by Brigit Young
Eve thought of Nessa telling her, “This, too, shall pass,” on the morning after the list came out.
But some things did stick.
“Did you ever apologize to anyone?” Eve asked him.
Abe thought for a moment and shook his head. “I should have.”
The giant inflated turkey in front of the café flapped about in the wind.
“You’ve found some friends who aren’t like I was, though,” he said. “Stick with them. And don’t put on eyeliner or whatever, or wear that mask, just because of the mean kids. If you want to, that’s different. But only make decisions for yourself. Don’t let the kids who haven’t figured out how to be kind yet get to you so much. Forget ’em. I wasted a lot of time worrying about other people judging me before I figured out it didn’t matter. Be better than I was.”
Eve looked up at him and saw his earnest smile and pulled the mask back down over her eyes. “You’re being cheesy,” she said. She buried her face in her palms in embarrassment, and the mask squished up against her skin. It smelled like her mom’s lavender oil, which she’d put on the green cloth when it had started to give off the stench of sweat.
Abe chuckled. “Sorry. Had to say it. Now let’s go pick up our little sister, who is gonna need a lot more help than either of us, let me tell you.” He turned the key in the ignition. “And hey,” he added as they pulled out of the parking lot, “you’re freaking out Mom and Dad so much with the Green Hornet thing. They might make you start seeing a counselor or something.”
“No, they can’t be that upset!” Eve insisted. “Really?”
“Not as upset as Mom’s gonna be when I tell her I’m an atheist!” Abe swerved out into the street.
Eve almost dropped her drink. “Wha—!”
As they pulled up to the curb at the elementary school, Hannah threw her backpack into the car and groused, “Abe, don’t get us killed.”
Eve smiled at her little sister.
“What?” Hannah asked, weirded out by the friendliness.
“Nothing,” she said. But she felt truly okay for the first time in weeks, like her insides weren’t jumbled all about.
After they picked up Hannah and headed home, she texted Winston, Hey. Thanks for the help today, fellow Hornet.
37
SOPHIE
Sophie had to admit that she had really taken to the whole makeup-and-costumes thing.
Could she be a Broadway costume designer one day? Or the editor of Vogue?
After Sophie’s meeting with the tech crew for The Music Man, she’d been shocked at their disregard for detail. They were planning on dressing everyone in the same costumes from Oliver! the year before, which took place in an entirely different time period and country! Sophie told them she’d take over. They could easily piece together costumes from thrift stores in town on a reasonable budget; they just needed to think it through a bit more. Was Sophie the only kid in school who knew how to work on a dang budget? Probably.
After Thanksgiving break, she began working on costumes during rehearsals.
She headed to the library early in December to do some research.
Once she signed in at the library’s front desk, she went to the computer section and got to work googling.
In 1912 Iowa, hats looked like UFOs.
Nessa would think that was funny. Sophie would show her pictures later.
Over Thanksgiving break, she’d missed the Shieldmaidens. They wrote on their group chat, sure, but it wasn’t the same as being together. She’d never tell them that, but it was true.
She noted with disgust that the girls in 1912 wore bows the size of deep-sea bass. How could they even run and play in those outfits? Early twentieth-century fashion was a disgrace.
The buttons were nice, though. Lots of cute little buttons up and down the front. And she liked the high-waisted skirts. Maybe she’d wear a high-waisted skirt sometime. Clothes and makeup could just be fun. They could be a way of playing around with who you wanted to be or who you already were.
Sophie printed out some photos of looks for the cast, and as she finished up, she dragged the pictures to the trash bin folder on the computer. She went to empty it, but the trash folder was pretty full, with documents dating back all the way to the first week of school, like “Diary Entry of an Ellis Island Immigrant” and “Bio Project—Bill Gates.” She saw one doc from Liv Henry, and a part of her wanted to read it and see if Liv was as good at writing as she was. Sophie always felt like she was the best at essays, even if Liv beat her at science and math. But she didn’t look. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She highlighted her files to delete them, when a Word doc caught her eye. It was dated October 8, 7:23 A.M., and titled “prettiest.” Huh?
A part of her knew what she was seeing. A part of her didn’t want to know.
Sophie glanced around the library and saw no one but a couple of sixth graders in the fiction section, and the school librarian, Ms. Lyle, going through some papers at her desk.
She clicked on the document and opened it up.
And there it was. Right in front of her. The original list, in tiny type, in rows side by side, perfectly fit together so a phone could take a shot that captured all the names.
Ms. Lyle headed toward the computer section. Sophie pulled out her phone and took a pic of the date and time on the file, as well as a copy of the file’s contents, and then emptied the entire trash folder. Anyone could access this computer, and she needed to ensure that she was the one with the evidence.
“Need any help back here?” Ms. Lyle asked. Ms. Lyle looked like she’d been working in a library since libraries were invented.
“Nope, I’m good!” Sophie answered in a way-too-peppy voice.
“Oh, lovely.” Ms. Lyle continued toward another section of the library, out of sight.
