So Not Okay

by Nancy Rue

  A bell rang, so close I jerked my whole body. But I was crammed in so tight, I didn’t actually move. Now it wasn’t just my brain that was in a panic. My stomach roiled like there was a hurricane going on down there. What would happen if I threw up right now?

  That was it. I screamed.

  Then I sucked in my breath and listened so hard I could almost hear my own pulse. There was nothing but my heartbeat . . .

  And then suddenly there was so much noise I would have covered my ears if my arms hadn’t been plastered to my sides. People were thundering down the steps and through the locker space and slamming through the doors. It sounded like herds of them, but obviously none of them could hear me. Or else they didn’t care. Maybe nobody cared if you were locked in a locker or stuffed into a trash can or had your head stuck in a toilet. Maybe no matter what you did, people were going to bully. Maybe my dad was wrong. Maybe it didn’t even matter if you tried.

  I’d stopped yelling by then and started, yes, crying. Me. Slowly the storm of feet and seventh-grade voices and barking teachers faded, yet even the last of them didn’t seem to hear me sobbing.

  Another bell rang.

  English class had started long ago. Mrs. Fickus would be tapping those seashell fingernails, wondering where I was. So would Mitch. And Ginger. And Winnie. But none of them would even think to look for me here. The only person who knew where I was besides the Pack was Ophelia.

  She was one of them now. So then maybe it was okay to go ahead and die in here. If I couldn’t trust her, then who—

  “Stop it,” I said out loud for myself. “Just stop it.”

  “Did you hear that?” someone whispered.

  I held my breath. Was that somebody to help me? Or was it one of the Pack? Or was I losing my mind as my life slowly ebbed away?

  “It was coming from in there.”

  I knew that voice. That wonderful foghorn voice.

  “Ginger?” I said. “Ginger—is that you?”

  “Tori? Are you in a locker?”

  That was Winnie’s voice. Tiny and scared and wonderful.

  “Yes!” I said. “This one!”

  I got my foot to move some and nudged it against the door. That made me press my forehead hard into the metal in the back of the locker, and I yelped like Nestlé.

  “She’s hurt!” said the foghorn. “Are you hurt, Tori?”

  “Just get me out of here!”

  Again the locker vibrated. And again there was banging, and then Winnie saying, “Can’t you open it?” And Ginger saying, “It’s stuck!”

  “Keep trying!” I said.

  “No, we gotta get help,” Ginger said.

  “Don’t leave me! Phee left me!” It hurt as much to say it as it did to move.

  “You go, Ginger,” Winnie said. “I’ll stay here.”

  Wildly I thought, That’s not the way it’s supposed to go! Winnie’s supposed to go for help!

  But the double hall doors sighed again before I could get that out.

  “Winnie?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Talk to me, okay? Then I won’t be so scared.”

  “Okay.”

  Silence.

  “Win?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Say something. Where’s Ophelia?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since fourth period.”

  “Did she go to fifth?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t been there yet.”

  “You’re cutting class?”

  “We were looking for you.”

  Winnie’s voice wobbled.

  “Okay, you can’t cry, Win, because then I’ll start crying, and there’s not enough room in here to cry. I already tried it.”

  “Okay.”

  “What happened? Did you go to the cafeteria?”

  “No. Mitch and I went to the bathroom to look for Ophelia, and she wasn’t there and then we went back to science to get our stuff and that’s when we found your note.”

  “What note?”

  “The one you wrote.”

  “I didn’t write a note!” Jeepers. I must be hallucinating.

  “It was in your handwriting. I know your handwriting.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It said, ‘Don’t pay any attention to anything they say.’ So we didn’t. Only I don’t get it.”

  “Wait. I wrote that note forever ago. For Ginger. I never gave it to her . . . it was in my Spanish notebook.”

  “It was on my desk, and it said ‘For Winnie and Mitch.’ Only, that part wasn’t your writing.”

  “What did they say?”

  “What?”

