“Mind if I join you?”
“Of course not,” I say.
“I made mac and cheese,” she says, and I guess that makes Amy a rarity—one of the only Themis students to use the kitchens in the common rooms.
“I love mac and cheese.”
“I made it from scratch. My mom has this awesome recipe,” she says, and starts scooping big spoonfuls of gooey mac and cheese onto the plastic plates. “She uses a block of cheddar, a block of Monterey Jack, and a block of cream cheese.”
“So this is probably similar to what Hollywood stars eat when working on their six-packs?” I joke, and point to my abs.
“Totally. Anyway, it’s supergood and perfect for this time of year,” Amy says, pulling out the chair from Maia’s desk.
I glance at the food, and my mouth starts to water. My desire for it is almost sinful. “It looks delicious,” I say, uttering a complete understatement. “Plus, it beats sandwiches.”
I sit back down at my desk, where I had been sketching out the next scene in The Tempest before Amy appeared. Maia’s practicing for a debate tournament. T.S. is studying—or something—in Sandeep’s room. Amy hands me a plate and fork, then takes one for herself and settles in. I take a bite of the mac and cheese and it’s amazing. I want to roll my eyes and moan, but I restrain myself.
“T.S. called over the weekend and said you’re ready to move forward,” Amy says.
I nod. “Yep.”
“So what made you decide?” Amy asks.
I hesitate, wondering if this is a test I have to pass, if I have to answer correctly. Amy senses my nervousness and adds warmly, “Don’t worry. I just like to ask.”
“Well, you sort of know already, right?” I say, then take another bite. “I mean, you wouldn’t have brought me homemade mac and cheese unless you knew.”
Amy smiles; her light blue eyes have some kind of soothing quality, as if she can see into you and feel what you feel and know what you know.
“T.S. told you I don’t go to the caf anymore, right?” I add.
Amy shakes her head, her ultrashort hair barely moving as she does. “Nope. But I never see you there. And you mentioned the comments his friend made at lunch that day so I put two and two together.”
There she goes again, knowing stuff.
“I guess I’m getting kind of sick of feeling like I have to hide,” I say. “The few times I’ve run into him, he seems to think I would want to be with him,” I say, the vein in my forehead pulsing a little harder at the memory of his twisted expectations. “Which is totally sick and makes me sick. That he could do that and think I’d want to go out with him. To top if off, I get headaches sometimes and I never did before. And T.S. told me she was researching the effects of date rape and headaches are one of them. I think it’s because some days it’s all you can think about and your head feels as if it’s going to explode.”
“People suck,” Amy says, agreeing. “That’s why I have a job.”
“Do you get a lot of cases each semester?” I ask.
“Enough,” she says offhand, then takes another bite of her mac and cheese. That’s all—enough. She finishes chewing, then asks, “And you’re sure?”
“Of what happened?” I say, taken aback. Do I have to prove it again? Recite the story all over again?
“No, I believe it happened. I mean, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t?”
“Not at all. I believe in this, in what you’re doing, in what we can do for you. It’s just these things can consume you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them. Just know that they have a way of becoming bigger than everything else.”
But it already is bigger than everything else. It already is the defining moment of my junior year. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by it, my habits by it, my music by it. This—the Mockingbirds—is how I deflate it.
“I get it,” I say.
The receiver did this. The freshmen did this. I can do this. I can be bigger than me. I can take a stand. My sister started this group for that very reason.
“Good. I’m glad. And we’re going to protect you. That’s part of our mission,” Amy says, putting her plate down on the floor and reaching into her canvas bag. She takes out her notebook—the mockingbird on the cover looks like it’s watching me—removes a sheet of paper, and hands it to me. She places the slightly worn notebook back in the bag. “Don’t worry, this isn’t like some binding contract. It’s just you need to sign it for our records to say you want us to go forward and press charges against Carter.”
