Mrs. Thompson looked at us from across the room where she was shelving books. “Everything okay?” she called out.
“Yeah, um … his allergies are really bad today,” I told her.
She went back to her work and I pulled out my phone and texted Tori.
Come to the library when you get here. Dion’s upset.
I went to Mrs. Thompson’s desk and grabbed a few tissues and took them back to Dion. After I handed them to him, he wiped at his face. “Sorry,” he said softly.
“What for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“For crying again. I’m such a baby.”
“You’re not a baby.” I sat down and scooted my chair closer to his. “When something hurts, we cry. My dad says that’s what makes us human. You’re just human, Dion. That’s all.”
He sniffled as he said, “I wish I was superhuman. Wish I could disappear whenever I wanted. Or fly. Or something.”
“Me too.” I replied. “Believe me. Me too.”
“You got a haiku about that?” he asked with half a smile.
“Maybe you should try writing one. Writing takes your mind off other things, you know?”
“Maybe I will,” he said. He picked at his thumbnail for a moment before he looked up at me. “Thanks, Hazel. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come by right then. It was really brave of you.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I simply said, “You’re welcome.”
A few minutes later, Tori came rushing in. “What is it? What happened?”
“Not what, who,” I said. “Preston and Aaron.”
Her eyes narrowed and she clenched her fists. “I’m so sick of them. We need to do something.”
“Nothing we can do,” Dion said. “They’d just say I was lying.”
“Next time, you should try and get video of it,” Tori said. “We need proof.”
“If I pulled out my phone, they’d take it,” Dion said. “Bet I’d never see it again.”
Tori’s face drooped. “Oh. You’re probably right.”
Other kids started walking in. It didn’t seem like this was something we could keep talking about with other people around.
“We should probably go,” Dion said. “Get ready for class and stuff.”
“It’s not fair,” Tori whispered. “It’s not fair that we have to deal with this every day. Do we really have to live like this for the next three years?”
Dion and I didn’t answer her. All I could think about was what she’d said earlier. We need proof.
I had proof that our school had issues. Big issues. But it probably wasn’t the kind of proof Tori had been imagining. Still, maybe if I could just get brave enough to tell them about it, they could help me figure out what to do with it.
Tell them, I thought. Now’s your chance.
“Um,” I said.
They both turned and looked at me.
“What?” Tori said. “What is it?”
I stood up. “You guys go on without me. I don’t want you to be late. I have to see if they have a book I really want to read.”
They said okay as they got up and walked toward the door. Dion thought I was brave, but right then, that didn’t seem true to me. Not at all.
* * *
Later, in band class, I found another note on the music stand where I sit. I looked around to see if I could figure out who had left it, but there were a bunch of people in there already.
I opened the note and read it.
You know your new boyfriend is a fairy, right?
It made me so mad, I crumpled the piece of paper into a tiny ball. As I threw it into the trash, I stared at Aaron, who was also in my class. He played the trumpet. While I stared, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Who, me?” It had to be him who’d written the note. It just had to be. But I had no way to prove it. Unless …
I turned around and went back to the little trash can that sat next to the door. There were mostly just papers in there—tardy slips, doodles, and whatnot. The little ball I wadded up was sitting there, right on top. I reached in and grabbed it. As soon as I did, Aaron yelled, “Ew!” from across the room. “Why are you digging in the trash, Hazel?”
Everyone, and I mean everyone, stopped what they were doing. A hundred eyes were on me. I wanted to crawl into that tiny trash can and never come out again. I couldn’t decide if I should defend myself or stay quiet or what. Fortunately, our band teacher, Mr. Bailey, came to my rescue. “Aaron, mind your own business, please. And everyone, let’s get organized; the bell is going to ring any second.”
People started chattering again and I went to my seat, the crumpled note held tightly in my hand. When no one was looking, I stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans. After school, I planned to look and see if any of the handwriting in the notebook matched the note.
Who knew the notebook would end up being so helpful, in a roundabout way?
I found Aaron’s initials, A. A. for Aaron Adams, throughout the notebook. On my page, he was the one who’d written “Literally the worst.” On other pages, he’d written things like, “Such a dog” and “So ugly, I bet her brother wouldn’t even kiss her.”
And, just as I’d suspected, his handwriting matched the writing on the note. It made me so mad. Like, why me? Why did he decide to pick on me? What had I ever done to him? Nothing. I was new to the school. New to band. I was a sixth-grade girl who was so shy, I hardly ever spoke to anyone in that class. It really didn’t make sense why he’d chosen me.
I was pretty sure I’d found Preston’s initials and comments, too. No surprise, these boys who were mean to people at school every day were also mean to girls in writing. I grabbed one of my journals and wrote a haiku.
When dark clouds appear,
take them as a strict warning—
the rain is coming.
