Truth about Truman School (8 page)

I really hate it when people ask me what religion I am. Most of the time they already know when they ask; I'm Muslim. They just like to hear me say it so they can act all shocked. Like no Muslims live in the United States.

FYI … I was born in the United States. My parents come from Jordan and we are Muslim, but I'm as American as anyone else at school. I just don't celebrate Christmas; I pray five times a day; I fast for Ramadan, and I don't eat pork or drink alcohol.

I also can't date or go to dances. Sometimes kids give me a hard time about that. Like back in sixth grade Lilly told me she wanted to be my girlfriend and go to the fall dance with me. She knew I wasn't allowed to go to the dance, so I couldn't figure out why she asked me. And I was trying to figure out a nice way to tell her I couldn't go since it seemed like she really wanted to go with me.

Then I found out the reason she asked was because her new friends thought it would be funny if she
pretended
she wanted to be my girlfriend. The whole point was to make me look stupid and make fun of me because of my religion.

After they admitted it was all just a big joke, Lilly said to me, “I suppose I'm on your terrorist list now.”

I gaped at her. “What?” I said. I couldn't believe she'd say something like that to me. Lilly was my friend. Or she used to be. She knew how much a comment like that hurt.

Then Brianna said, “Are you going to blow us all up when we grow up, Amr?”

And then they all laughed—her, Lilly, and Hayley.

Kids say things like that to Muslim kids all the time. I know people at Saturday School who don't want any of their school friends to know they're Muslim. One girl I know wears her hijab to mosque, but not to school. It's like she's ashamed of who she is.

I'm not ashamed of my religion. If any of my friends have a problem with me being Muslim, then they're not really my friends.

I guess that was how I knew for sure that I didn't just “have a fight” with Lilly back in sixth grade. Lilly stopped being my friend.

Some things you just don't joke about. Lilly didn't get that back in sixth grade, but maybe she was starting to get it now? With me, you don't joke about being Muslim or being a terrorist; with Lilly you don't joke about her being fat.

We never talked about that picture. I knew all my friends saw it. I knew they all knew it was me. But we never actually talked about the fact that I used to look like that. We never talked about the fact someone had gotten hold of that picture and put it online. And we never talked about the fact that people were saying some not very nice things about me on that website.

I got a few anonymous emails. Not just milkandhoney; other people, too. They said things like, “Wow, you used to be really fat!” Or, “Be careful, Lilly. It looks like you're gaining a few pounds … ” Or, “If you start getting too fat, your friends will drop you.” But for the most part, people were treating me pretty normal to my face. I mean, at first it was just the one day that Hayley's mom didn't give me a ride to school. We rode together every day after that. Hayley, Brianna, and I either went to the media center to look up new cheers after school or we went to the gym to practice our cheers. And Reece still called or IMed me every night. So on the outside, everything seemed normal.

But something still felt off to me. Like maybe things weren't really what they seemed. And I couldn't help but wonder if it was some of my friends who had sent those anonymous emails. But maybe that was just me being paranoid again.

People think that if you're popular, you've got it made. But that's not true. You have to work at being popular. You have to wear the right clothes and hang with the right people and do the right things … It's
hard
because people are always watching and waiting for you to screw up.

Spreading that picture around was just step one in my plan. I wanted everyone to know that Lilly was not always the person she appears to be now. She wasn't always so special.

When things started to die down, I put phase two of my
Bring Lilly Down!
plan into action.

Now that the Truth about Truman had readers, I worked my butt off to keep them. I cranked out new articles as fast as I could. I archived anything that was a week old and wasn't getting comments, like the article I did on the new math curriculum. I couldn't believe it. The new math curriculum affects every student at Truman, but not one person had anything to say about it.

Lots of people commented on Amr's article about the short passing time between classes, though. And 103 people had commented on Lilly's picture. It's just no one was commenting on the stuff that really mattered.

Well, what could you expect from middle­-school kids? I hoped the new stuff I was putting up would interest them a little more. I wrote about the quiz bowl taking second in the state, the drama club's auditions for
Wizard of Oz,
and I listed new books that the media center just got, you know, stuff you'd see in a regular school paper.

Then there was the day-old cupcake incident. Believe it or not, our school sold “day-old” cupcakes, and some of those cupcakes turned out to be moldy! But you couldn't tell they were moldy until you took the wrapper off. Amr about lost his whole lunch when he noticed the mold on his cupcake.

“Yuck,” I said. “I'm glad I didn't buy one.”

I looked around to see how many other kids had bought them. Sara Murphy had. Most people won't let her sit at their table, so she usually sat at the other end of our table. Amr warned her. “You better not eat that. Mine was moldy.”

But she acted like she didn't even hear Amr. We both watched as she slowly unwrapped her cupcake and shoved the whole thing in her mouth without even checking to see if it was moldy. It was like she was taunting us or something. I don't know … she could be a little weird.

Anyway, the whole thing gave me an idea for a big feature story—School Food: Is it Safe???

We wrapped up Amr's moldy cupcake and brought it home so we could take a picture of it for the Truth about Truman. “Day-old” cupcakes indeed! More like month-old, I'm guessing.

Personally, I didn't think the school should even be allowed to sell stuff that wasn't fresh. McDonalds throws out hamburgers that have been sitting out for more than ten minutes. The health department says they have to. Doesn't the health department have rules about what schools can serve, too? I decided to call the health department and find out.

Guess what they said? Schools aren't supposed to sell day-old food at all! And guess what else? The lady I talked to at the health department said they would schedule a “surprise” visit to Truman to make sure they were up to code on everything.

I didn't know whether any teachers read the Truth about Truman, but just in case they did, I decided not to write about the health department's surprise visit. I still had enough material to write a really good article. This was going to be the lead story on the site.

Or so I thought.

The day my article about school food went up on the site, something else appeared that got people talking even more than my article and the picture of Amr's moldy cupcake:

Secret! Secret! Who's Got a Secret!

What did you all think of that picture of Lilly Clarke? She used to be a real porker, didn't she? Well, guess what? She's got an even bigger secret than that. Log in to this site again tomorrow to find out what it is.

—milkandhoney

Milkandhoney? Who's milkandhoney? It was like that was all anyone talked about at school. Some people thought it was Zebby Bower because she and Lilly used to be friends and now they weren't. Plus she was the one who started the Truth about Truman website. But other people thought it was somebody in the popular group. Somebody who wanted to nudge Lilly out.

Nobody asked my opinion on the whole thing. Which was fine. If I'd named somebody, no matter who it was, I probably would've gotten my head shoved in a toilet. And if I didn't name a name, I probably still would've gotten my head shoved in a toilet. A guy like me can't ever win.