Brutal (17 page)

I walked into the gym wearing the shirt I'd worn to school, and Coach Policheck stood in front of the girls, hands on her hips. She glanced over at me, her jaw set in what my mom called angry stone. She raised her voice. “Are you happy now, Ms. Holly?” I stopped, looking at the line of girls. At least half of them, including Anna Conrad, wore their street shirts. No uniforms. I didn't reply but stepped past her and took my place in line. Coach Policheck shot me a look. “Well, now that everybody is here, we may begin. Those students who chose not to wear a uniform to class will immediately excuse themselves to the locker room to change. If not, punishment will follow. Mutiny is not allowable at this school.”

I kept my smile inside. If mutiny was allowed, it wouldn't be called a mutiny. Vice Principal Avery would need a bigger office, it seemed. Coach Policheck stood waiting, even tapping her toe, and nobody stepped out. Coach took a deep breath in through her nose, then exhaled, her voice echoing across the gym. “This ENTIRE class will be given detention for three days if those who are not
wearing their uniforms don't excuse themselves to the locker room.”

Nobody moved. The boys at the other end stared, smiling, laughing, and shaking their heads. Coach Policheck grunted, taking up her clipboard and pen while she walked down the line, checking names. Once finished, she faced us again. “I will be speaking to Vice Principal Avery about suspensions for each of you not wearing your uniform.” She pointed to the bleachers beyond the volleyball nets. “You may take a seat until such a time that you wear your uniforms. Excused!”

Half the class, over twenty-five girls, sat on the bleachers watching the other half play volleyball. I sat on the top row, my back against the wall. Anna Conrad hopped up next to me, silent.

I looked across the gym, knowing the answer before I asked it. “You did this, didn't you?”

Silence.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I quit choir today.”

“Why?” I said, holding back my surprise.

“My own reasons.”

“You think this changes anything?”

She stared across the gym. “I don't care if it changes anything.” We sat for a few moments, all the while Coach Policheck throwing us disgusted glances. “So this is what it feels like,” she continued.

“What?”

“Not doing what you're told to do.”

I sat back, the brick wall cool. “You always do what you're told to do, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“So now you want to be a rebel.”

“I've spent my whole life doing everything I'm supposed to do. Being an angel.”

I smirked. “Well, I still don't like you.”

“I don't like you, either. And the hair is stupid.”

I laughed, looking at her low-cut tee with her cleavage hanging out. “Better than letting my boobs hang out so people will pay attention to me.”

“Same thing, isn't it?”

I thought about it. Damn, she was making it hard to hate her. “I guess.”

“You have no idea how much trouble I'm going to be in.”

I smiled. “My mom is a doctor. Rebellion isn't well liked around our place.”

“Let me guess. Gone all the time and on your case when she's around.”

I nodded. “Same with you?”

She shook her head. “No. They're always around. It never ends. My mom thinks she's me.”

A wave of guilty pleasure ran through me, but the guilt, something I wasn't too familiar with, seeped a bit deeper than I liked. “Why'd you quit choir?”

She watched as a ball sailed into the bleachers, bouncing toward us before a girl caught it and threw it back to the court. “It's unfair what they did to you. You're better than I am.” She paused. “My parents went off the wall about it, you know.”

I smirked. “So why did you quit, though?”

She shrugged. “I hate singing.”

I sighed, catching a fractious glimpse of the side of her life I didn't want to know about. The reasons why. It sucked, because I understood what she was talking about. Having a mother who wanted you to be something other than you were sucked, and it could make you hate the things you really loved. “You're awesome, though.”

“Oh well.”

Moments passed, and I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what it meant as far as choir went. Would I have the spot? Was it too late? The guilt came back, though, shadowing everything. “You shouldn't have quit.”

She wouldn't meet my eyes, and she lowered her voice enough that it was hard to hear her over the screech of tennis shoes and echoed shouts on the courts below. “I've wanted to quit for a long time.”

I shook my head. “You're full of crap for letting them ruin it for you.”

“You don't know anything.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“No, you don't. You don't know me, and you don't know my mom.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I don't know you, and honestly, I hope I never meet your mom.”

“Yeah.” She looked across the gym, and her voice softened. “I heard you were in a band.”

