RE: Trailer Trash 62, Art Club meeting

As invigorating as it had been to get Manager John in trouble for his scheduling shenanigans on Tuesday afternoon, as well as see both Tracy and Manager Bob practically lining up to kick the man when he was down—that incident wasn’t without its consequences. On Thursday morning after having enjoyed an entire Wednesday off, Mrs. Moore clocked into work at Food Lion to discover a stony-faced Manager John… who had decided not to put her on register today.

“We don’t need you in Front End today,” Manager John said in a flat tone devoid of all of his usual pretense of friendliness. “They need soone in Bakery, so head on over and ask for Claudia.”

Having spent a few days already learning the ins and outs of being a checkout clerk and getting comfortable with that, Mrs. Moore helplessly complied, feeling the familiar creep of icewater in her veins at the prospect of having to restart training in a whole new area from scratch. Not only that, it was in Bakery, the departnt that both Cindy and Frank had warned her about the other day! There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it right now if Manager John wanted to make her shifts difficult for getting him in trouble. Thus, Mrs. Moore had headed back across the aisles towards the corner of the store where she rembered the bakery was, and with hesitant, halting steps she finally went around the counters there and entered the tiled area for employees just behind, feeling as skittish and unsure of herself as a lost child.

“Can I help you?” An irritated voice demanded.

“Um? Manager John sent here,” Mrs. Moore confessed. “For today. I’m Shannon.”

The woman who’d been staring her down was short and heavyset to the point where she had a squat figure, and was wheeling a tall tal rack with sliding shelves, upon which clear-plastic bagged packs of buns and rolls and loaves were waiting to be distributed to the display shelf on the wall adjacent to the bakery counters. The woman’s natag read Shirley, but from her dour expression there seed to be no intention for her to introduce herself or welco the newcor.

“Claudia isn’t in, yet,” Shirley stated. “I’m gonna need you to move. You’re in the way.”

“Oh… sorry!” Mrs. Moore flinched back to step to the side.

As Shirley waddled on to push the cart past her, however, it was clear that there had already been plenty of room in the first place.

Not knowing what else to do, Mrs. Moore held her hands in front of her and waited, taking nervous looks around the bakery. The departnt was cordoned off from the store proper by its custor counter, which also served as a glass display for cupcakes, cookies, donuts and other assorted pastries. The display compartnt opened from both sides in so sections, allowing custors to self-serve, while other areas would require one of the clerks there to fetch whatever a custor wanted.

Glancing around, there was no sales terminal here, which was a relief. There was however a large scale, a label machine that had its own computer interface for inputting information and putting store barcodes on stickers, the lower shelves of a big tal rack were stacked with different sizes of plastic bags waiting to be filled with baked goods, while every shelf higher up was filled with colorful bags of icing and a cluttered assortnt of tal icing tips, rigid plastic containers in stacks shaped to hold muffins or cupcakes, order form booklets, and dozens upon dozens of little white boxes with different letter and number codes written on them with sharpie.

“You just gonna stand there?” Shirley griped at her as the woman returned, no cart in sight. She had apparently left the rolling rack sitting out there by the display shelf wall. “Grab a broom, or sothing, Jesus Christ. Back corner. Find sothing to do!”

Shannon had then scurried off into the back area to discover a work table, a small standing desk littered with papers just beneath a wall-mounted telephone, a set of heavy tal doors she recognized as either cooler rooms or freezer rooms from the tis she had walked past the similar ones over back by Dairy, and a half dozen more tall rolling racks here and there filled with goods that made the back bakery area feel cramped and claustrophobic.

The grocery store bread oven was a colossal stainless steel piece of industrial equipnt with large, wide, lift-open doors for sliding in big trays, and an incomprehensible digital readout for each which showed tis counting down and different indicator lights or modes of so kind selected. The long glass windows on each of the oven compartnts were scoured with gri and crusted soot from the insides, and impossible to see through due to the accumulation from years upon years of constant use. Not daring to waste too much ti getting her bearings, Mrs. Moore had searched out a worn old broom and then canvassed the area with it, sweeping crumbs and flour dust out from beneath everything.

By the ti Claudia arrived, Mrs. Moore had run out of things to pretend to tidy up and was relieved to have so apparent authority figure here to tell her what she should be doing. Claudia was a tall woman in her fifties with a dyed burgundy bob-cut—the sa artificial shade Tracy from Front End sported, in fact—in a sh hair net, and plastic-rimd aviator style glasses, thick ones, that un-magnified her eyes and that entire swath of her face until they were tiny beady features.

“You need a hair net if you’re gonna be in the back,” Claudia imdiately gave Mrs. Moore a look of disapproval. “Up front, just beneath the bread slicer.”

With an apologetic wince, Mrs. Moore hurried to comply, rushing back out to the front area. She had not been introduced to the protocols or different stations here, but after looking around in a mild panic she discovered a bizarre heavy contraption with a grill-like row of blades that could only be their supermarket bread slicer, and just beneath that a worn box where she could grab a little disposable hairnet. It took Mrs. Moore a few awkward monts to try to pull the folded netting out, and then once she slipped it on over her hair it felt absolutely ridiculous, with part of the sh digging in across her forehead.

She had no idea how to properly wear this thing and didn’t dare to try to adjust it until it was more comfortable without a mirror, for fear that it might not cover all of her hairline then.

“Do you know how to answer a phone?” Claudia demanded in a tone just a hair short of mocking.

“Um,” Mrs. Moore had frozen mid-fidget, wanting to imdiately answer yes but not sure what all answering phones here might entail. “Not at a Food Lion?”

And so it was that her first official training for the departnt was going over an order form template with Claudia, with Claudia impatiently explaining each of the already-labeled form areas she needed to get information from calling custors with.

They needed a na and a phone number. Their cakes were yellow, chocolate, and marble. Their sheet sizes were round, half, full, and double, each with printed asurents by inches beside the column. Icing options were a checkbox for either whipped or buttercream. Colors and trim needed to be written in by hand, writing in icing needed to be marked within quotation marks. Custors would ask if they had this or that cake topper decorations for birthdays they had, and Shannon would have to ask them to wait, walk all the way around back to the front, and flip through the booklet they kept atop the custor counter to find what they were talking about, then check the listed letter and number code, and confirm that they still had that cake topper in stock by referencing the little white boxes on one of the rack’s upper shelves before returning to the phone.

After walking her through all that, Claudia had slipped out a long sheet of parchnt paper, ripped it off, and set it up at the back work table. Then Claudia brought over three bag pouches of icing with tal tips, and told Mrs. Moore to practice writing ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ with them onto the parchnt paper as neatly as possible, until she was out of icing. For the first hour of the day, Mrs. Moore did that and nothing but that, writing cursive letters with as much care as she could into neat rows. It wasn’t difficult but it did still require practice learning to squeeze the icing pouch at just the right pressure to draw out words with icing.

She would be terrified to write on soone’s actual cake, and she focused all of her attention on what she was doing because she felt sure that mont was coming dreadfully soon.

When she’d emptied all the bags, Claudia shooed her out of the way, folded over the parchnt paper to sar the icing into a big ss, and then the woman quickly squeezed and pressed the words into a blob… which she then wrung back out into the sa icing pouches which Mrs. Moore had been working with all day. A fresh sheet of large parchnt paper was pulled out and spread across the table, and then Mrs. Moore was to continue her practice.

She got little accomplished in that regard over the next several hours, however, because it beca apparent right away that the Springton area had a lot of people with birthdays in January. The telephone on the wall seed to ring every five minutes or so, and although the first few were nerve-racking as she hurried to double-check the order template and ensure she hadn’t missed any important information, the rote process of taking so many calls made even that a familiar routine before too long. Only one ti did soone request a cake topper toy, one from the cartoon Rugrats, and it was easy enough to find after flipping through the Decopac catalog book and then checking the boxes for the scribbled D 19.

Although Shirley or Claudia bustled through with purpose moving around trays of dough from the racks or occasionally pulling sothing out of the oven to cool on the work table for a bit, for most of the day both of those won either stayed in the front area to gossip with one another and occasionally help custors, or they were off in another part of the store. For whatever reason they had to wheel racks back the whole way through Food Lion to the back of the store to sothing called a ‘proofer,’ which was so necessary part of the baking process but sohow they did not have room to install it here in the actual bakery.

This… isn’t so bad, just yet? Mrs. Moore told herself as she picked up the icing bag and returned to scrawling out ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ in light blue icing across the parchnt. I just do what I’m told, and that’s that. They’re certainly miserable people here, but I was already expecting that, and they haven’t been TOO an, I guess. I’ve stayed out of their way, and they just leave to do what they told to do. There’s not nearly as many things to morize as there is with working one of the front registers. It’s… it’s really not so bad, back here!

Almost as if in mockery of her attempts to console herself, the topmost bread oven tir ticked down to all zeroes and imdiately started a loud, incessant beeping that filled the entire bakery. Mrs. Moore flinched at the sudden sound and then looked around, but nobody else stepped into the back to check on it. She set aside her pouch and peeked around the corner to find Shirley or Claudia—and naturally, both of them were absent. The oven alarm was still beeping loudly, and Mrs. Moore had no idea what on God’s green earth to do about it. Hurrying back over to stand in front of the gigantic boxy device, it was clear that the top compartnt was ready, but—what was she supposed to do with it?

Do I, um, do I try hitting buttons?! Mrs. Moore flustered over the readout as anxiety flooded her body. Is it burning? I think I sll burning… a little bit? Or, is that just normal baking sll?! None of these buttons make sense! Why, WHY ON EARTH would they step away from this, as if I knew what the heck I was supposed to do when tirs go off?!!

“Hey, Tabby,” Gary’s loud friend from the bus called. “Wait up a minute.”

Fifth period Biology class had basically concluded, and now all of the students were either talking quietly or staring off out the row of windows, disassociating as they waited for the bell to release them to head to sixth period. Gary’s friend from the bus had rounded the aisle of desks and walked over towards where Tabitha sat, and Tabitha was thrown into a panic as she ntally scrambled through nas to try to fit his into place again. She knew his na—she’d learned it during roll call on Monday and filed it away for later recollection.

Although now it was recollection ti, and his na had been misfiled.

Drake? Dave? David?! No, I think that was the one at my actual bus stop, Tabitha fought off a blush of embarrassnt as she looked up at the guy. Joseph? Jake? John? I… I really don’t rember, do I? DAMMIT.

