The honors classes were smaller than classes over in the rest of the school. And over here, teachers talked with us, not just at us. And they listened, too.
Mr. Galafinkis had just dropped a handful of leaves onto his desk when a guidance counselor walked in. The counselor had a girl with him.
New student? If so, I didn’t envy her. She was slim, a little taller than me. She had cool red hair and stared out at the room with bright blue eyes.
I had a situation with a new student at my old school. Back in elementary. Didn’t work out so well. Still, there was something about this new girl. What really stood out was her attitude. Her expression said, “I’m not having it. Whatever it is!” She wore all black and her oversized T-shirt had a skull on the front etched in pink rhinestones.
If I’d learned one thing about middle school, it was that new kids were subject to a ridiculous number of rumors. That was just the way it was. By the end of the day, word would probably spread that she was either a vampire or in a motorcycle gang.
Once Mr. G. signed her paperwork and handed it to the counselor, he looked up and twisted his neck around until he spotted me.
“Brianna, we have a new student. Everyone, this is Scarlett Chastain,” he said.
She did a bored sort of eye roll.
“Just call me Red,” she said. Her words came out in a drawl.
Mr. G., always flustered and in a hurry, just waved her off. “Yes, dear. Go over there and sit with Miss Justice. She’s our class president. Perfect for guiding you through your schedule today. After school I’ll have a packet ready for you so you know what’s going on.”
Red came over and dropped into the empty seat next to me. Oh, my goodness. So much attitude. But for some reason, I wasn’t offended at all. A small smile slipped quietly onto my lips. I was tickled. It would be fun to watch her aggravate a bunch of folks around here. Especially the snooty girls who were always ragging on people. Hope she’d eat ’em up!
“Hey,” I said. I was being cool and nonchalant—trying to be, at least. She looked like the type who wouldn’t appreciate you being all up in her business. I could understand that; I felt the same way.
“Hey, right back at’cha,” she said, giving me a sideways grin. “Um, so… the leaves?”
I shrugged. “Every day’s a new adventure in Mr. G.’s class.”
“Awesome.” She pronounced it “ouuuuuuu-some.” The way she said it, it did not sound like praise.
After that, Mr. G. got down to business explaining the leaves. “One of the ceremonies at this year’s leadership conference involves creating laurel-leaf crowns. Who remembers the purpose of laurel leaves in ancient Roman culture?”
Almost every hand shot up.
Mr. G. said, “Think about your answers before speaking.”
Now all the hands were waving, everyone’s except mine and the new girl’s. Chairs squeaked. Bodies thrashed, hoping to be called on. One thing they didn’t tell you was how cutthroat honors classes and advanced programs could be. Everybody wanted to be number one. Maybe it wasn’t hard to understand why the rest of the school thought we were lame.
Red leaned over. “And what leadership conference is he talking about?”
“Whole sixth grade, every year for, like, ever, has been participating in this conference in D.C.,” I said, acting all nonchalant.
She asked, “So, are you going?”
Her voice was low and a little husky. Her southern accent reminded me of how my grandmother sounded, once upon a time. I liked it.
With a sigh, I said, “I’m in charge of making sure we have enough money to go. And right now…”
All around me, hands waved in the air, eager to answer Mr. G.’s questions, not a care in the world about fund-raising or anything. I’d read the assignment last night but wasn’t one of those kids hopping around trying to prove my smartness.
I leaned over instead and whispered, “In ancient Rome, laurel-leaf crowns were worn by important people, like emperors. Or they were worn by military generals after a successful battle.” Paused. Then, “So, what’s with the accent?”
She shrugged, said, “Can’t help it. When you grow up in Dallas, you sound like this.”
Mr. G. cleared his throat. “The expression ‘Don’t rest on your laurels’ started in ancient Greece. But remember what we’ve talked about? The ancient Romans borrowed liberally from the Greeks. Victors of war would wear the laurel-leaf crowns to celebrate.” He asked, “So what do victors wearing laurel-leaf crowns have in common with the expression about not resting on one’s laurels?”
