Girls in Charge (8 page)

I almost flung open my locker door but I remembered how important it was not to get caught, with all that was at risk right now. I stood quietly, listening to the sounds outside in the locker block. First it was general murmuring as people gathered books and chatted, moving to their next class. Then it grew quiet, but I couldn't jump out because I still heard a voice. Then two voices. Then those voices were clearly arguing. At least one of them was.

“Pass any tests lately?” the voice said. “Shane thought you were smart, but I told him the truth.”

“Whatever, Clem.”

It was Clem, in the act: She was bullying Taylor.

“Seriously, I think he just likes dumb girls. That's what somebody told me,” Clem said.

“Let me go to class,” Taylor said.

“Why even bother? Aren't you flunking everything?”

There was no answer from Taylor and my heart went out to her. I pictured her frozen outside my locker. Cute, blond, and occasionally mean herself, even Taylor didn't deserve this.

“Can't think of anything to say back?” Clem said.

I flung open my locker, stepped out, and gave Clem my best glare.

“Oh, my God, Jemma. What are you doing?”

“Bully police.”

“What?” Taylor said.

“I'm supposed to report bullying to the principal because it's such a big deal now.”

“So you hide in lockers?” Clem asked. “You know, this isn't the first time I've seen you hide in a locker.”

It was true, and Taylor had broadcast videotaped proof of me doing it. This reminded me of why I didn't like Taylor. But I tried to remind myself that I didn't have to love Taylor to help her escape a bullying situation.

“Whatever, Clem,” I said.

“This is too weird,” Clem said. “I'm going to class.”

We watched her walk down the hall, her stick-straight blond hair swishing across her back as she went.

“Aren't you going to be late?” Taylor asked. She looked both embarrassed and relieved.

“It's okay. I have an extra hall pass,” I said.

In fact, I had a stack of them for PLS-related work. This qualified.

“I don't understand why you were in your locker. Or why you helped me,” Taylor said.

“Think pink,” I said, then quickly turned down the hallway toward my class.

I know I left her shaking her head, but I knew she would figure it out. I felt a little like a superhero who has left a calling card. I was like Batman flashing that bat flashlight of his into the night sky.

Sure, Taylor might tell everyone I was in the Pink Locker Society. But with so little time left in the year, and so much uncertainty, it felt like a risk worth taking.

 

Twenty-three

Watching Jake (and Forrest) play baseball that Friday gave me a lengthy opportunity to think through all my boy issues. Nine innings' worth.

“Kate, seriously, let's compare and contrast.”

“Not this again,” Kate said.

We had become pros at attending middle-school baseball games. We now brought a blanket so we could spread out under the sun, like it was the beach. We also could position ourselves far enough away from everyone else to have a talk like this.

“Jake is a little shorter, but some might say his face is cuter,” I said.

“Forrest is taller and he's more of a scruffy guy,” Kate said. “Jake pays attention to his hair and his clothes. Remember when he wore that pink polo shirt?”

“Yeah. You wouldn't catch Forrest in pink.”

“How about brains? Which one gets better grades?” Kate asked.

“I'm guessing they're about even, but Forrest forgets stuff more. You know, he's kind of spacey,” I said.

“Yeah, he once forgot that you were his girlfriend,” Kate said, elbowing me.

“You're funny. We weren't really going out, so that doesn't count.”

“You've come a long way, Jem. But even though I know you are not obsessing over Forrest anymore, I think this is a bad road—comparing him to Jake. And when it's during a game, it's like you're comparing stats from the backs of their baseball cards.”

“It's hard to compare them actually, since Forrest is a pitcher and Jake is more of an outfielder.”

“Thank you, sportscaster Jemma. You know what I mean.”

I guess I did. I kept hoping that if I studied the situation long enough I'd figure it out. And what I was trying to figure out was why, after several weeks of basically being Jake's girlfriend, I still didn't think I liked Jake. Not in that way, anyway. He hadn't kissed me and I was afraid that he would. I wasn't that afraid about kissing. I figured I could kiss someone without making a fool of myself. But I was afraid that it wouldn't be nearly as nice as kissing Forrest.