Monday after all felt like ages ago after everything that had happened since then, and although Gary was the key person to rember on their bus, Tabitha had let mory of everyone else there get a little fuzzy. In the split second of available ti remaining to her before her lagging response turned this into a cherished awkward mont, Tabitha quickly appelled each of her best guess nas to him and tried them out until she decided on the one that probably felt like it fit the most.

“Jake, right?” Tabitha tapped a finger towards Gary’s friend.

“Jacob,” Jacob corrected her with a deadpan expression.

Oh wow, that was super close! Tabitha couldn’t help but smile at the boy. In fact—I can totally play that off as intentional! ‘Jake’ is like a nickna for ‘Jacob.’ It works. I can make it work.

“So, what’s up?” Tabitha shifted in her seat towards him, feeling pleased with herself.

“Do you know Matt?” Jacob asked. “Matthew Haynes.”

There’s THAT na again, Tabitha thought to herself, puzzled. I feel like now I’m hearing about this guy ten tis a day practically, yet I have NO clue who he is or a face to put with that na, or anything. I think he’s turning into like a Keyser Söze sort of thing for —like does this mythical Matt Haynes REALLY exist, or is he just a Springton High urban legend?!

“I’ve heard of him,” Tabitha remarked, trying to play it cool.

“Well yeah,” Jacob said. “So—what do you think of him?”

“I think he’s very mysterious?” Tabitha said, trying to not let a wince blemish the smile she had put on. “I hear about him a lot, but I don’t think he’s ever properly introduced himself to .”

“What?” Jacob gave her a look of confusion. “Didn’t you two have uh, English or sothing together last sester? Mrs. Albertson?”

“Uhh—” Tabitha again furiously tried to rember all of her impressions of people from that class.

Besides Mrs. Albertson herself, who was a rather friendly older woman with a very sarcastic sense of humor that Tabitha adored—not a single one of her classmates from there jumped to mind. That had been one of her favorite classes, and when she was there she’d pretty much been totally absorbed in what she was doing; essays, short story projects, absolutely obliterating vocab worksheets and bullying even the supposedly ‘difficult’ writing assignnts into submission. It was one of the rare topics where her future knowledge and even moreso her future experience gave her an absolute advantage, one of the classes where Tabitha legitimately felt like so kind of special genius. It had been so much fun.

“Maybe?” Tabitha felt her face going red but she braced her casual smile into place so that it wouldn’t waver even with how embarrassed she was growing. “I was, uh, I an in that class I’d kinda get into the zone, you know? That was one of my favorites.”

“Hah, alright, alright,” Jacob gave a knowing smirk at seeing her blush, seeming to understand the situation perfectly. “Yeah—I get it. Hah...”

“Okay?” Tabitha quirked her head at him.

She was saved by the bell then, and as the resounding bmmm bmmm bmmm tones echoed throughout the wall-mounted intercom all of the students rose up out of their seats and made for the door. Tabitha slung her denim bookbag up across one shoulder and stood as well, letting so of the others in her row file out ahead of her before following. The weird sense of bafflent that had plagued her throughout that entire short conversation with Jake was slowly twisting into a pit of unease as she considered the ways she might have been misunderstood.

Oh, no. No no no no, Tabitha felt alarm bells go off. I said Matt was mysterious—indicating INTEREST. I said the class we shared was my favorite, which can be misconstrued as saying I liked that class because HE WAS IN IT. And. And yeah. And I’m pretty sure my face is BEET RED right now, because, because I WAS EMBARRASSED! Not because I’m INTO HIM, but because it’s embarrassing that I pretty much don’t rember ANY of the other kids from that course! I rember more ASSIGNNT HEADINGS than I do people, from back then! What have… what have I done?!!

In a fluster Tabitha started forward, darting past so of the people walking ahead of her and rushing out of the classroom and towards where everyone from the many classes was spilling out into the hall. Jake was way off towards her left heading away from her, and though that was not the direction she needed to go to get to her next class over by the back quad, Tabitha dashed over his way, weaving around the different teenagers as best as she could.

“Jake! Jake,” Tabitha called, persisting until he noticed her and turned around.

“Jacob,” Jacob rolled his eyes.

“That’s what I said,” Tabitha gave him a breathless laugh. “Listen, Jake—hey uh, can you actually not say anything? Seriously. About what we just talked about. Matt Haynes. Can you just sorta not tell him any of that? It’s, ah, embarrassing.”

“Uhh?” Jacob gave her a baffled smile. “Yeah, sure? Secret’s safe with , dawg. Pfft—”

“Thanks, Jake,” Tabitha held up her hand for an awkward fist bump. “Homie.”

People were trying to get by as they lingered there standing in the hall, and so other guy jostled Tabitha’s shoulder, turning their fist bump into an a cringeworthy mont where instead their closed hands almost smacked knuckles against one another but more like they were just brushing the cuffs of each other’s jackets.

“Cool, uh—catch you later?” Tabitha forced a smile, still furiously blushing. “On the bus.”

She turned and fled back the other way, mortified, and it took her another minute to rember that she had Art Club today after school. She would not, in fact, catch him later on the bus. Shoving all of these awful realizations deep down inside herself and repressing them as much as humanly possible, Tabitha mumbled the lyrics to Get What You Give under her breath to herself as if it were a buddhist chant which could ward off embarrassnt.

Well, at least I caught him just in ti and absolutely cleared THAT whole misunderstanding up, Tabitha lied to herself. Yeah. Yeah. But, did I just try to say ‘homie?’ Oh my god. That was the most ‘how do you do, fellow kids’ thing I think I’ve ever said. By a country mile. Ugghhh—! It’s because he said ‘dawg,’ and like—I imdiately had to reply in that sa vein, and absolutely nothing else ca to mind! UGGGHHH!

At this point she also couldn’t help but wonder just who Matt Haynes really was. Elena said she vaguely rembered him from Laurel middle, but Tabitha frankly did not rember anyone from back then aside from Elena and Carrie. Jake bringing him up seed to indicate that this Matt Haynes was part of the circle of basketball kids, like Gary, the ones who congregated at the high school basketball court before classes started and during lunch.

Wait a minute, Tabitha thought to herself as she tried to pick her way along the familiar route to the back quad in a hurry. Where even ARE the basketball courts, here? I don’t think I’ve ever even been to them. In either life.

Her ntal map of the school had plenty of gray areas where she was pretty foggy on where stuff was, because she didn’t ever have cause to explore in those directions. In fact, to her dismay she realized that she had visited more of Springton High in that dream where she was about to maybe kiss Bobby, than she had in real life! Tabitha was intimately familiar with the library and the lunchroom—both had been her go-to places to sit last lifeti. She was pretty familiar now with the ins and outs of the back quad area, the track and field portion of campus, and the science building she’d just left behind.

Otherwise… I don’t really step off the beaten path much, do I? Tabitha realized with a wince. Wow. So NEW LIFE this is, huh? I haven’t even really stepped into the student parking lot, yet. Just gazed at it with longing from afar. I know that’s the big huge hangout spot for upperclassn. Well, we’ll see how things go. I’m only a freshman. Freshn basically aren’t supposed to stick their nose into too many cool kids’ areas yet, anyhow.

Tabitha crossed the bustling back quad and then entered the art room. Her detour speaking with Jake hadn’t made her too late, but to her dismay Amber had already arrived and was waiting. The barstools in this class made it easy for her to sit the other way watching the door, and Amber’s grin widened as she laid eyes on Tabitha and she held up a hand and wiggled her fingers in mocking way.

“Ta-bi-tha~!” Amber called. “So, you’re having it out with all of the cheerleaders, too? Gurl, you better watch you aren’t fixin’ to bite off more’n you can chew—”

“Amber?” Tabitha stopped partway to her own table in the opposite corner. “Or, is it Amanda?”

“Excuse ?” Amber’s eyebrows went up.

“I keep confusing you two,” Tabitha said, feeling extraordinarily catty right now and sure to regret it later. “Because—I have Amanda in first period, and you just sort of repeat the sa things I already hear from her every day, hah. So, this gets kind of redundant and I start to feel like you’re just kind of… extra.”

“Aw yeah?” Amber’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Ever think that if you’re hearin’ everyone call you a fuckin’ retard, might just be because you—”

“Don’t bla if I start getting y’all confused,” Tabitha spoke over Amber. “It’s kind of la that you’re just copying everything she says, word for word? Unoriginal? If you’re going to copy her howork, at least change it up a little so you don’t get caught? Thanks.”

Rather than satisfied that she’d ca up with a pretty okay rejoinder to shoot back at Amber this ti, Tabitha instead found she was incredibly irritated with herself as she trudged the rest of the way over to her spot and dropped her book bag onto table six. Amber had tried to get in the last word but was scolded by Mr. Peterson who’d heard the girl f-bomb, and that gave Tabitha a mont to discreetly attempt to recompose herself and shove so of those ugly feelings deep back down inside the hole in her soul that these obnoxious girls were eroding within her.

First and foremost, Tabitha acknowledged that she was learning. Forcing herself to be confrontational this week had taught her that one of her biggest, rookie mistakes was stopping to listen to the opposition. This was not a polite debate where one should wait one’s turn to speak up, and despite cutting the other person off going against Tabitha’s natural inclination, it actually helped a lot. Waiting for the enemy to finish saying her piece was foolish, and Tabitha was going to rember to just stop doing that, period.

No, what really, REALLY just—PISSES OFF, is WHAT I find myself saying, Tabitha ground her teeth. And HOW.

Just yesterday in her attempt to quickly throw a coback at the other cheerleader girl—Desiree, she now knew her to be—Tabitha had copied the annoying lilt that girl used, her high rising terminal she ended off sentences with to sound very valley girl. Then, just now she’d used y’all when interrupting Amber, because Amber’s dialect was much more aggressive country girl. Heck, even just a few minutes earlier, Tabitha had been mortified to find herself using the slang word ‘homie’ with Jake—it had just sort of slipped out of her mouth unbidden, in response to him using street dialect like ‘dawg.’

Okay, so. What I THINK is happening, is— Tabitha’s mind raced as she held one hand across her stomach, feeling a little sick. Well. My normal INTROVERT stress response, it’s been talking like a robot with people. Parents, adults. Right? Or, maybe not a robot, per se. Sandra teased that it was speaking like a duchess—it’s when I tense up and my speech patterns beco super rigid. My thought patterns beco rigid under duress, I guess, and then my manner of speech follows?

