by Nancy Rue
“Stay in the group.”
She shrugged again.
“Does that mean yes?” I said.
“I guess.”
“So you’re coming to my house after school, right?”
Ginger looked at the floor. “Okay,” she finally said.
Then she went into the restroom to eat her peanut butter and pickle, and I snuck my way into the cafeteria. For once, my luck held out. Mr. Jett didn’t notice me because he was too busy yelling at somebody in the middle of the room.
Where the Pack always sat.
But Mr. Jett wasn’t hollering at one of them. He had his face right in Mitch’s and the whole bald part of his head was bright red.
“You know what you are, Michelle?” he was basically screaming at her. “You’re a bully—and we don’t put up with bullies around here!”
“Yes ‘we’ do,” Mitch said. “ ‘We’ do it all the time.”
She jabbed her thumb at the Pack, and my eyes followed. Heidi had her head on Kylie’s shoulder, and Kylie was stroking her hair while she cried. Riannon and the other two were huddled together like they’d just been released from a hostage situation.
“You watch your tone, young lady,” Mr. Jett yelled at Mitch.
Even if he hadn’t been screaming, the whole lunchroom would have heard him. It was like a vacuum in there while everybody gawked. I was sure some of it was shock that anybody would look back at Mr. Jett the way Mitch was doing: like he was about the most clueless person who ever walked through a middle school.
“Are you accusing these girls of bullying?” he said to her. “Because from what I saw, you were the one attacking them.”
“I was just giving them what they give to everybody else,” Mitch said. “Only I was doing it better.”
“All right, that’s it. Let’s go.”
Mr. Jett looked like he wanted to yank Mitch to the office by the arm, but he didn’t because (A) teachers weren’t allowed to touch students and (B) Mitch was as big as he was and it wouldn’t look good for her to take him down. At least, that was how I saw it.
He jerked his head toward the door, and Mitch went ahead of him like she’d expected this outcome all along. I ducked into our table.
“What was Mitch thinking?” Ophelia said to me. “She’s gonna get suspended.”
“What happened?”
Even though it was just the kind of story Ophelia told really well, she just poked at her pizza slice. I looked at Winnie.
She peeked around me to check out the Pack table, but they were all stretched across it trying to get close enough to each other to review. They’d never hear Winnie anyway. Her voice was like a cobweb as she started in.
“They sat down to eat their lunch,” she said. “And they all had the burritos because Kylie got one so they all had to have the same thing, I guess.”
“So . . . ” I said.
“So they were unwrapping them, and all of a sudden there was Mitch, sitting with them. She just knocked all their stuff off that chair and plopped herself down.”
“And that’s bullying?” I said.
“You haven’t heard the whole thing.” Winnie inched closer to me, like she wasn’t already almost in my lap. “They looked at her like ‘What are you doing here?’ but nobody said anything. I thought they were just gonna let Mitch sit there, and I thought that was cool of Mitch—you know, like Lydia said. Taking back your rights.”
“Then what happened?” I loved Winnie, but she was totally dragging this out.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Ophelia said. “Mitch couldn’t leave it alone. Every time one of them started to take a bite she’d go, ‘Gross, Heidi. You chew like a cow,’ and ‘What are you, a cave woman, Kylie? That’s disgusting, the way you eat.’ ” Ophelia pushed aside the piece of pizza she’d destroyed and leaned into the table. “They were totally not even wanting to eat until they saw Mr. Jett come in, and then Kylie gave Heidi this look like, ‘Turn it on,’ and Heidi started bawlin’ like Mitch was killing her. Mitch didn’t see Mr. Jett, and she just went, ‘Dude, you cry even more disgusting than you eat. You’re getting snot in your hot sauce.’ ” Ophelia’s eyes widened. “They should try out for plays. They totally fooled Mr. Jett.”
I shook my head. “They don’t have to be good actors to make Mr. Jett think they’re the poor little victims. He believes it anyway. All the teachers think they’re wonderful.”
“Even Mr. V?” Winnie said.