With all that out of the way, I set the notebooks down and jumped off my bed with a loud thump. It shook the whole room and made me laugh. I’d gone right upstairs when I’d come home, so now I needed to go back to the kitchen for Pip’s afternoon snack. But when I went to check on him, I saw something I hadn’t seen since I’d brought him home. He’d tucked his legs and head in so all I could see was the shell.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, kneeling down and petting his shell as I did. “Oh no, did I scare you?”
Obviously, he didn’t answer me. He didn’t do anything. It was so strange to see his shell like that. It almost seemed like he was … dead. No head. No stumpy tail. No cute little turtle feet. It was so sad!
“Pip?” I said. I leaned closer and I could see his little beady eyes inside the shell.
“Pip, please don’t be scared. I’m sorry if you thought I was a big animal coming to eat you. I’d never eat you! And I’m not a large animal, even if sometimes I think being an elephant would be much better than being a human.”
How long did a tortoise stay hidden when they were scared? I wondered.
I leaned back and waited. As I sat there, watching him, this strange feeling washed over me. It was like I was watching … myself. Shy. Afraid. Hidden in my shell most of the time.
Was that how I really wanted to be? Afraid of everything? Afraid to do anything? Just a shell of a person, walking around, angry about how things are but not doing anything about it?
“Please come out, Pip,” I said softly as I gently stroked his shell. “Please? I’m so sorry. I really am.”
That’s when I started to cry. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even know why I was crying. It wasn’t because Pip was hiding. He’d come out eventually, I knew. But I wanted things to be different. So many things felt wrong, and I didn’t know what to do about any of it.
Mostly, I felt alone. It felt like I was on a deserted island all by myself and I had no idea how to hunt or fish to keep myself alive. Other people could probably figure it out, but me? I probably wouldn’t even pick any berries to eat because I’d be too scared that they might be poisonous. No,
better to starve to death than take a small chance that I might eat poisonous berries.
That’s when my tears turned into laughter. Because it was all completely ridiculous. Things weren’t that bad. I wasn’t on a deserted island with nothing to eat. I had a home, I had friends, I had a family. Just because I had a stupid notebook I didn’t know what to do with didn’t mean it was the end of the world.
For a minute, I thought about telling my parents. But what if they went straight to the principal? He seemed to be very much on the side of boys, not girls. He probably wouldn’t see anything wrong with the notebook. And what if he made me do something to punish me, in a roundabout sort of way? He could put me on the stage at the next assembly and make me talk about what I’d found. Not only would I vomit if I had to do that, half the school would hate me.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered to Pip. After sitting there for a couple more minutes, I decided that maybe right now wasn’t the time to worry about me. I took a deep breath and got to my feet.
“I’m going to get you some food. Maybe that will get you back to normal.”
I went to the bathroom and washed my face before I headed to the kitchen. If only I had a sister or brother to talk to about all this, I thought. Sometimes being an only child is really, really lonely.
Because one of my mom’s superpowers is looking at me for half a second and knowing when I’m unhappy, I knew she’d say something. And that’s exactly what happened.
“Hazel, are you okay?” she asked. “Did something happen at school?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I jumped off my bed and scared Pip, so I feel bad. That’s all.”
“Is he hiding in his shell?” she asked me.
“Yes. It’s so weird seeing him like that. I don’t like it.”
“It’s natural for them, though,” she said. “Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if we could tuck ourselves into a shell and take a little quiet break whenever we needed one?”
“If I could do that, I’d probably never come out.” I was kind of teasing, but I also sort of thought that was true.
As I reached into the fridge for some cabbage and grapes for Pip, Mom said, “It makes me so sad to hear you say that, Hazel.”
“Sorry,” I said when I turned around. I set the bags on the counter. “I’m sorry I’m not like you. I wish for that sometimes, you know.”
She came over and pulled me into a hug. “Oh, honey, you don’t need to apologize. You are who you are, and I love you so much.” She kissed the top of my head and then said, “But you know what I wish? I wish I could help you believe you are on equal footing as everyone else and that you should stand proud.”
I kind of groaned. “Equal footing? You mean, like, how boys do mean things and people tell them, ‘Well, boys will be boys’? Or how us girls have to watch how we dress because it’s not good for the boys? Or how you didn’t get a promotion because some guy got it instead?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, she did something I hadn’t expected. At all. She pumped her fist in the air. “Hazel! Did you just hear yourself? That was amazing! You spoke up and out, and oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you!”
“You are?”
She grabbed my hands and squeezed them tightly. “Yes! Don’t you see? You’ve had it in you this whole time! Did you feel it?”
“Feel what?” I asked.
“The power you had as you spoke your mind?”
“But it was only you and me,” I said. “I knew you’d love me no matter what. With other people …”
“It’s more frightening,” she said, nodding. “I know. I get it. And if you don’t feel safe for some reason, then by all means, you don’t have to say a word if you don’t want to. About anything. But if there are people around you who have your back, remember this moment, okay? You can do it. You spoke so well, Hazel.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
It was hard to be excited about something that kind of terrified me. I grabbed Pip’s food and headed back to my room.
