Too Cool for This School

1
The eighth graders got to choose us. That was how the system worked. Leslie Fuentes and Robin Galindo stood before us in all their eighth-grade glory looking super fashionable and super powerful and super serious. And I understood why. Who they chose mattered. Because Leslie and Robin would be stuck with their picks for the entire school year.
"You know your speech is going to be recorded?" Robin asked, holding up a small camera in one hand and a tripod in the other.
I did not know this.
"Do you guys mind waiting here while we set up the equipment?" Leslie asked.
I knew the correct answer to that question, so I said, "I don't mind."
It caught me off guard when somebody had a better answer. A cute seventh-grade boy stood up. "Do you need any help?" He was the only boy here.
"We've got it, Derek," Leslie said, slinging a stylish canvas bag over her shoulder. I noticed that her bag's lavender stripes matched the lavender pattern on her sandal straps. She must have bought them together. Or maybe she was the kind of person who hunted for matching lavender patterns all the time. I wondered what her bedspread and pillows looked like. I suspected they were very lavender-y.
"Well, I'm great with electronics if you change your mind," Derek said.
I stopped looking at Leslie and turned my attention to Derek. His follow-up offer reeked of strategy. I mean, did he always brag about how great he was with electronics? Was he really such a helpful person? Or was it all an act? I suspected the latter. The longer I stared at Derek, the less cute he became. In fact, he was way less cute than my secret boyfriend, Todd Romero. It didn't even matter that Derek was a little older than Todd. Derek had hang-ups.
I mean, why did he use so much hair gel? His dark curls looked wet and crisp at the same time. Sort of like plastic. Why would you want to have a plastic-y head in middle school? Todd had normal hair that looked great, especially when he played soccer and the wind blew it.
Once I realized that I'd been staring directly at Derek's head for at least two minutes, I quickly looked away. Before I decided to try out for class captain, I had no idea I had this much paranoia and nervousness and judgment inside me.
Shortly after Robin disappeared into the gym, she burst back through the door into the hallway. "We accidentally drained our battery. It'll be a couple more minutes."
"I can help with that!" Derek cheered.
He was so eager.
"We've got it, Derek," Robin said.
Robin left me and my competition sitting in a semicircle of metal folding chairs while she bouncily reentered the gym. The fluorescent light flickered above us, making the hallway feel grim. My mind wandered. Did I really want my speech recorded? Did that mean it was going to be watched again and again? I hadn't really designed my speech for repeated viewings. Sure, it was well crafted and sincere. But when I'd written it, I'd assumed it would only be heard once.
As you probably already know, my name is Lane Cisco and I'm running for sixth-grade class captain because I am very capable of keeping myself and those around me highly organized. I am assertive and flexible and very open to other people's thoughts and suggestions. I promise to come up with innovative ideas to help make this year very fun for everybody.
I closed my eyes and kept focusing on my speech. Was I forgetting something? I thought I might be. Then I felt a small bump against my shoulder.
"You look like you're zoning out," said the girl next to me.
I opened my eyes. That seemed like a rude thing to tell a person after you bumped her. "I am not zoning out," I said. Then I stopped talking. Because I realized that this comment came from a very small fifth grader. And I didn't have time to converse with a fifth grader.
I mean, I didn't even know any of the fifth graders' names. That wasn't useful information. The fifth graders didn't matter. Neither did the seventh graders. Every grade got their own class captain. Except for the almighty eighth graders, who historically had gotten two. Coral Carter and Paulette Feeley, two of my fellow sixth graders, were my only competition. I glanced down the semicircle of chairs in their direction. They were dressed to impress. Paulette, who traditionally arrived to school zipped into a dumpy denim jacket decorated with sea horses, had actually worn a gray corduroy skirt and soft pink tights. It was an alarming and stylish turn of events.
If it were just a lottery, I wouldn't have been so nervous. My speech wouldn't have mattered and neither would my outfit. My fate would have been determined by a slip of paper or the flip of a coin. Either I'd win or I'd lose. It would be so simple.
"Do we have a faculty mentor?" the fifth grader asked. "Is she in the gym?"
