Part III: What Happens a Cappella? (Chapter 57)

It’s just not fair. Mr. Sachs flunked me this quarter.

There it is, a great big “69” on my report card.

He says I’m lazy and I don’t read the books I’m supposed to read. Well, I know for a fact Mary Lu Spinelli didn’t read nothing either this quarter, and she got a “70.”

I at least read Cliff Notes for The Grapes of Wrath and Return of the Native. Mary Lu don’t even do that, she’s dumber ‘n a stone, but she just wiggles her rear a lot, and Mr. Sachs stands up and trips over his feet when she struts around and bats those eyes.

But when I say something to Mr. Sachs, his mouth gets all quivery, and he turns all red. He don’t listen to me when I try to explain things. So I don’t tell him nothing anymore. I can’t understand why he hates me so much.

You know what he says to me last Friday? He says, “Samantha, you’re incredibly blockheaded.” Then he picks up this crystal thing from his desk. “See this paperweight?”

I says, “Yes.”

So he says, “I could smash your head with it, and it wouldn’t make much difference.”

He’d never say anything like that to Mary Lu. I almost tell Nana and Pappa, but I decide not to.

Especially after what I did last Saturday.

I was supposed to take my A.C.T.’s. I even got a good night’s sleep on Friday night, crawled out of bed at 6:00 a.m., threw on my best clothes, had my six No. 2’s all sharpened, ate bacon and eggs for breakfast and drank two cups of coffee, and ran out the door and into Crystal Flemming’s green and white 1950 Chevy.

I meant to take my college boards. Really. But Crystal and me, we decide to stop for doughnuts and coffee. I figured we had plenty of time to make the test. Afterwards, we remember we don’t know where to find the test site. All we know, it’s at Morningside College, but neither of us has ever been there before, and by the time we find the college, the test has already started, and we figure it’s too late, so we spend the rest of the morning riding around town, looking for boys to talk to, but no luck.

All the smart boys are taking their college boards, and the dumb ones are still in bed, and, besides, who wants to talk to losers?

Anyways, I haven’t told Nana and Pappa yet, they’d be so pissed.

I wish I was pretty and thin like Mary Lu Spinelli, then maybe I wouldn’t flunk English, and I wouldn’t even have to be smart.

Nana and Pappa keep asking about the test results, and I says, “any day now.”

Sooner or later, they’ve got to forget, and even if they don’t, maybe they won’t care, that is, if I’m skinny.

I haven’t eaten a thing for three days, just a little orange juice and Tab, and I can’t tell you how thin I feel. If I can hang on for three more days, I’ll lose at least 10 pounds ‒ maybe more.

If only I could be thin.

More than anything else in the world, I want to be thin.

If only I could lose weight, everything would be okay.

Really.