by Nancy Rue
“A woman wrote a book several years ago about girls that bully. She called the girl who’s in charge of them the Queen Bee.”
“Kylie,” I said. “Only we call her the Alpha Wolf.”
Lydia nodded. “Let me guess. She gives the orders and her ‘friends’ carry them out.”
“Why did you do this?” Ginger said, forming her fingers into quotation marks the way Lydia had.
“Because they’re not really her friends. They’re more like her servants.”
“More like her slaves,” I said.
“And they all have jobs. There’s her right-hand girl who passes down the orders.”
“Riannon,” I said.
“And the next one down, the one who keeps track of everything.”
We looked at each other. Finally Winnie said, “Heidi.”
“And the messenger?”
“You mean snitch,” Mitch said. “Izzy.”
“And the one who would absolutely leave the group if she weren’t scared to death.”
“Shelby,” Ophelia said. “But what does this have to do with our project?”
“I think it’s the whole point of your project,” Lydia said. “This group of girls . . .”
“We call them the Wolf Pack,” I put in.
Ophelia kicked my ankle, and this time I turned right on her.
“First of all, ouch. And second of all, I’m glad we’re finally telling a grown-up about this. I’m sick of trying to figure it out ourselves.”
Ophelia’s eyes filled with tears. Could I not say anything that didn’t make her cry?
“It’s not really our problem,” she said.
“Oh, honey, it’s everybody’s problem.” Lydia’s face was on fire again. “Even mine.”
“Why?” Winnie said.
“Because I can’t find out about a situation like this and not try to teach you how to handle it so it doesn’t go on and on and on the way it’s been allowed to for so long. Now it’s getting worse.”
“Worse than it was for you?” Winnie said.
“I think so. Here’s the thing, ladies.”
Lydia paused. It was clear she wasn’t going to continue until we all looked at her. We had to wait for Ophelia, but she finally did it.
“If this is just going to be a science project, I don’t think I can help you any more than I already have. But if you want to actually make a difference, I’m here for you.”
“Make a difference how?” Ophelia said.
“Become a tribelet and stand up for everyone’s right to live without being afraid.”
“I like that tribelet word,” Winnie said.
I liked it too.
“So that’s like a small tribe,” Mitch said.
Lydia nodded her mop of curls. “A small part of a big tribe. The Maidu Indians—”
Them again.
“Stretched over a huge territory and all spoke the same language, but they lived in separate little settlements, kind of like villages. Those were called tribelets.”
“Why are we a tribelet?” Winnie said.
“I got this one,” I said. “The whole school is like the tribe, and our group is kind of like its own ‘village.’ ”
“So far so good.” Lydia pushed the salsa back toward Ginger, and this time she dunked a chip in it without slopping tomatoes all over the table. “The thing is, sometimes the tribelets had to stand up for themselves and their neighboring tribelets if somebody got too much power and starting pushing them around.”
One of those cartoon lightbulbs went on over my head. That was what Dad was talking about that day: people putting whoever they wanted in charge just because they were popular. It was sounding like “popular” and “powerful” could be the same thing.
Kylie would definitely agree with that.
“What if a tribelet just wanted to mind its own business?”
We all looked at Ophelia, who was talking to the end of the braid she’d been chewing on.
“That would have been pretty selfish,” Lydia said. “That—and they wouldn’t survive.”
As hard as Lydia was looking at Ophelia, I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about the Maidu Indians anymore. Maybe we never were.
“Did you all come up with an example of a time when somebody was mean to you?” Lydia said.
Ginger nodded until I thought her head might come off, which was no surprise. Same for Winnie and me. And Ophelia, who dropped her eyes at me like she wanted to make sure I knew I was her example. What did surprise me was that Mitch nodded too. I couldn’t help saying, “You?”
“People used to say I came from a ‘tard family’ because my brother has Down syndrome.” Mitch picked at a piece of skin near her fingernail. “I finally got sick of it and punched a kid out. I got in trouble, but nobody ever said that to me again.”
Lydia pointed her finger straight across the table at Mitch.
“You don’t want it to get that far,” she said. “It shouldn’t get that far. That’s why as a tribelet, you can’t stay neutral and expect this to just go away.”
“Does ‘neutral’ mean not do anything?” Ophelia said.
“Yes.”
“No offense, but that was working fine for us before.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
They all looked at me. Ophelia’s brows were so pinched together her eyes were about to change places.
“It wasn’t working,” I said. “Kylie started picking on me about my unibrow, and the Pack spread rumors about Winnie before Ginger even got here. And they laughed at everybody’s papers in Mrs. Fickus’s class. At least, everybody who wasn’t one of them.”
“Not only that.” Lydia shifted her eyes right onto Ophelia. “Maybe it’s just the Pack that does the bullying, but everybody is responsible for seeing that it stops.”
“That’s not fair!” Ophelia’s voice went so high I thought I heard it hit the ceiling.
“Mr. V says nobody ever promised us fair,” Winnie said.