“Yeah.”

“Fun?”

I smiled, missing the guys. “The best. We're good.” I paused. “Well, we were until I screwed things up and came here.”

She looked away. “It sounds fun.”

Awkward silence. I pictured her singing in a band like the Go-Go's or Bananarama. “You should try it.”

She tightened her ponytail, ignoring the comment. “Are you going to the harassment awareness seminar today?”

“Yes. Theo and I are going.”

She stood. “See you there, then.”

• • •

The seminar was in the library and when Theo and I arrived, I noticed a piece of paper hastily scribbled with “LOSERS'” taped to the wall. Theo smiled. “Well, I guess we're home.”

“Ha ha,” I said, then saw Anna in the room, looking like a fish out of water. My guess was that most of her friends wouldn't be coming primarily because the reason this was being held was due to most of her friends. We went in and sat next to her. “Where's your friends?” I said.

She looked around, like somebody she knew would actually be here. “I told them to come.”

Theo scratched his ear, maybe wondering if she was seriously being serious. “Whoever steps in here is instantly branded a social leper muddling through the waste of a perfect society, Anna. Pull your head out of your ass, huh? They're not coming.”

I sighed. Theo the drama queen. “God, Theo, you should be an actor.”

He laughed. “I would be Romeo and you would be Juliet.” He looked at Anna. “Going to the Night of Stars football fund-raiser picnic tomorrow, Anna?”

She looked down. “I'm a cheerleader, Theo. It's required.”

He smiled, nudging me. “It's a gala festival full of fun and games for the entire family. Wanna go, Poe?”

“Fat chance,” I said. Theo scrunched up his face like a guilt-ridden kid with an admission. I stared at him in dis belief. “Don't even tell me …”

He shrugged. “My dad is a huge contributor. He calls my attendance familial duty.”

I rolled my eyes. “You have no backbone.”

“Will you go with me? Pleeeeezzzz? You can protect me from the big bad guys.”

“No.”

He tilted his head, pouting. “I'd do it for you. Besides, the food is really good. Almost like a buffet but without people stuffing pork ribs in their pockets for later. And you get to laugh at two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebackers tossing eggs.”

“Sounds like an all-American evening.”

“It'll be fun. I promise.”

I twirled a finger. “Woo hoo. I'm there.”

Theo smiled. “Really?”

“Sure.” I pecked him on the cheek. “You came to this, I guess I owe payback.”

Just like every other aspect of high school in the United States, I could tell who was who as students filtered into the room. The uglies, the fatties, the dorks, the dweebs, the shorties, the socially inept, and the just plain weird mixed with the regulars who didn't know a thing about being a reject but who were there because they had some sort of humanitarian cause. Everybody wore their badge of rank by the expressions on their faces: the meek, desperate, homely, fearful, disaffected, glum, pained, and starved looks of people that just plain didn't fit in. Even with each other.

I figured I fit right in, but I had little pity for them. They
reminded me of sheep grazing in a DDT-coated pasture, not realizing the thing that was feeding them was the thing that was killing them. I felt like laughing at the irony of it all, then giving them the finger and leaving. They accepted their places and this charade, just like Theo said. Cogs in a wheel. For there to be the strong, there had to be the weak, and I didn't know if I hated them or the world more because of it. Maybe Anna had been right, I thought. Maybe I was the elitist one.

Mr. Halvorson took front and center, smiling and rubbing his hands together like he was getting ready to give a sermon to the ugly class. Dad sat in a chair with his legs crossed like a chick, his hands folded over his knee, and I rolled my eyes. My attitude definitely wasn't going to be a bonus today.

“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Halvorson began. “We at Benders High are devoted to maintaining a standard of equality and fairness for every student setting foot inside our buildings, and that is why we're here. To discuss how we can make an outstanding school even more outstanding…”

Theo raised his hand.

Caution flashed in Mr. Halvorson's eyes, but in the spirit of gooshy-gooshy feel-good meetings, he acquiesced. “Yes, Mr. Dorr?”

“I just wanted to say that as a total loser, I feel lucky to go to such an outstanding school. It makes me feel less loser-like.”

