I’d stuffed it into the bag I took to soccer practice right before we’d left the house. Then I’d brought the bag inside with me. I reached down and pulled it out and set it on the table. As soon as Jeanie and Alice read the words on the front cover, they looked worried. Very worried.
“I found this notebook where boys at school rate girls on their looks and write stuff about them.”
“May I?” Alice asked.
I nodded.
She reached over and pulled the notebook toward her. She opened it and read the inside cover. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“Where did you find it, exactly?” Jeanie asked.
“In your bathroom,” I said softly. “And then I came back and took it from Ben’s room. I’m very sorry, but I …” How could I explain it? How could I make them understand? “I didn’t want it passed around school anymore. It was the only way I could think of to stop it.”
“You had no right to do that,” Ben said. I swear his face had gone from white to cherry red in a matter of seconds.
Jeanie turned to Ben, tears welling up in her eyes. “Why would you think this is okay? I don’t understand. How could you possibly think there’s nothing wrong with doing something like this?”
Ben pursed his lips together for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he should say what he was thinking. But then, I guess he decided he better say something.
“There are a few guys who keep saying things about the two of you. Said I’d never be a man because I have two moms and no dad. I thought this would show them. I thought this would show them that I’m like everyone else.”
It didn’t make sense to me. “But you have so many friends,” I blurted. “Why do you care what a few jerks say?”
As he stared at the plate of cookies, I wondered if he was trying to find the right words to explain it all. But when he finally replied, all he said was “I guess I don’t really know.”
Alice shook her head. She looked so angry, her eyes narrow as she glared at her son. “Benjamin Isaiah Robinson, are you saying you thought degrading girls and reducing them to a number was the only way you could think of to combat a few bullies? Because if that’s true, I’d say we need to work on your problem-solving skills some more. Like, a lot more.”
“Look, it was just a fun thing for us guys to do,” Ben said. “I never thought a girl would see what we wrote. We weren’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. Don’t you get it? That’s why it says ‘Private Property’ on the front.”
Meanwhile, Jeanie wasn’t trying to stop the tears anymore. They streamed down her face. “There’s no excuse for this. None. I thought we raised you to know better. To do better. My gosh, Ben, this is not how you treat girls. Ever. EV-ER!”
“You know what this is like?” Alice asked as she looked at Ben. “This is like you slapping us in the face. That’s how it feels, reading this. Like everything we believe, everything we stand for as women, means nothing to you. You see how hard we fight every day for people to treat us as equals. I know you do. And you go and do something like this?”
Ben stared at the table. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t think about it, I guess.”
“That’s for sure.” Jeanie turned to me. “I’m sorry you had to read all that, Hazel. I’m sure it must have hurt. Are you all right?”
“I think so,” I said. “And I’m sorry for taking it. I should have told you about it instead of doing that. I just … I was scared.”
“We accept your apology,” Jeanie said.
“Yes,” Alice said. “We forgive you. It’s okay.”
Mom stood up. “Hazel, I think we should go. They need some time to work through this as a family.”
Alice pointed at the notebook. “I think we’ll keep this if that’s okay with you. We should probably let the other parents know what their sons have been up to.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“This is a big deal, Ben,” Jeanie said. “There have to be consequences for everyone involved.”
I felt such relief in that moment. The boys weren’t going to get away with it. Hopefully most of the boys would be punished. But there was one thing I needed to do to feel even better about all this. “Would it be okay if we tore out the page about me?”
Alice opened the notebook, flipped the pages until she found my name, and shook her head as she read the words there. Then she ripped it out. “Do you want to keep it or should I throw it away?”
I reached out my hand. “I’ll take it.”
With that done, Mom said, “Okay, time to go.”
I pointed down the hallway. “Hold on, I need to give Tori something.”
I took a piece of paper out of my bag and hurried toward her room. Tori’s door was shut. I thought about knocking and handing it to her, but I’d had enough drama for one night. So I slipped it under the door and hoped Jeanie and Alice wouldn’t be the only ones to forgive me.
Best friends forever,
that’s what they said about us.
I’m lost without you.
I thought Tori might text me that night, but she didn’t. Mom and I stopped at the store on the way home and got juice and muffins for the party.
While she brought the groceries inside, Mom asked me if I’d run and get the mail from the box at the end of our cul-de-sac. It was dark, but the streetlights gave off enough light that I wasn’t scared. Dad was in his office, since he had a conference call. He works in cyber security, and sometimes he has to talk to coworkers in India, which means early morning and late evening calls because of the time difference.
I grabbed the key from the key holder, ran down the street, and opened our mailbox. There were a few bills and a large manila envelope with my name on it.
For a minute, I was really worried. What if it had something to do with the notebook? What if some of the boys at school had learned I had it? But when I got back inside the house, I could read the words on the small return address label. It had come from Hoover Elementary School.
“What is that?” Mom asked as she put the bottles of juice in the fridge.
