by Christina Li
I had to stop. But it was as if my mind had blanked, and now I was just blurting out the words I’d memorized.
“. . . Fins were cut into three different shapes . . .”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the poster.
“We measured the angle and acceleration of the launch . . .”
The slime wouldn’t stop dripping.
“As scientists, we eventually hope to explore other planets,” I rushed on breathlessly, not even going off the cards I’d carefully memorized. I could barely hear the words coming out of my mouth. I started talking faster, racing to get through the presentation before the slime covered everything. “Like the Voyager spacecrafts, which carried a golden disc of all human sounds to explain human life to extraterrestrial creatures—”
I kept looking at the drawing of the aliens, and my face became very, very hot. My ears burned.
And I barreled on.
“—Or like the space shuttle Columbia, which carried the first Spacelab to conduct experiments—”
“Ro. Time’s up.”
At the sound of Mr. Devlin’s voice, I stopped talking.
The room was silent.
I was dimly aware of Benji beside me, with shock written all over his face.
“And guys,” Mr. Devlin said, in a softer voice. “What happened to your poster?”
And all of a sudden, I couldn’t speak.
I heard the boys in the back of the classroom snicker. Charlotte Wexler leaned her head and whispered to Holly.
“All right,” he said, springing up out of his chair. He cracked his knuckles. He bounced on the balls of his feet. He cleared his throat. “Who did this?”
My face grew burning hot. I couldn’t think.
“Come on,” Mr. Devlin said. He cleared his throat again. “Did someone touch Ro and Benji’s poster board?”
Silence.
“Class,” he said, his voice rising in pitch.
And suddenly, it felt like the edges of the room were folding in on me. No one cared about the planets and galaxies and universes out there. No one cared about the exact angles and altitudes of rockets; no one cared that the slightest tweak in a fin design meant that the rocket could fly that much high higher or farther, that it might be the one to discover a new moon or planet or signs of life on Mars. There were nebulae and space dust and runaway stars and clouds of million-degree X-ray gas and No. One. Cared.
All they saw was the stupid green slime.
“I-it’s okay,” I forced out. My mouth was dry. “I’ll just sit down.”
“Well, great job, you two.” Mr. Devlin cleared his throat nervously. “But we should probably, uh . . .” He gestured to the board, his cheeks turning pink. “Get that cleaned up a little bit.”
The boys in the back of the classroom were doubled over, their shoulders heaving with silent laughter.
I opened my mouth, but not another sound came out. Slowly, Benji folded up our presentation board. I walked back to my seat. Behind my back, I could hear my name being whispered around.
I shrank down in my seat, tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Benji
AS RO KEPT on talking and talking and I looked out at the classroom and wished for the ground to swallow me up a little bit, I met Drew’s eyes.
I knew.
He had completely, absolutely, 100 percent done this.
Drew widened his eyes, as if he were saying, Who, me?
But I’d caught the small satisfied smile when I first opened up the presentation board. When the others were giggling and whispering, Drew simply leaned back in his chair and stared straight back at me, as if daring me to say something.
He hadn’t been scared of Ro, after all. He’d just been biding his time for the perfect awful prank.
Someone in the back of the classroom snickered. Toothpick was saying something, but I wasn’t even paying attention to him. Instead I was looking over at Drew, who seemed to be one split second away from busting into uncontrollable laughter. I wished I had the Flash’s shoes—I’d be racing out of this classroom in an instant, and then out of this school and far, far away. I wouldn’t stop. I’d just keep running.
Instead, everything seemed to happen in slow motion as I folded up the ruined board and followed Ro back to our table.
I was furious. It wasn’t just that Drew had messed up the drawings I’d worked hours on, even though I was plenty mad that he’d screwed up the one school project I actually cared about. It was that he’d done it to Ro, who’d seemed really excited to share her love of space with the class. And now, she was slumped over her end of the table, blinking back tears.
I’d thought I knew how to deal with bullies. I knew what Amir did every time Drew made fun of his accent. He would shrug, as if it didn’t bother him. Drew never stopped making fun of the way he talked, but he never got the reaction he wanted, either.
Honestly, I could look away and not care about this. I could laugh this off, even if what I really wanted to do was to chuck the nasty slime right at Drew’s face. This was just a seventh-grade science project, really. I could shrug and pretend this was all stupid anyway.
But I couldn’t help feeling awful. Worse than awful. Because deep down I knew that this was all my fault. It had been over a year since I’d ratted Drew out. Over a year since I landed Drew in detention and the Prank Wars ended and he started hating my guts. And over a year later, Ro was caught up in something she’d never been a part of in the first place.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ro
AS THE BELL rang, fury rose up in me. Red-hot, five-hundred-degrees-Fahrenheit kind of anger. I threw my things into my backpack, and as Drew Balonik slipped out, I went straight after him.
Benji stood up behind me. “Ro—”
It was Drew. It had to be. I’d pushed him down at the field and now he was getting back at me. I brushed Benji off and headed straight out the door. I pushed past people until I spotted Drew’s floppy brown hair in the crowd and strode right up to him.
