ONE OF US
by tracy lynn
THE SETUP
Montgomery K. Bushnell, captain of the varsity cheerleading squad, could almost hear her entrance being narrated in the freakish minds of those she approached. Something involving “damsel in distress” and her blond hair being like a “sack of gold coins” or something. In her own head it would have sounded more like the voice-over in an old detective film—the only kind of movie she and Ryan could both watch without fighting.
She slapped a wad of bills down on the desk in front of Ezra. Three pairs of eyes in the room went to the money. And then to her shapely legs. And then back to the money.
“I want to hire your services,” she said, biting back each word with a little disgust. She didn’t want to be there. And it was no surprise.
Sprawled around the media room like it was their personal cave were the four most prominent members of SPRInGfield High’s Genre and Nonsense club (SPRIGGAN). Ezra, David, Mica, and Ellen (she was the only member whose eyes stayed on the money the whole time).
They looked at her with a wide range of emotion: from almost anthropological surprise that someone like her even knew where the media room was (David, Mica), to wondering with lustful disbelief if all of their wishes were about to be granted (Ezra), to hatred so intense it bordered on audible snarling (Ellen).
“You, um, what?” Ezra said, hypnotically caught between Montgomery’s blue-sky eyes and her money.
“I want you to teach me about your…stuff….” She waved her hand impatiently around the room, at the Star Wars posters, the action figures glued to the ceiling, the cans of Mountain Dew and bags of cheese puffs. She retracted her hand a little at the last. “I have a hundred bucks here. I need you to tell me everything about, you know, video games and science fiction shows and movies.”
“Thank you…dear Lord…,” Ezra whispered.
“Why?” Mica asked, not looking up from the handheld game he was furiously stabbing at with his thumbs. His tongue came out once in a while, as if hoping it could help. It curled and wavered in the air a little before he finally sucked it back into his mouth.
Montgomery tried not to gag at the sight. “My boyfriend’s all into that stuff. You know—Ryan?”
“Yeah, we all know who Ryan is,” Ellen snapped. “‘Quarterback.’ Dating ‘the cheerleader.’”
Montgomery ignored her. “He’s really into it and I don’t get it at all. Any of it. We fight about it all the time. I thought maybe if I actually learned something about…this…we would communicate better.”
Ezra blinked at her. She could see into his head: a muscled and manly football player was tackling his dreams to the ground. Assuming he knew it was football where tackling was done, and not basketball.
“You’re paying us a hundred bucks so we can teach you to speak geek so you can communicate with your boyfriend better?” Mica asked, making sure he understood properly.
“Yes,” Montgomery said, trying to sound sure of herself. Trying to convince herself that this wasn’t the absolute worst idea she’d ever had.
“Works for me,” Mica said, going back to his game.
“Awww, the little cheerleader is looking for some personal growth,” Ellen cooed.
“Okay, not helpful,” Ezra said, shaking his finger at her. Then he composed himself and turned to Montgomery with what he obviously hoped was a professional smile. “Now. What…um…areas of our expertise did you have in mind?”
“Well, Ryan likes Star Trek….”
“Really?” Ezra said in disbelief before he could stop himself.
“Quarterback’s a Trekker!” David laughed.
“How old-school,” Mica snorted.
“Which series?” Ellen asked.
Montgomery looked confusedly from one to the other as they fired off their remarks. She tried to respond calmly, and in order.
“Um, yes; I thought it was Trekkie. What do you mean old-school? He watches…the one with the Klingon. And the other one with the doggie. Plus he likes the really, really old one.”
“True Trek?” Ellen asked gleefully.
“There are two with a Klingon as a main character,” Ezra pointed out.
“‘Doggie,’” Mica snorted. “Well, actually, it was a nice doggie. Beagle, right?”
Then: “HA, TAKE THAT, YOU BRICK WALL!” Probably to his video game.
The cheerleader took a deep breath and decided to just continue, hoping that if she braved it out, maybe it would all make sense eventually.
“And-he-also-likes-playing-on-his-Xbox-and-all-of-those-big-dorky-movies-like-Star-Wars-and-the-one-with-the-little-guys?—”
“Xbox or Xbox 360?” Mica asked, suddenly sitting up and paying attention.
“‘Dorky?’” Ezra demanded, a little insulted.
“‘Little guys,’” David snorted. “Hobbits suck….”
“You know, it was a book, too,” Ellen said snottily.
“Oh my gosh, this was a terrible idea,” Montgomery realized forlornly.
“No, wait, we can do this,” Ezra said, leaping up, ready to physically stop her from leaving the media room if he had to. “We’ll be organized. So he likes Star Trek, and all of the…great major motion pictures, and video games. We have experts on all three right here. Mica is a total vidiot. He knows everything about every computer and video game ever made. His name’s on half of the machines down at the arcade. Plus he’s a real fantasy freak. If it’s got dragons, he’s read it. My specialty is science fiction, genre and cult films. I’ll handle that.”
He gave her what was obviously supposed to be a smooth smile. Even David rolled his eyes.
“And Ellen is,” Ezra added as delicately as he could, “our book and sci-fi TV expert.”
Ellen might have actually hissed.
“Ryan doesn’t read…a lot of books…,” the cheerleader said slowly, realizing just how awful that sounded.
“Quelle surprise,” Mica muttered.
“Well…what about books with pictures? We’ll throw in comic books for free.”
