Dawn's Acapella (4 page)
“
Watch yourself sunshine,
you’re turning evil,” Rose giggled.
“
I’m gonna find them.
Watch me.”
In truth, Rose doubted Dawn’s words.
She didn’t think these so-called villains would strike again, or
ever come out into the open.
In fact, they did the very next day at
lunch.
“
Hey Sugarbee!” a voice
shouted from across the cafeteria. “Thanks for the cupcake! Nice
new sign you made, too!”
“
Oh my god, that’s Tyler,”
Dawn whispered. “He’s so cute!”
“
Him?” Rose said.
“Really?”
Tyler was tall, skinny, and wearing
far too much hair gel. He might have had a nice smile, if there
were nice intentions behind it.
Tyler threw the cupcake across the
room, and it landed right in the middle of the new sign advertising
their next bake sale.
“
Hey!” Sylvia Sugarbee
stormed toward him. “Did you trash the choir room?”
“
So what if I
did?”
“
I’m gonna get a teacher,”
Dawn said, and hurried away.
“
Should we do something?”
Lucy said.
“
I think Sugarbee’s got it
handled,” Rose said. But just as the words were out of her mouth, a
soda flew across the table and exploded on Sylvia’s shirt.
“Uh-oh.”
Sylvia, of course, wasn’t about to let
herself be humiliated, and flung her own drink right back at him.
Before Rose knew it, a full-blown food fight erupted before her
eyes.
It didn’t last long. Dawn had returned
with several staff members. The excitement died away in an instant,
and several people tried to flee the scene. But Tyler and Sylvia
were both taken to the office.
“
I hope she doesn’t get in
too much trouble,” Rose said.
“
Do you think Tyler’ll
hate me for telling on him?” Dawn asked.
“
That’s what you’re
worried about?” Rose said. “Who cares? He’s a jerk. I thought you
were ready to get your glitter-revenge.”
“
But it’s
Tyler
,” Dawn said. “You
don’t know him. Maybe he’s just trying to motivate us. The ‘no
light without darkness’ stuff.”
“
Still a jerk,” Rose
muttered.
“
Hm. Maybe you’re not as
wise as I thought.”
“
Shut up,
freshman.”
Over the next few weeks the villains
made several more appearances, some of them harmless, funny pranks,
some of them more extreme, damaging school property. Someone
decorated the windows with washable marker, and another group
played off this idea, scribbling over the walls in the bathrooms
with sharpies. Most of the pranks simply took up class time, which
students didn’t object to whether they were heroes or villains.
Teachers office’s filled with balloons, spring snakes in everyone’s
lockers, “vandalism” of the student events board, cell phones with
their alarms set placed in the ceiling tiles...
The staff made a few feeble attempts
to find and punish those responsible, but once they put it together
that this was backlash from the Everyday Heroes Club, their tactics
changed.
They called Rose, Nick, and Lucy to
the office separately to speak to them about the “dangers” their
club posed. Lucy returned from her little chat with the principal
and met the rest of the group at lunch.
“
I’m leaving them!” Lucy
announced, throwing her bag on their table.
“
Um... what?” Rose
said.
“
My ‘friends’ are
villains!” Lucy exclaimed.
“
Ooooh!” Dawn said.
“Yay!”
“
No! No ‘yay’!” Lucy said.
“This sucks! I tried to tell them to stop because they could
destroy our club, and we had this big fight, and they said all
these mean things, and they think we’re all just a bunch of losers
trying to build ourselves up to look better than we are, because
this whole ‘heroes’ thing is really just selfish anyway,
and...”
“
I thought the villains
were trying to motivate us,” Nick said.
“
Yeah, and some of them
are,” Lucy said. “But some want the whole thing shut down just
because they hate us! They hate me! I don’t believe this, I’ve just
lost—”
“
What?” Rose said. “What
have you lost?”
Lucy paused. She dropped into a seat,
shaking her head. “Wow,” she whispered. “I—I don’t know,
I...”
“
Nothing!” Rose said. “You
haven’t lost anything!”
“
Yeah? Then why do I feel
like this?”
“
They hurt you. You’re
angry. You’re not sad you lost something, you’re just
mad!”
“
You can’t tell me how I
feel!”
“
Well, I’m tired of
keeping quiet about this stuff! I didn't want to tell you what to
do or how to feel, but my god Lucy, wake up! They’re nothing! You
never needed them! If we meant anything to you, you’d know
that!”
“
Is that what this is
about?”
“
Yes!”
For a moment they just stared at each
other. Then they both let out their breath in the same
moment.
“
I’m sorry, Rose,” Lucy
said, standing to embrace her. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t there,
I’m...”
“
I’m
sorry,” Rose said. “I shouldn’t have yelled like that, I
don’t have the right to tell you...”
“
It’s okay,” Lucy said.
“I’ve got all the friends I need right here. You and Nick.” She
smiled at them, until Dawn quietly cleared her throat. “And Dawn,”
Lucy added. “And those villains, they’re... They’re
nothing.”
“
Say it again.”
“
They’re
nothing.”
“
Feels good, doesn’t
it?”
Lucy smiled, raising her voice even
louder. “They’re nothing!”
After lunch, Rose had her
math class down the hall from where Dawn had biology. She was
trying to listen to the lecture and take notes, occasionally
slipping into daydreams and doodling on the side of her
notebook.
I'm really proud of you,
Lucy…
She had just snapped her attention
back for the third time when she heard an exclamation from down the
hallway.
