“I’m about to kill myself,” Devon said. He held a deep-fried beef chalupa with sour cream and cheese from Taco Bell. He raised it an inch from his mouth. The class stopped shifting in their chairs. The classroom, our makeshift tournament stage for this Friday, had never been so quiet. No one wanted to miss what he said next—even me—and the intro was my idea. Talk about helping the enemy. Even crazier—I wanted him to nail it.
Sizzle had short-circuited my brain.
And I wasn’t even sorry about it.
Fortunately, I had two things going for me. One, Devon wasn’t an applicant for the Benedict’s Scholarship—he already had all the Yeats money he could want. Two, I did still want to kick his butt. Just for the fun of it. So I couldn’t be completely mindless, right?
Devon opened his mouth, started to take a bite—then stopped. “And when I do kill myself, I’m going to take some of you with me.”
Today’s presentation was just for the class. Mrs. Lee didn’t want to spoil the final tournament for parents by letting them hear our intros now. But I hadn’t missed Mrs. Yeats sneaking in the back this time.
“By eating this chalupa, I’m going to send heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity through the roof,” Devon said. “I’m going to impact the economic health of this country. I’m going to cause grisly deaths of the underage and undereducated in meatpacking plants. And that’s just the beginning, according to authors such as Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation. The bookstore shelves are full of experts’ books proclaiming our nation is spiraling toward processed death—all because of fast food. If only we could turn back time. Go back to the good old days. To the way our parents and grandparents used to eat. Those were the healthy days. Or were they? Were the good old days really that good? Is fast food really that bad? If this chalupa doesn’t kill you, the truth just might.”
Devon paused another second, made eye contact with everyone in the room, then took a bite of the chalupa.
The whole class burst into applause. Nice.
A second later, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. Even as I turned, I caught the scent of roses. Mrs. Yeats smiled down at me. “One of his best intros. I believe you had something to do with that.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. “I only helped him brainstorm.”
She squeezed my shoulder gently, but I felt it to my bones. Felt warmth where her hand rested. “Humility is another quality we admire at Benedict’s,” she whispered.
Then she walked back to her chair.
Yes!
It was going so perfectly. Devon and I had spent every afternoon that week at our nook. We brainstormed ideas for our oratories, and talked about his old school and my old school and what it would be like at Benedict’s. Together. The word “together” hadn’t actually come up, but it was all I thought about. I’d imagined a million scenarios of our getting together. My favorite: Devon presenting me the trophy on stage and admitting he was completely smitten. Did guys say “smitten”? They should, I decided.
It wasn’t all my imagination. Tonight was the charity theater event, and even if he hadn’t used the word “date,” Megan said it counted as one. By the time we started school at Benedict’s, she predicted, we’d be going out.
When we started at Benedict’s. I shouldn’t say it like that, as if it was a sure thing. But it was getting closer. This afternoon, I’d meet with Mrs. Yeats. As long as I didn’t blow it somehow, the scholarship felt like mine.
And I wasn’t going to blow it. I was prepared—even for Question #7. If Mrs. Yeats asked about religion, I’d tell her how Grandma Taylor was on the board of her Lutheran church—that ought to score me some points. And if I didn’t happen to bring up other things, like being Jewish, that wasn’t lying. It was Selective Sharing. Mrs. Yeats didn’t have to know everything. And Zeydeh didn’t have to know that she didn’t know. Fortunately, he was preoccupied with the ratio of celery to carrots in soup.
I couldn’t believe the butterflies in my stomach. I wanted the interview to go really well. I wanted her to like me. Devon told me she’d had dinner at the White House once. Talk about a good person to have on your side.
When Mrs. Lee called my name, I stood, feeling invincible. My long, straight skirt forced me to take slow, even steps to the front of the room. I’d pinned up my bangs and rolled the rest of my hair into a bun. I looked older and more mature—or at least, that was the idea.
“I’m fourteen years old,” I began. “I continue to face the horrible indignities of puberty. Changing body, womanly issues, acne, and bone growth. The teenage years are some of the most important and terrifying in the realm of growth and development. And how does the medical community respond to my needs? They send me to a pediatrician where I wait in a lobby with screaming infants and a video of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I’m led to a room with Mickey Mouse wallpaper, magazines about puppies and kittens, and a gentle reminder on bright yellow construction paper not to chew the books. Then, a nurse tells me to strip down and put on a paper robe. With Mickey Mouse watching? I don’t think so. It’s humiliating. More importantly, it can be dangerous if pediatricians are not prepared for the unique biological and mental needs of teenagers. What, then, is the solution?” I asked.
