“It would be better if we had a third girl,” I said.
Phoebe overheard me and said, “No way. You’re not all going together.”
I told her it would look more balanced with three of us. Then, getting brave, I said, “Then you do it with us. You can dance. I’ve seen you.” Because she’s in my Broadway jazz class, and I think she’s in the highest level for ballet.
“I don’t do girl squads,” Phoebe said.
This is actually something we have in common, but I was trying to be friendly. So I turned to Daisy and asked if she’d do it instead.
“Oooh, what are you doing?” she asked. “‘All About That Bass’? ‘Miss Independent’?”
The first girl was onstage now, singing “Single Ladies,” so I told Daisy my idea and that they’d just have to dance behind me.
She turned to Phoebe. “You should so do this with us,” she said, then added, “Pleeeeze!”
Phoebe turned away. Daisy gave up then and grabbed Lucky’s hand to go find the video on YouTube.
Onstage, the girl was on her third repeat of “If you like it, then you should’ve put a ring on it.” A girl named Kira from our group was behind her, so I got in line. I asked Kira what she was doing.
She giggled and said, “‘Shake It Off,’” explaining that her older sister used to sing it all the time. The girl onstage finished her final “Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh.” Then Kira went up.
Daisy and Lucky joined me. “We’re good,” Daisy said. “You do your thing in front, and we’ll try to stay together.” She was jumping up and down from excitement, which made me excited too. Then it was our turn. I told the DJ my song: “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Too bad I was wearing Nikes.
“Do you know the lyrics?” he asked.
“By heart,” I said.
“Nice pants, by the way.” He pointed to the chameleons.
I went and sat on the stage. I said, “I’d like to dedicate this to my mother!”
That got a laugh. Daisy and Lucky got on both sides behind me and started pretending to walk in rhythm.
Weirdly, I know all the lyrics to the song, a sort of girl-power 1960s anthem about a woman walking out on a cheating man, because, when I was little, it was one of my mother’s favorites. Any time she had a bad, lying, cheating, drugged-out boyfriend, she’d walk around our apartment singing it. I sang along. It is one of my best memories of her.
Maybe if she’d kept those walking boots in mind, she wouldn’t be doing time.
But I missed my mom when I belted out: “One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!”
Daisy and Lucky were doing a good job, acting like go-go dancers, and the older people in the audience were whooping, saying stuff like “Go, girl!” and “Shake it!”
And right during the musical interlude, where the three of us go-go’d around the stage, I noticed some grown-ups had joined our group.
Specifically, Angie and Headmistress Pike.
Uh-oh.
But I figured there was nothing else to do but finish at the top of my lungs (to generous applause, by the way). Miss Pike was already lining everyone up. When I came down, she said, “Start walking, boots!”
Of course, you know the rest. We got dragged back to campus in humiliation. And this was not, in fact, a tradition everyone knew about. Someone had called the police and said they’d seen us being frog-marched to a karaoke club blindfolded. Luckily, the police recognized what was happening and called the school.
They called everyone’s parents but mine. For me, they called Vanessa (not the worst possible consequence—she sounded like she was out at a club when I talked to her). The word “expulsion” was thrown around. But finally they said we’d only be suspended for one day and “confined to our dorm” on weekends for a month. Plus, we have to clean up the cafeteria after dinner. And we got a l-o-n-g lecture about the wonderful opportunity we were being given, so we couldn’t do anything like that again, or we’d be expelled.
I was in tears during this, because it’s particularly true due to my situation. But Phoebe spoke up. “It wasn’t the new girls’ fault. We dragged them there from their beds. I mean, look at her.” And she gestured at my pajamas.
Miss Pike said we should have refused to go, which was impossible. But I calmed down and said I would never do anything wrong again. Daisy squeezed my hand and, when I looked at her, she gestured to her feet and pretended to be walking.
It was totally worth it, but I hope you aren’t disappointed in me.
Anyway, that’s why I still haven’t sung in Harry’s class. Hopefully Monday.
Love, Jacaranda
Date: September 13, 4:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Subject: Your way-too-generic name
Dear Mr. Smith,
Do I have to keep calling you Mr. Smith?
Forgive me if that’s a rude question. But seriously. It’s not very creative. As someone who never had a father or uncle or even a cousin to write to, I’d rather not write to a mysterious Mr. Smith. Plus, I tell everyone here I’m writing to a relative, because these rich kids all have relatives. When you’re rich, everyone wants to be related to you.
When I was little, one of my friends had this Uncle Bob she talked about all the time. I used to wish I had an uncle (I have an aunt I lived with when my mom first got arrested, but you can guess how that worked out). But I don’t have an uncle or a doting aunt, just you, who probably doesn’t read this anyway.
If you’re not Will Smith, are you Sam Smith?
I’m signing this “Best wishes” because it’s hard to love an inanimate object.
Best wishes, Jacaranda Abbott
Date: September 15, 5:01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Subject: Your rebel beneficiary
Dear Mr. Smith,
I’m famous! Well, again. But this time, I’m famous as the rebel who blew out of MAA in the middle of the night and led a girl gang to a bar to sing onstage. Very little of the story is true, but it makes me sound cool, so I let it go. Several people have asked me to perform “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” in the hallways, the cafeteria, outside.
I’ve become intimately familiar with both the cafeteria dishwasher and the girls from that night. We’ve bonded, scraping plates and sweeping the floors. Someday, when we’re once again allowed to leave campus, we plan to go shopping or to Starbucks to get a Frappuccino.
And I finally sang in Harry’s class. I thought I was going to be the only one to sing on Monday, but it turned out that Phoebe also hadn’t sung yet. So Harry pulled us both aside and said, “Which one of you young convicts wants to sing first?”
I looked at Phoebe. She looked down at the floor. I remembered her glorious voice on “Hallelujah” the first day. I’ve heard enough of my classmates to know that some are better than I am, and some are not. Phoebe’s definitely in the first category, so why follow her? I told him, “I’ll go first” at the very same moment she said it.
Finally, Harry pointed to Phoebe.