The Green and pretended to get a drink of water at the drinking fountain. Ever since the principal closed the parking lot during lunch, most kids eat in the grassy area in front of the library at the center of campus (the rich kids with cars used to hang out in the parking lot, I’m not kidding). Our school’s kind of messed up because it’s really two schools in one since around 70% are minorities from East Menlo Park and Redwood City, and the other 30% are from well-off families from Atherton, Menlo Park, and Portola Valley, and the principal’s always thinking up new ways to try to integrate everybody better. My brother and sister both went to private schools, but when we moved and got the bigger house, my Dad said he was “tapped out” and didn’t have enough money to send me private. That was OK, though, I didn’t want to go to an all-girls school like Castilleja and I can walk to school from where we live (can you say sleep in!).
Anyway, Josh and his friends sit on this bench in one corner of The Green. They’re what you’d call a little fringe. So they’re sitting there with this laptop, talking, and I don’t think they noticed us at first, and Carrie just looked over their shoulders and saw something sort of strange on the screen. There were all these names. And she was like what are you guys doing? And they turned all red and got defensive and tried to cover up the screen.
They wouldn’t show her at first, but then she leaned forward and showed them her boobs. I’m not kidding! Carrie’s got pretty big boobs and she’s always wearing v-neck T-shirts, so guys are always trying to look down her shirt. And I know she does it on purpose. She admitted it. And it was pretty funny because as soon as she leaned over their laptop I saw Josh’s and the other kids’ eyes go right to her boobs and it wasn’t long before they were showing her what they were doing. Guys are so lame. Of course they were like you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone. They made us swear on our parents’ lives, which I thought was pretty melodramatic until I saw what they were doing. I do admit it’s cool. They’ve got a list of every kid’s name in the school, like 2500 kids, and they’ve written a program where they can rank people by how popular they are. I’m not kidding. Then you can click on a button and a map of the school pops up and they’ve plotted where everybody hangs out at during lunch. Our bench is on there! And so are Carrie and me and Megan and Viv. You can click on a person’s name and all this information comes up on them. And get this, I’m higher on the list than Carrie, which really pissed her off. I mean I think it’s only by a few places, but I’m ahead. I’m 92 and she’s 97. Not bad, I must say.
She didn’t want to show she was mad, but you could definitely tell she was. She was like, why do you think this is accurate? And Josh was like, it’s not totally accurate right now. They were still in beta, which means the program and the list aren’t final.
Carrie saw that as the opportunity she was looking for. She was like, don’t you guys think you should have some feminine input? She said she had to go, but she wanted to discuss it more with them in private, and asked Josh if we could come over to his house tomorrow after school. He was so surprised he didn’t know what to say. He and his friends just looked at each other. I wonder what they expect. The whole thing’s pretty stupid. She knows she’s not going to do anything. She wouldn’t know what to say to Dr. Cogan if she saw him. I know she wouldn’t.
Jan. 21
Was beat the last few days so I didn’t get a chance to write. Anyway, the real news is we went over to Josh’s a couple of days ago to talk about the list. His house is actually really nice and so is his mom, which kind of made me feel bad for him. I mean, I hope Carrie doesn’t get too Machiavellian with him. He’s basically a good kid, though he does stare at her boobs too much.
Carrie