I looked down at my hands. “Especially Mr. V.”
“So why even try to do this whole fight-bullying thing?” Ophelia said. “Nobody will ever believe the Pack are the bullies—and now the teachers are gonna think we are if we keep hanging out with Mitch.”
I started to take out my sandwich, but I tossed it aside.
“What?” Ophelia said.
“First, you don’t want us to talk to Ginger. Now we’re not supposed to have anything to do with Mitch. You’ll hardly talk to me if I don’t do absolutely everything your way. You give Winnie the stink eye if she doesn’t. What do you want?”
“I want it to be like it was before!” Ophelia cried out. “Before we had to be afraid all the time!”
“Please don’t start fighting, you guys,” Winnie said.
“It’s too late for that,” Phee said. “It’s already happening.”
“Only because you won’t listen,” I said.
“No, because you won’t! I keep trying to tell you if we do this project and become this ‘triblelet’ thing, it’s going to be worse than you can even imagine.”
“Jeepers, Phee, enough with the drama!”
“It’s not drama. It’s real. You think I’m just saying that to get my own way or something, but I’m not. I’m trying to protect us.”
She was talking through her teeth again. I was starting to almost hate that as much as my mother almost hated shrugging.
“If you were really my friend, you wouldn’t ask me to go through stuff like yesterday.”
“That’s so not fair,” I said.
Ophelia folded her arms and looked at me with her ginormous brown eyes. “And who ever promised you fair, Tori?”
Winnie burst into tears. Phee turned to comfort her. I just got up and left.
Eating in the bathroom didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.
Our whole group walked together to my house after school, except for Mitch. I figured she’d probably been kicked out of school for the rest of her life, especially if Kylie’s starving mother had been brought in. As we hurried through the cold to Sunrise Lane, Ophelia hung back, so Winnie did too, although she kept begging me with her eyes not to be mad at her. I could feel Ophelia’s eyes burning into me as Ginger stuck to my side like Velcro.
It was the longest walk ever.
Lydia had cheese and crackers ready for us and the usual hot chocolate. She looked at the grizzly bear mug Mitch always used and raised an eyebrow at me.
“If you’re looking for Mitch,” Ophelia said, “she got in trouble at school for bullying.”
“That’s not exactly what happened,” I said.
“Fine. I’m a liar.” Ophelia slumped down in her chair and folded her arms and stuck out her chin.
“Does anybody want to bring me up to speed?” Lydia said.
“Not me,” Ginger said. “I don’t even know what’s going on.”
The doorbell rang, and Nestlé barked like a wild thing and I went to see who it was while Winnie and Ophelia filled Ginger in. Through the window in the door, I saw a grizzly bear hairdo.
“It’s Mitch!” I called toward the kitchen.
“Perfect,” Lydia called back.
By the time Mitch made it through Nestlé’s greeting and got out of her jacket and took her cocoa from Lydia, Ophelia obviously couldn’t stand not knowing any longer.
“What happened?” she said. “Did you get expelled?”
But Lydia wouldn’t let Mitch tell that part until she explained what went down in the lunchro
om. It was pretty much what Ophelia had described and what I saw with Mr. Jett.
“So he took me to Mrs. Yeats,” Mitch said.
“Who’s Mrs. Yeats?” Lydia said.
“The principal,” Ophelia told her, eyes lit up. She’d obviously forgotten she was pouting. “She is so-o-o strict. She’ll suspend you for chewing gum.”
“Has that ever actually happened?” Ginger said.
Lydia nodded at Mitch. “Moving on . . .”
Mitch, of course, grunted. “She listened to his side of the story and then she asked for mine and I started to tell it and before I was even done he said it wasn’t true and I said then there wasn’t any point in me even finishing and she told me I had an attitude and I needed to change it.”
“That’s it?” Ophelia said.
“No. I said I’d change mine when everybody else changed theirs. She said I could only change mine.”
“And then you got suspended,” Ophelia said.
Jeepers.
“No,” Mitch said again. “I told her I would.”
“Would what?”
