by Bridget Farr
“Ready or not, here we come.” I hope all my fake courage will churn up some real confidence. “We do have four hundred twenty seven followers now on Instagram since we posted your photo.”
Jamiya nods. “Mr. Franklin’s announcement got even more people fired up. Lots of kids were asking about it. I saw like twenty people had it on their phones.”
“Good,” I say, sitting down beside her, needing a minute to soak it all in. Daniela stares at the whiteboard as though it contains a lemon juice message she has to burn with her eyeballs to reveal. “Everyone knows the plan, so now we just wait.”
“And you’re really okay with getting in trouble?” Jamiya asks. “You were only in ISS one day, and it freaked you out so much you ran a school-wide protest.”
“They can’t really get us all in trouble, can they? How would they suspend that many kids,” I say, turning to Daniela. “Right?”
“Hey, everybody, huddle up!” Marcus calls before she can answer. We crowd into a tight circle, like a football team under the bright Friday night lights. The Kings stand side by side, a double commanding presence.
“You all heard Mr. Franklin today,” Marcus says, his arms crossed over his chest. “Anyone who participates in tomorrow’s protest could end up in lunch detention or even suspended.”
“They’re not really going to suspend all of us,” Elman says. I’m glad to hear other people thinking the same as I am.
Marcus shakes his head. “We don’t know what they’ll do, but we do know this.” He turns to Mikey, who reads from his phone.
“Any student receiving suspension, either in-school or homebound, is not permitted to participate in any district extracurricular activities, including but not limited to, sporting events, musical or theatrical performances, or academic competitions, during the duration of their suspension.”
The room stills at “academic competitions.” That’s us. That’s Quiz Bowl.
“This weekend is the first official competition, and we know what happened in the preseason meet. We got thrashed,” Marcus continues, as everyone groans, remembering the pain of that loss. “For us eighth graders, this is our last chance to be champions. Our final opportunity to have a perfect season. We’re not saying you can’t walk out, but it’s on you if you do. You have to decide your priority. Is it Quiz Bowl?”
He stares down each one of us, and every team member nods their head at his gaze. Everyone except Jamiya, who’s watching with her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed.
“You girls know we got your back,” Mikey says. “But we’re not walking out. It’s not worth the risk.”
“Then how do you have our back?” Jamiya asks, stepping forward, out of the circle.
“We agree the dress code is unfair,” Sean says, scratching his cheek. “We just can’t risk getting suspended. Not after last time.” The rest of the team nods, muttering about how stupid it would be to walk out. Someone even says the protest itself is stupid.
“So you’ll only have our back when it’s convenient?” Jamiya locks eyes with Mikey. “When it’s easy?”
I step up beside her. “Just two weeks ago you said you would help us, and now this is a hundred eighty–degree turn. Protesting with us is the least you could do for the girls on this team, considering—”
“Considering what?” Marcus asks, looking down at me.
“Considering how you treat us.”
The room breaks into shouts. Suddenly, the door pushes open, and Mr. Shao hurries in carrying a stack of copies and a half-eaten apple.
“You all better get practicing,” Mr. Shao says, dropping the papers onto his desk. “Depending how tomorrow goes, Mr. Franklin might cancel all clubs for the rest of the week.”
“What? No way!” the team shouts.
“So I’d stop wasting time with whatever you’re doing and get those buzzers going.”
Sean jumps up and grabs the box of buzzers even though that’s technically my job now. All the boys move to help him set up, or at least make themselves look busy. Marcus leans toward Jamiya and me. “You want to march, march. But you know the consequences.” He turns and shouts, “Mikey, read the first matchup.”
Mikey starts to call names for the first round of practice competition. I don’t listen as I follow Daniela and Jamiya back to our seats.
“Got our back, yeah right,” Jamiya mutters as she grabs her flash cards.
“You’re still going to do it, right?” I ask.
“Yes,” Jamiya says, surprised I even asked. “I knew what could happen; I’m not a flake.”
