Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

11

IT’S THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING, and Alice is home, and we’re on the back porch after dinner. It’s actually warm enough for hoodies and pajama pants and leftover ice cream cake and Scattergories.

“All right. Famous duos and trios?”

“Abbott and Costello,” says my mom.

Nora and I both say “Adam and Eve.” It’s a little surprising, considering we’re probably the only family in the South without a Bible.

“The Axis powers,” says my dad, and you can tell he’s so proud of that one.

“Alice and the Chipmunks,” says Alice, casually, and all of us just lose it. I don’t know. The Chipmunks are kind of our thing. We had the voices perfected and the theme song choreographed, and we used to do these performances on the ledge in front of the fireplace. It seriously went on for years. Our lucky parents. Though, they’re the ones who named us Alice, Simon, and Eleanor, which means they were basically asking for it.

Alice rubs Bieber’s back with her feet, and her socks don’t match, and it’s almost impossible to believe that this is the first time she’s been home in three months. I don’t think I realized until this moment how weird it’s been without her.

Nora must be thinking the same thing I am, because she says, “I can’t believe you have to go back in two days.”

Alice purses her lips for a minute, but doesn’t speak. The air feels chilly, and I slide my hands into the sleeves of my hoodie. But then my phone buzzes.

Text from Monkey’s Asshole: hey is there anything going on this weekend

A moment later: like with Abby I mean

It seems Martin doesn’t give a shit about punctuation, which is totally not surprising.

I write back: Sorry, family stuff. Sister’s in town.

His instantaneous reply: its cool spier, my brother’s in town too. He says hi ;)

And I don’t even know if it’s supposed to be a joke or a threat or what, but I hate him. I seriously fucking hate him right now.

“Hey,” Alice says, eventually, tucking her legs up onto her chair. Our parents have gone to bed, and it’s definitely getting colder out here. “I don’t know if anyone’s still hungry, but I have like three-quarters of a box of Chips Ahoy! still sitting in my carry-on bag. Just putting that out there.”

Thank God for Alice.

Thank God for Chips Ahoy!

I’m going to have an awesome night with my sisters, and I’m going to stuff my face with cookies, and I’m definitely going to forget about Monkey’s Asshole and his shady little winky emoticon. We relocate to the living room couch, and Bieber passes out cold with the whole front end of his body in Alice’s lap.

“Anyone want a Nick Eisner?” Nora asks.

“Are you serious? Yes. Go get the peanut butter,” says Alice in her bossy voice.

A Nick Eisner is a cookie with a random glop of peanut butter on top, because when we were five, Nick thought that’s what people meant by peanut butter cookies. Admittedly, they’re delicious. But in my family, you never live something like that down.

“How is little Nick Eisner?”

“He’s the same. Still glued to his guitar.” And he’d be totally butthurt if he knew Alice still calls him little. Nick has had a minor-level crush on Alice since we were in middle school.

“I was about to ask. So cute.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Yeah, don’t do that.” Alice sinks her head back into the couch cushion, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses. “Sorry.” She yawns. “Early flight. And catching up from this week.”

“Midterms?” asks Nora.

“Yup,” says Alice. And it’s so obvious that there’s something else, but she doesn’t elaborate.

Bieber does this sudden loud-ass yawn and rolls onto his side, so his ear flips inside out. And then his lips twitch. He’s a weirdo.

“Nick Eisner,” Alice says again. And then she grins. “Remember his bar mitzvah?”

Nora giggles.

“Oh God,” I say. It’s really the perfect time to bury my head in a pillow.

“Boom boom boom.”

No wait. It’s the perfect time to smack Alice with a pillow.

She blocks it with her feet. “Really, Simon. We can clear a spot on the floor right now if you want,” Alice says.

“Simon Spier dance break,” says Nora.

“Yup. Okay.” Nick’s mistake was inviting my whole family to his bar mitzvah. Mine was attempting to pop and lock to “Boom Boom Pow” in front of them. There’s no such thing as a good idea when you’re in seventh grade.

“Don’t you wish you could go back in time and just shut it down? Like, hey. Middle school Alice: stop it. Stop everything you’re doing.”