But then, in really FORCING myself to be ‘extroverted’ so that I can socialize and interact with people at school, then I guess… Tabitha thought about it and tried considering every angle. I guess that what’s really been happening is that I’m forcing myself PAST that rigidity reflex I would normally have, and instead I’m becoming extrely malleable? No, maybe that’s not the right word. Impressionable? I really am just starting to pick up mannerisms from people around and reflect the way that they speak. In a way that I normally would not. At all.

While on the one hand it was probably a good thing that a fourteen-year-old mind was flexible enough to adapt to situations in that manner, it also made Tabitha want to puke. She hated the idea that each of these encounters was indelibly changing her personality, because that made her feel like this lodramatic high school nonsense was contaminating her. Like she was gradually—or maybe not so gradually, because she’d only been back to school for a single week—turning into the kind of girl she’d always despised.

Corrupted, maybe that’s the word I’m looking for? Tabitha smoothed out her jacket and tried to recompose herself. I, well. I wanted to stop being such a fucking doormat, and here’s how it happens. This is what it takes. Absorbing the way these girls act and being influenced by that, learning all of the little an tricks they use to survive constant confrontation. Just, it. It kind of makes sick?

It had been a while since she felt so uncomfortable and out of sorts with herself, and so reflexive part of her just wanted to throw in the towel and retreat back into who she used to be. The girl who hid in the library, avoiding all of these disasters. Tabitha had still managed to make a friend or two while being like that back then, and comparing her previous self’s fear of everyone and her current fear of herself she wasn’t sure which was better.

“Hey, Tabitha,” The one boy at their table, Eric, slung his backpack onto the other side of Table six and grabbed his barstool.

“Hey…” Tabitha greeted him back with a sigh.

“You alright?” Eric asked, freezing in place as if considering what he might have done wrong.

“I don’t know, man,” Tabitha let out a small laugh. “It’s just one thing after another, today.”

“Yeah,” Eric bobbed his head in agreent. For a mont it seed as if he wasn’t sure what else to say, and then he simply repeated his question. “But, you alright?”

“Not really?” Tabitha answered.

“I’ve been hearin’ stuff all day,” Eric said, having trouble eting her eyes. “So, yeah. Sure you don’t want to hear any of it again from .”

“It’s pretty exhausting,” Tabitha admitted, sitting up and giving Stacy a small smile as that girl arrived and took her seat with them. “For all that everyone apparently talks about —I’m really not half as interesting or exciting as everyone wants to make out to be.”

“What’s going on?” Stacy asked.

“Sa awful drama, new day,” Tabitha shrugged. “Nothing new, I don’t think.”

“Ah,” Stacy said. “They talk about you in my one other class. Say that now you’re trying to get all of Springton Cheer completely disbanded—I know not to believe too much of what all goes around.”

“Wow,” Tabitha was actually a little impressed. “That one certainly snowballed into a tall tale.”

“They all do,” Eric sniffed. “Now, ? I never believed any of them. They’re all full of shit. These sa people all used to call a creep, through most of middle school. I’d let it slip to my one friend that I maybe had a crush on this one girl? Before you knew it, sobody had told everybody—until by the ti word got round to Mary, I was absolutely obsessed with her and stalking her, had a shrine of stolen locks of hair or gum wads she’d chewed or whatever to her in my closet. It was nuts, she freaked the hell out. Her friend Christina and this other girl ca by and told to stay the hell away from her. Ruined my reputation, I basically just stuck by myself for all of eighth grade. So, yeah—when that many people all start talking about soone, I right away assu it’s all just complete and utter bullshit.”

“Oh, wow,” Stacy blinked. “That really sucks, sorry. Does Mary go here to Springton?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Eric gave them an expressive shrug. “That ship has sailed. Or uh, sunk, I guess, as it were.”

“Sorry, Eric,” Tabitha genuinely felt for him. “I can definitely empathize.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Eric let out a bitter laugh. “Anyways. We have to finish these drawings today, you think? Or, tomorrow. I rember he said we were starting sothing new on Friday.”

“I hope tomorrow,” Stacy winced. “Mine looks like toddler doodlings.”

“Mine’s not much better,” Tabitha admitted. “If—”

“Tabitha!” Vanessa called over.

Tabitha turned to see the short girl with the pompom hat dashing over towards their table, and when Vanessa grabbed a barstool the tal legs made a god awful screech across the art room flooring that made the kids filing in for the start of class flinch.

“So! Now everyone is saying that maybe the whole cheer team is gonna get disbanded!” Vanessa reported with glee. “And, not only that. Get this. I was listening to these other girls from across the room, in my fifth period? One of them said ‘Faith the Cow.’ Like Tiff started saying, this morning! I was like oh my god, I can’t believe that’s already spreading around. Good. I hope it sticks to her for the rest of her freaking life!”

It’s a high school nickna, Tabitha wanted to facepalm. Sotis I really do wonder if these kids don’t all realize that high school stuff mostly stops mattering after high school. Almost everyone moves out of Springton to go to college or university sowhere else, and not that many of them ever co back. Just the LIFERS.

“See what I an?” Eric spread his hands towards Vanessa.

“Shut up, creepazoid,” Vanessa scoffed, glaring daggers at him.

“We were just talking about—” Eric tried to explain.

“Uhh, nuh-uh, nope, not listening~!” Vanessa held her hand up and then flicked her palm towards Eric with a twirl of her wrist. “Talk to the hand.”

Oh wow, Tabitha couldn’t help but stare. I… I never thought I’d see soone do that in real life. Like, unironically just… pull that off. What’s that even FROM? Boy ets World? Family Matters? Salute Your Shorts?

The bmmm bmmm bmmm bmmmm over the speakers indicated the start of class, and most everyone took their seats. Mr. Peterson rose from behind his desk and asked for the table leaders to go and fetch the respective period six art folders for their table, prompting Vanessa to hop down off her perch and follow the others towards the store room. The classroom had already quieted down at that point, so when the door opened up again and Clarissa stepped in late, everyone turned to look her way.

“Late!” Mr. Peterson jabbed an accusing finger through the air at her in a joking voice. “She’s late, everyone, look at her!”

“S-sorry,” Clarissa’s face went red. “Um—”

“Not gonna mark you tardy this ti, but go and sit yourself at the kiddy table and feel real bad about it, alright?” Mr. Peterson waved her on with his fearso smile. “You’re late, and that ans you’ve hurt my feelings. Next ti, you won’t be so lucky! Go on, now. Can we have a round of applause for… Clarissa, looks like she’s the first one to sit at the kiddy table for this period!”

Tabitha noticed that Mr. Peterson still had to check his attendance clipboard to recall the girl’s na, as this was still the first week of the new sester. An enthusiastic round of applause actually went around however as Clarissa scurried over to sit alone at the very front table by herself, absolutely mortified, and for a few monts it actually didn’t look like the clapping was going to stop.

“Alright, alright, cut it out, now,” Mr. Peterson yelled. “Geez-us. You guys are animals. Alright, get to work, get to work! Table six leader?”

“Uhh?” Vanessa was already shuffling back with the others from the store room with the big art folder that contained their drawing sheets. “Yes?”

“Make sure your girl at the kiddy table gets her assignnt, as well,” Mr. Peterson pointed. “The one who’s sitting all by her loneso.”

“Yes, Commander,” Vanessa threw a mocking salute.

“Yeah yeah, keep it up, fuzzball—and pretty soon, your friend won’t be sittin’ alone there after all!” Mr. Peterson laughed. “Alright, alright. Simr down, folks. Get to work.”

Table six remained quiet today once everyone realized that their first assignnt here was almost due. Everyone busied themselves with their drawings of the wine bottles and champagne flutes, occasionally taking silent glances upwards to double-check the pieces in the center of the table. A few rather discreet looks around the others’ work revealed quite a bit of disparity—Vanessa sohow didn’t even have the full silhouette outlines drawn even after several days of this, because she had been talking a lot. Eric, on the other hand not only had everything drawn, all of his depicted glassware was shaded in with the side of his pencil, sothing Tabitha hadn’t even considered. Stacy’s work looked almost identical to Tabitha’s, as they seed to be at the sa skill level, and if not for the difference in perspective placent she might have confused one of their papers for the other.

With her outlines drawn in and corrected and then her tracing in a faint set of lines to depict the parts of glassware that were obscured behind other glassware, Tabitha was at a bit of a loss as to what details she might attempt to tackle next. She suspected trying to shade everything in like Eric had would turn her okayish looking drawing here into a complete ss. With a frown of concentration, Tabitha spent a bit of extra ti detailing the screwcap grooves on one of the antique bottles, and then went through and carefully adjusted the topmost lip of the wine bottle to better match its appearance.

I guess the next visual thing that pops out to , that I should maybe have a go at is the highlights? Tabitha stared at the stuff in the middle of the table. Like, the reflection of the overhead lights. Those are what really made Eric’s sort of pop and look more three-dinsional, I think. Just… well, I do NOT have confidence to try to sketch in like a complete map of everything the different glass shapes are reflecting…

As it turned out, penciling in just little blobby shapes on the glass to indicate the overhead lights made her drawing look cartoonish. She made a face at the result she’d spent ten minutes trying to recreate, wondering if she should erase them or not. Tabitha thought they appeared a bit over-stylized, sohow, but maybe not in a bad way? Surely Mr. Peterson would look at it and at least appreciate that an attempt had been made. The remainder of class ti before the final bell was spent with Tabitha touching up places here and there, altogether reluctant to make bigger changes to the project and perhaps ruin what she already had.

When that bell did finally sound, Tabitha forced herself to remain in place at her seat as everyone else in the class gathered up their things and started to head out. Vanessa had been trying to play catch-up and was drawing until the last second. Then the girl had to grab up everyone’s big art papers in a hurry to return to the table six folder, which she ran back to the store room, while Stacy and Eric left without a word. Clarissa for so reason noticed that Tabitha was making no move to leave and hesitated, as if wondering what was up.

“Art Club’s after school, today,” Tabitha explained. “I’m going to try to join.”

“Oh, um,” Clarissa glanced around. “Is anybody allowed to sign up?”

“I think so?” Tabitha said. “Are you interested in art stuff? Oh, but uh—I think the big thing is, you’d need to be able to find a ride ho, then. Since the buses all leave.”

“Ah, right,” Clarissa nodded. “Then, I’d better go. I, well, I just wanted to say thanks for this morning. For letting us sit with you guys. And uh, sorry for Ashlee. She was kinda on edge, so…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tabitha assured her. “Co sit with us whenever, alright? Oh—but don’t make miss your bus.”

