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Changing. It’s hard to pull off in this little town.
“Welcome to hell school,” a voice behind me says.
It’s Walt. He’s the boyfriend of one of my other best friends, Maggie. Walt and Maggie have been dating for two years, and the three of us do practically everything together. Which sounds kind of weird, but Walt is like one of the girls.
“Walt,” Cynthia says. “You’re just the man I want to see.”
“If you want me to be on the prom committee, the answer is no.”
Cynthia ignores Walt’s little joke. “It’s about Sebastian Kydd. Is he really coming back to Castlebury?”
Not again. My nerve endings light up like a Christmas tree.
“That’s what Doreen says.” Walt shrugs as if he couldn’t care less. Doreen is Walt’s mother and a guidance counselor at Castlebury High. She claims to know everything, and passes all her information on to Walt—the good, the bad, and the completely untrue.
“I heard he was kicked out of private school for dealing drugs,” Cynthia says. “I need to know if we’re going to have a problem on our hands.”
“I have no idea,” Walt says, giving her an enormous fake smile. Walt finds Cynthia and Tommy nearly as annoying as I do.
“What kind of drugs?” I ask casually as we walk away.
“Painkillers?”
“Like in Valley of the Dolls?” It’s my favorite secret book, along with the DSM-III, which is this tiny manual about mental disorders. “Where the hell do you get painkillers these days?”
“Oh, Carrie, I don’t know,”Walt says, no longer interested. “His mother?”
“Not likely.” I try to squeeze the memory of my one-and-only encounter with Sebastian Kydd out of my head but it sneaks in anyway.
I was twelve and starting to go through an awkward stage. I had skinny legs and no chest, two pimples, and frizzy hair. I was also wearing cat’s-eye glasses and carrying a dog-eared copy of What About Me? by Mary Gordon Howard. I was obsessed with feminism. My mother was remodeling the Kydds’ kitchen, and we’d stopped by their house to check on the project. Suddenly, Sebastian appeared in the doorway. And for no reason, and completely out of the blue, I sputtered, “Mary Gordon Howard believes that most forms of sexual intercourse can be classified as rape.”
For a moment, there was silence. Mrs. Kydd smiled. It was the end of the summer, and her tan was set off by her pink and green shorts in a swirly design. She wore white eye shadow and pink lipstick. My mother always said Mrs. Kydd was considered a great beauty. “Hopefully you’ll feel differently about it once you’re married.”
“Oh, I don’t plan to get married. It’s a legalized form of prostitution.”
“Oh my.” Mrs. Kydd laughed, and Sebastian, who had paused on the patio on his way out, said, “I’m taking off.”
“Again, Sebastian?” Mrs. Kydd exclaimed with a hint of annoyance. “But the Bradshaws just got here.”
Sebastian shrugged.“Going over to Bobby’s to play drums.”
I stared after him in silence, my mouth agape. Clearly Mary Gordon Howard had never met a Sebastian Kydd.
It was love at first sight.
In assembly, I take my seat next to Tommy Brewster, who is hitting the kid in front of him with a notebook. A girl in the aisle is asking if anyone has a tampon, while two girls behind me are excitedly whispering about Sebastian Kydd, who seems to become more and more notorious each time his name is mentioned.
“I heard he went to jail—”
“His family lost all their money—”
“No girl has managed to hold on to him for more than three weeks—”
I force Sebastian Kydd out of my thoughts by pretending Cynthia Viande is not a fellow student but a strange species of bird. Habitat: any stage that will have her. Plumage: tweed skirt, white shirt with cashmere sweater, sensible shoes, and a string of pearls that is probably real. She keeps shifting her papers from one arm to the other and tugging down her skirt, so maybe she’s a little nervous after all. I know I would be. I wouldn’t want to be, but I would. My hands would be shaking and my voice would come out in a squeak, and afterward, I’d hate myself for not taking control of the situation.
The principal, Mr. Jordan, goes up to the mike and says a bunch of boring stuff about being on time for classes and something about a new system of demerits, and then Ms. Smidgens informs us that the school newspaper, The Nutmeg, is looking for reporters and how there’s some earthshaking story about cafeteria food in this week’s issue. And finally, Cynthia walks up to the mike. “This is the most important year of our lives. We are poised at the edge of a very great precipice. In nine months, our lives will be irreparably altered,” she says, like she thinks she’s Winston Churchill or something. I’m half expecting her to add that all we have to fear is fear itself, but instead, she continues: “So this year is all about senior moments. Moments we’ll remember forever.”