“I don’t know,” I said as I ripped the envelope open. “But it’s for me.”
I reached my hand inside and felt lots of papers. And when I pulled them out, I saw that Ms. Lennon’s students had made me cards. Thank-you cards, many of them with a turtle colored on the front.
I opened one of the cards and read it. “I love Pip so much. He is so sweet. Thank you for giving him to us.”
Another one said, “I’ve never known a tortoise before. But now I do and I have a new favorite animal. Thanks for trusting us with him.”
Someone else had written, “I’ve never had a pet before even though I’ve always wished for one. Thank you for making my wish come true.”
Mom stood back, watching me. When I looked at her, I had tears in my eyes. She came over and wrapped her arms around me. “There’s so much good in the world, Hazel. Never forget that.”
“I know,” I said.
When Mom let go of me, she thumbed through the pile. She pulled something out from the bottom. “Did you see this?”
She handed me a typed letter with a photo of Pip at the bottom.
Dear Hazel,
I hope this letter finds you well. I wanted to personally tell you how much we’re enjoying having Pip in our classroom. Along with line leaders, lunch helpers, and door holders, we will now be rotating the jobs of feeding Pip, cleaning his house, and letting him sit nearby during silent reading time every afternoon.
Yesterday a student asked me, “Did you know tortoises have been around since the age of the dinosaurs? Isn’t that awesome?”
I told him it certainly is and then he said, “They were probably afraid of getting stepped on by the dinosaurs. But they made it, didn’t they, Ms. Lennon?”
You see, this is a boy who has been picked on a lot. A kind, sweet boy who talks with a lisp, dislikes PE, and loves music class. But Pip has shown him that even the mee
k among us can survive, thrive, and be loved.
Thank you, Hazel. Thank you so very much. Please come and visit him any time; we’d love to have you!
Best wishes,
Ms. Lennon
I stared at the photo for a minute. Pip was in his house munching on a cucumber slice. He looked happy, which made me happy. But also sad because I missed him.
I put the cards and letter back in the envelope and headed toward my room.
“Hazel?”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
“Do you know what you’re going to say when all the girls are here tomorrow?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”
She smiled. “Okay. Good luck. Whatever you say, remember I’m with you. A hundred percent.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Maybe I didn’t have a pet tortoise. And maybe my best friend would be mad at me for a while. But I had parents who loved and supported me, no matter what.
Was that another superpower grown-ups had? I wondered. Or maybe my parents were just pretty awesome. Yeah, that was probably it.
Our living room was packed. We’d set up folding chairs, but many of the girls stood along the walls and some sat on the floor. I was kind of shocked that so many had decided to come. I was just about to get started when the doorbell rang a few minutes after ten o’clock, the official start time.
I gasped when I opened the door and found Tori standing there, holding her karaoke machine.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi. I’m really glad you’re here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “About everything.”
“Same,” I said. “It’s been awful this week, trying to avoid you. I mean, not that I wanted to avoid you, I just thought you didn’t want to be anywhere near me. So I pretended I had the measles and told myself it was important to stay away from you so you wouldn’t get them, too.”
She gave me a funny look. “You pretended you had the measles? Pretty sure you should have stayed in bed, then.”
“It was a mild case. Like, super mild. I mean, look at me now! I’m perfectly fine!”
We both laughed.
“My brother told me to give you this.” Tori reached into her pocket and pulled out a small crumpled envelope. “I think it’s an apology. You can read it later, if you want.”
“Okay.” I stepped aside and held the door open as I took the karaoke machine from her and set it on the floor against the wall. “Come in. There’s some juice and snacks at the table if you want anything.” I pointed to the small table by the door. “Oh, and make yourself a name tag.”
The girls had gotten a lot louder, which told me it was definitely time to get started.
I’d practiced in my room last night for a couple of hours. I knew what I wanted to say. It was just going to be hard saying it in front of so many people. If only I loved public speaking the way Tori loved singing. At least my teachers in elementary school had made us do short speeches every year. As much as I’d struggled at the time, they’d made me practice, and like Dad always says, “The more you practice, the better you get.”
As I stood at the front of the room, I took a deep breath and reached into my pocket for my notes. “Thanks for coming, everyone,” I said as loudly as I could manage, which wasn’t very loud at all.
A bunch of girls said, “Shhhhhh,” to help me, which was nice, and it wasn’t long before everyone was quiet, their eyes on me.
I cleared my throat and then said, “I want to tell you the reason I’ve invited you here, and then we’re going to break up into groups and hopefully have some fun.” My voice was shaking, so I cleared my throat again and told myself to be like Pippi. Strong. Confident. Kind.
“Since it’s a nice day,” I continued, “we can go out back where there are blankets on the lawn.” I glanced at Tori. “And when we’re done with that, I think we’ll do some karaoke, if that’s okay.”
Some girls applauded while others said “yes” and “fun!”
