Liz Reinhardt - Rebels Like Us

“Good morning.” I modify my smile from demented pretend to real. I hate unnecessary authority, but I absolutely love ball-busting, no-nonsense bitches. I get the latter vibe from Lovett already.

“Ms. Ronston wanted me to let you know your peer guide will be Khabria Scott. Khabria, please raise your hand.” Mrs. Lovett’s voice snaps, and a hand pops up in response. I approve of my tour guide’s bold nails—matte black except for a shiny white ring finger nail, gold fleur-de-lis designs glittering on each one.

Because I’m nervous, I resort to a goofy, toothy smile, and feel extra dumb when Khabria folds her arms across her chest elegantly and gives me a tight-lipped, polite smile in return. She’s got this whole regal Nefertiti/Beyoncé vibe that’s intimidating and impressive all at once.

“You can take a seat second row, fourth desk back, Agnes.” Mrs. Lovett makes a mark in her roll book, and I slide into my chair while too many eyes dart my way, sizing me up because I’m so shiny and new. It’s uncomfortable but not mean.

“Hey. Hey, new girl?” A tall, good-looking guy with a bright yellow basketball jersey sitting just behind Khabria nearly falls out of his chair calling to me and waving his gorgeously muscled arms over his head. “Where you from?”

“Crown Heights.” I watch his face screw up like I answered him in Finnish. “Brooklyn.”

“Where?” He kicks the back of the Khabria’s chair as he tries to settle into a desk that clearly wasn’t designed for people over six foot six. Khabria whips her head so fast her black and strawberry braids are a blur.

She mutters, “Holy hell, you a moron, Lonzo.”

“New York City, man. C’mon, you’re makin’ us all look ignorant.” I can’t see who said it, but that deep, slow voice that rolls like a warm wave in the ocean is the most Southern voice I’ve ever heard—and I’m shocked by the fizzy glow that warms through me at the sound of it. I like it. I like it a lot.

“Why’d you move here?” The tall guy kicks my chair with the sole of his shoe to get my attention. When I turn to look at him, he grins wide, the way I smiled at Khabria before. “Too violent in your hood?”

“What?” I snort as thoughts of the last co-op meeting flit through my head. Old Mr. Madsen almost got in a fistfight with the “young hipster” who dared to adorn the communal herb garden with his found-art whirligigs, which Mr. Madsen screamed were “pretentious trash.” The meeting ended with Mr. Madsen knocking all the disposable coffee cups off the snack table and vowing to recycle the young hipster’s “eyesores” if they came anywhere near his flat-leaf parsley. “I lived in a really nice neighborhood. Not a hood.”

I mean, sure, there were the Crown Heights Riots, but that was way back in the ’90s. Ancient history.

“So why then?” Despite the twitchiness of his limbs, his dark eyes are calm.

When he repeats his question, more eyes turn to me from around the classroom. Shiny-haired cheerleaders and flexing jocks, slackers trying to pretend they aren’t dozing, nerds clutching their notebooks—two dozen faces fade in a kaleidoscope of dark and light as my vision tunnels.

Being the new girl sucks.

“Uh...”

“You hate snow?” He rubs a hand over his tight, dark curls and clicks his tongue when Khabria stomps her sneaker in frustration.

“No, you need to stop, boy. Who would hate snow?” She throws her arms out and rolls her eyes like it’s the most ridiculous concept she’s ever contemplated.

“You ever even seen snow?” He juts out his chin.

“No, but I want to. You trying to say you don’t want to ride on a sled? Or throw a snowball?”

“I heard snowballs hurt your hand.” He holds out his own hands, so big they could probably palm a basketball with zero problems. He flips them, studying his knuckles and then his palms like he’s trying to get a gauge of the damage a snowball could do.

I’m shocked silent. No snow? Ever? It’s a lot to wrap my frostbitten brain around. Despite the intense heat here, I feel like I still haven’t thawed completely from the last cold snap back home.

“Alonzo Washington, please stop harassing Agnes and come discuss the status of your term paper proposal with me immediately.”

The guy—Alonzo—leaps out of his seat and says, “Yes, ma’am,” like he’s a soldier in a very obedient army.

I’m about to go back to imagining a life devoid of snow when I hear a little alien-baby voice whisper, “Agnes? That cannot be her name. That name would be ugly if it were my grandmother’s.”

I swivel my head and face the kind of blandly vicious sneers that always seem to infect a select few in any group. My cousins in Santo Domingo would say they’re bocas de suape—mop mouths. In translation, they’re two losers who don’t know when to keep their traps shut. They’re so generically pathetic, if life was a movie, they wouldn’t even have names in the credits. They’re even wearing cheerleading uniforms. Could they be more cliché? Generic Mean Girl One is giggling like mad along with Generic Mean Girl Two. I turn full around in my seat and stare at them, ignoring my new teacher’s obvious throat clearing.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” she demands.

“My name,” I announce, still looking at the two overzealously spray-tanned, hair-tossing idiots in their cutesy matching uniforms. I love the way their cackles dry up and their perfectly made-up faces fall. “Apparently it’s hilarious.”

“Agnes.” I turn to look at my teacher, whose pursed lips and cocked eyebrows tell me she is clearly not amused. “Whatever this nonsense is about, it stops now. I don’t tolerate fools, and I don’t put up with time wasting. In fact, it’s really starting to piss me off that I wasted this much time already.”

A few people gasp or snort when she says piss, as if our innocent, nearly adult ears have never heard a single naughty word before.

“I’m sorry for wasting your time,” I say, sitting straight at my desk. I can take care of the Generic Mean Girl Twins later. Right now, I’m going to make it a priority not to “piss off” this woman. For all I know, this class might be the highlight of an otherwise miserable few months.

“Ma’am.” She crosses her arms over her wide chest. The idiotic giggles start again. I’m drowning fast.

“Me?” I point at myself. Mrs. Lovett’s nostrils flare very slightly.

“Me.” She points a thumb at her chest. “When you speak to me, your instructor, you refer to me as ma’am. Clear?”

“So, not ‘Mrs. Lovett’?” I swear to baby Jesus, I ask only to double-check, but I guess I’ve already walked too close to the edge of the smart-ass line, and now my classmates are hooting like I’m the Pied Piper of classroom anarchy.

“Do not test my patience today, Agnes,” Mrs. Lovett snaps. She slaps a paper packet and a copy of The Old Man and the Sea on my desk.

I leaf through the tattered pages, hold it up, and attempt one last smile that’s basically just me grasping at straws. “No friend as loyal.”

Mrs. Lovett’s lips twitch, and I curl my fingers around the old misogynistic tale of oceanic triumph and New Testament allusions, waiting to see if her lips will twitch up or...

Up. Smile. Score!

But now that I bought her love back with a cheap quote trick, I have to be on my best behavior while we scribble notes about Hemingway’s boozing and hunting and womanizing—and that means keeping my mouth firmly shut. Because, despite my best intentions, whenever I open my mouth, trouble finds me.

Also, I’m still not sure about the whole ma’am thing.

When we’re finally dismissed, Alonzo drags Khabria over to me.

“Agnes, tell this know-it-all that it hurts your hand to make a snowball.”