Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [4]
“Did I hear what?” I asked, rubbing my shoulder.
“Mandarin Ramey got caught sneaking into the school pool last night with some older guy. Paige’s sister Brandi’s boyfriend was out taking his dog for a walk and he saw. He says the guy must’ve been like thirty. Ain’t she a slut?”
I feigned disinterest as Alexis colored in the details. Nothing she said could shock me, of course. I knew more about Mandarin than anyone.
“Well, ain’t she?” Alexis insisted.
I touched the rock in my jacket pocket. “She is,” I agreed.
Because that was one of the two truths everybody knew about Mandarin Ramey:
1) Mandarin was beautiful.
2) Mandarin was a slut.
The loudspeaker beeped, and Alexis swung forward in her seat, clunking her beige cowboy boots in front of her. Washokey kids wore all kinds of cowboy boots: stiff and new, creased and battered, bright-colored and fashionable. Alexis’s boots, though, were the only ones with spurs.
“May I have your attention, please. May I have your attention, please.”
Mr. Beck, the principal, requested our attention twice during morning announcements. He wanted to take full advantage of his daily five minutes of fame. Usually, I ignored him with the rest of the class, but that day I stared straight at the speaker, a black circle like a pupil with no eye around it.
“Good morning, everyone, on this terrific Tuesday, April tenth, with the temperature in the low sixties. This is your principal, Mr. Beck.”
“Beck’s stuck in the sixties,” a guy called from the back of the class.
“Ha, yeah, I bet he’s taking a puff of the dooja right now,” called another.
With perfect timing, Mr. Beck coughed. Everybody laughed except Ms. Ingle, who opened her mouth and then closed it.
“First news of the day,” Mr. Beck continued. “I’m pleased to announce I have the winners of the All-American Essay Contest, kindly funded by the members of Washokey’s 4-H and Kiwanis organizations, right here on this paper in front of me. Hold on to your seats!”
I curled my fingers around the bottom of my seat. My essay flashed before my eyes like a reel of microfilm, each paragraph flipping by with an imaginary tick. Certain sentences hopped out at me, the turns of phrase I’d wrangled like rodeo calves. I’d written exactly what I thought would win me the grand-prize trip.
“Third place and twenty-five dollars goes to Becky Pepper, junior.”
Becky Pepper was a 4-H kid, bused in from one of the farms or ranches that made up Washokey’s unincorporated south. I suspected she’d written about the history of beef breeding or dairy science, something the judges would love.
“Second place and fifty dollars goes to—”
Mr. Beck coughed again. I sat very still.
“Grace Carpenter, sophomore. And one hundred dollars and admission to the three-week All-American Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., goes to our very own junior-class president, Peter Shaw! Congratulations, Peter.”
My heart plummeted to the soles of my feet as I watched the other kids mob Peter. They mussed up his hair, snatched at his glasses. When Ms. Ingle went over to congratulate him, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I snaked my arm through the strap of my tote bag. Unnoticed in the confusion, I rushed out of the classroom.
I was going to end up just like Momma. It was my fate. Born in Washokey and stuck there forever, trying to make myself stand out among the same old people. No matter how hard I tried to steer my life in a different course, something would always knock me back.
These were the thoughts that packed my brain like gridlocked traffic as I crouched in the end bathroom stall, with one arm draped over the back of the toilet. Although no one was there to see me, I tried my hardest not to cry.
“Only cry when you’re happy,” Momma liked to say. “Only weep when you win.”
But it was through eyes blurred by tears that I noticed the graffiti at the bottom edge of the stall door, scrawled in thick red marker:
School is Horseshit.
I mouthed the words over and