“You want me to sign something?” I ask, holding back a laugh. It’s not really funny, it’s just—well, it’s just the Mockingbirds take this so seriously. But it is serious, I remind myself as I take the sheet of paper and read. Just a few lines saying I approached the Mockingbirds on my own, I asked them to hear the case, and I authorize them to press charges against Carter Hutchinson for sexual assault on the evening of January tenth. There’s another line too, and it reads: If the accuser is found to have lied, he or she agrees to accept the standard punishment.
I pause for a moment, astonished again by all the checks and balances in the Mockingbirds. The Mockingbirds exist to police and to protect, so they could be seen as favoring the people who seek their help. But then if you dare to think that, you learn that those who are judged innocent are vindicated with a leadership post, and you learn too that if an accuser has filed false charges, he or she gets the comeuppance. Even-steven, indeed.
I reach for a pen and sign the paper. I hand it back to Amy.
“It’s just for our records anyway,” she says, tucking the paper back into her notebook with a smile. Records, the Mockingbirds have records. I bet they keep them stored in a secret vault somewhere, maybe in the basement, maybe even in the laundry room. I bet there’s a dummy dryer—you open the door to it, reach your hand all the way to the false back, turn a hidden knob three times one way, three times the other way, then push open the safe. Inside are stacks of red flyers and white papers and rule books and case histories and guidelines for picking the New Nine and the board and a list of all the bad students ever.
“Where do you keep your records?” I ask.
Amy chuckles, amused by such a question. “In our files,” she says, because of course she’s not going to tell me where. She picks up her plate and continues eating. I take another bite of my food, then ask, “So who’s on the council?”
“It rotates, as I said. But they’re good kids. All nine of them. Sort of who you’d expect.”
I don’t really know who I’d expect. “Like Martin or Ilana?” I offer up, hoping for some kind of answer.
Amy’s eyes go wide and she smiles like I got it right. “Exactly. Exactly like Martin and Ilana.”
“Wait, I thought you said you three were just on the board and the council was separate?”
“They are separate. Absolutely. We have to keep the three branches separate, checks and balances and all,” she says emphatically, and I assume by three branches she must mean the runners, the council, and the board. Amy goes on, “You just asked what the council members were like. And I was saying they are like Martin and Ilana. Students like that. Anyway, you should start thinking about who you want your student advocate to be. Kind of like your lawyer. They present your case to the council. But before that, we’re going to serve him papers. Probably in a couple weeks,” Amy continues. “There are just some preliminary things we need to do first.”
“Preliminary things?” I ask. “Do you mean more attendance mistakes?”
Martin told me after physics one day this week that they’ve now shaved enough off Carter’s attendance points that he’s not going to be able to get off campus for quite a while—no lunch, no Friday Night Out.
“We have a few things in mind.”
“But you’re not going to tell me,” I say.
“It’s
not that we’re not going to. It’s just we haven’t decided yet. But Alex, don’t worry, okay?”
“If you say so…”
“I do!” Amy says cheerfully, plunking her hand down on my leg. She leans her head to the side and looks directly at me. “Alex, we’re going to take care of you, I promise. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe in the Mockingbirds and you.”
“Why do you believe in them so much?” I ask curiously.
“Because I know it works,” she says.
“Why do you do this? Why are you involved?”
She looks away for a second, then back at me. “Because someone has to carry the torch.”
“How do I repay you? You guys are doing so much for me.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” she says, her eyes radiating that familiar warmth again. She gestures to the mac and cheese on my plate. “Just eat, eat!”
I take another bite of the food she made, finishing what’s left on my plate. Seconds sound good so I reach for the spoon and scoop some more of Amy’s family recipe. Maybe the Mockingbirds really will look out for me.
“Shh…”
I look to Martin, who issued the shush. “But Mr. Waldman isn’t here yet,” I say.
We’re waiting for physics class to start and Carter’s talking to the guy sitting next to him. Martin leans close to hear what he’s saying. I can hear too.
