Girl Mans Up

by M-E Girard

  “We were settling our shit,” Colby says. “It’s her problem if she can’t handle it. She’s the one going around acting like she’s a dude. I warned her.” Colby wipes his face with his sleeve. “You were begging me to treat you like a dude, and now that I have, you’re gonna pull the girl crap?”

  “I never pulled anything!” I yell.

  “She can’t have it both ways!” Colby yells, and it’s desperate. He’s looking at Olivia like he thinks she’ll be on his side. “She can’t!”

  Colby’s boys are all clustered to the left now, some looking at the ground, Garrett scratching his head.

  Tristan goes: “You had it coming, Colby. You thought no one was gonna call you on it. It’s a peon uprising, you got that? You’ve been defeated.”

  “You’re such a moron, Tristan—what language are you speaking right now?” Colby says. “You guys don’t get to call me a woman-beater when she’s been going around trying to become a dude, so don’t even go there.” It’s like Colby’s speaking to everyone and no one now. “She provoked me. This is how guys settle things. This is what she wanted!”

  I spit blood into the grass, but more keeps filling up my mouth.

  “That’s my sister, man. You’re lucky I’m not breaking your face right now,” Johnny says. “Man, I wanna break your face. Say something. Please.”

  “She asked for it!” Colby says.

  “Just forget it, Johnny. Please!” I say. “It’s over now.”

  “She asked for it so you hit her?” Blake says. “You sound exactly like all the other ass-bags who hit girls—”

  “No!” I shout. “It’s not about that! You all need to stop making it about that boy/girl crap—it’s not about that! Don’t say it should’ve gone differently just because I’m a girl, okay? I don’t need to be defended—I can take it.”

  They’re all watching me, like they’re waiting for more of an explanation. I can’t untangle this stuff, or get rid of the confusion. Guys shouldn’t hit girls—that’s true. But this is different. We’re on the same level now, him and me—and he’s right: it’s what I asked for. I don’t know how to make sense of it with words.

  “Listen, man. You might be able to take it, but it doesn’t work that way. You gotta be careful. You don’t know the kind of messed-up situation you can get into,” Johnny says.

  “Yeah, I do, Johnny.” I face him, trying to let my eyes make it clear how much I know how seriously messed up things can get—that I know exactly what he’s thinking about right now.

  “And on that note,” Mr. Middleton says, putting a hand on my shoulder, “I say we end this right now.”

  Two cops are marching over, and so is Mrs. McCallion. For some reason I can’t stop staring at her high heels spiking into the soft ground with every step. The cops are coming to arrest me, and I can’t stop thinking about how it never occurred to me that heels would do that.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  MRS. McCALLION IS ASKING EVERYONE WHAT IS going on. The cops come over to plant themselves on the edge of the area we’re all standing around in. Johnny moves forward, putting himself in front of me so I have to look over his shoulder to see the cops.

  “We got a call about a fight going on,” one of the officers says—he’s short and skinny, but he looks mean as hell. Olivia’s staring at the ground, which makes it pretty clear, she’s the one who called them.

  “It’s assault,” Tristan says.

  Garrett says, “Yeah! Assault with a deadly Pen.”

  “Are you saying a pen was used as a weapon?” the other cop—a woman with shoulders as square as Johnny’s—says, turning to face Garrett. He closes his mouth and shakes his head no. “Well, then I suggest you keep your mouth shut and wipe that look off your face.”

  For a second, I’m not sure this is even real anymore.

  “We need to speak to each of you,” the guy officer says. “Now who was involved in the fight?”

  “Oh, man,” I whisper to Johnny, then I step out from behind him with a hand up. “I was.”

  The lady cop points at Johnny. “What about you, sir?”

  “No,” I say. “He just got here. He has nothing to do with this. He was just coming to pick me up from school.”

  She nods and sweeps the group of us with her gaze. “Who else was involved?”

  Colby’s standing at the far end by himself, arms crossed. He steps forward.

  “All right—you guys want to tell us what’s going on here?” the woman officer says.

