by Nancy Rue
“Tell him I’m not hungry.”
“You tell him.”
“Come on, just tell him I’m sick and I can’t eat.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m mistress of my own tongue, not yours.”
He was quiet, and I’d just about decided to run back to the kitchen before he could call me Freak Show when the door opened a crack. I could only make out Jackson’s left eye. His swollen, purple left eye. Actually, all I could really see were his eyelashes and a glob of puffed-up skin that looked like an ape’s behind.
“What—”
“Shhhhhh!”
I put my hand over my mouth and bit into one of my fingers so I wouldn’t scream.
“I can’t come out yet,” he said. “Dad’ll freak if he sees it this bad.”
I had to agree with him on that one.
“Tell him I’m sick and I’ll owe you.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
The door closed, and I heard it lock. I waited until I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up before I went to Dad.
“He coming?” Dad said.
“No. He’s . . . got issues.”
“Issues? What does that mean?”
“Body issues. He really feels bad. He just wants to rest.”
So far, I was telling the truth. Now all I could do was hold my breath.
“You can take him something later,” Dad said finally. “Let’s you and me eat.”
When he turned to get the pizza out of the oven, I saw that his back was sort of bent and he was moving way slow.
For the first time ever, I was glad he was too tired to talk.
Chapter Nine
I had a nightmare that night. That used to happen all the time until a few weeks ago. This one was full of me being chased by a guy whose whole face looked like the back end of a baboon. He was coming after me in a car that swerved all over the road, and all these people in Mr. Potato Head masks and Barbie doll heads were screaming for me to stop him. I kept running until I came to a wall, and the only way to escape was to climb over it. But I couldn’t.
When I woke up, I practically had to wring the sweat out of my pajama T-shirt, and my head was pounding like Dad was in there banging one of his big hammers. I couldn’t eat any breakfast, and I didn’t bother to pack a lunch because my stomachache was as bad as my headache. I couldn’t even count the times that had happened to me, or the times I’d gotten Dad to let me not go to school.
But Jackson was obviously staying home, and I kind of didn’t want to be there alone with him. His swollen-up face scared me. And why he had it scared me even more.
Boys who were involved in bullying got pounded, Coach said. I hoped Colin was right when he said Coach didn’t know what he was talking about.
So I dragged myself to school with my head trying to split open and my stomach so full of tight knots I could hardly stand up straight. On the way with my umbrella, I did thank God that it was raining. That meant we wouldn’t do the wall climb.
I remained mistress of my own tongue all morning, as in I didn’t talk at all, not even at first when Colin sat with me at lunch and pulled out our folder of ideas.
“I was thinking about this last night,” he said.
I nodded.
“Where’s your lunch?”
“You were thinking about my lunch last night?”
“Are you okay?” Colin searched all over my face. “No offense, but you look sick.”
“I kind of am.”
“Is it about your brother getting in a fight?”
My mouth fell open in slow motion.
“Your brother’s Jackson, right?” Colin said.
I could only nod again. My mind hadn’t caught up yet.
“My brother’s in his classes.” Colin pushed his sandwich aside so he could lean both arms on the table. I leaned, too, to hear him over the cafeteria chaos.
“He told me some kids in seventh are spreading a rumor about . . . some stuff.”
He suddenly looked like the sandwich had gone down wrong, and he couldn’t seem to look at me.
“About what?” I said. “About my mom’s accident?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to know what they’re saying.”
Colin shook his head.
“Okay, I don’t want to know, but I have to. Please?”
Colin shrugged until his shoulders went past his ears. “They’re saying your dad got drunk and drove the car, and that’s how your mom got killed.”
I covered my face with both hands.
“Aw, man. I shouldn’ta told you.”
“It’s not true,” I said through my fingers.
“Okay—”
“I was with my dad and Jackson when we got the phone call that she was in an accident.”
This could not be happening. I did everything Those Girls said and it didn’t matter. They still spread lies. To everyone. Even Jackson.
I pulled my hands down. Colin was as pink as one of Those Girls’ backpacks, and he looked as miserable as I felt.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “How did the fight start?”
Colin shook his knees back and forth under the table, vibrating the whole thing. “My brother has sixth-period P.E. with him, and some guy said that about your dad to Jackson’s face. Jackson jumped him, and they got into it in the locker room. The other guy had a bloody nose, and your brother’s eye, like, swelled up and he just left school.”
“He cut sixth period?”
“My brother told Coach that Jackson went to the nurse. He never checks that stuff.”
“Okay,” I said. “Colin?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to be sick.”
I just made it to the girls’ restroom. When I came out, I went to the nurse. She called Dad and sent me home.
Jackson was on the couch when I got there. He had a bag of frozen peas on his face, and he was watching TV with his other eye.
“What are you doing here?” he said without looking away from the old Batman cartoon.
“I heard what happened to you and I got sick.”