He turned. “Oh, hey.”
I snapped, “What is your problem?”
He squared his shoulders. “What do you mean?”
Tears rose up, but I blinked them back furiously. “Why did you ruin it?”
Drew gave me that look again. That look of fake shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You messed up our science fair project!”
“‘You messed up our science fair project,’” Drew mocked in a high-pitched voice. “Come on, how do you know I did it? Where’s your evidence?”
He was right. I knew it was him. I was 100 percent certain. But there was no way to prove it.
“I liked how you put your alien goo all over it,” Drew said with a smug smile. “It was a nice touch. Made me actually interested in what you had to say for once.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
It was all over. The science fair. My project. All because I’d talked back to him on a soccer field.
“I’ve never heard you talk so much,” Drew said. “You should do it more. It’s pretty funny to watch.”
My eyes stung. I waited for Drew to say more, but he looked past me. I turned. Benji was standing behind me.
Had he been there the whole time?
“Oh, hey, there’s your boyfriend,” Drew taunted. “You know, people think you two make a nice freak couple. It’s kinda cute, actually.”
Benji didn’t say anything. He didn’t talk back to Drew. He didn’t even look at me.
I finally blurted out, “He’s not my—”
“Oh, sorry,” Drew said, looking at his watch. “Don’t want to be late for my next class.” Before he turned around, he grinned and said, “Good luck at the science fair.”
And then Drew was gone in the crowd of people. And Benji was still standing there, completely silent.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Benji
AS SOON
AS Drew left, it was as if my tongue untied itself. “Hey,” I said. “Drew’s a jerk. Don’t listen to him.”
But Ro stayed in place, her fists clenched, her back to me. And then she marched toward her locker without a single glance in my direction.
“Ro?” I followed her. “Hey, Ro, wait up! Can’t you see—”
She stopped. When she finally spoke, her voice was small. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
I swallowed. “Look—”
She whirled around. “You could have said something to him.”
“You don’t understand Drew Balonik.”
“I think I understand perfectly,” Ro said. “He’s a bully. What else is there?”
But the thing was, she hadn’t been friends with him before. She didn’t understand that when you talked back to him, it was like inviting more trouble. She didn’t understand that of all the times he teased Amir, he did it the least when Amir just ignored him. She didn’t understand that Drew had done this because she’d stood up to him when he tried to ruin her rocket.
It wasn’t like Drew didn’t upset me. He made me sick. Every time he made fun of her, it was like my stomach would close up. But right now, a crowd of people were forming around us. I could practically hear the words freak and boyfriend getting passed around.
“It makes things worse when you talk back to him,” I explained. Ro had to understand, didn’t she? “Just let him say whatever stupid thing he wants to say.”
Ro shook her head, like she was disgusted with me. And then she turned and opened her locker and her face turned pale.
The inside of Ro’s locker—all of it—was covered in slime.
It dripped down the inside walls and into her backpack. Onto papers and textbooks and the number-two pencil packs she kept.
The people around us were talking, whispering to each other. A few giggled and pointed. I could see Ro clenching her fists, her shoulders tight. A few long seconds passed. When she turned back around to face me there were tears in her eyes and my heart caved in.
Oh no.
“Friends stand up for each other,” Ro said.
I couldn’t look her in the eye.
“And if you were my friend, you would have said something. But you’re pretty awful at doing that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, my throat tightening. “Are you calling me an awful friend? What kind of a friend bosses their friend around? What kind of friend talks during the entire presentation and doesn’t let me speak a word?”
Ro said, “I—”
“It’s always been about what you want!” I blurted out. Wait. What was I saying? This wasn’t even related to what Drew did. I was supposed to be trying to comfort Ro. But I’d started, and I couldn’t stop it. Everything I’d kept bottled up started spilling out. “I’ve just been doing what you want all this time. You’re always doing everything your way. I don’t have a say in anything.” I glared at her. “I didn’t want to be a part of all this, anyway. I only did science fair so I could keep my art class. But you wanted to build your stupid rocket and solve my stupid case so you could keep feeling all smart and everything. You never cared about what I thought.”
Ro blinked and took a step back. I opened my mouth to say anything better, to take back my words. But the damage was done.
“I was helping you,” she said, her eyes flashing. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. What was wrong with me? But the thing was, I was mad. And not just at Drew—I was mad at Ro, too. Because finding my dad had always been a secret. My secret. But Ro had taken over, and now I felt so awful about this whole thing that I didn’t even want to look at those comics anymore.
People were starting to stare. Why were they staring? I took two steps away from Ro. I just wanted to hide in the art room and do my own drawings and pretend this mess never happened.
Tell her you’re sorry. Help her clean her mess up.
I said, “Well, maybe I don’t want your help.”
The silence stretched painfully between us.
Ro drew herself up. “Okay.”
I didn’t say anything.
She said, her voice quiet and uneven, “You’re embarrassed by me.”
