Plastic Polly (23 page)

Super Freaky Glasses Rule #1

Don't get upset if someone secretly thinks your glasses are ugly. They are ugly.

P
ACIFICVIEW
M
IDDLE
S
CHOOL REMINDED ME OF A SCIENCE
experiment gone wrong. A maze of gray metal lockers snaked in all directions, making me feel like a lost lab rat. Six hundred other rats also crowded the halls, some looking as nervous as I felt.

Ellen and I had been blessed with two classes together: math for first period and drama for seventh period. Just thinking about drama made me want to barf, but I figured I was really lucky to have two classes with my best friend.

I found my locker without too much trouble. After that, I needed to run an errand for Ellen. She wanted to join the
yearbook club. Since my locker was closer to the English hall, she said it made more sense for me to pick up the application. Applications, actually—Ellen wanted me to join too. Ellen's goal was to throw herself into middle-school life. She thought we should join as many clubs as possible, which was a serious problem for me. Because my goal was just to survive middle school. By being as unnoticeable as possible.

Even if I didn't plan on joining any clubs, I was happy to pick up an application for Ellen—if I could just get my locker open. But after ten minutes of spinning, twisting, begging, and pleading with the attached combination lock, my locker sat smugly shut.

“What are you doing at my locker?” said a rough voice behind me.

I spun around. A pale-faced girl with midnight-colored hair glared at me. She wore all black. She also wore a dog collar. Really. Around her neck hung an actual dog collar, black with silver spikes.

“Um, well.” Visions of getting stuffed in a trash can, locked in a janitor's closet, and a number of other scary images ran through my mind.

“I
said
what are you doing at my locker?”

“Th-this is my locker,” I squeaked.

“No. It isn't.” The girl shoved her locker assignment
slip in my face. “I've been assigned to three twenty-three. This is number three twenty-three.”

“I know, but there's a shortage. So they had to double up on some of the lockers. It says so right here.” I pointed to her slip.

She looked at the slip, rolled her eyes, and glared at me. “Mess with my stuff, and you'll be deader than the Doberman who used to wear this.” She tugged at her dog collar necklace. Then she shoved past me and started spinning the lock. After five spins, three nasty words, and two punches, the locker finally sprang open.

While I waited, I fished my shaking hand into the plastic baggie in my jeans pocket and popped a couple of Red Hots (my favorite snack when I'm nervous) into my mouth. Then I unzipped my backpack and looked for my locker slip. Maybe by some miracle I was at the wrong locker, and I could just walk away from this angry girl.

My hand closed around my glasses case and I figured if there was ever a moment when I needed to see clearly, this was it. I put my glasses on, grabbed the locker slip, and noticed two things. The first was that the words were
a lot
sharper than when I read them earlier this morning without my glasses. The second was that the slip
did
say locker 323. Rats.

I popped a couple more Red Hots into my mouth. Their cinnamon smell didn't cover up the stinkosity of the hallway, which reeked of floor cleaner and sweaty gym socks.

Then something totally weird happened.

I'd heard about people hallucinating when they're stressed out, but this was worse. Way worse. All of a sudden, the air became wavy and shimmery, and computer screens the size of textbooks appeared out of thin air and hovered next to each student in the hall. Something that looked like a commercial played on one screen. On another, white words scrolled across a blue screen like those teleprompters newscasters read from.

My mouth dropped open and I felt dizzy from staring at the screens. I stepped backward to get a better look, and collided with a group of students.

“Hey, watch where you're going!”

“Outta the way, Curly,” said a boy who'd smacked into my shoulder.

“Don't you see the floating computers . . . ?” I said, staring at the strange screens.

“Move it,” said my locker mate from behind me.

I turned around, and read the words scrolling across the screen hovering next to her:

Why is that four-eyed loser staring at me? I still need to find my class. At least it's just gym. No reading. I freaking HATE reading.

“How could anyone hate reading?” I asked, mesmerized by the screens.

Her gaze narrowed. “I didn't say I did. And what's the matter with you? Are you stupid or something?”

I stepped backward, bumping into even more students. Soon I was surrounded by a sea of people staring at me like I was captain of the freak squad.

Not that I could blame them. Normal people don't see floating computer screens in the halls of their middle school.

“Those glasses are, like, seriously geeky.” I heard one girl whisper to another.

“Is everything all right?” A man who looked like a teacher waded through the crowd.

“What are your names, young ladies?”

“Callie Anderson,” I said, while my locker mate answered, “Raven Maggert.”

“Well, Callie and Raven, we don't want to start a fight on the first day now, do we?”

A screen appeared by the teacher's head and words scrolled across:
What horrid glasses. What were her parents thinking?

It was the stress, I knew it. Middle school and my dorky glasses were a deadly combination.

“Anyway,” the teacher was saying, “the bell is about to ring. I suggest you all move on and get to class.”

“No problem.” I slipped off my glasses, shoved through the crowd, and ran away.

First period hadn't even started yet, and already people thought I was a weirdo.

Ellen had her nose buried in a flyer listing Pacificview's extracurricular clubs when I arrived in math class. She didn't look up when I sat down. “What if we joined the hall monitor club?” she said. “We'd get to know a lot of people right away.”

“Sure we would,” I answered in a shaky voice. “They'd get to know us too—and run the other way.”

I looked around the classroom, but didn't see any floating computer screens. Maybe if I took a few deep breaths and ate a few more Red Hots, I wouldn't have any more hallucinations.