“Yeah,” Clarissa gave her a weak smile as she turned and trudged for the door. “Catch you later?”

“Later!”

“Everything okay over there, Tabitha?” Mr. Peterson called, noticing that she hadn’t budged from her seat.

“Art Club?” Tabitha said. “I was uh. I was told to be here!”

“Ooh, right right, right on,” Mr. Peterson said, giving her an appreciative nod. “Cool beans. They’ll all be in in a minute.”

With that, he settled back in behind his desk and took up the mouse, clicking through work on his computer. For what felt like several excruciatingly long minutes Tabitha sat in silence waiting for others to arrive—they had ntioned that Art Club was hard up for mbers, but surely soone would show up! Looking for sothing to occupy herself, Tabitha grabbed her bookbag from the floor in front of her stool and settled it on the scarred and pitted art table in front of her. Opening up the flap and looking for sothing to focus on revealed her Gaboy, but she wasn’t sure if Mr. Peterson would allow them to just play videogas, or if the little handheld device was considered contraband or not.

“They say anything to you ‘bout an Art Club t-shirt?” Mr. Peterson called over, not looking up from his monitor.

“Fifty dollars,” Tabitha reported back with an exasperated smile.

“Fifty dollars! Holy cow,” Mr. Peterson’s cheshire grin widened. “That’s one for the record books. We make sales like that, we’ll be set for a good long while. Start splurging on poster prints, maybe. Damn.”

Janaye was the first to arrive, and Tabitha felt surprised that her appearance sparked recollection of the na after a long week struggling to rember everyone she’d t. The girl was dressed in a long dark skirt, and that sa small golden cross hung over a gray turtleneck, this ti. Upon entering the girl glanced across the art room and noticed Tabitha, but her gaze didn’t linger, and instead the girl stood up at Mr. Peterson’s desk and chatted with him at a volu Tabitha could almost but not quite make out.

Okay, not any kind of big deal, Tabitha took the dismissive attitude in stride. She definitely seems like one of the older upperclassman girls. Can imagine why she wouldn’t be thrilled with soone like who has all sorts of drama and nonsense attached, potentially dragging all of THAT into her safe space, here.

When the door opened next, it was a guy she’d never seen before, thin and reedy, with mussed brown curls and glasses. This one gave Mr. Peterson a wave and then dropped off his bag at one of the tables before spotting Tabitha—he gave her a smile and imdiately approached.

“Hey!” The guy offered her a hand. “William, but everyone calls Bill.”

“Tabitha,” Tabitha said, clasping hands with him and putting on a polite smile.

“I figured!” Bill jerked his chin in the direction of the large blown-up photo of Tabitha running towards the fallen police officer. “Alicia kept sayin’ she was gonna get you in here to model for us.”

“Oh, did she?” Tabitha’s smile beca a wry one. “I don’t think she ntioned that bit to .”

“Ha, whoops!” Bill laughed. “Well hey, hope you stick around? They get you a shirt yet?”

“I um, well I don’t have fifty dollars,” Tabitha joked. “So…”

“Fifty dollars…?” Bill almost doubled over as he wheezed out a laugh. “Whoa, man. Yo, Mister Pete! This girl here just said fifty—”

“I know, I know, I already heard,” Mr. Peterson chuckled. “Well, heck. She can just pay in installnts.”

“Installnts!” Bill clutched his chest and bent backwards this ti as he laughed. “Oh, man. Installnts. That is choice.”

Sticking near the teacher’s desk, Janaye cast a bemused smile in their direction and made a point to roll her eyes at Bill’s antics.

Next to arrive were Casey and Matthew, and they ca into the room holding hands. Casey was wearing track pants and an oversized WildCats hoodie, while Matthew was wearing jeans and hunting camouflage not too dissimilar from the big coat hunting jacket Tabitha had borrowed for school earlier in the week. To her surprise, watching them co in as a couple brought out a flash of pure envy from Tabitha. She knew Matthew was objectively cute, but it wasn’t really attraction she felt—she envied that they were together, that they had soone to be with.

They’re not even showing off, really, Tabitha suppressed a sigh. The way they go around together it’s like they’re just an old married couple. It’s SO FUCKING ADORABLE. Like, I’m kind of interested in Bobby, but I’m not sure I can even picture going around like that with him. Bobby seems like a different vibe? Higher energy? I do feel much more comfortable around Bobby, but… well, just LOOK AT THESE TWO. It’s like they have this deep inner peace or serenity. I’m super jealous.

Casey cocked her head upon spotting Tabitha and flashed a grin and a wave, but whatever she was about to say was cut off as Alicia bounded into the room at a jog, her padded parka folded and wadded up beneath one arm.

“Tabs!” Alicia squealed in delight.

The parka was tossed upon one of the tables in passing as Alicia hurried across the room to envelop Tabitha in an enthusiastic hug.

“You made it!” Alicia exclaid, squeezing tight. “Guys! She made it! Here, get this nasty gross putrescent thing off. Off! Off!”

“Oh! Um—” Tabitha let out a nervous laugh.

It was hard not to be self-conscious when insistent hands unzipped the offending Springton Spirit cheerleader jacket and then tug and wrestle it back off of Tabitha’s arms—Tabitha felt herself flush as the rest of the art room looked on in amusent. It felt strange to see her friend Alicia this outgoing and forward, but she didn’t dislike it.

“Burn it!” William jeered. “Buuurn it!”

“Hey, whoa whoa whoa,” Mr. Peterson thumped a fist upon his teacher’s desk. “Guys. What’d I tell you guys about burning stuff, and class warfare?”

“‘Don’t get caught,’” Casey chirped out with a decisive nod. “Got it. Matthew—get the matches.”

“Uh—” Tabitha blanched, for a mont afraid they might actually try to torch it. “I’m not a cheerleader, yet! And, hah. Coach Baylor has been very nice to ?”

“Fine, fine,” Casey flourished her hand dismissively. “But. You can’t wear enemy colors in here! Matthew. The box!”

“The box!” Matthew called, heading for the store room.

“Not the box!” William faux-protested in a tinny voice.

“Oh yes!” Casey harumphed. “It’s ti. This’ll be our first fifty dollar sale.”

“Ahem,” Alicia giggled. “Well. On account of Tabitha being my very close friend, I think she is eligible for our close friends discount. So—fifty five dollars.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Fifty-five?!” Tabitha played along with mock outrage, pulling out a ten dollar bill. “Aw, man.”

“With friends like that, who needs enemies?” Mr. Peterson ribbed, earning an eye roll of exasperation from Janaye. “Right? Right?! C’mon, now.”

“Yoink,” Casey grabbed the ten dollars from Tabitha. “Easy money. Heh heh heh heh.”

Matthew returned with a cardboard box from the store room, dropping it down on the table across from her and then flipping the flaps open to reveal neatly folded blue shirts with white lettering. To her surprise the whole little club—even Janaye—gathered in close around the tables to see her don one of their shirts. Which of course made Tabitha realize—only William and Alicia seed to be visible wearing the blue Art Club shirts right now.

“What size we goin’ with?” Matthew asked, awkwardly sizing her up. “Uhh. dium?”

“Small,” Alicia insisted. “Tabby’s like, ninety pounds soaking wet.”

“Large!” Casey guessed. “You want one that’s big an’ comfy, right? Like this.”

With a mont of silent struggle, they watched as Casey shucked the big WildCats hoodie off to reveal an equally oversized Art Club shirt on beneath. It was tucked into her track pants, which seed like a very bizarre fashion statent to make this late into the nineties. Wearing a huge shirt and then tucking it in seed more from the early Saved by the Bell tis, whereas in high school today Tabitha observed the kids mimicking more unkempt indie sleaze, post-grunge, or ‘street’ sportswear looks. This was a semi-rural Kentucky town but it still couldn’t escape contemporary Arican culture, and here in 1999 most everyone was already right on the cusp of plunging headlong into the pop era. Well, Casey does seem more the type to just do things her own way, have her own unique sort of style?

“Um,” Tabitha faltered as she considered the sizes. “diu—”

“Small!” Alicia giggled, pushing past Matthew to rifle through the box. “I wear a dium, and it’s like already baggy on . Here, look.”

“Okay, okay!” Tabitha found it hard to stifle Alicia’s persistence. “I can… try it? Just, I uh. I’ve never worn a small in my life.”

“You what?!” Alicia stared at her in disbelief as she held up a shirt and shook it to unfold it. “Ohhh, right. ‘Cause you used to be, uh. Heavier and all that. But like—you can totally wear a small!”

“Can I?” Tabitha wasn’t sure whose permission she was asking, but the Art Club tee was pushed into her hands all the sa.

“Try it on,” Alicia demanded. “Just like, put it on over your one you’ve got on now.”

Upon close examination, the blue t-shirt had the simple words Springton High Art Club at the top in blocky white print, while beneath was a detailed transfer of the iconic M. C. Escher hands drawing themselves into existence lithograph. It looked pretty neat, and she found herself much more excited to wear one of them and be part of this group than she had in putting on the Springton Cheer jacket. Even if, honestly, I’m not really much of an artist at all. Hah.

“Okay?” Tabitha gave her a wincing smile. “But uh. I’ll look ridiculuous, this one I’ve already got on now is bigger, so—”

“Run on down to the restrooms,” William suggested. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“We’ve got a changing room, dork,” Casey rebutted. “Jay? Could you show Tabs to the changing room real quick?”

“I can do it!” Alicia pouted. “Let —”

“No way, josé!” Casey shot her down. “Janaye’s the theatre kid.”

Holding up the small shirt and comparing it against her body it seed like it should probably fit, but Tabitha didn’t have too much ti to consider as Janaye gestured for her to follow. The taciturn upperclassman girl then led her through the store room that bridged the two classrooms—Tabitha barely had ti to take in the visual cacophony of racks, shelves and cluttered heaps of costus, painted props, stage sections, and equipnt—and then through to the theatre room proper.

While most actual theatre practices and performances would take place over in the auditorium, the classroom itself for drama courses was very strange. Rather than forward-facing rows of student desks, they circled the edge of the room in two big inward-facing rings, along with several couches in the corners. The ‘front’ of the room where a whiteboard and teacher’s desk would have normally been was blocked off with giant red stage curtains, in front of which was an overly elaborate victorian chaise lounge that seed to be the centerpiece where Mrs. Hart taught from. Posters for both school plays and famous films decorated the walls along with several elaborate photo collages.

