It Wasn't Me

by Dana Alison Levy

  “Alice? Can you join us?” Ms. Lewiston asks, her voice still bright. “And do you want me to get some ice for that eye?”

  Alice jumps like a cat—literally twitches all over—then, looking confused, gets up and starts dragging her chair forward. Of course the strap of her Sharpie-doodled messenger bag is stuck under the chair leg, so she has to stop and untangle it. Then her bag spills, so she carefully picks up all the pens, index cards, gum wrappers, notebooks, and pencil cases (she has, like, six different pencil cases). For five minutes we all silently watch her get her stuff together. Finally she sits down between Molly and Andre. Molly, being Molly, makes her patented Everything Smells Awful face and moves closer to Erik.

  “Ice, hon?” Ms. Lewiston asks again.

  Alice looks, if possible, even more confused. Maybe she’s sleepwalking….She doesn’t seem to grasp even the basic idea of what’s happening.

  “Why would I need ice?” she asks, and her voice is high and clear, like she should be singing or something.

  “Your eye…,” Ms. Lewiston starts, and Alice starts laughing. We all keep staring while she slaps her knee, which I didn’t realize was something people actually did outside of books. Finally she snorts a few times and shakes her head.

  “This is makeup! Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she says finally, collecting herself.

  Molly can’t quite take this. “You did that to yourself on purpose?” she asks, squinting at Alice.

  Alice nods so hard she looks like a bobblehead doll. “Of course! Special-effects makeup. You know, horror films, slasher movies, all that stuff?”

  Molly visibly recoils, and, for extra fun, turns white, then red. “Ohmygod. Like, literally, you could not be weirder if you tried.”

  Alice blinks. “What if I had two black eyes? That would be weirder, right?”

  “Oh. My. God!” Molly leans back.

  Alice leans forward. She peers right at Molly. “I could do such sick bruising on you. You’re so pale, and the freckles would be really fun to work with.”

  Erik snickers, then tries to cover it as a cough. Alice turns around.

  “And you too!” she says, looking far more awake now. “I think we could do something spectacular with a compound fracture for you. You know, bone poking out through the skin? Epic.”

  Erik immediately freezes, prey-like. Now I’m the one trying to make my laugh sound like a cough. This is actually more entertaining than I expected.

  But Ms. Lewiston isn’t going to let us wander down the road to Aliceland. She takes a deep breath, then lets it out. “Special effects! That is really cool. You’ll have to tell us more about that at some point. But right now, I’m going to ask us all to redirect our attention to this circle, and to the reason we’re here. Okay?”

  Silence.

  She looks around the circle, making eye contact with each of us. “Okay?” she says again, and this time we all stare at our laps and make that muttering yesweagreejustleaveusalone noise that keeps most teachers happy.

  But Ms. Lewiston isn’t most teachers.

  She’s silent long enough that we all look at her. I will tell you: there is no one tough enough not to squirm a little at the expression on her face.

  “Listen,” she says, and takes another deep breath. “There’s no point in being here.”

  I lean back. Finally. Someone agrees with me. Maybe I won’t have to gnaw off my own leg to get out of here. But she goes on.

  “There’s no point in being here if we don’t do the work. If you’re all going to sit here, trying to be as tough and silent as possible—”

  Alice interrupts. “Oh, I don’t need to be tough and silent,” she says, again in her singsong voice. “I’d much rather talk.”

  Ms. Lewiston smiles at her, and, who knows how, but it looks like a real smile. “Thanks, Alice. But I’m going to need everyone to talk, and no matter how hard or awkward it is, we’re going to have to talk about what happened with Theo’s photographs.”

  Like magic, twelve eyes swivel to point at me. Mentally, channeling my inner trapped wolf, I start to gnaw at my leg.

  Compared with this detention, a little pain and blood loss seem like reasonable options.

