Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,36

the players, many of whom extract from their involvement little pertaining to honor or gracious conduct.

My feet bounced against the radiator; my palms drummed my thighs. If it didn’t feel so good to be them, those boys might like to think about things. Maybe immunity lifts a weight; but maybe heaviness returns.

In junior year our school was put on an “austerity” budget by the board of education, and team sports were cut. Student energies were diverted to politics and mutual interest societies—theater clubs, chess meets, charity leagues, beach clean-up patrols, and interfaith discussion groups, all of which were funded by flea markets, car washes, and bake sales. We were constantly at school working for causes—there was nothing better to do. People who had never previously spoken were thrust together because needs were great and entry policies liberal. Everyone joked that the school motto changed from “We are the Champions!” to “Beggars can’t be choosers!”

That spring, we entered a statewide competition sponsored by Carefree sugarless gum in which the winning school was the one whose students had written the gum’s brand name on the most index cards. All four grades vied against one another, for no particular reason other than boredom and surplus vitality. We held writing vigils. The self-imposed rivalry allowed us to take the state by a titanic margin. As a prize, the rock group Hall and Oates gave a concert in the auditorium. Jack and his friends, irate over the pop music infiltration, took to the aisles during “Rich Girl” and protested by hopping up and down like pistons or gears, screaming, “Sid Vicious! Sid Vicious!”

Surprising new heroes emerged that year. Cathy Benjamin, who’d made it through only three grades in four and a half years, organized the biggest moneymaker, a twenty-four-hour dance marathon, and Ginny Warwick, who once cried inconsolably during an argument with the biology teacher about creationism, won best costume design in the class play competition. And Denny got everyone to contribute to his old-fashioned Christmas for the holiday hall decorating contest. The home economics department sewed antique-style costumes for baby dolls he borrowed from cheerleaders; the shop department rigged Marcus Payne’s miniature mechanical railway to cut through the language lab; the mammoth Parson twins found and chopped down the perfect “pastoral” tree; the typing students created scrolled gift lists; and the art department pieced it all together.

The night before the start of the contest, twenty-three kids gathered at my house, people like Pip Harriman and Kiki Hauser and Daryl Sackler and Sara Eden, people who’d never been there before, all of us wrapping empty boxes, painting ornaments, making soap-flake snow. Alicia Ross came over with platters of cookies made by her housekeeper, Consuela, and Powell ordered six pizzas with extra cheese. Coco Hale and I shared scissors.

“Your snow country landscape collage is nice,” she said to me.

I said, “I like your felt sleigh.”

Jack and Dan came late, wearing gold paper crowns, and I was happy, the happiest I could remember being. Jack had just dropped out of boarding school in Kent, and his parents had agreed to let him finish junior year in East Hampton. He made his way over the hunched bodies, saying, “It’s like a fucking sweatshop in here!”

He moved piles of fabric and Styrofoam globes from the stereo. As he leaned to insert the audiocassette he and Dan had produced for the contest, his key chain swung from his belt loop. It had a leather strap and a seamed bell, the type you find on cat collars and toddler shoes.

“Hey Evie,” Dan said as he leaned against the banister and chewed on a slice of pizza. He had a matching set of bells tied to his wrist. “What would you think of us changing the name of the band to the Jesters?”

When the tape began, everyone froze. First came Dan playing the piano solo from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons—Winter; next was Jack on acoustic guitar, singing “Let It Snow,” morosely, sounding like a young Leonard Cohen. If you had seen the faces, you would never forget them—normal faces of normal kids, stripped of rank and status. For one brief moment, I loved them. Later when I told that to Jack, he said he was glad the moment had been brief. Last on the tape was Kate and Coco doing a rendition of “Amazing Grace” on their flutes. The twin whistles wavered bashfully.

Everyone clapped, and some of us cried, and my mother cheered, “Well, all right!”

“Man,” Rocky Santiago said, returning to sparkles and