“
They’re out! Quick, grab
‘em!”
“
Ew, no! Get ‘em away from
me!”
Someone raced down the hall. Every
head in her class turned to see Dawn scampering down the hallway.
She paused in the doorway, “Hi Rose!”
Rose only stared,
wide-eyed.
“
Someone let all the
animals out in biology! Rats and bugs and a
tarantula
!” She ran on.
“
Oh no,” Rose whispered,
dropping her head. Everyone in the class was staring at her. For
the first time in all her years in school, she was grateful to hear
the teacher demanding the class’s attention, and disciplining the
whispering students.
For a while, the class returned to
it’s ordinary, boring state. Then, over the loudspeaker:
“
Attention: Rose Channing,
please come to the office. Rose Channing to the office.”
All eyes turned to her again. She
stood up slowly, and left the classroom and whispers behind
her.
The principal was waiting for her.
“Rose. Please sit down.”
“
Okay.”
“
I wanted to talk to you
about the club you and your friends started.”
“
We’re only out to do
good, really,” Rose said. “We didn’t want to cause any
trouble.”
“
I understand. But trouble
has still been caused due to your little club. If this continues,
we’ll have to put a stop to it.”
“
What, shut down the
Everyday Heroes Club? Because of ‘villains’ who aren’t even part of
it? Are you serious?”
“
Their actions are a
result of this group,” he said.
“
Typical!” Rose exclaimed.
“Blame us! You know, we’ve made this school a lot
better!”
“
Don’t you raise your
voice at me, young lady!”
“
Don’t you ‘young lady’
me, old man!” Rose stood up.
“
Sit down this instant,
Miss Channing!”
“
Look,
Mr
. principal, my name is Rose, and
I’ll sit down and be good if you can give me one legitimate reason
why you want to shut down our club.”
“
Because these pranks have
to stop! They’re damaging school property, costing us hundreds
of—”
“
And how is my club
responsible?”
“
Many people have said
these villains only emerged to motivate your club members. Is that
true?”
“
Maybe,” Rose shrugged.
“I’m not one of them, how would I know?”
“
Has it
worked?”
Rose dropped back in her seat and
sighed. He had the numbers right there, on his stupid little
clipboard. They had gained a lot of new members since the villains
became active. Their fundraisers were bringing in more money.
“Okay, it has. But who cares? Doesn’t the good outweigh the bad,
here? If they’re costing you money, we’ll give you the money from
our next event. Then you can concentrate on stopping them rather
than fighting against people who are trying to help
you.”
“
How does your club help
me?”
“
Your students are
happier,” Rose said. “And more confident. And people are more
friendly. People are welcoming others into their little study
groups and such. And with happier, confident students, who study in
fun little groups like that, test scores go up. You’ve see it
already, haven’t you? And high test scores make the school look
good, which makes you look good. It’s pretty simple.”
“
Classes are being
interrupted on a daily basis, and that will bring test scores down.
The school is being destroyed by a handful of students. That makes
us all look bad. I’ll give you another chance for now, Rose, but we
can’t put up with much more of this. You’re excused.”
She got up, still angry. There were
several more things she wanted to say. He was giving her another
chance? Stupid, stupid old man! It was up to him, and he was acting
like it was her responsibility to find these pranksters and put a
stop to their shenanigans. If she didn’t find a way, they would put
a stop to her club. Sure, people would say they’d go on being
“heroes” in secret, but without the club’s support, how long would
that last?
Dawn met her at lunch. “They’re gonna
shut us down aren’t they?”
“
Not yet,” Rose said. “But
they’re thinking about it. If we don’t do something, they will.
It’s just not fair!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry, but this makes me
so mad! We’re only trying to do good, and yet we’re the ones being
blamed for them! And the school won’t do anything.”
“
It’s typical,” Dawn
said.
“
That’s what I
said!”
Dawn smiled. “We’re twins!”
Rose was silent, staring into space,
trying to think of some way she could save their club. Nothing
plausible came to mind. Worse was the thought that maybe, as fun as
the club was, it was actually doing more harm than good.
“
Look at me!” Dawn said.
She pulled her lips in and opened her eyes wide.
“
What are you
doing?”
“
That’s the face you make
when you space out. You’re doing it now.”
“
What? No I don’t. I don’t
look that ridiculous.”
“
Sure you do! We’re twins,
remember? We’re like the Ellie and Savannah of the
school!”
“
I wish,” she said. “If we
really were, we could fix this.”
Rose was eating lunch with Lucy and
Nick when Dawn danced over to their table.
“
Hey! Happy birthday,
sunshine!” Rose said.
“
Thanks! I brought
cupcakes! And these are just for us. The original oddities.” Dawn
dropped the box in the middle of their table, and Lucy and Nick
abandoned their own lunches to tear it open.
“
Technically, the original
oddities were just me, Lucy and Nick,” Rose said, grabbing a
cupcake.
“
What’s that?” Dawn asked,
pointing to a box next to Rose’s lunch.
“
Oh! I got you a present,”
Rose smiled. “Open it!”
“
Yay! Thank you!” She took
the box, and tore off the silver paper. Opening the lid, her eyes
went wide. Her hands trembled as she pulled the black and gray
striped dress out of the box. Perfectly identical to the one Rose
wore. “Oh my god!”
“
I know you liked this
one,” Rose said. “Now we really are the Ellie and Savannah of the
school!”
“
I’m gonna go put it on
right now!” Dawn took it, the box, and the wrapping paper, and
scurried off.