“Thanks,” David said, waving his hand without looking up from the latest Captain America.
“We’ll come up with a syllabus and a class schedule,” Ezra continued, growing excited. “Also, we’ll give you reading assignments. And we’ll put it all on Google Calendar so we can arrange class time with, um, minimum interaction.”
“That’s perfect. The part where the interacting is all minimum-y,” Montgomery said eagerly.
“That was almost a Buffyism,” Mica pointed out to Ellen.
“Almost,” Ellen admitted grudgingly.
“And for a final, we could take her to Locacon,” Mica suggested, smirking.
“What’s that?” the cheerleader asked. She liked the idea of a final and assignments. She was good at standardized education. “It sounds familiar. I think Ryan talked about it….”
“It’s Springfield’s answer to World Con,” Ezra said proudly.
“It’s a sci-ence fiction and fan-ta-sy con-ven-tion,” Mica explained, slowly and carefully.
“It’s incredible,” Ellen said.
“It’s got a great dealer’s room,” David pointed out. “I got the Jimmy Olsen ‘giant’ Number Ninety-Five—from the sixties, yeah?—for like twenty-five bucks.”
“Huh,” Montgomery said, nodding. “My final exam. That’s a great idea. So by the end of this little course I’ll be able to fit in and talk with everyone and completely impress Ryan? And maybe not be completely bored?”
The four geeks looked at each other uncomfortably.
“Ah, I think, that might be, uh, blue-skying it,” Ezra said carefully, coughing a little. “Er, really ambitious. We’re looking at just getting you through the day without losing your patience. Or saying anything too insulting.”
“Yes, that’s probably a more workable end goal,” the cheerleader agreed, thinking about it.
“Sports metaphors,” Ellen said, rolling her eyes. “How typical.”
Trek 101
“All right, let’s start with the basics,” Ellen said, marching back and forth in front of the blackboard. She clasped a yardstick behind her back like a nun or a commandant, just waiting for a chance to strike.
Montgomery sat in Mrs. Tiegwold’s English classroom, all alone in the front row. The clock ticked sadly past two thirty: school was out for everyone else who didn’t need special help in the area of high geekery. She really was trying: she had her little bobbly feather-topped pen poised over her favorite pink notebook, legs crossed studiously.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to do much about removing the look of boredom and disdain fixed on her face.
Why they were doing this at school was a mystery. Montgomery could understand Ellen’s embarrassment at maybe taking a field trip to a coffee shop (the poor girl often had dribbles of something—milk, juice, coffee—on her shirt collars), but why not at least at her own house? She probably had tons of backup material. Dolls, action figures, fun props…
“We need to get you to the point where you can at least tell the difference between the Star Treks,” Ellen continued. “We’ll start with a good mnemonic device. THE FIVE RULES OF GIRLS.”
She suddenly lashed out with the yardstick and thwacked a pull-down Shakespeare character chart. The chart rolled up violently, revealing the five carefully chalked-in rules. Ellen smiled smugly at her trick. Not that she had obviously practiced a bunch of times the day before.
“Rule one.”
THWACK! She hit the board.
“Kirk always gets the girl.”
“Kirk, he’s the captain of the old one,” Montgomery said, remembering. “With the short skirts and stuff and the funky music.”
“True Trek,” Ellen corrected. “But you should probably just refer to it as the Original Series. Good for you for recognizing it, though.”
(Mica may have taken her aside earlier and pointed out the value of positive feedback; a grumpy cheerleader wasn’t likely to fork over more money if instructed by a constantly insulting Trekspert.)
The smile on Ellen’s face was forced, just like the cheerleader’s interest, but Montgomery took the compliment anyway and grinned, drawing a little congratulatory smiley face for herself.
Then she realized something.
“Hey, Ellen—you know, that shirt looks good on you. You should really wear light colors more often. With, um, better shoes.”
The yardstick almost broke in Ellen’s hands.
Almost.
Star Wars and the world of Lucas (not including A Very Wookiee Christmas or Willow)
“Ah, welcome to Château Ezra.”
He was wearing what he probably thought was a nice shirt, a colorful Hawaiian number whose coconut buttons weren’t too badly chipped. It looked freshly pressed.
In fact, Montgomery was pretty sure she could detect a whiff of starch and burnt cotton in the air. There was even…product in his hair, something that made it shiny, spiky, and not very twenty-first century.
Someday he would make a perfect mid-level manager at some sort of computer company: he already had the nondescript build, a slight tub at the tummy, and a sneeringly curved nose made shiny by the wrong use of cleansing products.
She rolled her eyes.
“Your parents are home, right?” she demanded, not coming through the invitingly open door.
“Mais non,” he answered with a bow. No doubt he had made darn sure of that.
“Let’s get this over with,” the cheerleader muttered, stomping in. Ezra went to take her coat, then realized it was spring and she wasn’t wearing one. Without pausing she followed what looked like the most likely route to the living room. “All right, I—whoa, that’s a big TV,” she said, struck despite herself.
It was the largest, flattest, high-def-ist one she had ever seen. And it almost distracted her from the low lighting, stinky candles, artfully arranged bowl of popcorn, and what looked a lot like a fake fur throw.
“Can I get you anything to drink? A diet soda, maybe?” he offered.