  “What did the Pack say that you didn’t pay any attention to?”

  “They said . . .” Winnie’s words wavered.

  “Don’t cry, Win. Tell me.”

  “They said . . .”

  “Wait. Which ones said it?”

  “It was just Izzy. She said you were in trouble in the seventh-grade wing. Only we knew you would never come down here, and she was just trying to get us in trouble, so we didn’t come. I’m sorry, Tori!”

  “It’s okay.” At least calming Winnie down was keeping me from going nuts. “Shouldn’t Ginger be back by now?”

  “She’s not coming,” someone else answered.

  No. Nonononono. Not Riannon. Pointy, scary Riannon out there with our Winnie? That couldn’t be.

  But it was. Nobody else could say, “You all made a mess out of everything,” the way she was saying it right now.

  I could almost see her fake-green eyes poking holes in Winnie. I wouldn’t blame Win now if she had a total nervous breakdown.

  “It was just supposed to be you in the locker and nobody else involved,” Riannon said.

  “You talking to me?” I said.

  “Well, like, who else would I be talking to?”

  “Winnie, are you still there?” I said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Run, Winnie, I wanted to say. I don’t care if you get help. Just run away from her.

  “You don’t have to do everything Kylie tells you to, you know,” said a wee voice. “You can take back the power to be your own self.”

  Winnie? Winnie said that?

  “What does that mean?” Riannon said. “I already am my own self.”

  “No,” Winnie said, in a little bit louder-than-wee voice, “you just do whatever Kylie wants you to, so you won’t be by yourself. I kind of used to do that, but—”

  “I do not.”

  “You look really scared, though.”

  I wasn’t sure that was the best way to go. “Hey, Riannon?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Are you cutting class?”

  “No, I got a hall pass. Kylie told me to come make sure . . .”

  “Kylie told you to,” I said.

  I heard Winnie’s soft giggle. “Yeah. It’s like I just said.”

  “So where’s Ginger, Riannon?” I said. “Did you put her in a locker too?”

  “No,” she said, her voice going all high and defensive. “Izzy’s with her.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t have to tell you.”

  “Let me guess: all four of your friends have her cornered in the bathroom.”

  “We’re taking turns,” she said. And then I was sure I heard her use a cuss word under her breath.

  “You’re gonna keep her in there forever?”

  “No! We’re just keeping her there until we find Mr. Jett.”

  Mr. Jett? Why him? And then it hit me. “Because he’s the only who’ll believe I tried to do this to Heidi so you had to lock me in here.”

  A pause fell.

  “How did you know that?” Riannon said finally.

  “Now you really look scared,” Winnie said. “You want us to help you?”

  Winnie was playing every card in the stack. “Save the Tears.” “Gold Thumb.” I just wished we could “Walk It, Girl.” My whole body was starting to ache.

/>   “I don’t need your help,” Riannon snapped at her. Those eyes were reptilian by then, I was sure.

  “So what are you gonna do?” Winnie said, voice all concerned.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Maybe you should go get help,” Winnie said. “Then you won’t get in so much trouble.”

  “You guys are the ones who are gonna get in trouble.”

  “I guarantee you somebody is,” said a deep voice.

  All the hope that had been calming me down went out through the air vent. That was Mr. Jett’s voice.

  “I am so glad you’re here!” Riannon said. Miss Innocence kicked in. “Did Kylie tell you what they tried to do to Heidi?”

  So I was right. And Mr. Jett was never going to believe me over the Pack.

  “Tori, are you in there?” he said.

  I considered not answering, but I said, “Yeah.”

  “Mr. Jett?” Winnie said.

  But there was another locker vibration, followed by more banging. I could have told him that wasn’t going to work, but he probably wouldn’t have believed that either.

  “How long has she been in there?”

  More banging.

  “Since the beginning of sixth-grade lunch,” Winnie said.

  “Why didn’t somebody get me sooner?”

