Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature (2 page)

“I said ‘red’!” complained the girl who had.

“Not ‘red,’ “ Ms. Shepherd said. “ ‘Red’ is general— ‘red’ is boring. ‘Puce’ is specific. These are the distinctions we scientists must make. Something isn't simply ‘green’ or ‘orange’ or ‘smelly’—”

That cracked people up, although they weren't laughing
with
her, I don't think.

“When you're a scientist, you deal in specifics. If I say I love you”—she pointed to a chubby boy hunched over his desk in back—”then I should be able to say I love you to this certain degree and temperature and height and width. Follow?”

No one followed. And the chubby guy looked ready to bolt.

“So with your potato, I want you to treat that like it's the most beloved thing you've ever had in front of you in your life—”

“I love you!” Adam told his potato. I can't believe I used to like that guy.

Ms. Shepherd ignored him. “—like it's gold or sapphires or your favorite cat. Follow? Or like it's the man or woman of your dreams—”

“What are you
talking
about?” Teresa interrupted in her snottiest, most defiant way. I used to delight in being around her when she did things like that. I could be the good girl hiding in the background while my best friend took charge of being dangerous.

“I'm talking about observation,” answered Ms. Shepherd, readjusting the glasses that had slipped down her nose. “I'm talking about precision. I'm talking about leaving behind all those broad generalities you teenagers speak in and finally getting down to some specifics.

“You.” She pointed to Lara Donaldson. (Church. Hates me.) “Give me your potato.”

Lara so willingly did.

Ms. Shepherd removed her glasses and stared bare-eyed at the potato. “Not young, not old—”

“Just right,” Adam joked.

“Not for the scientist to judge,” Ms. Shepherd said. “Color?”

She pointed to Lara.

“Uh, brown?” Lara answered, in a tone that clearly meant, “Uh, duh?”

“Wrong. Is my shirt red? It's puce. What color is this potato?”

I ventured a try. “Tan?”

“Not tan, so much,” Ms. Shepherd said. “Too dark for tan. Anyone?”

Casey Connor held up his textbook and pointed to the color of the title. “Biology brown.”

Ms. Shepherd put her glasses back on and looked from the book back to the potato. “All right, we'll accept that answer for now. Heads up.” She tossed the potato back to a startled Lara, who fumbled it and had to dive under her desk to keep it from escaping like the meatball in “On Top of Spaghetti.”

“Got it?” Ms. Shepherd asked. “You have two class periods. I want to know everything—
ev-ery-thing
—you can tell me about your potato. No making up funny names for it or family history—let me stop you right there.” She looked pointedly at Adam. “We want facts—always facts.”

She reached behind her onto her desk and lifted a mysterious, misshapen package. “Team with the best and most descriptions wins
this.”

Before we could even process whether or not we'd even want whatever that thing was—and I'm still not sure, since it was the weirdest-shaped package I've ever seen—Ms. Shepherd shooed us with her free hand. “Go. Go. Make science.”

Well, no one can get right to work after a weird performance like that. It requires a little chatter. The room was all abuzz.

I blew out a breath and looked at Casey.

He must have seen I was a little skeptical about Ms. Shepherd, because the first thing he said was, “She's a genius. You should Google her. She has about twenty published papers in the top scientific journals. She's world-renowned.”

“For what?”

“Anthropological mathematics and dynamism.”

I nodded as if I understood what he'd just said.

“Just kidding. Cellular biology with some physics on the side. Anything from string theory to genomic mutations to quantum mechanics.”

“Oh. Wow.” As if I understood any of that, either.

“So what'd you think?” Casey asked.

“About …”

“Ms. Shepherd. Pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah. Pretty great.” Whatever. I think my lab partner might be as psycho as my teacher.

Ms. Shepherd was walking around the room, making sure we were getting to know our potatoes, so we had to keep it down.

“We're winning that prize,” Casey said, gesturing toward the mysterious package on Ms. Shepherd's desk. “Make no mistake.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Who cares? It's a
prize.
That's all we need to know. Bottom line.”

