“I’ll ask for a meeting with them. Are you going to help?” Saanvi prompts.
“Oh. Um…yes?”
Stand up in front of men in power suits, not to mention Ms. Plante, and discuss my bra? That sounds like the worst idea ever. But it was Saanvi who marched into the principal’s office with me when my video was shared. It was Saanvi who swore at Josh on my behalf. It was also Saanvi who looked at Holden that way, and didn’t tell me. You’d think she would have at least mentioned it. Still…
“Of course I’m going to help.”
She looks relieved, and I realize she wasn’t sure. She was willing to do this by herself.
“Holden?”
“I have to change,” he says, outpacing us. “I’m soaked.”
I have no idea whether he heard anything Saanvi said. Which leaves just me…
I elbow Saanvi. “If they call in guards who wrap you in a straitjacket and drag you off to an asylum, where you’re force-fed antipsychotic drugs, I’ll break through the bars at night and rescue you.”
“Perfect,” she says. Then she peels off toward math, and I head for ethics.
I’ll help. I’ll stand behind her and nod, or pass around handouts. But it seems unlikely the board of directors will side with Saanvi over Ms. Plante.
As George would say, there are two chances: slim and none.
* * *
—
Ms. Sutton’s wearing a kimono jacket today, woven with orange and red flowers. It swirls around her as she paces the front of the classroom.
“Artists have a responsibility to speak about political issues. Discuss.”
She does this. She veers from the usual order of things to whatever current-events question has caught her interest. And it might be fun, sometimes, to talk about these things, except—
Ana throws her hand immediately into the air. “As a social media artist myself, I feel it’s my role to find beauty in the world and reflect that for others. People who are suffering can look at works of art and be uplifted and feel peaceful.”
This is news to me. Ana’s a social media artist? What exactly is that, anyway?
“That’s ridiculous.” I don’t mean to say it aloud. It sneaks out of me.
The whole class swivels, and I feel my cheeks growing hot. “It’s just that looking at something pretty isn’t going to solve world poverty or global warming. If art’s going to change things, it has to make people think.”
“Now, without judging other comments—” Ms. Sutton says.
Josh leans back in his desk, crossing his heels in the aisle. “It’s pointless.”
I want to kick him.
“No art is going to solve global warming,” he says.
“So artists have no responsibility to try?” Ms. Sutton prompts.
“They can try. And fail,” he says.
He turns to high-five Max. There’s a ripple of laughter.
“It’s not an artist’s responsibility. It’s a friggin’ human responsibility,” Holden says. And now the whole class swivels in his direction because not only has he come close to swearing but he’s SPOKEN IN CLASS. VOLUNTARILY. This has never happened before.
“Holden, perhaps you can expand on that thought?” Ms. Sutton smiles at him.
He shrugs.
Ms. Sutton calls on someone else.
“Even if art can’t solve global warming, it could get people t-talk…t-talk…” The guy gets hung up on a stutter and the back row erupts in imitations.
“He’s right.” Miranda chimes in. “If art can spark discussions, those discussions might lead to change.”
“Well,” Ms. Sutton says. “Obviously we have some strong feelings about this.”
Ana’s hand shoots up again. “I think we can agree that my position serves as a compromise—”
“Yes, Ana,” Ms. Sutton says. She sounds tired, but that may be my imagination. “Let’s get back to our projects, shall we? You can spend the rest of this period on your research.”
I happen to meet Miranda’s eyes as I reach for my laptop.
She smiles at me.
I’m so surprised, I smile back.
Then, suddenly, Ms. Sutton is standing over my desk. She slides a piece of paper toward me.
Project Proposal: Banksy’s Street Art
I stop breathing. How did Ms. Sutton get this? Then I remember my race from the classroom to the bathroom that day, my binder crashing to the floor and my papers scattering.
“This is fascinating, Dominica,” Ms. Sutton says. “I’m surprised you switched topics.”
“Well, Mary Pratt is also—”
“Henrietta, you mean? I believe your proposal suggested you were studying Henrietta Edwards.”
“Right. Henrietta Edwards.” I’m losing my mind.
Ms. Sutton taps my Banksy paper. “I’d love to see more on this topic, unless there is some other reason…?”
All of Saanvi’s inappropriate vocabulary words are swirling through my head. Ms. Sutton knows. She knows about the squirrels. Or she suspects, at least.
“I think…I don’t…” This would be a really good time to be abducted by aliens.
“Well, consider it.” Ms. Sutton smiles. “And be careful, no?”
I nod silently, and she wanders away.
From across the aisle, Miranda raises her eyebrows.
I shrug. I have no idea what just happened here.
As people settle into their research, Miranda slips her phone across the aisle to me.
The Mitch Mash
Forum Fiasco
by Miranda Bowen
This content has been deemed inappropriate by school administration and removed from the site.
The Mitch Mash
Security Scandal Simmering
by Miranda Bowen
This content has been deemed inappropriate by school administration and removed from the site.
