Read The Princesses of Iowa for Free Online Page B

pretty boring.
    Still, it sounded better than creative writing. In a week of class, we had spent an entire day listening to Mrs. Mueller explain what a journal is and why we should keep one, read and discussed a poem called “Theme for English B,” and watched
Dead Poets Society.
Literally, we spent three entire class days watching Robin Williams yell “Carpe diem!” while in the back of the room Randy and Brian snickered about the faggy kid who wants to play Puck. Maybe film class would have been equally lame, but at least I would have been with Jake.
    The Freshman was becoming a daily target of Jake’s friends’ teasing. He hunched over his notebook with an air of extreme concentration, attempting to convey the message, I assumed, that he was so engrossed in his writing that he didn’t even hear the taunts of the jocks. His floppy brown hair fell across his eyes, and he brushed it away with an absent wave. I probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all if Randy and Brian hadn’t singled him out. We were on opposite ends of the social spectrum. I was a senior and he was a freshman. I was popular and he was an unknown. I was going to be a princess, and he was going to stay a nobody.
    I sighed, watching the clock. A minute and a half before the bell would ring to start class. Only two weeks in and I’d already memorized the exact position of the second hand for each period’s bell.
    Behind me, Randy pretended to sneeze into his fist.
“Faggot.”
    The Freshman’s friend, a pretty Indian girl with thick black hair, whipped around in annoyance. “Why don’t you go eat some more steroids, dickhead?” she snapped. “Another week or two and you’ll grow out of your training bra.”
    Randy’s face turned bright red and his nostrils flared. It was true that his man-boob problem was growing out of proportion, but we all knew better than to say anything to him about it. “Better watch your back, Tonto.”
    “Yeah,” added Brian, “or you might get scalped!”
    A look of amused disbelief moved across the girl’s face. “I’m Indian, geniuses, not Native American.”
    Randy crossed his arms smugly. “Same thing.”
    “No, it’s not. My family’s from Chennai.” She paused, waiting for a reaction she didn’t get. “In
India.
” She laughed. “You stupid asshole.”
    I knew her, I realized suddenly. Shanti Kale. I had a random memory of her punching Danny Abbot in the solar plexus during a flag football game in sixth grade. Her family had moved the next summer. In my memory, she looked like a little boy, with super-short hair and baggy clothes. She must have moved back over the summer; I was surprised I hadn’t heard anything about it.
    Randy’s face turned bright red. “What did you just call me?” He slammed his meaty hands on his desk, but the ringing of the bell kept him from descending fully into one of his ’roid rages.
    Mrs. Mueller bustled into the room, looking like a monstrous sparrow with her puffed-out chest and her beady little eyes. She stood behind her overly large podium and clapped her hands. “Class? Class . . .” Almost too short to see over the dais, she grabbed its wooden sides and pulled herself up on her tiptoes. “Class?”
    Under the low murmur of “Chill out, man” repeating itself in the back of the room like a jock mantra, Randy’s breathing quieted until he sounded less like an angry bull and more like an asthmatic pug. The whispering and giggling dulled to a low hum, and Mrs. Mueller chirruped in gratitude. “Thank you, class, thank you.” She pushed her glasses up her shiny nose and checked her notes. “For your assignment today, class, I’d like you to pair off with each other —” Everyone started murmuring, securing their preferred partners. I saw Shanti give the Freshman a quick head nod.
    “Okay,” Mrs. Mueller said. “Listen first, okay? What you’re going to do is, in partners, you’re going to interview the other person, and then you’re going to