Being Sloane Jacobs (32 page)

The barista takes one last look at the cup and barks again: “Sloane J!”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’m pretty sure I’m one of the luckiest authors in the world; I am surrounded by a team of sassy, stylish, talented professionals. First and foremost, I have to thank Lexa Hillyer and Lauren Oliver. I can’t imagine anyone else filling your (totally fabulous) shoes. Big thanks also goes to Beth Scorzato, who is an incredible editor and author wrangler. She kept me on track and sane during the craziest of deadlines. Everyone at Paper Lantern Lit, you guys rock! Thanks to Stephen Barbara, whom I will never stop referring to as “a baller agent.” Thanks to Wendy Loggia, my editor at Delacorte Press, who is wonderful and encouraging and makes my words better. There are so many people at Delacorte who make books happen, and I’m lucky to have every one of them on my side.

Thanks to all the incredible Tweeters, bloggers, and Facebookers who have been so supportive of me, especially Tara Gonzalez (
hobbitsies.net
) and Sarah Blackstock (
storyboundgirl.com
), who have cheered me on since the beginning. Thanks to my Atlanta-area book crew, especially Vania Stoyanova, the Not So YA Book Club, and The Little Shop of Stories. Thanks to Corrie Wachob, Rachel Simon, and Mitali Dave for being readers, cheerleaders, and buddies.

Big thanks for this book goes out to my derby teams, especially the Boston Massacre and the Wicked Pissahs. Without all your training and general badassery, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to write the action scenes in this book, and without hits from some of you, I wouldn’t have that great passage on gross injuries. Maude Forbid, Anna Wrecksya, Shark Week, Lil Paine, Ginger Kid, and Dusty, you guys are my besties and my heroes, on skates and off. Pissah Fo’ Life! BOSTON! BOSTON! PINCH PINCH PINCH!

And of course, I couldn’t do any of this without the support of my family. Dad, thanks for buying me that long line of Mac laptops that helped keep the words flowing. Someday I’m going to write enough books to return the favor! Mom, thank you so much for reading drafts and spotting errors and in general helping me make a good impression on the world.

And finally to Adam, who works harder than any person should so that I can stay home, watch YouTube videos of puppies, and sometimes write books. I love you lots and lots.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lauren Morrill
grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, where she was a short-term Girl Scout, a (not so) proud member of the marching band, and a trouble-making editor for the school newspaper. She graduated from Indiana University with a major in history and a minor in rock and roll and lives in Macon, Georgia, with her husband and their dog, Lucy. When she’s not writing, she spends a lot of hours on the track getting knocked around playing roller derby.

1

Down and Dirty at Thirty Thousand Feet

Have a gr8 trip—and feel FREE to do anything I wouldn’t do :) —P

There are certain things in life that just suck. Pouring a big bowl of Lucky Charms before realizing the milk is expired, the word “moist,” falling face-first into the salad bar in front of the entire lacrosse team …

“Bird strike!”

Being on a plane with Jason Lippincott is another one of them.

Two rows ahead of me, Jason is holding his hands up in mock prayer as our plane bounces like it’s on a bungee cord. Not that I would have any idea what bungee jumping feels like, since I would rather compete in a spelling bee in my underpants than leap off a crane with only a rope tied around me. At least I’d come away from the spelling bee with a medal.

As the plane drops several hundred (thousand?) feet, I white-knuckle the armrest. Jason’s prayers may be a joke, but mine are very, very real.
God, please deposit me safely on the ground in London … and in the process, maybe you could find a way to get Jason to shut it?

I hate to fly. Seriously. HATE. IT. It seems wrong to be hurtling through the clouds at warp speed in a metal tube. It makes about as much sense as being flung over the ocean on a slingshot.

I tuck my pocket Shakespeare into the seat back and carefully realign the magazines that have bounced out of formation on my tray table.

“We’re going down!” That’s Jason again,
of course
.

The plane bounces even worse than before. My knees crash into the tray table, sending my half-eaten package of peanuts and my entire stack of magazines raining into the aisle. I instinctively grab for the armrest once more, and the businessman next to me lets out a loud yelp.

Oops. Not the armrest. His thigh. (I thought it felt a little flabby.)

I mutter an apology and adjust my kung fu grip to the
real
armrest this time.

Breathe. Breathe
. I close my eyes and try to picture Mark. Weirdly, the first image that comes into my head is his yearbook picture. He has the perfectly proportioned features of a model. A bright white smile with perfect teeth all lined up in a perfect row, except for that one tooth, three from the center, that is a teeny bit crooked, which I love, because it sort of shows off how straight the other ones are. And his thick, wavy brown hair is always in the right place, mussed just enough but not too much, without the aid of any greasy or crunchy hair product. Perfect. Just like him. I finally start to feel calm, like I’m coasting across the ocean on the back of a little songbird instead of strapped into a lumpy polyester seat.

Then Jason lets out a loud “Woooo!”, shattering my Mark-inspired Zen.

I sit up straight in my seat. Jason’s got his arms raised like he’s on a roller coaster. A pretty flight attendant glides up the aisle toward him. Good. If God can’t get Jason to shut it, maybe she can.

I crane my neck for a better view of the scolding I know is coming his way. Instead, I see the flight attendant pass him a folded-up napkin, which he immediately opens to reveal a stack of chocolate chip cookies. From the way he’s handling them, all delicately, I can tell they’re still warm.

The flight attendant flashes Jason a smile. He says something to her and she laughs. He acts like a jerk and
still
scores first-class snacks!