But I did like Jake, as a person. So why was liking Jake so different from liking Forrest? What I really wanted to know is when I would meet someone who was not Forrest that I would have Forrest-like feelings for.

I told Kate I'd close the subject for the next forty-eight hours and give her a break.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “It will give me a chance to tell you about my latest Zumba class.” Kate had gone head over heels for dance. She was on the dance troupe at school and, whenever she could make it, she took dance classes at the Y. She stood up on our blanket and started demonstrating a tango-type move. She took a long blade of grass and held it like a rose in her teeth.

“I just wish I had music,” Kate said. “You try it.”

No way was I trying that move, barefooted, on our baseball beach blanket, in front of the rest of the baseball spectators. I was grateful I had decided to stay seated because Taylor Mayweather appeared on the edge of our blanket.

“Hi, Taylor,” Kate said. “Want to sit with us?”

“I actually wanted to talk to Jemma a minute.”

“Okay, sure,” I said.

We walked a few paces away toward a weeping willow tree.

“I don't know how you knew to be in your locker at that very moment, but thank you.”

“I was in my locker by total accident.”

“Why is it that you sometimes go into your locker and close the door? It is unusual, you know?”

“I know. I know. I don't just stand in my locker with the door closed. I was coming back from somewhere.”

“You said ‘Think pink'! Does it have something to do with the Pink Locker Society? That's what they always say. I love that Web site.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“No way!” Taylor said, grabbing me by the shoulders, an OMG look on her face.

“Shhh!” I said.

Taylor lowered her voice and leaned in closer to say, “I still don't know where you could have been going to or coming from in your locker.”

“I can't really say.”

“Well then, can I ask how you got to be in the Pink Locker Society? I don't remember, like, an open audition or anything,” Taylor said.

“It wasn't like that.”

“Lucky you and whoever else is in it. My mother keeps saying I'd do better in school if I was involved in something. But I'm bad at sports.”

“I used to think I was bad at sports, but now I'm running. You should try it.”

“Maybe.”

“Have things with Clem been any better?”

“It's only been two days, but maybe. I think you scared her, you know? I'm worried about the class trip, though,” Taylor said.

“You're still going, right?”

“I don't know. She might just hassle me the whole time. It will be easier for her to corner me when we're out of town and the teachers are all distracted,” Taylor said.

The idea of anyone voluntarily not going on the New York trip amazed me.

“You have to go. Don't miss it. Not for that reason, anyway.”

Taylor just shrugged.

“Clem's smart. Another week will pass and she'll figure out that you're not really the bully police,” she said.

“Well, I still think you should go. How many chances do you have to go on our eighth-grade field trip?”

As soon as I said it, I wanted to reel my words back in like a big dumb fish.

“Ha-ha. Well, this won't be my only chance, I guess,” Taylor said.

“Oh, jeez. I am so sorry. I can't believe I said that.”

“It's okay, really. I have to get used to it, I guess,” Taylor said.

I thought about telling her how I wasn't going to be going even once, but I decided to keep it to myself.

 

Twenty-four

As the field trip drew closer, Kate, Piper, and I plunged deeper into sadness. I had accepted it on one level. But it was hard to take the buzz of energy I felt at school from all those eighth-graders who were going. Some of them had been fully packed for days and were ready to have all kinds of NYC adventures. I took different tacks. One day I tried to convince myself the real fun would be after the NYC trip when we had graduation and our Farewell Eighth Grade party. Another time I said it was actually a blessing I wasn't going on the trip because the babies might come early and I didn't want to miss that, did I?

But neither of these arguments held and I went right back to thinking how long three days and two nights would feel, knowing that everyone was having fun on a vacation except for you.

