by Beth Turley
“Get away from my stuff,” Kimmy orders. She pulls the bag away from me and shoves what looks like a photo inside.
“I’m sorry. I was looking for something.”
“You’re such a freak. I heard you talking to yourself.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” My answer makes her look at me funny.
“Why did you have to beat me again, Hannah? I needed to make it to nationals. I’m good enough. And you still had to beat me.” She puts her bag onto her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. It’s like the vocabulary in my brain dictionary disappears, and all I’m left with are the apologizing words.
Kimmy clenches her jaw and goes for the door.
“And you better not try to blame me for what’s in there.”
“What?”
Kimmy points to the stall she came from, and walks out.
“Colder!” Penny screams before the door swings shut completely. She’s muffled like she’s shouting into a tunnel. Or from the inside of a backpack.
My arms and legs feel like they’re buzzing when I open the stall door. There’s writing on the wall ahead. A note on tile.
GO AWAY, HANNAH.
Other Struggles
I don’t go inside when I get home from school. Instead I go to the backyard and lie in the grass. The air is cool, but the sun is warm on my face. I keep my eyes closed until I hear someone sit next to me.
“It’s a little chilly, isn’t it?” Dad remarks.
“There’s not much time left to lie outside. Winter is almost here.”
“That’s true.” Dad lies down next to me. I turn my head to the side and take in his pine-tree smell. The newest bulletin from Mrs. Bloom is folded in Dad’s hand.
“The police are talking to your class tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yeah. Mrs. Bloom thinks it will make us all really listen,” I answer.
“It will, Hannah. Seeing an officer is going to make someone come forward. This will all be over soon.”
“I hope so.”
Dad reaches out and rubs my arm. I squeeze my eyes tight. His hand is the same one that builds houses and used to tuck me in and almost hurt Mom. How can I like and hate something so much at the same time?
“I love you, Hannah. And I’m so proud of you.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
I think that life is like one of those activity books. Some days are a crossword puzzle where you try to think of the right words. Others are a maze with one million dead ends.
“Want to help me set up the new TV?” Dad asks.
“Okay.”
If this were a story, most of my days would be a match game, where you find pictures that go together. The picture of the astronauts matches with a scared Hannah. Lying with Dad in the backyard connects to a Hannah with hope.
• • •
Officer Riana stands in front of our classroom in full uniform. It’s hard not to stare at the gun tucked into her belt. She clears her throat.
“Now, I know your teacher talked to you about this and so did your counselor. But it seems like the message hasn’t quite gotten across.” She eyes the pledge on the back wall.
Officer Riana’s shiny brown ponytail swings when she paces in front of us. She holds her fingers in her belt loops.
“Bullying is serious. It’s not cool or funny. It’s not okay anywhere, and especially not at school.”
The room is so quiet that her voice lingers after she’s done speaking, like the rings that ripple out when a raindrop hits a puddle.
“I’m going to tell you why this needs to stop. Everyone close your eyes.”
We all obey Officer Riana. At least I think we do. It’s hard to say. My eyes are closed.
“Keeping your eyes closed, raise your hand if you’re struggling with something right now. Your schoolwork or your friends or an activity. Anything.”
I hesitate but raise my hand.
“Now open your eyes.”
I open up to a classroom full of raised hands. Courtney and Rebecca and Theo and Katherine and Joanie. Kimmy. Everyone has admitted to having hard things going on. Other struggles.
“Imagine if on top of that problem you’re dealing with, you were also being bullied,” Officer Riana says. I don’t have to imagine too much. She’s describing my story. The real one.
“It’s also against the rules. That’s why I’m here, because it’s my job to stop the rules from being broken and people from getting hurt. Whoever did this, it’s time to come forward. Because eventually we’re going to find out.”
Officer Riana looks toward Mrs. Bloom and nods. Mrs. Bloom walks her out. There’s usually a moment after a guest speaker leaves when we all start chattering, getting our words out before class starts again. But not this time.
