Truth about Truman School (14 page)

I have never in my life felt so alone. I went entire days without saying a word to anyone until six o'clock when my mom got home from work. And even then, there were days I spoke fewer than seventeen words out loud: “Yes. No. No. I'm fine. I have a lot of homework. Yes. I'm tired. Good night.” That was all I said one day. I was like that weird girl who never talked. Except at the moment, I think even
she
was more popular than I was.

It just didn't end!
People called me names, whispered about me, or just plain ignored me at school. But then it was almost worse when I went home, because people would email me and IM me nonstop. I just couldn't get away from it.

Then one day, a whole new thing went up on the Truth about Truman.com:
If you liked Lilly's Lesbian Diary, wait until you see what I'm going to post later tonight. —milkandhoney.

Oh, no.
Now
what?

If you liked Lilly's Lesbian Diary, wait until you see what I'm going to post later tonight. —milkandhoney.

Wait a minute!
I'm
milkandhoney, and I didn't post that!!! Who's posting stuff with my name?

I kept waiting for milkandhoney to post whatever they were going to post, but they didn't post it before my mom got home from work. And then once she was home, she totally guarded the computer. I couldn't get on it the rest of the night. Well, no way was I going to school the next day without knowing ahead of time what milkandhoney had posted. So I set my alarm for two o'clock in the morning. It turned out I didn't need the alarm. I never actually went to sleep.

At two
a.m.
, I slid out from under my covers and crept over to my door. I opened it slowly, quietly, and tiptoed out into the hall. I hardly breathed as I inched across the hall and pressed my ear against my mom's door. I could hear her snoring in there, so I continued on to the living room. I turned on the computer, which, let me tell you, sounds really LOUD when it roars to life at two o'clock in the morning. The screen seems extra bright at that hour, too.

Squinting against the brightness, I typed in www.truthabouttruman.com and waited for the site to come up. I dreaded seeing what was on there now.

It was just one line again:
Click HERE for something interesting.

I clicked and was immediately taken to a brand new website. A We Hate Lilly Clarke website.

How much do you hate Lilly Clarke? Tell us in 250 words or less. The winner will receive $5!!!!

Five dollars? For writing about how much you hate me?

Who posted this website? Who was judging the entries and awarding the prize? I couldn't tell.

But there were already five entries. I couldn't stand to read them.

I admit, I did the other stuff. I posted the picture of Lilly. I doctored it up a day later. I did the Lilly's Lesbian Diary website. I posted some sort of mean comments on the Truth about Truman, and I sent Lilly a bunch of emails under the name “milkandhoney.” If I had thought about starting a “We Hate Lilly” website, I might have done that, too. But I didn't; I swear I didn't!

How much do you hate Lilly Clarke?

Was this
really
Amr? Even if he did hate Lilly, it was hard to imagine him putting up a site like this. This was like … terrorism. And Amr was sensitive about terrorism.

Which made me wonder: what if Amr
wasn't
milkandhoney? Was it possible he wasn't?

There was an easy way to find out. Amr claimed that fable had been up on our site earlier that day. I had been on the site earlier that morning, too, and I never saw it. That was why I didn't believe him when he said he took it down. But what if he was on
before
I was? Or after I was? All I had to do was check the history of our site to find out for sure.

So I did.

And guess what I found. That fable was up on our site for about twenty minutes that morning. I felt lower than I've ever felt in my life.

Amr had been telling the truth. Somebody else posted that fable. He took it down. And I didn't believe him.

No wonder he was so mad at me. What kind of friend was I?

I picked up the phone and dialed Amr's number. His mom answered the phone.

“Hello, Zebby,” she said. “I am sorry, but Amr is not here. He has gone out to breakfast with his father.”

“Could I get his dad's cell phone number? I really need to talk to him.”

Amr's mom gave me the number. I called it, but there was no answer. Maybe Amr's dad just couldn't hear his cell phone wherever he was.

Or … maybe Amr was avoiding me.

“I don't feel so good,” I moaned when my mom came in to wake me up. I really didn't feel good because I'd hardly slept all night. Plus I'd just spent the last fifteen minutes holding my comforter over my head. So my head was all sweaty, and it was hard to get enough air.

“What's the matter?” Mom asked gently.

I put on my most pathetic face. “My head hurts. So does my stomach. And so does my throat.” Why not cover all the bases?

Mom leaned over and felt my forehead. “You are a little warm,” she said. “I'll go get the thermometer.”

She came back in about two minutes with an old-fashioned thermometer that you have to hold in your mouth. “Open up,” she said, sticking the thermometer in. Then she went to put in her contacts.

There was one good thing about those old style thermometers. If you can get ten seconds alone with one … just you, the thermometer, and a light bulb, you can give yourself a fever as high as you want. So as soon as my mom left, I rolled over toward my bedside light and held the thermometer against the bulb. As soon as the silver stuff reached 102 degrees, I stuck the thermometer back in my mouth.

Good thing, too, because I could hear my mom coming back. She grabbed the thermometer from my lips, peered down at it, and frowned. “Looks like you really are sick.”

Yes!

Mom sighed again. “Do you need me to stay home with you?” She looked a little worried that I was going to say yes.

“No, that's okay,” I moaned. I knew it was hard for Mom to get the time off. And I really didn't want her to stay home with me, anyway. I wanted to be alone.

Mom came back at noon to check on me. She also brought me some chicken noodle soup from Panera, which tasted so good I ate all four servings of it. I told her I was okay, but still feeling crummy. That way I was setting the stage for staying home tomorrow, too. Maybe even the next day. In fact, maybe I'd
never
go back to school.