  “We sent two people and nobody came back!” I said. I hoped that didn’t count as arguing, but could we please stop talking about it and get me out of here?

  One more bang. I fell backward, into Mr. Jett. I didn’t hit the floor because he picked me up. I was pretty sure the teachers not touching students rule didn’t apply in this situation.

  “Are you hurt?” he said, putting his glasses back on his nose. They weren’t connected after all.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Can you stand up?”

  “I don’t mean to argue, but I’ve kind of been standing up.”

  When he set me down, though, my legs buckled. I didn’t fall, but I was shaking all over.

  He stared at my forehead. “What happened there?”

  “I hit it when I was trying to—”

  “You should see Heidi’s arm where Tori tried to shove her in there,” Riannon said.

  Winnie’s mouth opened, but Mr. Jett motioned with a sharp jab of his hand for her to hold me up. That would have been funny if Mr. Jett wasn’t looking at me like I’d tried to stuff my entire sixth-grade section into their respective lockers.

  “This whole vendetta thing has gone way too far,” he said. “I’ve got Mitch telling me there’s some plot afoot to go after you because of some report you gave in science.”

  “That is such a lie, Mr. Jett!” Riannon said.

  “She refused to go to class until I came down here.”

  I was surprised Mitch didn’t walk him down the hall herself, until Mr. Jett added, “I sent her to the office.”

  He turned to Riannon. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I came to make sure Tori had gotten out. When she didn’t come to class, we got worried about her.”

  Riannon’s contacts were in danger of floating out of her eyes.

  Tears? Really? She was an even better actress than Phee.

  That thought stabbed me so hard I didn’t even try to argue with Mr. Jett. What was the point? Popular really did mean powerful. I could be myself until I graduated and that fact wasn’t going to change.

  If I graduated. From the look on Mr. Jett’s face, I might be suspended for so long I would never catch up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  All right, let’s go,” Mr. Jett said.

  “I just want to get to English,” Riannon said. “I can’t fall behind in Mrs. Fickus’s class.”

  The only thing worse than the total fakeness of that was the way Mr. Jett seemed to believe her.

  “I know,” he said, running his hand over the shiny part of his head. “But we’re going to get this sorted out once and for all.”

  He held open the double doors and nodded us through.

  “Tori, you go straight to the nurse.”

  I started to argue, but I bit it back.

  “The rest of us are going to the office. We’ll have everyone else called down from there.” He counted up as he herded us down the hall. “Who do we need? Ophelia. Ginger.”

  I took in a sharp breath. How could I have forgotten Ginger? I felt my first spark of hope.

  “Ginger’s being held hostage in the bathroom,” I said.

  Mr. Jett stopped at the second set of double doors and blinked at me. “And all this time I thought this was a school. Now I find out it’s a reality show.”

  He pushed the doors open with his back and nodded Riannon and Winnie into the office. Then he watched me go up the stairs until I turned on the first landing.

  Fortunately, the nurse’s office was on the second floor, so he wouldn’t know, at least for now, that I didn’t go there. I would probably get into even more trouble for that, but I didn’t care. I had to do one thing, and it was not “rescue Ginger from the Pack watch in the restroom.” I wanted somebody in the office to see that scene. Besides, it didn’t make sense that Mrs. Fickus would let one person after another go to the bathroom during class. Especially with so many of us missing already.

  What I had to do was find Mr. V. He would tell Mr. Jett and Mrs. Yeats what he knew and then at least we wouldn’t be in trouble. Although . . . I couldn’t shake off the way Mr. Jett looked at me.

  So I clung to the way Mr. V always looked at me and half ran down the other set of stairs just like we’d done when we were protecting Ginger and up the hall to the science room. But as soon as his door came in sight, everything in me collapsed on itself. No light shafted through the door’s window into the hallway, and when I tried the knob, it was locked. The other door to the lab was too.

  No. He had to be here.

  I leaned against the door, and I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Think. Think!

  “Are you looking for Mr. Vasiliev, señorita?”

