Project 17 Read Free Page B

to do it.
    Easy, right?
    Not easy. Probably not even possible. A long shot, to say the least. But as corny as it sounds, I believe there's a reason I saw that contest ad. There's a reason that girl brought me up there this summer--in the daylight, when I could really see everything, when I could see things through her eyes. And there's a reason I saw the headline that the place was going to be torn down for condos and apartments.
    So I have to give it a try--at least so I can just say I tried something. Or else I'll be smellin' like tuna fish for the rest of my natural life.
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    MIMI
    I HATE ART CLASS. But when I got shut out of music this term--because all of those classes are reserved for people who actually have musical talent--my adviser insisted that art is the elective someone like me should take.
    Someone like me who likes to wear black clothes. And black boots. And dye my hair to match. Because I wear dark makeup. And carry around a camo duffel bag for my books. And have a faux diamond stud pierced through my lower lip.
    It obviously must mean that I enjoy stuff like art. Yeah.
    So while Ms. Pimbull, my art teacher--more commonly known as "the pit bull"--sits at the back of the room working on her grad-school stuff (an installation of watercolor hell: eleven paintings filled with nothing more than pastel dots and lines), we're all free to draw whatever we want.
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    I'm sketching a chicken head. It's got a hand gripped around its throat in a choke hold. It's not that I love or hate chickens. It's not that I'm some fanatical vegan trying to make a statement for PETA. And no, I'm not sketching out what happened during one of my moonlit rituals--as some of the administration imagine about me. (No joke. I once got called down to the principal's office, accused of vandalizing Winter Island beach with stuff like sacrificial dead fish and a giant pentagram made out of driftwood.) I'm just trying to piss people off--to feed what they already think they know about me.
    When none of them have even stopped to really find
    out.
    Derik LaPlaya LaPointe moves from his table across the room and plops down on the stool beside mine. "Hey there, Miss Sweet," he says. But he isn't talking to me. He's talking to the girl sitting across from me at my table. Nicole glances up at him but then resumes sketching a portrait of her boyfriend. She's got his junior year picture propped up in front of her for inspiration.
    "Hey," she mutters, less than enthusiastic to talk to his sad self. She resumes her sketch.
    "Is that Sean you're drawing?" he asks.
    Nicole nods, all but ignoring him.
    "How are you guys doing?"
    "Great," she says, perking up slightly. She actually looks at him for two full seconds.
    "I missed you at Maria's party last Thursday night," he
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    says. "It was awesome. I guess her mom kicked out that boozer-ass of a boyfriend she had and then took off for some weeklong retreat thing. The place was packed. How come you didn't go?"
    "I had to study."
    "Come on, a brainiac like you? Haven't you heard, the weekend starts at three on Thursdays?"
    "Which is why you're flunking out of school," I say, cutting in.
    "Are you talking to me, Halloween?" Derik asks. "If the point-zero-seven GPA fits."
    "For your information, I have a better plan than school."
    "Male prostitution?"
    Derik turns his back to me and continues to badger Nicole. "I'm doing this film project," he explains. "I thought that maybe you and Sean might like to give me a hand."
    "Why?" she asks.
    "Why am I making a movie?"
    "No, why would we want to help you?"
    Derik's mouth falls open but nothing comes out. "What's with you?" he says after a few moments.
    Nicole shrugs, but she doesn't answer.
    "It's for this reality TV contest," he continues, not giving up.
    The idea of it--of Derik LaPointe making anything other than a play for some girl surprises me. I take a
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    second glance at him, noticing how jacked the boy is these days. He's got on this incredibly tight