by Nancy Rue
Tori and Kylie were the first pair of girls to go. Those Girls screamed for Kylie, while Tori’s team jumped up and down going, “You got this, Tori! Go!” I was afraid to cheer for one team and refused to cheer for the other.
Tori won, and her team went nuts. I tried to swallow the miserable glob in my throat, but my stomach wasn’t having it.
Two boys went next, then two more girls . . . until the only pair left was Winnie and me.
I was paralyzed. Seriously. I could not move.
“You can so do this,” said a husky voice in my ear.
Mitch saying that was the only reason I went to the wall. And the fact that Winnie was obviously as terrified as I was made me reach up, find a place to put my hands, and then fumble my foot around until it landed on something below. I had never seen Winnie so pale.
She looked over at me, and I nodded at her. She nodded back and closed her eyes.
“It isn’t gonna happen that way!” Coach barked. “If you two go any faster, you’ll actually start moving!”
I tried to force myself to reach higher, but my hand wouldn’t budge.
“Left hand straight up!” I heard Mitch yell.
I tried that. My hand landed on something, but my palm was so sweaty, it slipped. Panicked, I clung to whatever I could, but it all slid out from under me and I landed on my back on the mat. The sky spun above me.
“Get up!” girls were screaming.
All but Mitch. I heard her husky voice yell, “You can’t do it either, Winnie, so you might as well quit now!”
I sat straight up on the mat and stared at Mitch. I couldn’t look at Winnie. I knew she’d be dripping down the wall like rain. Mitch actually said that to her?
Evidently so, because Coach jabbed his finger at Mitch and his neck veins bulged like ropes. “To the office, Iann!” he screamed at her.
“Hey.” Mrs. Zabriski left Winnie clinging to the wall about four feet up and hurried over to Coach. “We’re supposed to send bullies to that lunchtime lady, remember?”
“Whatever.” Coach’s eyebrows did that hood thing. “Iann, you’re doing that lunch thingy in the library. And a zero for the day. Now, all of you, hit the locker rooms!”
The whole class bolted like they couldn’t wait to get inside; I trailed along behind. Whatever was going on, I couldn’t get involved in it. But what was happening? First, Ophelia in Spanish class Friday, and now Mitch? I should start a new list: Things That Don’t Make Any Sense to Me.
Second period was like an enormous beehive with everyone buzzing. I kept my head down and my Stone Face on.
In third period, Mrs. Collier-Callahan had us doing equations on the board. When Tori went up there, I got ready to copy down whatever she did. She was the smartest girl in that class. But when Mrs. C-C gave her x + 3 = 6, she wrote 3 = 6 – x. Then she erased it and put 3 = x – 6.
At that point, Winnie started giggling. It wasn’t the silver bell I thought was so pretty. It was an I’m-making-fun-of-you laugh that didn’t sound like Winnie and just didn’t stop, even after Mrs. C-C gave her one of those looks that made you feel like she was shooting nails out of her eyes.
Tori turned from the board, one hand on her hip.
“She’s making me feel awful,” she said.
Actually, in that wooden voice, she could have been saying, “She’s making me a smoothie,” but Mrs. C-C snapped her fingers at Winnie.
“That’s unkind, Winnie, and I’m surprised at you. I think you need a little tune-up. Report to the library at lunch.”
Winnie ducked her head and nodded. I waited for her to burst into tears, but what I heard instead was Tori saying, “Ha-ha.” Kind of like kids did on playgrounds in first grade.
“Honestly!” Mrs. C-C said. “Is there a full moon?”
I didn’t know what that had to do with it, but something was definitely really wrong.
“This isn’t a punishment, ladies,” Mrs. C-C said as she filled out a slip at her desk. “When you act that way, something is going on with you and you may need some help figuring out what that is. Although—I have to say I’m a bit confused.”
I was too. I glanced at Kylie, and I thought her face was what you call smug.
I guess I was what you call slow because it didn’t dawn on me until we were all gathered in the conference room in the library with Lydia—Tori, Mitch, Ophelia, Winnie, and me—that they’d done it on purpose. It had taken me all morning to figure it out. It took Lydia about five seconds.
“Did you do what I think you did?” she said. She was smileless.
“We had to talk to you,” Tori said to me. “And we couldn’t figure out any other way.”
“You took a hit for the team, I’ll give you that,” Lydia said. “But there will be no more of this, do you understand? You’re the leaders of this movement. If you mess around with it, everybody will think it’s just a joke.”
“Sorry,” Ophelia said. She was already taking the end of her braid to her mouth. “But as long as we’re here”—she turned to me—“can we talk, please?”
There was nothing more in the whole world I wanted to do. Why couldn’t I? Here in this secret room with nobody else listening? Where Lydia said whatever was shared in here stayed in here?
I even opened my mouth. But my next thought was, then what? It couldn’t change what would happen outside the room. If I hung out with them, there wouldn’t just be rumors on Twitter. Everybody would know what Those Girls were saying, and it wouldn’t matter if it was true or not. It would hurt my dad so bad. And my brother. And me.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why?” Ophelia said.