I was especially dreading the moment when I'd have to tell Forrest. For a week now, he had told me he had some index cards he wanted to go over with me for our joint presentation to the Tomorrow's Leaders Today group. I kept putting him off, not wanting to imagine in detail any aspect of the trip I wouldn't be taking. The two of us onstage together was a strange but somehow lovely thought.

So it was with that kind of woe-is-me feeling that I shuffled to the auditorium for a special fortieth anniversary party for Principal Finklestein. I couldn't believe anyone could work anywhere that long, especially boring old Margaret Simon Middle School. We were “celebrating” with cupcakes followed by a live onstage interview. Bet would handle the interview and video it for a future
You Bet!
episode (yawn). I pictured Principal F. watching it over and over on his lonely evenings.

Giving out the anniversary cupcakes first was a big mistake. Someone had taken the time to write a “40” in icing on each one.

“Mmmm …
le petite gateau,
” said Piper, downing hers and sharing the French word for cupcake.

The already excited eighth-grade class was now sugar-buzzing on top of having “Field Trip-itis,” as Ms. Russo had named it. Since the bus was leaving early Saturday morning, it was kind of like Field Trip Eve.

Shannon Andersen turned around and told us that Principal F.'s mother was there, in the auditorium, wearing a corsage and beaming in the front row. Bet started the interview with a photo montage of Principal F. through the years backed by a rousing instrumental track. It was the kind of music they might play before the start of the Super Bowl. I couldn't imagine how Bet had stood for this and guessed it was not her idea. Once the photos faded, the lights rose on the stage, where Bet and Principal F. were sitting in two living room chairs. It was like they were having this casual chat, a chat that happened to be occurring before a crowd of hundreds of students and teachers. None of us had any choice but to be there, in our seats, until the bell rang.

Bet's first questions were about his early aspirations.

“Well, Bet, it all started when I used to play school in our garden shed. I'd pretend I was the principal and my stuffed animals were the students.”

Giggles rose up from the audience and teachers shushed them. The image of Principal F. instructing a class full of teddy bears and rag dolls filled the heads of the entire student body.

After the laughter died down, Bet reviewed his job history, which never included any school other than Margaret Simon Middle School. He was very briefly a teacher, then an assistant vice principal, then a vice principal, and then principal. He nodded and smiled, occasionally tossing out a comment like, “That year, I created a blue-ribbon panel that shortened recess to allow more instructional time.”

It was excruciating and then, suddenly, Bet took the wheel of the discussion. She made an unexpected U-turn back to 1973.

“Principal Finklestein, do you consider yourself an expert on Margaret Simon Middle School?”

“Why, yes, I do. I'd venture to say I know more about this school than any other living being,” he said. “Hey, that reminds me of a funny story about the faculty parking lot…”

But Bet interrupted.

“So you know everything there is to know about Margaret Simon—or just stuff that happened while you were on the staff?”

“Oh, my dear, I know much more than that. I'm a student of history. Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it,” Principal Finklestein said, nodding confidently at the audience.

“So you must know that the original Pink Locker Society—then called the Pink Locker Ladies—is a recognized club at this school?”

“What? I don't know about
recognized.
What does this have to do with my fortieth-anniversary party, Bet?”

Principal F. straightened himself up in his cozy brown chair.

“Well, you just said you're a student of school history, correct?”

“What is all this about? We haven't even covered the nineteen eighties yet.”

Bet handed Principal F. a yellowed piece of paper that was curled at the edges.

“If you are familiar with the school's archived files, you'll recognize this document.”

Principal F. put on his narrow reading glasses and looked over the document.

“What our principal is looking at is the original sanctioning paperwork for the Pink Locker Ladies. It's dated 1961.”

“What is it?” people were murmuring in the audience. Piper reached down and grabbed my knee. I reached over and grabbed Kate's forearm. In a flash, our brains did the same little sashay. If this was the sanctioning document for the Pink Locker Ladies (aka the Pink Locker Society), then the PLS has
always
been a sanctioned group. And if that's true, then the very reason we were not allowed to go on the NYC trip was melting away like a popsicle in July.