“I’ve found a couple of, um, interesting things the last few weeks,” I said. “I found a lost turtle. He’s now at Hoover Elementary in Ms. Lennon’s class. The second thing I found was a notebook filled with names. Girls’ names.” I swallowed hard. “Your names. Some boys at our school were passing it around, rating us on our looks and making comments.”
“What do you mean?” a girl named Lexi called out. “What do you mean, making comments?”
“I’ll pass around the sheet with my name, so you can see what the notebook is like. The rest of it will be destroyed.” I took the page with my name and passed it to the girl sitting nearby. “Some of the comments were nice and some were really terrible. But it doesn’t matter. Like, girls shouldn’t be happy if their comments were good, because it all means the same thing—they see us in one way and one way only. But we’re so much more than how we look, you know?”
Most of the girls nodded.
“This is disgusting,” one of the girls, Andi, said as she passed my page on to the next person.
I nodded. “The good news is that most of the parents of the boys involved are going to find out what’s happened. And hopefully, there will be punishments. At first I thought that was the most important thing. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized it probably won’t change anything at school. Like, yes, the boys were horrible to do this, except that we go to a school where this kind of thing seems normal.
“And see, for a while I had a tortoise named Pip. He taught me that in this world, we can either hide in our shells and go nowhere, or we can stick our necks out and help ourselves move forward. I decided, with everything I’ve seen since starting middle school—the dress code, the way girls are treated—that I couldn’t hide in my shell, even if that would have been easier in some ways. Because our school is … um, well …”
Thankfully, my best friend could see I was struggling. Tori hopped up to stand next to me and said, “Our school has some problems. Big problems. And we need to do something about them.”
At first, it was quiet. But then, someone started clapping, and others joined in until I swear the room was shaking from all the noise. I looked around at those faces, and my heart felt like it might burst.
When it quieted down again, Tori continued talking, which I was grateful for. “Every day, girls are getting sent home for what they wear. It’s ridiculous. And Hazel and I are tripped by two boys in our hall who think it’s a game. We’ve been called names by other boys. Hazel gets awful notes left on her music stand in class. I bet lots of you have stories like that, too.”
Several heads nodded.
“Okay,” I said, “so now that you know why you’re here, let’s go outside and get into groups. We need to come up with ideas on what to do to try and fix some of these problems.”
“Are some of us going to have to talk to the principal?” Andi asked.
“Probably,” I said.
Tori jumped in and said, “But maybe we shouldn’t worry about that yet. Right now, let’s just think of ideas on how to make our school better. Okay?”
It felt overwhelming. It felt like we were standing at the bottom of a big mountain and we had a long, hard climb ahead of us. But what Tori had basically said was, one thing at a time.
That’s how we were gonna do this.
One thing at a time.
Together. All of us.
While the girls went outside with their snacks, chatting as they went, Mom came over and put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a big squeeze. “I’m so proud of you, Hazel. Like, so proud! Did you hear yourself?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I did it, Mom. I really did it.”
She kissed the top of my head. “You sure did. You found your voice, and I’m so glad you’re using it.”
“It’s still scary,” I whispered. “But one thing at a time, I guess.”
“Exactly.”
Most of the girls had broken up into groups and were sitting on blankets in the grass
. I helped the few girls still standing find a group to join. Mom had also set out a small pad of paper and a pen on every blanket so the girls could write down any ideas they came up with.
“Don’t worry about whether ideas or good or not,” I told everyone. “Just write down anything you think of, big or small.”
“Do you think we need a name?” someone called out. “Like, a name for our group?”
“No,” I said. “Because this isn’t just about us. It’s about making the school better for everyone for a long, long time. I mean, hopefully that’s what will happen.”
I joined a group with four girls, and we went around and introduced ourselves. A couple of them I knew from Hoover, but the others I didn’t know, although their names sounded familiar. Probably because I’d read their ratings.
“My name is Gina Tran. I’m a seventh grader, and I’m so glad to be here.” She looked at me with her sad brown eyes. “Thank you, Hazel. We have to do something. We just have to.”
The next girl was Maddie Gray, the gorgeous girl Tori had waved to at Ruby’s when we were there last. I felt so bad for her. Just yesterday, I’d heard boys saying things about her. Gross things. Horrible things.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Maddie Gray. I’m in eighth grade. My younger sister, Hannah, is over there, in the purple shirt.” She pointed to a blanket behind us. “My mom thought about pulling us out of public school and home-schooling us, but Hannah wanted to try it. From what she’s seen since starting in September, she now understands why I’ve been complaining so much the last few years.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I wish … I wish they weren’t so mean to you.”
She smiled. “It’s not your fault. And hopefully, we’re going to make things better.”
I turned to the next girl. She said, “My name’s Anastasia and I’m in the sixth grade, like Hazel. I can’t believe how horrible this school is, and I can’t believe no one has done anything about it until now.”
“And I’m Paris,” the last girl said.
I pointed to her T-shirt, which read GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING and told her, “I love that so much.”
Don't Judge Me Page 13