Me and Banksy

by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

  My pen’s in motion before I’ve stopped to think words like graffiti or vandalism. At first, I’m turning the letters of skank into a rat, the kind of rat Banksy draws. But the tall k at the end morphs into a bushy tail, and my drawing winds up being a squirrel with wide eyes and a whiskery nose. A squirrel trying to figure out exactly how it got itself in the middle of a road, blinded by headlights.

  I run lines of black ink over and over one another until the word beneath entirely disappears.

  There. I’ve done something for Rebecca, at least.

  As I’m wondering where I should go from this bathroom floor—because I am absolutely not going back to ethics right now—the door squeaks open.

  “It’s just me.”

  Miranda’s voice. I can see her heels (leopard-print today) from under the door.

  “Ms. Sutton asked me to check if you’re okay.”

  I reach to push open the cubicle. Miranda passes me a handful of paper towel, which is nice of her. She knows exactly what’s happened, because of course she’s seen the video.

  “Anything I can do?”

  This is an excellent question. Is there anything anyone can do about this?

  “Can you get Saanvi for me? I think she’s in math.”

  “Done.”

  For a journalist, Miranda asks surprisingly few questions. I’m grateful for that. As she disappears out the bathroom door, I decide I might even forgive her for the head-massage incident.

  She must jog all the way to the math classroom. Impossibly quickly, Saanvi’s sitting on the floor beside me.

  Miranda gives us a brief wave from the door. “I’ll tell Ms. Sutton you’re resting.”

  She’s gone before I can thank her.

  Saanvi slides closer to me on the tile floor, presses her shoulder against mine, and waits.

  “Only a really good friend would sit on these tiles. You’re probably absorbing more E. coli every second,” I say eventually.

  “True.”

  A horrible thought strikes me. “What if kids go home and show the forum post to their parents?”

  Parents don’t use the forums, but that doesn’t mean they won’t see the post.

  “No one’s going to do that.”

  “How do you know? Someone will tell, then their parents will call my mom, and then George will see the video, and then…”

  “No one’s going to tell! Have you seen Ana’s mom in the office, complaining about Ana’s video? No. Everyone got over the nose-picking in less than twenty-four hours. This will be the same.”

  It’s tempting to believe her. But there’s no way Saanvi can keep the video from popping up again, at any time, or guarantee my mom won’t see it.

  I sigh and tilt my head back against the cubicle wall. “Maybe I can switch schools.”

  “Absolutely not. You’re stronger than that. Besides, you can’t leave me.”

  “You didn’t hear how those guys in the back row were acting.”

  “What were they doing?”

  When I don’t answer right away, she nudges my ribs. “Let’s give them all the wrong answers to the next math test.”

  I shake my head.

  “Frame them for plagiarism? Dye their basketball uniforms pink?”

  “They’re kind of ruining my life,” I tell her. “I don’t think pink uniforms are the answer.”

  She falls silent but she doesn’t move away, which I appreciate. It’s possible the warmth of her shoulder is the only thing keeping me upright.

  “This is too big for us,” I say finally. “We need to tell someone.”

  “Who? Your mom?”

  The idea makes me want to throw up again. I won’t be able to handle the look of disappointment on her face. Or George’s appalled expression.

  “I could call my dad?” Saanvi offers.

  Which is incredibly nice of her, but the first thing Mr. Agarwal will do is tell my mom. Then they’ll both call Ms. Plante.

  I try to shove down all my anger and embarrassment and think clearly.

  “I need the video deleted,” I say. “That’s the first step. And we can’t let people get away with posting this sort of thing. The school—”

  “You want to talk to Ms. Plante?”

  “No. But yes.”

  “Alright. Let’s go, then.” She doesn’t even seem to consider sending me alone.

  I’m having the worst possible day. But at least I have the best possible friends.

  * * *

  —

  The whole way from the bathroom to the office, I see only cameras. Were there always this many? There’s a black globe at every corner of the hallway, and above every exit door. I feel as if I have one of Holden’s video game maps in my mind, with little red dots popping up as I plot the security.

  There are two above the office door. I squint at them. One seems to point out toward the foyer, the other down at the counter.

  “What do you need, girls?”

  I’m so focused on the cameras, I barely hear Ms. Marcie.

  Saanvi answers, and Ms. Marcie ushers us toward the principal’s door.

  I stub my toe on the corner, but I barely feel it.

  Saanvi links her arm through mine. Probably to make sure I don’t stagger for the bathroom again. I feel more green than ever.

  Oxide of chromium, Holden would say.

  When Principal Plante sees us in her doorway, she leans forward, folds her hands together, and smiles a tight, tooth-baring smile. Or maybe that last part is my imagination.

  “What can I do for you girls?”

  She’s wearing the type of wide, red-striped scarf you see on flight attendants. If this were one of the Rick Riordan novels that Saanvi and I used to devour, our principal would turn into a Greek monster any moment now.

  In reality, she’s some sort of organizational expert. Which, when I think about it, might be closely related to Greek monster-dom.

