Free Lucid by Adrienne Stoltz, Ron Bass Page B

pizza. In line to pay, I scan the tables for the one face I hope to see. No sign of him. I take my sorry-looking lunch outside. In the past week, I haven’t actually spoken to the guy. More to the point, he not only hasn’t spoken to me, I don’t believe he has ever once looked at me or acknowledged my existence. Admittedly, it seems completely unintentional on his part, as if I’m just any other kid in a world of kids to which he is simply indifferent. It’s a weakness of mine that I take this kind of thing personally. In other words, I would have preferred that he avoided me instead of forgetting that I exist. After all, hadn’t we had this titanic battle of wits? Hadn’t we proved to be two genuine literary intellects at a mediocre school?
    I suppose thoughts like that are more about my insecurities and need to bolster my own self-esteem than about the worth ofour school and its student body. I’m so panicky about Columbia, worried that my straight-A credentials from our tiny pond will be laughed out of the running in comparison to my competition, which will be from the very best schools in the very biggest cities. The facts are only 9 percent of applicants get in, and 97 percent of the applicants are in the top 10 percent of their classes. Factor in that 57 percent of those admitted are Asian, African American, Latino, or Native American. And that only 7 percent are from New England. So 7 percent of 9 percent means that my chances of getting in are 0.63 percent, which is 1 out of 160. My mind can go on like this for hours. Days, really.
    Just to beat this poor dead horse so that it can never come back to life, I’m not an athlete, I don’t debate, play chess, cheerlead, sing a cappella, or really do anything except volunteer at the vet’s. I just study hard and take photographs for yearbook. In short, I’m irresistible. I have literally cried myself to sleep over how vanilla and translucent I am and how achingly devoid of accomplishments that could let me stand out from the crowd.
    Which is, I guess, why I feel so down about being ignored by Sparrow Boy. He did something more memorable in that offhand moment than I will do in my entire life. And I suppose that if he recognized a special connection between us, that would give me a little fairy dust. So, I’m not really upset about wanting attention from him; it’s just a crushing confirmation of my own averageness. It’s certainly not that I like anything about him. Without even trying, the guy is completely obnoxious. For example, having arguably (slightly) won our first skirmish, he retired victorious. He suddenly is quiet in class and answers only when called upon, at which point he delivers abrilliantly polished one-liner and then steps back to leave the field to lesser beings. Unfortunately, now that includes me.
    Worse, he sits in the back of the class, never anywhere near me, let alone next to me. So I can’t see what he’s up to.
    Picking up my Faulkner paper from Ms. Lambert’s desk, I notice (as in, shuffle through the papers to find) his A+. Next to which, my naked A looks like a C–. So I casually stop by after school to ask Ms. Lambert what is missing in my paper to make it less than an A+ effort. Annoyingly, she tells me not to be so hard on myself, she’s only given one A+ in her life. I decide not to warn her she has spinach stuck in her tooth and ask casually, “Anyone I know?”
    She gives me a look confirming that she knows that I know who the hell I’m talking about. She then volunteers that she asked James to dial it back in class. Having me speak all the time was a great thing for the class, sort of a backboard for the other students to bounce their ideas off. With James, she fears it would be a tennis match between the two of us, which would inevitably freeze the others out.
    “I get the theory just fine. I only wonder why you didn’t ask me to dial it back. Or is that a request one only makes to the A+ caste?” I ask with a