A few minutes later, I walk across the lobby with the signed piece of paper in my hand. I see Rack’s pickup truck waiting for me in front of the school. I don’t care about the class system, in Colchis or anywhere else, and I don’t like cheerleading. It gives me this feeling in my gut, this heavy, anvil-shaped feeling. It’s familiar. It’s how I used to feel all the time. But I haven’t felt this way a single time this year, not once. I go through the doors and then duck behind a pillar before they see me. How would I look if Mr. C. had turned us down? Resentful and sarcastic, how I always used to look. So I make sure I have my Serena-mask in place, but not too much, just kind of an average amount of Serena-tude. I go down the stairs, approach the truck, and knock on the window. They see my normal face and assume the worst.

In the passenger seat, Rack rolls down the window. “He turned us down?” she demands. “That son of a bitch.”

“What?” Angel sits up in the back. “But I thought your mom said …”

Grimshaw sinks down behind the steering wheel. “That’s it, then. I’m leaving for California,” she says with her eyes closed. “Mike wants to go, so here we go. Good-bye, Colchis. Thanks for nothing.”

I give Rack the paper. She sees Mr. C.’s signature. I smile at her and give her two thumbs up. She screams and leaps out of the truck and hugs me so tightly she almost breaks my neck.

“What happened?” Grimshaw looks dazed.

“You’re officially a cheerleader, babe,” says Rack. “Nobody can take it away now. So you better get used to it.”

The next morning in the cemetery, I put the question to them: “Do you guys think there’s a class system,” I ask. “Where your family’s economic situation defines you and determines your future?”

“It might influence you,” Angel observes. “But I wouldn’t say it defines you.”

“Yeah,” Rack says, brushing powdered sugar off the front of Junior’s football jacket. “Because you can always change.”

“That’s called upward mobility,” I tell them. “Mr. C.’s into it.”

“So is that what you’re doing for Mr. C.?” Angel asks. “Asking about the class system?”

“Aren’t there more rich people than poor people?” asks Rack.

“Not in Colchis,” says Angel. They both look at me.

“What are you looking at me for?” I ask. “I’m not rich.”

“You talk rich,” Angel says.

Grimshaw looks up and laughs. “She thinks her family hangs on to all their old rugs and furniture because they can’t afford to buy new ones.”

“Like, antiques and all?”

“Yes.” Grimshaw laughs even harder. “She thinks it’s because they can’t afford to go to Walmart and buy new stuff.”