“‘Diet soda, maybe?’ What are you, a waiter in training? Get me a Coke if you’ve got one,” she said brusquely, settling down into the incredibly comfortable, overstuffed leather couch. Too bad this wasn’t the house of any other person in the universe. Even Ellen’s. Movie night would have almost been fun.
She didn’t hear Ezra leave or come back. He proffered her a can of Coke and a glass of ice—on a tray—then sat down. Right next to her. Almost on top of her.
“Um,” she said, using her best glare.
Ezra happily ignored her, picking up an incredibly sleek and shiny black remote. A veritable stealth plane of a remote. “What you are about to see is what some may consider the absolute pinnacle of human artistic achievement, the peak of cinematic experiences.”
“I’ve seen Star Wars,” she snapped, sliding over and putting her purse in between them.
“Yes, but have you really watched it?” Ezra asked dramatically. A couple of clicks on the remote lowered the lights even more and turned the great glowing box on. There was a pause as the DVD booted up, and the darkness was complete.
A muffled creaking of leather indicated movement on the couch.
“Touch me and I’ll kick your ass,” Montgomery warned. “And then I’ll have Ryan kick your ass, and then everyone else on the football team kick your ass, and then Eddie the towel boy kick your ass.”
(Eddie was an enthusiastic nine-year-old with autism who always wore a Steelers football helmet that the cheerleaders had pitched in to get him—he even wore it to sleep.)
But then the movie music came on, and everything changed.
He completely ignored her!
The cheerleader watched Ezra curiously. His eyes grew extra wide, drinking in every second of screen action. His breathing slowed (easy to tell; his mouth was open most of the time). His lips moved a little when people spoke. At mysteriously critical moments he would choose to pause the action and explain to her—eyes still on the screen—why this line was important, or what this meant in terms of character development, or how this was inspired directly from basic human archetypes à la Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces.
Most of the time, he didn’t even look at her.
It was kind of weird.
There they were, in a dark room, sitting on a couch together, all alone…but when the screen was on, she might as well not have been there at all.
Of course, during the inevitable pee or phone break, everything changed. He accidentally rubbed up against her when sitting down or getting up, and reached directly across her chest for the popcorn—until she wordlessly dumped the entire bucket into his lap.
THE SMACKDOWN: MANGA, ANIME, AND COMICS
“Um. So this might be easy for you to start with. Ranma 1/2. It’s a classic,” David said, handing her a bootleg DVD.
They were sitting on a bench outside the local comic shop. He had just taken her on a tour of the store, which she genuinely appreciated. It was almost like a shopping spree. She walked out with Batman: The Killing Joke; Sandman: Dream Country; X-Men Visionaries: Chris Claremont; and an action figure she thought was “kind of cute” and “might look good on my dashboard.” David hadn’t laughed at her; he had merely smiled.
Too bad he was so overweight. With his shy little smile—and maybe a slightly cleaner red T-shirt—he would have been almost cute.
A haircut wouldn’t have hurt, either.
“And, um, this is Negima. It’s a good intro to manga. Very popular. Um, there’s a little weirdness, with girls—it’s called ‘fan service,’ but it’s pretty light compared to other ones. We’ll start reading it together—I know that totally sounds retarded, but Japanese comics read a lot different from American ones. Like, you start on this side of the book.” He turned it to show her how it opened from the back.
“I’m sorry if this is totally rude,” the cheerleader said as politely as she could, “but are you interested in this because of your background?”
“Um, my grandparents are from Singapore. Not, uh, Japan. I just like it…’cause, you know, it’s like comics. But they can be about anything. Mythology or history or regular life—but with art, you know? It’s not words with pictures. It’s art. It’s a whole different way of…experiencing a book.”
“Hmm,” Montgomery said, swinging her legs on the bench, thinking about it.
Susan walked by with a couple of football players. With her long black hair and dark eyes, she was the perfect cheerleadery complement to Montgomery. Of course they had been friends forever.
The three waved and gave her a questioning look, pointing at David behind his back. Montgomery shrugged. Susan said something and the two other boys laughed. Meanly.
David turned to look.
“Oh, friends of yours,” he said, more of a statement than a question. “You want to take off?”
“No,” she said, a little sadly. The answer was yes; they were probably meeting Ryan at Café Not-Tea, to gossip and talk and have general fun. Not read comic books.
But Locacon was coming up.
She steeled her shoulders.
“Okay. So it reads backwards. What else?”
LOTR, PART I
“But Rings is an epic movie; it falls under my jurisdiction!” Ezra whined.
Mica shrugged. “I would argue that movies not based on a book fall under your jurisdiction. High fantasy literature is clearly mine. Besides, according to the schedule, you’ve sort of…um…monopolized most of the classes this week,” he pointed out, tapping at the Montgomery Calendar they had taped to the door of the media center.
“He’s got a point,” David said, nose buried in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Just a refresher; he was going to talk the cheerleader through it next week.
The student in question walked in as the two boys began to shout at each other. Ellen frowned into her book, trying to shut everyone out.
“What’s up with them?” Montgomery asked. She didn’t think members of Team Geek ever had anything to fight about.
Ellen made a face. “They’re arguing about who gets to watch The Fellowship of the Ring. With you,” she added a little spitefully.
“I am not spending another evening with Ezra,” the other girl insisted. “Not alone.”
Ellen’s look changed, becoming something like understanding. “I don’t blame you,” she agreed.
