Don't Judge Me

by Lisa Schroeder

  Ben quickly let go of my arm. “Yes,” I said. “Sorry. I’m coming.”

  I glanced back at Ben and gave him a little shrug, trying to look as innocent as possible. He had to believe me, or he’d keep bugging me about it.

  As I took a seat, I noticed Tori talking to the girl who sat across the aisle from her. It seemed like maybe she hadn’t even noticed her brother in the hallway with me.

  But I had noticed. I’d noticed how mad Ben was and how determined he’d been to get me to admit I’d taken the notebook. If he came around again, whatever he said, I couldn’t get flustered. I had to stay calm and just keep saying it: “Ben, what are you talking about?”

  You can do it, I told myself. Actually, you have to do it.

  I was happy to see Dion when he came to the library with his hot lunch. It was pizza day. I patted the chair next to me and he took a seat.

  “Hi,” I said. “You’re here!”

  “I’m here.” He picked up his slice and took a bite. Then he nodded toward the piece of paper and pen in front of me. “More haiku?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see. So far everything I want to say would be way more than seventeen syllables. Like, girls should be allowed to wear whatever they want, it’s a free country, why are you doing this to us, Mr. Buck?”

  Tori chuckled. “I like it. Now just shrink it down into something poetic and …”

  “Meaningful?” Dion said, finishing the sentence.

  “Yes!” Tori said. “Exactly.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” I said.

  I reached into my lunch bag and took out the bag of grapes and set them in the middle of the table again.

  “Want a bite of my pizza?” Dion offered.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” I said. “I have lots of grapes, that’s all. Help yourself.”

  And that’s exactly what he did. I liked that he felt comfortable enough with us to do that.

  “So, Dion,” Tori asked, “you gonna try out for the talent show?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Are you afraid or is it because you don’t think you have a talent?”

  Dion took a drink of milk before he said, “I’ve got some pretty good moves, I guess. My little brother and I make up dance routines sometimes.” He looked around before he leaned in and whispered, “Probably shouldn’t have said that so loud.”

  “I don’t get it. What’s wrong with dancing?” I asked.

  “Some people think it’s … girly,” he said.

  Both Tori and I said the same thing at the exact same time. “What?”

  I about choked on the grape in my mouth. “Haven’t they seen So You Think You Can Dance? My mom and I love that show.”

  Dion said, “Well, you know, if it’s not a sport, then it’s not cool or whatever.”

  “My grandpa loves to dance,” I said. “I mean, lots of guys love to dance, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” Dion agreed. “They do. And I would love to join the dance program after school when soccer is over but …”

  “But what?” Tori asked.

  “There’s not a single boy in it,” he said softly.

  “Maybe you should do it anyway,” I suggested. “I mean, if it makes you happy.”

  “But if people are gonna make fun of him,” Tori said, “that’d be tough. He already feels like he doesn’t fit in, so it might only make things worse.”

  I didn’t like how this conversation was going. “So it’s better to pretend we’re something we’re not, just so people like us? Tori, that’s kinda messed up, don’t you think?”

  Dion had been concentrating on curling the corners of his napkin. He looked uncomfortable and it made me feel so bad for him.

  “There’s this thing I do when I’m dancing that gives me confidence,” he said before Tori could reply to me. “I wish I could do it with everything.”

  “What is it?” I asked, truly curious.

  “When I’m dancing, I tell myself I’m not Dion. I pretend I’m someone else. Someone like Sammy Davis Jr. or Fred Astaire.”

  “Who are they?” Tori asked.

  He looked shocked that she didn’t know. I didn’t know, either. “Couple of the most famous dancers of all time,” he explained. “You’ve seriously never heard of Fred and Ginger?”

  We both shook are heads.

  He clucked his tongue. “They are unbelievable on the dance floor. My mama has all their old movies on DVD. She sure does love ’em.”

  “So how does pretending to be Fred or Sammy help you?” I asked.

  “If I’m someone like that, there’s no way I can flop, right?” he said. “’Cause Sammy, man, he’s got the moves, so if I’m him, then I’ve got the moves. You get me? It sort of tricks my brain or something.”

  “Okay,” Tori said, smiling, “so you can be Sammy or Fred at the talent show. I want to see that! And you know what? If you impress people with your moves at the talent show, maybe they’ll be more supportive of you doing dance after school.”

  “Or they’ll laugh at me,” Dion said.

  “That’s what I said,” I told him. “Tori doesn’t believe me.”

  “You really think they’re going to magically change for one night?” Dion asked.

  “The jerks probably won’t even come to the talent show,” she said. “Why would they? They don’t like that kind of thing, do they?”

  “I honestly don’t know what they like,” Dion replied. “But what I want to know is why.”

  “Why, what?” I asked.

  “Why they gotta be that way?” he said. “If I ever acted that way at home, my dad would ground my butt for weeks. No more soccer. No more video games. Nothing. Just me and a long list of chores every day.”

  I thought of Ben. His moms are amazing. They never let their kids act mean toward them or anyone else. And I’d heard them lecture Tori and Ben about treating others with respect and what that looked like. Maybe sometimes parents were the reason kids acted badly, but it couldn’t be the only reason.

