Choke

  For my brothers, Albert and Steven

  knockout game, airplaning,

  rocket ride, sleeper hold,

  pass-out game, wall hit,

  cloud nine, gasp,

  American dream game,

  necktie challenge, blackout game,

  trip to heaven, flatliner,

  hyperventilating,

  suffocation roulette

  choke

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Knockout Game

  Chapter 2: Airplaning

  Chapter 3: Rocket Ride

  Chapter 4: Sleeper Hold

  Chapter 5: Pass-Out Game

  Chapter 6: Wall Hit

  Chapter 7: Cloud Nine

  Chapter 8: The Choking Game

  Chapter 9: American Dream Game

  Chapter 10: Necktie Challenge

  Chapter 11: Blackout Game

  Chapter 12: Trip to Heaven

  Chapter 13: Gasp

  Chapter 14: Flatliner

  Chapter 15: Hyperventilating

  Chapter 16: Suffocation Roulette

  Chapter 17: Summer

  Chapter 18: Breath Sisters

  Author’s Note

  Online Resource Page

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  My middle school has the “in-crowd,” the “out-crowd,” and the “GP.” “GP” stands for “general public,” just like the movie rating. The in-crowd works hard to stay out of the GP, while the out-crowd works hard to get in.

  I’m definitely GP, general public in every way. When the students line up by height for our class portrait, I stand in the middle row. When I try out for spots on the basketball team and chess club, I get the “alternate” position. When my teachers grade tests, I make B’s, sometimes C’s, but never F’s or A’s. I wear glasses, which is a drag, but I don’t have pimples, which is cool. I never come in first when we run laps in P.E., but I never come in last, either.

  Sometimes I like being GP because no one expects me to run for student council or compete in the academic decathlon. Being GP means being invisible, which is cool when the teachers forget to ask for my opinion, which is double cool since I don’t have an opinion most of the time, at least not one they would care about. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about the president or YouTube or The Giver, a book we had to read in English class. So being invisible has its benefits, but it can be boring, too. Especially around cute guys like Ronnie Esparza. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not completely invisible around him. We talk — almost every day — but we never have real conversations. He’ll say, “Hi, Windy” or “Can I borrow a pencil?” but never “Who do you think’s going to win the Super Bowl?” or “Will you be my date for the Valentine’s dance?” Now those are questions I could answer, questions I want to answer. I should ask him first, about sports or for a date, but I’m not brave enough — even though I was the only eighth-grade girl who didn’t scream on the roller coasters at Fiesta Texas.

  So at the end of the day, being GP isn’t good enough. I want to be part of the in-crowd. I want the keys to their golden lockers, the ones that get decorated with streamers and ribbons on Spirit Day. The ones with mirrors on the inside door, mirrors reflecting beautiful faces and surrounded by pictures of beautiful BFFs. Lockers with secret admirer love notes crammed into the air vents. Lockers with wallpaper and vanilla-scented air fresheners. Lockers that have been interior designed, the ultimate sign of an in-crowd girl.

  Unfortunately, moving up the social ranks isn’t easy. Like I said, I make B’s and C’s, never A’s. I wish I looked like my mom, who is beautiful — everyone says so. But I don’t. I look like my dad. No one ever calls him ugly, but no one calls him handsome, either. He’s normal-looking, and I’m just as normal-looking — from the elastic bands that hold back my hair to my Nike tennis shoes. And even though my parents make decent money, I wear a zirconia ring, not a diamond, and I shop at Target, not Macy’s. Without brains, looks, or cash, I had no way of joining the in-crowd. No way at all. At least, not until the day we got back from Spring Break, the day that Nina showed up.

  I met her in speech class. No, I met her before I even saw her. I met her when my best friend, Elena, said, “Hey, Windy, there’s a new girl in school.”

  That’s when I said, “What’s she like?”

  “She’s mag-tastic,” Elena said.

