You Should See Me in a Crown: Chapters 12–21

A banner the size of a small Mediterranean nation is displayed from one wall to the other across the Commons. COLLINS FOR COURT is emblazoned across it in this gaudy hot-pink glitter font.

Rachel has to reassert herself as queen worthy since she can’t sell anything at the bake sale today, thanks to her boyfriend's food fight debacle.

She must be clairvoyant or something. I should have known that those eyes were a sign of being in touch with—what does Stone call it? The astral plane?

Me, Harry Donato, Lucy, and Aaron Korman—one of the tennis guys that managed to make it out of the Bake-Off debacle unscathed—all arrange our dishes on a long table in the Commons.

“I’m stoked you managed to finish this before the melee started.”

High school is complicated, and the lines of demarcation that The Breakfast Club said divided us aren’t quite so clean-cut.

But there’s still those outliers. The people who are everywhere but fit nowhere. People who are involved but not envied—present but imperfect—so the scrutiny pushes them out of the race.

But there’s still those outliers. The people who are everywhere but fit nowhere. People who are involved but not envied—present but imperfect—so the scrutiny pushes them out of the race.

“We need a full overhaul of your public appearance, Lizzie.” She pauses for a second. “I’m talking full face of makeup before school, new hair—”

“Maybe, just maybe, Rachel’s posters and makeup aren’t the things that have her in the lead. Has anyone considered that? Maybe it’s something more insidious than that? Like the fact that this is a system designed to benefit people like Rachel Collins?”

But she refuses to come out and say what people already assume to be true about her, because, like she croons on their ballad “My Life, My Story,” what she chooses to do should belong to her and the people she shares it with.

Being into girls has never been a huge point of contention for me or my friends.

On others, Jaxon Price poses with the 3A state champion football trophy from last year, with the caption MAKE THE WINNING COCAPTAIN YOUR WINNING KING emblazoned across it—which is pretty bad but somehow still better than what Rachel has going on in her obnoxiously boring banner.

“There’s something truly energizing about the vigor of the student body in this moment,” Stone sighs.

It feels a little intimate to tell someone that you have been thinking about the way they play, even after you’ve left the confines of the band room.

It might sound too earnest, but I mean it. There are very few things I take more seriously than band, and Mack’s presence in it makes it better.

Instead of replying, Mack just turns up the speaker on her phone and fills the room with the sound of “My Life, My Story”—my favorite Kittredge song. It feels sort of like kismet.

She’s talking about the Royal Portrait Gallery—the wall that holds portraits of all the prom kings and queens dating back to when this whole thing started—that sits next to the front office. It’s impossible to miss. From the moment you enter the school, there’s no doubt about this town’s commitment to the pomp and circumstance of the biggest night of the year.

I’m so glad I spent my time preparing for Campbell to be overrun by show-tune fanatics rather than spend my night penning missives to gassy cats.

“Hello, my amazing and altruistic best friend.”

And for a second, buttons, prom, overbearing best friends are forgotten.

On top of the already-ridiculous layer of campaign posters and flyers with prom court candidates lining the walls and the lockers, we now have to deal with music note decals and glittery handmade signs welcoming groups with names like Park Meade High School Panache and Valley Glen Vocal Velocity.

If there’s one thing I understand, it’s feeling stifled by the place we live and the people who live here.

While Dr. L reprimands some of the six-year-olds—the oldest in this particular age group—for roughhousing, Mack comes up beside me.

Peanut is the first to dart away from the jump rope station that she’d commandeered and join us where we’ve formed an informal circle on the floor.

To distract myself from my impending humiliation, I turn back to my bag and pull out my phone one last time to check for any missed messages.

Tall, gangly, awkward Liz Lighty has scored a touchdown in the powder-puff football game.

I will play dead until prom is over, and then maybe they will give me a posthumous scholarship for being ruthlessly maimed in the line of duty.

I will play dead until prom is over, and then maybe they will give me a posthumous scholarship for being ruthlessly maimed in the line of duty.

I don’t think anyone was anticipating a full-fledged gladiator-esque battle out there today.

He hands it to me with a flourish.

Since there won’t be anyone from school to see me stepping out of my newfound character, I decide to wear a pair of my mom’s old overalls, complete with the requisite patches over the knees and bleach stains from twenty years of washes; a cropped black sweatshirt; and a pair of cool red booties that I found on sale at a thrift shop a couple of months ago.

I snap a selfie for posterity and laugh when I review it.

It’s Davey Mack, the skinny and scraggly but somehow unbelievably star-worthy bassist of Kittredge, doing a convoluted handshake with my date.

The concert is amazing, the energy of the audience palpable.

Davey is the perfect front man to have alongside Teela, his energy onstage practically tangible as he sings and jumps from the drummer’s platform down to the stage.

We’re walking in the opposite direction of the venue and the car, and I don’t even mind the fact that it is absolutely too cold outside to be drinking these milkshakes.

“I’m not a writer like my mom was. But musicians are the best storytellers in the world,” she says, talking quickly and waving her hands around like she’s conducting an erratic choir.

Afraid she might not want what I want, that this may have all been some elaborate ruse, some Rachel-esque campaign strategy to sabotage my run.

I nod, probably acquiescing a little too quickly.