  My brain is going haywire. I think it’s trying to escape this room.

  We perch on the two black chairs facing Ms. Plante’s desk. I look to Saanvi, then back to the principal. I take a deep breath.

  “We have an issue with the forums,” I say. And then…nothing.

  Saanvi plunges ahead. “Someone posted a video of Dom. It makes it look like she’s doing something she would never, ever do.”

  Except that I did.

  “I see,” Ms. Plante says. Except that she doesn’t. “Let’s have a look at this video of yours.”

  After two tries, I manage to tap in my security code and hand over my phone.

  Ms. Plante presses Play, waits until the end, and then watches the video a second time. It takes approximately a century, while my stomach roils like the inside of a washing machine.

  I concentrate on breathing.

  Does a gorgon have multiple heads, or is that a hydra? And which one turns you to stone?

  When Ms. Plante finally looks up, there’s a sharp crease between her carefully plucked eyebrows.

  I don’t know how some people manage to get in trouble over and over. I never want to be in this office again. And the video isn’t even my fault.

  She settles her glare on me.

  Gorgon. It’s definitely a gorgon that turns you to stone.

  “Explain this please, Dominica. Why exactly were you taking your clothes off at school? Is this some sort of joke?”

  I shake my head. “My shirt was on inside out. I flipped it around. There was no one in the library.”

  “Obviously someone was there.” She spins the phone back toward me as if she doesn’t want it contaminating her fingers any longer.

  Saanvi looks as if she wants to kick Ms. Plante under the desk. “There was no one in the room, Ms. Plante. This is from the school security camera.”

  If our principal’s face looked threatening before, it turns downright th
underous now.

  “That’s absurd.”

  I nudge the screen back toward her. “You can tell by the angle.”

  She slaps a hand on her desk, hard enough to make my phone rattle.

  “This sort of behavior will not be tolerated.”

  For a nanosecond, I think she’s talking about the behavior of the person who stole the footage. Then she points a finger at me.

  “You. Keep your clothes on.”

  She shifts her finger toward Saanvi. “And you. I don’t want to hear another word about this issue.”

  She stands and opens her door, dismissing us.

  I grab my phone. There are so many questions I want to ask. Will Ms. Plante get the post deleted? How quickly? Who has access to the school security systems? How is she going to find out who did this? I want to know more. I want to know everything. But apparently the whole gorgon/stone thing is still happening. I stand frozen in front of her desk, looking between the principal and the door, my mouth opening and closing, and all that comes out, stuttered and quavering, is, “So…you’ll…?”

  “I will deal with the situation.”

  There is absolutely no quaver in Ms. Plante’s voice.

  I escape past her scarf-bow and toward the foyer, clutching Saanvi’s arm again.

  We almost run smack into Max’s mom. She’s leaning against the receptionist’s desk, her long fingernails tapping against her turquoise leather purse. Max’s mom is the chair of the PAC, the parent advisory committee.

  She smiles over us, toward the principal. “Good afternoon, Kathryn,” she calls brightly. (Who knew the principal had a first name?)

  I look back. Ms. Plante’s eyebrows have melted into their regular positions.

  “Patricia. What a nice surprise,” she says.

  She spares us one last glance.

  “My door is always open, girls.”

  Then she ushers Max’s mom inside and shuts it firmly behind her.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t go straight home after school. I’m still too mad and cringing and shaky. If Mom’s home, I won’t be able to pretend everything’s okay. So I turn off a block from our building, slide past a “No Trespassing” sign, and slip through a gap in the orange construction fence.

  I found this place years ago. There are crumbling concrete foundations where a mansion used to stand, and a sprawling overgrown garden along one side of the lot. Japanese maples arch over a small pond. If I stand near the water, fish dart into the shadows.

  I asked Lou about it. He said the developers are having a fight with the city about how many apartments they can build on the site. I hope they don’t settle their argument anytime soon.

  Today, I stop abruptly a step or two into the garden. There’s a family of raccoons playing in my spot by the pond. A portly mama raccoon squats at the edge while three kits splash and tumble in the water. It looks like a Red Cross swimming lesson for wildlife. I sink to the grass and sit perfectly still, watching, until they clamber out, shake, and trundle off toward the shrubs.

  I don’t bother moving, even then. Birds call from the trees above me and leaves rustle in the breeze. I feel calmer sitting here on the grass between the wall and the water.

  I close my eyes and let a map of the city unfurl in my mind. Most of the streets run in a grid pattern, but our neighborhood was designed by a master planner a century ago. Wide avenues curve along topographical lines, to make everything seem more exclusive. Sometimes, I picture my forgotten, park-like lot as if it’s the eye of a storm, with the streets spiraling out around it.

  I’ve momentarily escaped from the world. There are no cameras to duck, no videos to fear, no whispers to ignore. It’s possible I should pitch a tent in this garden and refuse to leave.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE TWO-LEGGED SPECIES

  I CHECK as soon as I get home. The videos are gone. The entire forum string has disappeared.