  Sorry, not detention. Justice Circle, which sounds like we should light candles and do that weird ommmmm breathing my mom does in yoga. But no, we’re in a room with fluorescent lights, two-tone brown tile floor, and the unmistakable smell of that baked ziti/chicken patty/pizza mix. I swear the whole school smells like those three foods, even if the cafeteria hasn’t served them in weeks. Who knows why? Who knows why anything happens in this place? Certainly not me. And if we’re going to point the stern finger of blame for this whole thing, it should go right…to…Ms. Lewiston.

  This was her idea. Instead of suspending the five suspected students who were found on the scene after the epically scaled total public destruction of my photographs, she thought we should all sit down over vacation week and talk about it. Our principal, Ms. Davis, was not at all convinced. I was waiting outside the office while the two of them were going at it, and let’s just say I don’t know who Ms. Davis likes less, Ms. Lewiston or students. Might be a tie.

  Imagine those massive male moose bellowing and charging at each other like you’d see on National Geographic. It was nothing like that physically. Because it was two middle-aged women talking politely to each other. But mentally, it totally was.

  Ms. Davis: Zero tolerance has to mean ZERO TOLERANCE. That’s what it means. ZERO TOLERANCE.

  Ms. Lewiston: …

  Ms. Davis: Well? Do you not agree?

  Ms. Lewiston: Sorry, I didn’t realize that was a question. I agree that vandalism and bullying shouldn’t be tolerated. But suspending five students who have not been proven guilty of anything seems…problematic.

  Ms. Davis: Well, I still—

  Ms. Lewiston: And I can’t help but think the school committee will be very upset.

  Ms. Davis: …

  Mentioning the school committee was a total Jedi move. Ms. Davis looked like she had just vomited in her mouth, but she listened while Ms. Lewiston outlined the whole Justice Circle idea, and finally gave a rather ungracious and terse agreement. And I guess the parents all agreed because it seemed like the best option: while no one was being formally charged with a crime yet, these five were the only ones standing in the gallery after the vandalism was discovered. And somehow no one had managed a very convincing story about some masked stranger who snuck in and scribbled threats, gay slurs, and other misery all over my photographs before slipping out a window undetected. I overheard Davis saying that the kids only agreed because their parents hope they can get away with this Justice Circle instead of a hate crime on their record. And while I’d love to think they’re here because they care so deeply about me, I suspect that for once she’s right.

  So yeah. Instead of the five of them getting suspended, we’ll spend vacation week here, getting our justice on. Ms. Lewiston wrote a letter and told us all about this Justice Circle, that what she’s trying to do is like a process schools and even courts use to help resolve disputes. It’s partly based on Native American tribal models of justice, which are less about punishment and more about repairing the community.

  We watched a video of a guy giving a TED Talk on it. I didn’t know what a TED Talk was (and I learned it has nothing to do with a guy named Ted), but it’s cool—seriously, like these criminals and drunk drivers and their victims sit in a circle with a therapist and deal with this really heavy stuff, being totally honest and deep. And (in the video, at least) everyone is way better off afterward. Like, the victims have closure and a feeling of peace, and these gang members or whatever work to make amends and then hopefully go on to be productive members of society. All cool.

  But…please.

  I agreed to do this, which I t
otally didn’t have to do, for a few key reasons:

  Because, not to sound completely sad (cue the tiny violin), I didn’t really have plans for vacation anyway.

  I have a pretty good idea how it went down and who in this room might have done it. But I have no proof, obviously, and who knows? Maybe Weird Alice or Silent Andre have their own reasons for ruining my stuff. Heck, maybe Molly had a freak-out of epic proportions and did something less than totally perfect for the first time in her life. I have no clue. But let’s just say that spending a week here and avoiding having the person who did this get suspended, then hating on me for the rest of his natural-born life…well, five days doesn’t seem like too big a price to pay not to be the seventh-grade equivalent of chum in the shark-infested water.

  And finally, because Ms. Lewiston is one of the few non-horrible teachers in the school. Her non-horribleness was critical last year, when my dad left and I was kind of messed up. She’d let me sit in her office and chill and maybe talk books or photography until I didn’t feel like crawling into a hole to die. So I owe her. After all, this Justice Circle is Ms. Lewiston’s passion. And she’s cool enough that I want to help out.