Mrs. Bloom looks exhausted when she gets back to the whiteboard, like she hasn’t slept since someone started dropping notes in her classroom. I feel bad about that because she really is a nice teacher, who picks good books for us to read and buys ice cream sandwiches when we memorize our times tables.
“We were very close to canceling your pen pal field trip tomorrow,” she says.
Everyone groans and gasps. Mrs. Bloom puts up her hand.
“We’re still going, because it’s important for you to visit the middle school. But if this bullying continues, there will be consequences. Now take out your math books.”
I look at the first math problem on the page.
If 4+A=7, what does A equal?
A equals Ashley, and I get to meet her tomorrow. She won’t know me as the girl who made the police come to school. I can just be her pen pal, the girl made of words.
From Hannah’s Pages of “Lost in the Funhouse”
“It is perfectly normal. We have all been through it. It will not last forever.”
Counselor’s Notes: Wednesday, November 4
Name: Joanie Lawson
Grade: Five
Reason for visit: There was a mention of Joanie in a note collected by teacher about the bullying against Hannah Geller.
Demeanor: Joanie has nervous tendencies. Nail-biting, fidgeting, braid-twirling. Consistent with behavior from a session at the beginning of the school year, when she revealed an incident that had occurred over the summer during a movie night.
Visit: Transcript follows.
COUNSELOR: How have things been, Joanie?
STUDENT: The same, Ms. Meghan. Always the same.
COUNSELOR: In what way?
STUDENT: No one wants to forget about the movie. It’s like I did the most hilarious and disgusting thing anyone could ever do, and maybe I did, but it’s getting really tiring to have to relive that stupid, embarrassing thing every single day.
COUNSELOR: Try to breathe, Joanie. A big, deep breath.
Student takes a breath.
COUNSELOR: I want the bullying to stop too.
STUDENT: Is that why I’m here?
COUNSELOR: It is. I want to help you. But I need your help too.
STUDENT: How can I help?
COUNSELOR: You could tell me anything you might know about the notes we talked about in your class. The notes about Hannah.
STUDENT: If you want to know about the notes, then talk to Courtney. She wrote them.
COUNSELOR: Courtney Gilmore? Isn’t she a friend of Hannah’s?
STUDENT: She’s the meanest girl in this school. She’s the one who won’t let me or anyone else forget about the movie. She doesn’t know how to be a friend.
COUNSELOR: It’s going to pass, Joanie. I promise you.
STUDENT: Not with Courtney around.
Next action: As no one has come forward to claim responsibility for the notes, Brookview is planning a room search while the fifth-grade classes are on a field trip. We are hopeful that this will be the final step in determining the source of the notes, and bringing an end to the bullying in Mrs. Bloom’s class.
Pen Pals
It’s the day of the pen pal field trip. We cl
imb onto buses that will take us to the middle school, where we’ll finally meet the eighth graders that we’ve been writing to since September. I wish I could sit next to Courtney or Ryan and tell them how my stomach turns over when I think about meeting Ashley. But Ryan is on a different bus, and Courtney sits three rows ahead of me with Rebecca.
I sit alone. Kimmy is behind me, kicking my seat hard with her boot. I ignore it, because it’s partly my fault that she has so much hate. I told Ms. Meghan why I thought she wrote the notes. I beat her in the spelling bee. Now I’ll pay for it with her foot in my back.
“Ouch,” I say to an especially hard kick.
“Hullo?” I hear back. The voice is coming from my backpack. It speaks like it has its mouth full.
“Hi,” I say. I look around to make sure no one is watching me. Kimmy keeps kicking.
“Where we off to?” Backpack asks.
“The middle school. I’m going to meet Ashley.”
“What is she like?”
“Well, I know she dots her Is with little circles and that she likes to read magazines. And I know she’s excited to meet me too. I hope she’s nice.”
“What if she’s not?”