“Oh, you're one of those,” I joked, but really it didn't bother me. I'm not a competitive person by nature, but
maybe I could use a little push these days. Besides, working hard in school might be the only thing I have right now to take my mind off my life.

Against my will I glanced over at Teresa. Something about her bleached-out head always draws the eye—that, and the fact that she thinks it's funny to mix religion and sleaze. Today she's wearing these shockingly low-cut jeans I can't believe her parents ever let her buy, along with a red (devil red—how's that for specific, Ms. Shepherd?)
Jesus Freak
T-shirt about two sizes too small to make sure everyone notices her boobs. Guess that'll bring the guys to church.

She was laughing with her lab partner, Kelsey Dunbar (also church, also hates me), and I could just tell from the way Teresa's mouth looked—cruel and snide—that she was saying something mean right at that moment, either about me or about Ms. Shepherd.

“Yeah,” I told Casey, “winning sounds good.”

Four

Which brings us to now—lunch.

I never, ever, EVER thought I'd be sitting alone in the cafeteria on my first day of high school. Ever.

It's so noisy. There are so many kids here. And even though I know a lot of them, it's not as many as I thought. I guess it's possible that there are hundreds of people here who haven't heard of me, don't care what I did—might even be horrified at the whole story and the way I'm being treated and instantly take my side. Those people are my friends. Now I just have to find them.

In the meantime, I'll look as busy as possible writing in this notebook, eating my turkey and Swiss, unpeeling my banana—all these important activities that simply keep me too occupied to look up and notice that I'm alone.

I bought this notebook on a whim. I think it was meant for younger kids, but I don't care. I might just love it. Like loving my potato.

It has a red cover—no, more of a pinkish burgundy— and it's made of some kind of fabric (sorry, Ms. Shepherd,
don't know what kind) that's fuzzy like short-cropped fur, and I know it's sick, but I have this incredible urge to rub it against my cheek right now for a little bit of comfort, like the old days of rubbing my favorite blanket against my face while I sucked my thumb.

I don't see that Casey guy anywhere. Maybe he has a different lunch. I do see Teresa and Bethany and the whole host of holy Christians, half of whom have done far worse things than people act like I have, and yet they still get to wear their
I
♥
Jesus
T-shirts to school, and no one would dare challenge them.

If I showed up in my
Jesus Freak
T-shirt or my
WWJD
bracelet, they'd stone me before I got through the door.

Must keep busy.

Let's make a to-do list.

1. Find some friends. No, let's keep it simple: Find one friend. Cling to her like static.
   

2. Stop caring what anyone thinks. If they're talking about you, so what? You know you did the right thing, so hold your head high. I mean it.
   

3. Find a club to join. There are lots of kids at this school and lots of interesting things to do besides go to church group every other night. Expand your horizons.
   

4. Do great in school this year. I mean not just your usual great, but exceptionally great. Shove their noses in it.
   

5. Try to make the parents like you again. There has to be a way.
   

6. Either learn to eat alone and not care or find someplace else to go at lunch. Library? Parking lot? (No, too many stoners and smokers, I'm sure.) Always have a book to read. Always carry this notebook. Appear busy at all times.
   

7. Stop obsessing about all of this. If you move on, others will, too. Honest.
   

8. Do something better with your hair besides this ponytail.
   

9. Grow out your nails.
   

10. Stop worrying.
    

Busy, busy, busy. That's me, writing away, so busy I can't notice that Teresa is walking straight toward me.

Five

It's unnatural to sweat as much as I just did, just from a thirty-second conversation.

It's the first time Teresa and I have talked face to face since the lawsuit got filed. I've gotten plenty of e-mails from her in the last few weeks telling me what a
b-i-t-c-h
I am, but it's not like hearing it in person.

“So,” Teresa said.

I pretended not to hear.

“How's it feel, traitor?”

I just kept my head down and pretended to keep eating, as if I could swallow anything.

She picked up my banana peel and tossed it on top of my sandwich. “I said, how's it feel,
bitch?”

She leaned over the table and grabbed my wrist. And twisted it.