LOTR, PART II
Hanging out with Mica in his bedroom fell somewhere between David-on-a-bench and Ezra-in-his-gigantoid-living-room. While it was weird to be by herself with this boy, it didn’t necessarily reek of danger. In fact, she was impressed that it didn’t really reek much of anything, except for maybe the slight musty scent of hundreds of paperbacks that lined the walls. A small TV sat on a wooden crate in a corner; the home-theater experience was completed by a neatly folded Mexican blanket on the floor and a child’s stool (it said ‘Mica’ in big bright hand-painted letters).
Tall, short, and occasionally pretty people droned nonsense on the tiny screen. Montgomery found herself losing interest almost immediately.
“Hang on, this is an important bit,” Mica said, with the tiniest bit of an affected British accent. But he did it without thinking, so it was almost excusable.
“What? They going to get on miniature ponies and ride off into the sunset?” the cheerleader asked, pulling out a book and blowing dust off it.
“No, they’re—come on, this is serious.” He didn’t turn his head from the TV, his lips slightly parted around his surprisingly cute, slightly bucky front teeth. His dirty blond hair was tousled into his eyes—but unlike she’d assumed, it wasn’t actually dirty. It might even have had some gel or something in it.
“This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance….”
The serious one, blondie with the ears, the elf, was getting all self-important. She remembered that from the first time her boyfriend made her watch it. It would continue like this for the next two movies.
“Ugh, would you listen to them?” Montgomery sighed, rolling her eyes and shoving the book back onto the shelf. It had looked intriguing at first, but none of the characters mentioned on the back had any vowels in their names; only a lot of ws and ys and far too many double ls. “It’s ridiculous the way they talk!”
“It’s supposed to be epic and therefore archaic,” Mica explained patiently. But there was an edge to his voice. “Like…well, you take French. Think of the formality of their speech like vouvoiement versus tutoiement.”
“I didn’t know you took French,” Montgomery said, impressed. “Wait, you’re not in my or Shaniqa’s class….”
“I take French Five with the seniors,” the boy said dismissively. Not bragging. Like he wanted to get over it and back to the subject at hand. He pressed play. “Anyway, think of it as trying to sound like an English version of romantic, archaic French.”
“It sounds retarded,” she said tartly.
“Montgomery.” Mica was the very picture of barely controlled exasperation. “Not only are you paying us to show things like this to you and explain them to you, but this—this movie, is one of my Favorite. Things. In. The. World. If you don’t like it, could you at least keep the comments to yourself? How would you like it if I made fun of…”
He paused. He could have suggested any one of a thousand nasty things, from nighttime soaps to the worst sort of trashy romances.
But he didn’t.
“…whatever it is you like?”
They locked eyes for a moment. She bit her lip.
Whenever it was her turn to watch something she liked, Ryan wouldn’t stop making awful comments. Like the reality show where young designers had to sew things quickly. She didn’t even bother trying to watch it with him anymore. Hence the noir after noir after noir…
“Sorry,” she finally said. Grudgingly. She flopped down on his bed.
“Why are you doing this, anyway? I don’t really get it,” Mica admitted, crossing his legs and relaxing a little.
“Ryan likes all of this sort of…stuff,” she said as she waved her hand around. “I mean, a little. Not like you guys like it. And I don’t get it at all. I thought maybe if I did, I would get him more. I really like him, you know.”
“That’s…” Mica thought carefully. “Kind of generous.”
“Um, yeah,” Montgomery said, picking at his Star Wars quilt.
The obvious question was finally spoken.
“Is he doing the same thing for you?” Mica finally asked.
“What is this, Geek 101 or the Dr. Phil show?” the cheerleader snapped. “When I want relationship advice, trust me, I won’t be paying the dysfunctional club.”
He made a face. “Touché.”
“What about you?” she relented. “Like…you and Ellen seem perfect for each other. How come you never dated?”
“Who said we didn’t?” Mica said quickly, turning back to the TV and groping for the remote.
“Really?” Montgomery’s eyes widened at the new information. Gossip—even here, among these people—was juicy.
“Look, it just didn’t work out, okay?” he muttered, pretending to fix the screen format.
“Oh my gosh—did you guys do it? Is that what happened?”
“Hey. Monty. Shut your freaking trap and watch the elf, okay?” the geek growled, hitting play. “You’re watching a movie you hate to impress your football-playing BF. Ix-nay on the relationship advice-ay. When I want pom-pom advice, trust me, I’ll go straight to you.”
“‘Monty,’” the cheerleader said, giggling a little. “I kind of like that.”
LUNCH BREAK
“So, how’s your…secret project going?” Susan stage-whispered across the table. Montgomery kicked her under it. Her best friend was sitting right next to Ryan, who, breaking convention, was not as dumb as a football player could be. He had already questioned the unmarked bootleg in her purse—something she didn’t usually carry with her cell phone, makeup, and tampons.
Ryan wasn’t paying attention, though; he was shoveling the second of a trio of cheeseburgers into his mouth, the juices dribbling around to his chin. It would stain his white shirt with permanent greasy smears.
“It’s going well,” she said casually, as if it was about something for history class. She studied her limp salad. Then she cleared her throat and got Ryan’s attention by tapping him with her fork. “Hey, there’s a making of Star Wars special on tonight, on the History Channel.”
“Yeah?” Ryan said, surprised. He swallowed quickly. “For real? How’d you hear about it?”