See? That’s what I meant. Over here, in honors, teachers asked for our input instead of just scowling at us. We talked about things.
Mr. G. was sitting on the edge of his desk, arms crossed, waiting. A few hands shot up.
Red looked at me. She said, “If someone tells you not to rest on your laurels, they’re saying, so what you won the last battle. Don’t get too comfortable or you could be toast.”
Two or three of my classmates tried answering, hands flapping about. In the end, Mr. G. explained it and said pretty much the same that Red had.
I turned to her and asked, “Know something about not resting on your laurels?”
She whispered back, “Too much, Justice. Too much!”
Turns out, Red’s schedule was almost identical to mine. When it was time for Journalism, I told her it was my favorite class.
The room was separated into stations. Large circular rugs—red, green, blue—distinguished one area from another. Our seats were at a table that curved into a semicircle. Another identical table was pushed in so that the two halves formed an O. Mrs. G.’s desk sat between one end of the two halves, like a clasp in a bracelet. The desks sat on the blue rug.
“Wow!” said Red. “This place is amazing!”
I gave her a told-you-so look.
“Welcome, Miss Scarlett Chastain,” Mrs. G. said.
“Red,” she corrected. “Call me Red.”
“Well, welcome, Red. We’re reading the paper this morning. I know that sometimes I let you guys pick what you want. Today, however, there’s a particular article I want you to read. I’d like to discuss it. It’s the story with the headline that reads BALD AMBITION: TWEENS FACE SUSPENSION FOR HELPING FRIEND.
“Please read through it. Then let’s discuss.”
We opened the app and began reading. It took only about five minutes. Then people started saying stuff like, “That’s messed up” and “This is so stupid!”
I felt like my chest would explode, I was so angry. Lauren, who’d gotten to class a little late, had just finished reading, too. She looked across the circle at me and I saw that her jaw was clenched. She was mad, too.
Unable to resist, I thrust my hand in the air.
Mrs. G. said, “Brianna, I knew you’d have something on your mind. What do you think of the story?”
“It’s the most…” I was sputtering. Took a breath. Tried again. “Mrs. G. Really? Can they really suspend these girls for sticking by their friend Lacy? The girl has cancer. Her friends didn’t want her to feel alone, so they shaved their heads so they’d be bald like her. What’s the problem?”
Mrs. G. said, “Brianna, calm down. You’re yelling.”
“Sorry, but I’m just so… so—”
She cut in, “But according to the article, they were warned. The headmaster at their school told them that purposely shaving their heads would be considered a violation of the school’s dress code policy.”
“Still,” I began. “I’m just so…”
“Outraged!” said Red, finishing my thought. Her voice was ragged. Like she was speaking from someplace painful.
“Okay, sorry about yelling,” I said, cutting off some other kid who was saying that maybe the school didn’t have a choice. I drew a deep breath and glanced back at the photo at the top of the article.
It showed three girls—best friends. The girl who was sick, Lacy, was completely bald. The other tw
o, her friends, had shaved their heads down to fuzz. They’d dyed the thin fluff pale orange, the color used to show support for people with leukemia. Their hair was so short that the orange barely showed, but it was there. And all three girls wore orange ribbons, a show of friendship.
“I think that principal has better things to worry about than girls standing up for one another,” I said.
Mrs. G. crossed her arms. I knew this was her point-counterpoint stance.
She said, “But Brianna, their school has a strict policy on appearance and dress. According to the administrator’s interpretation of the dress code, the friends, by cutting their hair and dyeing it, violated that policy.”
“Okay, I’m usually the one who gets worked up about following the rules…”
“Yeah, like when you wanted to put all the homeless people in jail for being poor!” said a girl I didn’t know (and clearly didn’t need to meet).
I never even looked her way.
