flipped - winrina ff

Minjeong: Flipped

After the dinner, Jimin was nice to me at school. Which I hated. Mad was better than nice. Gaga was better than… nice. It was like I was a stranger to her, and man, it bugged me. Bugged me big-time.

Then the auction happened, and I found myself with even bigger problems.

The auction is this bogus way the Booster Club raises money for the school. They insist it’s an honor to be chosen, but bull-stinkin’-loney to that! Bottom line is, twenty boys and girls get shanghaied. They have to come up with fancy picnic lunches and then be humiliated in front of the whole school while other guys and girls bid to have lunch with them.

Guess who made this year’s top twenty.

You’d think mothers would say, Hey, there’s no way you’re going to auction my daughter off to the highest bidder, but no. Instead, they’re all flattered that their daughter’s been elected a basket girl.

Yes, my friend, that’s what they call you. Over the P.A. you hear stuff like, “There will be an organizational meeting of the newly elected basket girls and boys in the MPR at lunch today. All basket girls and boys must attend.”

Pretty soon you’ve completely lost your name. You and nineteen other saps are known simply as Basket Girl/Boy.

My mom, of course, was into it, coming up with all sorts of stuff to put in my basket so I’d get the highest bid. I tried to explain that I didn’t want to be in Kwangya Junior High’s Basket Girl/Boy Hall of Fame, and that really, what was in the basket didn’t matter. It wasn’t like girls were bidding on the basket. When you got right down to it, this was a meat market.

“You eat lunch on campus and that’s the end of it. It is hardly a meat market, Minjeong. It’s an honor! Besides, maybe someone really nice will bid on you and you’ll make a new friend!”

Mothers can be in such denial.

And then Beomgyu bends my ear with the news that Jang Wonyoung is breaking up with Choi Soobin, and that she, Lee Chaeyoung, and Park Sinu are starting some bidding war over me. “Dude!” he tells me. “The two hottest chicks on campus. And I swear to god, man, Wonyoung’s dumped Soobin because of you. I heard it direct from Sunoo, and dude, Sunoo the Ear knows all.”

He throws me this nasty grin and says, “Me, I’m rooting for Jumbo Sinu. It would serve you right for being such a basket girl.”

I told him to shut up, but he was right. With the way my luck was running, I’d probably get stuck with Jumbo Sinu. I could just see it – six feet of beefy babe downing both halves of my lunch and then coming after me. Sinu’s the only girl or guy on campus who can dunk a basketball. The whole gym
shakes when she lands. And since she’s got no, you know… female parabolas, the girl could shave her head and make it in the NBA. Seriously. No one would ever suspect.

Her parents give her anything she wants, too. Rumor has it they converted their garage into a full-on basketball court just for her.

Which meant that in the game of the basket girls, I was as good as slam-dunked.

Unless, unless Wonyoung or Chaeyoung was high bidder. But how could I make sure that happened? My brain went into overdrive, constructing a plan, and in the end I decided that there was only one sensible course of action.

Kiss up to both of them.

Halfway through my first day of doing this, I felt like a skunk. Not that I was being gross about it or anything. I was just, you know, friendly. And even though Wonyoung and Chaeyoung didn’t seem to smell a thing, Beomgyu did.

“Dude!” he says to me on Thursday. “I can see your game, man.”

“What are you talking about?”