Backpack sounds too much like the scared thoughts running around inside my head.
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” I say, and Backpack goes quiet.
The bus stops in front of Prescott Middle School. I throw Backpack over my shoulders a little more roughly than I usually do, to teach him a lesson, but I feel bad about it afterward. I put so much weight inside him, no wonder he’s a little grumpy.
Mrs. Bloom leads us through the front doors and down the hallway. Prescott Middle School smells like bleach and gym shoes and dusty carpets. There are lockers on the walls, sealed up by secret codes. I think about how “lockers,” are designed to keep people out. Maybe when I go to middle school next year and get assigned my own locker, I will break the lock right off.
We walk into the eighth-grade classroom, and suddenly I’m looking at a million different combinations of freckles and glasses and haircuts. I have no idea which combination makes up Ashley, and that makes me so nervous that I have to take a big breath.
“Welcome, welcome. We’re so thrilled to meet you,” the other teacher, Mr. Barnes, announces. The class doesn’t look too thrilled. Their teacher calls their names, and one by one we’re paired off. Courtney goes to sit with her pen pal, Shelby, who has streaks of blue dye in her hair and holes in her jeans.
“Hannah, come meet Ashley,” Mr. Barnes says, and then I’m finally seeing Ashley, the girl I wrote so neatly for so that she would know how much I cared about our pen-pal-ship. Ashley smiles at me. She wears pink lipstick and waves me over like she’s excited. When I sit down next to her, I can see that she has swollen red bumps on her forehead and cheeks. Like me, only her pimples are covered with orange makeup.
“Nice to meet you, girl,” Ashley says, and shakes my hand.
“Do you need my gloves?” I ask her. She squints a little, and I can see the brown shimmer on her lids. It matches the color of her eyes.
“Why?”
“Your hands are cold.”
Ashley laughs, and it sounds like how I think twinkling stars would sound.
“You’re so sweet. I’m okay, though. Thanks.”
Mrs. Bloom and the other teacher start passing out balls of aluminum foil and plastic knives. I stare at our round package.
“Inside the aluminum foil are owl pellets,” Mrs. Bloom says. “You’re going to dissect these pellets and report your findings with your pen pal.”
The data collection sheets are passed down the rows of desks. Ashley hands one to me. Her nail polish is chipped and blue.
“This could be very enlightening,” I whisper.
“You do like words, don’t you?” she replies.
“Love them.”
“ ‘Enlightening’ is a good one. The dissection could also be illuminating.”
“Which means that something becomes clear,” I say. She winks at me, and I smile so hard, my cheeks hurt.
Mrs. Bloom and the other teacher tell us to unwrap our pellets and start using the knife to dig. They instruct us to document what we see inside the pellet.
“Go ahead. You do it,” Ashley says. I pull up my sleeves and unwrap the aluminum foil. The pellet looks like a chunk of earth. I pick up the knife and stab at the surface. It crumbles under the blade.
I move the pieces of the pellet around and find bones inside. I dig harder and free a tiny mouse skull from its pellet prison. It is still whole and unbroken and is the color of old paper.
“Ashley’s like you. And if she’s okay, then you’ll be okay too,” the mouse skull squeaks to me.
I’d like to tell the mouse skull that I agree, but I can’t talk to it in front of Ashley. I’ve completely lost control of my magic, which is short-circuiting like a hair dryer that fell in water.
I drop the knife.
“Do you want to try?” I ask. Ashley is looking across the room toward Shelby and Courtney. Courtney is holding her nose and poking at the pellet. Shelby turns toward us and nods her head.
“That’s okay, Hannah. You know what could be fun? Let’s go to the bathroom, and I’ll put some makeup on you. I can show you how to cover those pimples right up,” Ashley says.
I hope one day if I’m a pen pal, I’ll have some useful advice to share. Like how to use makeup, or how to spell words that seem impossible. I nod to Ashley, and she gets up to take a bathroom pass from her teacher. We walk together down the hallway. I notice when we pass two bathrooms without stopping.