“I don’t know…. Maybe you could come over and we could do our homework and watch it.” Which was really a way of saying “do our homework and make out while we ‘watch it.’” It certainly got his attention.
“Oh, you can’t,” Susan said, pouting. “There’s Reese’s party tonight. You two have to come.”
“I don’t know….” Montgomery said unenthusiastically.
“Well,” Ryan said, torn.
“Come on! I’m going to wear my new top, the one with the zip-down,” Susan said flirtily, wheedling Ryan.
“Hey,” Montgomery warned, surprised at her friend’s forwardness.
“You know I’m just kidding,” Susan said, backing down immediately. “I was just giving some added incentive.”
“Hmm.” Montgomery reached over and stole one of Ryan’s fries, biting it in half, hard.
SF TV: THE SCIFI CHANNEL VS. PBS AND THE MAJOR NETWORKS
After practice Montgomery took the bus over to Ellen’s house for what would be, barring some wonderfully cataclysmic event, an incredibly boring afternoon.
The lone female member of Team Geek promised she would start slowly, beginning with socially acceptable nerd TV (Lost, Heroes, Smallville, BuffytheVampireSlayer), then easing into the more commonly known serious sci-fi with a series of old- and new-school matchups (Dr. Who 1–8 vs. Dr. Who 9 and 10, StargateSG1 vs. Atlantis, old Battlestar vs. new Battlestar), ending with a very brief foray into the hardcore geek-but-not-forgotten (MaxHeadroom, MisfitsofScience, FridaytheThirteenth, plus some sort of Canadian–Luxembourgian Dracula series).
Despite herself, the cheerleader was a little intrigued to see Ellen’s house. She had to admit that this little extracurricular project was interesting at least in how it revealed the personal lives of people she hadn’t really given a wet slap about before.
She could hear the shouting before she even rang the bell.
“Oh, they’re upstairs,” Mrs. Ellen’s-Mom said with a smile, as if nothing was wrong, or she was deaf.
Montgomery mounted the very-normal, very-family wooden staircase with a growing sense of dread. At the top, at the end of the hall, inside a door covered with pictures of stars and space things (and very old stickers of unicorns), was exactly the sort of scene she was afraid she was walking into.
Mr. Ellen’s-Dad was yelling. Ellen was standing as calmly as she could, a thin trickle of a tear along the outside of her cheek. She was obviously trying not to see the cheerleader standing there, but quickly wiped her face, embarrassed.
“Oh, and there you go, crying again,” her father screamed, noticing her gesture. “For heaven’s sake, why can’t you be more like your hero—what’s his name? Schmock? Spock? Something stupid? The one with no emotions. Why do you have to be so emotional about everything? You’re just like your freaking grandmother…crying over everything. Are you going to cry when an employer yells at you?”
Montgomery looked down at the floor and gave a small cough.
“What? Oh, you must be Montgomery,” he said, calming down immediately.
But whatever small token he was paying to social decency failed against an urge he just couldn’t resist. He immediately turned back to his daughter.
“Look at her—why can’t you be more together, like her? She looks like someone who’s going to college! Not wasting her time with stupid online games! Nice to meet you,” he added, striding angrily down the hall.
“Hey,” the cheerleader said after a moment, with a twisted, understanding little smile.
“Hey,” Ellen said back, sniffling, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Everything was silent in the house. Dust fell; it was hard to tell where Ellen’s father had gone. Montgomery could tell that though they were from opposite worlds, at that one moment the two girls understood each other completely: What had just occurred totally sucked.
The cheerleader noticed Ellen’s outfit with sadness: the tucked-in T-shirt printed with a weird, garish logo, the boy jeans that were actually cut for a boy, the cracked leather belt, the sneakers with duct tape and pins. Not slobby or punk enough to make any statement other than “lame.” Oh, Ellen was going to college. She was super-smart.
She just wasn’t going to interview well.
“Um. I don’t really feel like watching TV. Here,” Ellen finally said.
“No problem,” Montgomery said easily. But she found herself a little disappointed.
Weird.
Here was just the sort of wonderful act of God she was hoping to preempt the afternoon of très boring geekery—she could be at Ryan’s in forty-five minutes if she raced—and now she sort of felt cheated.
She stole a quick glance around and behind Ellen, trying to take in as much of the room as she could before she left. It was similar to Mica’s, but different in a few key, girly areas. A box of tampons. Some stuffed animals. Paisley bedclothes.
A constellation of plastic painted spaceships—starships—drifting from the ceiling.
On her desk was an explosion of things incongruous to the rest of the room: piles of neatly-folded cloth, measuring tape, diaphanous fluff, cones of thread. There wasn’t a sewing machine or anything else crafty in sight save a neatly organized set of model paints.
“Sorry you came over,” Ellen muttered, kicking her toe.
“We could go see a movie or something,” Montgomery found herself suggesting. “Is there anything science fictiony out? You could coach me through it.”
“Nothing good,” Ellen sighed. “But…I’ll see anything. Bad comedy. Crapulent thriller. Explody spies. Anything except for something dumb and chicky.”
“The Sweet Smell of Success is playing at the Art House,” the cheerleader suggested hesitantly.
Ellen gave her a look somewhere between surprise and respect. “A classic, huh? Okay. Yeah. Sure. That’d be great.”
