By the end of last period, I had collected over a hundred notes. Forty were from boys who wanted me to go to Grad Night with them—but only eighteen were signed. Grad Night was Claverford’s version of a senior prom, except Grad Night happened the Friday before graduation, which was just three weeks away.
Forty boys! Half the boys in our grade wanted me—me!—for their Grad Night date. Four of the signed notes were from boys who already had girlfriends, including my secret love, Carlos, who was going with BeeBee.
Carlos kept trying to catch my eye during language arts. He’d never paid any attention to me before. This had been quite a feat for him one time last year, when we had been stuck alone together in the school elevator for ten minutes. I had talked to him, of course, since it was my big chance to make him know me, care for me. But he had managed not even to glance my way, and not to say more than, “Uhhh . . .”
I wondered if Carlos was the one who’d asked me to go to the zoo.
If my wish had really come true, it was almost worth the last nine months of misery. I wasn’t ignored or teased once all day. The word “anus” wasn’t ever mentioned. If I died, almost five hundred kids would go to my funeral, and the school would have to bring in extra grief counselors to comfort everybody.
But how could my wish have come true? It didn’t seem reasonable that all my problems could be over simply because I had given an old lady my seat, especially since I’d done it partly so I wouldn’t be late for school.
And if it had come true, if it was a spell, how was I different from before? I didn’t feel different. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I didn’t look different. I was acting like myself. But nobody was seeing the same Wilma they had seen yesterday.
So assuming it was a spell, how long would the old lady’s gratitude last? Would I still be popular tomorrow, and if I was, for how long after that? Would it still be with me next year at Elliot, the high school most Claverford kids went to? Would it last me through college? For the rest of my life? Or would it end in the next five minutes?
And if it ended, how would I stand it?
Ardis and Suzanne were waiting for me in the lobby when school was over. Let me repeat that—Ardis was waiting for me. Suzanne saw me first. Her popularity radar was infallible.
“Wilma. Over here.”
I threaded my way through the crowd, smiling and saying “hi” to everybody. I reached Ardis. “Hi,” I said to her. I ignored Suzanne.
“What’s happening, Wilma?” Ardis asked.
I don’t think I’d ever grinned before the way I did then. Ardis got the full power of the day I’d had. “I don’t know what’s happening. But whatever it is, it’s fabulous.”
She smiled back at me. “Way to go.”
She walked me to the subway, along with Suzanne and at least twenty other kids. Ardis didn’t say anything, just walked next to me.
“Do you have any pets?” I asked. It was the first thing I wanted to know about anybody, though, given my reputation, maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the subject.
She shook her head.
Oh. That was a disappointment.
“Me neither,” Suzanne said.
“I have Shanara, my little sister.” Ardis laughed. She had the best laugh—genuine and shoulder shaking. A whole body laugh, not a brain laugh, and nothing mean about it. “Shanara follows me around like a dog. She’s eight, and she’s sweet.”
Suzanne said, “I’m an only ch—”
“My sister Maud is four years older than me,” I said. “If she ever called me sweet, I’d faint.”
I didn’t know what to say next, but Ardis asked which teachers I had. We compared while Suzanne kept interrupting with the teachers she had. Ardis had Mr. Pike for science, and I’d had him in seventh grade. He was good for months of conversation—how he picked his ears with a bent paper clip; how his Adam’s apple was so big, it looked like he’d swallowed a golf ball; how he rocked back and forth till you almost got seasick.
I told her about the time last year when he gave us a test, and he started rocking, and he rocked so hard, he fell off his chair.
She laughed again. I had made Ardis Lundy laugh. Twice. Me.
Mr. Pike lasted us to the subway. Ardis didn’t take the subway to get home, so we said good-bye, and I was left with Suzanne. I wished she had gone too.
“I always wanted a dog,” Suzanne told me while we waited for our train.
“So you could write a secret-life essay like I did?”
“Yeah. That was a super essay. So imaginative.”
I pinched myself. It hurt.
Our train came. “I thought I’d look cute walking a tiny poodle,” Suzanne continued as we got on, “but Daddy said I’d have to pick up after it, and that’s disgusting.”
If you love an animal, you don’t mind what goes along with it.
“Guess what.” Suzanne smiled. Smirked, really.
“What?”
“I have history with Ardis. I saw the last test Bluestein gave back to her. She got a fifty-seven.”
Suzanne being friendly was as mean as Suzanne being mean.
“So she failed one test,” I said.
The train stopped at our station, Sixty-sixth Street. Suzanne gossiped all the way home. She told me that Evadney Jones’s friends had cheated when they had counted the votes for SGO president. She said that Erica couldn’t afford to go to Elliot next year because her mother had lost her job.
We went into our building. My apartment was on the third floor, and Suzanne’s was on eighteen. She rang for the elevator and I headed for the stairs. I just couldn’t stand to spend another second with her.
“Want to come up and hang out?” she asked.
“No.” I knew I was being rude, but I didn’t care.
“Okay.” She punched the elevator button again. “I ought to study too.”
Now I felt guilty. Guilty enough to say, “See you tomorrow.” But not guilty enough to change my mind.
The phone was ringing as I unlocked our door. While Reggie jumped all over me, Maud yelled, “It’s for you, Wilma.”
How could she tell the phone was for me when it was still ringing? We didn’t have caller ID. We didn’t even have an answering machine.
It was BeeBee. I could hardly hear her over Reggie’s enthusiastic barking.
“What?” I shouted.
I clamped the phone between my head and my shoulder and stroked Reggie with both hands, which got him quiet enough for me to hear that she was inviting me to her house for a sleepover Friday night. I thought of turning her down because of the way she had acted when we were working on the debate. But then she said Ardis and Nina Draper were coming too, and I decided to forgive her.
The three most popular kids at school.
And me.
Wow.