“That’s not true,” I said. But I still couldn’t look her in the eyes.
“You don’t think I hear what people say about me? You don’t think I know that they say I’m a homeless-looking, know-it-all freak?” Her voice rose. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with wanting to figure out how fast the Earth rotates around the sun or wanting to launch a rocket because I want to know things? Because I actually care?”
All the air deflated out of my chest. “Ro.”
“Call me a freak,” she spat. “But at least I don’t sit there sleeping in class and drawing flying cars or space musicians or whatever stupid impossible thing you’ve dreamed up. At least I work like crazy for what I care about. At least I’m not scared of everything like you are.”
I looked up. “I’m not—”
“I would have found him,” Ro said, her voice shaking, tears in her eyes. “If I knew where my dad was, I would have found him that very day.”
She turned to her locker and slammed it shut. Slime oozed out of the bottom, but she didn’t seem to care. And then, without looking at me, she left.
I couldn’t become invisible. I couldn’t even fake a convincing-enough fever to ditch class and take a nap in the nurse’s office. So I hid in the art room for lunch, which was pretty much the next best thing.
“You all right there, kid?” Mr. Keanan asked. For once, he looked actually worried.
I forced myself to nod.
“Okay. You want me to put something on? Music? The Hitchhiker’s Guide?”
“Yes, please,” I whispered.
I sighed and rooted around for my sketchbook. I pulled out the big folder I’d stuffed with everything the week before; the comics, the newspaper clippings and maps that Ro had told me to study. I took a long look at it and thought about tossing it in the recycling. I stuffed it back into my backpack.
At least I’m not scared of everything.
I clenched my jaw. Sure, I hid my drawings every time Mom came in my room. Sure, I’d given up on trying to see Dad, mostly because I couldn’t convince Mom, but also a tiny bit because every time I thought about seeing my dad, my stomach did cartwheels.
But I wasn’t scared. Was I?
I thought about earlier, when Drew was making fun of Ro and I just stood there, unable to speak. I thought about the look on Ro’s face when she opened her locker. I thought about the slime dripping all over Ro’s stuff and how everyone had looked on and stared, and I felt sick all over again.
I thought about the time when I’d seen the Pepsi explode all over Amir. I’d wished I could step in, be more like the superheroes I’d read about. I wish I’d swept in like Superman.
But this time, I had just stood there too. I hadn’t done a single thing to help her.
I stared at my backpack. The day Ro had found out about the Spacebound premiere, she’d burst through my door, practically shaking with excitement. I remembered her wide grin and buried my head further in my hands.
Maybe she was pushy.
Maybe she liked to do things her way.
But she’d pulled every magazine and newspaper she could think of off the store rack that day, and I couldn’t think of a single other person who would do the same.
Friends stand up for each other.
I had to fix this. I bolted out of my seat and mumbled something to Mr. Keanan about needing to get water. I raced through the hallways until I got to Ro’s locker. The door was left ajar. I opened the door. I would clean out her locker. I could at least do that much.
The locker walls had already been scrubbed haphazardly, the slime scraped away. Ro must have come back and done it in a hurry after class had started.
And now I was even too late to fix this.
I slumped against her locker
and put my head in my hands.
I was the absolute worst friend in the entire universe.
The bell rang for the next class.
People started trickling into the halls. I pushed myself up and headed back to the art room to get my stuff.
Drew Balonik rounded the corner just then.
Of course.
I looked away. But then something in me shifted, and I looked straight at him.
He stopped, as if taunting me. “What?”
I didn’t say anything. I just kept glaring at him.
“Sorry about messing with your girl,” Drew said, even though his tone told me that he wasn’t actually sorry. Not an ounce.
I clenched my fists.
“You know, I think it’s really nice how you take care of these weirdos. Like you did with the Pakistani kid before he got deported—”
“Iranian,” I muttered between my teeth. “And he wasn’t deported, you idiot. He moved away.”
“Whatever. I mean, it’s kind of cute. And with new girl. Like I said, I think you guys make a good pair. If she stopped looking so scruffy all the time—”
I don’t remember lunging forward or grabbing him by the shoulders. All I remembered was a dull clattering sound as I shoved him back against a locker. “Don’t say that about my friend.”
I’d just meant to give him a good push and walk away. But the next thing I knew, he shoved me back with twice the force, knocking me off balance, and then somehow my knees collapsed, and he landed on top of me, grabbing my shirt. I kicked out blindly to get away from him, hearing an oof as my foot nailed him in the stomach, and then as I scrambled up he grabbed for me again—
“Hey! HEY! WHAT IS GOING ON?”
The social studies teacher tore us apart.
“He started it!” Drew Balonik pointed at me.
But the people around us stared at each other doubtfully. The crowd cleared, and the principal marched toward us.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I spat. “But she is my friend. And you don’t talk about my friends like that.”
“Enough,” the principal said. “Detention. Wednesday to Friday lunches.” She turned her gaze to me. “Both of you.”