Skater Boy (2 page)

Shoot. I was hoping he wouldn't notice that. “Oh. Do I?” I ask, trying to sound innocent. I shift my weight onto my left foot and smooth down my pleated skirt as I wait for the condemnation to come.

“Don't you think it'd be better to sign up for AP History in that slot?”

I love how he pretends something's a question when it's so obviously an order. As if I could actually say, “No, Dad, next semester I'd actually like a millisecond of free time” and he'd be okay with it.

“Most people don't take AP History ‘til senior year, Dad,” I say halfheartedly. I know I'll lose the argument. I always do. “I'll only be a junior.”

“No reason why you can't get ahead. After all, Harvard doesn't accept slackers, you know.”

I cringe. There he goes again with the “H” word. That's all he cares about. Harvard. His alma mater. The school he's determined that I get into. And to make sure I do, he's scheduled me within an inch of my life—with honors classes and extracurricular activities up the wazoo. He says I need to be well-rounded. At this point, I'm so round it's amazing I don't roll away.

I would love to tell him that I'm not interested in going to Harvard, that I'd rather go to some small liberal-arts school in California (far away from them!) to study poetry, but I'm afraid the revelation might kill him. After all, he's got that heart condition. My parents are on the older side, you see. Mom did the whole career thing before popping out a kid. That's why I never got a brother or sister. By the time I was born, her eggs had shriveled up.

“Okay, Dad. I'll sign up for AP History,” I acquiesce. Better to appease him than doom myself to a half-hour lecture. “I'm, um, going up to my room now.”

 “Do you have homework?” Mom asks. Remember that career I mentioned she had? Teacher. And even in retirement, nothing school-related gets past her.

I suppress a sigh. “I'll do it in my room.”

“I'd better not come up there and find you writing your little limericks,” Dad warns, picking up his gigantic book again. Some obscure medieval text that no one in their right mind would read for pleasure. “After all, you've got to keep those grades up. Last semester, you got an A-minus in Biology and—”

“Okay, Dad. I won't write poetry. I'll study.” I grab my bag off the floor and trudge upstairs to my room.

Limericks indeed. No one appreciates my poetry. No one. But someday, when I'm a famous author, people are going to bid big money on eBay for these early verses. And I'll go on The Today Show and talk about how my creativity was stifled at an early age.
“I'm so lucky to have made it through at all, Matt,”
I'll say.
“Well, the world is glad you did, Darla,”
he'll reply, using my soon-to-be world-famous pen name. And then he'll bring out my old gray parents who will lament how wrong they were to hinder my creative genius, while the audience boos them off stage.

I hang a left at the top of the stairs and head down the hall to my bedroom. My sanctuary. The one place in this house where no one's allowed to bug me. Sure, it's still got the expensive, formal furniture, inherited from Grandma like everything else in this monstrosity of a mansion we call home, but I've softened the look with magazine cutouts of my favorite old movie stars on the walls. As I lie in bed at night, Audrey Hepburn and James Dean and Marilyn Monroe smile down at me, as if to tell me that everything will be okay.

I light an aromatherapy candle and plop, stomach down, onto my bed, taking a deep breath in an attempt to unwind. I'm only fifteen, but some days I'm convinced I'm on the verge of a mid-life crisis. I'm overscheduled, stressed to the max, and the caffeine's no longer working.

You know how normal kids go through their teen years? Wake up at seven, go to school, take some easy classes like basket-weaving or drama and then go hang with their friends and listen to music? Well, imagine my day. You're up at five to go to crew practice, rowing down a river in the freezing Massachusetts air. Change quickly to make it to school in time for the first bell. Then have a school day cram-packed with AP and honors classes. Last bell rings and you're off to gymnastics practice or yearbook or school paper or ballet or whatever and then straight to your language tutor where you're learning Japanese in case you want to be a foreign business leader someday (which you don't). You get home at seven o'clock and go up to your room to do all your excruciatingly hard AP and honors homework. Go to bed after homework is finished, then wake up the next morning to do it all again.