“I never got my cake,” Carter whines.
“What’s up with that?” the guy next to him says.
“I don’t know. Everyone was waiting in the common room. Never showed up. Never came. It sucked. The birthday cake is the single greatest thing about this school.”
I will agree with Carter on that point. Themis does a good job taking care of its students, including delivering a fresh sheet cake—of your choosing—to the common room of your dorm on your birthday. It’s their way of making the school seem more like a home away from home. It also means there’s pretty much birthday cake every night because it’s always someone’s birthday. It’s a small perk of going to school here, but a perk nonetheless.
I tap Martin’s wrist, then raise my eyebrow in question. He gives me a mischievous look. “You guys?” I mouth.
He nods proudly.
I lean in to whisper, “How’d you do that?”
He whispers back. “We have access to the birthday list.”
They have access to everything. “What’d you do? Cross his name off it?”
“Something like that,” he says, and I imagine the red-haired runner boy opening a drawer in the headmistress’s secretary’s office, discreetly pulling out a sheet of paper and quickly erasing Carter’s name. The runner gently blows on the paper; the eraser remnants fall to the ground. He tucks the paper back in the drawer, leaves the attendance report on the desk, and slips back out. Quietly, of course.
Then Mr. Waldman enters and everyone stops talking. He does his normal attendance count, then hands the slip over to a runner. Martin gives the runner a curt nod. Poor Carter—no points and no cake.
Two days later, Maia opens the door to calculus with such a spurt of energy I swear it’s going to rocket through the wall and swing around again. She grabs a desk next to me, sits down, and tilts close to me, her sleek black ponytail swinging to hang over her right shoulder. “The water polo match against Choate was canceled,” she whispers. “And, here’s the kicker… Themis had to forfeit!”
“Are you serious?” I whisper back, even though our math teacher’s not here yet. “Why?”
“The pool got the shock treatment.”
“What’s that?”
“They usually do it when a pool gets manky, you know gross manky. And you put this insane amount of chlorine into the water to break down the… well, you know,” she says, then pauses, lowering her voice even more. “And evidently, the Themis pool got the shock treatment just now and I don’t think it was because waste products were in the water.”
“Then why?” I ask.
“It was to make it unusable for twenty-four hours. There’s so much bloody chlorine in there right now—probably twenty times the normal amount—no one can swim in it today. So, what do you know—Themis just can’t host the game against its biggest rival today. Choate. I’d feel bad for the rest of the team, but they all were kind of dicks for spreading his lies,” Maia says, a satisfied glint flicking through her eyes. She knows exactly who did this and so do I. And they’re making it clear you don’t mess with the Mockingbirds. When they say show up, you show up.
I have to say, it feels kind of satisfying. It feels good, as if I’m taking back the night or something. “Such a bummer that we’re going to have to miss the water polo match,” I say, masking a grin.
“Total shame,” she says with a smirk as our math teacher enters. “I was really looking forward to it.”
Chapter Seventeen
SHINING TREES
“Alex, come look.”
“Hmm?” I half-mumble as I rub my eyes and look at the clock next to me. Five forty-five. Only athletes are up at this hour.
T.S. is perched on her bed, nose pressed to the window, dressed in soccer shorts and shirt already. “You have to see this. It’s beautiful,” she says.
She must be talking about snow. I picture freshly fallen flakes drifting down, blanketing the Themis quad. T.S. is from Santa Monica and is obsessed with snow. She still makes snow angels.
Maia must be thinking the same thing because she chides T.S. “Please tell me you didn’t just wake us up to see snow yet again, because you know I love my sleep more than snow angels.”
“It’s better than snow,” T.S. says as she waves us over. Maia and I grumble our way out of our respective beds and join T.S. at the window.
There is no snow.
Instead, shimmering, shining trees reflect back at us. It’s as if each tree is sporting a tiny makeup mirror in the middle, a pinprick of light, a prism.
