The Mockingbirds

by Whitney, Daisy

  “When did the freshmen understudies confess?”

  “Not long after we looked into it.”

  “So when you say looked into it, what does that mean?”

  “It means we investigate the claim,” he says, and I realize that must be what’s happening with the math whiz who lives near Jones. The investigation phase.

  “You’re detectives too?”

  “We look into what happened, talk to both sides if that makes sense, if that’s what we’ve been asked to do.”

  “Asked? You mean sometimes when students come to you they don’t want a trial, they just want an investigation? What’s the point of an investigation?”

  “Some cases can be settled before a trial.”

  “And the punishment is less, then, if it’s settled?”

  Martin nods. “Yeah, or reduced if the guilty party cops to it and is willing to make reparations.”

  “So why didn’t we ask Carter to settle?”

  “Your case is different, Alex. We’re talking about a different level of offense. Plus, he had the option when he was served papers to discuss a settlement,” Martin explains, and that jibes with what Carter seethed to me on the phone earlier today. There will be no settling in my case, no compromise, no coming to terms. My case will be black or white. But I’ve had enough of my case for the day, so I return to the thespians.

  “And what happened when Che and Evita realized they were being drugged?”

  “They laughed it off. They thought it was very All About Eve and said they used it as motivation for their roles.”

  “Actors,” I say, and roll my eyes.

  “Anyway, so now you know. What else do you want to pry out of me?” he says while tracing my arm with his fingertips. Suddenly I don’t feel like talking anymore.

  “I think that’s all for now, Mr. Summers,” I say, and relax into the feeling of his hand on my arm. Then I rest my head on his chest and before I know it I’m asleep.

  When I wake up a couple of hours later, he’s gone. But Maia is here changing into her pajamas. I blink a few times and look for signs of Martin. Maybe he went to the bathroom, but his backpack is gone; he’s gone.

  “What’s up with you and Martin?” Maia asks casually.

  Forget being a lawyer, she should be a detective. James Bond, indeed.

  “Nothing,” I say, wondering what she saw. Did she walk in while I was sleeping next to him?

  Maia raises an eyebrow at me. “Nothing?”

  “Yeah, nothing. He’s a Mockingbird, Maia. He’s helping,” I say.

  “I’m sure,” she says.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “He was reading at your desk when I walked in,” she says. “He said he came to check on you, then you fell asleep and he stayed here to read because it was quiet.”

  “Yeah, he stopped by to visit,” I confirm.

  “He’s cute, don’t you think?”

  “Um…”

  “Oh, come on, Alex. He’s handsome. Why wouldn’t you be into him?”

  I scoff. “There’s nothing going on,” I say. Then I grab my history homework before my red cheeks give me away. “I need to study.”

  Maia plops down on her bed, reaching for a book too.

  But the words aren’t registering as I read. Because there’s only one word on my mind right now and it’s slinking on top of the textbook, slithering into my thoughts.

  Liar. The word is liar.

  Because I’m the liar now.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  LIGHTNING ROD

  A few days later Mel talks to me again in French class. She swivels around at the end of the lesson and says hi.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Then she leaves again, quietly, like a mouse.

  This keeps up for the next few classes. Each time she adds a sentence or two more. Something about homework or the weather, since it’s still freezing cold here in late February. It’s kind of weird, to tell the truth. But who am I to judge? We’re all weird here in our own ways. Then it shifts one afternoon. She turns around, as usual, her hair braided, as usual, her voice low, as usual. But she says something meaty this time.

  “It happened to me too,” she whispers.

  I know instantly what she’s talking about. “It did?”

  “Not with him. But someone else. When I was a first-year.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m glad you’re doing this,” she whispers.

  “Do you want to talk about it sometime?”

  She nods and we agree to meet in my room at four.

  When she shows up I have tea ready, like Casey did for me. I guess tea is what you give people when bad stuff has happened to them. So I offer tiny little Mel a cup of tea I’ve borrowed—taken, really—from Maia’s never-ending stash. It’s imported too. Her parents ship her a new batch every month so my English roommate is never out of her English tea.

  Mel wraps her hands around the mug and blows on the contents.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” she says. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for a couple weeks now.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Sorry to be so strange about it. I was just trying to get up the nerve.”

  “Hey, no worries. I understand.”

  “But ever since I saw his name in the book, I wanted to know who he did it to, and then when word got out about the charges, I knew I had to talk to you.”

  “You saw the book?”

  She nods. “I check it every week just to see who to watch out for.”

  “You do?” I ask, quietly amazed at the reach of the Mockingbirds.

  “Fear, I guess. But yeah, I do. Then I saw the flyer and knew there was a new name in the book, so I ran to the library and saw his name. And I kept waiting and waiting to find out when it would go official.”

  “You figured out pretty quickly it was me.”

  “Word travels fast,” Mel says. “You’re the first one, you know. To press date-rape charges.”

  “I know.”

  “I talked to them more than two years ago.”

  “You did? I don’t think I would have had the guts to even approach them when I was a freshman.”

