Nice and Mean (23 page)

“What?” I asked.

They burst out laughing.

“You so like him!” said Flora.

“Shh!” I said, glancing at Elizabeth to make sure she wasn't looking.

“But you do, right?” Flora whispered.

I bit my lip, squinched my eyes shut, and nodded.

“Aw,” said Flora. “Yeah, he is kind of cute . . . even if he is a royal pain.”

“You guys.” Priyanka tapped her watch. “The bell is going to ring soon.”

“Yikes!” said Lainey. As soon as my friends started picking up their backpacks, Marina's friends did too. They all gave me one last congrats and left.

It was then that I realized, oh, disaster! We'd totally rearranged the room, and we had to put it back for Mr. Phillips's class that afternoon. I was about to start dragging chairs when Ms. Avery approached me.

“I'm so glad you invited me,” she said, smiling. “That was wonderful.” She gave me a hug, and then, to my complete surprise, she gave Marina one too. Marina looked shocked at first, but from the way she looked at the floor, biting her lip even as she smiled, I thought she might have appreciated it.

Mr. Phillips came over, holding out the DVD for me to take. “You girls did a great job,” he said. “I can't believe all that cutting you did—from one scene to the next to the next. Most people don't have the patience. Did that take a long time?”

“
Yes.
” Marina said it like a groan, and we all laughed.

“Thanks for letting us use your room,” I told Ms. Avery. “We never could have done all that without your computers.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Marina added. “And Mr. Phillips, thanks for, um, you know, letting us show the video up here. Even if we're not in the real class.”

He nodded. “It was my pleasure.”

Ms. Avery smoothed her curls. “I'm going to miss having you girls up during lunch. I've kind of gotten used to it.”

“I'm going to miss the melba toast,” Marina put in. “That stuff is addictive.”

Once Ms. Avery left, Marina and I began moving the chairs back into place. My arms started to ache, and strangely, the rest of me ached too. I joined Marina at the back of the lab, where we had stashed our backpacks.

“Hey,” she said, “we did it!”

“I know!” I cried. “We did!”

We slapped each other five, then gave each other a hug.

“So,” she said, letting go, “you have English. But you probably brought your books.”

“Right,” I said, smiling. “Do you have your books for science?”

“No. Stop at my locker?”

We thanked Mr. Phillips one last time and I grabbed my things, my Jabber Monkeys pencil case sitting on top of my books. I had stopped shielding it from Marina a while back.

Once we got to her locker, Marina tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “Well. . .”

“Yeah. See you—” I broke off. For the past few weeks, if we passed each other in the halls, we'd say, “See you at lunch.” But we wouldn't see each other at lunch the next day. We'd sit in the same lunchroom, but with different people, probably talking about totally different things. “Just—see ya,” I said.

She smiled. “See ya,” she replied, and dialed her combination.

SACHI'S VIDEO NIGHTMARE FANTASY #22.1


INTERIOR. SECOND-FLOOR HALLWAY—DAY


I walked toward English, laughing at myself. We'd been so caught up in making our video that some days, everything I did seemed like a screenplay.

Sachi walks into English class, where everyone bursts into applause.


No. My applause was done. But then, so were the nightmares. Priyanka hadn't exposed my secret. Mr. Phillips hadn't laughed in my face. Marina hadn't destroyed me. But I'd spent so much time worrying that the nightmares would
come true, I'd made things worse. I'd made extra nightmares come true.

No more video nightmares, I decided. Just videos.

SACHI'S LIFE: A VIDEO JUST FOR FUN #22.2


Sachi walks down the empty hallway, a spring in her step.


CLOSE-UP on her armful of books and Jabber Monkeys pencil case. Light bounces off her onyx ring.


FADE TO BLACK.


Jessica Leader
grew up in New York City. Like Marina and Sachi, she had many important conversations in the stairwells of her school and on the cross-town bus. In addition to being a writer, she has taught English and drama in New York and Louisville, Kentucky. Jessica graduated from Brown University and has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Nice and Mean
is her first novel. It is all fiction, except for the part about wearing an apron to school. For more about the story of the apron, as well as her thoughts about books and what she's writing now, visit her website at
www.jessicaleader.com
.