  I wished I could ask Ben why he’d done it. Why he’d started the notebook. Had he wanted to become more popular? Was it a way to look “cool” to the other boys at school? Or maybe he just thought it’d be something fun to do and was super clueless about it all?

  I didn’t have the answer, but I was really curious.

  “I think people will be nice at the talent show, though,” Tori said. “Especially if we bake all the mean boys cupcakes, like Hazel wants to do.”

  “You want to do what?” Dion asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just an idea. I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Maybe they don’t have many people being nice to them, you know?”

  “That’s a sad thought,” Dion said.

  “Even if we don’t hand out cupcakes,” Tori said, “I think it’ll be fine. It takes a lot for people to get up onstage and put themselves out there. I bet everyone will be their best selves.”

  Dion stared at her with his mouth open for a moment before he said, “You got a real hopeful heart, don’t you? That’s what my mama likes to say, that there are some people who have hopeful hearts and believe everything will turn out fine, no matter what other people think.”

  It made Tori sit up straight. “I like that. A hopeful heart.”

  “What does she call someone who doesn’t have that?” I asked Dion.

  “A negative Nelly,” he said as he sort of rolled his eyes. “Whatever that means. How is it negative if you’re saying things are bad when they’re really and truly bad?”

  I started writing words on my piece of paper while they kept talking.

  When it rains for weeks,

  it’s hard to trust that someday

  sunshine will return.

  After I finished, Dion leaned over and read it. When his eyes met mine, he smiled and said, “Hazel, that is something special. How do you do that? Hey, you know what? Maybe you should write haiku for the talent show.”

  It made m
e laugh. “I’d be booed off the stage after ten seconds. Who wants to watch someone write something? I might as well bring a plant onstage and say, ‘Okay, we’re all going to watch this plant grow, isn’t that exciting?’ ”

  Dion laughed, but Tori’s face lit up like a lantern. “Wait. What if you read some of the haiku you’ve already written?”

  I took a couple of grapes and popped them in my mouth. “My haiku are mine. I’m not sharing them with anyone.”

  Tori looked confused. “But you put them in books for people to find.”

  I wiggled my eyebrows. “Except no one knows I’m the one who wrote them. I’m, like, a haiku ninja.”

  Dion smiled. “Cool. I’ve never been friends with a ninja before.”

  “Lucky us,” Tori teased.

  He lifted his milk carton and said, “To friends.”

  I grabbed my can of cherry bubbly, and Tori picked up her water bottle. “Cheers,” I said as we clinked our drinks.

  “Cheers!” they said.

  I was thrilled to have a new friend. But there was one thing I needed to do that I hadn’t done yet. As soon as I got home, I needed to do it and get it over with.

  I needed to find out if Dion was a part of the notebook.

  I searched for the initials D.W. as soon as I got home after soccer practice. Lucky for me, I didn’t find them on a single page. Of course, even if I had found them, they could have belonged to someone besides Dion. But I was glad I didn’t have to worry about it.

  I thought back to third grade when a boy in our class, Jonathon, had wanted to be friends with Tori and me. At recess, he’d chased us with a handful of bark chips he’d scooped up from beneath the slide. Then he’d threatened to drop them down our shirts if we didn’t play with him.

  “What do you want to play?” Tori had asked.

  “Why are you even asking?” I’d whispered in her ear. “I don’t like him.”

  “Let’s play tag,” he’d said.

  I’d looked over by the swings where a group of kids were running around. “Why don’t you play with them?”

  “They won’t let me.” He’d raised his hands full of bark chips and marched toward us. “But you will, right?”

  I could still remember how helpless I’d felt. Play with the mean kid or get a shirt full of bark chips. Those were not good choices. But we had to make one.

  I was just about ready to say, “Fine, we’ll play tag with you,” but Tori had stepped forward and said, “Go ahead. Put those bark chips down my shirt. I don’t care.”

  “Yeah you do,” he’d said. “You’ll get so many slivers. And who’s going to pick them out for you, huh?”

  “Go ahead,” she’d said louder this time. “Do it! I’ll scream and cry and you know what’ll happen? You’ll get sent to the principal’s office while we’re in PE class. That sounds fun, huh?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what my friend had just done. Now Jonathon was the one with the hard choice. It was all on him. And you know what he did? He turned around, dropped the bark chips, and stomped off.

  I nicknamed Tori “Genius” and that’s all I called her for at least a month after that, until she told me she’d had enough and would like to go back to her normal name, thank you very much.

  It felt a little bit like all the boys who’d written in the notebook had handfuls of bark chips they wanted to put down our shirts. It felt … cruel. If Dion had been a part of the notebook, I would have been so upset. But would I have decided I couldn’t be friends with him? I don’t know. I really liked him. I’d liked Ben once upon a time, too, though, and now? Not so much.

  The thing is, I know people make mistakes. Especially us kids. But passing around a notebook all about how girls look and mentioning specific body parts was so disgusting. And wrong. How could anyone not get that? How could anyone think, “Oh, this is fun,” without thinking about how mean it was toward girls?