“Pip!” I said when I saw that he’d come out of his shell. “I’m so happy to see you.”
As I placed his snack in the box beside him, I realized it was basically the same thing my mom had said to me. I’d come out of my shell. Only for a minute, but I’d done it. And maybe, just maybe, that meant I could do it again.
As I walked down the hall Friday morning toward my locker, I saw girls standing by the talent show sign-up sheet, taking selfies. They really seemed to have the selfie thing down. I couldn’t turn away as I watched how they positioned themselves a certain way, made sure their hair hung just right across the front of one shoulder, and tilted their heads just slightly.
This was the popular crowd Tori wanted to be a part of. She thought it was ridiculous that I wasn’t allowed to take selfies. She wasn’t mean about it or anything. She was actually thoughtful and hardly took them when I was around because she didn’t want me to feel bad. But I knew she was allowed to take them and post them to her private Instagram account. It was a world I wasn’t a part of, and it didn’t take much to remind me of that. Would she comment on these girls’ photos later? Would she tell them how cute they looked? Tell them how excited she was to see their performance at the talent show? Would they comment back?
I was wondering all this when who should walk up but Tori herself, in an adorable pink-and-black polka-dot button-up blouse. She hadn’t seen me, so I just stood back and watched as she waited her turn for the sign-up sheet. After she’d added her name, the girls encouraged her to take a selfie, too. She smoothed down her long, blonde hair, held the phone out, and smiled.
With that out of the way, they started chatting and giggling, and I felt so left out I almost wanted to run over there and tell her I’d changed my mind, that I did want to do the talent show with her, after all.
But not really. What did I know about dancing or sign language or anything like that? Not a thing.
“Hey,” Dion said from behind me, startling me so much I jumped a little.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Watching a bunch of popular girls sign up for the talent show,” I told him.
“You want to do something?” he asked. “You can, you know. Doesn’t matter if you’re popular or not.”
“You sure about that?”
He smiled. “No.”
Just then, Tori noticed us. “Hey!” she said as she scurried over to us. “Do you want me to add your name, Hazel? So you can sign and dance alongside me?”
“Wow, that sounds awesome,” Dion said. “You should do it.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I wouldn’t—”
Tori stuck her bottom lip out. “But you haven’t even heard the song that I’m going to do. The song is everything, isn’t it, Dion?”
“I mean, whether you can actually sing is probably the most important thing,” Dion said nicely. “But after that, yeah, the song is definitely up there.”
She leaned in and whispered the name of the song so only Dion and I could hear.
“You really doing that?” Dion asked.
With determination and confidence in her voice, she said, “Yes. I am.”
And then Dion did something I wouldn’t have guessed in a hundred years. “We should both do it, Hazel.”
“What?” Both Tori and I said, staring at our friend as if he’d just told us he had an entire chocolate cake in his backpack.
He gave us a half grin. “You said I should do the talent show to prove I’m a good dancer. Well, I’d rather do it with you two than anyone else, or, even worse, by myself.”
“I love it!” Tori said. “Oh my gosh, this is the best idea ever. Ben is doing something with some of his friends, so we can show him we’re just as good, if not better!” She looked at me. “What do you say?”
My stomach lurched. “You guys …”
“Come on, Hazel,” Tori said. “It’ll be fun. We’ll be with yo
u every step of the way, right, Dion?”
“Literally, every step,” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think …”
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Tori said. “I’m going to sign us all up. You can try, right? And if you can’t, then you can’t. But maybe you can and then we’re all signed up and ready to go. Okay?”
I felt dizzy. “Yeah. Okay.”
Tori jumped up and down for a second and then ran back over to the sign-up sheet to add our names with hers.
Dion looked at me. “You’re not just doing it for me, are you? Because, Hazel, if you really don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’d never want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
He was right. I had said yes mostly for him. Because I didn’t want him to be afraid anymore of doing what he loved to do. If he could get up on that stage and dance, going to a dance class after school might not be such a big deal. And hopefully he could prove to everyone that he had a reason for going to dance class—because he was an amazing dancer.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I need to try, just like she said.”
He held out his fist so I bumped it with mine. “You’re a good egg, Hazel. One of my grandma’s favorite things to say, right there. You two should come to my house and practice. You can meet Grandma Dorothy. I think you’d like her a lot.”
“I’d love that,” I told him.
“Love what?” Tori said.
Dion told her what he’d told me and she was all for it. “How about next Friday afternoon?” he asked. “Teacher in-service day, right? How about three o’clock?”
“Sounds good,” Tori said.
We started walking toward our locker. Tori said, “Okay, with that out of the way for now, we need to start planning for Halloween, which is coming up a lot sooner than mid-December. Like, a couple weeks. I was thinking we could dress up as the three blind mice from the nursery rhyme. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I was beginning to wonder if my best friend never slept. She probably stayed up to scheme, plot, and plan how to be the most clever, fun, talented person in middle school.
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