Basically, every second of my life is booked solid ‘til I retire. (The Evil Ones have probably already pre-registered me for a nursing home, too.) Doesn't sound like fun? Too bad, ‘cause I'd love to trade places with anyone who envies me.

I open my Algebra II textbook and my half-finished poem flutters onto my bed. I glance over at my closed bedroom door. Will Dad really come up and check on me? The poetry contest deadline is tomorrow, and I have no idea when I'll be able to finish writing it if I don't do it tonight. And I really want to enter, too. The prize is a hundred dollars and publication in the magazine. Of course, I'd have to use a pen name, but that's okay. I'd know it was mine.

But just as I'm about to put pen to paper and become one with my writing muse, a knock sounds on my door. I groan and stuff the poem back into my Algebra book. So much for sanctuary.

“Come in.”

My mother enters the room, all pearl necklaces and Chanel No. 5, as usual. Before she became an English teacher and mother to me, she was a fashion-magazine model, which is more than likely how she nabbed my rich, older father back in the day. Once when I was spying in her bedroom, I found her old modeling scrapbook stuffed in her underwear drawer. She was beautiful back then, I'll give her that. A smooth-skinned, dark-eyed Italian beauty. Very Sophia Loren. I bet she was super disappointed when I came out of her womb all Irish and freckled, like my dad.

She frowns disapprovingly at my sprawled-out position on the bed.

“You know, you have a very nice desk,” she says, gesturing to the mahogany nightmare on the far left of my bedroom. Like I said, she was a model, so she's big on the whole posture thing.

“I sit at a desk all day, Mom.” I tug on a blond braid in frustration. Why can't she just leave me alone? I mean, what does it really matter whether I study on my bed or at a desk?

Her frown deepens, but she doesn't pursue the subject. “Well, I just came up to tell you that Magda should have dinner ready in about five minutes.”

Magda, our housekeeper/cook, is from Mexico and makes the best meals known to mankind. Spicy Spanish dishes that deliciously burn my lips when I take a bite. The Evil Ones are constantly nagging her that she's going to give me heartburn and to make my meals milder, but I can usually convince her to add extra spice when they're not looking. Magda's cool like that. In fact, she's the only person in this household I can respect.

But right now, though my stomach is growling, I really want to finish this poem.

“Can I eat up here?”

Yet another frown from Mom. I wonder if I should mention the wrinkle potential of all this scowling on her delicately aging complexion.

“That is up to you,” she says stiffly. “However, I think it would be nice if you decided to socialize with your family.”

Socialize. Right. Is that what they're calling being lectured to these days? ‘Cause I know from experience that's all that's going to happen during dinner if I attend.

Don't chew with your mouth open, Dawn. Use your napkin. Do you really need so much butter on that roll? After all, you don't want to start gaining weight.

But again, this is a battle I won't win. So I close my Algebra book and nod my head. “Fine. I'll be there in a minute,” I say, purposely using my most exasperated tone.

My mother droops her shoulders, as if I'm some awful burden she has to bear on a daily basis, and exits the room. When the door closes, I pull out my half-finished poem and read it through one last time. It's really good. One of the best things I've ever written.

Somehow I have to find a chance to finish it before the deadline.

Chapter Three

 

Oh, this is just great.

All I wanted was fifteen minutes to finish my poem. So I skipped gym class. I mean, people skip gym class all the time. The teacher never notices. But the one time I don't show up, he pays attention. And the next thing I know, I'm being summoned to the assistant principal's office and assigned detention.

The Evil Ones are so going to kick my butt.

I trudge into Room 102, aka after-school prison, and plop down at a desk near the back. Several other far more deserving juvenile delinquents are already here. The kind of kids who have tattoos and skip class to go smoke behind the school. They stare at me with their overconfident smirks, perhaps wondering why the girl who hangs out with the cheerleaders is doomed to join their ranks this afternoon.

At least I'll have time to finish my poem, though it'll have to be published posthumously, seeing as I'll be dead by the time they put out the magazine. The Evil Ones will see to that. And no, I'm not exaggerating. You should see what they do when I get a B on my progress report. And that's nothing compared to detention.