  She loves combining words like “magnificent” and “fantastic.” She calls it “word-morphing,” something she’s been doing since elementary school. I keep waiting for her to outgrow it, but Elena likes to hold on to things — not just habits like word-morphing but actual things like the gym bag, piccolo case, backpack, purse, and lunch box she carries around all day. She holds on to out-of-style fads, too — rubber bracelets with hopeful adjectives stamped on them, socks with pom-poms, and pumpkin or Christmas tree earrings that she keeps wearing even when bunny rabbits would be more appropriate. I often tell her to get with the fashion program, to update, but she just points to herself and says, “This is me, take it or leave it.” She honestly doesn’t care what other people think.

  She went on about Nina, “You know how the guys in band always hog up the percussion and brass? How they pick on girls if we even think about playing ‘their’ stuff?”

  “Yeah. What does that have to do with the new girl?”

  “She walked into band and straightaway told Mr. Hamilton she was a drummer. Of course, the guys started teasing her. They said it takes biceps to play the drums. She flexed her muscles, and the guys started calling her Popeye. So she went up to the lead drummer, pulled two drumsticks from her back pocket, and did a riff. She was better than all of them, and to cap it off, she bopped the lead drummer on his head.”

  “No way,” I said, laughing at the image.

  Just then, one of the guys did the check-out-that-babe whistle. Everyone looked toward the door where a pretty girl stood with a yellow registration slip in her hand.

  “That’s her,” Elena whispered.

  The guy whistled again. Nina didn’t blush or hide. She scanned the room, found him, and looked straight in his eyes, a tense stare-down. After a while, the guy looked away. I was impressed. I’d never met a girl who could make a guy slink off like a shamed dog.

  At the same time, I couldn’t blame him for whistling. Nina was tall, like a model. She had a dark complexion that made her hazel eyes stand out, real hazel eyes, not the contact lens kind. She could wear her hair loose because it looked like it belonged on a Pantene commercial — not frizzy and tangled like mine. That day, Nina wore jeans, a blue knit top, and a beautiful scarf with a swirly pattern in blue, purple, and silver. She had tied it around her neck, knotted at the side so the ends draped behind and in front of her shoulder.

  “What a knockout,” the guy behind me whispered.

  The tardy bell rang, so we scrambled to our seats. Mrs. Campos stepped in, took the new girl’s registration form, and said, “Hello, class. We have a new student today. Nina Díaz. Please welcome her.”

  “Hello, Nina Díaz,” we all said. Mrs. Campos loved to hear a chorus.

  “You’ll have to sit by Ronnie,” Mrs. Campos told Nina. “I like my students in alphabetical order. That way, I can take attendance in two seconds.”

  “Where’s Ronnie?” Nina said.

  He raised his hand, too eagerly I thought. She went to his row, and everyone who came after Nina in the alphabet had to scoot one seat over.

  “Quick,” I whispered to Elena, taking out my TOP FIVE spiral. “Let’s list the top five reasons the new girl’s lucky.”

  “She plays the drums,” Elena said. “And she’s got great hair.”

  I wrote them dow
n. “Number three — she’s new so she gets a fresh start.”

  “Don’t forget her pretty eyes.”

  “And the number one reason she’s lucky?” I asked. Elena and I looked at each other and at the same time said, “She gets to sit next to Ronnie.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Campos knocked on the chalkboard. She was staring right at us, and since she’d already threatened to move us for talking too much, Elena quickly turned around. In fact, we always sit next to each other, and we always talk too much. It’s not our fault. Blame our teachers because Elena’s last name is Sheppard and mine is Soto. We were bound to become best friends after so many years of sitting in alphabetical order. Sometimes there’d be a Silverton or Smith between us, but not often. I was surprised we still sat together in Mrs. Campos’s class. Our math teacher had moved us apart months ago.

  After spending thirty minutes lecturing about something called “process analysis,” Mrs. Campos introduced our next speech presentation.