“OMG.” Nora shakes her head. “I can’t even think about middle school.”

Seriously?

I mean, Alice was the one who once spent a month wearing elbow-length silk gloves. And I’m pretty sure it was me who ate five cookie cones at the Ren Faire in sixth grade, and then vomited into a wax mold of my own hand. (Worth it.)

But Nora? I don’t even know what she has to be embarrassed about. It doesn’t seem like this would be genetically or developmentally possible, but she was kind of cool in middle school. Under-the-radar cool. The kind of cool that comes from teaching yourself guitar and wearing normal clothes and not running a Tumblr called “Passion Pit OBSESSION.”

I guess even Nora is haunted by the ghosts of middle school.

“Yeah, I wish someone would have told middle school Simon to please try to be awesome. Just try.”

“You’re always awesome, bub,” says Alice, stretching over Bieber to tug the end of my foot.

I’m bub and Nora is boop. But only to Alice.

“And your dance moves are super awesome,” she adds.

“Shut up,” I say.

Everything is a little more perfect when she’s here.

And then Alice leaves and school starts again in all its suckery. When I get to English class, Mr. Wise gives us a villainous smile that can only mean he’s finished grading our short essay quizzes on Thoreau.

And I’m right. He starts handing them back to people, and I can see that most of them are wrecked with red ink. Leah barely glances at hers before folding and tearing off the bottom and creasing it into an origami crane. She looks extra pissed today. I’m 100 percent certain it’s because Abby came in late and squeezed in between her and Nick on the couch.

Mr. Wise flips through the stack and licks his finger before touching my paper. I’m sorry, but some teachers are seriously gross. He probably rubs those fingers all over his eyeballs, too. I can just picture it.

When I see the perfect score circled at the top of my paper, I’m a little bit amazed. It’s not that I’m bad at English, and I actually did like Walden. But I think I got about two hours of sleep, max, the night before that quiz. There’s just no freaking way.

Oh wait. I’m right. There is no freaking way, because this isn’t my freaking test. Way to remember my name, Mr. Wise.

“Hey,” I say. I lean across the aisle to tap Bram on the shoulder. He turns sideways in his chair to face me. “Looks like this is yours.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he says, reaching out to take it. He has long, kind of knobbly fingers. Cute hands. He looks down at the paper, glances back up at me, and blushes slightly. I can tell he feels weird about me seeing his grade.

“No problem. I mean, I’d keep the grade if I could.”

He smiles a little bit and looks back down at his desk. You never really know what he’s thinking. But I have this theory that Bram’s probably really funny inside his own head. I don’t even know why I think that.

But seriously: whatever inside jokes he has with himself, I think I’d like to be in on them.

When I walk into rehearsal that afternoon, Abby is sitting in the front row of the auditorium with her eyes closed and her lips moving. Her script is open on her lap, and she’s got one hand covering some of the lines.

“Hey,” I say.

Her eyes snap open. “How long have you been standing here?”

“Just a second. Are you working on your lines?”

“Yup.” She turns the script upside down, using her leg to hold her place. There’s something odd about her clipped tone.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” She nods. “A little stressed,” she adds finally. “Did you know we have to be off book by the end of break?”

“By the end of Christmas break,” I say.

“I know.”

“That’s like over a month away. You’ll be fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” she says. “You don’t have any lines.”

And then she looks up at me with raised eyebrows and a perfectly round mouth, and I can’t help but laugh.

“That was so bitchy of me. I can’t believe I said that.”

“It was super bitchy,” I say. “You’re like a stealth bitch.”

“What did you call her?” asks Martin.

I swear to God, that kid pops up out of nowhere and burrows into every conversation.

“It’s okay, Marty. We’re just messing around,” says Abby.

“Yeah, well, he called you a bitch. I really don’t think that’s okay.”

Oh my God. He’s seriously going to bust in here, totally miss the joke, and then turn around and lecture me about my fucking language. That’s great, Martin. Just knock me down so you can look good in front of Abby. And, I mean, the whole idea of Martin Addison taking the moral high ground when he’s in the middle of blackmailing me—that’s just so fucking awesome.

