Meg Cabot - All American Girl

No sooner had the heads appeared than they disappeared again, as everyone went back to scribbling on their pads. I was awarded no more than a fleeting glance of Lynn, a skinny woman in her thirties; Gertie, a plump middle-aged woman; John, a middle-aged guy with a hearing aid; Jeffrey, a young African-American man; and David, who was wearing a Save Ferris T-shirt.

Since Save Ferris is one of my favorite bands, I figured at least I’d have somebody to talk to.

But then I got a closer look at David, and I realized the chances of him even talking to me were, like, nil. I mean, he looked kind of familiar, which meant he probably went to Adams with me. And I have been one of the most hated people at Adams ever since I suggested the school donate the money we raised selling holiday wrapping paper to the school’s art department.

But Lucy and Kris Parks and people like that wanted to go to Six Flags Great Adventure theme park.

Guess who won?

And the whole wearing-black-every-day-because-I-am-mourning-for-my-generation thing hasn’t exactly helped boost my popularity much, either.

David looked like he was about Lucy’s age. He was tall—well, at least from what I could see of him, sitting on the bench—with curly dark hair and these very green eyes and big hands and feet. He was kind of cute—though not as cute as Jack, of course—which meant that, if he did go to Adams, he probably hung out with the jocks. All the cute boys at Adams hang with the jocks. Except for Jack, of course.

So when David winked at me after I sat down, and said, “Nice boots,” I was completely shocked. Thinking that he was mocking me—as most of the boys who hang out with the jocks at Adams are wont to do—I looked down and realized that he, like me, was wearing combat boots.

Only David, unlike me, wasn’t making the satirical statement with his that I was making with mine, having decorated mine with daisies (of Wite-Out and yellow highlighter) one day in seventh period.

While I was busy turning bright red because this cute boy spoke to me, Susan Boone said, “We’re doing a still life today.” She handed me a pencil, a nice soft-leaded one. Then she pointed at a pile of fruit on a small table in the middle of the room and went, “Draw what you see.”

Then she walked away.

Well, so much for her trying to stamp out my individuality and natural ability. I was relieved to see I had been wrong about that. Telling myself to forget about Cute David and his boot comment—undoubtedly he was only being nice to me on account of me being the new kid, and all—I looked at the pile of fruit on the table, nestled against a wrinkled-up piece of white silk, and began to draw.

Okay, I thought to myself. This isn’t so bad. It was actually somewhat pleasant in the Susan Boone studio. Susan was interesting, with her elf queen hair and smile. A cute boy had said he liked my boots. The classical music playing softly in the background was nice. I never listen to classical music unless it’s playing in the background of some movie I’m watching, or something. And the smell of turpentine was refreshing, like hot apple cider on a crisp autumn day.

Maybe, I thought as I drew, this wasn’t going to be so bad. Maybe it would even be fun. I mean, there are a lot of worse ways to blow four hours a week, right?

Pears. Grapes. An apple. A pomegranate. I drew without much thinking about what I was doing. I wondered what Theresa was making for dinner. I wondered why I hadn’t taken Spanish instead of German. If I’d taken Spanish, I could have gotten help on my homework from two native speakers, Theresa and Catherine. No one I knew spoke German. Why had I taken such a dumb language in the first place? I’d only done it because Lucy had, and she’d said it was easy. Easy! Ha! Maybe for Lucy. But what wasn’t easy for Lucy? I mean, Lucy has everything: titian hair, a totally righteous boyfriend, the corner bedroom with the big closet . . .

I was so busy drawing and thinking about how much better Lucy’s life was than mine that I didn’t notice Joe the crow had hopped down off the top of his cage and wandered over to check me out until he’d yanked a few strands of my hair.

Seriously. A bird stole some of my hair !

I shrieked, causing Joe to take flight, scattering black feathers everywhere.

“Joseph!” Susan Boone cried when she saw what was happening. “Put down Sam’s hair!”

Obediently, Joe opened his beak. Three or four copper-colored hairs floated to the ground.

“Pretty bird,” Joe said, tilting his head in my direction. “Pretty bird.”

“Oh, Sam,” Susan Boone said, stooping down to pick up my hair. “I’m so sorry. He’s always been very attracted to bright, shiny things.” She came over and handed me back my hair, as if there was some way I could glue it all back onto my head.

“He’s not a bad bird, really,” Gertie said, like she was concerned I had gotten the wrong impression, or something, of Susan Boone’s bird.

“Bad bird,” Joe said. “Bad bird.”

I sat there with my hair lying in my outstretched palm, thinking that Susan Boone would do well to shell out five hundred big ones to an animal behaviorist, since her pet had some major issues. Meanwhile, fluttering back to the top of his cage, Joe wouldn’t take his beady black eyes off me. Off my hair, to be more exact. You could tell he really wanted to take another swipe at it, if he could. At least, that’s how it looked to me. Do birds even feel things? I know dogs do.

But dogs are smart. Birds are kind of stupid.

But not, I realized later, as stupid as humans can be. Or at least this particular human. Around five fifteen—I could tell because the classical music station had started doing the news—Susan Boone said, “All right. Windowsill.”

And everyone but me got up from the benches and propped his or her drawing pad, with the drawing facing into the room, on the windowsill. Windows ran around all three sides of the corner room, big, ten-foot factory-style windows, above a sill wide enough to sit on. I hurried to put my pad with the others, and then we all stood back and looked at what everyone had drawn.

Mine was clearly the best. I felt pretty bad about it. I mean, here I was on my very first day of class, already drawing better than everyone else in it, even the grown-ups. I felt sorriest for John: his drawing was just a big old mess. Gertie’s was blocky and smeared. Lynn’s looked as if a kindergartner had drawn it, and Jeffrey had drawn something unrecognizable as fruit.

UFOs, maybe. But not fruit.

Only David had drawn anything remotely good. But he hadn’t drawn quickly enough to finish his. I had gotten in ALL the fruit, and I had even added a pineapple and some bananas, to kind of balance it all out.

I hoped Susan Boone wouldn’t make too big a deal out of how much better my drawing was than everybody else’s. I didn’t want to make anybody feel bad.

“Well,” Susan Boone said. And then she stepped forward and started discussing each person’s drawing.

She was really quite diplomatic about the whole thing. I mean, my dad could probably have used her over in his offices, she was so tactful (economists are pretty good with numbers, but when it comes to human relations, they, like Rebecca, don’t do so well). Susan went on about Lynn’s dramatic use of line and Gertie’s nice sense of placement on the page. She said John had improved a lot, and everyone seemed to agree, which made me wonder how bad John had been when he started. David got an “excellent juxtaposition,” and Jeffrey a “fine detail.”

When she finally got to my drawing, I felt like slinking out of the room. I mean, my drawing was so obviously the best one. I really don’t mean to sound like a snob, but my drawings are always the best ones. Drawing is the one thing I can do well.