“Mrs. Hart?” Janaye stopped just inside the doorway to ask the empty room.

“Yes~?” A frivolous female voice called from sowhere. “Who is it?”

“Janaye Davis, from the Art Club,” Janaye reported. “We have a new mber, would it be alright if she changes into her shirt in—”

“Well of course! Of course of course of course,” The mysterious voice behind the curtain called. “Co!”

Janaye brought the curious Tabitha forward and then drew back heavy curtain folds to reveal a long sliver of room hidden behind—on one end, a desk with a computer where Mrs. Hart sat in a swivel chair regarding them, and then on the other end a row of filing cabinets that cordoned off a small private area with a vertically mounted wall mirror and rolling racks with empty hangers for garnts that was clearly the changing area. While the decor throughout the classroom proper was bright and whimsical, the behind the curtain area was dark, sparse, and clinical and the teacher’s administrative things being hidden back here gave it that distinct I’m not supposed to be back here feeling.

“Well hell-o!” Mrs. Hart clasped her hands together. “I know you! Miss Tabitha. Welco, welco! Joining the arts, are we?”

“Um—” Tabitha blushed.

“The art club? Of course, of course—go on ahead, dearie,” Mrs. Hart assured her. “I’ll be tip-typing away, don’t mind over here. Or, do you need more privacy?”

Mrs. Hart used the British pronunciation priv-uh-see rather than the Arican pry-vuh-see, but her overall speaking accent didn’t seem to skew British—from her teasing tone, it seed to be a performative nuance that she simply did for her own amusent.

The theatre teacher was a slender pretty woman in her thirties Tabitha was able to recognize with ease simply because she had always been so eccentric and extra. Despite being relatively young to Tabitha’s seasoned eyes, Mrs. Hart wore her bleached-white hair in a very short pixie-cut, seemingly styled after Da Judi Dench’s iconic look. Rather outrageous leopard-print slacks were worn beneath a large turquoise shawl, and from the temple-pieces of her large silver eyeglasses dangled a strap chain made of pearl beads. Mrs. Hart also had an obvious love for jewelry of all kinds—wearing a half-dozen rings, bracelets, and bangles, each following a clear silver decorated with pearl motif.

“Oh! No, you’re fine,” Tabitha assured her. “I don’t want to impose. I’ll be quick?”

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Hart nodded with a smile, turning back to her computer monitor. “Go on ahead!”

For a very brief mont as Tabitha changed clothes, she recalled thinking back upon the titular Mrs. Hart in her previous life when she was going gray and finally decided to wear her hair short. Despite already being old at that point, she’d nurtured a rather childish hope that cropping things short would capture so of that bold chic essence that Mrs. Hart had embodied… but other than being easier to manage, the drastic change to her look hadn’t raised her confidence or esteem. Her appearance even after the stomach ulcers ushered in incredible weight loss had not been flattering, it simply seed to give her jowls and extra skin everywhere—Taekwondo exercise had helped, but it could not create miracles or undo a lifeti of unhealthy choices.

The librarian chic blouse Tabitha chose this morning was slipped off, and then the Art Club tee pulled on—Tabitha’s first imdiate impression was that it was way too tight. It felt like it fit wrong, it felt constricting and seed to hug up against her body beneath her bra line in a way she was not used to at all. To her surprise, the sleeves didn’t seem to pinch at her arms too much, and the bottom hem when smoothed out extended on way past her high-waisted pants. It looked great, actually—by all appearances she looked like a slightly more daring Tabitha, one who was much more confident in showing off her petite figure.

Question is, Tabitha examined herself in surprise. ...Am I that Tabitha? I think maybe I am!

To her surprise, Mrs. Hart followed them back through the store room and into Mr. Peterson’s art room, because she had sothing to announce. As this seed to be related to the agenda of today’s Art Club eting, Tabitha hurried back to sit near Alicia, who gave her appearance in the shirt an appreciative look and a silent pair of thumbs up.

“Ladies, gentlen—boys and girls…” Mrs. Hart clasped her hands together for their attention. “I am very pleased to announce that we will be performing The Wiz as our spring musical. Now. We always love love love to collaborate with our dear, dear friends here in the Art Club, and your wise and benevolent leader Miss Casey—applause, please—”

The scattered kids obliged with enthusiastic claps in support of Casey, who threw up peace signs with both hands.

“—Thank you, the beautiful and talented Miss Casey has once again agreed to host concessions and an art show in conjunction with our musical. Casey, love?”

“Okay! So,” Casey stood up from her barstool to address the club. “These are just preliminary discussions! The musical is a couple months away, yet. But, yeah. In years past, the theatre kids’d just do their own concessions. They had the big glass popcorn machine… but, it up and died.”

“If I might interrupt to ask if there was anything—” Mrs. Hart turned a pleading look towards Mr. Peterson.

“Heating elent went kaput, apparently!” Mr. Peterson explained with a grin. “I took ‘er apart and had a looksie, but hell, we’d have to order in so specialty replacent part or other. Except, we don’t know the na of the part we need, and we don’t know who we’d order it from, and we don’t know what make and model of machine we’ve got, ‘cause the tag plate’s gone and over the years the operating manual has been, uh, misplaced.”

“We’ll find it yet!” Mrs. Hart declared with a sigh and a rather unconvincing shake of her fist. “I do rember having it. We surely have it sowhere or other. Surely.”

“How much to replace the entire thing?” Janaye asked, pencil poised to take notes. “Like, getting a whole new one?”

“I dunno, two, maybe three hundred dollars?” Mr. Peterson chuckled. “Let’s just say it’s not in the art departnt budget, right now. From what I can tell, the one we’ve got is so ancient old popper stand from the sixties or seventies.”

“I still say we can make do with a little ho air popper,” William insisted. “Like, listen. All we need is a clean tank, or like an iguana aquarium that’s got a heat lamp, and a little ho air popper to keep makin’ batches, until we have enough for a whole big group of people. We can—”

“We’re not dumping popcorn in a fishtank!” Matthew laughed. “Jesus.”

“Byaahhhhhh,” Mr. Peterson made a denial buzzer sound. “No can do anyhow, hombre. Too loud! The little air poppers.”

“We’ve tried!” Mrs. Hart admitted with a look of distress. “Even all the way outside the auditorium, air poppers are just so loud! It’s very disruptive for the performances!”

“Yeaaah,” Casey laughed. “They tried that, back during my sophomore year.”

“So… no biggie, we plug in at so spot way further away?” William persisted. “Don’t have to pop it all right out there in the foyer. Have a runner rush each batch over towards—”

“Not practical!” Casey veto’d the idea. “S’an intermission art show! Not a relay race. Principal Edwards, he’s all twitchy about having other areas of the school unlocked after hours, anyways. And! Snacks doesn’t have to an popcorn. I’m thinking, like—keep it simple. Giant pretzel with a napkin, sothing like that. Mixed nuts, or trail mix, or pretzel sticks in a paper cup. Principal Edwards said, has to be snacks, can’t be like, actual food. He doesn’t want that kind of ss in the auditorium. Said it has to be sothing we can just sweep up real quick.”

Ooh! OOH! I could bake cookies! Tabitha’s eyes lit up. I could bake SO many cookies!

“For you newcors, the general idea is—” Mr. Peterson explained. “During the intermission of the play, musical, whatever, all the parents and whatnot can file outta the auditorium, grab a real cheap snack, and wander about our little art show area in the foyer just outside for a couple minutes. Appreciating all of the artwork. S’not a contest, there aren’t gonna be ribbons or prizes, and no, William, we’re not selling art.”

“Oh, so we’re selling pretzel sticks but never actual art—” William groused. “So art show this—”

“Shush!” Casey reprimanded. “We would very much appreciate if everyone in Art Club can help prepare, participate and volunteer for this! So, half hour before each show to help set up, help sell snacks before the show, and then also at intermission. After intermission, we break down and cart everything back to the art room. Two shows? Three? Spread out over a couple weeks?”

“Just two, this ti,” Mrs. Hart said. “I’m told there is a ho ga on the schedule that third weekend, and no oh no, we don’t like to have our performances overlap. Football?”

“Baseball,” Matthew corrected.

“Ah, yes!” Mrs. Hart said. “Baseball. So it was.”

“Um,” Tabitha raised her good hand. “What all is involved with setting up and breaking down an art show? Are we putting all the art on… individual easels?”

“We’ve got three big easels for large paintings,” Mr. Peterson explained. “In our Paint course, the little ones are sixteen by twenty-four, and then the bigguns are twenty-four by thirty-six. Then we’ve got four small wire display racks, artwork goes up to it with binder clips—so of the real nice little paintings and the posterboards the drawing classes work on fit on those. Each have a cent bucket to put in the bottom, so that they’re not getting elbowed over, or anything—and then we have… our art wall.”

“Our art wall is like a big wooden changing room divider, it stands on its own just by the zigzag way it stands up,” Casey said. “It’s uh, it’s heavy. It’s real heavy. Six big plywood sections, and it’s as tall as I am. The concrete bucket things for the display racks are heavy as hell, too. So. Whether or not we need everybody there for just selling snacks, it’d be really nice if we have as many hands as possible moving the art wall out and getting it set up.”

“Are we using both sides of the wall?” Matthew asked. “Or, just one?”

“Depends, depends,” Mr. Peterson grunted out with a laugh. “We’ll see.”

“We’ll see?” Tabitha blinked.

“Our uh, rule of thumb is we take all the outstanding artwork from classes,” Mr. Peterson elaborated, gesturing with his palms as if to indicate placing art on the art wall. “Like, you’re in Art 2D doing still life portraits, I’ve got two of those classes running, so—fifty or sixty kids, all doing still lifes. We take the best few of those, that’ll be one face of the art wall. Ideally, we’ll have the best few from each course assignnt, whatever all looks real good we can get in a three-month period. But hey, sotis none of ‘em exactly turn out to be showpieces.”

“I’m sure they’re all lovely!” Mrs. Hart said in an encouraging voice.

“Let’s just say that with so of these kids, gettin’ them to actually spend ti on their projects is like pullin’ teeth,” Mr. Peterson chuckled, shaking his head. “Lotsa talk talk talk-ing, not a lot of work work work-ing. ‘Look at this unfinished piece! It’s titled; DISTRACTION!”

Tabitha couldn’t help but smile and think of Vanessa.

“It’s mostly gonna be paintings,” Matthew comnted. “The stuff the juniors and seniors do usually uh, usually just turns out better? Rather than the stuff from beginner classes or like, the freshman stuff… no offense.”

