Page 22 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
According to Ceecee, Lucy had been cornered by the juniors between periods and forced to turn over her sweatshirt.
We found out later that Charlotte Anderson, Reese Steeler-Cox’s sworn appendage, had shoved it into the toilet— after she’d peed.
Topornycky joked that this explained the cleanup in Stall 12.
But we were too furious to think it was funny.
Technically every class was allotted a particular variety of shark: reef sharks for the freshmen; goblin sharks for us; hammerheads for the juniors; and for the seniors, great whites.
We couldn’t have told you who’d made this rule or how we’d learned it.
It was just one of those unspoken laws that we absorbed together, like a giant oxygenated lung.
Nothing but wearing the seniors’ great whites was a serious infraction. For example, Lana Mueller, a sophomore, was always parading around in her boyfriend’s work jacket that had a hammerhead patch sewn on to one shoulder, and she’d never been aggressed by a marauding pack of juniors.
Clearly something deeper was at play.
The mystery was resolved before last lunch, when the Sharks and Minnows list was leaked online.
None of us knew who’d drawn it up. Ultimately the authorship wasn’t important.
The Sharks and Minnows list, we understood, was bigger than any one person.
It represented Consensus. It represented What People Were Saying—or more specifically, Who They Were Talking About.
It was a small scandal to see that Lucy had grabbed the tenth spot on the list of Minnows; all the other girls were freshmen. But it was only a small scandal. Given that Lucy Vale was new, we supposed she technically counted as fresh bait.
@ktcakes888: is Lucy hot now? I thought she was just cute ...
@moonovermatter: I think she’s so hot
@brentmann: This list is a sham
@brentmann: Bailey Lawrence is number one goddess
@brentmann: She is perfection
@brentmann: She melts glass
@mememeup: the Minnows are new to school, dude
@brentmann: I don’t care. It’s false advertising
@brentmann: Bailey torches everyone on this list
@highasakyle: maybe you should file a complaint
@kash_money: This list is So Fucked
@kash_money: Minnows are fish bait
@nononycky: Sharks are trophies
@nononycky: What’s your point?
@kash_money: My point is that it’s sexist
@skyediva: so is mansplaining sexism
@badprincess: if you want to be offended, may I recommend the school’s “Style Guide” for Shark Week themes
@bassicrhythm: you mean because 90 percent of the models are white girls??
@badprincess: I mean
@badprincess: Because 100 percent of the models
@badprincess: Are Girls
@nononycky: remember, Ladies
@nononycky: Shark Week is for everyone
@nononycky: But only You can prevent Unwanted Sexual Harassment
@geminirising: does the style guide count?
@mememeup: well for sure no one asked for it
Sofia Young, who was getting rebellious, insisted that Lucy Vale wasn’t actually that pretty.
@goodnightsky: we just see her as pretty, because she acts like the kind of person who should be pretty
@goodnightsky: it’s an optical illusion
@lululemonaide: ?? she is definitely pretty
@goodnightsky: see? that’s what you think
@goodnightsky: so of course you see her as pretty
@goodnightsky: because you’re expecting her to be pretty
@goodnightsky: It’s called confirmation bias
@kash_money: I think it’s called jealousy, actually
Sofia Young signed off.
Some of us messed around trying to circumvent our biases, to see if we could trick our brains into seeing the real Lucy.
A few excruciating minutes of early American history, and we were easily falling off the New World into a thick fog of boredom so complete, it felt almost like clarity.
Then, when we’d for sure cleared our minds of all Lucy thoughts, we’d sneak a glance at her.
Or we’d try and rearrange Lucy’s features in our heads to imagine her ugly, bunching her nose and eyes and mouth together in our imaginations, doubling her forehead and sharpening her chin to a knifepoint, whittling her nose into a hook.
We’d carry this image with us in the halls, between classes, into the cafeteria, holding it like a shield against our expectations, hoping to startle off the mask of Lucy’s prettiness whenever we first saw her.
The exercise was fruitless. None of us could be sure that the Lucy Vale we saw was, in fact, the real Lucy.
The day after the Sharks and Minnows list made the rounds, Lucy’s name made a sudden leap through the loudspeaker just before third period: Bailey Lawrence, Savannah Savage, and Lucy Vale were to report to the vice principal’s office immediately.
The announcement touched the whole school like a cattle prod.
Some of us were in D-wing, looking across the slope of pavement to the Aquatics Center and the single construction trailer moored next to the fence.
Some of us were in the cafeteria, teetering on the threshold minutes of our last free period of the day.
Some of us were pulled back from a daydream.
Some of us, from a doubt. Some of us were thinking of Jalliscoe. Others of the Sharks.
Lucy Vale, Bailey Lawrence, and Savannah Savage, please report to the vice principal before your next class .
The school shivered. We froze. Some of us held our breath.
Lucy Vale, Bailey Lawrence, and Savannah Savage, please report to the vice principal’s office .
A surf of noise rose toward the halls from every classroom across campus, like the throaty gasp of an approaching wave.
Lucy Vale, Bailey Lawrence, and Savannah Savage, please report to the vice principal’s office .
It was done. We agitated into motion and poured into a wave of movement without noticing that the binding spell had worked on us, instantly cauterizing the three names into a single concept, a joint action.
That’s how all magic works: a spell that binds words to a belief. A belief that binds the world to the word, and the power of its magic.
Right away, we flooded onto Discord, unified by a single thought and a question mark. But Evie Grant beat us to it.
@badprincess: wait wait
@badprincess: Is Lucy Vale a Strut Girl now????
It made sense of what had happened to Lucy Vale in the bathroom, and why the junior girls were suddenly giving her the stink eye; obviously Lucy was a threat.
In the silence, we all said a brief prayer for Akash and his chances with Lucy Vale.