“Anyway, like I was saying,” I went on, “I know I’m usually the one trying to follow the rules, but this time they’re wrong. Any policy that tries to… I mean, if they won’t let friends stick up for one another, it’s a bad policy.”
For some reason, I felt myself shaking. It was like I was looking at a photo of me and Becks and Sara and Lauren. I glanced over at Red, and her bright blue eyes stared into mine. She bit the corner of her lip, started to say something, then looked away.
The subject seemed to really be bringing her down. It was bringing me down, too. I couldn’t stop looking at the photo of the three bald friends. That kind of friendship was worth fighting for. Something like fear burned in my stomach. I knew I had to say something. Do something about this article.
But what was I going to do?
Civics Journal
Ancient Rome and Middle School
That “Don’t rest on your laurels” business is no joke. Braxton Brattley made it clear that if I slipped up for just a minute, he’d try to mow me right over. And for what? So his brother can be president? What good would that do Braxton? Still, I need to up my leadership game. Now I know how the Roman senators or emperors felt. Sure can’t get any rest when you’re protecting your laurels.
6
Spartacus
Tuesday night, October 21
My day kept running through my head. Words crawled over one another and tangled around my brain. When I closed my eyes, I saw those three girls with semi-bald heads, lip-glossed smiles, and eyes fierce, afraid, alive.
Sleep just wasn’t happening.
At eleven thirty, I gave up the tossing and turning and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Daddy was still awake. “Hey, Peanut. Why’re you up?”
He was making one of his masterpieces. Daddy didn’t do simple sandwiches; he made edible art.
“Couldn’t fall asleep.”
He said, “Perhaps you need a nice light sammy!”
When I was little, he always called sandwiches “sammies.” It made me laugh back then—still does.
After pushing a number of ingredients my way—gourmet cheddar cheese from the deli, freshly sliced turkey, a fancy brioche roll—he asked about my day. Daddy worked second shift at the hospital, so I didn’t get to see him much anymore during the week. I told him about the laurel leaves, and the aggravating kids at school.
“My Home Ec teacher hates me, too,” I said, pouring myself a glass of iced tea. I offered him one, too.
“Get me the lemonade,” he said. “And I bet she doesn’t hate you.”
“I’m pretty sure she does. Daddy, I’m getting a C in her class.”
He pointed with his elbow. “Plug in the George Forman, baby. I’m gonna cook this sandwich. A C? That doesn’t sound like you.”
I told him I knew it didn’t sound like me, and he told me I needed to work harder. “Maybe she just wants you to see things her way for a change. You know, you’re just like your mother sometimes. You can be a little stubborn.”
“Not true!” I said, but laughed.
It was time to change the subject before I got myself into trouble.
So I told him about the new girl whose drawly voice reminded me of Grandma.
He said, “My mama had a world-class drawl.” He pushed his thumbs into a head of lettuce, then ripped it apart. Daddy didn’t cut lettuce with a knife. He said cutting it made it turn brown faster. I got my love of cooking from him. He taught me how to bake cupcakes and cookies. I loved hanging out with him in the kitchen.
Talking to him about what was on my mind came naturally while he cooked. So it wasn’t surprising that before either of us took our first bites I was telling him about the article in the Free Press.
When I mentioned the girl with cancer and her friends, what he said knocked me out of my socks. Well, it would have if I’d been wearing socks.
He said, “I know Lacy. She’s in the children’s ward of our hospital. She’s one of my patients.”
I was crisscrossing my brioche bread with bright yellow mustard. Several thin slices of turkey clung to one another as I slapped them onto the bun. An idea was forming.
I said, “Daddy, I need your help.”
He took a big bite of his creation. “Let me see what I can do,” he said.
Wednesday, October 22
After school, Grandpa picked me up. Sara and Becks wanted to know why I wasn’t taking the bus, but I just said, “Tell you later!”
I didn’t want to tell anyone what I was up to, in case it didn’t work out. My heart was beating fast. I bit my lip, tried to play it off like everything was easy-peasy. But I didn’t feel easy.
