Best Friend Next Door (13 page)

At school the next day, Ms. Chung announces that we’re doing an anti-bullying workshop instead of gym.

“Every fifth-grade class will have three workshops on this important topic,” Ms. Chung says, smoothing the silk scarf around her neck. That’s how she talks (sort of formal).

I look to see if anyone is staring at me (they’re not). Even so, my cheeks are heating up. I wonder if they’re doing these workshops because of what happened to me in Ms. Linhart’s class. I know my moms had a meeting with the principal about making sure they have zero tolerance for bullying at Greeley Elementary.

I walk down to the gym with Jillian. She swims in the silver level with Hannah and me. She reminds me of my friend Olivia from Captiva Island. Not a best friend, but a good person to hang out with. Honestly, everyone in Ms. Chung’s class is nice. Ms. Chung is older, with threads of white in her black hair, and the whole classroom vibe (as Leesa would say) is calm. It’s not a constant party like Mr. Bryce’s class, but it’s
so, so, so
much better than Ms. Linhart’s. Whenever I see Gina or Haley or Alexa in the cafeteria, I get shaky all over. Usually I stare at my lunch until they pass by. I don’t want to make eye contact with them or hear them say “O.M.G.!” or give them any chance to dis me.

When we get to the gym there’s a super-tall African American guy with a goatee giving everyone high fives. He must be at least six foot six.

“My name’s Tim Mitchell,” he tells us as we gather around him on the polished wooden floor, “but people call me Tiny. Get it? Because I’m tiny.”

We all laugh. It
is
funny to think that his nickname is Tiny. He’s so tall that he’d make Mom C look short.

“Sometimes you have to embrace the joke,” Tiny says, walking back and forth in front of us. Then he stops and his face gets serious. “And sometimes you don’t. Sometimes people cross lines that they shouldn’t cross or that you don’t want them to cross. That’s what we’re here to talk about.”

Tiny starts by saying how most of us have probably been bullied at some point, and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, there’s a lot we can learn from the experience.

“But I’m not going to start with the bully,” he says. “I’m going to start with the bystanders. You know them, right? The people on the sidelines grinning and fueling the fire, or even just watching and not doing anything?”

I immediately think about the other kids in Ms. Linhart’s class and how they were whispering and laughing when someone (probably Gina, Alexa, or Haley) wrote
LOSER
on my collage.

“The thing is,” Tiny says, “if you don’t have bystanders, the bully doesn’t have much to keep him or her going. No reaction.”

Tiny uncaps a marker, walks over to a big pad of paper, and has us brainstorm ways to be actively involved protectors instead of not-so-innocent bystanders. We’re all calling out stuff like “Walk away!” “Get a teacher!” “Tell the bully to quit it!” Then some kids tell Tiny how they’ve been bullied. Jillian says it happened to her in second grade. I have to wonder if Gina and her friends were involved.

Tiny sets down his marker. “Now we’re going to move around a little. We’re going to do something called the Mookey Line.”

We all stare at him.

“Who’s ever heard of
mookey
?”

Again, silence.

“Good,” Tiny says, “because it’s a made-up word. But let’s pretend it’s an insult. A really bad one. I’m going to have you guys stand in two lines, facing each other.” When no one moves, Tiny says, “Come on, let’s do it!”

We all hustle into two lines. I’m next to Jillian and a guy with a cast on one arm. His name is Leo.

“Okay, I’m going to walk down the center of you guys and you all need to shout
mookey
at me. Really let me have it … and watch what I do.”

Tiny walks in the aisle between us and we all start saying
mookey
to him. At first we’re low-key about it, but after a second we’re belting it out. “Mookey!” we scream. “Mookey! Mookey!” Some kids even jab their fingers toward him.

The thing is, Tiny never once looks at us. He just walks along, eyes forward, shoulders back.

“And that is how you walk the Mookey Line,” he says, holding up his hand to silence us. “You keep your head up and you don’t let them get to you. You don’t give them a reaction. Who wants to go next?”

I have no idea how it happens but my hand shoots into the air.

“Brave soul,” Tiny says, smiling down at me. He must be twice my height. “Come on over here. What’s your name?”

“Emme.”

“Emme.” He gestures toward my class, still in parallel lines. “Walk the Mookey Line.”

I take my first step and everyone starts shouting at me. I thought it would be scary, but it actually feels cool to hold my head high and ignore them all.

Leo goes next, and then a few other guys, and then Jillian. By the end, we’ve all had a turn to walk the Mookey Line.

As we leave the gym, our class passes Ms. Linhart’s class lined up outside for their workshop. When I see Gina (standing apart from Haley and Alexa?!?), I look her right in the eye. She looks back at me for a second, and then she turns away.

My moms pick me up right after school and we leave for Connecticut. Mom C took the afternoon off and they loaded the car with chips and peanut butter cookies and trail mix. We drive until it’s dark, and then eat dinner and sleep over in a hotel.

We arrive in eastern Connecticut around lunchtime the next day. Leesa’s boarding school is surrounded by a low stone fence. Inside are brick buildings, statues, and acres of fields and trees. It’s amazing to think she lives here. It looks like something from a movie.

We call Leesa and make a plan to meet her in front of her dorm. When we pull up, she skips toward our car, waving wildly. Her hair is arranged in about fifteen braids with ribbon strung through them. She’s wearing a black coat, checkered tights, and tall magenta boots. I haven’t seen her in a year, but she looks as good-vibey as ever.

