Page 9

Chapter 9

THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

Ms. Nallos blows her whistle from the bench she’s leisurely sitting on during PE class. “Great laps! Head to the showers!”

I lean over myself on the track, gripping my thighs as sweat drips down my forehead. An impromptu twelve-minute run on the hottest, most sweltering day of the year so far, according to the locker room thermostat. A real-life curse after my weekend of sleepless nights glued to textbooks to make sure I rank tomorrow. One world history group project. Two forty-question-long calculus assignments. Two free-response papers. It all has to be perfect.

But we had to reach at least ten measly laps today. I got six.

Will my PE grade drop?

Laughter booms down the track. Xavier, lucky spoon between his fingers, high-fiving two others. Since they kept whizzing past me, I recognize the back of their stubby buzz-cut heads. They must’ve gotten quadruple my laps.

I barely summon enough strength to walk to the locker room. A sea of drugstore colognes attacks me, and fluorescent lights cast a grim glow, because the concept of a boys’ locker room wasn’t terrifying enough. I approach the lockers to search the bottom row for VON HEVRINGPRINZ , stepping over two used towels, a mound of plaid clothes, a bruised banana, and a few sparkly trading cards that look like Robby’s from the library. One is overturned, showing off artwork of an illustrated spotted horse.

Boys’ locker rooms are stranger than I thought.

Splashes echo from around the corner. Showers, probably, and ones I’ve never used. Last week’s PE classes left me tired, but not too sweaty. Today, though, I’ll spend the next seven class hours drenched if I don’t rinse off. Grabbing the towel that I’ve left untouched all week, then my uniform, I follow the splashes.

Then I freeze, my uniform slipping out of my hands.

Naked bodies. Facing shower heads. No privacy curtains divide them. Mirrors stretch along the walls, doubling them. They laugh with each other as if they’re at a baseball game.

Not showers. One communal shower.

Another one of Xavier’s buzz-cut friends reaches for a shampoo bottle, glancing my way. Presence detected. No towel covers him. Not even a washcloth. “You good?”

I try to form a sentence. A word. All I manage is a honk. I sprint past the lockers and into an empty bathroom stall. As I bundle my uniform and towel against the scars on my chest, my insides clump into knots. There’s no time to shower in my room. Calc starts in eight minutes.

The stall door rattles.

“You done yet?” a voice calls.

“Just a second!” I say so unnaturally oddly, I sense the guy back off entirely.

I scramble to change. Even though I wipe my face with toilet paper and layer on six days’ worth of deodorant, an obvious workout stench seeps from my oil-clogged pores. I bust out of the stall, keeping my head low, and walk onto the field.

Ms. Nallos passes by me on the sidewalk. Her even breathing and perfectly symmetrical braids make me even more painfully aware of my uncontrollable panting and messy hair.

“Ms. Nallos?” I say.

She stops, eyeing my greasy body up and down. “Yes?”

“Can I verify how many laps you put me down for today?”

She checks her clipboard before looking back with a frown. “You were trying your best?”

Ouch.

It’s not like my body can’t conceivably handle the same number of laps as everyone else’s. But while I was sitting at a desk all year during online school, they were apparently running like gerbils. “If your concern is that I didn’t put in genuine effort, I promise, I did.”

Ms. Nallos sighs. “Valentine’s grading stance is strict about this. As long as you don’t have a doctor’s note from Health Services, it’s about results.”

Even if this is a private academy, this has to break some law. At least an ethical one.

Unspoken Guideline 6: Valentine can do whatever the hell they want.

I ask the dreaded question. “How much will this drop my grade?”

She rechecks the clipboard. “As of now, you’re at a C.”