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t have the guts. I didn’t go through with it.”

  “Even talking to them took courage, Mel.”

  “He was a senior,” she says, the words that have been stuck in her throat for the last few weeks suddenly spilling out in my room. “I was a freshman. I didn’t stand a chance. So I did nothing. I just waited for him to graduate. I stopped going to the cafeteria, I took the long way to class, I stayed in my room all the time.”

  “I know the feeling,” I say. “I was terrified to go anywhere. I don’t think I was afraid he’d do it again. I think I was afraid of not knowing how I was supposed to react when I saw him. Does that make sense?”

  “That’s exactly how it was for me too. But now it’s different?” she asks eagerly.

  “Yeah, mostly. The Mockingbirds help me now. Some of them walk me to class and sometimes I have lunch with them. And he never says a thing, never even looks at me when I’m with them.”

  She shakes her head, kind of appreciatively.

  “It’s kind of wild, huh? How they can be so…” I pause, reaching for a word, the right word. “Effective,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s the word I was looking for.

  “Yeah,” she agrees. “I wish I had your courage.”

  “Don’t say that, Mel. You do, or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “I’m glad I’m talking to you now,” she says.

  “Me too,” I say. “And don’t beat yourself up. You did what you could at the time.”

  “I’ll be thinking of you the day of your trial. Will you let me know when it is?”

  “Less than a month. I’ll tell you when I know the date for sure.”

  She takes a sip of her tea, then adds, “Don’t think this is crazy, but you’re kind of doing th
is for all of us. That’s how I see it, at least. You’re doing it for all of us who didn’t speak up, who were afraid. And I know you’re going to make this place better for the girls who come after us. It’ll be safer. Guys will think twice.”

  “I hope so,” I say, thinking briefly of what that day later this month will bring and of how a girl who just wanted to play the piano came to be a lightning rod for an issue.

  But it’s clear that I am.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ACTING OUT

  I give Maia a new nickname.

  It’s lawyertrix.

  As March descends on us, trial prep is like a life force for her, the nightly reviews, prep sessions, and strategy pep talks she insists on are magical energy imps that make her want more, more, more.

  For the first time in my high school life, I find homework a welcome relief. After the latest recounting of Circle of Death, I am grateful when Maia skips off to debate practice so I can put the finishing touches on my Tempest adaptation.

  I turn it in the next day in English class. Ms. Peck nods and says “thank you.” Then when everyone has taken a seat, she taps the stack of papers with the long red nail on her index finger and says, “Today we’re going to perform scenes in your adaptations.”

  It’s not drama class, I want to say.

  “Ma’am,” a voice begins from the back of the room, “I’m just curious why you want us to act out the adaptations.”

  Ms. Peck looks pointedly toward the back of the room. “Henry,” she says slowly, a hint of her Texas accent coming through, “that is an excellent question.” She taps her finger on the papers again, then holds it up in the air to make a point. “I have found that plays, because they are meant to be acted, need to be read aloud. Sometimes the dialogue can sound odd, even off, if we don’t actually practice it. You can refine the dialogue, perfect the words, when you practice it.”

  I turn around to check out Henry, the same Henry who breathed my name to Maia at her Debate meeting at the start of term. He’s big, has spiky blond hair, a strong nose, and reddish cheeks.

  “Ms. Peck,” Henry continues, “I understand and that makes sense. But are we going to be graded on our performance? This isn’t an acting class.”

  There are chuckles all around the class.

  Ms. Peck smiles, showing the cracks in her lips that her pink lipstick didn’t reach this morning.

  “You are correct, Henry. It’s not an acting class. And you won’t be graded. So I urge you all”—there she goes, dangerously close to slipping to y’all—“to view this as an exercise. This is an exercise in writing a better play, penning a stronger adaptation of the Bard. You will also find this skill will serve you later in life. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you turn out to be journalists, authors, speechwriters, even. Or,” she says, this time standing up and walking around her desk, moving closer to us, “you could be public speakers. You’ll find reading your written compositions aloud will only improve your writing, creative and otherwise. That’s why each student will have a chance to revise his or her work after the readings. Now, let’s begin. I’m going to randomly assign scene partners and scenes from your plays.”

  Random. Why do teachers always say that? Do they think we don’t know it’s not random, that nothing is random?

  “Emily and Brent. You can do the fifth scene from Emily’s version of Romeo and Juliet and the seventh scene from Brent’s Hamlet.”

  Random. Just so random.

  “Julie and Jones. Second scene from Othello, third from Antony and Cleopatra.”

  More randomness. We’re awash in sheer random-ity!

  “Alex and Henry,” she begins, “let’s have you do the eighth scene from Troilus and Cressida and the first from The Tempest.”

  I stare at her, wide-eyed, waiting for the punch line. Because it’s coming, right? This is Ms. Peck, after all. She thinks she’s funny, wicked funny. This is her idea of a joke.

  She keeps going, rattling off names of students, names of plays, numbers of scenes, but it all sounds muffled to me, like a Charlie Brown teacher. “Wah-wah-wah, wah-wah.”