  It takes me a moment to absorb the news. I lean against the kitchen counter, letting the relief flow through me. I know this doesn’t mean the situation is over, but at least it’s not going to get worse.

  Grabbing my laptop, I head for my room, telling myself to put the whole disaster behind me. I’ll work on my project for ethics. Between the binder-dropping and the puking, I didn’t hand in my proposal. Hopefully Ms. Sutton will accept it tomorrow. And hopefully she’ll approve my subject choice.

  The videos are gone.

  I’m almost giddy as I settle on my bed with George’s Banksy book and my computer.

  Banksy may not be as famous as Rachel Carson or as vocal as Malala, but he’s equally smart. And he really cares about things. Global things. Once, he repainted Monet’s Water Lilies, except the pond water was polluted with a pylon and shopping carts.

  My phone buzzes, jolting me back to reality.

  HOLDEN: Hey, has Plante found out who did this?

  ME: Doubt it.

  ME: She hasn’t called my mom yet. Think she’s going to?

  HOLDEN: Maybe doesn’t want to admit her security system’s not secure.

  ME: Securitas genera victoria.

  HOLDEN: So stupid.

  HOLDEN: And Plante’s a container of sour milk.

  HOLDEN: Mixed with anchovies.

  ME: A moldy scoop of cold corn casserole.

  HOLDEN: A woodchuck with a skin condition.

  ME: A mutant two-legged giraffe.

  HOLDEN: Dude, all giraffes have two legs. Duh.

  ME: What are you talking about?

  HOLDEN: What are YOU talking about?

  ME: Giraffes have four legs.

  HOLDEN: Bahahahaha! Good one.

  ME: ?

  HOLDEN:

  ME: Um…

  HOLDEN: Just google “two-legged giraffes” and count the legs. You’ll see.

  ME: Or you can google “giraffe” and count the legs.

  HOLDEN: Listen, I should know. I’ve been to Australia.

  ME: GIRAFFES ARE FROM AFRICA!

  Only Holden could make me laugh after everything that’s happened.

  I pull my laptop closer, then spend a few minutes closing the pop-up ads about drones and art supplies. Eventually, I open a new file.

  I stare at the blank screen, trying to think of a genius-level first line for my Banksy presentation to the class.

  Nothing.

  Which is probably because I’m not a genius. I mean, I’m good at math. I’m a decent artist. But people like Saanvi and Ana are certified prodigies. Even Holden has his famous past. I’m more like the resident imposter.

  I don’t know how I got into this fancy school in the first place.

  Well, I do, actually. It was George.

  When I was in fifth grade, she hosted a gallery exhibition by a famous collage creator. Mom catered the opening night. I tagged along, but it was only exciting for the first ten minutes. After I’d stuffed myself with cheese-and-compote bites, I quickly got bored. The place was packed with women in long black dresses and men in suits, everyone drinking wine and saying serious things about color palettes, texture combinations, and the artist’s incredible sense of line.

  I wandered into George’s office at the back of the gallery, a place where I’d been coloring and drawing for years. This time, because of the collages outside, I tore up some blank blue-and-green invoice forms on George’s desk, creating tiny petal shapes and piecing them together on a sheet of printer paper. Tearing, tucking, taping into place. It was something to do.

  The event went on for so long, I fell asleep with my cheek pressed to the paper. Mom came and pried me off the desk at some point, and took me home to bed. I completely forgot about my collage.

  Apparently, it was a Fibonacci sequence. That’s a pattern found in seashells, pinecones, and s
piral galaxies, but not generally in children’s collages. You take the two previous numbers and add them together to get the next. For example: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…

  I don’t know how George recognized it. My grandma knows a surprising amount about a surprising number of things. A few months later, she spirited me away to testing with a woman who had a fluffy white dog, beanbag chairs, and an entire office stuffed with puzzles. I scored in the ninety-ninth percentile for visual-spatial ability, but I didn’t know that until later. I didn’t know until George arrived at brunch one weekend with an acceptance letter to The Mitch.

  She and Mom had a gigantic fight about it in our living room.

  It was the only time I’d ever heard them openly argue. George insisted she’d pay my fees, and Mom yelled things like “financial independence” and “charity case” and “elitist private school.” George countered with “potential” and “intellect.”

  My grandma won, obviously. But I’ve always been a little unhappy that Mom argued with her about the money, and not about the fact that George had submitted my collage without asking. Maybe my teachers think I have some amazing future in Fibonacci-inspired art, but all I was doing was copying the collage creator with the incredible sense of line.

  It’s likely that I’m a fake genius who’s only good at puzzles.

  Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to Banksy. I’m not saying he’s an imposter, obviously, but he’s not trying to be some bigwig capital-A Artist, either. He’s just a guy. No one even knows what he looks like.

  I could handle a little anonymity in my life right now.

  At school on Thursday morning, Saanvi and I are swept into the stream of students hurrying to first period. It feels surreal. I don’t think I should be here. I should be somewhere far, far away. Antarctica, possibly.