Could Sophie sneak a look at the sign-in book up front before Ms. Lyle returned? She moved pretty slowly, so maybe there was time …
If she could get a photo of Brody Dixon’s name in the library sign-in at the same time as the Word doc had been written, then he’d be done for. Real evidence! Just the image of the time stamp on the doc and a picture of his name at that exact time and the case for guilt would be made.
Sophie flipped through the pages of the sign-in sheet. October 8 … Early morning, before the first period. Who had signed in …
And there she saw them—the names of who had come to the library that day and written the list.
No, it couldn’t be.
Brody had done it. They knew this.
Had he written another name? Or were these accomplices?
It didn’t make sense.
It had to be Brody. It just had to.
Didn’t it?
38
EVE
WINSTON: the cool thing about green hornet is that everyone thinks hes a bad guy, so he gets to infiltrate the bad guys and then stop them. hes this rich guy who owns a newspaper who wants to do good. you know?
EVE: A good vigilante
WINSTON: yes! exactly! he also has a really cool car. like the batmobile. ha sorry I could talk about this stuff forever. tell me eve stuff
EVE: Hmmm. I’m really into poetry these days? Oh my gosh it’s so embarrassing
WINSTON: no its not! its cool. but im not so good at that kind of stuff.
i think science is kinda like poetry tho
EVE: How so?
WINSTON: i dunno it sounded smart lol
EVE: haha. I mean, they’re both about finding answers to things. I think. Or trying to.
WINSTON: yeah! and people think theyre hard to understand, but i think once you really get into them, theyre a lot easier than they seem
EVE: Sooo true!
WINSTON: ok so what’s your favorite poem
EVE: k I’ll send you a link but don’t laugh—“The Soul unto itself” by Emily Dickinson
WINSTON: ok im not gonna lie i dont get it but ill keep trying
EVE: ☺ It’s ok
WINSTON: t
here was this one famous writer a long time ago who thought of himself as a scientist. august strindberg, have you heard of him?
I dont think he wrote poems tho
EVE: What did he discover?
WINSTON: nothing. he thought plants had nervous systems so he walked around with a syringe full of morphine and hed inject apples and stuff to try to prove his theory haha his theory was not correct
fun science fact for you i got lots of em
see this kind of thing is why I got beat up all the time in 5 grade haha
EVE: So what happened to you back then???
WINSTON: I mean I only actually got punched once
EVE: What?!?!
WINSTON: im really just mad they broke my ornithopter
EVE: your huh?
WINSTON: sigh. here we go … it was this flying contraption made by da vinci?
so caleb and i worked on this for months, making our own
brought it to school one day
and i guess that was the day a bunch of the other kids decided i was punchable
EVE: omg!
WINSTON: a loser
they broke the ornithopter and punched me a few times
a piece of my glasses actually sliced under my eye. you can still see the scar
wasnt that bad tho
EVE: it sounds bad!
WINSTON: Caleb stopped them. We grew up on the same block and all that ya know
EVE: that’s like me and Nessa
WINSTON: I guess. Except Nessa is still cool
EVE: she’s a huge nerd haha like me
WINSTON: I mean she’s still nice. Super nice. Caleb is … ya know …
brodys friend
EVE: I’m sorry. I can’t imagine Nessa changing like that. I mean, we’re really different and sometimes that’s hard, but still
WINSTON: now he just texts rose and watches stupid videos online all day
EVE: ugh I’m sorry
WINSTON: sorry this is probably boring
EVE: it’s not! Sometimes I think Nessa thinks I’m. I don’t know
WINSTON: what
EVE: too sensitive. She’s probably right
WINSTON: i think its good to be sensitive
EVE: maybe. And she can be too NOT sensitive sometimes
WINSTON: hey can I see some of your poems?
EVE: how’d you know I write my own???
WINSTON: I just figured
EVE: omg no I don’t show anyone
WINSTON: please!
EVE: maybe …
39
NESSA
Dress rehearsals had sneaked up on them.
December came to Glisgold with several feet of snow and lit-up Santas the size of grizzly bears adorning houses long before Christmas week. And with the constant repetition of Christmas songs in every store came the reality that opening night would soon arrive whether they were ready for it or not.
Nessa was prepared for the show, but not for final curtain call.
She’d gotten nothing from Brody. He never left his things out of his sight when she was around. It was easy to think this was because he knew she was Eve’s best friend, and he kept his guard up. But that was hard for Nessa to believe, because she’d always been invisible to him.
A part of her liked to imagine that Brody was secretly in love with her, but he knew his friends wouldn’t accept it, and so he hid his feelings. She knew this was just a fantasy, but there was something about the daydream of him confessing his love to her and her getting to turn him down that she couldn’t stop thinking about. During math class, when the teacher went on for too long, she dreamed of rejecting him in front of the whole school. “No, Brody. I just don’t feel that way about you!” she’d say, strutting off like they did in the novelas her grandma, a huge novelera, watched on Univision.
Sophie had turned down his kiss. Even Eve had gotten a chance to reject him. Some girls had all the luck. Other girls.