“Martin, really. We were kidding. I called myself a bitch.” She laughs, but it comes out strained. I stare down at my shoes.

“If you say so.” Martin’s face is extra pink, and he’s playing with the skin on his elbow. I mean, seriously, if he’s so dead set on impressing Abby, maybe he should stop being so twitchy and awkward and annoying all the time. Maybe he should stop pulling the goddamn skin around his elbow. Because it’s completely disgusting. I don’t even know if he realizes he’s doing it.

The worst part of it is, I know perfectly well that if Alice heard me using that word, she would call me out, too. Alice is pretty hardcore about when it’s appropriate to use the word “bitch.”

Appropriate: “The bitch gave birth to a litter of adorable puppies.”

Inappropriate: “Abby is a bitch.”

Even if I said she was a stealth bitch. Even if I was joking. It may be crazy Alice logic, but I feel a little weird and awful about it anyway.

I choke out an apology, and my face is burning. Martin’s still standing there. I seriously can’t get away fast enough. I walk up the steps to the stage.

Ms. Albright is sitting next to Taylor on one of the platforms, pointing at something in Taylor’s script. Downstage, the girl who plays Nancy is giving a piggyback ride to the guy who plays Bill Sikes. And offstage left, this sophomore girl named Laura sits on top of a stack of chairs, crying into her sleeve, and I guess Mila Odom is comforting her.

“You don’t even know that,” Mila says. “Seriously, look at me. Look at me.”

Laura looks up at her.

“It’s the freaking Tumblr, okay. Half that shit is made up.”

Laura’s voice is broken and sniffly. “But there’s . . . a little . . . bit of . . . truth . . . to . . . every—”

“That’s seriously bullshit,” says Mila. “You need to just talk to him.” And then she sees me standing there listening and shoots me the stink-eye.

So here’s the thing: Simon means “the one who hears” and Spier means “the one who watches.” Which means I was basically destined to be nosy.

Cal and two of the senior girls are sitting outside the dressing room with their backs to the wall and their legs stretched out in front of them. He looks up at me and smiles. He has a really nice, easy smile. You can tell it’s the kind that looks cute in pictures. I still feel a little unpleasant about the whole Abby and Martin conversation, but I think I may be on my way to feeling better.

“Hey,” I say. The girls sort of smile at me. Sasha and Brianna are both Fagin’s boys like me. It’s funny. I’m literally the only one of Fagin’s boys played by an actual guy. I guess it’s because girls are smaller or look younger or something. I don’t even know. But it’s slightly awesome, because it means I’m the tallest person onstage during those scenes. Which doesn’t happen all that often, to be honest.

“What’s up, Simon?” Cal says.

“Oh, well. Nothing. Hey, are we supposed to be doing anything right now?” And as soon as I ask it, I start blushing, because the way I phrased it totally makes it sound like I’m propositioning him. Hey, Cal. Are we supposed to be making out right now? Are we supposed to be having mind-blowing sex in the dressing room right now?

But maybe I’m just paranoid, because Cal doesn’t seem to read anything into it. “Nah, I think Ms. Albright is just finishing some stuff up, and then she’ll tell us what to do.”

“Works for me,” I say. And then I notice their legs. Sasha’s leg overlaps with Cal’s just the tiniest bit, almost at the ankle. So, who the hell knows what that means.

I think I’m ready for this shitty day to be over.

Of course, it’s pouring down rain when Ms. Albright lets us out, and I soak a big butt-shaped wet spot into the upholstery of my car. I can barely dry off my glasses because my clothes are so wet. And I don’t remember to put my headlights on until I’m already halfway home, which means I’m honestly lucky I didn’t get arrested by now.

As I make the right into my neighborhood, I see Leah’s car stopped at the light, waiting to make a left. So, I guess she’s leaving Nick’s house. I wave to her, but it’s raining so hard that it’s pointless. The wipers arc back and forth, and there’s this kind of tightness in my chest. It shouldn’t bother me when Nick and Leah hang out without me. It just feels like I’m on the outside somehow.

Not all the time. Just sometimes.

But yeah. I feel irrelevant. I hate that.