“Prejudice!” Alicia growled. “Prejudice! Down with the upperclassn!”

Tabitha caught an elbow from Alicia as the girl prompted her to join in, but despite being the other freshman here, she was too embarrassed to speak up.

“Pencil drawings don’t exactly pop the sa when they’re all in an exhibition together with paintings, but yeah, you get the idea,” Mr. Peterson grinned. “I play fair! I do try to select the best-looking ones from each course.”

“Question!” Alicia raised a hand. “Tabitha here does fashion, like, designer clothes stuff. Blouses. And, I know there’s a mannequin there in the store room…”

“Neither of those were questions!” Mr. Peterson chuckled. “Hey—I’m cool with it. Fashion is art. However, that said… I believe our mannequin is male, and I do believe it’s broken at the base? Mrs. Hart?”

“Our dear Mister Mannequin had a glass baseplate, with a tal rod fixture thingamabob that fit up into one of the legs,” Mrs. Hart sighed. “He was picked up when all those Stewart’s departnt stores in Louisville closed down—but, a student was moving things, and the baseplate hit sothing the wrong way, and… poof! The glass part exploded into little itty bitty pieces. Which we still keep finding everywhere. Sohow.”

“Oh…” Tabitha’s shoulders drooped. “Well, if it was a male body mannequin anyways, then I guess it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Not so, not so—no big deal!” Casey shook her head. “We can make mannequin forms ourselves. Wrap a uh, volunteer in so cling wrap, go around that with a stupid amount of duct tape. Easy peasy, just lots of layers. Then, you basically have to cut them out of it, and tape the empty shell back together. Uhh, with the inside filled with like, stuffed up newspapers. We did it at youth group a while back to make scarecrow-sorta things for a Halloween display thing. We will have to figure out a way to keep it standing up on your own, though. We lashed ours with twine to a fence post we stuck right in the ground back then, but yeah. You won’t be able to do that there in the foyer.”

“Bucket of concrete again,” William suggested. “Just stick a post or a pipe or sothing in there before it’s set. Have the post go right up through the mannequin’s keister.”

“Ughh,” Casey growled. “I really hate using the cent in a bucket thing for everything. They’re so stupid and heavy. And, the handles always break, too! Plus—I an c’mon, they don’t exactly look great. They look like crap.”

“But, they do work,” William argued with a laugh. “And, they’re cheap! We still have a bag of concrete?”

“Oh yah, we got a bag or two in the store room,” Mr. Peterson confird. “We’ll need new buckets, though, so—”

“Whelp, there goes the whole art budget again,” Casey laughed, fishing the ten dollar bill she’d taken from Tabitha and slapping it down on the table. “Damnit.”

“Wait, really?” William asked. “That’s all we’ve got left?”

“Nah, I’m kiddin’,” Casey said. “Think we’ve still got like, thirty-so bucks? It goes fast, though! I an, even doing super basic concessions—the auditorium seats what, two? Three hundred people?”

“They’re not gonna fill every seat—” Mr. Peterson began to mutter.

“Mr. Peterson!” Mrs. Hart scolded. “You take that back. It’s the spring musical! I expect we’ll be performing to a full house! There’s just so many parents who’ll rush over to co in and support—”

“I know! I know! I’m just sayin’—” Mr. Peterson grinned and held up his hands. “You’ve had good turnouts, before. But… you’ve also had so disasters. Starlight Express—”

“We don’t talk about Starlight Express!” Mrs. Hart huffed, crossing her arms with a pout. “Oh, and that wasn’t really anybody’s fault, anyways! Mistakes were made. That’s all. It was an accident!”

“Poor girl broke her freakin’ arm—” Mr. Peterson chuckled, shaking his head.

“Mistakes were made!” Mrs. Hart snapped. “And—she made a full recovery! The show went on! We finished that performance, you know. Technically.”

“Do I even want to know?” Casey glanced from one teacher to another.

“Let’s just say we’re not allowed to roller-skate on stage in the Springton Auditorium anymore,” Mr. Peterson leaned back in his chair and spread his hands in a well, what can you do gesture.

“Wait, what?” Matthew asked.

“Yeah, forget The Wiz, let’s do that!” Alicia giggled. “Roller skates? It’s a musical?!”

“We’re doing The Wiz, and everyone’s going to love it, and that’s final!” Mrs. Hart insisted with a laugh. “Moving on~!”

“Buckets,” William reminded them. “If we’re gonna have a mannequin, we need cent in a bucket for the base.”

“With the wire racks we can at least put the buckets like, inside the rack though, to where you can barely see it,” Casey deliberated. “Harder to hide an ugly cent bucket, if we’ve got one as the base of a mannequin.”

“We can paint them? Maybe?” Alicia frowned.

“Hey, I’m just the club advisor,” Mr. Peterson grinned. “But, I think I can probably grab so spare odds and ends from the art room storage and kludge together so kind of wooden base that helps it stand up? Mrs. Hart, you okay with us borrowing leftover material from your side? Then figure when it’s all said and done, you can use the mannequin forms to keep your theater costu stuff on?”

“Deal!” Mrs. Hart agreed right away. “In fact, if you can also get our current Mister Mannequin back on his feet again, that would be lovely! Take whatever things you need, we have all kinds of boards and nonsense just stacked up in the one corner.”

“Fix the popcorn machine, Mr. Peterson. Build the Mannequins, Mr. Peterson! Grade the artwork, fill out the forms! Nothing but work work work, all the ti,” Mr. Peterson griped with a good-natured smile. “S’always the sa.”

“Well… I think that’s it?” Casey shrugged. “We have a couple months on this one, still. No worries.”

“Thank you so much everyone for your ti!” Mrs. Hart gave them a parting wave.

“So—what do you think?” Alicia asked Tabitha in a low voice. “This was like, a real eting, with stuff to discuss and everything. Only one of the other ones was, for this stupid big mural thing that almost no one showed up for. On the other side of the administrative offices. And, they paint over it with a new one every year, anyways! It’s so dumb.”

“I thought it was interesting,” Tabitha promised. “I can bake cookies? That’s sothing I could do. I um, I honestly didn’t expect the ah, the mannequin thing to even turn into a whole actual in depth conversation? I guess I assud even on the off chance we were allowed to show off fashion stuff, we would just ask soone to model it?”

“Hmm,” Alicia gave her a serious nod. “You an like, have it be its own show? A fashion show, with a catwalk and everything?”

“No no no! Nothing like, that big,” Tabitha laughed. “I an. I don’t know. The stuff my grandma and I do, it’s not from scratch or super interesting? It’s just repurposed old other things, like turning expensive dresses into blouses.”

“Guys,” Casey whispered, dropping down to sit next to them. “I don’t like the cent buckets.”

“No one likes the cent buckets,” Alicia said. “They weigh a bajillion pounds, and we have to lug them the whole way across campus. And, they’re ugly!”

“What if, and hear out, here—” Casey did a dramatic pause. “What if we made like, covers for them? To hide them. Like, cardboard and paper mache. So, the cent bucket would still be underneath yeah, and that’d all be the sa, but we could do up this fake outside for it that looks like, I dunno. Like a roman column uhh, pedestal top sorta thing? Sothing super fancy and nice.”

“Oooh~!” Alicia sat up. “That’d be rad. Can we?”

“Maybe?” Casey admitted. “We uhh, we do still need the cent buckets to be inside, so we will still need to lug them. The wire racks, especially. Once you clip a bunch of art pieces up there, they just fall over super easy if there’s no weight at the bottom. We’ve already got a lot on our plate with the stupid concessions thing, too. Ugh. We need to figure that out next week, I guess, do a vote or sothing. S’gotta be sothing easy. Pretzel sticks, or trail mix or—”

“I’m going to bake cookies,” Tabitha decided. “Just—get a box of wax sheets, or even just napkins we can hand them out with. How many do we need? If I can get a rough count. I uh, I an if I do extra we can just eat them, but. Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Casey blinked. “Just like—sugar cookies?”

“Whatever kind we want,” Tabitha shrugged. “I can bake.”

“Are you dropping out of Cheer?” Casey asked.

“I’m not even in Cheer, yet!” Tabitha laughed. “I won’t be in shape for tryouts for weeks, yet. The cast cos off this weekend.”

“But… are you still gonna try out?” Casey asked, putting on her pleading puppy-dog eyes. “Because, like. You don’t have to put yourself through that! You can just be with us in Art Club, instead, you know?”

“I think I can manage both,” Tabitha said with a wry smile. “I want to be here for Alicia and help, and I want to be there in Cheer and help support Elena, too.”

“Ugh, Elena,” Alicia scoffed. “She didn’t even co to Art Club today! We could be dumping so of these problems on her!”

“You guys tell her!” Casey insisted. “Just thirty bucks for an Art Club shirt, and she’s in! We could definitely use more help. William and Ethan are super flakey whenever we’re supposed to actually get together and do sothing, and Janaye’s probably gonna be in The Wiz, being the pampered prima donna rather than out in the foyer struggling it out with us.”

“If my mother catches wind of any of this, she’ll want to audition for The Wiz, too,” Tabitha mused.

“Wait, really?” Casey slumped down across their table. “Fuuuuck. Not you, too!”

“Hah, I don’t think I’m quite ready for that!” Tabitha assured her. “But. Maybe next year? Let’s see how this year goes, first.”

“Which leaves Matthew to do all the heavy lifting with the art wall and the buckets, then you can sell the cookies, and Tabitha and I help set up and get all the art clipped up?” Alicia asked. “No big—”

“Nuh-uh, intermission’s super short,” Casey shook her head. “S’gonna be like, three of us selling cookies or drinks, three lines. I figure like, a buck? Three cookies for a dollar? Four? I want to keep it super simple.”

With a new mber here in the Art Club today, the half hour that followed after the eting proper was mostly spent socializing and showing off. Alicia and William both took up stools near Tabitha, opened up their sketch books, and went through them page by page so that they could flaunt all of their cool drawings to Tabitha. Alicia’s work was dozens upon dozens of partial sketches of realistic human figures—mostly female, with a lot of focus on different angles and poses. Almost all of them were without clothing but not exactly ‘naked,’ as genitals or explicit details were omitted. Entire sheets went by with dozens of different facial expressions or hairstyles, and as always Tabitha found herself incredibly impressed by her friend’s talent.

Whenever I see her stuff again I just start thinking that there’s no way this is freshman level work, Tabitha thought. If I were to see this without knowing who did them I would have guessed soone in college did these, these are solidly college-level figures and portraits.

