the spout of a water fountain.
It was a piece of photocopied notebook paper, with a bunch of flaming footballs drawn on it, and a cartoon version of Mike Domski, smoking a cigar and flanked by two busty bikini girls.
Unfortunately, this drawing was no sick fantasy. Mike Domski actually got girls to like him. Sure, he was a football player, and, yeah, he hung out with the popular kids. But the guy was a total scumbag, preying on girls too stupid to know better. There seemed to be a sad learning curve on that sort of thing.
Underneath his drawing, he’d actually written Domski 4 Prez. And he hadn’t even bothered to rip the page out properly — the bottom left corner was missing and he had proudly photocopied the jagged paper fringe.
“Mike Domski,” I said aloud.
“You’re kidding.” Autumn grabbed the flyer and made a face. “Ew. Why’s Mike Domski running for student council?”
I actually had to think about it. “Maybe to help his college applications? Or just to be an ass.” That was really all the reason someone like Mike would need.
“I’m going to take so much satisfaction in watching you annihilate him.” Autumn searched a nearby wall. “What are we going to do with all your posters? He’s left no room to hang them up. This can’t be legal! Do you want me to try and find Ms. Bee?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. And then I taped my biggest poster right over a bunch of Mike Domski’s stupid cartoon grins.
By lunch, Mike’s posters had begun to disappear. I wondered if Ms. Bee had gotten word that he’d charmed the school secretary for use of her copier and deemed them against election rules. But no. Kids had been ripping them down on purpose. I watched a line of guys in the cafeteria ask Mike to autograph them, because they’d be “worth something” someday. Which basically made me want to puke.
Over the rest of the week, I did my best to ignore Mike Domski. It wasn’t hard. He wasn’t in any AP classes, and we certainly didn’t have any friends in common. Still, even from afar, watching him ham up his whole candidacy drove me crazy. The way he’d strut around making ridiculous decrees in old English that started with henceforth and ended with evermore, and demanded that people address him as Prez.
But I stayed calm and collected, even when Mike took direct aim at me. It really didn’t bother me all that much. Probably because I was one of a rare few at Ross Academy to see guys like Mike for who they really were — power-drunk meatheads who’d do anything to get a laugh. High school was the best Mike Domski’s life would ever get. You could see his entire depressing future written on his dopey face. He’d get into some mediocre college, fall in love with a pregnant stripper, lose all his money to a get-rich-quick internet scheme. I might have even felt bad for Mike Domski, if he hadn’t been acting like such a jerk.
But Autumn hated watching Mike make fun of me, and no matter how stupid his insults were, it ate away at her. Like this one time in the cafeteria, when Mike stood underneath one of the banners we’d painted together, flashing two thumbs-up and screaming something about me having wicked bubble letter skills.
Autumn’s cheeks blushed the most awful shade of purpley red, the same as the undercooked steak on her tray. She kept her eyes locked on that steak, pushing a gristly piece back and forth with a plastic fork that was about to snap in her death grip. And then, without warning, she shot straight up, bumping our table so hard my soda splashed on my lab worksheet.
“Leave her alone,” she said, overenunciating each word in as stern a voice as someone as sweet as Autumn could muster. I looked up at her with a half-smile, shocked that she’d had the guts to say anything. She was shaking, the tiniest quivers. My heart broke, knowing what a good friend I had in Autumn. If that was hard for anyone to do, it was hardest for her.
Mike reacted like Autumn had suddenly appeared out of thin air, with phony surprise and awe. He strutted over to our table, sniffing the air like a bloodhound tracking a scent, and stopped right in front of her. “Hey, Fish Sticks! I didn’t smell you there!”
Those words sucked the air out of the entire cafeteria. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look at Autumn. I just listened through the silence for her next to me, praying that she remembered to breathe.
I had always wondered when the rest of the school would figure out that joke wasn’t funny anymore. Or maybe it was something closer to hope. Hope that, with each passing year, people would forget. But in that moment, I finally understood that would never happen. Someone would say it at our twentieth reunion, and Autumn would have to explain it to her husband. Fish Sticks would get a cheap laugh, somewhere, for the rest of our lives. It was too easy. Too mean. And I found it piercingly unfair that someone like Mike Domski would never comprehend how much those two words destroyed my beautiful best friend.
Anger rose up inside me like lava. I reached for the closest object and hurled it at Mike. That turned out to be my slice of pizza, and it hit him square in the chest, leaving a triangle stain of oil and sauce and hot pepper flakes behind on his shirt before it fell with a splat on his brown suede shoes.
“Oops,” I said in my most unsorry voice. A bunch of people gasped, and I even got a few laughs.
Mike curled his lip. “Damn. You know what? I threw out the student council handbook Ms. Bee gave me. But I’m sure I saw a whole section about election rules and the kinds of stunts that could disqualify a candidate. Tell you what, Natalie — I’ll double-check if she has an extra copy and let you know.”
I rolled my eyes as Mike stalked off. But really, inside, I panicked. Had I ruined everything, just to defend Autumn’s honor? Had I handed the entire election over, the thing I’d been dreaming about and working toward for the last three years, to Mike Domski?
Tears welled up in Autumn’s eyes. “Come on,” I said, stuffing our things into my book bag. I didn’t want her to humiliate herself even more. “Let’s go to the library.”
“I’m so sorry, Natalie,” she whispered. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble. I’ll die if you get disqualified!”
Autumn moved too slow, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her along. “You didn’t have to defend me like that,” I muttered. If she could have just ignored Mike like I did, this wouldn’t have happened.
She shook her head. “That’s what best friends do for each other,” she said with resolve. Autumn wiped her eyes with one hand, and with the other, she squeezed mine tight, the way I’d always squeezed hers.
I am not an every cloud has a silver lining type of person, but one undeniably good thing did come out of the original Fish Sticks debacle: It saved my friendship with Autumn.
Autumn and I had met forever ago at the pool. We were six, and our moms had signed us both up for swimming lessons. Autumn had gone to Ross Academy since kindergarten, but I went to public school, so I’d never seen her before.
I noticed her right away. Her blond hair was light like the underside of a lemon peel, and it hung all the way to her waist. I liked the way it floated through the water, and watched with utter fascination as it turned green from the chlorine over the course of our lessons.
But that’s not why I really noticed her. It was because Autumn was the most spastic swimmer in the pool. She’d splash more than anyone else and always looked somewhat distressed.
When the lifeguard made us partners, I groaned, because each lesson ended with a kickboard race and the winners got to pick a Jolly Rancher out of a big glass bowl in the pool office. I pretty much knew Autumn and I would never have a chance. We didn’t, either. We never won a single Jolly Rancher. Even though I was probably the fastest kickboarder in the pool, I could never go fast enough to compensate for her.
I would’ve been mad . . . but Autumn was so nice. Once, I’d shared my towel when she’d forgotten