“There are pediatricians for infants and children. There are family doctors for adults. There are geriatricians for seniors. It’s time the medical community reacts to the very real, very individual needs of teens. For the sake of our health—mental and physical—our society must train and prepare a new kind of doctor: a teenatrician.”
I looked around the room, then smiled and bowed. The sound of applause swirled around me, my heart beating in time with the rhythm of it.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
When the bell rang for lunch, I waited for Devon at my desk. He’d been coming over to talk whenever we had a few minutes’ break. Sarah had noticed—everyone had noticed. “You guys hooking up?” she had asked yesterday. I said we were just friends, and shrugged like it was no big deal. But the idea of it felt so big that I could hardly keep it inside. Devon and me—it hardly seemed possible, much less real.
I watched him angle around the desks on his way over. A shivery feeling ran through me, and I couldn’t help smiling.
“Nice intro,” he said, sliding into Sarah’s seat as she got up. He gave me his smart-ass grin. “Good enough for second place.”
I stuck out my tongue. “Very funny. And you have chalupa in your teeth.”
He laughed, and draped an arm over the back of the chair. “You meeting with my grandmother?”
I nodded. “After lunch.”
“I’ll walk over with you, okay?”
“Okay.”
Devon still ate lunch with Peter, and I ate with Megan and Anna. After all, we were just friends. But I couldn’t stop myself from wanting it to be more than that. Which was why the scholarship had become even more important. Benedict’s wasn’t just about speech team. Now it was a chance to be with Devon, too.
Lunch flew by. I couldn’t eat much and mostly listened to Megan and Anna talk about their scenes. When I dumped my trash and stacked my tray, Devon was at the door to the cafeteria, waiting.
I’d noticed that he’d started carrying his backpack on his left shoulder instead of his right. It was a little thing, but it meant that we could walk side by side closer—without any backpacks between us. Every time he did it, my stomach fluttered, and every hair on the back of my neck stood up and danced.
When had I started to like him so much? If you’d asked me two weeks ago, I’d have sworn he was the last guy I’d ever like. Now, he seemed like the only guy I’d ever like again.
“So we’re on for tonight?” he asked.
We hooked a left through the lobby and down the hallway toward the offices. “Megan’s picking me up at seven.”
“Cool.” He slanted me a half smile as we rounded the corner to Admin. The secretary wasn’t at the front desk, and it didn’t look like Mrs. Clancy was in her office, either. The door of the vice principal’s office was half open. I couldn’t see Mrs. Yeats, but I could hear her on the phone. “He sold the company? When?”
Devon and I exchanged a smile. One of those secret smiles you only shared with a guy you liked. Who liked you back.
“He sold to a Jew? My God, don’t they already own a piece of everything?”
Mrs. Yeats’s voice startled me back to earth. What? She had to be joking. She had to be talking to her best friend, who was Jewish, and they were joking.
I stared at Devon. “It’s nothing,” he mouthed, but he looked embarrassed. “Business stuff.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Yeats said, with a short laugh. “And the country wonders why the financial markets are in ruins.” She let out a loud breath. “If we have to, we have to. I need those printers delivered by August first.” I could hear her tap a pencil on the desk. “It irks me, though. You know I hate working with those people.”
It didn’t sound like a joke. It didn’t sound like nothing.
Those people?
“Uh … Grandmother?” Devon called.
A second later, I heard her say good-bye, and then she appeared at the door, smiling like nothing was wrong. Like she hadn’t just said all those things. It felt like a snake had coiled around my windpipe. I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Ellie’s here,” Devon said.
“Wonderful.” Then her perfectly tweezed brows lifted an inch. “Are you all right, Ellie? You look a little pale.”
I didn’t feel pale—I felt hot. My head pounded so hard, my brain felt sore.
“She’s fine. Right, Ellie?”
I glanced at Devon. What was that look? Was that the eye version of a shrug? Was I supposed to shrug off what I’d heard? What had I heard?
Mrs. Yeats gestured to the office. “Why don’t you come in? Have a seat.”
Someone had to do something—say something. She had to know I was a Jew so she could explain. So she could say she didn’t mean anything by it.
I looked at Devon. Say something.
His eyes urged me forward.
“Ellie?” Mrs. Yeats said again.
I swallowed hard, and followed her in.