I don’t know what to tell her. She was the only one brave enough to really talk about all of this and admit what happened to her. And now Ms. Plante has basically censored the blog.
“This sucks,” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer. I can’t be sure, but I think she’s fast-blinking, trying not to cry.
* * *
—
At the end of the day, I meet Holden and Saanvi at our lockers, and we head through the hall together. Outside the darkroom, the custodian is balanced atop a ladder. He’s splashing white paint over my collection of squirrels-in-desks.
Ouch.
There’s a group gathered below him.
“Oh, c’mon, do you really have to?” someone says.
“That’s art, dude.”
“I liked those squirrels!”
I’m unexpectedly touched. And then, something on the door of the boys’ bathroom makes me stop in my tracks. It’s not graffiti, it’s a photo. But it’s a photo of my art. Someone’s taken a picture of one of the squirrels and pasted a cutout of Josh’s face over top of the squirrel head.
“That is epic,” Holden whispers.
“Who did this?” Saanvi wonders.
I shake my head as we leave. “I have no idea.”
I think Banksy would say that art is meant to change and evolve. It’s not something to be bought for millions of dollars and hung in the homes of collectors, away from real people.
In 2018, a Banksy painting called Girl with Balloon was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in London for more than a million British pounds. The moment the sale was declared and the hammer fell, the painting whirred to life. The canvas began to drop through a shredder hidden in the bottom of the frame. While people pointed and clicked photos, Sotheby’s employees rushed to remove the piece from the wall.
A video clip of the Sotheby’s sale appeared on Banksy’s Instagram account, and a new title for the painting was announced: Lov
e Is in the Bin.
My squirrels are in the bin, apparently. But I’ve been thinking more and more about my new idea. My go-big idea. And when I see the poster on the bulletin board, near the exit doors, everything starts to come together.
Maybe we don’t need a meeting with the board of directors. Maybe we don’t need blog posts. This open house could be our canvas.
* * *
—
As always, Saanvi’s mom gives us a ride to our art class on Friday afternoon. We’ve already finished our warm-up sketches when the door swings open.
“Private lesson!” Andrei barks.
Holden is standing in the doorway. Both Saanvi and I stop drawing and stare. We’re supposed to be starting portraits of one another. So far, paper-Saanvi has only half an eye, but that eye looks just as surprised as I am.
Holden doesn’t acknowledge us. He crosses the room toward Andrei, they have a short discussion, and then Holden hands over a check.
I’m officially stupefied. If Banksy himself appeared in our art lesson, I wouldn’t be this surprised. Well, I wouldn’t actually recognize him, so maybe I’d just wonder why a stranger was joining our private drawing lesson, but this…
“Hey,” Holden says, as if he stands at the easel next to mine every Friday afternoon.
Saanvi finds her voice first. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” he says.
“Here?” I really don’t understand.
He reaches across the gap to grab my hand, and he looks me in the eye. “Listen, that video? It’s not like that.”
Saanvi shakes her head. “It’s really not.”
“Okay.” That’s all I can manage.
“You think things have been happening behind your back, things you didn’t know about, and that’s not true,” Holden says.
“I kind of decided we were over it. Do we need to talk about it now?”
“Enough chitter-chatter,” Andrei says, suddenly looming over our table. “Put zee pencils on zee paper, and draw zomezing. Anyzing.”
Holden turns to him. “I’m not going to disrupt your class every week. I promise. But I need five minutes.”
Andrei blinks. Then he throws his hands in the air and turns away, muttering, “Five minutes. He needs five minutes, he zays. Fine. Five minutes. What use iz art, anyvay? Always, art must vait.”
“It’s true. There’s nothing going on behind your back,” Saanvi repeats.
Except maybe they planned this talk? But no. Saanvi looked as confused as I was when Holden walked into the room.
“Now, why don’t you tell us what’s happening behind our backs?” Holden says.
My brain has a complete meltdown. I open my mouth to ask what he’s talking about. Then I close my mouth because it’s completely obvious what he’s talking about.
He knows.
I worried that he suspected. But now…how to explain?
“We’ll wait,” he says.
Saanvi crosses her arms, a small smirk on her face.
“You have talked about this behind my back.”
“With good reason,” Saanvi says. “But I didn’t know we were going to figure it out today.”
From his easel, Andrei mutters something about emotional drama. He sighs loudly and leaves the room.
“There’s nothing—” I start. There’s already been way too long a pause, though.
Holden snorts.
“If you don’t want to tell us, that’s fine,” Saanvi says. “But that says more about this friendship than a fake video does.”
Ouch.
She’s right. Besides, at this moment, I can’t remember why I didn’t tell them everything in the first place. I suppose because, when I started, I didn’t really plan the squirrels. Plus they seemed sort of silly. I didn’t want to get Holden and Saanvi in trouble. And maybe…
“I guess I felt like Holden was okay with the way things were, and you were planning massive protests,” I tell her. “I was mad at Ms. Plante, and I was reading about Banksy, and it just…happened.”
“The graffiti,” Saanvi says.
“Street art.”
“The squirrels,” Holden says.
