ME: With s’mores hot chocolate.
ME: Sweet dreams.
I try to sleep for a while. Half an hour later, I give up, flick on my lamp, and grab George’s book from the floor beside my bed.
I looked up subversive earlier today. It means: “intended to undermine an existing system.” Basically, it’s a fancy word for being a rebel.
I am entirely, officially in love with this artist.
On the book’s cover, there’s a painting of a drab-looking man, a worker of some sort. He carries a couple rolls of paper, along with a bucket and paintbrush. Beside him on the wall it says FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS in black and white. And there’s a big red banner overtop that reads CANCELLED.
Banksy started painting when he was part of a crew of graffiti artists in Bristol, England. (I guess all those other crew members must know who he is, but they’re not telling!) Now he works all over the world—in New York City, on the wall between Israel and Palestine, in Paris, even at Disneyland. He uses stencils to help him paint more quickly on walls and buildings.
I flip to a print of silhouettes—women, children, and old people. They’re all running from a man in a suit, but he’s not holding a weapon. He’s holding a red graph line, the kind that shows the stock market going up. I think the picture is saying that people making money are chasing or punishing or stealing from people without money. It’s kind of awesome. (The painting, not the punishing and stealing.)
As I stare at the pages, my insides start to split apart. Half of me desperately wants to be a real, serious artist one day. The type of person who has her own gallery openings. Someone with a studio in an old brick building, where huge windows let the sun stream onto my easel and spill across the dozen canvases spread around the room.
The other half of me looks at Banksy’s works and knows I’m never going to be half as good. How does he manage to put so much emotion into pictures done with spray paint, and only one or two colors?
Rattle.
I hear Mom’s keys in the lock, and then the telltale triple-drop of her shoes and purse on the floor. Quickly, I click off my lamp and slide the Banksy book onto my rug. I don’t want Mom to worry, or to think I’ve been waiting for her. Besides, I should be able to sleep now.
Maybe I’ll dream in stencils.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE QUICK FLIP
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, I step out of the elevator to find both Saanvi and Holden waiting in my lobby.
I know immediately that something’s wrong. Holden’s eyebrows almost meet in the middle, and Saanvi’s biting her lip. I feel as if I should brace myself.
There’s not much to hold on to in the marble expanse of the lobby.
“Dangerous world out there,” Lou says.
No one answers.
I follow my friends outside. “What’s going on?”
Holden shrugs, and neither of them say anything until we’re around the corner. Then they drop onto a bus stop bench and tug me down between them.
“What is going on?”
Saanvi passes me her phone, and I press Play.
Crap.
Crap, crap, and triple crap.
This is worse than nose-picking. Much, much worse.
Welcome to the Mitchell Academy forums.
This is a place for students to learn new information and help their peers. Please follow all forum rules and guidelines in order to create an atmosphere of respect.
Miranda88: This is mean. You should take this down.
Plantster: Way to take a joke, Miranda.
EVF: Not like it didn’t happen. The TRUTH WILL OUT!
MTG3456XXX: Take it off, baby!
The film is shot from above and slightly behind me. I’m sitting alone in the library, crowded bookshelves framing me. Music swells—ridiculous music, as if someone clicked the “suspense” theme in a filmmaking app. I glance first over one shoulder, then the other.
The video flips to slow motion. As if I’m doing a secret striptease, I reach down and pull at the hem of my shirt. The fabric slides up slowly, exposing my bra strap, then my shoulders. With a final flick, I peel it off entirely.
The video cuts to black.
I can’t look up. Holden and Saanvi huddle close on either side of me on the bus stop bench, but I can’t look at them.
When I try to make words, nothing comes out. I feel as if someone’s punched me.
“Dom…,” Saanvi says eventually. “Why were you stripping in the library?”
“She was not stripping,” Holden says, and I’m so grateful, I lean into him.
I was not stripping. I’m probably the person least likely to take off my clothes at school. Most likely to kiss a boy: Miranda Bowen. Most likely to seek attention: Ana Kavanaugh. And not even those two would strip on camera. Josh and Max would do it, but they’d do almost anything, and they wouldn’t care about video evidence.
“But why?” Saanvi asks again.
“I didn’t!” I blurt. “My shirt was inside out, and I flipped it. There was no one else there!”
As the last word dissolves into a wail, Holden wraps an arm around my shoulders.
Over the past three years, we’ve had a half-dozen school talks about social media safety. They’ve all focused on one thing: you shouldn’t put your breasts on the internet. You shouldn’t text them to your boyfriend. You shouldn’t let anyone take pictures of them. You shouldn’t put them on PixSnappy. Various speakers repeated this until I wanted to grab the microphone and tell them to move on, because of course no one would ever go topless on the internet.
Except now I’ve done exactly that.
I feel sick.
I drop my head into my hands, staring at the pavement and wishing I could disappear into it. “It was a few days ago, before Ana’s video. I didn’t even remember doing it until now.”
“You forgot about the cameras,” Saanvi says.