  The day was getting worse by the minute. I looked up at Mrs. Bernstein. There was no lying to those dark eyes.

  “Sí,” I said.

  She gave me her halfway smile. “This is his prep period. I think he went out to do some errands.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “I should hope so. He has a sixth-period class.” Mrs. Bernstein tilted her head so her ponytail swung. “Are you okay?”

  I did lie then. “Yes,” I said. “I should go.”

  “Shall I tell him you were looking for him?”

  But I only shook my head as I fast-walked down the hall toward the stairs, before she could ask to see my hall pass. If I couldn’t get Mr. V to the office, then I had to go to Ginger.

  I risked running up the steps and only barely slowed down when I got to the top. The restroom was just on the left, so I could probably get in there without any more teachers seeing me.

  And then I heard Mr. Jett’s voice in the hall. Heart pounding again, I took a step back down and planted myself in the shadow.

  “You don’t know the half of it, Mrs. Fickus,” he said.

  Like I said, 100 percent worse by the minute.

  “I swear, we have completely lost control,” Mrs. Fickus said. “I haven’t sent Kylie down to you because she’s in the restroom and has been for the last fifteen minutes. I sent Heidi after her, and I haven’t seen her either.”

  “What about Ophelia?”

  I didn’t wait to hear the answer to that. If Ginger was in the bathroom with both Heidi and Kylie, they’d probably destroyed every bit of the be-yourself power Ginger had just started to get. I edged my way along the wall and slipped into the restroom and into the corner at the end of the stalls where I could see three pairs of feet. The two whose heels pressed into the wall wore Uggs. The other pair, facing them, had on brand-new red tennis shoes.

  “I told you,” Ginger said, “I’m just standing here until somebody comes.�
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  “You’re threatening us.” That was Heidi’s voice.

  “No, I’m not. You were the ones threatening me. You can leave any time you want. I’m not stopping you.”

  That was a relief. And Ginger’s voice sounded strong. Not foghorn strong. Just—for real.

  “Good,” Heidi said. “Then I’m going.”

  I tried to become one with the corner tiles, but Heidi’s Uggs stopped abruptly when Kylie said, “No. Let them find us. Who are they going to believe? Her or us?”

  “Me,” Ginger said.

  Okay, her voice was rising. “Save the tears, Ginger,” I wanted to say.

  But then I heard her take in a deep breath.

  “Are you having an asthma attack or something?” Kylie said.

  “Mr. V will believe me,” Ginger said. “We told him everything.”

  “No, you did not!” Heidi said.

  She made a little hiccup sound. The result of a Kylie poke, for sure.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kylie said. “There’s no evidence, or he would already have reported us.”

  If that wasn’t an example of neener-neener-neener, I didn’t know what was. It was time for me to step out and help Ginger before she blew her foghorn.

  But before I could, the bathroom door flung open and Mrs. Fickus stepped inside. The place suddenly seemed dingier and smellier than it ever had.

  “Miss Hollingberry!” she said. “Step back!”

  “Oh, Mrs. Fickus, thank you!” Kylie cried. “She was threatening us!”

  It was like déjà vu, only this time I wasn’t letting it go.

  I stepped out of my corner and said, “No, she wasn’t.”

  Mrs. Fickus startled. Outside the door, she was still holding open, Mr. Jett said, “Is that Tori? I sent her to the nurse.”

  Kylie got a triumphant gleam in her eye. I saw her nudge Heidi.

  “Tori’s been threatening us too!” Heidi said. “She’s been telling Ginger what to say.”

  “Really?” I said. “Really? I heard the whole thing!”

  Mr. Jett was now all the way in the restroom. He was breaking all kinds of rules today, right along with the rest of us.

  “I’m not sure you’re a credible witness,” he said to me.

  “But I am.”

  We all whipped our heads toward the stall where Ophelia made her entrance. Her voice was husky and thick and her eyes were so puffy I could hardly see the brown.