“Ladies.” Lydia put her tiny hand up. “If Ginger isn’t ready to talk, we shouldn’t force her. Why don’t we all have a seat and make the best of the time we have?”
Everyone found a chair around the table. There were no snacks, and it sure wasn’t Tori’s kitchen, but that wasn’t the only thing that made it seem all different and wrong.
“It’s clear to me,” Lydia said, “that Kylie’s bullying days are not yet over. She’s just gone underground.”
I tried not to gasp out loud. Did she know about the Twitter thing? And the e-mail to me?
But she went on. “So I think Step One in the Five-Step Plan Ginger’s using applies to all of us.”
She nodded at me. I didn’t have to look at the sheet because I had them memorized.
“Find a one-line assertive response to bullies.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Ophelia said.
Mitch grunted.
My stomach ached.
“Assertive,” Lydia said, “means you know who you are and you don’t let anyone take that away from you.”
“So it’s not power over, it’s power to,” Tori said.
“Just like you taught us,” Winnie said.
“Right. So a one-line assertive response is a sentence you have at the ready that shows that.”
“Example,” Mitch said.
“Here’s mine when someone says something snarky about my size.” Lydia straightened up in the chair. “ ‘It’s all about what I do with what I’ve been given.’ ”
“Oh,” Tori said. “I think I get it. Mine’s ‘I’m geeked out and proud of it.’ ”
“You said that to Kylie!” I said.
Lydia tilted her head. “And what happened?”
Tori blinked. “Nothing. She dropped it.”
“Exactly,” Lydia said.
“I got mine,” Mitch said. “It’s ‘Wow.’ ”
“That’s it?” Winnie said.
“Yeah. Somebody puts me down, I go, ‘Wow.’ What are they gonna say, right?”
Lydia grinned. “We’ll work on that. Anybody else?”
It took all of lunch, but Ophelia found hers: “You definitely have a right to your opinion.” And so did Winnie: “I like being me.”
I, of course, was the only person who didn’t discover one. Lydia said that was okay. It would come to me
.
“Will you tell us what it is when you find it?” Tori said when the bell rang to end lunch.
Yes! I wanted to say. But how? I shrugged, and as I watched them all leave the library with Tori looking back once at me, I felt like I’d lost absolutely everything.
“Are you sure about this, Ginger?” Lydia said.
“No,” I said. “But I don’t have a choice.”
I felt a small hand on my shoulder.
“Oh, my friend,” she said. “You always have a choice.”
Maybe it was the sudden sending of people to Lydia that stopped the bullying on Tuesday. Or maybe it was because Winnie, Tori, and Ophelia insisted on apologizing to the classes they “bullied” in. Mitch wanted to do it in P.E., but Coach said that was a waste of time, so she did it in the locker room, standing up on a bench. Just about everybody listened.
But people obviously hadn’t forgotten about the Twitter rumor. They weren’t saying anything to me, probably because they didn’t want to give up their lunch freedom, but the slitty eyes that said Your mom got in a car with a drunk driver? Who does that? and the scrunched foreheads that called out to me We’ve known about drunk driving since we were, like, seven. Was your mom clueless? and the folded lips that shouted You must be just like your mom, then, right? was all still there. It was so loud I could hardly hear Lydia’s voice in my head: You always have a choice. If she knew the whole story, would she still say that?
One thing did help me quiet all of it down, and that was trying to think of my one-line assertive response, just in case somebody did say one of those things—or worse—out loud. I started a list, but they all made me want to stick a label that said Lame right in the middle of my forehead.
You don’t even know anything about it. That was fighting back.
Yeah, well, your mom’s so skinny, Kylie, she’s probably anorexic. That was turning into a bully myself.
Nothing you say can hurt me. That wasn’t even true. Lydia even said it to us once. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.
I wasn’t any closer to a one-liner when I got to fifth period on Tuesday, and I didn’t have time to think about it then because Colin and I were on Step Three: Discover what the story is about and state it in one sentence.
“So, it’s not the plot,” Colin said as we sat with our copies of The Lord of the Rings open and our chins in our hands. “That’s Frodo trying to get the Ring to Mordor so he can destroy it. We have to figure out what the story is.”
“I don’t have a clue,” I said. Which had to mean I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.
“I don’t either,” Colin said.
“May I offer some assistance?”
I just about bobbed my head off as Mr. Devon sat down across from us. He was rubbing his hands together again, like the next few moments were going to be delicious.
“Who is our protagonist?” he said.
“Is that the same as the main character?” I said.
“Correct.”
“Frodo,” Colin said. “Right?”
“Some would argue, but I happen to agree.” Mr. Devon pressed his hand flat against his chest. “And what does Frodo learn from his journey?”
“That all who wander are not lost?” Colin said.
My all-time fave quote. If I had been Mitch, I would have high-fived him. She always used to do that with me.
“Can you dig deeper?” Mr. Devon said.
I closed my eyes and tried to see Frodo as he stood with the Ring in his hand, not being able to let go of it because the evil was getting power over him. I held back a cry as I watched Sam do it for him. That scene always made my heart hurt.
“One person can’t destroy the power of evil alone?” I said.
“Brilliant!” Mr. Devon said.
