Moxie: Chapters 18–25

It’s a testament to how super crazy I am about Seth that I would even risk making out with him in his house so soon before his mom and dad are set to arrive with dinner.

She talks about how she just found and ordered a vintage Italian parasol online that she really loves, and she talks about how she thinks she’s just had a breakthrough on her recent commissioned piece.

She talks about how she just found and ordered a vintage Italian parasol online that she really loves, and she talks about how she thinks she’s just had a breakthrough on her recent commissioned piece.

Her voice is knowing and lilting and sure of itself, and by the time all of us sit down at the groovy modern all-white kitchen table and chairs, I’m not sure if I should be smiling or nodding or laughing at everything Zoe Acosta says.

“And those were my parents,” he says, sounding like a sideshow barker who’s been introducing the same carnival act for years.

“I’m sure my parents will head back to Austin after this crazy small-town Texas experiment is over,” he says. “They always follow their whims.”

My mom told me it’s what the Dutch do and she thought it was, I don’t know, progressive or something.

It’s a system of brackets with sixty-four junior and senior girls, about a quarter of the girls in each class. The rest aren’t included because they’re not deemed ballot-worthy.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, they use some complicated system of voting and personal testimony to pit girls against each other as the brackets lead to one girl in the junior or senior class.

But then she offers a wry smile, so I think it’s okay.

I sincerely wanted to change East Rockport High School. Maybe I was naïve to think I could, but deep down I believed it might happen.

It idealizes one type of beauty (white & thin) over all others. It shames us and humiliates us. It’s sick, gross, and essentially condoned by the school and community.

And when I slipped on a hoodie this morning before distributing the copies, I felt like a soldier on a dangerous mission, determined to succeed no matter what. The anger was enough to make me almost forget what a treacherous position I was putting myself in.

*Proceeds go to girls' soccer team*

I think about inviting her to Kiera’s thing and it’s like thinking about inviting a debutante to a drunken tailgate.

Emma hangs with the elite, with the coolest football players and the most popular cheer squad girls.

My friends and I decide to go for some lemonade.
“Do you want regular or...fortified?” the girl behind the table says, eyeing us.

"...Safety for our students is a top concern, of course.”
The words are so perfunctory and laughable I can’t help but turn in my seat and roll my eyes at Claudia and Sara.

Then she shoots me a rueful grin. “And anyway, maybe it’s better I didn’t know. I always have had trouble keeping my big mouth shut.”

“And now you’re asking me for permission to participate in civil disobedience.”
“I guess that is some irony for you,” I say.
“It’s blistering.”

Finally, Mr. Davies calls on one of Mitchell’s friends, who starts reading some short passage in a halting voice.

Blond hair in ponytails and black hair in braids and brown hair and red hair, too. Hair cut pixie-style or held back with cheap barrettes or carefully styled into loose spiral curls that still smell of that morning’s dose of hair spray.

I hug her back, hard, and Principal Wilson’s desperate orders to disperse become background noise.

By dinnertime, Moxie isn’t an East Rockport phenomenon. It’s not even a Texas phenomenon. It’s spreading so fast it doesn’t feel real.

The last day of school is always a half day, so the last class of my junior year of high school is English with Mr. Davies, who has announced this week to extremely little fanfare that this will be his final year at East Rockport High School.

So due to his impending retirement, Mr. Davies is spending these last hours packing up a few boxes and letting us talk and count the minutes to summer break.

“I mean, the patriarchy is more than one guy, right?”

“There’s a certain faction that’s pretty pissed about what I did.”

The squeaks of shoes on cracked linoleum floors, the slams of locker doors, the shrieks and shouts of teenagers finally acquiring freedom after months of imprisonment—the noises surround us as we stand there, looking at each other.

“You want me there?” Emma says. “Even though I’m, like, head cheerleader?” And the way she asks it—the way her voice is full of longing and doubt and just a touch of self-deprecation—is all I need to predict that Emma Johnson and I are going to become good friends.