“None whatsoever,” I say, and once again the mood lightens. I tell myself everything is cool because nothing happened between us and nothing will happen and that’s totally fine because I shouldn’t even be thinking about boys right now. I shouldn’t even be contemplating any boys, especially not boys who look so good in those jeans.
“Do you want to work on it together?” I ask, and then suddenly wish I could take it back. He’ll think I like him. He’ll think I’m trying to start something again. He won’t want to have anything to do with me beyond his civic duty as a Mockingbird.
“J’aimerais vraiment ça,” he says.
My face flushes and I look away for a second. I tell myself it’s nothing, but I still like the way it sounds, the way he sounds. I would like that very much.
“Here?” he asks, and looks around.
I shake my head quickly. I’m not ready for a boy to be in my room.
“Let’s go to the common room,” I say, and we head down the hall and spend the next hour inventing fake French words that rhyme before we dive into the most wretched French homework known to studentkind.
When we’re done he says goodbye. I say goodbye too, but what I really want to say is I liked that very much.
Chapter Fifteen
KANGAROO COURT
“Encore, encore!”
Mr. Christie calls out in his booming voice. He pops up from his high-backed leather chair and claps some more, glancing back and forth at his fellow teachers here in the Faculty Club. They include Miss Damata, Mr. Waldman, Ms. Peck, Ms. Dumas, the Spanish teacher Mr. Bandoro, and the headmistress, Ms. Vartan. Jones and I just finished our Mozart sonata and we rocked, we owned that sonata like nobody’s business, but we’re not doing an encore. They’re lucky they got one piece of music.
“How about some Gershwin next time?” Mr. Christie suggests as he strides over to us at the front of the room.
With it high ceilings, wood-paneled walls, and a brilliant blue Turkish rug, the Faculty Club screams “Ivory tower.” It’s an enclave for cloistered professors with tony leather couches and chairs, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with leather-bound editions, a crackling fire in the fireplace keeping us all warm, and a table with chocolate-chip cookies and mugs of hot cocoa and marshmallows. Mr. Christie offers us each a hot chocolate. I shake my head. They can pull the strings and make us perform, but they can’t make us drink kid drinks.
“I think Gershwin would be lovely,” Ms. Peck adds, joining us.
“Rhapsody in Blue or An American in Paris?” Mr. Christie asks her earnestly.
“Maybe A Parisian Rhapsody or A Blue American,” she offers, making a very bad joke. Mr. Christie guffaws nonetheless.
I stare hard at Jones, trying not to crack a smile. He nods his head subtly at the two of them and I know what he’s thinking, the same thing I’m thinking—they’re probably doing it on the side. Jones and I slip away from the two of them so they can make their googly eyes or whatever. We say hello to a few teachers, saying thanks and smiling, always smiling, when they say what a great job we did. Then I hear Mr. Waldman talking to the headmistress. “Perhaps next time we all could go see a water polo match. Wouldn’t that be fun? We do have the best water polo players, don’t you think?”
It’s as if Carter’s everywhere and I can’t get away.
“Let’s go,” I say to Jones, and we head out of there. He walks me back to my dorm, both of us battling the frigid January day as we pull our hats lower and our coats tighter. When I reach my dorm room, I turn the heat up and start to thaw. I hunker down and polish off my world affairs homework, then write another scene in The Tempest.
Maia’s off at a debate tournament (she’s already done her Faculty Club mock debate), and T.S. is at soccer practice—an indoor one today, she said, because it’s just too damn cold outside even for soccer babes. Those were her words, not mine. As I finish the last line of Miranda’s dialogue I realize how hungry I am. It’s been a week since I voted, which means we should know the results any day, any minute. And another week since I went to the Mockingbirds in the first place. Two full weeks of eating scraps in my room. Maybe I should have had that hot chocolate, should have stuffed some cookies in my pocket. I grab my computer and turn on an episode of Law and Order to distract myself.