“He’s right.” Lydia folded her hands on the table in that tidy way she had. “If you do nothing, you’re partly responsible for the consequences. If you want me to, I can teach you what to do.”
“I don’t get it,” Ophelia said, chin stubborn. “I mean, no offense, but why do we have to do all the work when it’s mostly directed at one person.”
“You don’t,” Lydia said. “You’re only partly responsible.” Her eyes went to Ginger, whose own blueberry ones seemed like they were stuck to Lydia’s every move. “Don’t you think I’ve been exactly where you are? You have to take back the power to be yourself. You have to focus not on what’s ‘wrong’ with you, but on what’s right. These girls can help you, but eventually that will be your job.”
Ginger’s eyes came unstuck. Suddenly they were all over the place, like she was looking for a way to escape.
“I don’t think I can do that,” she said, foghorn voice blaring. “I tried before, and I can’t.”
Then she grabbed her backpack and flung herself out of the chair and went for the back door. Nestlé yelped as she tromped on his foot trying to get it open. When she did, icy air rushed in and Ginger rushed out.
Lydia climbed down from her chair and looked out the window. I did too. Ginger was sitting on the back step. Lydia came back to the table.
“How’s she gonna get home?” Winnie said.
Ophelia’s chin jutted out. She was doing a lot of talking with that chin. “No offense, but is that our problem too? If she doesn’t want our help, why should we risk us being bullied?” Her voice cracked. “It’s already starting to happen.”
“I say we declare war on the Pack,” Mitch said. “We can give them worse than they ever gave Ginger.”
But Lydia shook her head. It was easy to know what she was about to say because her hair announced it.
“You’re both wrong,” she said. “First of all, Mitch, it’s not about power over, it’s about power to. If you want to declare war, let it be on bullying itself, n
ot on the bullies. You can’t turn into wolves yourselves or you won’t accomplish anything except to keep the whole thing going.”
“No offense,” Phee said, “but that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Lydia looked at her. “Honey, if you want to question anything I say, feel free. But when you say, ‘no offense,’ that means to me that you know what you’re about to say is going to offend me.” She looked around at all of us. “If you’re in this, you have to start by saying what you really mean.”
Lydia waited. Phee finally mumbled, “Sorry.”
I suddenly felt as embarrassed as Phee looked. “I might have already done what Mitch is talking about,” I said. I told them about the gingerbread house conversation. “I probably shouldn’t have said that about the Wicked Witch.”
“Did it make you feel better?” Lydia said.
“For about five seconds. I didn’t time it exactly.”
“It’s really pretty simple, tribelet. And much easier than declaring war. The rule of thumb is to ask yourself what you want people to do for you. Then jump right in there and do it for them.”
“Even when they don’t ask you to?” Winnie said.
“Especially when they don’t ask you to,” Lydia said.
She pulled her hands in to fold them again, and I realized two things. (A) The reason she did that was probably because her hands shook just a little bit all the time and (B) even though they did, she seemed stronger than just about anybody I had ever known. It made me want to follow her advice.
But it seemed like I might be the only one.
Mitch was still balling and unballing her fists like she’d rather just get in there and take out the whole Pack—the way they’d threatened to take me out if we did this project.
Winnie was looking from Lydia to Ophelia and back again, face in pre-whimper. I didn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, but Winnie was the poster child for trying to make everybody happy. If she agreed to this, Ophelia would think that meant she wasn’t her friend. Was it just me or was Phee starting to act like a puppeteer? Sure, she was scared, but . . . jeepers.
“Will you at least think about it?” Lydia said.
Mitch grunted. Lydia grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Winnie gave her a tiny “okay.”
I said I would too.
That just left Ophelia.
“You just want us to think about it?” she said.
“That’s all I ask.”
“Then okay. I will.”
Still, I was glad Phee left with everybody else. As soon as they were gone and Lydia went outside to talk to Ginger, I put on my jacket and Nestlé and I went up to the Spot. I didn’t care that my hands instantly turned red in the raw air and that the tip of my nose lost all feeling. I didn’t even ponder the blood vessels that were responsible for that.
I’d read about hypothermia before. I could lose some of my digits if I kept sitting there. But I couldn’t go back down to the house either. Without even thinking about it, I just let Nestlé and me into the cabin out of the wind and lay down with my head on him. His breathing made it go up and down, sort of like being rocked.
“How did it all get so hard?” I said to him. “It used to be Phee and I agreed on everything so nobody had to be the boss. I didn’t feel like I had to do everything her way. Her way and my way were just always the same. For Winnie too. Now it’s like we don’t agree on anything. Except Granna. She was great to me about Granna.”
A pain went through my chest. I hadn’t thought of Granna since we got home from school. None of this even mattered really—did it? Not if Granna . . . didn’t make it.
I flung my arm back to feel Nestlé’s soft ear. It was cold around the edges.
“I wish I were like Lola Montez, Nes,” I said. “Then I could dare to be different from Phee and the Pack and just be a scientist, like before. Know what I mean?”
He answered by sitting up and knocking me sideways. He sniffed toward the cabin door and started thwacking his tail on the dirt floor.
