Free The Aristobrats by Jennifer Solow

tablecloth from the lunchroom. Mr. Lewis had spent the first part of class talking about the artist, Cézanne, and his subtle use of color and shape. He displayed Cézanne’s artwork around the room on the HD Super-Screens.
    Plum loved the pictures Mr. Lewis had shown. She could imagine being as small as a ladybug and walking in between the pieces of fruit the artist had painted. That’s what she was thinking when she used her pastels.
    â€œNeon orange?” Mr. Lewis asked from behind her. He said the word “orange” like it rhymed with “door-hinge.” Why did teachers always say words fancier than normal people? “What about today’s still life is neon ‘door-hinge’?” He sounded suspicious.
    Plum looked up at the teacher with her pastel-covered face, then back at her drawing. She didn’t even realize she’d made the whole thing neon “door-hinge.” She’d gotten lost in all the colors and just, um, kept going.
    Plum shrugged.
    â€œYour still life looks like a discotheque , Miss Petrovsky. One feels ill when one looks at it,” he said. “Did you not pay attention to the lecture?”
    â€œYes…” Plum said.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI mean no.” Plum corrected herself because it was a trick question. Aha! “No,” she said clearly, “I did not not pay attention.” She was confident. “I did pay attention.”
    â€œThen why does your drawing look like a…discotheque?” Mr. Lewis asked.
    Plum tried to think of the right answer—she really did. But she felt like nothing she could say would be the right answer. She never had the right answer to teachers’ questions. Plus she didn’t even know what a discotheque was.
    â€œI don’t know,” she replied.
    â€œYou don’t know?” Mr. Lewis paused and looked at Plum’s drawing again. “Well, when you have the answer to the question, Miss Petrovsky, please do come and tell me.”
    Plum slumped down in her chair. She wiped her bangs out of her face and popped her bubble by accident.
    Mr. Lewis handed her a yellow slip. “I can ignore the gum, Miss Petrovsky, because I am a fan of the stuff myself,” he said. “But not the blatant disregard for uniform regulations.” They both looked down at the bright undershirt peeking out from the top of her shirt. All of her white undershirts were dirty this morning, but purple and white striped was maybe not the best alternative.
    â€œThanks,” she said taking the slip. Just what I always wanted.
    ***
    Ikea sat at the computer in the back corner of the Advanced Technologies classroom. She had her Asynchronous JavaScript and XML assignment open in one window, but she was more interested in working on a new glitter blinkie design for her MySpace page. She knew if she kept the AJAX assignment open in the background while she worked on her glitter blinkie, she could quickly click to her class stuff when Mr. Boliack came back into the room.
    Ikea had gotten super-good at blinkie alphabets—her design generator was one of the most popular apps downloaded from her profile.
    It was always funny to see how people used the lettering to suit their personalities. Suzanne Hoechstetter took Ikea’s Diamond Dust design and wrote “Drama Queen” at the bottom of her profile with big, blinking stars on either side of the words. Like Suzanne needed Flash animation to make that point clear to people. Cosima Adrianzen-Fonseca turned the Cowgirlz Sparkle alphabet into her favorite quote: “To Live is to Dance and to Dance is to Live.” Even Tribb Reese spelled out his name on his profile in her glittery Blu Lightning letters.
    But this one was Ikea’s best blinkie designs ever. She’d gotten the animation just right. It was so subtle that the letters really did look like they were made out of zillions of diamonds. She wanted to use it for something