  Mom called from the hallway, “Hazel, will you come to the store with me, please? I want you to pick out some cereal and some other things.”

  I stuffed the notebook under my pillow and hopped off my bed. “Okay. Coming!”

  Pip was snacking on some veggies I’d shared with him. I always came home starving after practice, so Mom had a PB& J and some carrots and celery ready for me. No peanut butter for turtles, sadly, but he seemed to be completely happy with the carrots and celery. I gave his shell a little pat before I bounded out of my room and into the hallway.

  “You working on homework already?” Mom asked.

  “Uh, no. Reading a book.”

  She smiled. “Is it a good one?”

  “Not really. I don’t like how the girls are treated.”

  Mom cringed. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

  No kidding.

  * * *

  In the produce aisle, we ran into my fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Lennon. Her brown hair was a little shorter, but other than that, she looked exactly the same. I was so happy to see her, I held my arms out for a hug without thinking about whether she’d like it or not. I didn’t have to worry; she wrapped her arms around me, and it was the best hug I’d had in a long time.

  “It’s so good to see you, Hazel,” she said. “How’s middle school?”

  “Um … well, I miss fifth grade a lot.”

  “I miss you, too. Read any good books lately?”

  I spoke fast so my mom wouldn’t get a chance to mention the book I’d told her about earlier. The one that didn’t treat girls very well. Can you imagine my mom mentioning it in front of my teacher and then one of them asking for the title? I don’t know what I would have done.

  “There’s one book I’m really loving right now,” I said. “It’s called Front Desk. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yes!” she said. “I loved it, too. So many wonderful books coming out lately, aren’t there? You know, one you might love is called Up for Air by Laurie Morrison. It’s perfect for middle schoolers.”

  This was one of the things I loved about Ms. Lennon—she read the same books her students did.

  “Thanks! I’ll check it out. Sometimes I like to read while Pip, my tortoise, is out of his box, exploring.”

  “You have a tortoise?” she asked.

  “Well, kind of,” I said, not sure how to explain it all. “He was left in a box in the parking lot of Ruby’s. I’ve been trying to find a new home for him but it’s hard. They live a long time and I’m just not sure …”

  I stopped and stared at Ms. Lennon. She was my favorite teacher so far. The one who made me fall in love with writing haiku. The one who didn’t believe in worksheets for homework because reading books is way more important. The one who told me middle school might be challenging sometimes, for different reasons, but I was kind and capable and everything would be okay, eventually.

  “I just had an idea,” I said. “What if you took Pip as a class pet? All the kids could help take care of him. They’d love that, wouldn’t they? I mean, I would have loved that.”

  Ms. Lennon bit her lip like she was thinking hard. After a moment she said, “I have to be honest. I don’t know much about tortoises. Do they require a lot of care?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Just have to make sure he stays warm and has fresh fruit and veggies to eat. Oh, and you’d have to clean his house pretty often. But the students could help, couldn’t they?”

  “Yes,” she said. “They certainly could. It’s early in the year and I’m already having some trouble with bullying. A class pet may be just the thing to help with that.” She pulled a pen and pad of paper out of her purse. “Can you give me your number, Hazel? Let me take a couple of days to think about it and I’ll give you a call, okay? I want to check with some of the other teachers and see what they have say. I’ve never had a class pet before, so I need to make sure I’m not getting into something I can’t handle.”

  I wrote my number down for her, and she tucked the paper into her purse.

  “Thank you for
considering it,” my mom said. “This is really exciting.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ms. Lennon said. “Talk to you in a couple of days, Hazel.”

  As Mom rolled the cart toward the cereal aisle, she said, “Great thinking, Hazel. I’m so proud of you.”

  With anyone else, I might have been too scared to ask. But it hadn’t been hard asking Ms. Lennon.

  Even if she hadn’t been interested, I knew she would have been nice about it. That’s what seemed so scary to me when wanting to speak up about something—not knowing what the response would be. People can say the most hurtful things.

  Using my voice would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to worry about whether or not it’s safe for me to do that.

  I went to school early the next day to see if I could get the book Ms. Lennon had recommended since I was almost finished with my other one. But as I walked toward the library, I found Dion up against the lockers with Preston and Aaron, who were yelling mean things at him.

  I felt the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I looked around, hoping I’d see a teacher. But no one else was around right then. Only me. I had to do something. I just had to.

  “Hey, Dion, there you are, I was looking for you. Come on, the librarian is waiting for us. She has those books we were asking about, remember?”

  Preston and Aaron stopped, turned around, and looked at me. Then they turned back to Dion. “Wait. You’re friends with Camel Lips?” Preston asked. “Well, that explains a lot.”

  I walked over, said, “Excuse me,” and pushed myself between Aaron and Preston, catching a whiff of BO as I reached for Dion’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I did it really fast and I think they were so surprised, they didn’t know what to say or do. Dion squeezed my hand tight as we hurried down the hall toward the library.

  Once we got inside, Dion crumpled into a chair and put his arms and head down on the table. He was trying not to make a sound as he cried.

  I sat down beside him, wishing I knew the perfect thing to say to make him feel better. It was another superpower of my mom’s that I longed for.