My stomach growls as the episode ends and T.S. bursts in.
“Dinner for you,” she declares, and hands me a turkey sandwich on rye bread with cheese. “Chef’s special.”
“Thank God. I’m only slightly famished.”
She strips out of her soccer clothes, grabs a towel and her shower supplies, then opens the door to leave. I take a big bite of the sandwich as she pokes her head back in. “Oh, I almost forgot. I just ran into Amy and she told me the vote to revise the code officially passed. So they can hear your case now if you want them to.” She holds the door open with her free hand, the other hand holding the shower basket. “Do you want to?”
I think of Carter in the library, Carter in the cafeteria, Carter in physics, Carter—for all intents and purposes—in the Faculty Club. Still, I say nothing.
“Well, at least you have the option now,” T.S. adds. “We should probably let Amy know this weekend.”
“Okay.”
“So how about we meet Casey on Saturday and then decide? We have plenty of points to go off campus for lunch.”
“Do you guys have some sort of plan to get me to say yes or something?”
T.S. rolls her eyes as if the idea is crazy.
“I know you want me to do this, T.S.,” I say. “That’s why you called Amy, that’s why you brought me to the meeting.”
“I brought you there so you’d know you have options. I brought you there because you asked me to.”
“Because you felt guilty,” I say. “But you shouldn’t.”
“I’m not doing this out of guilt.”
“You don’t feel guilty anymore, do you? I don’t want you to.”
“You told me not to that day in Sandeep’s room. So I’m not doing this out of guilt. I’m doing this because it’s right.”
“I know.”
“And like I said all along, this is your choice.”
There’s that word again. Choice. Now that I have a choice, what do I choose: go quietly into the night or cause a scene?
“I’ll go if we can go to Curry in a Hurry,” I say. “Because you know I love chicken tandoori.”
“You want chicken tandoori, we’re there,” T.S. says.
Curry in a Hurry is Casey’s favorite restaurant on Kentfield Street, a fast-food Indian eatery right on the edge of Williamson’s campus. I have always liked coming here because it’s removed from Themis. It’s a whole other world teeming with college students with college concerns. I like the escape, especially today.
As we sit down with our food, a girl walks by wearing a teal blue coat that swings around her hips. “What a great coat,” Casey says to us. Then she turns around to the girl, leans back, and calls out, “I love your coat.” Casey’s never been one to miss a fashion moment. Even today in the dead of winter, she’s wearing her purple boots with three-inch heels.
The girl says thanks and then Casey digs into her saag paneer. After she takes a bite, she asks me, “So are they doing the thing with the runners?”
“What thing?” I ask.
“The Mockingbirds,” she says, as if the answer were obvious.
“Yeah, I figured that much. I meant what thing with the runners?”
Casey laughs. “I forgot. You don’t know anything about the way the Mockingbirds operate,” she says.
“Yeah, because you never really wanted to share any of the details. Remember?”
I give her a look and don’t say anything. Casey doesn’t take the bait, just spears another cheese cube with her fork. We both stay silent for a minute or so. But T.S. isn’t interested in our sisterly face-offs, so she jumps in.
“Most of the school runners are part of the Mockingbirds,” T.S. explai
ns, tucking her blond hair behind her ears.
“You’ve enlisted the runners in the group?” I say, raising an eyebrow.
Casey nods like a proud parent.
“How does that work? How does the administration not know?”
“Like I said, not all are part of the Mockingbirds. But that’s our feeder system. Because the runner job is a volunteer, first-come, first-served kind of thing, the Mockingbirds highly encourage anyone who wants to become a full-fledged Mockingbird to volunteer to be a runner first,” Casey says, explaining the inner workings as if she were still in the Mockingbirds.
“And then what happens?”
“Well, the runners are silent but powerful. When they get the attendance slips, they’ll mark a certain student not present if we need them to be marked as not present.”
