Underneath by Sarah Jamila Stevenson Page A

ready to run to the bathroom and barf. Spike even smiles at me tentatively, but I’m not quite prepared to smile back. Let them stress for a change.
    After getting a cola, I quicken my pace on the way to my new table, far away from Cassie and the Zombie Squad. I set down my lunch bag and drink and plop down in the middle of the bench.
    I’m about three bites into my turkey pita sandwich when I hear people approaching from the parking lot. The conversation grows closer. I can pick out a couple of female voices, a few male; none of them recognizable. Then a group of artsy goth types turns the corner of the art building and heads for the table. My table. My heart sinks.
    â€œHey,” says one girl. “What are you doing at our table?” She looks at me disdainfully, pouting from a mouth lipsticked a dark maroon color. It strikes me that Cassie probably would have said the same thing if I’d tried sitting at my old lunch spot. My heart starts pounding and my ears get hot as I try to think of something to say.
    Another one of the girls stares at me closely for a moment, and I realize she’s recognized me as The Girl Whose Cousin Committed Suicide. Just what I need. I duck my head a little, trying to hide under my untrimmed bangs while I peer up at her surreptitiously. She looks familiar, and I realize I had English class with her freshman year. Back then she had really long brown hair, though; now she has short, spiky two-inch-long purple braids that poke out from her head like little coiled springs. I also remember her being quiet in class. Now she speaks up.
    â€œNo big deal,” she says, flashing a look at her comrades. “It’s cool. If she wants to, she can stay.” I give her an uneasy smile. She doesn’t smile back, but she takes the lead in sitting down next to me at the table.
    The rest of the group starts filling in the bench around and across from me, haphazardly tossing an array of army-surplus messenger bags and black patent leather purses next to my baby-blue backpack. I stand out like a sore thumb in my s wim team sweatshirt. My legs tense with the urge to bolt.
    Mikaela Ramirez. I remember her name all of a sudden, randomly, along with the subject of her ninth grade oral report on A Midsummer Night’s Dream : something about tricksters and fairies. Even that thin thread of connection helps me relax a little, and I sneak another look at her. Other than the new fashion statement, she’s pretty much as I remember: short and sturdy, with light-brown skin a few shades darker than mine. Then one of the guys stares over at me, coldly enough to make me look down.
    â€œNice. We ditch one day of school and the Attack of the Clones moves in.” He says it in a low voice, offhandedly, but with a hint of a snarl. For a minute I can’t even bring myself to look up. My ears are hot, my eyeballs are prickling, and I wish I’d worn anything other than swim team sweats and my Citrus Valley Vikings hat.
    I haven’t been sitting with these people five minutes, and they’re already judging me. How unfair is that? I guess it’s karma coming back to bite me, after everything I used to say. A song lyric pops into my head, the one about instant karma. John Lennon.
    Shiri loved that song.
    â€œSo, what’s a clone like you doing slumming it back here?” the guy adds.
    â€œEx cuse me?” I look up at him. He’d almost be cute, in a goth sort of way, if he hadn’t just annoyed the crap out of me: tall, a little skinny, but with a strong jaw and profile. His eyes are blue, he’s got a silver eyebrow ring, and his hair is jet black, obviously dyed. His lips twist into a sneer. I shoot my fiercest glare back at him.
    It doesn’t seem to matter where I go; all anyone ever does is judge me by the way I look. I might as well still be five years old wearing my purple kindergarten dress.
    I don’t need this. I swallow my bite of sandwich and