OCTAVIAN COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL HISTORY CLASS

11:18 AM
November 14th

While Joel Morris droned on endlessly about the Roman Empire, Massie tilted her Chanel compact mirror so she could see Alicia in the seat behind her. Was her mascara smudged from crying? Were her eyes all red and puffy? How much of her morning was spent sobbing in the bathroom? But Alicia’s eyes looked the same as always: brown, bright, and beautiful. Why wasn’t she devastated by their fight?

Massie had known for days that Friday, November 14, was going to be a bad Alicia day. It was the official date of Alicia’s Teen Vogue interview, a coveted prize that really belonged to Massie and Claire Lyons. And now everyone in school was congratulating Alicia, wishing her luck and telling her how badly they wished they were her.

Massie kept telling herself that the right time for revenge would be obvious. She just had to be patient. But now her Friday night sleepovers were threatened and Massie couldn’t sit still any longer. Alicia had woken the sleeping giant and the giant was pissed!

“As I was saying, Ms. Block,” Joel said, and Massie jumped. “Caesar made his way to office by 62 BC, but many of the Senate thought he was a dangerous, ambitious man. Sooooo, they deprived him of a triumph after his command in Spain and did their best to keep him out of the consulship. …”

“ZZZZZZZZZZ.” Massie turned to Amanda Levine as soon as Joel rested his beady eyes on someone else. Amanda tapped her palm against her mouth and fake-yawned. Massie smiled, then looked around the room. The entire seventh-grade history class was one useless fact away from slipping into a coma. It was the perfect time to start working on a Christmas shopping list. Massie flipped to a blank page in her notebook and began. …

For the first time ever, Cam Fisher made the list. She’d first noticed the ultra-ah-dorable seventh grader exactly fifteen days ago, at her boy-girl Halloween party, and hadn’t stopped thinking about him since. She had always heard the name “Cam Fisher” because he was one of the best soccer players at Briarwood Academy, but Massie had never been into team sports, so that didn’t carry a lot of weight. What she liked about Cam were his eyes. One was green and the other was blue, and that made him rarer than a vintage Hermès handbag.

When it came to Cam’s gift, Massie was torn. Should she play it safe and get him a cool pair of headphones for his iPod, or buy him a brand-new leather jacket so he could finally stop wearing his older brother’s ripped hand-me-down?

Massie tickled the bottom of her chin with her fuzzy pen while she deliberated.

Everyone knows how much he loves that beat-up coat, she thought. He even wears it in the summer. And it would be so embarrassing if I gave him something he never used. People would think he didn’t like me.

Massie knew she had to find a clever way to convince him that a new one would be much cooler. All she had to do was spend a little quality time with him … which was exactly why she’d made plans to attend her first Briarwood soccer game very soon.

Massie imagined giving Cam a big rectangular box wrapped in red paper and tied with a big green bow. Cam would tear open the box and look at her lovingly with his one blue and his one green eye. Then he would try on the jacket and say, “Massie, I love my new Hugo Boss leather jacket—but not half as much as I love you.”

Massie would smile shyly and would somehow know that he thought she looked beautiful.

“How can I possibly thank you?” he’d ask.

“I’ll show you,” she would say with a suggestive wink.

Massie would take his hand and lead him up the stairs to her bedroom.

“What about your mother?” Cam would ask.

What a considerate guy, Massie would think while turning the glass knob on her bedroom door.

“She won’t be home for another hour,” Massie would say, pushing the door open and revealing her immaculately clean all-white room.

“This is perfect,” Cam would say as he started to take off his leather jacket.

“No, leave it on,” Massie would say.

He would smile appreciatively.

“Are you ready to do this?” Massie would ask.

“I can’t wait,” Cam would say.

“Awesome, let’s go.”