A bunch of us looked toward the gym. The class captains had had a faculty mentor last year: Ms. Knapp. Where was she? It did seem a little weird that the eighth graders were running the show.
"I plan to ask as few questions as possible," Derek said.
That seemed smart.
The door flew open again. "Let's start with the fifth graders," Leslie said. Her face looked so serious; her perfectly glossed, lavender-tinted lips never even turned toward a smile.
The fifth graders plodded into the gymnasium in one frightened and fashion-challenged clump. All three of them were wearing tacky tinfoil bracelets. Those things had been popular at camp, but nobody in my crowd was lame enough to think you could actually wear jewelry made out of aluminum foil to school. That fashion statement belonged back in the woods, where all my friends and I had left it.
"Good luck," Derek said.
Wow. He was so fake. Was it wrong to want somebody I vaguely recognized and had officially met less than ten minutes ago to lose?
Once the gym door slammed shut, it was impossible to hear anything. What took place on the other side of that door was one of the biggest mysteries at Rio Chama Middle School. Nobody ever talked about it. Not the winners. Not the losers. All we knew was that decisions were final. And those who were chosen became part of an elite group of students who had special power. In addition to attending monthly pizza meetings with faculty members and offering student input, class captains got to plan the three school parties: Halloween Carnival, Winter Festival, and Spring Movie Night. Plus, as a bonus, a framed group photo of the captains was hung in the school's central trophy case. And that picture didn't get taken down and thrown away once the year was over. It got moved to a pillar, where it would remain forever. Me. Smiling. Class captain. Forever. I wanted that. I really, really did.
The gymnasium door burst open again. Slam! And the small fifth grader, the one who'd bumped me, came running out like she was being chased by a pack of killers.
"Did you win?" Derek asked.
But she didn't stick around to answer. Then, before we had a chance to talk about her, another girl raced out of the gym. And she looked weird. Like she was covered in glitter.
"Maybe she won," I said. "Do they glitter bomb you if you win?"
A seventh-grade girl frowned and smoothed her long brown hair. "I hope not. Do you know how hard it is to shampoo glitter out of your hair?"
I did not. My hair was medium long and brown and not terribly thick. I had a tough time making it stay in a ponytail. Plus, I hadn't used glitter since kindergarten.
"Neither of them won," Paulette Feeley said with complete certainty.
We all turned to look at her. How could she possibly know that?
Coral looked surprised but offered her own explanation. "I guess their faces did look really freaked out."
Coral was right. And I made a mental note that whether I won or lost, I would not let my face look too freaked out.
Leslie appeared at the door. "We're ready for the sixth graders."
My whole body felt hot and uncertain. "What happened to the other fifth grader?" I asked as I shuffled along behind Paulette and Coral. It was as if the third girl had been vaporized.
"I'm pretty sure winners exit out the back," Paulette said.
Paulette seemed to know a lot about how this top-secret process worked.
I wasn't the only person who noticed this. The energy surrounding the competition shifted from excitement to high-stakes tension the minute we entered the gymnasium. As soon as the door clicked closed, Leslie and Robin spun around and began scrutinizing us with their eyes.
"This has never happened before," Leslie said, pointing a purply-polished fingertip at Coral.
Robin took one step toward us and angrily waved her hand, which was a gesture I wasn't used to seeing because I came from a mellow home.
"I am stunned and appalled!" Robin snapped, waving her hand more erratically.
"There's a squealer on the loose," Leslie blurted out as she rummaged through her bag.
I stood beside my competition and pressed my lips together, trying to look as concerned as possible.
"Get the blindfolds!" Robin said, her voice tinged with urgency. "We're getting to the bottom of this right now."

2
It was rare for me to find myself in a situation that required a blindfold. But once we stepped onto the basketball court, things went from tense to weird with lightning speed.
"This is a major crisis," Robin said.
It was enormously disappointing news to hear, because I wasn't built for crisis. I wished my friends Ava, Lucia, and Rachel were here. They knew how to manage drama much better than I did. Robin handed me a dark piece of oval fabric with a rubber band stapled to it.
"Put this on," she demanded.
I didn't argue. After I slid the blindfold over my eyes and nose, I couldn't see anything. Even light.