I held my breath. I didn't make a sound.

Her face was so close to mine I could smell her gum.

“So what's it like to be the most hated person in this school? Bet you're glad you opened your big fat mouth.”

She stopped twisting, but still held on to my wrist.

“I thought we were friends. How could you do that to me? What were you thinking?”

I couldn't look at her. I couldn't breathe.

“Answer me!”

My hand was numb. All of me was.

Teresa straightened up and tossed my wrist away. “You're pathetic, you know that? You're nothing. You might as well be dead.” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, whoops, did I say something bad? Mommy gonna sue me?”

She leaned toward me again. She smelled like cinnamon and hair gel. “Stay away from me. I mean it. You understand?”

I didn't move, didn't make a peep. I wouldn't have put it past her to slap me if I did.

“I'm talking to you, Judas! Do you hear me?”

I knew people were staring at us, but there was nothing I could do about it. I just had to sit there and take it.

“You're pathetic.” She picked up my banana peel and threw it at my chest.

It's still there, the peel. It's sitting on my lap. I haven't touched it. I haven't done anything since Teresa stalked off except go back to writing in this notebook. I am such a coward. I feel sick. I'm such a baby. I have to be stronger than this, or I'll never make it past today. Keep writing. Don't let them see you shaking. Write, write, write.

It's just that HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH ALL THIS??? After everything they did to Denny,
now they get to act like I'M the bad guy? Just because I tried to fix it? I didn't write that letter because I wanted anyone to get in trouble. I did it because I was trying to be a good person, even if it was too late.

There's the bell. Thank GOD, and I mean that literally. Please let this day hurry up and be over.

At least please don't let it get any worse.

Six

Home—thank goodness. I wish I could figure out some way of never having to leave my room again. I'm beginning to understand the appeal of home schooling. Not that it would work so well in my case, since my parents can't exactly stand me right now, either. I wonder if you can take high school over the internet.

At least my afternoon wasn't so bad. French, world civ, and algebra—and Teresa wasn't in a single one of those. Yay! Lara's in French, Bethany Wells is in world civ, and there are three people who hate me in algebra, but I think I can take all that. As long as I know I'm always going to be done with Teresa by lunch.

I'm up here pretending to do homework (which I actually do need to do) (later). Mom is in the kitchen making something for the church bake sale tonight and trying to forget she ever gave birth to me. Just when I think she can't get any madder, she'll have a bad day like today, when she gets another call from one of the parents who got sued, and it reminds her all over again how much she hates me.

Not that she would ever say that to my face, but come on—it's so obvious. She barely says four words to me anymore. I'm sure she'd prefer that from now on I stay in my room after school and just work, work, work. Anything, as long as I'm not having fun.

She doesn't know that what I've really been doing since I got home is looking up Ms. Shepherd on the internet, deleting a bunch of nasty e-mails from my former friends, obsessing over every single detail of my day, and finally thinking a little about Casey Connor, although I'm not really sure why.

It's just that he is kind of funny. We had about twenty minutes left of class to spend with our potato today, and Casey started by switching back to his British accent and badgering it with questions.

“Tell me, Mr. Potato—” He lifted the spud to his ear. “What's that? Sorry,
Mzzzz
Potato. Enjoying the States, are you? Out to see the grandspuds in Idaho? Been shot from any cannons lately?”

Ms. Shepherd was doing the rounds, and as she came near us Casey switched to a very serious (American) voice and started rattling off terms like “circumference” and “nucleotides” and “swatchnoid.” I nodded studiously and copied them on our work sheet.

After a few moments Casey looked around to make sure no one else was listening, then whispered like a British detective, “Potato shows signs of trauma, possibly made by shovel or trowel.”

“I was thinking a spade,” Ms. Shepherd said behind us. “Facts, people, facts.”

Casey blushed puce.

When the coast was clear, he went back to talking to our potato. “That's right, you're the prettiest spud in here. Don't even look at the others. They're all so jealous of you.” He covered the potato's ears—I guess—and whispered to me, “She thinks she's fat. Tell her.” He thrust the potato in my face.