  “This time, we’re not going to do PowerPoints or read from note cards,” she said.

  “But I hate impromptu speeches,” someone complained.

  “Don’t worry. We’re finished with our impromptu speech unit.”

  “Don’t tell us we have to memorize a poem again,” another student said.

  “No, we’re not going to do another poetry recitation.” The class waited expectantly, and when Mrs. Campos felt sure no one else would interrupt, she went on. “We’re going to use props this time. We’re going to do a process analysis by modeling something.”

  “Really?” Alicia, one of the in-crowd girls, nearly jumped out of her chair. “I love to model. Can I model my sister’s prom dress?”

  “That’s not what I mean by ‘model,’” Mrs. Campos explained. “I mean demonstrate. You’re going to do a demonstration.”

  Alicia’s shoulders slumped.

  “Too bad for Alicia,” I whispered to Elena.

  “Yeah. My heart bleeds for her,” she whispered back.

  We couldn’t help “feeling sorry” for Alicia because she and her best friend, Courtney, like to wave their in-crowd status in our faces — every chance they get.

  Sometimes I can’t believe they used to be our friends. In elementary school, we were Girl Scouts. All four of us loved it, but for some reason, Alicia and Courtney started to keep score. Who sold the most cookies? Who earned the most patches? Elena was the best Girl Scout on the planet, and they hated her for it. So they quit, and because they made jokes about Girl Scouts, Elena and I quit, too, even though we really liked it. Added to that was Elena’s star student status. She busted the curve in classes where teachers ranked their students. She was mentioned on the morning announcements and school newsletter more often than a starlet in the tabloids. Alicia and Courtney didn’t put as much effort into school, but they still kept score, and every time Elena “beat” them, they made our lives miserable.

  We didn’t get it. How could two girls who were prettier and more popular be so jealous?

  Three years ago, we started middle school at Horace Mann. The school is surrounded by beautiful historical homes, the kind that have maids and gardeners. The regular houses are across Lake Street, and farther down, across Zarzamora, the houses are run-down. I live between Lake and Zarzamora, of course, but Courtney and Alicia live on the historical side, on a street called Kings Highway — and, like royalty, they wore “crowns,” headbands with fake gems. Plus, Courtney has blond hair. She’s always had blond hair, but now Alicia has it, too. We live in a part of San Antonio where the billboards are in English and Spanish. Our neighborhood has a few blonds, but most people here have brown hair. Of course, everyone wanted to copy Courtney and Alicia, including Elena and me. My hair is brown like a chocolate bar. Elena’s is somewhere between brown and gold. So we begged our moms to let us bleach our hair. They said no. They said we were beautiful just the way we were. How ridiculous is that? So then I tried to wear pretty headbands, like all the other girls, but a headband on top of glasses gave me a giant headache behind the ears. I have no hope, no hope at all. I’ll never look like an in-crowd girl.

  “Next year you’ll be in high school,” Mrs. Campos went on. “So you have to start thinking about where to go, which classes to take. It’s not too early to start planning a career. Studies show that attending a magnet school increases your chance of succeeding in college.”

  Magnet schools were for students who had their goals figured out. Our district had several: for health careers, for business, for fine arts, for science and technology. But me? I wanted to go to a regular school.

  “So let’s talk about some possible careers,” Mrs. Campos suggested.

  Alicia raised her hand. “Modeling’s a career, isn’t it? So I can still model my sister’s prom dress, right?”

  “That’s fine with me,” Mrs. Campos said.

  “And I want to be a celebrity hairstylist,” Courtney added. “Can I partner up with Alicia and fix her hair after she models the dress?”

  “As long as you explain the process.”

  “Trainer,” Ronnie blurted.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Campos asked.

  “I’m going to be the guy who works at a gym and shows dudes how to exercise. They could get hurt if they do it wrong. Pull a muscle maybe. Or the barbell could land on their chest and, like, break their lungs.”

