Something True by Kieran Scott Page A

dress that looked like something out of a nightmare movie from the eighties. I typed back,
    YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT?
    But I hesitated before sending it. Because what if she wasn’t kidding? Then I’d be insulting her taste. I sighed and my posture slumped. What was the right thing to text back? How to be diplomatic about this and not set her off? Sometimes text etiquette could be very complex. Especially when it came to Veronica.
    “What’s wrong?” Wallace asked.
    “Nothing.”
    He angled for a look at my phone and snorted. “Halloween costume?”
    “Apparently, it’s the dress Veronica wants me to wear to homecoming,” I said.
    “What dress do you want to wear to homecoming?” he asked.
    I scrolled to the pic of me in the blue dress and held it up so he could see.
    “You look awesome in that,” he said boldly. “What’s wrong with it?”
    “Nothing. I mean . . . you don’t think it makes my hips look fat?” I asked, tilting my head.
    Wallace snorted. “Did Veronica tell you that?”
    “No. Well, yes,” I admitted, my shoulders slumping. “But she was right.”
    Another text from Veronica popped up.
    HELLO???
    I shoved the phone deep inside my bag. I was just going to pretend I didn’t get her text yet. How was that for diplomacy?
    Wallace let out this snarky laugh and shook his head. “The girl’s good.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked, leaning my elbow on the upper bleacher and my cheek in my hand. I was mildly distracted by a group of freshman girls who were kneeling around a half-done banner, trying to figure out how to best outline the letters with gold glitter.
    “She’s trying to sabotage you,” he said.
    My jaw dropped. “You’re crazy.”
    “Do I look crazy?” he asked.
    I let my eyes travel slowly over his outfit. Black Vans sneakers, brown-and-black-plaid cargo pants, a black T-shirt with R2-D2 on it, and a leather bracelet wrapped five times around his wrist. Plus, there was black ink pretty much covering his left arm. An equation of some kind, it looked like. Of course, aside from the arm ink, the look worked for him, but he’d given me such an opening.
    “Do you really want me to answer that question?” I joked.
    Wallace turned sideways on the bench, pulling one knee up under his chin so he could better face me. “Let me ask you this. How did she react when she found out you were nominated? Did she squeal and scream and shower you with air kisses?”
    “Um . . . not exactly,” I said cagily.
    “Right! Because she was hoping someone else would be nominated. Someone who wasn’t a threat. Someone totally beatable. You’ve got Veronica Vine spooked, Ding Dong,” he said, lowering his voice so the snickering girls wouldn’t hear, at least. “And now she wants you to look like a pink cotton candy disaster to kill your chances.”
    He couldn’t be right, could he? I mean, Veronica Vine could never feel threatened by Darbot the Geek.
    “You’re not Darbot the Geek anymore,” Wallace said, like he was reading my mind. Which kind of got under my skin. We weren’t friends anymore. He had no right to think he knew what I was thinking. Even if he did.
    “Okay, first of all, Veronica is my best friend, and while she may be a tad self-centered, she would never sabotage me.”
    Wallace laughed and started to interrupt, but I lifted a hand to stop him. On the floor, one of the freshmen was about to dump a whole canister of glitter on a skinny, uneven line of glue.
    “I’m sorry, can we pause this conversation?” I said.
    Without waiting for an answer, I got up and crouched next to the girls and their sign.
    “No, no, no, ladies. First, you should use a paintbrush to even out the glue and make a thicker line,” I said, grabbing a clean, flat brush to demonstrate. “Then you carefully scatter the glitter.”
    I demonstrated, shaking the glitter out like it was salt, then blew away the excess. Voilà! A perfect outline. “See?”
    “Wow. Thanks,” one of the girls said,