“I’m so sick of those cameras,” Holden growls.
“Who sent the file? Where did it come from?” I ask.
Saanvi takes back her phone. She scrolls to the menu labeled “Shotz” and hands the screen to me.
Mine is the third entry. Ana’s nose-picking video has disappeared, so I come right after Marcus Arnit’s gaping fly.
“This is horrible. Who’s posting these?”
Saanvi shakes her head.
“Someone with the skills to hack the system,” Holden says. “Or a few people. These are all different usernames.”
“I found a list of everyone who’s accessed the site, and a list of student and usernames, but they don’t match any of these posts,” Saanvi says. “I need administrator access to figure out more.”
“People wouldn’t post these with their own names,” I say.
“Do you think a stranger could have access?” Holden asks.
“Great. Russian hackers have seen my side-boob, along with the entire student population of The Mitch.”
“You can’t see your…you know,” Holden says. If I weren’t in the midst of a personal crisis, I’d say he was blushing manganese violet.
“It’s basically just your bra,” Saanvi says.
“I DON’T WANT MY BRA ON THE INTERNET!”
A woman walking her dog turns to stare at us, and I flush my own shade of violet.
I groan. “How did this happen to me?”
“Maybe no one hacked the system,” Saanvi says. “Maybe someone stole the passwords.”
“Like who?” Holden says.
“Josh?” I suggest.
Along with being the biggest jerk at The Mitch, Josh is Principal Plante’s son.
Saanvi looks back and forth between us. Holden shrugs.
My stomach sinks as I remember the cafeteria yesterday. “Hey, when Max dropped off that cheesecake and he said sorry…do you think he was talking about this?”
“That’d be weird,” Holden says.
“I know.”
All of this is weird.
“Plus, Max isn’t smart enough,” he says.
“We’re going to be late,” Saanvi tells us.
“So what?” Holden says.
“Dom hates being late.”
“Today might be an exception.”
They talk back and forth over my head.
I force myself to suck in a giant breath. I have to get it together. It feels like trying to shore up a crumbling sandcastle—not entirely effective. But another breath, and another, and I think it might be possible. So people have now seen my bra. Big deal, right? It’s just a bra.
“I’ll take her to my house,” Holden says. “No one’s home today.”
“The school will call her mom.”
“The school is going to call my mom. My mom’s going to tell George. And they’re both going to look at a video of me stripping on the internet.” I would like to be sucked up by a black hole. Disappeared by the universe. Now would be good.
“They’re not going to call your mom. None of the teachers pay attention to the forums. Do you think the art teacher’s skirt would still be posted if Principal Plante was paying attention?”
Saanvi has a point.
“So…school?” Holden says.
“She’s going to have to face it sometime.” Saanvi nods.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
I drop my head between my knees. Saanvi leans down so she can see my face.
“Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to school?”
I have no idea. I can’t think.
When the first camera appeared, high on our cafeteria wall, Holden and I bickered about it. He called it “a Big Brother surveillance tool” and “a symbol of the corporate overlords,” which didn’t really make sense. The school was a nonprofit organization, not a corporation, I told him. And even if it were a corporation, it’s not like anyone cared what we did, as long as we went to class and acted like normal human beings.
“There are scary things happening,” I’d said. “What about school shootings?”
“How are cameras going to stop a shooting?”
“At least it’s something! Kids might feel safer with the cameras here.”
“You have serious anxiety issues AND you’ve been brainwashed.”
He practically yelled it, then he stomped out of the cafeteria, and I couldn’t do anything except sit there with my mouth open.
When Saanvi appeared a little while later, I pretended everything was fine. Then we saw Holden in class after lunch, and he pretended everything was fine. And that was sort of the end of it. Until now.
Do I want to go home, wait for Mom to wake up, and tell her I got shirtless on camera? Or do I want to go to school and see what Josh has to say about my bra?
Wow. Those are stellar choices.
“Either way, we’ve got this,” Holden says. Which is actually comforting.
“Everyone has boobs,” Saanvi says.
“Not everyone,” Holden objects.
“Man boobs.”
“Not helping!” I tell them.
Though strangely, it is sort of helping.
Everyone has boobs, and mine were mostly covered up. A bra is an everyday item of clothing. Holden and Saanvi will stick by me. I’m going to have to go to school sometime. Unless I’m planning to quit The Mitch, I might as well get this over with.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Are you sure?” Saanvi asks.
“Of course I’m not sure. But I want to go to ethics, anyway. Our project summaries are due.”
Banksy. That’s how I’ll spend the morning. I’ll think only about Banksy.
“Ms. Sutton will let you—” Holden says.
“If Josh and Max are going to—” Saanvi says, at the same time.
“What side are you on? I thought you wanted me to go?”
“You’re right,” Saanvi says quickly. Then she smirks. “And if Josh did this, and I can prove it, he’s going to be very, very sorry.”
Even though I feel as if a passing city bus has run me over, leaving me entirely two-dimensional, I can’t help smiling a little as she pops a fist into her palm. Saanvi weighs about as much as a stick, but she might actually follow through on that threat. She never backs down from a fight.