“Let’s go see,” T.S. commands.
I pull on clothes quickly and Maia does the same. The three of us head down the steps and out the door. Up close it’s clear there are no mini mirrors on the trees, no reflective tape. Instead, every single tree in the quad has been marked—two pieces of gum in tinfoil wrappers tacked to each trunk.
“For the love of the queen, why is there chewing gum tacked to the trees?” Maia asks.
“You don’t know?” T.S. asks.
Maia shakes her head adamantly. “No, I don’t know, nor do I like guessing games at ungodly hours.” Then she adds, “And besides, clearly you do know. So you can just tell us.”
Before T.S. speaks an image races through my mind. Two kids. A tree. A knothole. “It’s the first thing Boo Radley leaves for Jem and Scout,” I say quietly. “He leaves them two pieces of chewing gum in shiny tinfoil wrappers inside the knothole of the oak tree.”
Maia smacks her forehead, the details rushing back to her. “My God, I can’t believe I forgot. Gum, soap figures, two Indian head pennies.”
“So is this a message from the Mockingbirds?” I ask.
T.S. nods. “I think so.”
“Did Casey tell you this was coming? What does it mean?” I ask.
T.S. shakes her head this time. “I have no idea.”
Later that day I find out what it means. Only I don’t hear it from Martin or Amy or Ilana. I hear it from some girls in my French class, then from some guys in my English class, then from Natalie.
Or overhear, I should say.
Because even though the maintenance guys removed the gum by nine a.m., that was more than enough time for word to zoom around Themis about the Juicy Fruit trees.
And double sticks of chewing gum means one thing only.
Notice of a case is coming.
Two days later it comes.
Maia and I are back in calculus, ingesting another mind-numbing dose of indefinite integrals. When the bell rings at the end of class, we leave together, and the second we step out the door a runner walks by and presses
a note into my hand. He doesn’t even look at me, just keeps going. I watch him hurry down the hall, his red hair becoming a blur as he fades into the thick mass of students.
“What does it say?” Maia asks excitedly.
I unfold the note cautiously, my heart beating a little faster. For a moment, I think the Mockingbirds have turned against me. Maybe they’re after me. My brain starts spinning as I open the note.
Go to the second floor of the library, to the reference room, and read Harper. Five minutes later, a notice will post in the usual spot.
A wave of uncertainty clutches me, like a hard grip. I breathe once, twice, then it releases and I say to Maia, “We have to go to the library, second floor, required reading. And we have to go fast.”
“Let’s go,” she says.
She doesn’t ask why and I wonder if she wants to be a part of this because she likes knowing things. She’s getting all sorts of inside information now. My mind races and I start questioning if she has an agenda here. Then I feel bad for doubting her.
We reach Pryor Library and reflexively I survey the aisles, just in case Carter is nearby. But I don’t see him and even if I did I’m with Maia, so it’s like I have a shield. I tell her what the note said as we race up the stairwell to the second floor reference room, where the school keeps copies of the required-reading books. You can’t check the copies out, so the library is their permanent home.
We scan the shelves quickly, looking for the ninth-grade list because that’s when Themis teaches To Kill a Mockingbird. Maia spies it first, grabs it, and hands it to me. I open the first page, where someone’s handwritten an inscription—For Jen. I wonder who Jen is, but now’s not the time to figure it out. I flip through the book as if it were one of those cartoon flip books where each page contains a slightly different image. But there’s nothing so far, just the actual chapters. I reach the back of the book, where there are ten or so blank pages. Only not all are blank. Some are filled in with writing and names and lists. The first one says Bully Pulpit and the names of several students listed in pen. I’m guessing they’re the Honor Society bullies, the true Dishonorables. The next page says If You’re Queer Don’t Buy Him a Beer and Paul Oko’s name is on it, also in pen. There are more pages, more names like one that says Watch Your Back and a name I don’t recognize, Ellery Robinson, in pen as well.
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