  “We lost our cool,” I say, and my words are all muffled because my jaw throbs. It makes my eyes water. It feels like if I move my mouth any more, the thing will unhinge and fall to the ground. With my tongue, I can feel a gash on the inside of my bottom lip.

  “You might need to have that looked at,” she says. “Were you hit in the head? Did you—”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Who hit you?”

  Here we go—a girl got hit by a guy—that’s all anyone’s going to see.

  I point at Colby. “He hit me, but I provoked the crap out of him, okay? I don’t care that technically I’m a girl and he’s a guy. We’ve been fighting for weeks, and it came to this. I can handle myself.”

  Blake hands me a wad of tissues. I shove it between my lip and bottom teeth, but the tissue just breaks apart and sticks to the inside of my mouth, so now I’m picking out little bits of bloody tissue.

  It’d be nice if I could duck for cover and be healed a couple seconds later, like in War Zone—is it weird that I’m thinking this right now?

  The cops are speaking with Colby now.

  “You should go rinse out your mouth, Pen,” Mr. Middleton says. He inspects my face. “That’s a lot of blood. You might need stitches.”

  “It’s not that bad. I’m fine.”

  After the cops get what they need from everyone, Mr. Middleton tells us all to calm down. “Those of you who are not directly involved need to head home now. School is over.”

  Johnny gives Olivia the keys to go wait in the truck. I can’t bring myself to look at her. It’s hard to know what she might be thinking, but I yelled at her, and she let Colby off the hook—and she called the cops on us. We’re probably both annoyed with each other right now.

  Blake comes over to me. She bites her lip and won’t look me in the eyes. “I’m sorry—I think I egged you on before and made it worse.”

  “It was always going to come to this with me and him.”

  She doesn’t look convinced. “Call me as soon as you can, okay?”

  “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I was just so amped up.”

  “I know. Just call me later, okay?” She touches my cheek. “And get your face fixed.”

  Now it’s just me, my brother, Colby, and the teachers. Plus, the cops, who do not look impressed by any of this.

  “You guys think it’s cool, getting into fistfights?” the man officer says to me.

  “No,” I say.

  The cops look annoyed now. “You guys need to grow up. Find other ways to settle your disagreements.”

  The woman officer says, “Are you guys going to go home to post about your little fight online? Tell your friends how you wasted our time when there are real crimes we could be dealing with?”

  “No,” Colby and I say at the same time.

  “You know, we picked up a guy last year who threw one punch—one punch—and the guy he hit went down,” the man officer says. “A blood vessel in his brain popped and he was dead just like that. One punch over a game of pool, and one guy’s dead while the other got convicted of manslaughter.”

  At that, I look over at Johnny, shaking my head. This is the kind of dumb situation he could end up in, always jumping in there to defend everyone. I don’t want him to hit some guy in the wrong spot and end up going away for manslaughter. Knowing how to defend yourself is good—I want to know how to fight—but I also want to be able to deal with things before they build until something has to break. Before my brother has
to fix it all for me, getting in trouble in the process.

  The cops tell Mrs. McCallion that the school will be left in charge of addressing what happened. The mean-looking cop points a finger at me, then Colby. “I really hope I won’t have to see you two again. Learn to walk away.”

  “Mrs. McCallion is going to want to see Pen and Colby in her office,” Mr. Middleton says to Johnny. Then to me and Colby: “Your parents will be called.”

  “THERE’S ZERO TOLERANCE FOR fighting,” Mrs. McCallion says. “This is an automatic ten-day suspension.”

  “But school is over,” I say.

  “Doesn’t matter, Pen,” Mr. Middleton says.

  I’m not even surprised. Mrs. McCallion hands out three-day suspensions just for uniform violations.

  “Just deal with it, Pen,” Johnny says, patting my shoulder. “You did something, and now you gotta accept what comes at you because of it. I’ll go drive Olivia home.”

  I nod, hanging my head forward as Colby and I follow Mr. Middleton back to school, while Johnny heads back to Olivia. When Mr. Middleton isn’t looking, Johnny makes a V with his fingers, pointing to his own eyes, then pointing at Colby to let him know he’s going to be watching. Mrs. McCallion keeps saying she’s so disappointed in us. “And less than two weeks from our twenty-fifth anniversary! Never, in all my years . . .”