The two girls regarded each other for a second, suddenly realizing that they had somehow just agreed to go see an (almost) normal movie together, almost normally. Almost like friends.
“All right. We’re outta here,” Ellen said, grabbing her wallet, fleeing the touching moment.
“And maybe we could go to the mall afterwards,” Montgomery suggested with a grin.
“What, is this the cheerleader-turns-the-geek-into-a-beauty montage?” Ellen growled.
“No,” Montgomery retorted, “this is the surprising cheerleader-picks-up-her-asthma-prescription expositional scene…
“…and maybe we’ll just pick you out a new pair of pants. Just one,” she added mischievously.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
Technically, it was video-game night. Which meant Mica. But it was hosted at Ezra’s, because he had the aforementioned biggest-baddest TV and greatest number of game systems. Taught by Mica, because he was the expert. Section-led by David, because he was also pretty qualified, and more importantly, wanted to play.
Chaperoned by Ellen because Montgomery refused to go to Ezra’s ever again unless she was along.
The Trekspert was downstairs getting snacks out of the pantry with the host while David, Mica, and Montgomery lounged around Ezra’s bedroom. David sat sort of upside down on the—king-sized—bed, legs up on the wall as if the extra blood rushing to his brain would help. Mica was upright at the computer, logged into the massive multiplayer fantasy rpg of the moment. There were bowls of M&M’s and pizza bagels everywhere.
It was…surprisingly pleasant. Low-key.
Montgomery perched on a stool next to Mica, trying to pretend to care as he made a character for her, then showed her how to bash a level-one goblin.
“See, look! Now you’re level two!” he said proudly, indicating the willowy elf-thing on the screen that had hair and eyes sort of like the cheerleader.
“Yay,” she stated flatly. “What now?”
“Now we go get you some new armor, because you can wear light leather. And a helm, and some boots…”
“Wait, what? We’re going shopping for new clothes? In this game? Are you serious? Can I choose different kinds?” She leaned closer into the screen, putting her hand on Mica’s shoulder to get a better look. If he noticed, or enjoyed it, he didn’t let on.
“Dig the cheerleader loving the virtual shopping. Too much.” David cracked up, his last laugh sounding unfortunately very porcine.
“Oh my gosh,” the cheerleader said, turning around slowly in her stool. “You snorted. You actually snorted.”
“I’m a geek, whatever, like you’re always calling us,” he said, shrugging.
“Hey, Pom-Pom, you were just getting excited about buying a pink shield for your game character,” Mica pointed out.
“Okay, okay, phasers down, everyone,” she said, putting her hands up. “Let’s just get back to work.”
Ezra and Ellen were just entering the doorway, mini-eggrolls and drinks in hand.
“Did she just say what I thought she said?” Ezra asked, amazed.
“By George, I think she’s got it,” Ellen said with a smile.
FINALS
“What are you so stressed out about?” Ryan asked, not looking up from his phone. He was deeply texting.
“I want to be completely prepared for the conven—uh, this big test, and oh…never mind.” Montgomery wore her big comfy sweatshirt and fat jeans, which were normally great for studying in but for the fact that her boyfriend found the outfit unbearably sexy. Tonight, however, he didn’t even seem to notice. Unusual for him, but lucky for her.
“Mmm,” Ryan chuckled at something someone sent him. For a while there were no sounds other than the tapping of his keypad and the turning of notebook pages.
“I’m really glad you’re going to Locacon with me,” Ryan mentioned, not looking up from his phone. “That’s awesome of you.”
“Really?” Montgomery glowed in the praise. She squeezed his arm and lay her head back on his shoulder. He patted her knee.
“Hey, what do you call the vampire who makes someone a vampire? Like, the vampire daddy?” she asked dreamily.
“Sire,” Ryan answered without looking up.
Then he looked up.
“Wait, what?”
“Nothing,” the cheerleader said quickly.
THE GRADUATION
“Um, I don’t know what to say,” Montgomery said honestly.
David, Ellen, Ezra, and Mica stood before her—accidentally in descending order of height—dressed in, well, what she supposed they thought was formal. Ezra wore a jacket and tie, both of which were flashy, expensive, and ridiculously out of place in high school. David wore a jean jacket with all of his pins on it. All of them.
(They made, Montgomery was sort of delighted to realize she knew, a kind of scale-mail armor over his chest.)
Mica wore a vintage T-shirt that was printed to look like a tuxedo, but had a real carnation pinned to the fake lapel. Ellen wore a skirt. And a sweater. And what looked like Ferengi ears. For someone who apparently didn’t know the first thing about makeup, she had done a spectacular job blending the prosthetic into her own skin.
Ezra cleared his throat. Pompously, of course. “On this day we would like to formally congratulate you on achieving the rank of graduate proto-geek….”
“Sub-lieutenant commander,” Ellen corrected.
“Monty the Grey,” Mica suggested with a grin.
“Level Four Cleric,” David stated matter-of-factly.
“Why cleric?” Ellen asked, surprised.
“It seemed like the most scholarly, least violent of all the other kinds of classes. Think of her as a student-monk,” David explained.
“Makes sense,” Mica nodded.
“PEOPLE!” Ezra said, exasperated. “As I was saying. Today we are gathered here to formally congratulate you. Your hard work and near-endless toil have finally accomplished what you set out to do….”