Though I don’t quite see how she’s going to fight something that’s been anonymously posted online.
This is going to be gruesome.
We’re off the bench now and heading for school. I have to force my legs to take each new step. Ethics, then math, then lunch. I can do this.
“All right. Get moving. We’re going to be late,” I say, mostly to myself.
My video is probably the hit entertainment option in the hallways this morning. Everyone will be watching it. My throat begins to close.
Banksy. Best to think only about Banksy.
Holden reaches into his pocket and hands me a wad of tissue.
I look at it suspiciously.
“It’s clean!” he insists. “It’s just squished from my pocket.”
Reluctantly, I dab under my eyes. It’s a good thing I don’t wear Mom-level mascara.
The bell has already rung, so we have to check in with Ms. Marcie, the office secretary. She has tight dyed-blonde curls and a permanent smile, even when she’s clicking her tongue at our lateness. She passes us three yellow late slips.
“Hurry and get to class, before Ms. Plante sees you,” she whispers.
Exactly. We’ll hurry and get to class, and I’ll think about Banksy, and everything will be fine.
Banksy has a thing for rats. He paints rats dressed like people, rats holding protest placards, rats climbing around “No Climbing” signs, rats playing ball beneath “No Playing” signs. He likes rats.
I’ll think about Banksy.
I’m going to pretend this never happened. And I’m convinced my plan has potential. At least until Holden and I arrive at ethics and learn that no one else is going to let me forget.
CHAPTER SIX
THE AFTERMATH
THE CLASSROOM is humming with murmured conversations and keyboard tapping until we walk through the door.
Everyone falls silent. Their eyes go wide. Their heads swivel toward me. One guy’s standing in the aisle with a handful of sharpened pencils, which hit the floor in a clattering avalanche. He flushes to match his freckles.
“Venetian red with a dab of chrome yellow,” Holden mutters.
I pick my way to the front, deliver my late slip, and slide into my desk.
Max is kneeling on the floor now, camera raised, framing a shot of the pencil avalanche. Behind me, Josh and the rest of the eighth-grade boy gang squawk and cackle like a flock of garbage-eating seagulls. When I glance back, Josh smirks at me.
A wave of pure rage arrives, which actually helps with the humiliation factor. My hands shake as I open my binder and rifle through the papers for my Banksy proposal.
Project Proposal
Banksy’s Street Art
Dominica Rivers
Banksy is an anonymous street artist. He began as a graffiti painter with the DryBreadZ crew in Bristol, England, in the early 1990s. He has a recognizable style using stencils and slogans. A lot of Banksy’s work comments on current events or political themes. For example, in 2015 he painted a migrant camp in France with Apple cofounder Steve Jobs standing in the middle of it, holding a Macintosh computer. (Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant.)
Banksy inspires me because of the messages in his art, because of the bravery it must take to create his work, and because he creates art for its meaning rather than for personal fame. These are the themes I will be exploring in my project.
Behind me, they all have their phones out. There’s a long, low whistle.
“What exactly is going on in here today?” Ms. Sutton says. “Back to work, everyone.”
“Ignore them,” Holden whispers.
“Done,” I say, between clenched teeth. I take out a black pen to underline my project heading. Too hard. I rip the paper.
A high five echoes through the room.
I make the mistake of squeezing my eyes closed for a moment, and the whole video replays on the backs of my eyelids. The horrible music. The slow motion. The way I grab the bottom of my shirt and then tug, wiggle, tug until it slides over my head…
Another burst of laughter. “Dominica,” Josh whispers. “Have you considered doing this professionally?”
“Of course she has. This is all practice,” someone says.
I’m frozen in my desk, like a squirrel in the middle of the road, staring as a truck looms closer and closer.
“Boys!” Ms. Sutton calls. “Focus, please!”
My eyes go blurry with tears.
I can’t do this. I stand and turn toward the door. My hip catches the corner of my desk, and my binder crashes to the floor. A few papers flutter out. I can’t stop to collect them.
“Dominica Rivers, where are you going?” Ms. Sutton sounds entirely confused by the world this morning.
“She’s not feeling well,” Holden tells her.
“Dominica, you can—”
I don’t hear the rest of her words. I’m already bolting down the hall to the nearest bathroom. I barely make it to the toilet before I lose my breakfast. My hands are shaking again. My whole body’s shaking.
Also, there’s nothing good about having my face this close to a school toilet.
I sit back against the cubical wall, trying to slow my breathing. I’m still clutching my pen, so tightly that my nails are digging into my palm. I force myself to loosen my fingers.
I might have to homeschool. Convert to Catholicism and transfer to Our Lady of Mercy? I don’t know if I can survive here.
On the cubicle wall in front of me, someone’s scribbled Rebecca is a skank. Who’s Rebecca? And what did she do to deserve this? I bet she hasn’t flashed her bra on camera. What are they going to say about me on these cubicle walls?
Me and Banksy Page 4