William, on the other hand, drew a little bit of everything and that was also an interesting contrast to see. Handguns and machine guns, maze-like diagrams of dungeons and space station bases, comic-book X-n in spandex, a bunch of different drawings of his original character which seed to just be a fantasy version of himself with a jetpack and two lightsabers. There were iconic fighter ships from Star Wars and different vessels from one of the Star Trek shows, as well as the alien fighter craft from Independence Day and so slightly wonky-looking F-18 fighter jets—there were no F-22s to be found, however, because Tabitha was looking for them and would have recognized those. There were also a few he clearly copied by eye from looking at posters or magazines, and these were detailed with lavish pencil shading—an Alien queen, a Predator, and several different pages of Terminators.

It was all fascinating to see, but the creativity and sheer amount of practice and progress these two had with several sketchbooks each was also pretty intimidating. Tabitha felt more and more embarrassed by her own lack of talent in this area, especially thinking back to that wretched still-life drawing she’d been slowly chipping away at in the class just prior to this. Once again Tabitha felt a flash of raw envy, because it was plain to see how much these kids belonged in Art Club, and it was hard for her not to want that, too.

Trying to bring into the club just by caveat of my DIY fashion stuff feels like such a lie, though, Tabitha tried not to blush with sha at the thought. I’m not DESIGNING cool stuff, I’m finding cool stuff and then repurposing it. Literally just taking already amazing dresses and then re-hemming them into blouses, maybe with a bit of tailoring to better fit my figure. It’s not CREATIVE, not in the sa way that these guys are.

Across the table from them, Matthew was trying to finish a howork assignnt while Casey was thumbing through her World History book with a pensive expression, and then at the table next to them Janaye had donned a large canvas smock and was working on a painting. A nifty rendition of a modern pair of tennis shoes was apparent on the posterboard, done up in surrealistic yellows, pinks, and blues. The color profile alone suggested Janaye was mimicking an Andy Warhol pop piece, but Tabitha didn’t know enough about what she was seeing there to judge the painting beyond that.

“Hey, so yeah I’ve been thinking about those buckets—” Casey spoke up.

“Again with the buckets!” William groaned. “Let it rest, will ya?”

“Bill—shut up,” Casey rolled her eyes. “So, next eting I’m gonna bring it up as a project for us. So way to hide the cent buckets. At first I was thinkin’ paper mache, but takes too long, and it’s too fragile, so; plaster. What do you think?”

“Is that much better?” William asked. “Plaster’s super fragile.”

“Maybe? I dunno,” Casey shrugged. “Bill, shut up. But here, look, look. In my book here it has pictures—they’re not Roman, what we’re going for is the Greek column look. With the fluted pillars, and then it goes up and the top thingie curls over with that kinda scrollwork. We can flesh out the scroll curl things—the volutes with just like, a cardboard tube. Cardboard tube from wrapping paper or whatever. So, square of wood or posterboard for the top piece, glue two tubes on beneath the edges, there? And bam, basic shape is done, and we can just slather the rest with cheapo plaster and then clean it up and do the ridging details for the ‘column.’ Then, we paint it, and it’s good to go!”

“Question!” Tabitha held up her hand. “If we uh, if we normally move the buckets using wire handles… how are we still going to use the handles, if the bucket tops are plastered over? How would we pick them up and move them?”

“We… uhhhh… I don’t know,” Casey admitted, shoulders slumping. “We’ll burn that bridge once we get there? I just—look, this idea is so friggin’ cool. I really really want to do all the buckets up to look like Greek column pedestal thingies. Ugghh.”

“Okay, and that’s cool, but—how do we move them?” William teased. “Little Red’s got a point.”

Little Red? Excuse ?

“We’ll figure sothing out!” Casey huffed. “C’mon. This idea’s super cool, guys!”

“I could see us doing up all the fancy details in plaster or whatever, and then all of that just sorta… breaking off the second we try to lift one?” Alicia admitted with a wince. “I’m sorry, just—they’re cent, concrete, whatever, so—”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Matthew chuckled, taking his howork and tucking it into a binder to put away. “Think we’re getting lost in the details, here. We need cent buckets ‘cause they’re functional, right?”

“Right,” Alicia answered.

“Ugghhh but they’re so ugly,” Casey complained.

“Okay, but then you want to make them look all, uh, artistic and stuff, at the sa ti,” Matthew said. “So, rather than ugly cent buckets that do work, or a pretty plaster exterior that’ll crumble off first thing… why don’t we make a big mold in the shape of the Grecian column thing we want, and then just pour the cent directly into that? Have like, an actual, functional real pedestal, instead of just the facade of one. We could cast three or four from the sa mold.”

“But, then even that’s like just having one of our busted old cent buckets, ‘cause it won’t have a handle to carry it by!” William argued. “The big problem is still gonna be how we get them from the store room to wherever we need ‘em.”

“Skateboard!” Alicia suggested. “So, we keep a skateboard in the store room, and then whenever we need to move stuff like cent buckets, cent pedastal things, whatever? We just put ‘em on and wheel them over to—”

“Do we not just have a handcart or sothing?” Tabitha asked, giving them a look of amusent. “A dolly? Surely the school—”

“The theater kids have a big rolly thing they use to haul stuff over, but we never get to use it,” Casey groused. “And Edwards said no friggin’ way when we pestered him to see if we could use one of those classroom cart things for the buckets. Said we’ll lose them or break them or sothing, which is obviously just bogus! He’s always had it out for us. Although uh, yeah last year we were kinda pestering him a lot. Skateboard could work, maybe? I’ve got one in my garage we could use, but one of the wheels needs replaced.”

“Can’t we just buy a dolly?” William laughed. “Then we won’t even have to—”

“Not in the budget!” Casey denied. “No way.”

“Oh, but plaster and cent and tubes and all that crap is in the—”

“Yes, because we’re artists, not—”

“Can’t we just borrow one from soone’s parents for one night? If—”

“Casey listen, we’ll have plenty of budget. We’re already halfway there to tricking Elena into joining—”

Their bickering was amusing and honestly even a little refreshing, and Tabitha watched them go on and on with a wry smile. Watching a group of teenagers struggle with finding practical solutions to things as a group like this was just sohow fun to watch. So of them were locked into problem-solving mode, others were just teasing and being silly, and Casey in particular was caught up in making her cool idea a reality no matter how unrealistic it might be.

Plus, all of these new things to think about! Tabitha mused. The Art Show, making a mannequin. Baking cookies. Maybe checking out the high school production of The Wiz and seeing if I might like to do sothing like that next year. All this nonsense here with buckets—I’ve needed so fresh distractions from all the drama that I can just… sink my teeth into.

After so back and forth discussion about what they might do—with Tabitha thinking to herself that their post-eting self study ti had regressed back into an actual eting again—William made a trip to the storage room and brought one of the aforentioned buckets out to place upon their table as a visual aide. It was faded white and had a wide, squat shape but was overall smaller than Tabitha expected, perhaps a three-gallon bucket. The one she had been given after her birthday was a tall five-gallon one she intended to use for composting, but this made much more sense. It was three quarters of the way full of concrete, the top of which was distorted with dozens of students' initials scrawled in by fingertip so years ago before the mixture had set. The wire bail had a loose plastic handgrip, which was already starting to split.

Okay, I get why Casey’s so adamant about it. The buckets are pretty damn ugly.

In the end, Casey and William voted to put a plaster facade over the existing buckets because it would be cheap and they could finish it during Art Club next week; Matthew and Alicia wanted to try to make a mold so that they could produce actual concrete grecian pedestals to replace the buckets entirely. Janaye ignored them all to work on her painting, and Tabitha felt that she should abstain from any kind of vote, as she didn’t feel very strongly about them one way or another—her mind was still on baking huge batches of cookies for concessions during the art show intermission.

Not everyone likes oatal, but aren’t chocolate chip cookies pretty universal? I myself don’t really like cookies with raisins. Peanut butter cookies are probably out, because what if soone has a peanut allergy? Or, I could maybe just do half plain sugar cookies, half chocolate chip cookies? That wouldn’t be a problem.

“Alright, alright, pack it up—I wanna get ho and get shoes off,” Mr. Peterson hollered, standing up from his computer and stretching. “Let’s call it a day, alright? Everyone has a ride ho? If anyone needs to make a call, please do so now, or forever hold your peace!”

“I’m good, brought my bike,” William said. “Although hah, if I got a flat tire again I’m gonna like, book it back here and hope I can use the phone?”

“Well, hurry it up,” Mr. Peterson rolled his eyes. “Everyone else good?”

“We’re good,” Casey let out an exaggerated sigh. “I can give the little freshman babies a ride, I suppose.”

“The sophomore baby, too,” Janaye spoke up with a smug look, arching an eyebrow at Matthew.

“Hey, I have my license, at least,” Matthew protested. “Just gonna be a bit before I get my own car.”

“Just ride a bike, that’s what I do,” William said. “Springton’s not that big. Y’all are just lazy.”

“Mm-hmm, good luck taking a girl out on a date on your bike,” Janaye teased. “I’ll see you all later.”

“Bye!” Casey waved.

“Later!” Alicia said.

“I totally could,” William protested. “Sit her right up on the handlebars, if I wanted to. What’s wrong with that?”

Weird that Janaye speaks up only right at the very end, after ignoring all of us just about the whole ti, Tabitha thought as she gathered up her bag and slung the strap over one shoulder. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too sensitive? Don’t really know how to feel about Janaye quite yet. She’s not really part of the group most of the ti, it doesn’t feel like.

On the OTHER hand, William maybe has a point about taking a bicycle to school? I know the Macintires were hinting at getting Hannah and I bikes. It’d be good exercise? And, more than that it would open up the town to , give a whole bunch of freedom. Back in my previous life I never really just WENT places, not even nearby local ones, not until I started driving. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was in my mid-twenties and lived at that one apartnt, and even THEN I fell out of the habit and let the chain rust just because driving everywhere was more convenient. Maybe William was right, I WAS lazy. But, that was last lifeti…

“So—what’d you think?!” Alicia prodded. “Art Club. You like it? Don’t like it? What are your thoughts?”

Tabitha was with Alicia following Casey and Matthew out to the student parking lot—which was now empty save for the familiar boxy shape of Casey’s garnet GMC Jimmy.

“It was interesting?” Tabitha said. “It gave a lot to think about. I don’t think Janaye likes very much.”

