Watch Me Disappear
by Diane Vanaskie Mulligan
Excerpts
from Chapter 1:
I swear, every time we move to another town and I
have to start over at another school, my mother looks at me and thinks, “Maybe
this time she’ll make some friends.” She’s a realist. She never advises me to
go out there and be myself. Instead she tells me to use this fresh start to
reinvent myself, which means to fix whatever is wrong with me.
All I want is to be invisible. My plan for senior
year at my new school: Get straight A’s and get into a top-tier college. But
this move is different from all the others. This time, my dad keeps reminding
me, we’re moving home, to the town where he grew up. This isn’t Texas (which is
like another planet) or California (which is like another universe). My entire
life, this has been the one place we’ve always returned to, but up until now,
only for short visits. There’s the park where I learned to ride a bike, the ice
cream shop that makes the world’s best mint chocolate chip, the hill behind my
grandmother’s house where my brother and I used to go sledding on snowy
Christmases. Maybe this time I can let my guard down a little and not just be
the quiet new girl. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
from Chapter 4
“He’s won the high average award the past three
years, so unless someone can knock him down this year, he’ll be valedictorian.”
“Him?” I ask. The kid in question looks like some
kind of wide-eyed farm boy, not like a valedictorian. He is tan and
athletic-looking, but there is nothing cocky in his walk or his expression. If
I had to guess just based on appearances, I would say he is probably of average
intelligence at best but great with big animals like cows and horses. It is
hard to picture him acing a calculus exam.
“Yep. His name is Hunter Groves. Valedictorian and
star of the soccer team.”
“No kidding,” I say.
“He’s a nice kid,” Wes adds. “Usually the number
one guy is a serious geek, but Hunter’s ok.”
I either hate Hunter Groves or love him. Maybe I
am even madly in love with him. It may be shallow, but the guy of my dreams is
both hot and smart, and he’s genuine enough to fall for me despite my mere
average appearance. I know it’s a double standard to want a guy with looks and
brains and maybe even athletic talent, and simultaneously to want people not to
judge me by my looks and lack of athletic talent, but there it is. I guess I’m
not a good person. And anyway, whatever dream guy I have in my mind, real boys
intimidate me completely, and I steer clear of them. The good-looking jocks use
their arrogance to compensate for their dull minds, and the really smart guys
usually have the people skills of lab rats. There I go again, proving myself to
be superficial and judgmental, but I’m just calling it like I see it. The point
is, if Hunter Groves is the smart, athletic, nice guy Wes says he is, maybe
dreams do come true.
From Chapter 6
I like the makeup better when I put it on myself.
I apply it more lightly than they had, so it looks more natural. Try as I
might, I’m not very handy at hairstyling, though. I can’t seem to tease the
roots as Katherine instructed, and I have no luck with the up-dos they showed
me. In the end, Katherine produces a small set of scissors and, while I hold my
breath, trims some fringy bangs and layers, which we iron flat into a funky
style. When we’re done, I don’t look like me, but I look sort of good. And good
thing, too, because all the little pieces she cut are never going to fit into a
ponytail.
“See,” Maura says. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“Maybe we should come raid your closet and see
what we can do with that,” Katherine says, laughing smugly. She has gotten a
little friendlier as the day has gone on. When I let her cut my hair, I think
that sealed the deal. She is willing to at least consider extending friendship
to me.
“You won’t find much interesting in my closet,” I
say.
“What, no secrets?” Maura asks, suddenly turning
our conversation away from the safe realm of appearances. My heart pounds. I’m
not ready for this kind of conversation. Is this where they turn on me?
“No,” I say. “No cute clothes or skeletons.”
“How disappointing,” Maura says. “I thought there
was a wild child in you that we had yet to uncover.”
“You’ve met my parents. They don’t allow much for
wildness.”
“Exactly. Kids with strict parents are usually the
ones who let it all out when they step outside their parents’ grasp.”
“I guess I’m still pretty much within their
grasp,” I say.
Maura makes a tsk sound. “I thought for
sure there was more to you, Lizzie,” she says.
I shrug. I wish there was more to me, too.