  So here we are, sitting in a circle with Ms. Lewiston, while Ms. Davis—who made it clear she would rather be on vacation—prowls in and out of the room, staring ominously at different kids (okay, mostly Jax and Alice—Jax because he gets in trouble a lot, and Alice because she’s, well…Alice) and reminding us—as if we needed reminding—that this isn’t supposed to be fun. That we need to make progress on the issue.

  But let’s be real. We’re a bunch of seventh graders at Shipton Middle School in small-town Massachusetts. The five kids in here besides me are the ones who were in the gallery right after it happened. They all swear they did nothing and know nothing and saw nothing. Andre swears he wasn’t even there, that he had left his bag there and gone to the bathroom, but no one backed up his story. He’s one of those kids who seriously blends into the background, so he may be telling the truth. And like I said, I’m pretty sure I know who gets the Most Likely to Vandalize Stuff Award.

  So, sure, maybe we’ll get a confession from Suspect Number One, or maybe someone else will actually speak up (Because really? No one saw anything? Please.) and drop some truth bombs. Or maybe no one will speak up and we’ll end up right where we started. But…come on. It’s not like this is a real crime. And it’s not like anyone’s going to suddenly be all “I CONFESS!” and admit it and “restore justice” to me.

  I know who I’m dealing with. These are the same people I’ve been in school with since kindergarten. The Overachiever, the Jock, the Nerd, the Weirdo, and the Screwup. They all have their place in the school food chain, just like I do. And—honesty time—nothing that happens in this classroom is going to make a difference.

  Ms. Lewiston has us all ready to jump into this process, if by “jump into” you mean “do everything in our power to avoid eye contact.” It’s not pretty.

  But she’s got us in a circle, around a battery-powered candle on a piece of woven fabric that reminds me of the Guatemalan wall hanging my dad used to have in his office. Next to the fake candle, there’s a bunch of smooth beach stones, a birch stick, and one those of shaky-eggs we used to play in kindergarten music class.

  This does not look promising.

  I try to remember why I’m here, but my reasons seem weaker than they did before. Somehow, being confronted with shaky-eggs and ceremonial rocks will do that to a dude.

  “Remember,” Ms. Lewiston says, looking at each of us. “The goal here is not to punish or blame. It’s to understand and move forward. Whoever did this to Theo has to be given a chance to see the impact of that damage. And Theo needs to be given a chance to share his hurt.”

  It takes military-school levels of self-control, but I do NOT roll my eyes in disgust. I’m pretty proud of myself for that, but apparently there are no rewards in this world, because Ms. Lewiston fixes on me.

  “Look, Theo, you’ve been very strong about this, but I’m going to ask you to open up a bit, and talk about how these incidents have made you feel.”

  I let my hair fall in front of my face and stare at the desk. Uh-uh. Nope. I am not going to be the sacrificial lamb in this process.

  Ms. Lewiston sighs. “Okay. Let’s start with this. Why do you think it matters? Let’s go around the circle. Jax? Do you want to start with the talking stick?”

  Jax jerks in his seat and looks panicked. I’d feel bad for him if I wasn’t so relieved that Lewiston found another target.

  “Uhhhh…yeah. Sure.” He leans down and picks up the birch stick. “So…” He pauses. “Wait. Can you remind me what we’re supposed to do?”

  Molly sighs in a loud Everyone Is a Moron way and says, “Don’t you even listen? We’re supposed to go around and say why you think it matters that we’re here.” She huffs and shifts in her seat, like Jax is personally offending her.

  Ms. Lewiston coughs gently. “You’re partly right, Molly, but remember, Jax has the talking stick. And this is a place of no judgment. Let’s try to keep that in mind.”

  I try to turn my give-me-a-break laugh into a cough. No judgment is, I think, literally impossible for Molly Claremont.

