Chapters (44)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Julie Murphy
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
It doesn’t matter that I’m in old sweatpants and a T-shirt and Kyle’s mom’s robe. I’m in drag. Because drag is more than makeup and gowns and bodysuits and tucking and sequins and wigs. Drag is about what you exude. Drag is a choice. And in this moment, in front of almost the entire senior class, my choice is to fully embrace Pumpkin. Embracing Pumpkin doesn’t mean leaving Waylon behind, because there’s no Pumpkin without Waylon.
The entire house is screaming along with me. There are no spotlights, because this song is a solo that belongs to each and every one of us.
The end of the song is coming and I have a choice to make. A choice that rides on a gamble and a little bit of faith.
“You, you, you oughta know!” I sing into the microphone just before I make my best attempt at a death drop, my body slamming down with one leg shooting out and the other awkwardly bent to the side, and sweet Jesus, I should probably stretch before I do that again. It’s not perfect or pretty, but I let my body hit the coffee table with enough force that after a brief second, the wooden legs collapse beneath me.
Panic stops my heart. This is every fat kid’s worst nightmare. I didn’t just break a chair. I broke a damn coffee table. But I knew what I was doing when I went for that death drop. In fact, I’d bet that almost anyone’s death drop would kill this coffee table. And even if that’s not true, I don’t care, because that might have just been the most monumental moment of my life. Sometimes you just have to break a damn coffee table.
I close my eyes and clutch the microphone to my chest. I’m not ready to see anyone else’s reactions yet. I still want this moment to be only mine.
“Pump-kin, Pump-kin, Pump-kin!” It starts out slow and quiet, but by the time I open my eyes, tons of faces—many familiar and others not—are looking back down at me. And they’re chanting. They’re chanting for me.
“Pump-kin, Pump-kin, Pump-kin!”
I sit up as though their cheers are resuscitating me. As though they’re giving me life.
Tucker reaches out his hand for me and helps me to my feet.
The crowd quiets, and I hold my arms out as I take a deep curtsy, causing them to erupt in cheers all over again.
Twenty-Six
The next morning when I wake up, I find a garment bag hanging over my door.
As I’m still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, Mom knocks and peeps her head inside. “I thought you could use something for Saturday.”