Colin gave me the whole smile. “Totally brilliant.”
“That’s the right answer?” I said.
“It’s your answer,” Mr. Devon said, “and in my opinion you ought to run with it.”
He gave us a silent clap and slipped off to deal with some kids who were making noise at another table. Armpit noise, to be exact. I looked at Colin, who was writing on the big piece of paper we’d been brainstorming on. He really was different. Right now, he was the only kid I could even talk to. But . . .
I turned my face away. He only hung out with me at lunch because of the project. When it was done April 14, he’d be gone and I’d be alone again.
“You okay?” he said.
When I looked back at him, I realized my eyes were blurry.
“Allergies?” he said.
“No,” I said, because I was tired of not telling the whole truth. “I’m sad.”
Colin nodded back his silky hair. “Yeah. I feel that way a lot. I know this sounds weird, but I think I’m Frodo sometimes. Not for real, but, you know.”
“I do,” I said.
His face was going pink, and I was on Blotch Number One. We both looked at the big piece of paper and talked at the same time.
“Now we have to do Step Four . . . is this like applying it to us? This is epic . . . we could start with . . .”
Colin did the halfway grin and pointed at me. “You go first.”
I put my hand to my neck and felt the blotch cool. “It’s like I’m living this all the time. I got bullied, and I had friends who helped me. And then the bullies made it so I can’t be with my friends, and I want to fight the bullying, but I’m by myself again.” I had to swallow down tears. “And now I really know I can’t do it alone.”
Colin was staring at the paper, not saying anything.
“I guess that’s just a girl thing,” I said. “Don’t boys just pound each other and it’s over? That’s what Coach said. Not that I believe everything he says.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Colin’s voice broke off at the end of his words like it sometimes did. “I’ve never gotten hit or anything. I just have to listen to them call me a Freak and a Geek and say I’m gay.”
“But you ignore it,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t hear it.”
I nodded into the quiet. “Don’t you want to tie their tongues in a knot sometimes?”
He half smiled. “That’s good. I guess I do. The only thing is . . . well, this is what Mr. Devon told me: I’m master of my own tongue, not theirs.”
Something shifted inside me, like an old thing was being shoved aside by a new thing.
“Will you say that again?”
“What?”
“That part about your tongue.”
“I’m master of my own tongue, not theirs,” Colin said.
“Could I borrow that?”
“Yeah. But what for?”
“A one-line assertive response.”
Colin moved his lips as if he were trying that out on his mind. Then he wrote on the paper and said, “You’d have to say it this way.”
In purple marker he’d written, I am mistress of my own tongue, not yours.
“I love it. So. Much,” I said.
“Hey,” Colin said.
“What?”
“I think we just came up with our life lesson.”
“You mean, like, we can’t stop the evil of bullying by ourselves.”
“Yeah. And we can’t change the bullies themselves. I mean, right? Sauron didn’t change. Or Morgoth.”
“Sam and Frodo just had to get past everybody.”
Colin’s face got serious, and he looked at me, totally without turning red.
“This is going to be epic,” he said.
I believed him. And that felt good. Even if it might only be until April 14.
Jackson didn’t walk home four feet behind me that afternoon. In fact, he somehow got there before I did and was already in his cave with the door shut. He’d put a sign on it that said: Don’t Even Knock. I Don’t Want To Talk.
How could we be brother and sister and be so different? He almost never wanted to talk abou
t stuff, and I always wanted to, whether there was anything to really say or not. Of course, now that I knew I was mistress of my own tongue, I might not have to be wagging it all the time.
Still, I felt lonely, and I practically knocked Dad over when he came in the front door from work. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my head in his shirt and squeezed.
“You okay?” Dad said.
“I’m just glad to see you.”
“Glad to see you too, but I’m all sweaty and dirty.”
“I don’t care,” I said. But I let go because I knew he wanted me to. Hugging was hard for him.
“You do your homework?” Dad said as I followed him into the kitchen.
“Yes, sir.”
Dad stopped, hand on the lunch box he was setting on the counter. “When did you start calling me ‘sir’?”
“Today,” I said.
“Huh. Where’s your brother?”
“In his room.”
“Go tell him dinner’s ready in fifteen. I’m too tired to cook. You mind frozen pizza?”
Actually, I kind of wanted hummus and pita and baby carrots. I didn’t say that, of course. What I did say was, “Do I have to talk to Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“He’s in a bad mood.”
“So, what else is new?” Dad said into the freezer.
“No, really bad.”
“Just knock on his door and tell him I said to be at the table in fifteen minutes.”
“But there’s a sign—”
“Ginger.” Dad closed his eyes. “Can’t handle this tonight. Just do it.”
Okay, so I had to. But I wasn’t going to be responsible for the big meltdown that was about to happen. Jackson would say, Can’t you read? and I would say, Can’t you hear? and then he would say . . .
I stopped in front of his door. I did know what Jackson was going to say, and whatever I said wasn’t going to stop him. Was this what it meant? My one-liner?
I didn’t knock because the sign said not to. And I wasn’t going to make him talk either.
“Jackson?” I said. “Dad says dinner’s in fifteen minutes.”