Suddenly Cynthia’s expression changes to one of annoyance as everyone’s head starts swiveling toward the center of the auditorium.
Donna LaDonna is coming down the aisle. She’s dressed like a bride, in a white dress with a deep V, her ample cleavage accentuated by a tiny diamond cross hanging from a delicate platinum chain. Her skin is like alabaster; on one wrist, a constellation of silver bracelets peal like bells when she moves her arm. The auditorium falls silent.
Cynthia Viande leans into the mike. “Hello, Donna. So glad you could make it.”
“Thanks,” Donna says, and sits down.
Everyone laughs.
Donna nods at Cynthia and gives her a little wave, as if signaling her to continue. Donna and Cynthia are friends in that weird way that girls are when they belong to the same clique but don’t really like each other.
“As I was saying,” Cynthia begins again, trying to recapture the crowd’s attention, “this year is all about senior moments. Moments we’ll remember forever.” She points to an AV guy, and the song “The Way We Were” comes over the loudspeaker.
I groan and bury my face in my notebook. I start to giggle along with everyone else, but then I remember the letter and get depressed again.
But every time I feel bad, I try to remind myself about what this little kid said to me once. She was loaded with personality—so ugly she was cute. And you knew she knew it too. “Carrie?” she asked. “What if I’m a princess on another planet? And no one on this planet knows it?”
That question still kind of blows me away. I mean, isn’t it the truth? Whoever we are here, we might be princesses somewhere else. Or writers. Or scientists. Or presidents. Or whatever the hell we want to be that everyone else says we can’t.
CHAPTER TWO The Integer Crowd (#ulink_9785d172-b245-5a7c-9374-cf5937a7b245)
“Who knows the difference between integral calculus and differential calculus?”
Andrew Zion raises his hand. “Doesn’t it have something to do with how you use the differentials?”
“That’s getting there,” Mr. Douglas, the teacher, says. “Anyone else have a theory?”
The Mouse raises her hand. “In differential calculus you take an infinitesimal small point and calculate the rate of change from one variable to another. In integral calculus you take a small differential element and you integrate it from one lower limit to another limit. So you sum up all those infinitesimal small points into one large amount.”
Jeez, I think. How the hell does The Mouse know that?
I’m never going to be able to get through this course. It will be the first time math has failed me. Ever since I was a kid, math was one of my easiest subjects. I’d do the homework and ace the tests, and hardly have to study. But I’ll have to study now, if I plan to survive.
I’m sitting there wondering how I can get out of this course, when there’s a knock on the door. Sebastian Kydd walks in, wearing an ancient navy blue polo shirt. His eyes are hazel with long lashes, and his hair is bleached dark blond from seawater and sun. His nose, slightly crooked, as if he was punched in a fight and never had it fixed, is the only thing that saves him from being too pretty.
“Ah, Mr. Kydd. I was wondering when you were planning to show up,” Mr. Douglas says.
Sebastian looks him straight in the eye, unfazed. “I had a few things I needed to take care of first.”
I sneak a glance at him from behind my hand. Here is someone who truly does come from another planet—a planet where all humans are perfectly formed and have amazing hair.
“Please. Sit down.”
Sebastian looks around the room, his glance pausing on me. He takes in my white go-go boots, slides his eyes up my light blue tartan skirt and sleeveless turtleneck, up to my face, which is now on fire. One corner of his mouth lifts in amusement, then pulls back in confusion before coming to rest on indifference. He takes a seat in the back of the room.
“Carrie,” Mr. Douglas says. “Can you give me the basic equation for movement?”
Thank God we learned that equation last year. I rattle it off like a robot: “X to the fifth degree times Y to the tenth degree minus a random integer usually known as N.”
“Right,” Mr. Douglas says. He scribbles another equation on the board, steps back, and looks directly at Sebastian.
I put my hand on my chest to keep it from thumping.
“Mr. Kydd?” he asks. “Can you tell me what this equation represents?”