“Change my attitude.” Mitch took a sip and wiped the milk off her lip with the side of her hand and looked at Lydia. “I only did all that to see if you were right. And you were.”
“Right about what?”
“About not starting a war by doing worse to them than they do to us. It doesn’t work. So . . . I’m ready to do it your way.”
If (A) I was the hugging kind and (B) Mitch would have put up with me being the hugging kind, I would have hugged her right then. It looked like Lydia wanted to too. Maybe even Winnie and a little bit Ginger.
Ophelia, not so much. She raised her hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lydia said.
“Are we going to work on our project today?”
“I think that’s what we’re doing.”
“No off—how am I supposed to write up a presentation out of this? Are we figuring out what makes people mean?”
“I think we are,” Lydia said.
“I’m in,” Mitch said.
“Me too,” I said.
Ginger looked across the table at me. “Do I have to do it by myself yet?”
“Good heavens, no,” Lydia said.
“Then I’m in.”
“What do we have to do?” Win said in a tiny, tiny voice—like she was hoping Phee wouldn’t hear her.
“Mitch,” Lydia said, “would you turn that board around, the one on the snack bar?”
Mitch flipped a portable dry-erase board I’d seen up in Dad’s office before and showed us the side with writing on it. It said:
NOT BYSTANDERS BUT DEFENDERS.
NOT WITNESSES BUT ALLIES.
“The first thing to do is get clear on what your role is as a tribelet,” Lydia said. “Are you committed to being the defender and ally of anyone who’s bullied?”
Everybody nodded except Ophelia. She was back to pouting.
“The next thing is to realize that this is entirely doable. Here’s a statistic for your presentation, Ophelia: 15 percent of girls your age bully, 10 percent are bullied, and 75 percent are in the middle.”
“Yes!” I said, loud enough to wake Nestlé up. “Don’t anybody go anywhere—I’ll be right back.”
“More cocoa, anyone?” Lydia said.
I came back in a flash with the chart I’d made of all the girls in the class. I propped it up in front of the dry-erase board.
“Check it out,” I said. “It’s true. There are way more of us middle people than any other group.”
Mitch high-fived me. Winnie almost smiled. Ginger just kept counting the people, over and over.
“This looks like potential for that power to I was talking about,” Lydia said.
“Except how are you going to get Evelyn and Brittney and the rest of them to do this?” Ophelia said.
“First your tribelet has to do it,” Lydia said. “After that, success breeds success. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Like I said, first you have to do it—and that starts with what you don’t do.”
“Don’t do what I did, you mean?” Mitch said.
“Right. And, Ginger, don’t let the bullies see you cry or get mad or show any emotion at all. Of course you’re going to feel emotion, but you can’t let them see it. That’s what they want. Don’t give them what they want. Save the tears for later.”
Ginger looked a little sick. “It’s too late. I’ve already done that like a hundred times.”
“Just don’t do it anymore.”
Mitch sat straight in her chair. “So she does have to get a thick skin.”
“Nope, she just has to pretend she has one in front of them.”
“You could teach her how to do that, Phee,” I said. “You’re the best actress.”
“You don’t have to get an Academy Award, Ginger,” Lydia said. “You just have to hide what you feel long enough to get away. That’s where the tribelet comes in. Everybody up.”
We all followed Lydia into the living room, even Ophelia, only because Winnie took her by the hand.
“Ophelia, you be the Alpha Wolf,” Lydia said, “since you have the acting gift. I’ll be one of your fellow bullies.” She waved the rest of us over to the doorway while she pulled Ophelia to the front of the china cabinet. “This is Ginger’s locker. Ginger, you come over here and try to get to it. The rest of you stay there for a minute.”
Then Lydia turned to Phee and pretended to be whispering and pointing until Ginger got to them.
“Ask her what she wants,” Lydia whispered to Ophelia. “Be the Alpha Wolf.”
I held my breath. If Phee couldn’t participate in this, then was she even the person I used to know?
“I suppose you want to get into your locker,” Ophelia said to Ginger. She smiled meanly.