"Who said that winners exit out the back?" Leslie asked.
I did not say a word. I even tried to keep my exhalations silent. It was really too bad Ms. Knapp wasn't around. Because I doubted a faculty mentor would allow students to endure this sort of trauma blindfolded in a gym. Seriously. Our district had banned dodge ball two years ago, and we weren't allowed to touch each other with more than a finger when we played tag.
"Being a class captain is an esteemed tradition. We're looking for somebody with integrity," Robin said.
"Yeah," Leslie said. "Secret-sharers, spoiler-spreaders, and loose-lipped squealer-dealers need not apply."
I was certain that I wasn't any of those, especially not a loose-lipped squealer-dealer. I was a kind sixth grader. All my friends thought so.
"Nothing will happen until we start getting answers," Leslie said.
Standing inside my own darkness made me feel claustrophobic. Somebody needed to start giving answers.
Silence.
Somehow all the blackness made me feel as if the gymnasium's walls were falling in on me. How much longer could I take this? Maybe five minutes. But did I need to take it for five more minutes? That was when I saw my chance to get a little bit ahead in this competition. I mean, why drag this out and punish myself?
"Paulette Feeley told us that winners exit out the back," I said.
I heard three separate gasps. But wasn't honesty supposed to be the best policy? Weren't we going to get to the truth eventually? Plus, the blindfold was starting to make the sides of my nose sweat, and didn't that cause pimples?
"How did you know that?" Robin asked. "Who squealed?"
That was a great question.
"It's okay. If you tell us the truth right now, nothing will happen to you," Robin said.
I really wished I wasn't wearing that blindfold. Because I was dying to see the look on Paulette Feeley's face. Dying.
"Yeah. Everything will be totally cool," Leslie said in a low voice.
When I heard somebody breathing in a spastic and nervous way, I knew it was Paulette. This was so much drama. Ava and Lucia and Rachel were going to die when I told them about it.
"By the way," Leslie said. "Everything that's happening right now is secret information."
This news was a huge bummer.
"We can't even mention the blindfolds?" Coral asked.
I thought that was a great question for Coral to ask, because it made her look like a person who really wanted to be a secret-sharer.
"Absolutely not," Leslie said.
"Tell us what we want to know," Robin insisted.
Silence.
"Was it Maya?" Leslie asked in a soft, kind voice.
All the pieces were coming together. Paulette's sister, Maya, had tried out for class captain last year and lost.
"Maybe," Paulette said.
"All we want is the truth," Leslie cooed. "That's the foundation of this organization."
And then Paulette spoke the four words that changed the course of everything.
"Yes," she said. "Maya told me."
"Oh," Robin said with a ton of disappointment in her voice. "That's too bad. I really liked her."
"Yeah, she was totally, totally great," Leslie said.
I found it spooky that they kept referring to Maya in the past tense.
"Okay," Robin said. "You'll need to leave, because from this point forward you're absolutely ineligible. And so is your entire bloodline."
"What?" Paulette asked. "My bloodline?"
"All your relatives. That's a bloodline," Robin explained.
"For how long?" Paulette asked. "A year?"
"Basically forever," Leslie said.
I heard somebody start releasing a terrible whine and I knew it was Paulette.
"Ouch," Robin said. "That hurts my ears."
Paulette immediately stopped making that awful sound. "Should I just leave right now?" she asked
"No," Robin said. "We'll send the other loser out with you. Hold tight for three minutes. And keep your blindfolds on."
"Lane Cisco," Leslie said. "Follow us."
Did this mean I was the other loser?
"Do I keep the blindfold on?" I asked.
"Yes," Robin and Leslie said in unison.
"Okay," I said. I swung my arms out in front of me, trying to feel for them in the dark. But I didn't need to do that for very long, because their arms grabbed me.
They led me almost one hundred steps before we stopped.
"Sit down," Leslie commanded.
I reached behind me for a chair and when I felt the metal seat, I quickly lowered myself into it.
"Take off your blindfold," Robin said.
I did.
"You are underneath a disco ball," Leslie said.
I looked up and watched the rainbow-colored lights swirl across the room.