  “Oh, Ronnie,” Courtney said, full of fake sweetness. “Can I be your trainee?”

  He nodded, too eagerly, I thought again.

  “Anyone else interested in an athletic career?” Mrs. Campos asked.

  Elena’s hand went up.

  “Don’t answer,” I whispered. “Please don’t answer.” I knew what she was going to say. I knew she’d embarrass herself. But instead of putting down her hand, she waved it like someone lost at sea.

  “Elena,” Mrs. Campos said, “what would you like to be?”

  “A professional ice-skater,” she announced.

  The whole class cracked up.

  “Don’t laugh,” she said. “This is America. I can be anything I want.”

  Courtney said, “Do you really want to wear leotards?”

  The class laughed even louder, and it wasn’t because of Elena’s weight, because she’s not fat. Not really. She just hasn’t experienced a growth spurt yet, hasn’t stretched out. Like I said, Elena holds on to things, and one of those things is baby fat.

  “Besides,” Courtney added, “this is San Antonio. It’s not like we get white winters here.”

  “All I need is an ice-skating rink, not an entire frozen lake.”

  Courtney made a W by holding three fingers to her forehead. Everyone knew what it meant. It was the in-crowd sign for “whatever.”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” Alicia added with her own W sign.

  “You two can be so rude-ocious,” Elena said.

  “That’s not even a word.”

  “Okay, now,” Mrs. Campos warned. “Let’s get back to our discussion. But first, Elena, I think it’s wonderful to have an aspiring ice-skater in our class. And I wish you the best of luck with your dream.”

  “She’s sure going to need it,” Alicia said.

  The class laughed again till Mrs. Campos put up her fist. “That’s enough!” she said as she counted with her fingers — one, two, three. We knew there’d be detention if she reached five before we hushed, so we quickly settled down. Mrs. Campos held the silence a little longer, and then she turned to me. “Windy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what are your interests?”

  “I don’t have any,” I said.

  “None at all?”

  “I just want a job that won’t make my feet hurt.”

  The class chuckled.

  “I’m not trying to be sarcastic,” I quickly told Mrs. Campos. “I just want a job that lets me sit down all day, so I won’t be tired when I get home.”

  “Maybe you can res
earch office jobs,” Mrs. Campos suggested.

  I nodded and wrote “office jobs” in my notebook.

  Just then, the dismissal bell rang. “Enjoy your lunch,” Mrs. Campos said as we filed out. I picked up my things and headed to the door, and as I passed Nina’s desk, I realized she hadn’t spoken at all. I left the class wondering what she’d like to be, which magnet school she’d apply to. Maybe I could apply there, too.

  In the cafeteria, seats are determined by status. The in-crowd sits by the windows overlooking the courtyard. The out-crowd sits by the trash cans and the big plastic vat where we dump our milk before pitching the cartons into the recycling bin. The milk sours fast, so the whole corner stinks, and since it’s close to the exit, it buzzes with flies.

  The GP sits everywhere else.

  Our cafeteria has a serving area with two lines, hot and cold. The cold line offers soggy sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, a variety of chips, apples or oranges, and milk or water. The hot line offers a different menu each day, usually a meat, a vegetable, a fruit, and milk or water. If we want soda or Gatorade, we have to go to the vending machines and spend an extra dollar.

  Elena and I prefer the hot line, especially when it features lasagna, which was on the menu on Nina’s first day.

  “Check out Ronnie,” Elena said, nodding toward the vending machines. “He’s getting a Dr Pepper, Doritos, and a Snickers bar.”

  “I thought he wanted to be a trainer,” I said. “You can’t be a trainer if you’re a junk food junkie.”

  “He’s guilty of junk-luttony, that’s for sure.”

  “Not another new word,” I pretended to complain.

  “Yeah. Junk plus gluttony. Get it?”

  “Let’s just call him a junkie jock,” I suggested.