Then I see it in Daniela’s face. The crease in her forehead and the way her dark eyes keep sweeping past me, avoiding my eyes. She’s looked like this before, once when she could only invite one friend to sleep over at her house for her birthday, and she picked her cousin instead of me. And another time when she chose to go to the coed Catholic summer camp when she was ten and I was still nine and only able to go to the girls-only camp. It’s the look of betrayal.
“Daniela, you’re still going to walk out tomorrow, right?”
She starts to shake her head no.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry, Margie, but I can’t.”
“Are you worried because of what Mikey and Marcus said? Because I don’t think they can actually suspend all of us for protesting. Not with this many people part of it.”
“But we’re not just part of it. We planned it.”
“Which is why we have to be there!”
“I still support the protest. I’m just not going to march.”
I scoff. “Marching is the protest. What are you going to do? Hold your poster up in the classroom where no one will see it?”
Jamiya puts a hand on Daniela’s shoulder. “If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. You don’t have to explain; you just have to be sure of your decisions.”
I ignore Jamiya. She might not need an explanation, but I do. “You knew we could get in trouble for this. It’s not news. It’s the first thing Gloria said when we asked her!”
“Yes,” she argues, pretending to shuffle through her own flash cards. “We both knew what was going to happen. And if you’re willing to get suspended and lose your chance of being on Quiz Bowl, that’s up to you. You’re the one who was so upset about getting dress coded in the first place, but you can’t be mad that I’m not willing to get suspended over this.”
“So it’s okay if I get in trouble, but not you?”
“Yes,” she says, looking over at Jamiya with a look I don’t understand.
“What? Tell me!” I ask, furious that she’s backing out when I need her the most.
“I’m sorry, Margie, but you heard Mr. Franklin and the Kings. We each have to decide what our priority is. You’ll decide. Gloria will decide. Jamiya will decide. I’ve made my decision. I haven’t worked this hard to get on the Quiz Bowl team just to get kicked off before our first match.”
“But you don’t even know if we’ll get in trouble.”
“I know you won’t.”
“I’ve already gotten in trouble for dress code,” I argue. “I was suspended if you don’t remember.”
Jamiya watches our fight behind her flash cards.
“You were suspended once, but think about Gloria. Think about the other girls in ISS. Latina and Black girls get singled out and punished all the time. And I can’t risk that. I’ve worked too hard to prove that I deserve to be on the team.”
“Quiet in the back,” Sean calls from the podium, and I pull Daniela’s arm so we’re sitting side by side.
“You can’t quit now,” I whisper, and she twists out of my grasp.
“Daniela!” Marcus calls. “Replace Xavier. He’s got a bloody nose.”
“Wait,” I say, grabbing her arm, but she yanks away. She doesn’t look back as she crosses to her seat at the table.
“Another person just sent me your post,” Jamiya says, holding her phone out. I look at the name I don’t recognize. Even with 427 followers
I still feel alone when one of them isn’t Daniela.
Chapter 20
Grandma made stir-fry. “Stir-fry,” with air quotes. The first time Grandma said she was making stir-fry, a few weeks after she moved in, I freaked out because I love all kinds of stir-fry: cashew chicken, crispy sesame beef, shrimp pad thai. I love the variety of vegetables, especially the snow peas, and all the spices. Dad says he’s too lazy to make any stir-fry at home since he doesn’t want to chop vegetables, but whenever we get Chinese takeout, it’s what I order. Every time.
I should have been suspicious. I should have thought, hmm, how would my Irish grandma know how to make a stir-fry when she normally makes roast and cabbage and the most delicious soda bread. It wasn’t stir-fry. It’s still not stir-fry. Instead, Grandma has boiled vegetables in cream of mushroom soup. I spoon another bite of mush into my mouth. It doesn’t taste bad; it’s just not what I was expecting.
Like getting a cinnamon-flavored jelly bean when you thought it was cherry.
Like when you expect your best friend to have your back, and she picks Quiz Bowl over you.
Like stir-fry that is actually stew.