“She’s just like that,” Alicia sighed. “I was hoping she’d be more cool. Bill likes you? Mr. Peterson was cool with you. And, Mrs. Hart was there.”

“Yeah,” Tabitha put on a weak smile. “I, uh. I rember. I was there!”

“Duh!” Alicia giggled. “Yeah. Sorry. I just—I really wanted you to like it. Do you think you’ll co back?”

“Of course I will,” Tabitha answered with a look of surprise. “Alicia—I already bought a shirt and everything!”

“And, you look great in it!” Alicia praised. “Seriously.”

“I think it might be too tight,” Tabitha fidgeted with the hem.

“Nah, no way,” Alicia insisted. “It’s perfect.”

“So, Tabitha,” Casey turned to look back over her shoulder at them. “You gonna drop the whole cheerleading thing? Stick with us, instead?”

“I can do both!” Tabitha said with a grin. “I’ll make it work. Sohow.”

“Hmmm. Any new drama with the cheer crowd since the last ti we talked?” Casey inquired.

“Uhhh,” Tabitha’s smile faltered. “A little. Kinda. I t their cheer captain today—Heather. She’s. She’s very protective of her cheerleaders, that’s for sure? And, Desiree and the other one just seem to flat-out hate . Faith? Yeah, Desiree and Faith.”

“I an, they started it, though?” Alicia huffed. “They like, sought you out to stir up trouble by ssing with your stuff. For real. This is all on them. Honestly I think at this point the whole stupid cheer squad or whatever? Is beneath you. You’re too good for them!”

“Do you just uh, really want to be in cheerleading, or what?” Matthew asked. “Was that just sothing you wanted to do?”

“Listen! Elena wants to try for cheer, so I’m gonna try with her,” Tabitha explained in exasperation. “I love Elena, so I’m gonna be right there with her, no matter what. Sa thing here! I love Alicia, so I’m also going for art club.”

“Just Alicia?!” Casey exclaid in mock outrage. “What about ? What about Matthew? Wow. Wooooow. I’m even giving you a ride ho outta the goodness of my own heart and everything, and here you don’t even like . Hmph!”

“You two are also very nice,” Tabitha said, engaging a neutral diplomatic tone. “I love all of my friends equally. Just… so are more equal than others!”

“Pffttt—wow,” Casey giggled. “That was, what? Animal Farm? God, reading that book destroyed . How could they. How could they?!”

“Watership Down, for ,” Matthew muttered. “Whew man.”

“I’m supposed to be reading—what was it?” Alicia tried to rember. “Uncle Vampire? Elena said she had a copy.”

“The freshn are supposed to do To Kill a Mockingbird,” Casey recalled. “Then, Springton sophomores get… Catcher in the Rye? I think?”

“Yeah,” Matthew nodded. “Of Mice and n, too. That was another one we did as freshn. Either of you ever read Heir to the Empire?”

“Nope,” Alicia shook her head.

“I haven’t even heard of it,” Tabitha admitted. “Which empire was it about? I’ve read Shogun.”

“Oh, no, no—” Matthew chuckled, trailing off. “It’s not quite like all that.”

“It’s Star Wars,” Casey whispered. “I liked it!”

“Oh!” Tabitha blinked. “That empire. I, uh, I haven’t tried any of those. I an I’ve gone through so of the Dune books? And Ender’s Ga. That trilogy. Your mother actually uh, she lent a kinda sword and sorcery book series? Sunwolf and Starhawk.”

“Uggh,” Matthew groaned. “Please tell it’s not one of those bodice ripper smut ones.”

“No! No,” Tabitha giggled. “Although… Mrs. Macintire definitely lent one of those, and was hinting that I should try it. Is that weird?”

“What book?!” Casey laughed. “Wo”

“Um,” Tabitha paused. “I don’t rember. I started it, but didn’t really get anywhere. I thought maybe that one just wasn’t for ?”

“Oh, I bet,” Alicia teased.

“Well, if you ever wanna try Heir to the Empire, let know,” Matthew offered. “I think it’s pretty good. It’s got like—”

“Don’t spoil it!” Casey smacked his arm.

“I wasn’t gonna!” Matthew laughed. “Just—”

“I’d love to try it,” Tabitha said. “I’m a pretty fast reader, so. Yeah. Always looking for new stuff to devour.”

What else am I gonna do when it’s late at night? Or when I’m in the bathroom? Not having a phone or bracelet PC to fiddle with and just mindlessly scroll through things is still really rough.

Casey had to walk around her SUV first to unlock it, and then thumb the power locks to let everyone else in. It was another one of those things, those little trivial reminders that Tabitha was stuck in the past, because at so point in the near future unlocking all of a car’s doors was just sothing you would do wirelessly from pressing the key fob. So many of these little monts were things Tabitha had simply begun to take for granted as the years went by—encountered them like this kept giving her pause.

It’s like a stronger form of DEJA VU? Tabitha thought to herself.

Everyone climbed inside, and Tabitha watched on with a flimsy smile as Alicia hurried to brush stale french fries and what looked to be Goldfish cracker crumbs from the rear bench seat onto the floor before sitting. The GMC Jimmy here was a model from 1992 and thus all of the interior furnishings looked extra dated to her—the seatbelt buckles strangely square and clunky, the plastic molding of the door interior appearing oblong and not very ergonomic compared to the overdesigned ones she was used to from the future.

Moreover, when Casey attempted to turn the ignition… it gave a sputtering wheeze rather than starting the engine.

“Uh-oh?” Alicia let out a nervous laugh. “Uhh—”

“Sssh, she’s fine,” Casey growled. “It’s cold out. Give her a minute! Geez…”

They all sat for a mont as Casey waited several seconds, the girl’s arm still poised at the key—and when she tried it again, it gave the sa faltering electric noise.

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?!” Matthew joked.

“It might,” Casey snapped. “Your highnessness.”

With an angry twist, she turned the key again, and finally at the tail end of the weak sputtering the Jimmy’s engine finally roared to life. Tabitha and Alicia exchanged looks of amusent and relief… and then they imdiately had to grab onto the seats in front of them for balance, because right away Casey jerked the vehicle back out of her parking space.

“And to think you doubted her!” Casey sniffed. “Hmph!”

“We uh, we really gotta get that looked at again,” Matthew chuckled. “One of these days, you’re gonna get stranded sowhere.”

“I know! I know,” Casey scowled. “I got stuck at Family Video weekend before last. Had to unlock the store, run back inside so I could call my dad. Which sucked, ‘cause it was late.”

“Maybe Officer Macintire could take a look at it soti?” Tabitha offered. “He did ntion once that he was into all that sorta stuff.”

“Maybe,” Casey shrugged. “She’s fine, for now. I uh, I don’t really have money to put into repairs right now. I’ve just got this ten bucks I stole from art club! And that’s gonna buy and Matthew a nice romantic al later.”

“Hey!” Alicia scolded her. “No. Bad.”

“No more embezzling funds,” Matthew teased in a stern voice. “You’re setting a bad example for the youngins.”

“Hey, s’only illegal if you get caught!” Casey told them in a cheery voice. “Hehehe.”

“Well, if you want plaster for your stupid pedestals—”

“Ugh. Fiiiine—” Casey drawled. “So, anyways. Tabitha my girl, what’s the deal with you and Matt Haynes? I hear you two are almost an item.”

“Wow, really?” Matthew blinked.

“There is no deal!” Tabitha protested. “I don’t know how—”

“She’s altered the deal, Alicia mimicked a Darth Vader voice. “Pray she doesn’t alter it any further!”

“No, no, I literally don’t even know him!” Tabitha said. “At all!”

“Weren’t you two buddies in so English class last sester?” Casey teased. “That’s what I heard. “Mrs. Albertson?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever even spoken a word to each other!”

“Well, still. Good taste?” Casey said as she paused to let another car pass and then pulled out of the school’s parking lot. “I’ve got a Matthew myself. He’s pretty nice. Low maintenance? Oh, mine’s an older model, though…”

“Hah ha,” Matthew rolled his eyes. “More like it’s the other way around—Janaye keeps goin’ on about what a cradle robber you are.”

“Janaye can eat a bag of dicks,” Casey scoffed. “She’s just jealous. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of her even having a boyfriend, and she’s a senior. Seniors should have boyfriends, already. Right?”

“Uhh?” Alicia giggled. “I dunno? I guess I’d have to double check the course requirents? That’s a ways off for , still.”

“Well,” Tabitha took a deep breath. “I can say with complete confidence that there’s nothing going on between Matt Haynes and I. If I was going to date anyone, it would be Bobby—and I’m not even really ready for that yet, either!”

“Wait, really?” Casey perked up with interest. “Bobby? He’s cool. I uh, I had no idea things were really happening, there. Wow. Cool?”

“Ehhh,” Alicia held up a level hand and then waggled it. “Happening might be a stretch…”

“I’m going to take things at my own pace, thank you,” Tabitha chuckled. “Oh! Elena was actually suggesting that uh, to help get around the kinda first dating awkwardness, that I should try double-dating? With like… another couple who was already like. Together. You know.”

“You’re saying… Matthew and ,” Casey barked out a laugh. “Basically.”

“Um, yeah,” Tabitha laughed. “I an. You two seem cool? Comfortable with each other. Like Elena said, it would be super awkward if we uh, we tried to go on like a double date with Olivia and Michael… and then they were making out the whole ti. You know?”

“Oh! Yeah,” Casey nodded. “For sure. But yeah, I’m cool with that. Matthew?”

“I’m cool,” Matthew nodded. “Let us know whenever?”

“So long as Jimmy-girl here holds out, we can go wherever for a double-date,” Casey said. “I know it can be like, super rough trying to go anywhere or do anything dating when you don’t have a car. For real, the less you have to get parents involved? The better. So, yeah, let us know. You and Bobby, or hell—if you and Alicia here want to go out on a date soti? Matthew and I’ve got your back.”

“Cool! Cool,” Tabitha nodded with a grin. “Thank you. Really.”

She was unaware of a subtle pair of eyes watching for her reaction through the rear-view mirror—as well as the sudden conspicuous silence from the girl on the bench beside her. Tabitha remained oblivious to the obvious implication there, even as Matthew glanced between Casey and then the girls in the back of the Jimmy, and ca to a realization. Good natured back and forth banter and teasing between teenagers ant Tabitha had no reason to latch onto any specific sentence and dwell on whatever deeper aning it might have had—or she would have noticed Alicia suddenly freezing in place.