Free Class Favorite by Taylor Morris Page A

respond, so I closed the e-mail, telling myself I’d answer it later. But I never got the chance.
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    Since it was the week before spring break, a buzz filled the air—talk in the halls became louder and more excited, people laughed more often, and everyone, even the teachers, seemed like they were in a good mood. A little joy had even seeped into me, despite my situation with Arlene.
    Miracle of all miracles, Mom had agreed to let me go skiing with Kirstie and her mom. She only had two conditions: We would pay my way, and she insisted on speaking with Kirstie’s mom before we left. So far, they’d been playing phone tag, but I wasn’t worried—I was too excited. Kirstie let me borrow an old pair of ski pants, and her mom said I could borrow her jacket (“It gives me an excuse to buy a new one,” she’d said).
    But because this is my miserable life, when I got to algebra, Mrs. Everly, who has been a teacher since before the abacus was invented, announced we were having a pop quiz on systems of equations, even though we had just started studying them. I rolled my eyes and thought how perfect this was.
    Mrs. Everly handed a stack of test papers to the person at the front of each row, licking her finger as she counted them out. I was glad that I sat four seats back—hopefully by the timethe papers got to me, her spit would be dry. Old people can be so disgusting.
    â€œYou have twenty minutes,” she ominously announced.
    It was just like her to give a quiz right before spring break, when no one wanted to do anything but talk about where they were going and what they were doing. Sometimes you had to wonder if teachers have any memory of what it was like to be a student. I stared down at my sheet and tried to focus. I decided to give a halfhearted attempt, knowing that Mrs. Everly throws out our lowest quiz score for each six-week period.
    Once I decided to suck on the quiz, my eyes started to wander. Everybody’s head was down on their sheets, including Mrs. Everly’s, who was probably doing the crossword puzzle in the back of Woman’s Life . I don’t think she really gave her classes much thought anymore, especially since nothing new ever happens in the world of math. It’s been the same nonsense for a hundred years.
    Jason sat by the window, his long back rounded over his paper. His smooth-skinned face was fixed in concentration, and I realized I had no idea what kind of grades he made. Must have been average, considering he wasn’t in honors algebra. Kayla Cane, whose almond-colored hair always rested perfectly on her back, had probably never had an unpopular day in her life. I looked over at Rosemary Vickers, who sat in the front row on the far right, next to the door. Her thick mane ofred hair had hundreds of shiny gold strands mixed in, making it shimmer even in the dull fluorescent lights of the classroom. I fingered my own hair, so thin that my sister teased that I’ll have bald spots by the time I graduate high school.
    Rosemary tucked her locks behind her ear with French-manicured nails and tapped her bright blue pencil on her desk. She wasn’t athletic, and she was still popular. I wondered how she did it. Yeah, she was nice and really pretty, but what made her seem so great to everyone? She wasn’t the only nice, pretty girl in town. She dated, but hadn’t had a boyfriend since last year. Not because she couldn’t get one—she obviously just chose to stay single.
    I rested my chin in the palm of my hand, even though I read in Seventeen that the dirt from your hand gives you zits, and wondered what it was about her that made everyone like her so much. Every girl who had been nominated for Class Favorite had great hair, and they all had nice nails—whether they were short or long, they were always manicured. I’d painted my nails a pale pink from a home manicure kit, but it didn’t look near as nice as