See All the Stars by Kit Frick

Author:Kit Frick [Frick, Kit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781534404397
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2018-08-14T07:00:00+00:00

18

DECEMBER, SENIOR YEAR

(NOW)

This morning, school is a blur because my college applications are in. Thanksgiving is over, and only three weeks of Pine Brook stretch between me and winter recess. Submitting my apps gives me a new kind of hope. I’m moving forward. In a few months, I’ll be moving far, far away. I can picture the notifications popping up on the admissions systems at my five schools. New application from Ellory May Holland. Ping. I picture the campuses coming to life this morning, the admissions staff arriving to work, getting their coffees, turning on their computers. There’s only one that really matters, I want to tell them. Skip down to Holland. Read that one first.

My good mood lasts until math, when a note lands on my desk in the middle of quadratic equations. I look around, but no one catches my eye. I know I shouldn’t let my curiosity get the better of me, but I can’t help it. I unfold the paper. It’s a poor excuse for a pen sketch of an overgrown toddler, evidently supposed to be me, throwing a temper tantrum and screaming bloody murder. An adult, apparently Principal Keegan, stands over Toddler Ellory and wags his finger. The speech bubble extending from his mouth reads Ellory Holland, you can serve your suspension IN HELL!

My insides crunch and buckle. I crumple up the paper and shove it into my bag. Across the room, Tina Papadakis and Courtney Drummond erupt into a fit of barely disguised giggles. Ms. Elkins calmly asks them to stay after class, then resumes her overview of graphing for real roots, and everywhere around me, fingers fly across calculator buttons.

I try to shake it off, but the day is ruined. It’s been weeks since anyone has bodychecked me in the halls or shouted my name across the parking lot. I let my guard down, and now I’m paying for it.

* * *

At lunch, I skip the metal shop and head toward the empty green room behind the theater. I need to be alone; even the minimally intrusive company of Mr. Michaels seems like too much today. I sit on the worn couch, the only piece of actually green furniture in the small changing room, and bite into my sandwich. I want to go back to my college admission fantasies, but the green room presses on the edge of my memories, drags me back to sophomore year. Jenni and Bex were auditioning for the musical that winter, and that’s when we discovered the large and windowless storage room that held Pine Brook’s collection of costumes from decades of plays. We spent huge swaths of January afternoons trying on wigs and petticoats, sending snaps to each other, each picture wilder than the next.

I can clearly see Bex on the day she uncovered a jaw-dropping white mink coat. She’s right there in front of me, emerging like a movie star from the costume closet and spinning around for us in front of the brightly lit makeup mirrors, the white fur almost glowing against her deep brown skin.

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