She had unheard-of things in her art room, watercolor, gouache. I got to try them all. She made me use perspectives, vanishing point, etc. She gave me human body charts to copy out for learning the muscles, because a cartoon isn’t a realistic person but there’s a real person under it. Like the skull and the face. That room, those hours. I can still smell them. I would be just getting into something before it was time to put away the paints and get on the bus back to middle school. Never in my life have I known time to fly away like that.
Angus got on a tear that year to start an academic team, which nobody knew what that was. She explained to me that it’s like a sport, only between teams trying to know the most of all the different units like math, literature, etc. A victory of smartness type of thing. She was in high school now, with her big crazy dreams. I said it’ll never fly, that bird has got no wings. She said it’s already flying. They actually did this in other high schools. She heard of it from her friend Sax’s cousin that lived in Northern Virginia. Kids up there evidently had brains coming out their ears, to the extent of needing to meet up with other kids for brain-to-brain combat.
I said what Mom always did if I wanted to do something extra like make my bed: Why make life harder than it is? Angus ignored me and wrote a proposal that Sax’s cousin’s teacher helped her with, over the phone. She had this whole presentation she practiced on me prior to giving it to a teacher’s meeting. I said maybe tone down the outfit, which was a DC Brainiac shirt and giant glasses she found at Goodwill, but other than that, perfect. So she gave it for the teachers and then the PTA. Next, the freaking school board. I’m sure they thought, this weird girl is getting no dates, fine, let her fill her empty life. Then snoozed till the word competition came up, which meant going to other schools, on buses. Meaning money. They all said the same thing: This category is already covered in the budget. Gifted kids got to take a school trip in sixth or seventh. By high school, evidently if you’re still gifted, you just need to get over that.
Defeat only made Angus more determined. I didn’t get it. I asked if she was jealous over me getting all my art attention, and she said art, was I kidding? If I wanted to discuss unfairness, let’s talk about football. Uniforms, equipment, buses to away games, state championships. The school board threw money at all that like water on a house fire. And I was like, Angus. It’s football. Take that out of high school, it’s church with no Jesus. Who would even go?
Sax had helped hatch this plan, but wimped out under pressure. Angus was on her own. You’d think at least teachers would back her up. This girl that aces everything she looks at, and reads books for actual fun. But they waffled. Granted, it’s Angus, of the full metal clothes closet and opinions not kept to herself. Plus Coach was always pulling rank on teachers to keep his flunk-ass players eligible. Not Angus’s fault, but complicated. Finally she went to her old Jonesville Middle pal Mr. Armstrong, that helped her get an assembly set up to present the idea at the high school. Which ended up being a small meeting in a classroom of any kids interested, aka wanting to get out of class for that period. Sax called in sick, aka gutless. It was my art time, so Ms. Annie and I went to the assembly of Angus. She gave her talk about improving skills, school pride, etc., all boss in her black T-shirt with green-skin Brainiac, plus combat boots, hair in fifty little ponytails representing nerve ends. （No hats allowed in school. The girl could push dress code to an inch of its life.） The only nervous part of her was her eyes. She gave examples of what some teams did, like making team shirts with math equations on them or the names of books they’d read, and wearing these to school. “Like football players wearing their uniforms on Fridays,” she said. “But we could pick Monday or Tuesdays, so smart kids get their own day to be lords and masters of the high school social pyramid.” That got a pretty huge laugh.
Only two teachers were there, plus the principal to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. He looked like he was napping. One of the teachers frowned the entire time and took notes. Angus finished up, and Mr. Armstrong said he applauded Ms. Winfield’s initiative and believed her project could notch up the culture of academics at their school. He had knowledge of how these teams functioned, and was there to answer any questions they might have.
Frowny teacher had questions, all right. Who pays for this. Are these kids taken out of class, and how is that made up. Are teachers expected to put in time after school. This lady looked like she’d gone to prom in the eighties and got frozen, big hair, big shoulders. Scary. But Mr. Armstrong stayed on his even keel, talking about cost-benefit ratio, teachers volunteering to prep students in their subject areas, making good use of resources we already have.