“How long have you known it was me?”
Holden shrugs. “Forever. There aren’t that many people who know about the panopticon.”
Saanvi reaches over and flips backwards through my sketchbook, to a comic-like drawing of a cat wearing goth gear. “It took me longer than Holden. But I recognized the way you draw.”
It’s true. When I look at the cat’s nose and its tiny paws, there are definite squirrel similarities.
“If you knew, how come you didn’t say anything?”
“We thought you’d tell us,” Holden says.
“Way before this,” Saanvi says.
“Well, now you know.”
“And what are we going to do from here?” she asks.
It turns out she’s not the only one with that question. Andrei comes back, brow furrowed. “Time for talking zee emotions is finish. Yes? Put zee pencil on zee paper and draw zee emotions.”
He turns to Holden. “So you stay, but no more dizruption, yes?”
When Holden nods, I raise my eyebrows at him. He’s actually joining our art class?
He shrugs. “You wouldn’t believe how excited my mom was to drive me here.”
“Zat is zee yes, or zee no?”
“I’m staying,” Holden says.
In my portrait, Saanvi ends up looking as if she’s seen a tectonic plate shift, but I take no responsibility for that. I was simply reflecting reality.
After class, the three of us walk together toward the parking lot. Saanvi’s mom is in her idling car, catching up on emails, as usual. Holden’s mom stands beside her own car, waving excitedly.
“Like I said, she’s really happy,” he mutters.
“Hey,” I call, as he walks away. “Hang on one second. I have something else planned. Something bigger. So maybe we can talk about it later? If you want to help?”
Saanvi claps her hands. “I knew it!”
“Later,” Holden says.
Which is not exactly zee yes or zee no.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SECRET SOCIETY
I SPEND all of Saturday sketching. In fact, I completely lose track of time, and when Mom comes in late from catering a dinner, I’m still sitting on the couch with papers strewn around me.
“Whoa,” she says.
“Sorry!” I grab at my sketches, shoving them into a stack and tucking them beneath my arm.
“Homework?”
“Something like that.”
It’s enough of an excuse. Mom’s so tired she can barely drag herself to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
I don’t get away quite so easily on Sunday morning.
Mom and I drive to La Patisserie together. George is already there, as always, sipping her coffee.
“Dominica, darling!” she says, as I lean to kiss her.
She turns to my mom. “Pierre says they have fresh black truffles, and they’re doing brouillade de truffes this morning. I admit, I’m tempted.”
I am not tempted, because George tricked me this way last year, and that fancy-sounding dish is actually runny scrambled eggs.
“The caramel crêpes, please,” I tell Pierre when he arrives.
“Ah, les craps,” he says.
I manage not to laugh because Saanvi and Holden aren’t here to laugh with me. But they’re going to howl when I tell them about les craps.
“What’s new with my beautiful granddaughter?” George asks, once Pierre has gone. “Are you ready to trade books yet?”
“Not yet,” I tell her.
“She can’t possibly have time to read,” Mom says. “She had the entire living room covered in homework last night.”
“On a Saturday
night? What class is this for?”
“Um…ethics?”
Which is not technically true, because I haven’t started my ethics project…
“…due?” George is saying.
“Soon?”
She nods, so my answer must have made sense.
“And your drone essay? I never asked about it last week. I was distracted by that lovely Frank.”
Incidentally, I got an A on my drone project. I don’t get to tell George, though, because as soon as she mentions Frank, Mom starts fussing with her napkin.
“Everything okay, Carol? Did you and Frank hit a snag?”
Mom glances my way, but I didn’t tell George anything!
“Too bad,” George sighs. “I thought he might be a keeper.”
Which seems a little extreme. I mean, he was nice. He was dressed appropriately, if a bit formally. He certainly seemed to like Mom. And food. But is Mom supposed to base an entire relationship on that?
“I thought he stopped by on Friday,” George asks.
Mom eyes her curiously. “How did you know that?”
Grandma busies herself straightening her cutlery. “Dominica must have mentioned it.”
“Dominica wasn’t home on Friday,” Mom says.
“Art class,” I confirm.
Usually, I’m the only one who seems to notice George’s psychic abilities, but Mom looks suspicious this time.
“Well, it must have been a lucky guess,” George says.
“He didn’t stay, anyway. I had to work.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t talk things out, darling.”
And somehow that’s enough to make Mom—my scattered, heartbroken mom—forget all about George’s uncanny sleuthing abilities and go back to talking about Frank. Frank’s love of red wine, Frank’s pro bono work, Frank’s dream of living in Paris for a year…but also Frank’s photo on social media, hugging another woman who’s apparently an ex-girlfriend in town for the weekend and the hug was friendly, only friendly, or that’s what he says…
If it’s true, I might be convinced that Frank has long-term potential. Especially if it involves all of us living in Paris for a year. But Mom’s not convinced.
She and George dissect the possibilities until we’re distracted by the arrival of salted caramel crêpes/craps. They are much, much better than their name.
Me and Banksy Page 13