Yeah, not only did he turn from the TV . . . he switched it off. “It’s not your problem,” he said. “I ended it. It’s over.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s just starting.”
Jackson rolled his good eye and sat up on the couch. A paper plate that smelled like pepperoni turned over on the floor. “Look, don’t go all drama queen,” he said. “I got it handled.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Let it die!”
“Jackson . . .”
I stopped myself this time, because I heard Dad’s van pull into the driveway.
“Go!” I said.
“Go where?” Jackson said.
“To your room. So Dad doesn’t see!”
The front door opened, but Jackson just sat there.
“What’s going on?” Dad said.
His hair and shoulders were sprinkled with sawdust, which he didn’t brush off as he left the door open and came over to us. His boots left perfect mud footprints on the wood floor.
He looked at me first. “School said you were sick. What’s wrong?”
“I have a headache and a stomachache.” And a broken heart. But I didn’t say that part.
“Now I got two of you down.”
He turned to Jackson, and I considered running to my room and heading for the closet. But this whole thing was my fault. I couldn’t just leave Jackson here by himself when Dad finally realized he had gorilla buns for a face.
“What the Sam Hill?” Dad said.
“I got in a fight,” Jackson said. Just like that. Just like he was saying, “I got a B in math.”
“I guess you did. Let me see that.”
“It’s fine,” Jackson said.
But he moved the ice bag, and even though it looked better than it did last night, Dad whistled as he studied the purple mess.
He straightened back up
. “This happen yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I had to think about it.”
“You get in trouble at school for it?”
“No.”
“What does the other guy look like?”
Was Dad actually about to smile?
“Bloody nose. One guy e-mailed me and said it wasn’t broken.”
“Probably for the best. Just keep ice on it.”
Jackson plopped the bag of peas back on his face and reached for the remote. Dad turned to me. I was one big blotch, and I didn’t even bother to close my mouth.
“I know what your lady is telling you,” he said. “But eventually you’re going to have to fight back.” He jerked his thumb toward Jackson. “I don’t mean get in a fistfight. But you have to stand up for yourself. That’s it. Bottom line.”
“I have to go lie down,” I said.
“Okay.” Dad’s face got softer. “You need anything?”
I didn’t answer. But when I got almost to my room, I came back.
“Her name is Lydia,” I said.
“What?”
“My lady. Her name is Lydia. She’s telling me the truth. And she’s about the only one who is.”
I ran to my room. Just before I slammed the door, I heard Dad say to Jackson, “I just don’t know what to do with a girl.”
“Who does?” Jackson said.
All I could do until lunch the next day was count the minutes before I could see Lydia. She had lunch ready for us again—soup with all kinds of veggies in it. My stomach still hurt, but I ate some because I hadn’t put any food in it since . . . I couldn’t exactly remember.
Lydia waited until I pushed the half-full bowl away before she said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
I wasn’t sure what I could say. Tell me what truth you can, she said that first day. So I did. Very carefully.
“My brother got in a fight because of something I told Kylie that got all . . . blown up.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah. And my dad thinks he’s all wonderful because he fought back.”
“Can you control that?” Lydia said.
The question surprised me, but I had to shake my head.
“Let’s look at what you can control.”
“Not my mouth, obviously. It’s like when I’m around Kylie, stuff comes out of it that I know I shouldn’t have said before I’m even done saying it. Like the thing that started the rumor that my dad cannot find out about.”
“I see.” Lydia tapped her lips. “I have an idea, but I want to make sure you understand something first.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The bullying that happens to you is not your fault. You can, however, do some things to avoid being a target.”
“Like the Stone Face,” I said.
“Yes. Be clear, though: we’re going to change how you respond, but we’re not going to change the true you. I’m not going to say, ‘Change yourself and they’ll leave you alone.’ ” She tilted her head. “Make sense?”
“Sort of.”
“Maybe an example will help. Things come out of your mouth before you think about them.”
“Yes.”
“What if you tried to make it a habit to write down what you want to say to Kylie or her followers? You can look at it and see if you really want to say it. That slows everything down and gives you a chance to think about it.”
“Where do I write it?”
Lydia held up a finger for me to wait while she dug around in the red canvas bag. She pulled out a little notebook. It was like the spiral ones we used in science lab, only smaller. Lydia stuck a blue gel pen in the rings and handed me the whole thing.
“A gift for you,” she said.
“Thank you!” I held it in my hand like it was the Ring itself, only in a good way. “This goes along with my one-liner,” I said. “I forgot to tell it to you.”
“I want to hear.”
Lydia folded her miniature hands under her chin and looked into me like my eyes were deep pools she was trying to see into, and I almost started to cry.
“ ‘I’m mistress of my own tongue, not yours,’ ” I said. “Colin helped me with it.”
“And who is Colin?”
“A boy I know.”
The blotching started, but Lydia didn’t wink or go “ooh” or anything else that looked like, Isn’t that precious? She thinks she has a boyfriend. I loved her so much.
