wouldn’t mind making a collage that had a few words in it. Sure, it’s not the same as mounting a stuffed Angora goat’s head on a piece of canvas (which, yes, Robert Rauschenberg did, thank you very much), but at least I won’t be getting any angry phone calls from PETA. I’ll take words over a goat’s head any day.
Which is why I carry the note over to the self-healing mat at the back of the room and use an X-Acto knife to cut each word out in a precise, tiny rectangle. I ask Ms. Ashdown for an envelope and deposit the words inside.
Then I take the picture I drew in algebra of Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard and put that in the envelope too, and I put the envelope in the front pocket of my backpack.
It’s not a collage exactly, but at least it’s something I can live with.
Chapter Eight
It’s for a Good Cause
By the time I get to Great Girls and Women of American History, my last class of the day, I’ve made it all the way through Sarah’s note. I learn what the Lymans had for dinner Saturday night (extra-large take-out meat-busters pizza) and how Sarah got out of going to church Sunday morning (claimed to have cramps—total lie), which is her goal every week. She hates to miss the political talk shows, just in case someone mentions cocoa beans.
And then comes the shocking news: Emma has been grounded for curfew violations. I had no idea Emma even had a curfew. I always assumed that as long as she kept her grades up and stayed away from the long arm of the law, she was free to do as she pleased. Besides, people like Emma don’t get grounded. They get sent to the guillotine or military school. Getting grounded is what happens to normal people.
Todd dropped Emma off at three a.m., Sarah had written in her note. His Harley woke up the whole neighborhood. You should have heard my dad when he got outside. It was like an opera out there—Emma shrieking at my dad, my dad yelling at the top of his lungs, Todd revving his engine, all the neighborhood dogs barking. That’s got to be a violation of the neighborhood covenant. (Does Shady Woods have a covenant? And if so, is it constitutional? I’ll have to check.)
Sarah is sitting in a lounge chair at the back of the classroom when I get there. In Ms. Morrison’s classroom the desks are pulled together in a tight circle with a round, bright orange rug in the middle, and the corners are filled with various beach chairs and loungers for when her classes break into groups. Ms. Morrison is the sort of teacher who can’t go ten minutes without breaking her class into groups, which is why nothing ever gets done during class time. Ninety-five percent of the work done for Great Girls and Woman of American History is strictly extracurricular.
Sarah holds up her notebook when she sees me, and even from across the room I can see the pro/con line dividing the page into two neat columns.
“I think we’ve got to go with Geraldine,” she tells me when I pull up a wobbly chaise lounge beside her. “Her pros outweigh anybody else’s on our list.”
“Au contraire, Pierre,” I say. “I think I’ve got an idea you’re going to like even more than Geraldine.”
The bell rings, and Ms. Morrison breezes into the classroom, papers spilling out of her organizer, a sticky note stuck to her elbow. “Continue on, everyone!” she says. “Project ideas due at the end of class!”
Since no one actually stopped talking when she entered the room, continuing on is not a problem. In fact, two months into the school year, our small class treats Ms. Morrison as an afterthought. Even when we’re gathered together as a group, Ms. Morrison is rarely the center of attention. That honor goes to Marley Baxter, a radical feminist sophomore who on the first day of class wanted to hold a vote on whether or not the class’s lone boy, Wallace, should be allowed to stay. Sarah campaigned vigorously on Wallace’s behalf and he was voted in, 11–2, but Marley continued to behave as if the class were hers to lead, and after a while, the rest of us generally accepted her command. For one thing, she’s pretty free with the bathroom passes.
I pull my list from my notebook and hand it to Sarah, who quickly eyeballs it and shrugs. “It