Chapter 13

All week long, I eat lunch with Jeremy in the stairwell. Caro spends every lunch hour at the speech team table, and every afternoon, everyone at speech team practice acts like this is no big deal. The only difference is Tory points her digital camera my way with a fierceness I haven’t seen all season. She’s convinced I can make the final round, maybe even this Saturday at the Big 9 tournament.

“Can I ask you a favor?” I say on Thursday afternoon. I’ve run through my piece at least five times. I know it by heart, and only glance at my script because if you hold one in a round, you need to at least appear to refer to it. But I feel safer just hanging onto it. Sam’s words echo in my head: Not a prop or a crutch. I’ve seen some kids perform without a script at all. I’ll never be that brave, so I think yes, it’s a crutch.

“Turn the camera off?” Tory grins at me.

“Actually, I’m giving my last speech in Mr. Henderson’s class tomorrow.” I swallow hard. “Would you film it? You know, for practice?”

An odd look crosses her face. “Okay,” she says, “sure.”

The last speech is a how-to speech, and it’s thirty percent of our grade. This one speech is the difference between passing and failing. Even with the extra credit from the speech team, I still need every percentage point I can get. We duck into the empty world languages room, and Tory sets up the camera while I get everything ready.

“What’s the topic?” she asks.

I hold back the smile. “How to overcome the fear of public speaking.”

A single heartbeat passes, then Tory bursts out laughing. She laughs for so long, I suspect she’s laughing at me, not with me.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, and wipes her eyes. “It’s just ... it’s just ...” She gulps a breath. “It’s just so perfect.”

“It’s got to be,” I mutter.

I go through my speech, pulling in everything I’ve learned from Tory, from Sam, and a few things I’ve invented on my own. Like how you don’t have to look anyone directly in the eye as long as you can fake it. Stare at a spot over their shoulder—or their uni-brow.

Tory snorts at this.

“Should I cut uni-brow?” I ask.

“Are you kidding? Henderson loves that sort of thing.”

She smiles when I mention the pencil trick and speaking into the mirror. I end my speech with advice on finding what you love about the topic, as motivation to speak up.

“It’s pretty good,” Tory says when I finish.

From where I stand, pretty good must be better than not bad.

“Want to watch it?” she asks.

Not really. My teeth behaved while I spoke, but I feel them now, just a hint. But since I asked Tory to film me, not watching the video would be stupid. So I nod and suck in a deep breath. I weave my fingers together and hold on tight so I won’t give into the urge to hide behind my hands.

Tory presses Play. I survive. Maybe tomorrow won’t be as bad as I think.

The final speech evaluation is the only one Mr. Henderson doesn’t hand back right away. We’ll find out how we did once grades for the third term go in. After class, a few kids come up to me, asking about the pencil trick.

“Try it,” I say. “It sounds kind of crazy, but it works.”

Another girl asks if practicing in front of her doll collection would help. I think of the tournament rounds, all sorts of eyes on me, beady and small. I nod. A doll collection would be perfect.

At lunch, I bypass the cafeteria automatically, my gaze straight ahead. I clutch my brown bag and head for the stairwell. Every day, I tell myself this will be the day Jeremy rejoins his friends. So far, he hasn’t.

Today is no exception. He’s here, with a massive lunch. I sit on the same step, but there’s plenty of air between us.

“Hey,” he says, “I’ve been talking to some of my bros.”

Really? Bros? Ugh.

“About you being a skank.”

“What?”

He holds up a hand, one clutching a sandwich, but it’s enough to stop me. “I mean, not one. I told them you were tutoring me in biology, but I made up a story we were going out because I was embarrassed to be failing.”

A strange sort of pang hits me. Something about making up a story and being embarrassed about failing—who knew Jeremy Spinner and I had something else in common?

“They believed you?” I ask.

“Oh, come on,” he says. “You’re on the speech team, in knitting club, and orchestra.” He draws out this last word so, in my head, I hear leprosy. “Besides, I’m getting a B, so of course they believed me. In fact, some of them might ask for your help.”

“There was this guy at my locker this morning,” I say. “Lukas, I think.”

“Yeah.” Jeremy taps his forehead. “He’s not that bright.”

This, from Jeremy Spinner, is a condemnation. Or irony. Or both.

“I thought he was a creeper.”

“He’s okay, but he’s probably failing something.”

After a moment, I say, “Thanks.” I’m kind of surprised I mean it, too.

“It’s probably the least I can do, what with everything.” He raises a hand and lets it fall as if this everything is too heavy for even him to lift.

Five minutes before the bell rings, Jeremy asks about the Big 9 speech tournament.

“It’s the big one before sub-sectionals,” I tell him. “Tory says it’s when the teams start gunning for state—there are lots of upsets and surprises.”

“What about Romero?” he asks.

“What about him?” I cringe because the words come out sharper than I mean them to.

“We share the indoor field with Winnetka,” he says. “And I heard a few things.”

“What did you hear?” My insides revolt. The carrot sticks I’m eating form a lump in my stomach. I think I might throw up.

Jeremy shakes his head. “Nothing that makes sense, at least, not to me. Something about a ring.”

“A ring for what?”

“See, that’s what I don’t get, but the Winnetka guys were talking about it.” Jeremy pauses and considers the stack of Oreos resting in his palm. He—very generously—offers me one. “But it wasn’t really about Romero.”

I sense more than see him turn his head. He stares straight on, and I feel his gaze against my cheek.