“That's ridiculous. Only the slackers would run the other way.” Ellen looked up then and frowned. “Are you okay? You look totally freaked out.”

“I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.”

“Will you stop with that?” Ellen said, sounding annoyed and going back to the flyer. “It's just middle school.”

“No, that's not what I was—”

“And anyway,” Ellen continued, “you can't spend another year hiding out with your journal. My mom says it's a new year and we should open ourselves up to new experiences.”

“I don't care what your mom says. And I don't need new experiences,” I said, thinking of the floating computer screens and the way everyone stared at me in the hall. “I like things the way they are.”

That wasn't true. I didn't like things the way they were now. I liked them the way they were two months ago. During the first half of summer Ellen and I bodysurfed at the beach and had sleepovers at her house. We ate pizza and watched movies until Tara, Ellen's older sister, would leave for her dates. Then we'd sneak into Tara's room and read her diary.

Then in early August, Ellen went with her family to Yale—some college where my dad said the blood ran bluer than the Pacific—to get Tara settled for her freshman year. Ellen came home grouchy. I figured she just missed Tara. But every time I suggested we go bodysurfing or snooping in Tara's room she said I was being ridiculous. Everything seemed ridiculous to Ellen lately.

And I had a feeling she would think
I
was ridiculous if I told her I'd just seen computer screens floating through Pacificview's hallways.

“Hmm . . . there's a guitar club,” Ellen said.

“
You'd
join a guitar club? Do you even own a guitar?” I didn't mean to sound all rude, but that didn't seem like a club Ellen would join—one that wouldn't win her any awards or look good on a college application.

Before Ellen could answer, a woman with wispy gray hair hushed the class. She introduced herself as Mrs. Faber and began to take roll.

“Calliope Meadow Anderson?”

“Present,” I said, ignoring the giggles I heard whenever my full name was called. I glanced at the clock, and started to relax. I'd been in class for almost five minutes and hadn't had another hallucination. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

Or not. After roll call, Mrs. Faber went all drill sergeant on us and said she wanted to find out, and I quote, “how much mathematical data you retained over the summer, if any.” So she passed out a practice quiz. Personally, I think that sort of behavior should be illegal on the first day of school.

I put my glasses on, stared at the test, and cringed. Because the amount of mathematical data I had retained over the summer was approximately zilch.

After the test, Mrs. Faber went over the answers and I
kept my head down. If I was seriously lucky, I answered two questions right. I skipped the other twenty-three. But Mrs. Faber seemed to have that special superpower that helps teachers zero in on students who are totally lost. “Could you tell us the answer to problem two, Miss Anderson?”

And then, it happened again.

As I looked up—about to give some bogus answer—the air waved and shimmered, and a screen appeared next to Mrs. Faber's head. Inside, blinking in bright pink neon letters, was the number twenty-nine.

I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes, certain I was headed for the loony bin. But when I looked up and stared at Mrs. Faber, the screen had disappeared.

Quickly, I slipped my glasses back on. There it was: the screen next to her, with the number twenty-nine inside. I took my glasses off—the screen disappeared—and polished the lenses with the bottom of my T-shirt. Then I slipped them back on. The screen appeared again, the blinking pink twenty-nine inside.

So
I
wasn't a freak after all. My glasses were.

“Are you catching flies, Miss Anderson? Close your mouth. Now, does anyone
else
know the answer? Yes, Miss Martin?”

“Twenty-eight,” Ellen said.

“No.”

There was a gasp next to me—Ellen was probably shocked she'd actually gotten an answer wrong. Then a thought so fantastic occurred to me I nearly fell out of my seat. And I figured,
why not?
So I raised my hand.

“Yes, Miss Anderson?”

“Twenty-nine?”

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Faber smiled. “The answer is twenty-nine.”

No. Freaking. Way.

The rest of class was the same. Mrs. Faber asked for an answer and I'd see a number on the screen hovering next to her. Whenever I took my glasses off, the screen disappeared. But as long as I kept them on I could see the screen that held the answers to Mrs. Faber's questions.

Maybe I was going crazy. But I figured if I was going crazy, I was going to do it in style. I raised my hand for every question, and when Mrs. Faber called on me, I had the right answer, courtesy of my super freaky glasses. Who knew having the answers could be so much fun? Not dreading it when the teacher called on you. No wonder Ellen raised her hand so much.

“And finally, number twenty-five?”

“Thirty,” I called, and by this time my voice was confident.

The bell rang then and the rest of the class scurried off to second period. I gathered my things slowly, enjoying what was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Ellen cornered me as soon as I stepped out the door. “How did you know the answers?”

As Ellen asked the question, the air shimmered, and the screen appeared next to her. Only this time instead of numbers, there were words inside. Lots of words.

White letters scrolled across a blue screen:
There is no way on earth Callie could've known the answers to those questions. I bet she cheated off me. Maybe that's why she gets good grades in English. Maybe she's a cheater.

“I am not a cheater!” A few students heading into Mrs. Faber's class turned and stared.

Ellen paled. “I never said you were a cheater.”

The words on the screen changed:
Did I say that out loud? But she's right, I guess. Something's definitely up though. Callie stinks at math.

“Did you pick up the yearbook club application for me?”

I blinked and tore my gaze away from the screen. “What? No. I got distracted.”

Ellen expelled a puff of air, and the words in the screen changed again:
Figures. I swear, I should've just picked it up myself.