Devonne Brown

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Emmy fumed. She’d been struggling to climb that rope for three weeks and still hadn’t made it two feet off the ground. Her face was red, her hands burned, her thighs chafed. She headed to the dreaded locker room to change, so she could hear more jeers from the cheer leaders who slid up the rope and down again like it was nothing, especially Marsha. She’d heard enough from her. “Come on Emmy, move your fat ass up that rope.”

Emmy graded all the grammar papers for Mr. Runyan. She’d managed to test out of everything with a hundred percent on day one, so he made her his assistant rather than put her through the class. Just wait. 

Marsha wouldn’t make the Dean’s list that semester if Emmy had anything to do with it. She’d earn her respectable C plus or B minus, he’d justify it completely. They only had gym together, but she graded all the English papers. All of them, and she was nitpicky too. Marsha had a terrible time with objective and subjective pronouns, and rather than tell her about it, Emmy just marked them wrong and turned the grades in. Miss Marsha wouldn’t make the Dean’s List or Valedictorian. But Emmy would.

Emmy controlled all the English papers. Too bad rope climbing wasn’t a qualifier for graduation or high honors. Only academics could put somebody on the Dean’s list and send them to the Valedictorian podium. Emmy’d mown down candidates left and right all year long. Marsha was the last and meanest contender. 

Emmy was number one in her class, she even conquered trig. She sucked up to every teacher in school and they all loved her. She was the star student. So what if most of the kids hated her. She wasn’t pretty or popular. Being smart meant you were going somewhere, even if it didn’t include climbing that damned rope. She’d tolerated enough ridicule to earn the Valedictorian podium. She had the numbers, she did the math.

Let Marsha be damned.