“Even if they are present,” I state, realizing that’s why Martin exchanged a nod with the runner in physics last week, and a few more times since then. Then I realize Martin himself was once a runner and it makes sense now—that’s how he got his start. The runners are like a proving ground. “But the teacher knows they were really there,” I point out, going back to the attendance issue.
“Doesn’t matter. The office records the points or detracts the points from the attendance slips. So when you get your point total each week, you don’t know how they were tallied. It’s skimming off the top. But we skim enough off so it gets harder and harder to cash in for off-campus privileges,” Casey explains.
“That’s pretty clever,” I admit. “But what’s the point?”
“Lets the students know we’re serious.”
“But do the students know it’s the Mockingbirds who are doing it?”
“Not usually at first. But when we get closer to serving notice, it becomes clear, and they can start putting two and two together, and we want them to put two and two together, so they show up if they’re called to a hearing.”
“But the Mockingbirds are supposed to be good,” I insist.
“Right,” Casey says quickly. “We don’t harass and we don’t harm. We just like to show we’re for real. We just make it clear we’re not to be messed with.”
“But what if I decide not to press charges? Then wouldn’t it be unfair to have docked his points?”
“If you don’t press charges, they’ll give back all his points, and some extra too, and no one will have been the wiser,” Casey explains.
“What if he’s found not—” I stop, shuddering at the thought of Carter being found not guilty. Instead, I say, “What if the accused is judged innocent?”
“Then the accused is invited to serve on the Mockingbirds in an advisory capacity to help them better consider the rights of others who are accused,” Casey says.
I nod, impressed with the checks and balances my sister built into the group.
“That’s only happened once or twice, and it was for lesser crimes. Like a stealing case a couple years back,” T.S. points out.
I turn to my best friend. “You seem to know everything. Are you secretly part of the Mockingbirds? Are you on the council or something and you haven’t told me?”
“No,” T.S. says. “It’s just Casey and I have been talking recently about how the group works and stuff.”
“Did you meet in dark parking lots or just send each other Morse code signals?”
“Duh. We talk about it over e-mail or after the soccer scrimmages, where I usually kick Themis’s ass all over the field,” Casey says.
“You wish,” T.S. fires back.
I look at T.S. “But why? Why are you suddenly so interested in everything related to the Mockingbirds?”
“Because you’re my best friend, dork.”
I put my fork down. Even though I know which way I’ve been leaning, I don’t want decisions made for me. “So have you guys already decided I’m pressing charges, then? I mean, what’s the point in my deciding? You seem like you already have with all your meetings and conversations and tactics.”
“I just want you to feel safe again, Alex,” T.S. says. “Because judging from the way you’re eating, you haven’t felt safe in weeks. I know you’re scared. You walk around campus avoiding him, taking the long way to class, not going to meals. Are you going to skip every meal this year to avoid him?”
“I don’t know,” I say, taking another bite of my chicken.
T.S. grows agitated. “Don’t you want Themis to feel safe? My God, you were at the Faculty Club performing the other day, and now they’re going to go see Carter play water polo. They don’t have a clue. They can bring in the best teachers in the world, they can challenge our minds, they can send us off to Ivy League colleges. But they are powerless outside the classroom. They offer you hot chocolate and then plan the next puppet show.”
While T.S. pauses to catch her breath, I look at my sister, her brown hair like mine, her brown eyes like mine. She’s my almost-twin on the surface. But we’re not the same. She’s Susan B. Anthony; she’s a rabble-rouser; she’s standing up for the rights of the downtrodden. Me, I can barely even commit to one of Julie’s weekend volunteer projects.
“Why did you start the Mockingbirds?” I ask pointedly.
She holds my gaze, doesn’t look away. “Because I had to.”
I scoff. “What does that mean? You had to?”
“Because I couldn’t just stand by and watch students hurt each other.”
“Right, I know that, Casey. But why you? What motivated you? Was it just seeing the seniors bully the other kids and that was enough? That was all it took? You said, ‘whoa, I have to be the one to stop this’?”