Across from me, Grandma eats in silence, occasionally pausing to jostle her dentures with her tongue. It doesn’t gross me out anymore. Dad is sneaking glances at his phone because even though he’s the one who set the no technology at dinner policy, he’s the one always breaking it to answer work messages. Grandma huffs when she sees him, so he moves his phone to his lap like all the kids at school. He glances down between bites.
“I got a call from your school today, Margie-Moo,” Dad says, his eyes back to me for the moment. “A robocall. What do you know about this protest?”
Stew glops off my spoon back into my bowl. He wouldn’t be asking if they called and told him it was me. The account doesn’t have my name anyway. Dad would recognize my skirt if he saw the post, but Mr. Franklin wouldn’t. Unless someone turned me in. I wonder if Jamiya and Gloria are having this same conversation with their parents tonight.
“Margie?” Dad prods.
“What?”
“You mean, ‘Beg your pardon,’” Grandma corrects.
“Beg your pardon?” I say, even though, Oh my gosh, seriously, Grandma. Not now.
“The call said some students are planning a protest at school tomorrow, and I’m supposed to advise you not to do it.”
“Okay,” I say, burying a mushroom beneath a pile of rice.
“It didn’t say what they were protesting.”
I shrug. “I heard it’s about the dress code.” He’ll just keep pushing if I don’t give him something.
“That seems like an odd thing to protest,” Dad says as he taps on his phone.
“No, it’s not.”
Dad cocks his head. “Well, it’s not like the Parkland kids protesting gun violence. And those were high schoolers. What do kids even want to wear that they can’t already? Crop tops?”
I roll my eyes, as if the protest were just about wanting to show my belly button. Then Dad looks at me, really looks at me, the way he did the time I stole ten dollars off his nightstand so I could buy Girl Scout cookies. The X-raying-my-soul kind of stare.
“Dress code, huh?” he says, all fake breezy and casual. “You had a lot of feelings about the dress code.”
I don’t take the bait. “I’m fine.”
“Hmm…”
“What’s bad about the dress code?” Grandma interrupts, a spot of stew staining the embroidered collar of her blouse.
“It’s sexist for one thing,” I mutter, unable to stop myself.
“Aha! So you do have an opinion!” Dad slaps the table with both hands in triumph.
“Why doesn’t the school have uniforms?” Grandma asks. “Nice slacks for the boys and skirts for the girls.”
“Because skirts distract boys, according to the dress code, Grandma.” The fire that’s been fueling my engines all week begins to blaze. I stare right into Dad’s eyes and give him the X-ray look this time.
“Margie,” Dad says, leaning toward me. Do I tell him? I don’t know. I can’t trust that he won’t try to stop me if I do. I don’t know if he’s 100 percent on my side like Jamiya’s mom. Worst-case scenario, he could keep me home from school so I couldn’t participate. “Is there something you want to tell me? Your principal said there would be serious consequences for anyone involved.”
“Young girls shouldn’t get in trouble,” Grandma says, shaking her head.
Young girls are trouble.
“No,” I say as I set my spoon in my bowl. “I know a protest is happening and that’s it.”
Dad raises an eyebrow. “This is your chance to be honest with me.” His eyes drop to his phone for a millisecond, and now I definitely won’t say anything. I’m not his priority anymore—his stupid job is. He wouldn’t have time to listen to me anyway.
“May I be excused?” I ask, standing up and whisking my plate off the table before Dad has a chance to answer.
At nine o’clock, when I’m supposed to be falling asleep, I sneak my phone out of the kitchen so I can call Daniela. It’s too late, and her parents won’t be happy, but I have to talk to her. After four rings, her mom picks up.
“¿Bueno?”
“Buenas noches, Señora Jaimes,” I say, ready to use the lie I already made up. “I’m sorry it’s late, but can I talk to Daniela? It’s a homework emergency.”
Daniela’s parents are serious about grades, way more than Dad is. He’s all, “Do your best, and if your best isn’t an A, that’s okay!” Daniela’s parents are “Do your best. Period.”
