Don't Judge Me

by Lisa Schroeder

  Think fast, I told myself. This is your chance.

  I remembered a spy movie I watched with my dad awhile back. The spy wanted some important papers, so he ran right into the guy carrying them, forcing him to drop his briefcase. Then, in a split second, the spy switched briefcases. He did it so fast and so sneakily, the other guy didn’t even realize what had happened.

  With no other ideas, I pretended to jump out of the way as a group of kids walked by, which basically resulted in me throwing myself at Ben, knocking him over and me tumbling after him.

  He looked around, stunned, trying to figure out what had just happened. I reached for the notebook, but I wasn’t quick enough. Ben grabbed it along with the other books and jumped to his feet.

  “What was that?” he asked. I waited for him to offer to help me up, but he just stood there, his face getting angrier by the second.

  “You like the young ones now, Robinson?” someone called out.

  “Get a room!” someone else said.

  Ben muttered a cuss word under his breath as I helped myself up.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was trying to get out of the way and I, uh, lost my balance or something.”

  He glared at me. “That was more than losing your balance, Hazel.”

  I shook my head hard. “I’m so sorry. I don’t really know what happened.”

  It was a lie, and I felt horrible about it. But I felt even more horrible about that notebook. The thing was, if I didn’t hurry up and get it from him, he’d eventually pass it on to someone else again. I had to get it from him. I just had to.

  I almost asked him about it. Like, I could have told him I’d peeked inside the notebook when I was at his house and had been disgusted by what I’d seen.

  “Why?” I wanted to ask him. “Why are you passing that thing around?”

  But I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, except just thinking about confronting him made me feel like I might lose my lunch right there in the middle of the hallway. Because in my imagination, he’d yell at me and tell me it was none of my business. He’d tell me I was a silly sixth grader who didn’t know anything and I was probably just jealous of the gorgeous girls who got good ratings.

  I felt so mad. Mad at myself that I didn’t have it in me and mad at Ben for starting the whole thing.

  He zipped up his backpack. “I don’t know what’s going on, Hazel, but you better watch it. Okay?”

  Great. Now it seemed like he was suspicious of me. Getting the notebook away from him suddenly seemed a hundred times harder. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.” I smiled. “Again, I’m really sorry. See you later.”

  He seemed to relax a little. “Yeah. See ya.”

  When I got home, I lay on my bed with Pip on my chest.

  I gently petted his shell as I thought about what to do next. It seemed like I had four choices:

  Give up and let the notebook continue to be a thing.

  Tell Ben I knew about it and ask him to give it to me so I could throw it in the trash.

  Tell someone else about it so I could maybe have some help.

  Figure out a way to get it from him at his house.

  Giving up would have been the easiest thing to do. It was the choice my brain was arguing for. It’s too big of a problem, it whispered to me. You can’t do this alone.

  If I decided to tell someone, hoping they’d help me, who would that be? There was no way it could be Tori. We had a few other friends we hung out with sometimes, but they were friends to both of us. What if someone decided to tell her what we were doing? She could get really upset with me, for a bunch of different reasons, and that was the last thing I wanted.

  The two best choices seemed to be to either find a big tub of courage and slather myself with it so I could talk to Ben, or sneak into his room at home and steal it.

  I’d already had the perfect opportunity to talk to Ben, though, and I’d blown my chance. If I hadn’t managed to do it then, I was pretty sure I never would. That meant there was only one choice left. I was going to have to get into his room somehow, find the notebook, and take it.

  I put Pip back in his box and texted Tori.

  What are you having for dinner? We’re having tuna casserole. So gross!

  She texted back right away: Mimi is making homemade pizza with spinach and stuff on it. It’s good! You can come over and eat with us if you want.

  I responded: Okay, I’ll be there by 5:00.

  The way my stomach felt, I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat much of anything. But it didn’t matter. That’s not why I was really going over there. While Ben ate his pizza, I’d excuse myself to the bathroom and that’s when I’d grab the notebook from his room.

  I rolled over and put Pip back in his box. I watched Pip as he nibbled on some green beans and carrots I’d put in there earlier. “Wish me luck,” I whispered to him.

  I guess tortoises are the strong but silent type.

  “Come to my room,” Tori said, taking my hand as soon as she opened the front door. “I have to show you something.”

  Her house smelled like popcorn. Must have been her afternoon snack. I think freshly popped popcorn must be one of the world’s most wonderful scents. How do kids who work at movie theaters not just stand there and eat it all day long?

  “Is everything okay?” I asked as I followed her into her room.

  She grinned. “Oh my gosh, better than okay. I’m so excited right now, you have no idea.”

  I took a seat on her bed. “Okay, you gonna tell me or do I have to guess a hundred times and never get it right?”

  “Remember how my karaoke machine broke and I was super upset because I didn’t want to wait for Christmas to get another one?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mimi found one at the thrift store for five bucks!” She pulled the machine out from her closet. “It’s a little beat up, but it still works.”

  I pointed to the dome on top. “What’s that?”

