THIRTY-ONE
ON FRIDAY, KAYLAN AND I get to math a little early and look over the list before class starts. Somehow the week has flown by and we’ve barely discussed it at all. Plus we only have a little over a month to go. Full-on crunch time.
- Keep our friendship strong.
- Drink enough water (for a glowing complexion). ✓
- Make our mark.
- Master the art of mac and cheese (from scratch!). ✓
- Perfect our handstand. ✓
- Help someone else shine.
- Stay up long enough to watch the sun set and rise. ✓
- Find the perfect man for Kaylan’s mom. ✓
- A doodle a day. ✓
- Tell a boy how we really feel.
- Pursue a passion (first find one).
- Break a bad habit. ✓
“We should make a plan to go over our doodles,” I tell her. “We haven’t compared in a while, and some of mine are really good.”
“Definitely. Are you still doodling at 9:04 p.m.? I am.”
“Even when you’re sleeping at Cami’s?” I make a face at her.
“Well, no. On those days, I do it earlier.” She glares at me. “But I don’t sleep at Cami’s that much, you know.”
“I know. I’m just kidding.” I draw a tiny little heart in the corner of my paper. “OMG.” I look at Kaylan and hope she can read my mind.
“What?” she asks.
“Big P. It just happened.”
“Right now?” She clenches her teeth. “Really? How do you know?”
I nod. “I just do.” I hoist my backpack up off the floor and stand up to head to the bathroom. “Come with me. Please.”
She shakes her head a little. “But Mr. Gavinder will be here any minute! And I’m already doing so badly in this class.”
“Kay. Please. I’ve never gotten the big P in school before.” I grab her hand. “Come on.”
Thankfully she follows me, and we head to the single-stall bathroom by the main entrance.
“Wait outside the door,” I instruct, in case anyone tries to come in.
“On it.”
I have a little Ziploc bag of big P supplies in the inside pocket of my backpack, so I take out a pad and thankfully I caught it early enough that I don’t need to change my undies.
Girls have it so hard, dealing with this on top of everything else. Bleeding at random times and random places?
If you explained all of it to aliens from outer space, they’d be seriously freaked out.
I wash my hands and leave the bathroom. I’m so grateful to see Kaylan there waiting for me that I hug her tight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I whisper.
“Welcome, but we gotta go.” She pulls back from the hug. “Come on, we can make it if we run.”
“What are you doing this weekend?” I ask her as we’re running to class. “Want to sleep over?”
Kaylan hesitates a second before answering. “Um, what’s this weekend? Oh yeah, I can’t. My mom is insisting on family time.”
“She is?” I ask.
“Yeah. I don’t know.”
We get to class just in time and take our seats. I don’t have much time to dwell on the big P or Kaylan’s family time since Mr. Gavinder starts class right away.
“Who would like to come up to the board to show us how they arrived at the solution from last night’s homework?” Mr. Gavinder asks.
Keisha Brown raises her hand, and so do Isabela Gomez-Wright and Owen Tefli and Kenny Youn.
He calls on Owen.
After that, he asks if anyone wants to come up to the board to complete the geometry proof?
Isabela raises her hand, and Kenny and Owen and this boy who just moved here—Rafa Agedob.
He calls on Rafa.
Isabela’s sitting right next to me, and it seems like every time she raises her hand for a question, Mr. Gavinder doesn’t even notice her.
She looks crestfallen, like math is her main passion in life and she’s not getting to live up to her potential. She does love math. And she’s so good at it. She was the one who started a Mathletes club last year.
As we leave class, I whisper to Kaylan, “Isabela Gomez-Wright is basically a math genius. Sometimes I watch her working to see her skills. Is that weird?”
“Um, I don’t know. I spend the whole class in a cold sweat, furiously trying to copy down whatever Mr. Gavinder writes on the board.”
“Well, whatever. Maybe we can get Isabela Gomez-Wright to tutor us.”
She thinks for a second, and then laughs. “Why do you call Isabela by her full name?”
I laugh for a second. “It’s just that kind of name.”
“I guess.”
When we’re all seated at the lunch table, digging into our sandwiches, I ask the table if anyone else has Mr. Gavinder for math. I know he teaches a few sections of honors and a few sections of regular, so it’s possible. I need to get to the bottom of this weird only-calling-on-boys thing.
“I had him last year,” Amirah says.
“Did he ever call on girls?”
“Um.” Amirah bites into her apple. “No clue, actually. I don’t remember.”
“I was in that class, too,” Kira says. “He really never did. Once in a while, but he usually called on boys.”
“So I’m not crazy!” I sit back, feeling a little bit better about this. I still don’t know what to do about it. But at least Kaylan and I aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed.
“When are they announcing clubs?” Sydney asks. “Did I tell you guys I decided to add a club? Cheerleading! We can totally cheer for the soccer games.”
The whole table goes silent then.
“OMG. Genius,” Cami says. “I want to do that!”
“You do?” I recoil.
“Yeah. Why?” She peels her clementine.
“Just seems, so, like, antifeminist,” I say.
“Why?” Cami asks again.
I sip my water and say, “Well, do the boys put on matching outfits and cheer for the girls’ volleyball games?”
“Um, no,” Cami says, and everyone starts laughing. “But for real, since when are you such a feminist?” Cami asks.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I even realized I was.” I laugh then, but everyone else has gone silent, even Kaylan, who’s spreading cream cheese on a bagel with a plastic knife.
It feels like all the cafeteria noises are getting louder and louder in my head, and I can’t take it anymore. Like it’s all crashing down on me, and I’m going to end up covered in tuna salad.
I stay quiet after that, finish my lunch, and think about swimming and sunshine and the way the air at Camp Silver smelled right after it rained. I think about mud sliding and making Cup-a-Soups with the bathroom sink water and the way that Alice was able to climb through the tiny space above the rafters that connected bunk nineteen to bunk twenty.
“Earth to Ari!” Kaylan says. “Lunch is over.”
“Oh, okay, duh.” I laugh, recalling my bad habit. But then I wonder—is it really such a bad habit? I like to daydream. I like to think about happy times when I’m not feeling 100 percent happy where I am.
I wonder if it’s possible for a bad habit to be the tiniest bit good, too.