  But Jax is trying again, so we all dutifully give him our attention. “Well, uh…I guess it matters because Theo’s photos were messed with, and you figure it’s one of us, because we were the ones on the scene when it was discovered. Right?”

  Ms. Lewiston nods. “Right. But why does that matter? Why does it matter to you?”

  Jax scowls a little. “Truth? Because if no one gets caught, we’re all basically guilty until proven innocent.”

  Andre shifts a little in his seat. Ms. Lewiston looks at him. “Thanks, Jax. Can you hand the stick to Andre now?”

  Andre leans forward and takes it with the tips of his fingers, like it might be hot. “Well, I guess I think it matters because Theo’s probably pretty upset. And he deserves to know who did it. And…” He pauses.

  “Please go on, Andre,” Ms. Lewiston says.

  “Well, it’s kind of harsh that Jax only cares about not being in trouble. I mean, it’s not really about us, right?” Andre carefully puts the stick down and leans back in his chair.

  Ms. Lewiston looks around. “Anyone want to respond to that?”

  Molly grabs the stick. “I don’t think it’s only about Theo. I mean, it’s horrible about his photos, and I feel really sorry for him, but I don’t think it’s fair at all that I’m blamed for it.”

  “No one is blaming you, Molly,” Ms. Lewiston says gently. “We’re just trying to get to a better understanding of what happened.”

  Alice squeaks, then raises her hand. Molly hands over the stick. “If I say right now that I did it, that I trashed everything in the gallery and opened the darkroom door, would we all get to go home?”

  Everyone tenses. I stare at her. Alice? Weird loner Alice was the one who did it? My pits get kind of sweaty, and I wrap my arms around myself. Seriously? I try to think of why she’d have it in for me, then give up, figuring it must have been some bizarro creepy goth thing. Maybe voices in her head told her to. But before I can follow this thread, she squeaks again.

  “I mean, I didn’t do it. Obviously. But I’m curious. Is that what the goal is? For someone to confess?”

  We all lean back in our chairs. Talk about an anticlimax.

  Erik clears his throat, then reaches for the stick, and I have to force myself not to flinch. I wonder what he’ll say, because I’m pretty close to 100 percent certain he’s Most Likely to Trash My Stuff, and he’s big enough to do some serious damage with that stick. His camouflage Under Armour hoodie has to be size XXL, and I swear he probably has to shave already. Erik has never been leader of the geek bashing and wedgie giving, like his teammates, but as my grandfather used to say, �
��You can judge someone by the company they keep.” And Erik keeps the company of the über jocks who spend many of their waking hours being total tormenting turds to the rest of us. And while I’ve never actually seen him doing anything, he’s never stood up to his friends either. So yeah, my working hypothesis is that he’s absolutely as much of a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal as they are. My basic strategy is classic prey: stay hidden, off the radar. Truth? Being in this Justice Circle with him makes me seriously nervous. I have to assume he’s not so stupid that he’ll try something in front of Ms. Lewiston, but still. Even having his big, mouth-breathing self looking at me feels downright dangerous.

  When he gets the stick, he tosses it hand to hand like he’s physically incapable of chilling out. “So, um. I just wanted to say that, well, based on that TED Talk about restorative justice, the point isn’t really to punish us, but for us to figure out a way to understand what happened and make it up to Theo. And—” He pauses.

  We’re all watching Alice. She has taken out a ball of black yarn and a massive hook-shaped thing and is starting to do something crafty. She doesn’t look up until Erik stops talking. Then she peers around at us and glares at him.

  “WHAT?” she says loudly. Erik jumps a little.

  “Well, just that it’s not about punishment or finding someone guilty, but about understanding and moving forward.”

  I can’t contain my eye roll. Apparently, Erik has swallowed the Justice Circle whole and is regurgitating it back up for Ms. Lewiston. He’s now staring at his sneakers, but the tips of his ears are red. I wouldn’t have thought Erik smart enough to do the double-fake…to seem all into this whole justice thing so as not to make it glaringly obvious that he’s the likeliest candidate for evil jock-overlord behavior. But what do I know? The world is a mysterious place.