“¿Una emergencia de tarea?” her mom asks, and then a long sentence in Spanish I don’t understand.
“Por favor,” I ask. “¿Un minuto?”
Because really, I only need a minute.
“Sí, pero no se demorren. It’s very late.” She must be really mad if she’s using English with me. The phone goes quiet, the only sound the TV in the background as her mom passes through the house.
“Margie?” Daniela asks, and my breath sails out of my mouth.
“Are you sure you won’t do it?” I whisper so Dad doesn’t hear me.
Daniela sighs. “We already talked about this.”
“I know, it’s just…” I pause, looking across the room at the desk drawer where my homemade “Live Oak Code Breakers” shirt lies hidden beneath last year’s Quiz Bowl study guides. “I don’t think I can do this without you.”
“I’ll be at school tomorrow.”
“You know it’s not the same. I don’t get it. Why won’t you do it?”
“I can’t, Margie.”
“Please.”
“If you thought about somebody other than yourself for a minute, Margie, you would know why I can’t do it.”
Her words punch like an atom bomb in my stomach, the radiation diffusing through my veins and scrambling my brains. Is there a truth everyone knows except me, like I’m the emperor standing naked in the street? Have I been missing it this whole time, a protective coating that shields me from trouble just because I’m white?
“Okay,” I manage to whisper. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chapter 21
I’m roasting in my coral-red cardigan, each button closed, all the way up to the very top. This morning as I slurped my Frosted Flakes, Grandma Colleen said, “You look like such a classy young woman.” She didn’t know that below the sweater was a shirt that said “Code Breakers” in black Sharpie.
We only have a few minutes left in sixth period, and I try not to make eye contact with Mr. Kadura, who keeps staring at all the girls in the room, his wild eyebrows furrowing. Maybe he can sense what’s about to happen with his teacher Spidey senses. Maybe the teachers already know.
Beside me, two girls dig in their backpacks, their hands patting the shirts they are hiding as they wait for the moment to change. Who knows how many people in this room have a T-shirt underneath their hoodie or stuffed into their backpack, j
ust waiting for their superhero transformation? Somewhere in the eighth-grade building, Jamiya’s posters hide between the folders and notebooks in her backpack like a stick of dynamite ready to explode. If we were at the airport, they would never let us through security with such flammable materials.
The seconds tick by, the moments counting down until this whole thing is out of my hands. Mr. Kadura rambles on about our upcoming web design project, and I avoid eye contact since I might start to smile or laugh because I’m nervous.
Then it happens. The bell rings, a sound so familiar and suddenly so life-changing. The students burst out Mr. Kadura’s door, and I follow behind, slowly unbuttoning my sweater to reveal the homemade shirt. In the hallways, a smaller than usual amount of kids walk straight to their next class, their heads down as they plow through the anticipation filling the hall. Ten to twenty kids hover in the hallway. We should be going to our classes. We should be stopping at the water fountain. We should be lining up outside the classroom doors. The teachers are starting to notice something is wrong. They look at one another’s doors, shaking their heads, their mouths forming words I don’t have time to decipher. Mr. Kadura quickly types on his phone.
A group of girls rushes into the bathroom, their backpacks colliding as they try to squeeze in the blue metal door. I race in behind them, and someone offers me the open stall so I can change first. My jeans get stuck on my shoes, but I yank them off. The navy tulle is smooth underneath my fingers as I pull on the skirt that started it all. Once changed, I burst out the bathroom doors, charging through the crowded hallway toward the library, our meetup spot. The hallway is crammed with kids now, so many that I can barely squeeze past. The grades are starting to blend as we move toward the center of the school, a mix of boys and girls, diverse in every way.
I keep looking for Daniela even though she’s in Ms. Anthony’s class already, waiting for the commotion to start. I wonder how many kids will be waiting with her. Any? I scan the crowd for Gloria, knowing at least she’ll be here to help lead the charge. I might have put the kindling on the fire, but she’s the lighter fluid.