Free The Aristobrats by Jennifer Solow Page B

place. Tons of Wallys were already out on the bleachers. Where the Lylas belonged, she thought angrily. Weird James Hunter was walking around the production studio with his sweatshirt zipped up nearly to his chin and the bottom of his uniform shirt hanging out. He had his digital camera in his hands and he was bending down, lurking around corners with his lanky body and snapping photographs of who knows what. The leg of a chair? The light switch? The gum stuck underneath a desk? James got extra creeper points for having shaggy hair flopped down over his eyes and flipped up in all directions. It would have been cute if he’d styled it that way on purpose or if he was protesting the mistreatment of hairbrushes or something.
    James’s fingers moved quickly around the buttons of his camera like they knew exactly where they were going before they got there. For a moment Parker was transfixed by them.
    He caught her staring .
    Flustered, Parker shifted her eyes quickly to the clock above him, which, BTdubs, seemed to be ticking extra-slowly.
    Kiki licked the tip of her finger and flipped though Lucky magazine. Ikea had her nose buried in her Latin book: “… porto¯, porta¯re, porta¯vı¯, porta¯tum,” she practiced. Plum was lying in corpse pose on the floor next to Kiki with her pile of yellow slips balanced on top of her nose and her illegal striped undershirt untucked and pulled down past her uniform.
    They were all supposed to be working, but what they were doing could officially be described as: Farting Around 101.
    â€œThey’re saying this American Coquette bra makes you look a whole cup-size bigger.” Kiki held up a page of her magazine to everybody.
    Plum brushed the yellow slips off her face and looked at the model in the ad. She squished up her nose and turned her head sideways to get a better look at the image.
    â€œI don’t really think she needs to be a cup-size bigger.” Ikea glanced up from her conjugations. “Her cups are already pretty big,” she observed.
    â€œMy mom always says that they put these models in ads for age cream who are only, like, twenty-five ,” Kiki said. “So why would they need age cream if they’re not that old…”
    â€œI know,” McDweebs chuckled (as he did in response to pretty much anything Kiki said). “That’s so funny that they do that…” Ha ha ha. “They’re always doing that.”
    â€œSo…” Kiki continued as if McDweebs hadn’t spoken at all (as she did in response to pretty much anything McDweebs said), “like why would this girl need to be any bigger?”
    Plum looked so deeply into the photograph that she could’ve fallen in. Then she flopped back down on the floor and crossed her arms in front of her own washboard chest. “What do you do with all that… flesh?” she wondered aloud.
    Parker peeked out the window to the field again. The Tigers were already done stretching and had moved on to a scrimmage. The world’s out there. And I’m in here. What’s wrong with this picture?
    â€œWhat are we doing here, you guys?” she finally blurted. She sat back on the windowsill and kicked the wall with the heel of her shoe. “I mean, hello . Reality check. Look at us!” Ikea took her nose out of her book. James stopped taking photographs of the ceiling. “We are so the last people in the world who should be doing this.”
    McDweebs looked disappointed—as if someone had just taken away his box of Raisinets before the movie even started.
    â€œExcept you , Leonard,” Parker corrected. “You’re actually the perfect person in the world who should be doing this.”
    â€œWe should blow it off and go to the Orion store,” Plum said from the floor. “I really want that new black glitter case for my phone.”
    â€œI could be home scooping up Snicker’s poop-bombs,” Kiki