And yes, I did say Mallory. She was back in school, but she was very subdued.
"It's a new record," she said quietly. "I never been suspended so quick before."
Susan bristled at the ungrammatical statement, but said nothing.
"Two days!" Mallory continued. "It's my new personal best."

Things were beginning to wear me down.

Every day, every time they saw me, the seniors continued to harrass me. Coach's promise to protect me didn't do any good, and neither did her threats of retribution on the seniors. They just did things and said things when she wasn't around, and there was no way I was going to run to her every time somebody gave me a funny look.

Honestly, though, it wasn't that big a deal. All the seniors would do is bump into me, and — if I wasn't paying attention — they'd try to knock my books on the ground. That's as physical as they got.

And they would say things to me, and call me names. They called me "Nosejob," as if it was my name, and they started using the word as if it was a swear word. They'd give me a disgusted look and say, "Can you believe what a nosejob she is?" or "Donner, you're a real nosejob."

Of course, "nosejob" sounds a lot like a couple more vulgar words, and the seniors did what they could with the similarity. They had a few choice phrases about me that sounded very smutty and indecent. I'm not going to repeat them.

But as I said, it wasn't a big deal. It was more of an irritation than anything else. If it was the only annoying thing going on in my life, I probably wouldn't have cared.

After all, they weren't hurting me. They were only being stupid.

And maybe this is stupid on my part, but the fact that I hadn't gotten a nose job was the part that really bugged me. A few times I got angry enough to shout, "I DIDN'T GET A NOSE JOB! I GOT HID IN THE NOSE!" And then my head split with pain. Of course, I was saying "hit in the nose" but with all the packing and bandages, I was still talking badly.

After that, "Hid in the nose" got to be another phrase that they taunted me with. Someone wrote HID IN THE NOSE on my locker with an indelible marker, and it was two weeks before the janitor painted over it.

I still had another week before the packing would come out. I couldn't wait. I was tired of breathing through my mouth. Because I couldn't breathe right, I was always gaping like an idiot — and of course the seniors (and others) would mimic that look to mock me. Plus, my mouth was always dry. I tried drinking more water, which had me running to the bathroom between each class. And it didn't take long before I was tired of sucking on lozenges and cough drops. I never thought I could get tired of sweet things, but pretty soon I was sick to death of the sugar in the lozenges.

Once the stupid bandages and packing were gone, all of that stuff would be over: the gaping, the mouth breathing, the talking funny, the dry mouth... and people would begin to forget. Without the bandages to remind them, eventually they'd stop calling me Nosejob, and everyone would stop thinking that I'd *had* a nose job.

Thanks to the seniors, everyone in school thought I'd gotten a nose job for the sake of the Miss BYHS pageant. No one believed me when I said I was hit in the face.

Even Susan would forget at times, usually after she'd made some scathing remark about Miss BYHS. For instance, she'd say, "It's demeaning! It teaches young women to place more importance on physical appearance than any other personal quality! Even you, Marcie! You went and had your nose done—" at which point she'd remember, stop, and apologize.

"I understand that you don't like it," I said, "but can't you ignore it? It's not like we hear about it every day."

"I'm sorry, Marcie," she said, "I thought I could ignore it — and I tried, because of you! — but now the school is using it as a fund raiser. We have to collect money to back our favorite candidate."

The school pretended to set up a SuperPAC for Miss BYHS, and all the funds collected went there. Supposedly the winner got to donate the money to the "charity of their choice" but in reality they were just going to present a check to the school after being crowned.

"I don't like it either," I replied. "All you guys have to do is bring in something. They set goals for the girls in the pageant! I have to raise $200! Believe me, I don't want to do that."

Mallory finished her drink and made a loud sucking noise with her straw. Then she said, "Get your parents to raise the money. Put them to work." When I frowned, she explained, "Ask your parents to ask their co-workers. You might not have to do any fundraising at all."

I considered the idea, and it sounded good. Dad's boss, Mrs. Means, might kick in all the money I needed.

And yes, I did say Mallory. She was back in school, but she was very subdued. "It's a new record," she said quietly. "I never been suspended so quick before." Susan bristled at the ungrammatical statement, but said nothing. "Two days!" Mallory continued. "It's my new personal best."

However, even though she continued to talk like a rebel, her pranks had come to an end. She also quit laughing like a donkey, throwing her head back and baring her teeth.

Mallory and Blair had taken to hanging around with Susan and me. Neither of us were the type to push people away or ask them to sit at another table. In any case, we'd come to find that they weren't bad to be with — now that they'd both calmed down. In fact, they were among the few people at school who didn't bother me now.

Oh! While I'm listing the things that bug me, I have to tell you two more: one was the twins. My mother was always on and on about the twins, and how the pregnancy was going. Yesterday she wanted to show me the ultrasound picture.

Now that was a trip. Mom very proudly handed me a strip of very thin paper. On it was a picture of what looked like a dirty fan.

"I don't see anything," I told her. "Is it upside down?"

She laughed and said, "Look!" With her fingernail she traced what she said were the heads and arms of the two babies inside her. "And you can see that they aren't boys," she said, running her finger around the smudges.

I shook my head. It didn't look like anything at all. All I could see was black and gray smudges. "What do you mean, you can see that they're not boys?"

Mom laughed again. "They don't have things — you know..." and she waggled her little finger.

"Oh, Mom! Gross!" I chided. "Can you really see all that in this?" I was sure she was just making it up. "Is this the real ultrasound?"