As tech week got underway, Nessa, Lara, and Erin tried multiple times to create a diversion and get Brody distracted enough that one of them could search through his things. Lara and Erin even pretended to get into a huge fight over a made-up boyfriend living in Finland. Nessa thought they were pretty convincing, and worried slightly that Erin might go overboard and slap Lara. But instead of luring Brody away from his backpack, they just annoyed Mr. Rhodes with their hollering and elicited nothing but a chuckle from Brody.
* * *
As opening night neared, Nessa almost lost hope. But then, one day, a Christmas miracle occurred.
The weather demanded winter coats, and often the cast would throw theirs in a pile in the corner of the auditorium. Two days before the show, all the other kids had left rehearsals after a run-through, and Mr. Rhodes asked Brody and Nessa to stay behind to work on their song. This happened a lot because, of course, Brody couldn’t find his note with a pitch pipe implanted in his brain. When they finished up, Mr. Rhodes spoke to Brody for a second and Nessa, being the excellent citizen that she was, picked up both of their coats and went to hand Brody his navy blue Patagonia. Walking toward the piano, as she held it out to him, she spotted orange paint stains surrounding the inner pocket. Stains the exact shade of the orange paint sprayed onto Eve’s locker.
The markings of a vandal.
Brody hadn’t been in school the week that happened, so Nessa hadn’t even suspected him. Had he sneaked in after hours? Or been allowed to go to sports practice? Somehow, he had found time to be even more of a jerk to Eve. Nessa almost laughed. Brody had thought he’d get away with it. But now, finally, she had him. He could get expelled.
As Brody sang, Nessa laid his coat down on the chair and pulled out her phone.
Nessa saw him look at her. And he saw her take a picture and slip that evidence into her pocket.
“Nessa, mind joining in on this harmony one more time before you go?” Mr. Rhodes asked.
“Sure,” she answered with a grin.
As Brody and Nessa crooned a love song together, their hands cradling each other’s, his breath surprisingly minty, Nessa let herself believe that he was Harold Hill, and she felt pleased as he hit his high notes with some accuracy, and for a brief moment she let go of the reality that both of them knew that she would be the one to take him down.
40
EVE
EVE: Okay so I’ve never shown this stuff to ANYBODY before, okay???
WINSTON: It’s okay! I’m not going to judge you or something. hey I can show you my ornithopter lol I recreated it after they broke it
EVE: The da vinci thing? Haha. I don’t know what it is but I’d love that
WINSTON: Just kidding. You don’t have to show me, seriously. But id love to see some if you change your mind.
EVE: Aaah okay I’ll show you some. It’s all just scribbles really and most of it’s bad. I just started writing this summer. It’s stupid and it doesn’t rhyme
WINSTON: don’t worry just send it!
EVE: Okay. Okay I’m sending you some. Here goes …
41
SOPHIE
Brody must have used someone else’s name to sign into the library that morning. He was a smart-ish guy. He might have planned it all out with that much detail. He must have known that the administrators would look into it, right? So he signed in with a different name.
Unless …
No, it had to be Brody. That’s why he falsely accused Eve of writing the list! He was horrible! And he had tortured every girl in the school at one point or another. Maybe that’s why more and more of them wore the masks that Eve scattered around everywhere.
When Nessa texted the Shieldmaidens to tell them she had evidence that Brody had spray painted Eve’s locker, Sophie hadn’t mentioned what she’d seen in the library.
Something in her told her not to.
And with proof of vandalism, the Shieldmaidens finally had something for their closing night reveal.
A plan had been formulated. Sophie would sew a pocket into Nessa’s
costume at final dress that night. For her last scene, they’d slip a cell phone inside it. Lara and Erin would block Brody’s exits so he couldn’t run offstage. Winston would prep Nessa’s phone so that as the bows came to a close, she could just press send, shooting the image of Brody’s coat with the orange stains, along with the image of Eve’s locker, to every phone number and email in the student body. Across the image it would read, “Why would an innocent person do this?”
But what if Brody got in trouble for the spray painting, and then the administration looked into him more closely and found the library sign-in? Sophie had deleted the Word doc, she reminded herself, so she was the only one with the photos. And Winston said Brody had bragged about it. Why would he brag about it if he hadn’t written it himself? It was him, she told herself, and he deserved whatever he got.
He’d called her “white trash.” He’d said she had fleas.
And all because of a pair of puckered lips and a turn of the head.
* * *
As Sophie headed to rehearsal that afternoon, Amina Alvi walked toward her. Sophie was the only other person in the hallway. She pretended to look up at something on the ceiling, as if the water-stained tiles were as fascinating as the constellations in the night sky. When that became ridiculous, she began to peek inside each classroom she passed, like she was looking for someone. Anything to avoid eye contact with the girl who had betrayed her in a stairwell—so tacky—and who was now following Rose without a thought as to how Sophie might be doing.
But as they crossed each other’s paths, Amina spoke.
“Hey,” she said.
Sophie gave a nod but kept her gaze averted and walked on.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Fine,” Sophie answered.
“We haven’t talked much lately, huh?” Amina let out a nervous, breathy giggle.