I’ve never asked her these questions before. I’ve never dug into her reasons. They didn’t matter. Now they do.
She takes a deep breath. “You know the girl who committed suicide right before you got to Themis?”
I nod. “I know of her. She’s why we had the training day on warning signs.”
“Well, she was being bullied.”
“She was one of the kids the seniors were bullying?”
Casey shakes her head. “No, she wasn’t part of that. But she was a senior too, same year as me. Same dorm. Same floor.”
“You knew her?” I ask.
Casey nods, looks away for the briefest of seconds, then back at me. “I heard what was going on with her,” Casey says. “I saw what it led to. I saw what can happen when things get out of control.”
“That’s why you started the Mockingbirds.”
“I didn’t want that to happen again. I didn’t know at the time what that kind of behavior could lead someone to do. To end her life. So when I saw the seniors bullying the kids who weren’t in the Honor Society I couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen again. I knew I had to do something. I had to give them options.”
“Casey,” I say softly, “I’m not going to end my life just because of what one stupid asshole did to me.”
“I know, Alex. You’re stronger than that, and you have options. So what do you want to do?” she asks. “Press charges?”
It’s as if I’m on a cop show. A guy in a suit with a five o’clock shadow brings me to a room with a one-way mirror, shows me the lineup, and tells me to take my time. He waits patiently while I size up the suspects. The one in the middle, I say. Him? the cop asks. I nod, certain. Book him, the cop tells his associate.
I take another bite of my chicken. I’m almost finished with it and I’m still ravenous. I reach for a piece of Casey’s naan bread. “This is my life. This is my junior year. I don’t want the whole school knowing my business. Well, more than they already know,” I say.
“The hearings are closed,” Casey explains. “Just the council, the plaintiff, the accused, and the witnesses you call.”
I give her a look. “You can call it closed all you want. And it can be closed. But you know as well as I do that everyone will know.”
“Yes, everyone will probably know. But some people know already—they know Carter’s story. Whose story do you
want them to know? The one where you were ‘begging for it’? Because that’s what they’re going to know. Or do you want people to know the truth, that he date-raped you? Because you can help other girls to stay away from him and protect themselves from other boys like him. You do this, be the first, and you make it harder for other boys this year, next year, years to come, to do this ever again. This is bigger than you.”
All I want to do is go back to me, the not political me, the not legal me, the me I was when I could just play music, just go to the music hall and be with my piano and my notes and my composers and not be afraid to walk to class and not have to hide out during dinner and not to have to eat Clif Bars for sustenance. Because I am hungry, I am really hungry. I am so hungry I reach for more of Casey’s bread and then I stab my fork into her saag paneer and I gobble that up and then I take a bite of T.S.’s lentils with yogurt dip.
And I hate being this hungry.
And I hate that I can’t be me.
And I hate that I can’t do anything anymore without the memories of Carter and that day and that night haunting me, following me everywhere I go.
And I want to go back to the way it was, the way I was.
The thing you love most is taken away. That’s what happens if you’re found guilty by the Mockingbirds—the thing you love most is taken away. For me, it already was. Beethoven’s not mine anymore. But maybe if I do this, I can have his music back.
I swallow the last bite of lentils. It tastes good. Then I look at my sister and my best friend. “I’m in,” I say.
Chapter Sixteen
SHOCK TREATMENT
A few days later, Amy visits me. “I heard you were hungry,” she says as I open the door to my room.
“Sure,” I say, gesturing for her to come in. She’s wearing a thin gray turtleneck sweater and skinny jeans and carrying a casserole dish with potholders. A canvas bag is tucked under her arm. She tips her chin to my desk. “Desk for the dinner table?”
“Absolutely. The desk is the best table there is,” I say, pushing my laptop aside to make room for the food. I wasn’t expecting Amy tonight, but I’m not entirely surprised either. She places the blue-and-white casserole dish down, removes the top, then takes two plates, two forks, and a large serving spoon from her bag.
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