I give up being coy. I turn around and stare.
Sebastian leans back in his chair and taps his pen on his calculus book. His smile is tense, as if he either doesn’t know the answer, or does know it and can’t believe anyone would be so stupid as to ask. “It represents infinity, sir. But not any old infinity. The kind of infinity you find in a black hole.”
He catches my eye and winks.
Wow. Black hole indeed.
“Sebastian Kydd is in my calculus class,” I hiss to Walt, cutting behind him in the cafeteria line.
“Christ, Carrie,”Walt says. “Not you, too. Every single girl in this school is talking about Sebastian Kydd. Including Maggie.”
The hot meal is pizza—the same pizza our school system has been serving for years, which tastes like barf and must be the result of some secret school-system recipe. I pick up a tray, then an apple and a piece of lemon meringue pie.
“But Maggie is dating you.”
“Try telling Maggie that.”
We carry our trays to our usual table. The Pod People sit at the opposite end of the cafeteria, near the vending machines. Being seniors, we should have claimed a table next to them. But Walt and I decided a long time ago that high school was disturbingly like India—a perfect example of a caste system—and we vowed not to participate by never changing our table. Unfortunately, like most protests against the overwhelming tide of human nature, ours goes largely unnoticed.
The Mouse joins us, and she and Walt start talking about Latin, a subject in which they’re both better than I am. Then Maggie comes over. Maggie and The Mouse are friendly, but The Mouse says she would never want to get too close to Maggie because she’s overly emotional. I say that excessive emotionality is interesting and distracts one from one’s own problems. Sure enough, Maggie is on the verge of tears.
“I just got called into the counselor’s office—again. She said my sweater was too revealing!”
“That’s outrageous,” I say.
“Tell me about it,” Maggie says, squeezing in between Walt and The Mouse. “She really has it out for me. I told her there was no dress code and she didn’t have the right to tell me what to wear.”
The Mouse catches my eye and snickers. She’s probably remembering the same thing I am—the time Maggie got sent home from Girl Scouts for wearing a uniform that was too short. Okay, that was about seven years ago, but when you’ve lived in the same small town forever, you remember these things.
“And what did she say?” I ask.
“She said she wouldn’t send me home this time, but if she sees me in this sweater again, she’s going to suspend me.”
Walt shrugs. “She’s a bitch.”
“How can she discriminate against a sweater?”
“Perhaps we should lodge a complaint with the school board. Have her fired,” The Mouse says.
I’m sure she doesn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but she does, a little. Maggie bursts into tears and runs in the direction of the girls’ room.
Walt looks around the table. “Which one of you bitches wants to go after her?”
“Was it something I said?” The Mouse asks innocently.
“No.” Walt sighs. “There’s a crisis every other day.”
“I’ll go.” I take a bite of my apple and hurry after her, pushing through the cafeteria doors with a bang.
I run smack into Sebastian Kydd.
“Whoa,” he exclaims. “Where’s the fire?”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I’m suddenly hurtled back in time, to when I was twelve.
“This is the cafeteria?” he asks, gesturing toward the swinging doors. He peeks in the little window. “Looks heinous. Is there any place to eat off campus?”
Off-campus? Since when did Castlebury High become a campus? And is he asking me to have lunch with him? No, not possible. Not me. But maybe he doesn’t remember that we’ve met before.
“There’s a hamburger place up the street. But you need a car to get there.”
“I’ve got a car,” he says.
And then we just stand there, staring at each other. I can feel the other kids walking by but I don’t see them.
“Okay. Thanks,” he says.
“Right.” I nod, remembering Maggie.
“See ya,” he says, and walks away.
Rule number one: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who’s in crisis?
I run into the girls’ room. “Maggie? You won’t believe what just happened.” I look under the stalls and spot Maggie’s shoes next to the wall. “Mags?”
“I am totally humiliated,” she wails.
Rule number two: Humiliated best friend always takes precedence over cute guy.
“Magwitch, you can’t let what other people say affect you so much.” I know this isn’t helpful, but my father says it all the time and it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“By looking at everyone like they’re a big joke. Come on, Mags. You know high school is absurd. In less than a year we’ll be out of here and we’ll never have to see any of these people ever again.”
