The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer Read Free Book Online

cuddled up in my Adam’s apple and I felt sorry for myself.
    “There’s an unspoken rule that any article written by a page editor is published. Plus, this was good.”
    “Let me read it,” said Elizabeth.
    Luke gave her the printout. Meanwhile, I rummaged in Mr. Appelman’s knitting basket and found a length of yarn. “Baconnator,” I murmured, excavating him from his warm little knoll, “it’s time for circus camp.”
    “You’ve got to do something,” said Elizabeth seriously. She folded the article into an airplane and winged it back to Luke. “You’re the only one who sees this situation clearly.”
    “
Thank
you,” said Luke.
    Jackson dispatched a sinister cadre with two keystrokes. I tied one end of the yarn to the couch leg, just a few inches above the floor. Baconnaise wavered, but managed a four-inch walk. “Not bad, not bad,” I whispered.
    “I’m going to write a long poem,” Luke was telling Elizabeth.
    I’d heard this one before. Now Baconnaise could handle eight inches of tightrope without one tremor or false step.
    “Long poems are
the
way for the oppressed to voice their identity, to reclaim their culture. And we are the oppressed.”
    Elizabeth was listening intently.
    “We’ve been denied our voice. I want to reclaim it. I want to present
our
culture,
our
milieu,
our
Selwyn. I’m going to play up the neglected characters. Those of us who aren’t pretty enough for the show.”
    I glanced up from the floor. I’ve already explained about Luke. As for Elizabeth—I mean, usually I think of her as my friend, as Jackson’s utterly asexual cousin, and honestly, I rarely even remember she’s a girl, but, like, objectively speaking, she’s got keen eyes and wild hair and some not insubstantial curves in the chesticular region.
    It wasn’t prettiness that kept Luke and Elizabeth from
For Art’s Sake
.
    “I’m going to deflate the ones who’ve sold out.”
    “Please deflate Miki Frigging Reagler,” I said. “Pop him like the hot-air balloon he is. If I have to walk into bio one more time and see him practicing his shuffle-ball-change …”
    “This will be the anti-
FAS
.”
    “Very cool,” said Elizabeth.
    “Hey, speaking of
FAS
.” I motioned to the TV with my head. I couldn’t move my hands because Baconnaise was negotiating a three-foot tightrope.
    “Groan,” said Elizabeth. “Friday night. Nine p.m. It’s time for the requisite viewing.”
    “Must we?” said Luke, even as he pulled the remote from Honey Mustard’s mouth.
    “We’ve bought in,” said Elizabeth. “As has the entire school. You might love it, you might hate it. But you watch it.”
    *   *   *
    You know the lock scene? The one that made Maura look so sweet, Brandon so romantic? I couldn’t believe what they did to it. I was appalled.
    This episode started the same way they all did, with a long zoom onto the three judges, Trisha Meier and Damien Hastings and our principal, Willis Wolfe, sitting at a shiny table on the Selwyn auditorium stage. Trisha made some irritating joke about how cold it was, and Damien jockeyed for airtime with his own dumb joke about moving the school to “Cali.”
    They talked up the prizes. They brownnosed their sponsors. “Remember,” said Trisha Meier, “these ten young artistic geniuses are fighting tooth and nail to win an all-expenses-paid trip on Amber Airlines.…”
    Insert product placement. Trisha misused “literally” twice. Willis Wolfe kept plugging the importance of arts education. Damien shook his gelled head like a pony.
    “Besides a guaranteed signing with an agent, the winner receives a trip to LA and a spread in
La Teen Mode
,” he said. “Also, a scholarship of one hundred thousand dollars, redeemable at any arts institution and provided by Collegiate Assets,
the
way to help
you
save for school.”
    A lot of product placement, a lot of commercial breaks.
    They explained the format every week, clearly assuming that all viewers were