Grandpa pulled into the pickup circle, and the assistant principal waved me along. Didn’t want to hold up traffic. The ride didn’t take long. Luckily, I’d already written out my questions on my trusty clipboard.
We had to take two elevators and follow a blue line, then a yellow one. Finally, we rounded a corner, and there they were.
“Here she is!” Daddy said when he saw me.
My stomach twisted into knots. Daddy was standing beside two of the girls from the photo in the Freep, and they were all leaning over a third girl in bed.
The three bald friends. This was my idea: Instead of just writing a basic counterpoint, maybe, if I could talk to the actual, real girls, I could write a whole article.
Deep breath!
I said, “Hey, y’all.” When I’m nervous, I get all loose with my vowels.
They all said hi.
Daddy introduced me, then totally embarrassed me by telling me to go wash my hands, “thoroughly.” Then he explained that because of Lacy’s illness, it was easier for her to catch colds and whatnot. He didn’t want any middle-school cooties hopping off me and sticking to his patient.
In the bathroom, I took a few more deep breaths. Mrs. G. always said that good journalists speak for their communities. I wanted to speak for Lacy and her friends. Which meant first I needed to speak to her and her friends.
So we talked. I told them about my school; they told me about theirs. Lacy was seated in a bed that sort of reclined. A tube hung from a bag on a pole and looped up to a spot on her chest. I could see pale stubble on her scalp where her blond hair had been.
Her friends sat on either side of her. I could tell Reagan’s hair had been dark. Her head had dark orange stubble. Her eyes were greenish gray. Her smile was so wide that you almost didn’t notice the bald head.
Lacy’s other friend, Toya, was African American. At first, she looked almost bored, except she wasn’t. You could tell. She was fidgety. Angry. She had a little ribbon shaved into the very, very short hair stubble above her right ear. Her face rested on her hand and her elbow was propped on the bed. She was light-skinned, with large brown eyes. If you looked really close, you could see that she was scared. Actually, they all looked a little afraid.
I reread the questions on my clipboard. Mrs. G. had also said that a reporter’s story was only as good as her interview. If you don’
t ask good questions, then when it’s time to write the story, you won’t have the right kind of information. It was the first time I’d actually interviewed real people who didn’t go to our school. I took another deep breath, then got to my list.
I learned Lacy Ann Hart was thirteen. She was an eighth grader at Bloomfield Hills Academy. She was in chorus and orchestra and she liked to draw horses. Only forty-one days earlier, she’d had no idea she had cancer. How scary is that? One day, she’s living life all normal and everything. Then, while playing volleyball in gym class, she got hit in the face. Her nose started bleeding and wouldn’t stop.
When they took her to the emergency room, Lacy had a lot of tests. That was when they discovered the cancer cells. She had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her treatment, called chemotherapy, was like taking a shot that lasted about thirty minutes.
For the second time in two days, I couldn’t help remembering my grandmother. She had cancer, too. Her cancer made her so sick that she died. Daddy said cancer didn’t always mean dying, though. He said Lacy had an excellent chance at survival. I hoped he was right.
I couldn’t imagine this girl dying. She was so young. Like me.
We all talked for a while. Laughed, too. They told me about Toya being an excellent volleyball player and Reagan singing in chorus with Lacy; I told them about D.C. and how we needed to raise money. I asked all my questions and finished the interview. When I was done, they all hugged me and we took a selfie together. It was like we knew one another, had known one another long before today.
“Thank you for doing this,” Reagan said. “I mean… a lot of grown-up reporters have talked to us, but it’s nice to talk to someone who understands what it’s like being in middle school.”
Like a switch being flipped, Toya’s laid-back expression suddenly blazed with intensity. Her caramel-colored cheeks flared a hot pink and the teeny-weeny orange ’fro almost glowed as she said, “You know what it means to have friends forever.” She clasped Lacy’s fingers. “Friends are way more important than hair!”
President of the Whole Sixth Grade Page 4