Populazzi Read Free

Crew. Even though we were always up for hanging out with other people, everyone assumed we weren't, so they pretty much stayed away. The more they stayed away, the closer we got and the more inside jokes we had, so the harder it was for anyone else to break in. Eventually they stopped trying.
    Picking out the individual Cubby Crews was easy.
    The low-key guys and girls in jeans and ironic T-shirts chatting and laughing easily with the faculty? The Geniuses.
    The proud eccentrics in bizarro clothes talking in goofy voices with huge full-body gestures? The Theater Geeks.
    The polished fashion-forwards who reeked of cigarettes and breath mints, sipped lattes, and gave a running catty commentary on everyone around them? The Cosmopolitans.
    The stringy-haired, glazed-eyed androgynes with no books who sat against the wall leaning heavily on one another? The Wasteoids.
    There were other Cubby Crews, too, including ones without titles—scattered partnerships, trios, and quads that were clearly islands unto themselves. Yet all of these moved out of the way when a lone guy strode down the hall.
    If they hadn't moved, I think he'd have plowed right through them without even realizing it. He was the hottest guy I'd ever seen, but I got the sense he didn't care about that kind of thing. His eyes were a million miles away, and his long black trench coat and the guitar case slung over his shoulder seemed totally out of place, like they belonged to another era. He was different, but he was no outcast. He had a force field of cool around him. People went silent when he got close, then stared and whispered after he passed.
    I snapped a picture and sent it to Claudia with the text "
DZ?
"
    "
DZ!!!
" she shot back.
    DZ stood for DangerZone, the next tier on the Popularity Tower. DangerZones can pull off the "different" thing because they're so dark, troubled, and fascinating. It's tough to call DangerZones popular. They're above labels like that. They do whatever they want, and all the others—from the Happy Hopeless to the Supreme Populazzi—feel honored if a DangerZone wants to talk to them.
    I turned away so the DangerZone wouldn't see me watching him ... and was almost blinded by the glow of the uppermost tier on the Tower: the Populazzi. I saw them through a large picture window. The Populazzi lazed among the branches of a sprawling oak tree, basking in the leaf-filtered sun. It had to be the best spot on campus, and I wasn't surprised they'd claimed it. They were the Golden Ones: beautiful, confident, and admired.
    I snapped a picture of them and sent it to Claudia. At Pennsbrook, she and I had criticized the Populazzi a lot. They were too cliquey, too judge-y, and way too tyrannical about keeping the rest of us stuck in our spots on the Tower...
    ...and I'd be lying if I didn't admit we totally wanted to be them.
    Okay, maybe not them
exactly,
but we wanted to be in their position. Who wouldn't? They sat around their tree, on display for the whole school to see, yet none of them looked the slightest bit self-conscious. In fact, they radiated ease and happiness. Going through life like that ... it would be like living a fairy tale.
    Of course, the problem with all the Populazzi we'd ever known was that they'd been born into the fairy tale, so they didn't appreciate it. The people who'd make great Populazzi were people like Claudia and me. We knew the other side, so we'd recognize how good we had it and wouldn't be harsh to anyone on other tiers.
    As I continued watching the Populazzi, I noticed one girl stood out more than the others. She sat on the lowest branch of the tree. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair had beautiful waves and highlights that I swear seemed to sparkle in the sun. Perfectly white teeth beamed out of her sun-bronzed face, and her cowl neck white sleeveless top and jeans looked both casually thrown together and catalog-model flawless.
    I'd spent hours figuring out my own look for the first day of school and