But I can't do anything about that now. So I pull out my poem and a pen and start writing. It's a bit distracting, what with the gum snapping and whispers of the other inmates, but I somehow manage to tune out most of the noise and concentrate on my verse.

“Hey, that's pretty good!”

I look up with a start. I've been so wrapped up in my world that I hadn't realized the new girl, the supposed Satan-worshipper who drinks snake blood, has sat down at the desk beside me and is eyeing my paper.

Up close, I realize she has several piercings to go along with her already punk-rock look—a diamond stud in her nose and a silver hoop embedded in her eyebrow. Her face is pale white, almost as if she's powdered it, and her eyes, a striking blue, are rimmed with a ton of black.

“You read my poem?” I ask, feeling my cheeks flush. I mean, sure, I realize that if I win the poetry contest lots of people will end up reading it, but still, her peeking over my shoulder without permission seems a grave invasion of privacy. And what if she goes and tells everyone that I, Dawn Miller, friend of the Ashleys, was seen writing poetry in detention? I might as well put in my application for the loserville lunch table right now.

Then again, she said it was good. Since I've never shown my scribblings to anyone before, I've never gotten an unbiased opinion on them. I mean, sure, I like them, but obviously I'm a bit prejudiced.

“Are you just saying that?” I ask. “‘Cause you so don't have to.”

She shakes her head, causing her straight black hair to flip from side to side. “No way,” she says. “I never say things I don't mean. Life's too short.” She pauses, then adds, “I was assuming it'd be bad, actually. But I guess you can't judge a Barbie by its cover.”

I frown. “I'm not a Barbie.” I just hang out with them.

She shrugs. “Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Honestly, I don't care either way. But you
are
a good writer.”

A good writer. She thinks I'm a good writer. No one's ever told me that before. I feel a warm pride settle over me and I decide to ignore the Barbie comment. Or at least prove her wrong.

“Thanks,” I say. “There's this poetry contest I want to enter it in and—”

“Oh, the one in
Faces
?”

I stare at her in shock. “How do you—?”

“I read
Faces
all the time. It's a great mag.”

Wow. She actually reads literary magazines. My friends wouldn't be caught dead reading literary magazines. In fact, we have a saying: If it's not
Cosmo
, it's crap.

“I'm Dawn,” I say, extending a hand.

“Starr.” She shakes my hand. I notice she has on black fingernail polish that's half flaked off.

Starr. What a cool name.

“You're the headmaster's daughter, right?” I ask, assuming at least that part of the Satan-worshipping, snake-eating rumor is true.

 “Yeah. Got kicked out of my European boarding school and so I'm stuck in this hellhole now.”

Wow. I wonder what she did to get kicked out. It had to be something pretty bad, I'd think. What would it be like to be a bad girl? Not to care what people think of you? To break the rules and buck authority? I bet her parents don't dare schedule her life. And if they try, she probably laughs in their faces and then goes out and gets a new tattoo, just to spite them.

“… and first day here, Sister Wart Nose catches me smoking in the bathroom and sentences me to detention,” Starr is explaining. “I mean, for smoking! In Europe, everyone our age smokes. Massachusetts is so puritanical. It drives me absolutely insane.”

I nod sympathetically, not sure how to respond. Of course I'm not a smoker, so I can't relate. But suddenly, I have the undying urge to impress her somehow. Make her see I'm more than just an airhead who happens to be able to write. Which is odd, since most people at Sacred Mary's do everything in their power to try to impress me and my crowd, not the other way around. But Starr doesn't seem to care that I'm one of the Populars. On the contrary, that status seems a negative in her book. Which makes her seem even cooler, somehow.

“That ring rocks,” I say at last, noting the silver spider on her index finger. One thing I've learned from the Ashleys—when stuck for something to say, compliment their wardrobe. Works every time.

She smiles and waves her hand in the air, allowing the ring to catch the light and sparkle. Evidently even punk-rock chicks aren't immune to flattery. “Thanks. I got it at this really cool thrift store in Boston.” She pauses for a moment, as if deciding something. Then she says, “You know, I'm planning on heading there after detention, if you want to come.”