“Weren’t we going to the bathroom?” I ask.
“We’re meeting Shelby outside first,” she answers.
“Outside? Are we allowed?”
“We aren’t leaving school property.”
I think Ashley wants me to be grown-up like she is, so I follow. She leads us out the back doors of the school and into the parking lot. I have no jacket, and the November chill easily seeps through my sweater.
A minute later, Shelby and Courtney make it to the parking lot. We walk down a hill to the baseball field, ending up in the far dugout. The bench is coated in dust. I brush it away with my hand and make enough clean space for Courtney. She looks back and forth between Shelby and me but doesn’t sit.
Shelby reaches into her purse and pulls out two cigarettes. She hands one to Ashley. Ashley puts the cigarette into her mouth and lets Shelby light it for her, her hand cupped around the flame to block the wind.
“You girls want to share one?” Ashley asks.
Courtney’s eyes go wide, and she scatters across the cement floor of the dugout to sit next to me. Having her back, even for a second, is like a bonfire to warm me from the cold truth about Ashley.
“We’re ten,” I say.
“So? I had my first cigarette at ten.”
“Why?”
“That’s a silly question, Hannah.” Smoke slips out of Ashley’s lips when she laughs. She leaves a lipstick mark on the end of the cigarette. It becomes clear that Ashley’s niceness toward me was just like makeup, concealing the problems under the surface.
Since she won’t answer my question, I start trying to answer it for myself. What would make a girl smoke when she’s ten?
Courtney nudges me with her elbow.
“I know you were excited to meet her,” she says. It’s good to hear her voice, and know that I’m tucked somewhere in her mind even when we’re not speaking to each other.
“I’m still excited,” I say.
Courtney shakes her head. “I wish I looked at things the way you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s like you think about things from every angle.”
I consider that. It’s easy to find the sad details of everything that happens. I’m a professional at that. But I do try my best to find the good, too.
“Maybe that’s true,” I say.
�
�I made it seem like that was a bad thing, but really, it’s why you’re such a good friend. I’m not. I should have been there for you through the notes like you were there for me with . . .” She trails off. I hold up my hand.
“Are you here now?” She smiles, and her pink glasses climb up the bridge of her nose.
“Definitely.” She touches my palm with hers. Our hands make a friendship prayer.
“What’s going on over there?” Ashley asks. She crushes the cigarette into the wall of the dugout, and the burning end is extinguished.
I test the new theory of my thought process on Ashley. She’s not who I thought she would be. She’s not Madonna, or a girl from the seventies, or the sister I never had. But maybe it’s not fair for me to wish she were someone different. I can find the good in my pen pal exactly the way she is.
“We don’t want to get in trouble,” Courtney says, and stands up.
“All right. Let’s get you inside.” Shelby pulls a bottle of cucumber-melon body spray from her purse and drenches herself in it before passing it to Ashley. Ashley walks over to us and starts spraying.
“We didn’t smoke,” I say.
“Secondhand smoke smells just as much.” She sprays us a few more times and then puts the bottle back into Shelby’s purse. Our time in the dugout is masked in the fruity scent.
Courtney and I walk side by side behind our pen pals back into the school.
“You have to stop being mean to people, Courtney,” I tell her. I didn’t know until now how much I needed to say that. She nods.
“I know.”
“It’s not who you’re supposed to be.”
“It’s not who I want to be either.”
I hope that she means it. I hope that she’ll leave her bully bones buried at the baseball field. We link arms the rest of the way to the classroom.
“Awful long bathroom break, girls,” Mr. Barnes says when we make it back.
“Girl problems, Mr. Barnes,” Ashley says in front of the whole class, and her teacher turns red.
I sit with Ashley in front of our dissected pellet. She picks up a plastic knife and moves the pieces around. Her eyes look sleepy.