Cam would plug his iPod into her speakers and blast some Strokes song that Massie had never heard before. But she would bob her head and pretend to love it anyway. Then Massie and Cam would start pulling the books off her bookshelf and hurling them on the floor. They would tear the goose feathers out of her down comforter and throw them at each other like they were having a snowball fight. They would toss her CDs around like Frisbees and yank the evenly folded sweaters out of her walk-in closet and lob them into the air, giving each other points every time one of them landed on top of the white shade of her floor lamp. They would wrap toilet paper around her mannequin and write their names with lipstick on her bay window. They would be laughing so hard Massie’s stomach would start to feel like she had just done a thousand crunches. But she would ignore the pain because she’d be having too much fun. She was so tired of her mother nagging to her keep her room “spotless” and couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather mess it up with than Cam Fisher, the cutest boy in …

The familiar smell of chocolate, spices, and vanilla filled the air and pulled Massie out of her fantasy. She was no longer laughing with Cam. She was back in Joel’s mind-numbing history class and Alicia Rivera was standing in front of her, reeking of Angel perfume.

Massie refused to look up. Instead she moved her fuzzy purple pen vigorously across the lined pages of her Claire Fontaine notebook so Joel would think she was taking notes. She could feel Alicia glaring and knew it was time to remind the EW who she was dealing with. Massie was about to stand up and confront her when Alicia swatted Massie’s pen out of her hand. It looked like a purple fuzzy dart as it shot through the air and landed on the light brown carpeting two rows away. Massie looked straight into Alicia’s eyes, trying her hardest not to let the rage she was feeling show on her face. She stuck her leg out in front so she could drag the pen toward her with the wedge heel of her new boots. But Alicia beat her to it. She stepped on the pen and twisted her toe into it like she was grinding out a cigarette. Massie leaned forward in her chair and pushed Alicia’s leg, but Alicia was too quick for her. She hooked her thin fingers around the chunky gold chain of Massie’s charm bracelet and closed her fist around it. Massie struggled to pull away, but Alicia was stronger than usual. Massie took a deep breath in and counted silently in her head. … One … two … THREE. On the final count Massie pulled back as hard as she could, but Alicia held on with all her might and ripped the bracelet right off Massie’s wrist.

The tiny bell, the Eiffel Tower, the miniature black pug, the white-gold horse, three stars, and her favorite charm of all, the diamond-encrusted gold crown, scattered and bounced across the carpet like a handful of dice. Massie fell to her hands and knees. She needed to get that crown back.

Massie could hear the girls in the class snickering but didn’t dare look up. She was too humiliated. Why wasn’t Joel getting involved? Why was Alicia doing this to her? Why wouldn’t everyone stop laughing?

“Looking for this?” Alicia said, standing over Massie. She slowly opened her fist and revealed a sparkly gold crown in the center of her palm. Massie reached for it, but Alicia closed her fist and stuffed it in the front pocket of her Ralph Lauren suede pants. She let out a maniacal laugh, grabbed the Prada shoulder bag off the back of her chair, and strolled out of the classroom, looking calm and confident.

Massie was still on her hands and knees gathering her charms when all eighteen girls stood up and applauded for Alicia. Even Joel was clapping.

“Why are you taking her side?” Massie shouted. “She started this.”

But everyone kept clapping.

Massie tilted her neck back, hoping the tears would fall back inside her head, but they were coming too quickly now and couldn’t be stopped. When the first one managed to escape and roll down her cheek, Massie surrendered. She had no choice. She curled up on the floor and broke into loud sobs in front of the entire class.

Suddenly she felt a light tickle on the back of her neck, but she refused to react. It could be a trap. But when Massie felt it again, she looked up. For some odd reason, she was back in her seat.

“What?” she snapped.

“You dropped this on the floor when you nodded off,” Joel hissed. He was holding Massie’s fuzzy purple pen between his fingertips like it was a dirty pair of underwear from the lost and found. “I’ll try to make things more interesting for you next time, Ms. Block.”

“Thanks,” Massie said as she took it. “You know, for the pen, not for making class more interesting.”

The girls in the class burst out laughing. They didn’t realize she was being sincere, but Massie didn’t care. At least they were laughing with her, not at her.

Joel shook his head and then walked away. Massie curled in toward her desk and examined the pen like she was on CSI Westchester. There were no signs of it getting crushed under Alicia’s boots or dragged across the carpet by Massie’s heel. It was in perfect condition.

Massie grabbed her wrist and instantly breathed a sigh of relief. The diamond-encrusted crown was exactly where it was supposed to be, on her charm bracelet right between the pug and the stars. It was all just a dream. …

Or was it an omen? Massie rolled her pen between her palms, thinking about Alicia and how to keep that dream from becoming a reality.

Finally the bell rang, marking the end of history and the beginning of World War III.