  She held her finger up, like she was telling me to wait, while she plugged it in. Green lights twinkled on the wall. “Disco lights!” she squealed.

  Tori’s dream is to be like her idol P!nk someday. And it may happen because she has such a good voice.

  She plopped down next to me. “I’m so happy! Now I can start practicing for the talent show. If I can just decide on a song. Will you help me figure out what to sing?”

  I looked at her. “You really want to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “The talent show?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe because our school has a jerk problem, and they might be jerks about your singing?”

  “Hazel, are you saying my singing is bad?”

  I laughed nervously. “No! That’s not what I meant. I love your singing, you know that. It’s just …”

  She didn’t let me finish. “Ben’s done it the last two years, and he’s never had any troubles.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a boy.”

  “So?”

  Right then, I wished it was anyone else but her brother who had the notebook. I wanted to tell her so badly. She was my best friend. I should have been able to tell her anything and everything.

  “So, boys have an easier time, usually. Don’t they?”

  “Dion was crying in the library,” she pointed out. “Pretty sure he wasn’t having an easy time.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Was I wrong to be worried about her? To want to protect her from people saying mean things?

  “I’ll work hard,” she said. “It’ll be good. No, wait. Better than good. I know you don’t see it the same way, but I think if I work hard and prove myself, this could give me a lot of points.”

  “Points?”

  “Yeah. Points with girls like Maddie Gray and Dawn Jones, that cute and funny seventh grader I have in study hall. Everyone loves Dawn. I want to be like her. I just have to prove myself, you know?”

  I’m not sure I’d ever felt as small as I felt in that moment. It see
med like she was telling me I wasn’t enough. That no matter how good of a friend I was to her, I’d never be enough. She wanted more. Not just more, a lot more.

  “Hey,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “You want to be my backup dancer?”

  “Tori, do you remember who you’re talking to, exactly?”

  She gave me a funny look. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you seen me dance?” I hopped up, determined to be just as cute and funny as Dawn Jones, and started doing the sprinkler in the middle of her room, one arm folded behind my head and my other arm straight out in front of me as I hopped around.

  Laughing, she said, “Wait, you need some music!”

  She turned on her karaoke machine and a Katy Perry song started playing.

  I danced even harder.

  Tori laughed and laughed while I kept making a fool of myself. Why couldn’t this be enough? Tori and me, just like it’d always been.

  She got up to dance too and even though part of me wanted to cry, there was also a part of me that knew she loved me a whole lot, that I was a part of her family and she was a part of mine, and we had something special. I had to believe that nothing could ever change that.

  She held my hands as she continued to laugh hysterically and spun me around and around.

  “You’d be the best backup dancer ever,” she told me.

  Before I could answer, her brother burst through the door. “What’s going on in here?”

  Tori ran over and shoved him. “Hey, haven’t you heard of knocking, Benjamin Buttercup?”

  I sort of loved it when she called her brother Benjamin Buttercup. It almost made me wish I had a brother or a sister so I could come up with a funny name to call them.

  “Okay, okay, sorry,” Ben said. “Just wanted to see why you two were laughing so hard.”

  “I was showing Tori my awesome dance moves,” I told him.

  “Cool,” he said. “Can I see?”

  “No!” we both yelled at the same time.

  “You’re no fun,” he said. “Fine. See ya later.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked, hoping this might be my chance to get that stupid notebook away from him.

  He gave me a funny look. “To my room?”

  “So, you’ll be here for the spinach pizza?” I asked.

  “Yes. Where else would I be? I live here, don’t I?”

  “Yeah, I just thought … Never mind.”

  “Bye!” Tori pushed him out and shut the door. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll sing with the karaoke machine and you dance.”

  “In your room, fine,” I said. “But not at school in front of a million people.”

  She rolled her eyes. “A million people? I wish.”

  How could my best friend and I be so different? She loved attention, while I did everything possible to avoid it.

  “Dinner’s ready!” Alice called.

  “Too bad,” I teased. “No more sprinkler dancing.”

  “After dinner!” Tori said. “You can stay, can’t you?”

  I couldn’t tell her it all depended on whether or not I could steal her brother’s personal property.

  The spinach pizza was delicious. I couldn’t believe it. Alice had made it on a pizza crust flavored with herbs, put three different cheeses on it, and then topped it with spinach leaves that got crunchy in the oven.

  I took a couple of bites and then I knew I had to make my move. Ben was a fast eater; if I didn’t hurry, he’d be finished with his meal before I had a chance to get into his room.

  “Sorry, I have to use the restroom,” I said as I took my napkin off my lap and set it on the table.

  “That’s fine, sweetie,” Jeanie said with a smile.

  I hurried to the hallway and carefully opened Ben’s door and ducked inside.

  My eyes scanned the room, past the shelf with baseball trophies, his unmade bed, and the floor littered with dirty clothes. I stepped over a pair of boxer shorts (ew!) and walked over to his desk. There were papers and books covering the top, but the notebook was nowhere in sight. Where could it be?

  I turned and looked around the room again. I had about one more minute before they’d start to get suspicious. It had to be here somewhere, it just had to be.

