Peaches

with her. “Hey, Murphy, why’d you flick me off?”
    “That’s what I do to people who annoy me.”
    “Listen, I’m having people over tonight….”
    “And you’re wondering if I can come over so you can give me whiskey and Gatorade and try to feel me up. At which point I’ll smack you.”
    “You’re right about everything but the slapping part.” Allan grinned.
    Murphy came to a stop. Down the hall Leeda was walking with the usual flank of three or four girls who dressed like her, ate like her, and talked like her. Murphy leaned against a locker, casually, and decided to talk to Allan until Leeda’d passed. She always felt weird seeing Leeda and usually liked to pretend she didn’t see her at all, even in the class they shared.
    “So listen, since I’m friends with you, do you think I can get a free oil change?”
    Murphy frowned. “What are you talking about?”
    Allan frowned back and gave her the old nudge. “Since your mom’s hooking up with that guy from Pep Boys.”
    Murphy felt all cramped up inside. How did everybody find out about everything?
    “Shut up.”
    Allan made a sex face and started slapping an imaginary butt. “Oh, Jodee. Oh God.”
    Murphy smiled hard at him. “Can I look at your binder for a sec?”
    “Sure.” Allan handed it to her, grinning too.
    Murphy opened the binder, then started ripping out the pages, one by one.
    “Hey, what the hell?”
    Rip rip rip.
    Murphy backed away as he grabbed for his stuff and continued to rip and rip until every page had come out, cascading down around Allan’s shoulders and through the hall. When she was done, she shoved the binder against him. Around them everyone in the hall had come to a standstill, including Leeda, whose gray eyes were huge and shocked.
    The only movement was Mr. Meehan plowing toward her.
    “I don’t need an escort,” Murphy said, and pivoted in the direction of the administration office at the end of the hall.

    “Murphy, do you know what your grade point average is?”
    “Yep. It’s when they add up all your grades and divide them by the number of classes. Sure do.”
    “Four point oh. That’s perfect. That’s the highest anybody can hope for. There’s no four point one.”
    Murphy rolled her eyes. If Mr. Lafitte, the principal, had to speak to everyone this slowly, it was no wonder she had a four point oh.
    “Do you know how hard some people in this school work to get grades as good as yours?”
    “Nope.” Murphy didn’t care to know. She nibbled at a hangnail on her thumb. She picked at the run in her stockings and fiddled with the zipper on her short skirt.
    “Look, Murphy, I know you have some problems at home. I just want you to know if there’s anything you want to talk about, that’s why we have a counselor here.”
    Murphy stared ahead blankly.
    “I’m not going to suspend you. I could.” Mr. Lafitte looked at her meaningfully. “I’d be the first to admit that nobody’s perfect. But it seems to me a lot of people have cut you a lot of slack. We have a lot of faith in you. I think it’s time you paid us back by readjusting your attitude. Senior year could be your time to shine.”
    Murphy eyeballed him blankly, in the manner of a dead fish.
    “You’ll need to re-create Allan Brewer’s binder from scratch. You guys will meet every day after school to go over it until it’s done. Got it?”
    “Yep.”
    “And if I see you back here again in the minuscule amount of time that’s left before school’s out, things will get a lot more serious.”
    “You bet.”

    Murphy walked back down the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, feeling like a powder keg. All the class doors were closed,and she could hear the drone of her AP Bio teacher talking about the lab today, which he’d explained yesterday would involve trucking down to the freezer by the cafeteria to retrieve the dry ice being stored there.
    Murphy kept going. She ducked into the empty darkness of the A/V room and leaned against the wall inside the door, throwing her head back. She let out a deep breath and stared at the row of TVs and movie equipment. On the wall were posters for Star Wars, American Beauty, Casablanca. Standing directly across from her was a knee-high replica of Yoda, a full-size Darth Vader mask propped on the table beside it.
    Murphy stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and smiled.
    Date: May 18
Subject: Murphy McGowen/Darth Vader
From: [email protected]
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