The Magnolia League - By Katie Crouch Page 0,34

of our best friends.”

Gilroy squints his beady eyes at me.

“So what?”

“So, you mess with her and you’re messing with all of us, knuckle dragger,” Madison says curtly.

Gilroy shakes his head and stomps off.

“Are you completely suicidal?” Madison demands, ushering me out of the classroom and dragging me toward the lawn. “That hair is bad enough, your dirty clothes aren’t much better, and then you make us do more mind-numbing reading? Even I hate you, and I like you.”

I shrug my shoulders defiantly. “I don’t know.”

Just then I feel a presence at my other shoulder. It’s Anna, the radioactive blond girl from the party. She seems to have gotten a fresh coat of orange fake tan for her first day of school. Mary, the busty redhead, is trailing after her.

“Y’all eating on the lawn?” she asks.

“The lawn is for sophomores, Mary,” Madison says impatiently. “Juniors eat at the benches. What are we? We’re juniors. Now, go clean off the bench in the shade.”

“But kids are already sitting—”

“That’s what I mean. Clean it off.” Mary frowns uncertainly and trots away. Madison rolls her eyes and turns to me.

“Alex, as Magnolias, we are respected at this school. People look to us for guidance on what is and isn’t the proper way to do things. We are paragons of virtue because everything we do is always appropriate. This will not work if you insist on acting like a total spaz.”

“I’m not a spaz, okay? And that’s a really inappropriate word to use. Think of all those kids with cerebral palsy.”

“How about bonehead?”

“I come from a place where kids don’t judge each other,” I say. “Sure, I didn’t go to a traditional school, and that’s weird. I get that. But from what I can tell so far, real school sucks.”

Madison laughs. “ ‘School sucks’?’ ” she says. “How original. What’s your next brilliant academic observation? Cheerleading uniforms objectify women? Of course school sucks. It’s a rigid hierarchical pyramid with the losers on the bottom, an enormous mass of irrelevant people in the middle, and the important people at the pinnacle. The trick is to be at the pinnacle.”

“What about the idea of revolution? Changing the system? Instead of being part of the problem, you could be part of the solution.”

“Alex,” Madison says through clenched teeth, “if you keep talking in bumper stickers, I am going to stab you in the face.”

“You don’t have to hang with me. It’s not like we’re the Three Musketeers or something.”

“Actually, I do have to ‘hang’ with you,” she mutters.

Hayes joins us with Jason in tow. “Hey, girls. What’s happening?”

“Damage control,” Madison says. “Alex is trying to completely sabotage her River School career within the first three hours.”

“That was pretty ugly in there,” Jason says.

“Well, I brought bacon mac-and-cheese for everybody,” Hayes says brightly. “Mom made it last night.”

“Cool,” Madison says. “I had Mary order Reubens.”

I grin, in spite of myself. At least these girls aren’t anorexic.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a commotion at one of the benches on the edge of the lawn. Dex, my new friend, is working on his sketch pad under a tree. Or he’s trying to, but Mary is frantically pulling on his arm.

“Looks like Mary’s about to burst something,” Madison says. “Hope she chose saline over silicone.”

“What’s she doing?” I ask.

“That dweeb is on our bench. Mary’s explaining the rules to him. It’s killing two birds with one stone, really. She’s proving her loyalty to us, and he’s learning about our territory.”

“He’s not a dweeb—he’s my friend.”

“Alex,” Hayes says sweetly, “I don’t think you’ve been here long enough to have friends besides us.”

I stand up and march over to the bench where Mary is having a meltdown. Her face is red and sweaty, and her eye makeup is smudged.

“Dexter, you have to move, you fat fag!” she screams. “They’re coming! They are! Look!” It takes me a minute to realize she’s pointing at me.

Dexter looks up coolly and smiles. “Hey, Slick,” he says to me. “This is what I was telling you about. Crazy debutantes.”

“Don’t talk to her directly,” Mary screeches. “She’s a Magnolia.”

Dexter looks at me, confused. “What?”

“Well, not really,” I stammer. “I mean, my grandmother’s making me do it. It’s a family thing. But—”

“Oh,” he says. “Well. Sorry I bashed them. I mean, you seem all right, but…” He looks at Madison and Hayes, who have now appeared behind me.

“Good-bye,” Madison says to the staring kids. As if possessed, they gather their books and lunches and shuffle off.