“Oh my God. He is too much. Isn’t he hilarious?” It’s Sarah Finder, Newton North’s resident TMZ. She’s elbowing her seat-mate, Evie Ellston, in the ribs, nodding in Jason’s direction.

“Seriously. Adorable. And the Scarlet thing is over, right?”

“
Way
over. They broke up weeks ago.” Of course Sarah knows. Sarah
always
knows. So far, during the three hours and twenty-seven minutes we have been on this flight, Sarah and Evie have left no student undiscussed (except for me, possibly because the last time there was any gossip about me, it was in eighth grade, when Bryan Holloman taped a felt rose to my locker on Valentine’s Day. The only reason anyone cared was that, it came out the next day, the rose was actually meant for Stephenie Kelley). From my vantage point in the seat directly behind her, I’ve already heard about Amber Riley’s supposed nose job, Rob Diamos’s recent suspension for smoking cigarettes in the janitor’s closet, and the shame Laura Roberts was undergoing, having received her mother’s ’00 Honda instead of the brand-new Range Rover she’d been telling everyone she’d get.

“Think he’s all wounded and needy? On the prowl for someone
new?” Evie has one of those oversized mouths attached to an oversized face that makes all her vowels sound a mile long.

“Doubtful,” Sarah answers. Then, lowering her voice: “He said he’s trying to join the mile-high club.”

“Seriously? Isn’t that, like, when people … you know … on a
plane
?” From the way Evie’s voice jumps to Mariah Carey octaves, it’s hard to tell if she’s horrified or interested in signing herself up as a willing partner.

“Shhh! And yes. Totally. You know how he is. Up for
anything
,” Sarah says.

Gross. I say a silent prayer that God can add Sarah to the list of People to Render Temporarily Mute while he’s working on keeping our plane in the sky. I mean, I am totally not one of those prudes who believe having sex as a teenager is some kind of mortal sin or social death. I don’t have a problem with sex. I just don’t happen to be having it. And if I
were
having sex, I certainly wouldn’t be getting it on in an airplane
bathroom
. Who wants to get down and dirty in a place so … cramped and dirty?

I close my eyes and try to get Mark back, but Sarah’s voice keeps slicing into my visions like one of those infomercial knives.
Cuts cans, shoes, and daydreams
.

Without imaginary Mark to keep me company, there’s only one way to simultaneously block out Newton North’s biggest mouth and chase away visions of airmageddon. I pull my iPod out of my purple leather satchel, which is tucked safely under the seat in front of me. I unwind my headphones and click on some mellow tunes (Hayward Williams being my choice music of the moment. It’s like someone put gravel and butter into a blender and out came his voice). But as I reach back to put in my earbuds, I encounter something wet and sticky nested in my curls. I pull the end of my ponytail
around to my face to find a wad of what looks, smells, and feels like grape Bubble Yum.

A fit of giggles erupts behind me, and I turn to see a little boy, maybe seven, wearing a Buzz Lightyear tee. He’s grinning maniacally, his mother snoozing peacefully beside him.

“Did you?” I whisper, furiously shaking my hair at him.

“Oops!” he exclaims before dissolving into another fit of hysterical laughter, his fat cheeks burning red under his mop of blond curls.

Add children to the list of things I hate. Flying and children.

After several minutes of careful picking, followed by some full-on tugging (all while I thank my parents for making me an only child), it becomes clear: I am going to have to leave my seat and go to the bathroom, in total defiance of the pilot-ordered Fasten Seat Belt sign.

I don’t use airplane bathrooms. As a rule. And I
really
don’t like breaking rules. (It’s kind of one of my rules.) I mean, if I’m going to plummet to my death, it’s
not
going to be with my pants around my ankles. Then again, a big wad of grape gum in my ponytail definitely constitutes an emergency, no matter how little I care about my overchlorinated, wild chestnut waves. I carefully unfasten my seat belt, keeping my eye on the flight attendants’ galley, and make a beeline for the lavatory.

As I pick at the purple gooey mess my head has become, I can hear faint giggling coming through the wall. What is it with everyone on this flight acting like it’s a day at Six Flags? I’d rather be on the
Titanic
at this point. At least there I’d be traveling in comfort, with crystal glasses and warm towels.

I finally yank the last gob of gum out of my hair and step out of the lavatory, wrestling with the little sliding door, which has
grabbed hold of the sleeve of my hoodie. I fumble around, bashing my elbow on the doorframe, before finally freeing myself and whipping around to leave. Right then the plane bounces hard, and I am shot out of the bathroom like a cannon ball. A pair of arms saves me from bashing my head into the narrow doorway. I look up to see Jason Lippincott steadying me on my feet.

“Book Licker!” he says, invoking my least favorite junior-high nickname. He grins, several freckles on his forehead scrunching together. “Enjoying your flight?”

I pull away from him. “It’s Julia,” I reply as calmly as possible, adjusting the hem of my pants, which have hooked themselves over the sole of my sneaker.

“Of course,” he says, gesturing down the aisle. “After you.”

“Um, thanks,” I say. Maybe he can tell how badly I want to get back to my seat belt.

As I make my way down the aisle, I begin to notice my classmates’ eyes on me. The looks quickly turn to snickers and then full-on laughter. Ryan Lynch, Newton North’s lacrosse captain, is grinning stupidly at me. Sarah is whispering furiously to Evie, her eyes trained in my direction. I have absolutely no idea what is going on, and I immediately wonder if there is more bubble gum in my hair or it somehow landed on my face. I reach to pat my hair down when a wild gesture catches the corner of my eye. I turn to see Jason making a thrusting motion in my direction, winking at Ryan, who reaches out to give Jason a high five.