Truth about Truman School (9 page)

Enough was enough. I was not going to let Zebby and Amr ruin everything I'd worked so hard for the past two years. Zebby ignored the email I sent her, so this time I picked up the phone and called her. I hated that I still had her phone number memorized.

“I want you to stop,” I said right away when she picked up. I saw no reason to make small talk.

Pause. “Who is this?” Zebby asked.

I couldn't believe she didn't recognize my voice. Or check her Caller ID. “It's Lilly!”

“Oh,” Zebby said coolly. I could tell by the way her voice changed that she really didn't know who I was until I told her. “What do you want?”

“I just told you what I want! I want you to stop. Stop sending me emails, stop posting stuff about me on your stupid website, stop everything!”

Zebby paused again. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

I sighed. Did I have to spell it out? “Milkandhoney?” I said. Duh!

“What about it?”

“I know you're milkandhoney,” I said, daring her to deny it. “In fact, I'll bet it's you and Amr together.”

Zebby let out a short laugh. “It is not!”

“Right.”

“It's not! I don't even know any ‘secrets' about you anymore,” Zebby said. “In case you hadn't noticed, we haven't exactly been hanging out much lately.”

Thank God for that. “Well, maybe it's something from back when we were hanging out.”

“Like what?” Zebby asked. “I thought your big secret was that you used to be … well, heavier than you are now. And not very popular. But everyone already knows that now.”

“Thanks to you! It's your website, so it has to be you spreading all that stuff around. You or Amr.”

“How do you know it's our website?” Zebby asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Please. Everyone knows.”

“Really?” Zebby actually sounded happy about that.

“Don't sound so excited,” I said. “I'm not going to let you ruin my life.”

“Ruin your life?” Zebby let out a short laugh. “I have news for you, Lilly. I don't care enough about you anymore to bother ruining your life!”

I felt a little chill when she said that. What if she was telling the truth? If Zebby wasn't milkandhoney, then I had no idea who was. Or what that person thought they knew about me.

A lot of people figured out that Amr and I started the Truth about Truman, but they didn't care! They read it anyway. A couple kids even came up to me in the hall and said, “Great site, Zebby!” I don't think I got this much attention when I put blue streaks in my hair. That just goes to show you there was a real need for a newspaper that represents our whole school. Even if a few people were using it for purposes other than what we originally intended.

Zebby and Amr probably think I'm this horrible person who dropped them in sixth grade just so I could join the popular crowd.

It wasn't like that. Well, maybe it was sort of, but it wasn't anywhere near as cold as that. We grew apart. That's it. That's all that happened. My parents “grew apart.” According to my mom, that's why they got divorced.Well, sometimes friends grow apart, too. Especially in middle school.

Zebby and Amr, they just don't care about a lot of the same stuff I care about. There was this time in sixth grade when we were all walking home from the mall together, and they started singing! Right out in public! And it wasn't even a real song; it was just some random, bizarre-O thing. The point is, I told them to stop because people were looking at us, but they wouldn't stop. In fact, they locked arms and started doing it
louder
. They even started skipping. It was totally immature. Not to mention embarrassing.

No matter what we were doing, whenever I ever said to them, “You guys, people are looking at us!” their response was always, “So?”

They didn't care. They never cared what anyone thought of them. It was like they were still in elementary school. They just wanted to run around, sing stupid songs, and hang out in the tree house. I was past all that.

And, well … when I lost all that weight right before sixth grade, the popular girls welcomed me into their group.

It wasn't that I dropped Zebby and Amr for the popular crowd. Once we got to middle school, I found a crowd that suited me better than they did. Did that really make me such a terrible person?

A lot of people probably don't realize this, but it's a lot of WORK being popular! And if you're like the
most
popular girl in the popular group, it's even more work because you have to figure out what's in and what's out and who's in and who's out. The whole school depends on you to tell them stuff like that.

Sometimes I like to sort of push the envelope, if you know what I mean. Like once I told people that these really tacky shirts from Target were in. Hello! They were from
Target!

But it didn't matter. The very next day like five girls came to school in those ugly shirts.

It makes me wonder sometimes … how far could I go? What kinds of things would people like Brianna or Cassie or Kylie do for no other reason than I told them to?

I don't mean to sound whiny or anything, but no one ever listens to me. If people had listened to me back in sixth grade, we never would've started hanging out with Lilly. I never understood what Hayley or anyone else saw in her. She wasn't all that pretty. She didn't have a great personality. She didn't even live in a very nice house. So why did Hayley let her start hanging with us back in sixth grade?

We first met Lilly at gymnastics the summer before sixth grade. She was new at gymnastics that year, and I remember she was totally scared of the uneven bars. Isn't that weird? I mean, why would you even sign up for gymnastics if you're scared of the uneven bars?

But she was. And I think she was scared of the balance beam and the vault, too. She only liked the floor exercise. We didn't pay much attention to her at gymnastics since we didn't know her. When we saw her at Truman in the fall, we were like, “Hey, we know you,” but it wasn't any big deal. We still didn't start hanging out with her. That didn't happen until I had my appendix out.

I'm not entirely sure how it happened since I wasn't there. I was in the hospital. But Hayley said there was an uneven number in gymnastics that day and somehow she and Lilly ended up spotting each other. Then they ended up sitting together at lunch at school. I have no idea how
that
happened. And before I was even up and around after my operation, Lilly had wormed her way into our group.

I didn't get it. Couldn't Hayley see that Lilly just wasn't one of us?

But Hayley seemed to think she was exactly like us.
Better
than us even.

“Look how everyone turns and watches her when she walks down the hall,” Hayley said. “She must've been really popular at her old school. So if we hang with her, we'll be popular, too. You want to be popular, don't you, Brianna?”

Of course I wanted to be popular. But I wondered if Lilly was really as popular as Hayley thought she was. I mean, she didn't dress like a popular girl. Not back then. But Hayley was right about people in the halls gawking at her. Everyone always turned and looked when she walked by. Like I said, I didn't get it. But, whatever. We started hanging with her. And by Christmas, the three of us were the girls everyone wanted to be friends with. We were the popular girls.

Have you ever noticed that people say and do things online that they would never do in real life? It's true. For instance, I would never go up to Lilly and say, “Wow, you used to be really fat,” but I don't have any problem saying that to her online.

It's different online. You can say or do whatever you want online because no one has to know it's you saying or doing those things. And you don't actually have to face the person you're being mean to.