“What is it, boy?” I said.
“It’s me,” said a low voice.
Dad.
Uh-oh.
“Gee, thanks for the warning,” I whispered to Nestlé.
Dad poked his eagle head in and squinted. My eyes had gotten used to the dark, so I’d forgotten how black it actually was in the cabin. I took that opportunity to start making a case in my defense.
“I know you and Mom said don’t come up here,” I said, “and I wasn’t actually gonna come in here—I was just gonna sit on a rock out there, but it was windy so I kind of forgot. Well, no, I didn’t, I just had all this stuff on my mind, so it just kind of happened. I didn’t mean to disobey you.”
“Tor,” Dad said. “Take a breath.”
He lowered himself to sit beside me and let Nestlé greet him with a thorough ear-cleaning before he made him move.
“It does make a good thinking spot, doesn’t it?” Dad said.
“How did you know where I was?” I said.
“I have ways.”
Dad had left the door open a crack, and in the light, I saw that even though he was kind of joking with me, his face was pinchy and serious.
“It’s Granna, isn’t it?”
“She’s still the same,” Dad said and squeezed my knee.
“Is that good?”
“It is for now.”
“Are you scared?”
“Concerned. You?”
“Is there a difference between scared and concerned?”
Dad tilted his head. “I think scared means you’ve lost hope. Concerned—that’s when you don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but you keep hanging in there.”
“Then I’m concerned too.”
We sat there for a minute. I was glad Nestlé was on the other side of me now, because between the two of them they were keeping me warm, like a Dad-and-dog sandwich. But Dad was still pinching his face like he didn’t see a way out of someplace.
“Are you scared about something?” I said.
“I’m worried about something.” He gave me a sideways glance. “That’s almost scared, but not completely without hope.”
“What is it?” I said.
He paused like he was considering not telling me, which would have scared me even more than I was starting to be right now.
But finally he said, “You remember me talking about the Maidu and how they were mistreated by the government?”
I could not get away from those Indians no matter what.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“It’s become clear to Lydia and me as we’re working on this film that what happened to the Maidu is part of the story of the Gold Rush and the Empire Mine. But the powers that be—the producers in San Francisco—don’t see it that way. They’re saying we need to stick with the success of the mine and not focus on how badly the government mistreated the Maidu and what they got away with.”
“So you have to convince them,” I said.
“If I try, I might lose the contract.”
“But that’s not fair!” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I put up my hand. “I know. Nobody ever promised us fair, right?”
Dad’s eyebrows went straight up. “Right. And if I don’t try and do it their way, I’ll lose my respect for myself.”
“You could always get another contract,” I said. “You’re the ‘leading expert.’ I looked it up.”
“It’s a pretty big contract, Tor. Enough to get you through college.”
I didn’t remind him that I was only in sixth grade.
“And if word gets out that I was an ‘uncooperative client,’ that could hurt my chances at getting future work.”
“You mean, like this could ruin your reputation?”
“Yes.”
“By doing the right thing?”
“Yes.”
Something smacked me right in the face, and I stared at Dad in the halfway light. “So it’s like you’re being bullied
!”
“That’s exactly what it’s like. Only in the grown-up world, Tor, it’s called ‘business.’ ”
I sounded like Mitch as I grunted. “In the kid world, it’s called being ‘popular.’ ”
Dad nodded like the two of us were grown-ups. “Looks like we both have decisions to make, doesn’t it?” He put his arm around my shoulder. “I know one thing. I want to make you proud of me.”
If I could have said it without crying, I would have told him the same thing.
So . . . after that, there really wasn’t much of a decision to make.
Chapter Thirteen
I don’t know why I thought it was going to be easy once I decided to stick up for Ginger. The first person to make it hard was Ginger herself.
That next day, Thursday, I talked to her the first chance I had, which was right before lunch. She was headed for the restroom, brown bag in hand, when I caught up with her. I could smell peanut butter. And pickles. Who ate that?
“Why did you run out during our meeting yesterday?” I said.
Ginger shrugged. My mom was right—that really was the most irritating thing ever.
I got between her and the restroom door. “I know what Lydia said freaked you out, about you having to stand up for yourself eventually. But I’ve been doing some thinking and I figure that’s going to be a while. I don’t know exactly how long. I haven’t looked up the statistics.”
I paused, because at that point in any conversation with me, most kids my age started looking like they had no idea what I was talking about. But Ginger was nodding like she was following me fine. She just didn’t like where I was going.
“Wait,” I said as she started to edge away. “I want to do what Lydia was saying after you left. I want to help.”
“Nobody can help.”
The bell rang, which meant we should already be in the cafeteria. With my luck, Mr. Jett would be appearing in the hall with us in exactly six seconds.
“I have to hide,” Ginger said, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop her unless I dragged her to the lunchroom by the leg.
“Okay,” I said, “but still be in our group for the project. If you don’t, you’ll fail and then Kylie and those girls will win.”
Ginger’s blueberry eyes looked dead.
“They already have,” she said.