“Aunt Claire! Aunt Julia! Emme!” Leesa says, hugging all of us.

It’s bitter cold out, so we quickly pile back into the car. Leesa is in the backseat next to me. We drive across campus to the main office. As my moms go inside to sign Leesa out, my cousin squeezes my arm. “You’re still so teeny, cuz. It’s really cute.”

Teeny
and
cute
make me sound like a baby chick. “I’ve grown a little,” I say. (Okay, a half inch in the past six months, but I’ll take it.)

My moms return to the car and we pull through the front gate. We’re going to a restaurant for lunch (French food, Leesa’s choice).

Leesa sings to herself on the drive. “It’s a song from the concert tonight,” she says to me. “I’ll be playing this on my ukulele.”

“Cool,” I say.

After a few minutes, we get stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. I decide to get my (semi-true) confession out of the way now so I can enjoy the rest of lunch. I lean over to Leesa. “You know how you sent the collage back to me a while ago?”

Leesa grins. “Did you like the gas thingy? Awesome, right? Someone in my dorm gave me that picture.”

I nod. “I loved it, except …” I pause. A white lie is okay. It wasn’t my fault the collage got ruined. “I, uh, lost it. Is it okay if we start another one? I can mail you the first installment.”

Leesa shrugs. “No biggie.
Actch
, let’s chill on the collages for now. I’m kind of over it.”

I stare at Leesa. I thought she might be mad that I said I lost the collage. The last thing I expected was that she wanted to quit doing them.

“No offense,” she says. “I’m just busy with school and all.”

“That’s fine,” I say quietly, even though it sort of isn’t.

The restaurant is called Delphine’s. From the second we sit down until when the food arrives, Leesa talks about herself and her friends and the concert tonight and what she’s doing over winter break.
Actch
, it’s a little annoying. I have so much I want to tell her about Greeley and Hannah and our new house and swim team and switching classrooms. But whenever I try to talk, she interrupts me with a story about herself. After a while, I focus on my hamburger and fries. They brought three kinds of dip (ketchup, mayonnaise, and garlic oil), so I’m alternating one fry per dip.

Finally, the waiter brings out the dessert menus. Mom J and Mom C can never decide what to get for dessert so they always order two and share them. I’m getting chocolate ice cream. Leesa tells me she’s going to order a platter of cheese.

“Cheese?” I ask.

“That’s what they do in France,” she says.

She pronounces it the French way,
Frawnce
. I want to tell her we’re not
in
Frawnce
, but I don’t say anything.

“So where are you staying?” Leesa asks, touching a ribbon woven into one of her braids.

Mom J tells her the name of the hotel. It’s a few miles from the boarding school.

“Coolio,” Leesa says, turning to me. “Do you still sleep with that gnarly old rabbit?”

I stare at my cousin. “Bun-Bun?” I’ve slept with Bun-Bun since I was a baby. No big deal. Mom C says she brought her stuffed harp seal to
college
with her.

“That’s
sooo
cute,” Leesa says. “Probably time for good-bye to Bun-Bun, though. Time for the big-girl bed.”

I’m not sure if my moms heard that because they’re still debating fruit tart versus custard versus mousse. I ask Leesa if she has a boyfriend but she rolls her eyes and says people don’t do that at her school. Leesa turns one of her many earrings. I’m starting to wonder if looking like you have good vibes and
having
good vibes are two separate things.

“By the way, Aunt Julia,” Leesa says to Mom J after we’ve ordered our dessert, “congrats on the article. My dad sent me a link.”

“Oh,” Mom J says, her eyes widening. “Thank you.”

“What article?” I ask.

Mom J looks over at Mom C, who nods encouragingly. And just like that, I know what Mom J is going to say. She wrote another “Potty-Training Emme and Other Disasters,” fifth-grade edition.

“Did you write about me?” I ask quickly.

Mom J winces. “I tried to tell you a few days ago, but—”

“What was the article about?” I twist my napkin in my hands.

“The three-o’clock miracle,” Mom J says in a false attempt at brightness. “I wrote about it for a parenting website, about what to do if your child comes home sick but then feels better at—”

“You wrote about
that
?” I hiss. “You wrote about what happened to me at school? Did you use my name?”

“Of course not,” Mom J says, shaking her head. “I just said
my daughter
.”

“But we have the same last name,” I say.

“The Hoffman part, yes.”

“I actually think it’s cute. When I was—” Leesa starts to say, but now it’s my turn to cut her off.

“It’s NOT cute,” I say to Leesa. Then I turn to Mom J. “Please don’t write about me anymore without my permission.”

The waiter delivers the desserts. He must sense a chill around the table because he sets everything down and scurries off.

“Be respectful to your mom,” Mom C says in her serious lawyer voice.

Well, I’m not going to let that intimidate me, either. Because this is another Mookey Line. Except I’m realizing that sometimes I should keep my head high and let it all wash over me. And sometimes I have to face it. That’s what I’m going to say the next time Tiny comes in for a workshop. There’s more than one way to walk the Mookey Line.

I sit up as tall as possible (not saying much, but at least I’m taller than a baby chicken) and say, “Mom J needs to respect my life, too. It’s mine. I’m not material for articles. Also”—I turn to Leesa—“I’m almost eleven. I’m not cute. And I’m not teeny.”

As everyone stares at me, I pick up my spoon and start eating my chocolate ice cream.

T
he good news is that today is the Friday before winter break. Twelve days off from school. My eleventh birthday. A trip to New York City with my best friend.

The bad news is, well, everything else.