  And then I saw his backpack. He probably hadn’t emptied it. I rushed over, unzipped it, and looked inside. My heart was beating so loudly, I almost shushed it, worried everyone could hear it from the other room. I quickly pulled the notebook out and read the words that had caught my attention the first time: PRIVATE PROPERTY OF BEN R.

  Was I really doing this? Was I stealing something? I almost dropped it and ran out of there, ready to pretend none of this had ever happened. But this was my chance. My one chance to stop the notebook from getting around at our school some more.

  I walked toward the door and then I realized I still had a problem. A big one. How would I get it out of the house? Should I slide it up my shirt and leave now, making up an excuse? Or should I hide it somewhere and make sure to get it before I left later on?

  I decided it was too risky to leave right then. They’d look me over hard if I told them I was sick, maybe even make me lie down. If I had a notebook hidden in my shirt, they’d notice for sure. No, I had to hide it in the house somewhere and then grab it right before I rushed out the door for home.

  Was there some place safe in Tori’s room? Or was the bathroom the best bet? By now, everyone had to be wondering what was taking me so long. I had to hurry.

  The bathroom made the most sense because it was the only way I could get into a room by myself with no one watching me. I hurried in and placed the notebook in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. It felt wrong to have it so visible, though, so I grabbed a clean towel from underneath the sink and threw it on top of the notebook.

  There. Done. And now I just had to cross my fingers that no one had a sudden urge to bathe in the next thirty minutes.

  I went back to the table and took my seat, trying hard not to look like the guilty thief I’d become.

  “A thousand pieces is too hard,” Tori was saying. “The last one we did was five hundred pieces and it still took us, like, two weeks.” She turned to me. “Mimi got a puzzle at the thrift store along with my karaoke machine.”

  “What’s the picture on it?” I asked.

  “It’s a Paris balcony,” Alice explained. “A gorgeous Paris balcony. Wait, maybe all Paris balconies are gorgeous. Anyway, it’s on the coffee table. You can take a look after you finish your dinner.”

  “Yeah, I love how it looks,” Tori said. “I just wish it wasn’t a thousand pieces.”

  “It’s a puzzle,” Ben said. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

  “No, but it shouldn’t be too hard, either,” Tori argued. “Otherwise it’ll sit there and no one will work on it and instead of something fun it turns into something that just makes people miserable.”

  “Okay, little Miss Sunshine,” Ben said as he stood up with his empty plate. “Whatever you say.”

  Ben was already finished. That meant he might go in his room, look in his backpack, and notice that the notebook was gone. I had to get out of there before that happened.

  After he stepped into the kitchen, I said, “Um, I’m really sorry, but I don’t feel well. I think I need to go home.”

  Both of Tori’s moms looked at me with worried faces. “Oh dear,” Alice said. “My cooking isn’t that bad, is it?”

  “No, it’s really good,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s wrong. Just think I need to go home and lie down.”

  “Of course,” Jeanie said. “Do you want one of us to drive you?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “We can put your bike in the back of the truck; it’s not a problem,” Alice said.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m just gonna, um, use the bathroom one more time and then I’ll head home. I’ll be okay, honest. I think the fresh air will feel good.”

  Jeanie and Alice looked at each other, and I kn
ew they were trying to decide if they should stop me. If one of them insisted on taking me home, I’d have to leave the notebook here. There’s no way I could sneak it out. By now I was kicking myself that I hadn’t brought along a backpack or bag or something to help me get the thing out of there.

  I held my breath waiting to see what they were going to say.

  “Do you have your phone with you?” Jeanie asked.

  I patted my pocket. “Yes.”

  “All right. Sure hope you feel better.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I turned to Tori. “Sorry. We’ll have to try out that new karaoke machine another time.”

  “No problem,” Tori said.

  I took my plate to the kitchen and then headed for the bathroom. When I found the door locked, panic rushed through me. What if Ben found the notebook in the bathroom? What would he say to me? What would he do to me?

  I didn’t know what to do. Where to go. I could feel sweat dripping down my back. Well, at least now I probably looked truly sick.

  Just as I was about to run out of the house and never show my face again, Ben opened the door. When he saw me standing there, he smiled. “You need it again?” he asked.

  I could barely speak. “Not feeling too good,” I managed.

  “Oh. Sorry,” he said.

  As soon as he’d gone into his room and shut the door, I rushed in, grabbed the notebook, shoved it under my shirt, and raced toward the front door.

  “See you later,” I called out. “Thanks for having me.”

  “Bye!” Tori called out.

  “Feel better!” Alice said.

  I got on my bike and flew. Like, I’m pretty sure if a peregrine falcon had shown up and decided to fly beside me, I would have beaten it home.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d done it. The notebook was mine now.

  “Hi, Hazel!” Mom called out when she heard the front door open. They may have had tuna casserole, but the house smelled like warm bread and cheese. My stomach rumbled. “Did you have a nice time?”

  “Yes!” I called out. “I want to check on Pip. I’ll be there in a minute.”