind of posturing when I was with Raph. But most of the juniors were drawn to it like pod people being summoned back to the mothership. It was as if there was some magical clue about our own futures hidden in all that official-looking correspondence.

I didn’t bother to ask who they were. East Norwich was the kind of school where practically everyone who graduated went to college. But there was the posse of superstar seniors (led by Raph, of course) who were genetically programmed to attend Ivy League schools and for whom nothing less would do.

I figured the two future Brown undergrads must be from Raph’s crowd. Naturally, Raph had gotten into his first choice: MIT, early admission. Like there was ever any doubt.

Sarah was transfixed by the wall. Watching her read each letter, slack-jawed with concentration, reminded me of how my little sister, Tammy, would go all glassy-eyed in front of the TV, watching the same Disney movie over and over and over . . .

“Cute! Eileen Rossiter and Mark Schmidt are both going to Stanford.” Eileen and Mark had been a couple since middle school.

“What about you and Dylan?” I countered, not very nicely. “Will you be filling out ‘his and her’ college applications? Or will higher education be the end for true love?”

The look on her face made me instantly sorry that I’d joked about it. Sarah was a star athlete with good grades, and it was just a matter of time before the basketball scholarship offers came rolling in. She would have her pick of a dozen schools. However, the Boston Conservatory of Music was not likely to be one of them.

“Sorry, bad joke. You two will work it out.” I knew all too well how hard it was to be apart from the guy you loved. “You and Dylan are meant for each other.”

“I know.” She spoke softly, still staring at the wall. “I mean, it feels like we are. But how can you really know something like that?” She turned to look at me. “Anyway, what about you?”

“What—what do you mean?” I didn’t want to discuss my long-distance whatever-it-was with Colin, mostly because I knew Sarah thought I was nuts for holding out for a guy who was already in college and lived so far away. Especially when our status as a couple was a lot vaguer than I wanted it to be.

If I closed my eyes I could still hear his lilting Irish voice in my head: Ye’re still in high school, Mor. Have some fun . . .

“I mean college, dum-dum!” Sarah rolled her eyes. “You haven’t toured any campuses. You haven’t decided on a major. Your SAT scores were, frankly, kind of weak—”

“Indeed they were.” Sarah was very good at scolding me. “And yet, I do not see a test-prep book tucked under your arm, Morgan Rawlinson! Are you even going to bother taking the test again?”

“It’s too late to kid around.” All of a sudden Sarah had her game face on, and it was scary. “Junior year’s over. It’s time to figure out what you want to do after high school.”

It was Mrs. Calhoun, high school principal and object of mockery and revulsion to all self-respecting East Norwich teens.

“This is the college wall. Not the bathroom.” It wasn’t a question, but Mrs. Calhoun stood there like she was waiting for an answer.

Sarah kept her smile frozen in place and stood up very straight. She was a full head taller than Mrs. Calhoun, and she worked it by stepping a little too close and talking straight down at the unnaturally blond head of our school’s fearless leader. “Mrs. Calhoun,” she said somberly, “the truth is, Morgan is having a really hard time figuring out what color her parachute is.”

She ignored me and kept spewing BS. “So we came to the college wall for, you know, inspiration! Wow! So many great schools! You must be massively proud—”

“We totally found some! We’re done now. Thanks so much!” Sarah kept babbling as she dragged me away by the arm.

“What was that crap about a parachute?” I asked, as soon as we were out of earshot and had recovered from our giggle fit.

“Admit it, Morgan. You spent your whole junior year obsessing about Colin.” Always prepared, Sarah pulled the brim of her hat down low against the sun, but the light and heat hit me like a slap. “Too bad you can’t major in him.”