Mr. Halvorson took a breath. “May I finish my introduction before we begin speaking of our feelings?” He waited a moment, then nodded after Theo shut up. “Both Mr. Holly
and myself realize just how difficult being a teenager can be these days, but the simple fact of the matter is that we aren't teenagers. We're adults. And this seminar was designed for you, as teenagers going through a difficult period, to let us know. To tell us your feelings and let us help you deal with them in the ways we, as adults, know how. How to deal with isolation, estrangement, depression, and inequity, and, in essence, how to be a better you. A more happy you.”

If there was a cheese meter on the wall, it would have exploded, and as he finished, a moment of awkward silence followed before a few people clapped. Mr. Halvorson slapped his hands together like a Little League coach telling his team to take the field, and I expected him to start handing down high fives, but he didn't. He cleared his throat. “Well, down to business, then.” He paused. “How many of you have felt as though you don't quite fit in? Maybe felt as though who you are isn't really who you wish you were?”

A few hands went up, heads turned in the crowd, checking out the possibility of social embarrassment taking place at the social embarrassment seminar, then more hands went up. Soon most had their hands up. Theo held his up high, waggling his wrist like a little kid. I sighed when he elbowed me, then put my hand up. Anna didn't.

Mr. Halvorson nodded. “Good.”

I looked around, confused. What was good about a room full of people holding their hands up claiming to be miserable and wishing they were somebody else? I looked at my dad, who had his own hand up to make us feel like we were all in the same sinking ship, and I pinned my lips shut. He should have asked how many people would scrape their skins off with a dull knife to be left alone for five
minutes, but that wasn't about to happen. We'd stick to the feel-sorry stuff.

As usual, a few people kept their hands up until Mr. Halvorson told them gently to put them down, then he went on. “I would like to tell each and every one of you that the feelings you have are feelings everybody has at one time or another and that they're normal.” He gazed over us. “What I'm saying is that everybody is the same. We all have the same feelings, and we're all human. The difference is”—he paced—”the difference is how we deal with those feelings and what tools we have to work with them. That's what this seminar is about.”

The reasons were adding up, but the real reason wasn't anywhere to be found. The reason we were here wasn't because we were all the same; we were here because a kid almost got the life stomped out of him in the boys’ bathroom and they had to do damage control for it.

Mr. Halvorson motioned to my dad, then took a seat as Dad stood. His eyes flickered to me, then roamed the room. “What I would like to do is begin with stories. Real stories. Stories that show us what we have in common and stories that show us the truth about the world we live in. I'd like to know where you are coming from, and the best way to know is to hear your stories.” He paced. “All of you have experienced harassment of some sort. I have, too. Bullying, teasing, verbal abuse, physical abuse, humiliation, and embarrassment—we've all had some of it, and we can take comfort that we're not alone. But we can also be proactive in stopping it. We can make ourselves strong.” He stepped forward. “Would anyone like to begin?”

Big, noisy silence. I wasn't about to gush my guts out
about what a victim I was, because I wasn't, and my dad had another thing coming if he thought I would bail him out by starting. Then a fat girl raised her hand. Dad nod ded, motioned for her to stand, and she began. Fatso, fat ass, fat bitch, tub of lard—she started with what people called her. Her dad called her tubby, she wouldn't eat in public because guys made oinking noises, she'd never had a boyfriend and never would, and she hated herself and perspired too much. By the time she was done, tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sat, burying her face in her hands and sobbing. Let the healing begin.

The next half hour came with one story after another about the injustices of being who you were, and I realized halfway into it that soaking in the brine of your misery became easy when other people were around doing the same thing. I found myself almost thinking this was serving another purpose than damage control over the Velveeta thing, and it made me uncomfortable. It was like a mass celebration of victimhood, with the coup de grace being the Kool-Aid passed around at the end. There was even a kid sitting up front who looked a little bit like Jim Jones.

It went on. The skinny dork with acne and secondhand clothes who didn't have any friends, probably the most innocuous one of them all, had half the room crying by the time he finished talking about being constantly berated and teased, especially by the wrestling team. He'd tried out last year at the urging of his parents to “fit in” and didn't make the cut, inviting the team's wrath and ridicule. He spoke in a lifeless monotone, spelling out his world like he was reading it from a textbook, and I realized he was most likely the loneliest human being that ever lived.