“Anything else you feel comfortable telling me?” she said.
I shook my head. She looked at me for a minute longer—which she did a lot, actually—and stuck her hand in the bag again. This time she pulled out the sticky notes and the green marker.
“More labels?” I said.
“This time we’re going to make the ones you put on yourself.”
“Oh.” I didn’t have to think about it that much. “Klutz. I totally am. You should see me trying to climb the wall in P.E. every day.”
“You don’t have to defend them.” Lydia stuck the Klutz label on me. “What else?”
“Smushy.”
“Smushy.”
“Not really fat, but not, like, thin as a pencil.”
“Got it. Go on.”
“Smart But Stupid-Looking. Blabbermouth.”
I was on a roll. Lydia had to write fast to keep up with Different, Not Pretty, Too Dramatic, and Hypochondriac.
Lydia lifted her eyebrow at that last one.
“My dad took me to the doctor when I first started having headaches and stomachaches, and the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I heard my dad ask him if I was a hypochondriac, and I asked Jackson what it meant. He said it’s where you think you’re sick when you’re really not because you’re a crazy person.”
Lydia closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, she said, “Since that’s a label someone else put on you, what do you say we leave it out?”
I looked down at my T-shirt, which was covered in yellow squares again. “I don’t think there’s room for any more.”
“So it looks like you bully yourself as much as everybody else does,” Lydia said. “Our next step—”
She didn’t get to finish because the door was shoved open, and it banged against the inside wall of the conference room. Heidi came in with a face the color of Lydia’s bag. She was breathing like she just ran laps for Coach. Like he would ever make her do that.
“Hey there,” Lydia said. “We’re having a meeting—”
“I know,” Heidi said with an eye roll in her voice. “I’m supposed to be here.”
“Are you sure?” Lydia said.
“Mr. Jett sent me. He said I was being ugly to someone in the lunchroom.”
How was that different from any other day?
“Let’s start with your name then,” Lydia said.
“I’m Heidi,” she said, like Lydia should have known that.
“And exactly what went down in the lunchroom that caused Mr. Jett to send you here, Heidi?”
Heidi didn’t answer. She was staring at me. Me with my squares announcing that I was a smushy, stupid-looking, annoying, dramatic, blabbermouth of a person.
As if that was news to her.
She covered her mouth with both of her hands, but I saw the snorty laughter in her eyes. The kind of laughter you don’t laugh along with because it’s meant to stab you in the stomach. Which was what was happening that very minute.
“We’re almost through with our session, Heidi.” Lydia jerked the curls toward the door. “Mr. Jett will have to reschedule you.”
“Okay!” Heidi said.
She bolted from the room, and I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before Kylie and Those Girls knew I was in here pretending to be a bulletin board.
When Lydia turned back to me, I was already ripping the labels off.
“I’m sorry that happened,” Lydia said. “How are you
going to handle it next period?”
“Does it even matter?” I said.
“I think it does.”
I plunked myself into my chair with the sticky notes wadded in my hand.
“What if they never stop?”
“What if you let them keep getting to you?” Lydia put her hand up. “The steps work, Ginger. But not overnight. Do you trust me?”
I had to nod.
“Then give it a go. What will you do?”
“Stone Face,” I said.
“And?”
“Assertive response.”
“Right. And?”
I looked at the sticky clump of paper in my hand. “Don’t believe the labels?”
“Not even the ones you put on yourself.” Lydia came close to me and looked into my eyes again, even deeper this time. “This should work. But something really disturbing is happening that you’re not telling me about, and it’s affecting your health. We can do all these things, but I can’t stand by and watch that, Ginger. We’re going to give it a few more days, but if we can’t get results, I’m going to have to help you more than you seem to want me to.”
“Because you have to.”
“Because I want to. Because I love you.”
I Saved the Tears until I got to the restroom, but I didn’t cry. I stood in front of the mirror until I got my Stone Face on.
Assertive response at the ready, I told myself as I went to the Spanish room. Don’t believe that you’re a stupid bullhorn. Write it down before you say it.
When I got to my desk, I pulled out my special present from Lydia. Kylie appeared next to me, just as she had the other day. I put a protective hand over the notebook and pretended to focus on the assignment Mrs. Bernstein was writing on the dry-erase board.
“Ginger!” Kylie said.
I just looked at her.
“Heidi says that woman’s class is fascinating.” She leaned across the aisle, smiling the Barbie smile. “I wish you didn’t have to act mean to get in there.”
“Kylie.”
We both looked up at Mrs. Bernstein. She was paused at the board with a black marker in her hand. The eyebrows were in a sharp V.
“What?” Kylie said.
“You’re so much better than that.”
She would have sent anybody else to Lydia’s class. What did Kylie get? Practically nothing.
But when I looked over at Kylie, her eyes were stung, like she’d just been sentenced to a life of acne.