"Yes," she replied. "That's the real thing, and yes, I see all that. You must see it too. Look here and here!"

But I didn't. Even if I tried to imagine that I saw two babies, I couldn't make them out. Seemed like I was the only one.

Anyway...

The last thing that was eating at me was Susan's new obsession.

In addition to being on a high horse about Miss BYHS, Susan was obsessed with The Madonna Dialogs, which was a new feature in the school paper. The paper came out each week on Wednesday, and the new feature was in the very first issue.

Then, because there was so much material and it was so timely, the paper began printing the dialogs three times a week.

The Madonna Dialogs were transcripts of the conversations between the artist, Mr. Theo, and Jordan, who accompanied him around school. To tell the truth, they weren't interesting at all. In fact, they were deadly boring. In some, Mr. Theo would talk about art and the Madonna and so on, but for the most part all that would happen is that he would ask Jordan, "Could the Madonna of the Future be a skater girl?" or "Could the Madonna of the Future be emo?"

Jordan always gave a noncommittal answer, such as "Sure, why not?" or "Could be."

Given how predictable and repetitive they were, I couldn't understand Susan's obsession.

"I'm not obsessed," she countered.

"Why do you care about them at all?" I asked.

"I want to know where they come from," she said. "Jordan said the wording is verbatim; it's very exact."

"You talked to her?"

"Yes, I wanted to know if she was the one giving the transcripts to the paper. But she's not. In fact, she was mystified."

"So?"

"So, it's a kind of puzzle! I've questioned Jordan pretty closely, and I've followed them around a little. No one is ever near enough to hear everything he says, and some of the stuff I've heard has been in the paper. So whoever heard it had to be there when I was."

"Maybe Theo repeats himself," Mallory offered.

I said, "Somebody could just make it all up. I mean, it's not like he says anything clever or different."

"Why don't you ask the girls who do the newspaper?" Blair asked.

Susan replied, "I did. I asked the newspaper editors and they told me the source asked not to be identified."

"That's weird," I said.

"Yes," Susan agreed, with great satisfaction. "It's like a little whodunit."

"The butler did it," Blair laughed.

"Hey, maybe the artist gives them to the paper," I suggested.

"No," Susan countered. "The newspaper girls let something slip: they did tell me that it's a student. But anyway, I'm intrigued. It's a mystery, it's a question. And so, it's a challenge. Someone's being very clever, and I'm going to find out who!"

Mallory had been shifting uncomfortably in her seat throughout Susan's declaration, and she frowned as she munched her fries. Susan eyed the girl, and asked, "Is something wrong, Mallory?"

She looked up startled, holding a fry in front of her face. "Uh, no," she said, red with embarrassment.

Susan gave a suspicious frown.

"I was just thinking...," Mallory said, fumbling for words. "I was thinking about the... uh... the Miss BYHS thing. Do you think Miss Overmore started it because she used to be a model?"

I shook my head in surprise. Somehow I was quite sure that whatever Mallory was thinking about, it wasn't Miss BYHS. But if she was looking to create a diversion, she'd hit just the right topic.

"You don't understand anything about it, Mallory," Susan scoffed. "In first place, Miss Overmore didn't start the contest. In fact, she was a contestant when she was a student here."

"She was a student here?" Mallory repeated.

"Yes!" Susan replied, as if it was obvious. "I thought everyone knew that."

"I am kind of new here," Mallory told her. "Two whole days. I won't know everything until tomorrow or the next day. Cut me a little slack!"

"Sorry," Susan said. "It's just something that we've been over a lot. I mean before you got here. But you do make me wonder... how in the world... the thing is: I can't believe that Miss Overmore is allowing Miss BYHS to go on! I mean, after what happened to her..."

"What happened to her?" Mallory asked, and Susan told her the story of how Miss Overmore, when she was a student, had gotten more votes than anyone in the pageant. More than the next several candidates put together, but because she was only a junior, they didn't let her win. They rigged the votes somehow, and they made a senior win.

Mallory munched thoughtfully for a while, then asked in a low voice, "Are you sure they made her lose because she was a junior?"

"Of course!" Susan replied scornfully. "What other reason could there be?"

In an even quieter voice Mallory said, "Maybe they made her lose because she's black."

Susan mouth fell open. She was stunned.

Mallory chewed a little more, thinking, then asked, "Did Miss Overmore enter the contest when she was a senior?"

"No, she didn't."

Mallory shrugged, as if to say There you have it, then.

Susan huffed in a disappointed way. "I can't believe I didn't think of that! I should have seen it right away!"

"You can't think of everything," Mallory said in a comforting tone.

"I should have, though! It was staring me right in the face! And you saw it right away!"

"I wouldn't worry, Susan," Mallory told her. "They say you have the highest level of intelligence of any girl in the school."

Susan's brow furrowed with suspicion. "Who says that?"

"Miss Overmore said it. When she was lecturing me on how bad I'd been, she said 'At least I can compliment you on the company you've been keeping.' And that's when she said the thing about your level of intelligence."

"Wow," Susan said, overcome. She looked down for a moment at the table, and as she did, Mallory gave me a slow wink from her left eye.

Then Susan looked up and in a voice filled with emotion said, "Thank you, Mallory, for sharing that with me. You have no idea how much that means to me."

Mallory shrugged and smiled, and shoved a fry into her mouth. Susan beamed at her. I rolled my eyes, but no one noticed.

© 2012 by Kaleigh Way