“It was about you.”

I’m dashing down the hall, late for speech practice, when Mrs. Riley, the creative storytelling teacher, catches me.

“Jolia, walk.”

Yes, we’re supposed to walk in school, not that it’s stopped anyone from running. Jeremy and his friends race up and down the corridors, and no one ever stops them. But I slow down and do a funny race-walk thing.

Mrs. Riley laughs and falls into step next to me. “Are you looking forward to creative storytelling?”

I nod because she expects no less. At the moment, I don’t know if I’ll be sitting in her classroom on Monday morning. This is also something I don’t feel like explaining.

“Have you and Caro started working on your project already?”

“Sort of,” I say, which is as close to the truth as I can get. For once, failing speech looks like the better option. How did that happen? And how, on Monday, will I ever work with Caro if we’re not even speaking to each other?

Mrs. Riley halts in a teacher sort of way that means I must stop walking too. “Jolia, are you okay?”

I nod, but that’s a lie. My throat is tight, but finally, I squeak out, “I’m late for speech practice.”

Mrs. Riley smiles at me, then does the weirdest thing. She turns her back on me, then gives me a little wave, the sort that means, hurry, hurry, hurry.

“I never saw you,” she says, and I can hear the laughter in her voice.

I rush down the hall.

I’m almost to the speech team room when I see two people who are not where they’re supposed to be. Jeremy should be at track practice. Caro should be in her mom’s car on the way home. Neither of them should be huddled in an empty classroom. From where I stand, I can’t tell if their whispers are happy or fierce, if it’s a fight—or if they’re making up. Their faces are close enough for kissing—or spitting. It’s like watching a couple in a movie, only I have no idea how this story will end.

A hand—I think it’s Jeremy’s—shuts the door. With that one simple act, he’s closed off everything. This is what I’ve been afraid of all year, from the second they started going together. I’ve lost Caro. She’s been gone long before she dumped me on Monday.

My heart thuds heavy and slow in my chest. I stare at that closed door, but the movie is over, or at least, my part in it is. I raise my hand in a goodbye wave. Then I continue down the hall.

“I’m telling you, he’s not on the list.”

In the speech team room, Tory and Ryan are playing tug of war with his laptop—a sure sign it’s a Friday before a tournament.

“And I’m reminding you,” she says, “that you said the same thing last week. What if they know we’re hitting the site and are just messing with us?”

“Does it matter?” I ask.

Both Ryan and Tory freeze, like we’ve pressed pause on one of Tory’s endless videos of us. Actually, everyone in the room goes quiet.

“Well.” Tory clears her throat. “Of course it matters.”

“How?”

“It’s just that ... we like to be prepared is all.”

“Does Henderson know you do this?” I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve thought to ask. “Technically, aren’t you hacking?”

“Legacy,” Ryan says, as if that explains everything.

“Huh?” This is Ben, and I’m grateful he’s always around to ask the dumb question in the most direct way possible.

“Last year’s co-captains gave us Winnetka’s login info. It’s not our fault they haven’t changed the password.” Ryan puts his feet up on a chair, but I’m not sure he’s as confident as he looks.

This sounds shaky. “Are you sure you should? It’s not like we’re going to change anything.” I point at Ryan. “Either Romero will be in discussion and ruin your life—or he won’t. Either he’ll give a great speech—or he won’t.”

“Mentally prepared,” Tory says, her voice stronger now. She lets go of the laptop, and Ryan hugs it to his chest. “It’s not all here.” She taps a script lying on a desk. “A lot of it is up here.” She taps her head. “So, if we know where Romero is slotted this week.” She shrugs. “It helps.”

Does it really? Which would be worse, I wonder. Seeing Caro and Jeremy together today or finding out Monday at lunch? I picture myself, alone in the stairwell, waiting for Jeremy, or peering into the cafeteria, Caro back in her old spot, me totally alone. Maybe Tory has a point. Mentally prepared. But my heart? I’m not sure you can prepare that.

I hold out my hand and, to my surprise, Ryan passes me the laptop without a word. I don’t refresh the page. Instead, I click back to the main page, the one with the team picture. Strange as it sounds, I can feel the eyes of the Winnetka girls on me, like they’re about to taunt, “You’re going down.”

But it’s Sam I stare at.

I barely notice when Tory slips into the desk next to mine.

“Don’t suppose you’re ready to give up the goods,” she says, voice low.

“There’s nothing to give.” Not anymore, at least. “But—”

Tory leans forward. “Yes?”

The anticipation on her face makes me laugh. “Jeremy said something today about the Winnetka guys on the team, talking about me.”

She slumps in her chair. “Trust me, you don’t want those kinds of details.”

“No, it was weird. They kept talking about a ring.”

Tory tugs me by the shirt sleeve, and we head into the hallway.

“Word for word, what did he say.”

So I repeat what I remember from lunch.

Tory shakes her head in disgust. “That makes no sense.”

“It’s secondhand from Jeremy Spinner,” I say. “Did you expect it to?”

Tory sighs. “I need to do some investigating tonight.”

“You’re like Sherlock Holmes,” I say.

“Yeah, well, at least he had Dr. Watson.”

“What about Ryan?”

“Watson was a friend.” She leaves me standing in the hallway and heads back to the classroom. In a moment, she and Ryan are playing tug-of-war with the laptop again.

A friend. Of all the things Tory has, I wonder if this is the one thing she doesn’t.