“Good job, Monty,” Mica said, ignoring him. He stepped out of line and kissed the cheerleader on her cheek. She was surprised by the casualness of his socially-appropriate action; he neither blushed nor tried to turn it into something else.
And then he handed her a little figurine of an elf. Blond hair. Legolas, probably. Maybe Haldir.
No, it definitely looked a little Orlando Bloomy.
“You can put it on the shelf next to your American Idol posters,” Mica suggested with a mischievous smile.
“Nice paintwork,” David said enviously. “Um, this is from me. It’s like a diploma.”
He handed her a scroll with a lot of calligraphy on it, and a bright, big-eyed picture of herself. As kind of a blond Japanese cheerleader.
“Did you draw this yourself?” Montgomery asked, trying not to sound like a mom. It was actually quite good. Maybe she would even frame it.
“Yeah, and inked and colored it, too,” he pointed out.
“And from me, something to inspire you,” Ezra said grandly, holding his hand out with a flourish.
Montgomery was expecting something ridiculous, expensive, and shiny, an embarrassingly lavish gesture.
What she got was a ball of fluff.
“A tribble?” she asked, confused.
“Don’t girls love them?” Ezra asked, also confused.
“Thirty years ago, maybe,” Ellen snorted, rolling her eyes. “Here, this is from me. For all of the thousands of bad guys in your life.” She gave a meaningful look to Ezra. Then she smugly held up a case.
Montgomery popped the catches and opened the top.
“Oh, my gosh,” she said.
Inside was a single piece of sharpened wood.
“MR. POINTY!” she screamed in delight.
“You gave Buffy’s weapon…her stake…to the cheerleader,” David said with a whistle. “Sheer genius.”
“Ohhhhh, sweet,” Mica said with admiration.
“Nice,” Ezra said grudgingly.
“I win,” Ellen said happily.
“Thanks, you guys, all of you,” Montgomery said, clutching the stake to her heart. She felt an actual tear forming. “I thought this was going to be horrible. But it wasn’t. Much. Sort of. You guys made it a lot of fun. I’m going to miss you. You most of all, Scarecrow,” she sniffed loudly, pointing at Ellen.
But her eyes darted over to Mica.
He smiled quietly back.
THE CON
“Where is she? Do you see her yet?” David whispered. He was crouched down behind Mica and Ezra, who were sharing a pair of binoculars. All three were hiding behind a shelf of books at The Neverending Story’s booth. Mica wore a pith helmet.
“No—wait, there’s Ryan and Reese…there she is!” Ezra said excitedly.
“What’s she doing?” David whined.
“They’re by the Knight’s Arms. She’s…she’s picking up a d’k tahg.”
“Let me see!” Mica grabbed the glasses. “No, it’s too small, you moron. That’s totally a Klingon throwing knife, or maybe B’Etor’s….”
“Oh, come on, look at the blood gutter….”
David tapped them on the shoulders. “Guys, where’d she go?”
“Hey, Montgomery.”
“Oh my gosh, Ellen!”
The cheerleader’s eyes popped out of her head. So did Ryan’s.
The geek girl was in a yellow and black iridescent catsuit, holding a mask with what looked like giant pointy ears. An iridescent red-black cape hung from her shoulders, matching her boots.
She looked, in a word, great.
“Ellen Epstein?” Ryan said, backing up to get a better look. He was grinning in shock. “Really? You look hot.”
Montgomery gave him a quick frown.
“Ellen, you really do look great,” she said honestly. “You should…”
“What, wear this more often?” Ellen said with a giggle. “Have you seen the guys around? They promised to escort me to the masquerade.”
“Oh, yes. Dumb, dumber, and dumbest are ‘hiding’ over there,” Montgomery said dryly, pointing at the bookseller’s stall. Three awkward shadows ducked down. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway?”
“Who cares?” Ryan said.
“Um, Kathy Kane? Batwoman? From the sixties? I’d better put the mask back on before Kim sees me without it. She spent weeks working on it. She’ll kill me,” Ellen said, fitting the unwieldy thing on. Ryan kept staring.
It should have been a little triumph for the geek. The quarterback was obviously drooling over her, and ignoring his pretty little cheerleading girlfriend.
But Batwoman hopped nervously from one foot to the other, obviously looking for an escape.
“You should totally do spandex more often,” Ryan said, circling around her to get a better look.
“RYAN!” Montgomery growled.
“Hey, guys!” a perky voice said. A completely inappropriately cheery and busty vampire skipped up to them, tossing her raven-black hair and cheap capelet over her shoulders.
“Susan?!” Montgomery demanded.
The other cheerleader gave her a pouty smile that was not at all impeded by fangs. “My idiot brother loves this stuff. I told Mom and Dad I’d chaperone.”
She batted glittery eyelashes at Ryan, whose eyeballs couldn’t decide which costumed girl to look at.
THE INEVITABLE CLIMAX
When you’re a cheerleader, even an unusual cheerleader who seeks knowledge beyond her normal ken, you’re still bound by cheerleader laws. One of which is that everyone in the school knows gossip about you and yours before or exactly at the same time as you.
So in a high school of less than five hundred students, if a “celebrity”—say, a quarterback—and another “celebrity”—say, a cheerleader not his girlfriend—hook up at a party, someone is going to notice.
And immediately tell, text, and generally spill to everyone he or she knows.
Montgomery’s posse of ponytailed cheerleaders were obviously trying to protect her from something the next day, escorting her from class to class even more closely—and nervously—than usual.