  When she’s done, she dispatches us into groups. I don’t move. Henry’s a big boy. He can find me. He lumbers to the front of the room, parks himself in the desk next to mine, then says my name. “Alex Patrick,” he says like a character in a movie who has been tracking someone across mountains and rivers and valleys and then finally finds the hunted.

  I don’t like the way he says it, so I give it back to him. “Henry Rowland,” I say tartly.

  He places his big hands on the edge of his desk and pulls himself closer to me, his desk tilting forward on the front legs. “I know who you are,” he whispers. “Carter told me all about you. I can’t wait for you to get what you deserve at your stupid trial.”

  There’s a chill in the room, a cold stillness. The sky’s black, the room’s dark, no one can move. I can’t move.

  “But your little bird friends aren’t here in this class, are they?” he adds.

  Then he tilts back, the four legs back on the ground. He slouches in his chair, looking all cool and casual as he reaches for the papers on his desk—my papers, my scene, my words. I want to rip them out of his big, meaty hands. I want to tear them up, shred them, toss them into the garbage can in tiny bits so no one can see what I wrote, least of all Henry.

  I read his scene and it gets worse. Because the Troilus and Cressida scene is a love scene, and my Tempest scene is the attempted rape of Miranda by Caliban. I would do anything right now not to have do either scene. But there are no Mockingbirds to save me from what’s coming next. Ms. Peck claps her hands. “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s just get up there and practice our scenes.”

  She looks at me pointedly, then gestures. “Alex, Henry. Let’s start with you two.”

  God, please strike this room with lightning right now. Please, someone, sound a fire alarm. Earthquake, flood, I don’t care. Something, anything to get me out of here.

  Henry pops up out of his chair, holding the scene. To Ms. Peck he innocently says, “Alex’s first, right?”

  She nods, then shrugs a shoulder happily. “Sure.”

  I stand up, take a few steps, and turn to the class.

  “ ‘I’ve waited long enough for this,’ ” Henry begins.

  The words I wrote sound foul in his mouth. So foul I could vomit. I could vomit on him, projectile-style, like in a horror movie.

  “ ‘And I don’t see why I should wait any longer,’ ” he continues.

  “ ‘You’re going to wait forever because this will never happen,’ ” I say, emotionless.

  He creeps toward me, actually acting out my stage direction, looking just like that half-breed Caliban.

  I know what’s coming next. I wrote the Goddamn scene. We each toss off the next few lines until the part I know is coming, the part I know he wants to come, where he grabs Miranda’s hair and pulls, one hand on her hair, one arm around her waist.

  My back is to him, and Henry thinks he’s freaking Laurence Olivier or something. He grabs my hair tight and hard in his fat hand and then reaches to my belly, gripping me, jamming his fist so hard into my stomach an organ jumps out of the way. Then he yanks my head back, practically snapping my neck. These moves are just for me, no one else can tell the force with which he follows stage directions.

  But when he grabs my hair, I see Carter. Straddling me. Pinning me with his legs. Grappling with the condom—the dome; I hate him even more for being so slangy. Then Henry breathes into my ear; his breath is hot and smells like bitter coffee, his skin like chlorine. He whispers, not a stage whisper, but a personal whisper, just for me, “You little bitch.”

  That’s not in the script. That’s not in the scene. That’s not what I wrote.

  Even though I know Miranda is supposed to jam her heel—she wears leather boots with four-inch spikes in my version—into his shin, sending Caliban to the floor in a crippling mess, I don’t do that.

 
Instead, like I’m some sort of primitive creature, an animal operating only on instinct, I whip around, lift my knee, and jam it into his balls.

  Henry grabs his crotch and falls to the ground. He moans, the class gasps, and Ms. Peck stands motionless.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  EUNUCHS

  In retrospect, going off script isn’t always a good idea.

  But it felt good.

  It still feels good even though I’m sitting in the headmistress’s office and Headmistress Vartan is just so confused by my behavior. She doesn’t get it, just doesn’t understand what happened. Mr. Christie, here presumably because he’s my advisor, is equally perplexed. Because Themis students don’t hit other Themis students.

  “Alex…,” Ms. Vartan starts. She crosses her legs. She’s understated, as you’d expect a headmistress to be. She wears beige slacks, navy blue shoes, and a crisp white button-down shirt. But she used to be radical; she used to think she was a rebel. I know this because her right earlobe is red and scarred. She once had a plug in her earlobe. I bet she was goth all the way, dyed her red hair black, wore thick leather bracelets and listened to Norwegian death metal all day. Then she went straight and narrow, became an educator, had the hole sealed up, the hair color restored, and started wearing proper blouses every day.

  She purses her lips, furrows her brow, says my name again. “Alex, it sounds like we had quite an English class, didn’t we?”

  This is what she asks me? Be a real headmistress. Discipline me. Say it. Say I assaulted another student. But she can’t. Because she can’t even conceive that it could happen.