“Not happenin’, loser,” Lydia said.
“Why?” Ginger said.
“Because we don’t want you here,” Lydia said. “Right, ‘Kylie’?”
Ophelia shook her head. “Do we have to keep doing this? I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“How mean I can be!”
“Don’t worry,” Lydia said. “We know you’re not mean like that in real life. But isn’t it scary how mean anyone can be if they’re allowed to? Let’s do it again, only this time, Mitch, you and Tori and Winnie come with Ginger. Act friendly to her and do not say anything to the Pack. Just walk Ginger straight to her locker. Ginger, all you say is, ‘Excuse me, but I need to get to my locker.’ Got that?”
We all nodded. Lydia looked at Phee. “Just work with me, okay?”
“Okay,” Ophelia said.
Lydia and Ophelia went back to pointing and snickering at Ginger. Ginger started toward the “locker,” and we all went with her.
“What do you need out of your locker, Ginger?” I said.
“My science book,” she said.
“Don’t forget your Spanish book too,” Winnie said, and then she giggled.
Mitch didn’t say anything, but then she probably wouldn’t in real life either.
When we got there, Lydia was still looking at Ginger like she was pond scum and I could see Ginger start to wilt. I nudged her in the back.
“Excuse me!” Ginger blurted out. “I need to get my stuff out of here.”
She took another step forward, and we stepped with her. Ophelia immediately got out of the way and let her through.
“Why did you do that?” Lydia said to Phee.
“Because there’s more of them than there are of us,” Phee said.
“Did anybody give you a scary look?”
“No. Well, Mitch kind of did.”
“Dude, that’s the way I always look,” Mitch said.
“So you didn’t feel threatened?”
Ophelia shook her head. “I just felt like, ‘What’s the point in still standing here?’ ”
“Exactly.”
“But is the Pack gonna do that?” Winnie almost w
hispered it.
“If you stand there long enough, probably. Try it.”
We did. Phee and Lydia stood there until our noses were almost touching. Even after Winnie started to giggle, they finally moved.
“That’s called safety in a group,” Lydia said.
“Let’s do another one!” Winnie said.
“That’s enough for now,” Lydia said, although she looked pretty happy with Winnie. “This is all about taking baby steps. One small thing at a time. Besides, I have one more important thing to tell you. Let’s sit down.”
While everybody else regrouped in the kitchen, I tugged Ophelia back by her sweater sleeve.
“You did good,” I said. “Are you in now?”
She put the end of her braid to her lips. “Maybe.”
“I totally am,” I said. “And Winnie is. You don’t want to be left out, right?”
“Are you ladies joining us?” Lydia called from the kitchen.
Ophelia brushed past me and headed down the hall. The bathroom door slammed behind her.
What did I just say to make that happen? I sighed and joined everybody else in the kitchen.
Lydia didn’t ask where Phee was. She just got very serious and told us this:
“You can change a lot of this bullying as a tribelet. But I want you to promise me that if you run into something that you can’t change, you will report it to an adult.”
“Tattle,” Mitch said.
“No. Tattling is when you tell on somebody to get them into trouble. Reporting is when you tell something to get somebody out of trouble. Tattling is sort of like that whole eye-for-an-eye thing you tried. ‘I’m going to tell on them so they’ll get what they deserve.’ ”
“Neener-neener-neener,” I said.
Winnie giggled.
“Exactly,” Lydia said. “Are we clear on that?”
“So if the Pack is about to beat somebody up and we can’t talk ’em out of it, we go get a grown-up?” Mitch said.
“Send somebody for the grown-up first, before you try to talk them out of it,” Lydia said. “Mitch, you could stay and try that. Maybe Tori too. But send Winnie for the adult.” She put her hand on Winnie’s arm. “You’re stronger than you think, honey, but not for that role.”
Winnie turned into a puddle of relief.
“You all see if you can agree to that promise,” Lydia said as she climbed down from her chair. “I’ll go see what’s up with our friend Ophelia.”