  After I rinse my mouth a few times with icy water, Colby and I sit in the office waiting area, on opposite sides of the room, not looking at each other. The secretary brings me an ice pack for my jaw and a wet cloth for Colby’s blood-streaked face. Fifteen minutes later, Mrs. McCallion tells us Colby’s dad is on his way, and so are my parents. I already know Colby’s dad won’t have anything to say about this. He’ll let him stay home, play video games, and get drunk for two weeks. Colby’ll get off with nothing. I’m the one who’s about to get my butt kicked, Portuguese-mom style.

  MRS. McCALLION COMES TO get Colby because his dad gets here first. When he sees me, Mr. Jensen shakes his head at me like he doesn’t know what happened, but he’s disappointed. I keep my face blank.

  Colby and his dad are in there a good fifteen minutes, while I wait for my own parents with nothing to do but scroll through my phone.

  People have written a couple things about what went down on Facebook. Mostly that Colby punched a girl. A couple girls wrote that my brother’s hot. Garrett posted a picture of Colby’s blood- and dirt-crusted face.

  My mouth finally stopped bleeding, but my jaw feels heavy as it throbs to the beat of my heart.

  Colby comes out first, his face set in anger. He and his dad sweep past me without saying a word. Mrs. McCallion calls me over with that same pissy little finger curl my dad does. She doesn’t sit at her desk, but heads for this round table by the large window off to the side. As soon as I take a seat there, the door opens and my mom walks in, followed by Johnny—who must’ve come back here right after taking Olivia home.

  I stare at my feet because Mom’s eyebrows look like they might unstick from her face and come whack me in the head. She’s alone, so I guess Johnny went to pick her up. That or she had to take a cab over, which she hates doing. She takes a seat at the table, across from me. Johnny goes to stand by a bookshelf, off to the side. He gives me a look that says, Take it and deal with it.

  Mrs. McCallion places that notebook she always has with her down on the table. “This is pretty disappointing, I have to say. I’m sure the officers made it clear that the way you and Colby chose to handle your problems was not okay.”

  “I didn’t have much of a choice—”

  Mrs. McCallion holds a hand up. I glance at my mom, at her eyes narrowed and lips pressed thin. Johnny stares at the principal like he doesn’t trust her.

  “You’ve changed quite a bit in the last couple of months, haven’t you, Penelope,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess so.”

  “Maybe this is a good opportunity for you to reflect on the changes you’ve made. Is this how you want to spend the rest of your time here at St. Peter’s? Think about that,” Mrs. McCallion says. She doesn’t seem to want an actual answer. “So that’s a ten-day suspension. And I’m seriously considering not allowing you to attend the school anniversary celebration.”

  “But, I’m on Team Three,” I say. “We worked hard on our project. It’s all ready to go.”

  Johnny has no expression, but his temples bulge.

  “Penelope, the rules are clear and if you won’t live by them, then it’s my duty to provide you with consequences.” She gives me this stern glare.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “You know we value student diversity here at St. Peter’s, but this is still a Catholic school. I can see that you’re going through something—” She points at my head. “We’ve allowed you your freedom to express yourself, but you have to understand, Penelope. It’s our responsibility to preserve the values we promote at this school. We have to respect the other students and their families.”

  “Wait—what?” I ask. When I search Johnny’s face, all I get is a massive sigh from him, like he expected this.

  “I get it, you know. Girls don’t always need to be proper young ladies—that’s not what I’m saying here,” Mrs. McCallion says. “Why not think about channeling some of this aggression into sports? Have you thought about trying out for our ringette team?”

  Ringette is girl hockey. Sliding a rubber ring around using a stick, with no body contact allowed.

  “Ringette—Ma, come on,” Johnny says. But Mom does nothing.

  “Wow,” I say. “Girl hockey. Yeah, totally. I never thought of that.”

  “Let’s not get immature about this,” Mrs. McCallion says.