Or maybe they were trying to protect someone else.
“Oh, dude,” David said sympathetically in passing, waving to Montgomery from the other side of the hall. “I’m so sorry. After all that, all the stuff you went through. What a jerk.”
“What?” she asked, stopping. A crowd began to gather. Murmured voices rose: why were these two talking to each other? And about something besides science homework?
Ryan was coming from the other way.
The cheerleaders tried to get her walking again.
“Um? Ryan and Susan?” David said, thinking she might just be confused. If he knew, surely every other person at the school knew. Someone must have told her. “At the party at Shaniqa’s place? Wow, did I get it wrong?”
“WHAT?!” Montgomery spun around to face Ryan.
Everyone in the hallway was silent, waiting.
“YOU!” she screamed, near-incoherent with rage. “YOU?—”
What Montgomery said next was unimportant. It could have been a thousand different things. She could have called him a “tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood!” She could have gone with the classic “scruffy-looking nerf-herder!” She might have chosen, appropriate to the situation, “gods-cursed TOASTER frakker!”
But in the end it was unimportant what exactly she said.
Because the entire population of Springfield High heard Montgomery K. Bushnell use an insult so geeky, so extreme, that there was no doubt in any other stealth geek’s mind what she was.
One of them.
She pushed David out of the way.
“Excuse me, I’ve got a vampire to slay,” she growled, looking for Susan and Mr. Pointy.
THE DÉNOUEMENT
She managed to make it all the way through school, the drive home, and up to her room before crying. It began messily: a chin shake, a couple of coughs, several quick sniffs. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to stay angry, or forget about it entirely.
Like an addict looking for a fix, she pawed through her neat shelves for something that would stop the pain.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Casablanca. Doctor Zhivago. Sabrina.…
Montgomery chose Sabrina (the Audrey Hepburn one, of course), figuring the scene with the eggs would at least make her smile.
She delicately opened the DVD and snapped out the disk, holding it by the edges as if it were glass. She took it into her brother’s room (he had the upstairs TV) and put it in, then sat on the floor, hugging her knees.
Tears coursed down her cheeks. Her lips moved silently as the story began:
“Once upon a time…on the North Shore of Long Island, some thirty miles from New York…”
The sobbing began for real. She took a deep gulp of air—
—and then realized something.
“Oh my gosh.” Her eyes went beautifully wide with cheerleadery surprise.
She jumped up and grabbed her phone, stabbing at numbers. Not even bothering to pause the movie.
“Hello?” A grumpy female voice picked up from the other end.
“I GET IT!!!” Montgomery shouted. “I GET IT!”
“Um, what?” Ellen asked, obviously holding the phone away from her ear.
Montgomery paced back and forth, excited. “I get it! The spaceships and the quoting lines and memorizing stupid details about High Elvish and arguing over pronunciations! Before I thought you were all weird for the sake of, you know, just being weird.
“But I GET IT NOW! You just really love it. It’s where you go to. Who you turn to. It’s your…your home.”
“Ah,” Ellen paused, obviously torn between a sarcastic response and a grown-up one. “Yes,” she decided.
There was a moment’s silence as the cheerleader wiped her nose, reveling in her revelation.
“Wait, ‘you’” Ellen suddenly asked. “‘You’ just really love it? Not ‘we’”
“What?” Montgomery asked, confused. “Oh. Right. Yes. Not we. I mean, me. I mean, I don’t love it, the elves and stuff, no.”
“Even after all this time? We didn’t convince you at all?”
Montgomery sighed. “I…appreciate your passion. Now. And I think I can even appreciate some of the more…easily accessible…aspects of science fiction and fantasy. But I don’t love it the way you guys do. I just don’t hate it anymore.”
“Oh,” Ellen said, thinking about it.
“But I like you guys,” the cheerleader pointed out. “Just not the stuff you like.”
“Well, I guess that’s something,” Ellen decided. She paused. “Um. I heard about Ryan…and, uh, David and what happened in the hallway, and you finding out, and…um, everything that was sucky. Um, sorry.”
“Thanks. It was. Sucky.” Montgomery sniffed. She was quiet for a moment, sad. And then she thought of something. “Hey. The girls are going to come over tonight and, you know, just hang with me for a while. Support circle. I’d…I’d really like it if you came, too.”
“You want me to come over and hang out with a bunch of cheerleaders?” Ellen asked carefully, making sure she heard right.
“With my friends,” the cheerleader corrected. “My other friends.”
Ellen paused, letting the significance of the statement sink in.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I appreciate the offer, but your other friends might not.”
Montgomery thought about it. Ellen was right; it was a little early for such a sudden culture clash. At least half her “other friends” had tormented Ellen and her friends at some point in their twelve long years of going to school together.
“But, um, if you want to go to the mall or something, maybe, Saturday, I could let you pick out some makeup for me,” Ellen offered. It obviously took a lot out of her.
“Okay, it’s a date,” Montgomery paused. “Hey, do you think you could invite Mica along?”
“What? Oh, no,” the other girl groaned. “No. No, no, no, no…”
“Jealous much?” the cheerleader quipped.
“Horrified, more. On a level I can’t even put into words. Like—cosmic horror. I don’t suppose you’ve read The Call of Cthulhu, have you?”
“Yes,” Montgomery answered proudly. “Yes, I have.”