From Bad to Cursed

“Nice camera,” the girl said. “How many megapixels?

Mine’s twelve-point-one.”

“Oh, it’s not digital,” I said. “I shoot film.”

She blinked. “But how many megapixels?” She pressed a button and the flash shot open, startling her. The dozen-megapixel beast took a hard landing in the grass.

I watched her wipe blades of damp grass from every part of the camera except the lens. When she was finished, she looked up, still waiting for an answer.

“Um…nine-point-seven?” I said.

“Cool.” She smiled. “Let’s go to the library. I really like the bricks there.”

I followed without protest.

During one of their many Kasey-themed phone calls with the Surrey High guidance counselor over the summer, my parents had slipped up and mentioned my photography hobby. This prompted said guidance counselor to mention the school’s photography class, which prompted said parents to bug me endlessly about enrolling in it.

I’d given in partly to make them happy and partly out of curiosity.

But it was a massive mistake.

That day, I’d been paired with a senior named Daffodil or Delilah or something, and sent out to take some exploratory photos. Never mind that there was nothing worth exploring at Surrey High, but Daffodil/ Delilah insisted we hike all over the campus, examining tree bark, sidewalk cracks, and now the bricks in the library wall.

I’d taken four photos. Film is expensive.

But digital is free, and Daffodil couldn’t get enough. She had me scroll through eighteen identical images of a pinecone so I could tell her which one was the best. I chose one at random.

“That’s my favorite, too!” she said.

I wished I could be charmed by her enthusiasm, but the words that kept creeping to the edge of my tongue were dangerously noncharming. So I opted for silence, under cover of which I plotted out the main points of the argument I’d use to get unenrolled from the class.

As we changed course to head for the bricks, something across the courtyard caught my eye—a late- arriving student and her mother. The mother was young and pretty, sitting in a wheelchair. The daughter was a study in awkwardness. She wore denim overalls over a shiny, cheap-looking pink shirt, like a dance recital leftover. Her stringy hair hung loose around her face, with an enormous fake sunflower pi

I thought there was something odd and stilted about the way she moved until I noticed that she walked with a cane—like, an actual old-people cane.

I snapped a couple pictures of them and then noticed that the girl was looking right at me. I blushed and turned away, the camera still hiding my face.

LUCKILY, THIRD PERIOD WAS English with Mr. O’Brien, who knew me from sophomore year. He saw my pink hair and occasionally prickly attitude as evidence that I was one of those temperamental creative types. In other words, I got away with a lot in his class.

I asked if I could go to the office about a personal issue. He said he hoped everything was okay and wrote me a hall pass.

When I told the office secretary I needed to talk to Mrs. Ames about my schedule, she sat back in her chair and gazed at me through her reading glasses, which magnified her no-nonsense glare.

“It’s the sixth day of school,” she said. “You think the principal has nothing better to do than listen to you complain?”

“That’s all right, Ivy.” There was no mistaking Mrs. Ames’s voice, deep and resonant in the way only school principals’ voices are. She appeared at her doorway. “I can spare five minutes. Come in, Alexis.”

During my more, shall we say, “impetuous” period, I’d sat on her scratchy old couch about once a week. Now I got upgraded to the guest chair. Looking around, I saw an unfamiliar, possibly fake, plant in the corner, and a new diploma on the wall—a master’s degree.

“When did you get that?” I asked.

“Just this past June,” she said, putting her reading glasses on. “Thanks for noticing.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, and we sat and stared at each other. Apparently, apart from my misbehavior and its consequences, we didn’t actually have much to talk about.

Then we both spoke at once.

“You’ve been on my mind this morning,” she said, just as I said, “I have to get out of Photography.”

She sat back. “And why is that?”

As calmly as I could, I gave her a rundown of how thoroughly I detested the class. I led with the fact that we never actually spent any time in the darkroom because everyone else shot digital, and ended with an impassioned visual critique of the brick wall. Mrs. Ames nodded from time to time, seemingly content to listen to as many complaints as I could dredge up.

“If there was moss growing on it or something, that would be one thing,” I said. “But seriously. They’re bricks.”

Finally, out of ammunition, I gripped the armrests of my chair and waited.

She folded her hands and sighed. Then she tilted her head to the left and the right, stealing glances of something on her desk. “School district policy,” she said, “does not allow transfer out of an enrolled class without pressing circumstances. Which don’t traditionally include students’ opinions on the aesthetic merits of building materials.”

I started talking as soon as I could get another lungful of air. “But Mrs. Ames—this class is incompatible with my skill level. I truly believe that I will become a worse photographer every day I’m forced to participate.”

She held up a hand. “All right, Alexis. Calm down.”

“Please,” I said. “I didn’t even want it on my schedule. My father found out about it and wouldn’t leave me alone until—”

“Stop.” She gave me a sharp look. “While you’re ahead. I liked your arguments better when you weren’t blaming other people.”

I shut my mouth. But not for long. “There’s no chance, then?”

She was still studying whatever was on her desk. “It’s so serendipitous that you came in here this morning,” she said, as if we’d finished the discussion and were moving on.

“Why?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

She handed me a sheet of paper.

LOOKING FOR THE NEXT GERNERATION OF SUPERSTAR PHTOTGRAPHERS, read the heading at the top. ANNOUNCING THE FIRST ANNUAL “YOUNG VISIONARIES” CONTEST.

“It’s a photography competition,” she said. “The grand prize is a scholarship and a paid summer internship.”

“Ah.” I tried to hand the flyer back. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

She wouldn’t take it. “You’re not even going to consider it?”

I shrugged. “Not like I could possibly win.”

“Why not?”

Because I’m not going to enter. Because I have better things to do with my time than compete in some cheesy contest, sur rounded by overachieving college-application padders.

Mrs. Ames turned her attention to rearranging the pens in a mug by her phone. “You don’t just send your work in and either win or lose. It’s more of a process than that. There are interviews, social functions…but the deadline for applications is tomorrow.”

“Contests aren’t really my thing,” I said, reaching for my bag.

“That sounds like a groundless line of reasoning to me.” Her chair let out a loud creak as she swiveled toward her computer. “But I know you, Alexis. And I imagine no amount of money could entice you to do something you don’t want to do.”

“Wait,” I said. “How much money?”

She smirked but tried to wipe it off her face before she turned around. “I believe the scholarship is five thousand dollars, and the internship is paid—probably minimum wage.”

“Oh,” I said, and then, “Oh.”

So, okay, before you call me a sellout, here’s the thing:

My parents have decent jobs, but even with our health insurance, I suspected they’d had to lay out a bundle of money to keep Kasey at Harmony Valley instead of the county facility. College didn’t worry me—I figured I’d get a summer job and save up enough money to go to a state university, hopefully with some kind of “Hey, at least you tried” academic scholarship.