  “Ma—you gonna let this happen again?” Johnny says.

  “You shut up you mouth, João!” Mom says, holding a finger up at him. To me, she says, “This you fault. I tell you no act like the punk druggy. I tell you be nice girl or bad things happen. Now look! Mãe is right, you wrong. Mãe right before, Mãe right again.”

  “Before,” I say, but that’s all that will come out. This isn’t the place to get into it, with the principal staring at me.

  “You,” Mom says to Johnny. She says she’s had it with him interfering and leading me down this dark path or something.

  “All right, now. I can appreciate that you all have things to settle outside of this,” the principal says. She explains to my mom that suspension isn’t a vacation, that I’m responsible for keeping up with my schoolwork by accessing it through the school website. “And Penelope? I’m sorry, but after the way our talk has gone, I think it would be best if you didn’t attend the school anniversary.”

  “If I wear the skirt, and if I join ringette, can I come to the school anniversary?” I say, totally not able to take the edge out of my tone.

  Johnny covers his face with his hand. Mom obviously didn’t realize what I said was snarky and rude, but Mrs. McCallion stares me down with her sour smile. “Like I said, Penelope, you might want to reflect—”

  The door whips open.

  “Duarte?” my mom says.

  My dad points a finger at the principal. “You kick my daughter outside?”

  Mrs. McCallion shakes her head like, Oh dear. “Mr. Oliveira, please. Let’s have a seat and discuss this—”

  “No, no. You listen to me. I come to this country to give my crianças the good life. I work in the factory—you know the factory?” he says, still standing by the door in his heavy jacket. Sweat beads on his forehead, right under his gray hairline. “You no throw out the good girl because she look like the tough girl and play with boys. I go to church. I have respeito. You no tell my good girl she’s a bad girl. Colby, he’s a bad boy. He got no respeito. He throw eggs at my house!”

  “Mr. Oliveira, the rules are clear. Both Penelope and Colby are suspended.” Mrs. McCallion holds a hand out, like she wants my dad to sit. “Why don’t I explain it in simpler terms for you?”

  Oh, wrong thing to say. Joh
nny and I both hold a hand up to palm our foreheads.

  “You think I need the big English words? I understand. My son tell me on the telephone. I no stupid Portuguese man. You think I’m stupid man, huh?” he says, and the principal closes her eyes. To Mom, Dad says, “Ana, vamos.”

  Mom and I rise and follow Dad out the door, Johnny behind us. He heads for his truck, while I stay with my parents. There’s only silence, but I keep glancing at Dad, wondering if he finally gets it.

  FORTY-NINE

  WHEN WE GET HOME, MY MOM THROWS HER hands up and goes right for the Virgin Mary, praying for the strength to not smack her kids over the head with a frying pan. We all end up in the hallway, standing around where we won’t be too close to each other.

  Everything unfolds in Portuguese, because my parents are doing all the talking.

  Mom says this is over as of right now.

  Dad says this is bringing shame on the family.

  Johnny laughs, and I bet it’s because Dad’s acting like we’re some Portuguese Mafia family whose reputation actually matters.

  Mom goes on about Johnny needing to back off and live his own life. Each time she’s listened to his advice, he turned out to be wrong. She says letting me do my own thing only leads to my doing stupid things.

  I say nothing.

  At this point, Mom disappears and then comes back with a bag of ice wrapped in a dish towel that she hands to me. I put it against my chin.

  Dad carries on, saying it’s not just one person’s fault that this happened; it’s everyone’s fault.

  Mom jumps back in, saying it’s not her fault. She did her best but I won’t listen. I mocked her by putting on her clothes to deliberately look stupid.

  Johnny wants to know why everyone is talking about clothes. Who cares about clothes. They should be talking about the real stuff.

  Dad tells Johnny to shut up.

  I say nothing.

  Mom says clothes matter because that’s what people see. I must think this is all a big punk druggy joke. Girls can’t decide they’re not girls anymore.

  I laugh because that’s the funniest thing: I never decided I wasn’t a girl anymore. That was everyone else assuming.