Why Girls Are Weird (28 page)

It was windy on the track bleachers. Smith's hair whipped around her head as she stood watch over the quickly growing crowd on the field in front of her. She had dyed her hair cherry red for the occasion and looked like she had summoned a crown of fire. Her eyes were sharp, and I could tell that she was nervous. So was I. The crowd of Action Grrlz was sitting on the bottom step of the bleachers facing the audience, waiting for Smith to speak. Smith was just waiting for the crowd to be big enough for her.

I was standing just off to the side of the bleachers, near our rented amp. I was looking up at Smith with the rest of the waiting students. I could feel anxiety rising from the arches of my feet. I shifted my weight back and forth as I searched the field. I looked farther to the right, toward the back of the school building. Classes had let out fifteen minutes ago and large clumps of kids were walking toward us. They were loud and laughing, free with the release that comes at the end of a school day. We were lucky enough to score one of the five Texas days in March that has a cool breeze and a clear blue sky. Other states know it as “spring.”

The students pushed each other playfully, keeping to groups of three or five; a random couple would wander at a slower pace. There were cheerleaders in uniform, other groups wearing the same T-shirts, kids dressed in all black, and boys already suited up for their after-school sports practice. I counted thirty-five kids in the first quick scan. Ten minutes later there were easily eighty.

Smith gave a small glance over at me and raised her eyebrows. She was surprised at the turnout as well. We had been petitioning and papering the school with fliers, but Smith wanted the specifics of the group kept secret. The Action Grrlz's fliers simply read: “YOU MUST BE THERE.”

“Everybody at this school does what they're told all the time, Miss,” Smith had said to me when we first picked up the stack of fliers. “They'll think this is some pep rally or something.”

As I watched Smith adjust the microphone stand we had swiped from the A/V club, I became more anxious. I picked up the same vibe from the crowd of teens in front of me. We were all shifting, squinting into the afternoon sunlight, shielding our foreheads from the wind whipping our hair, turning the ends into tiny daggers that batted at our faces. We were all at attention, waiting to hear what that flier told us we couldn't risk missing. She hadn't told me what she was going to say. I asked her to keep it a surprise.

Smith smiled as she looked down to grab the microphone. I knew she was proud of herself. I couldn't stop grinning. I was proud of her, too. My few months with Smith had felt like years. She seemed older and smarter as she stood in front of that crowd. She held her head higher than she used to. She no longer hunched herself forward. She wasn't apologetic anymore.

“Move your giant head, Anna,” Dale snapped. He was filming Smith's rally for her college applications. I moved over and got a different view of the crowd. They were so quiet. Even toward the back kids were standing on their toes, leaning forward, waiting to hear what Smith was about to say. I wondered if most of these kids even knew who she was. Smith coughed next to the microphone and started speaking.

“Okay, um, thank you all for coming,” she mumbled, and a tweak of feedback pierced through her microphone. I gave a sharp glance toward the sound operator. Her name was Shelly, a junior in the group. She tossed a cigarette underneath her tennis shoe and adjusted a few knobs on the amp. There was a murmur of laughter throughout the crowd, and Smith looked a bit shaken. She looked upward, as if the sound of her voice had materialized into something thick in front of her eyes. She breathed deeply and leaned forward into the microphone again.

“Y'all, listen! We are the Action Grrlz!”

The twenty girls in front shouted and raised their hands in the air. The group had grown since last semester and now had a variety of girls of different sizes and races. The entire front row looked like a Benetton ad.

The crowd was now starting to lose interest. A few boys in the back shouted requests to see the girls' breasts.

Smith gave a quick glance around and continued. “My name is Smith. Okay, so to get into college you have to have all of these extracurriculars, you know? So I was looking for a group to join this year and I couldn't find anything. Every group was so specific and school related. I wanted a group that people talked about, you know?”

People were starting to break off and have smaller discussions under Smith's speech. A few of the Action Grrlz screamed, “Shut up!”

Smith took a quick glance at me and then went back to the microphone. “Hold on,” she said.

There were moans from the crowd as Smith jumped off the bleachers and walked toward me. I saw one of the other Action Grrlz run over toward a small crowd headed back toward the school. She curved around them like a sheepdog, her gestures a mix of bargaining and threats.

“Miss, this is so stupid,” Smith moaned to me. “Give me a cigarette.”

“No, you're doing really well,” I said.

Smith turned back toward the crowd. “I should have written it down.” She looked at Dale pointedly and said, “I told you I needed the notecards.”

“Just be louder,” Dale said. “And enunciate.” He held up his free hand, his forefinger touching his thumb. He punched it through the air with every syllable. “E! Nun! See! Ate!”

Smith placed her hand in the mirror image of Dale's and mocked him: “Oh! My! God! Shut! Up!”

Dale turned Smith around by the arm, pushed her back toward the bleachers, and chanted, “Bigger. Faster. Go! Go! Go!”

I walked up to Smith and grabbed her hand. She turned toward me. Her lower lip hung down, and I could see her bottom row of teeth as she bit her upper lip. I saw a hint of tears in her eyes.

“You can do this,” I said to her. “You know you can. Just talk to them like you talk to me.”

“I sound so stupid when I talk in front of people,” she said.

“Smith.” I smiled at her. “You're very charming.”

She pulled her head back sharply, and I was instantly worried that I had somehow insulted her. “Nobody's ever called me that before,” she said. “I'm charming?” She laughed a little and added, “Like a princess?”

“Exactly like a princess,” I said. “Princess Bad-Ass. And you're losing your subjects.” I turned her back toward the crowd. “Hurry!” I said, and gave her a little push.

She left my hands and I felt that surge of pride again. This time it was more sisterly than protective. As I watched Smith climb back up the bleachers, my memory flashed to the time I taught Meredith to ride a two-wheeler. She was eight and I was ten. I was holding on to the back of her pink bike with one hand and she had turned herself around in the seat to grab on to both of my arms. The bike was wobbling and I thought it was going to turn over. I had to hold the handlebars with my other hand. I was steering the bike as Meredith was clinging to me, screaming. I told her, “You already know how to do this.” She did. She didn't realize that she hadn't been using her training wheels for a few weeks. She had wanted to ride her bike through the same grassy field I plowed mine after school. She had wanted to ride next to me and no longer wanted to be stuck on the same tiny sidewalk in front of our house anymore. So I got Dad's toolkit and figured out how to take the training wheels off myself.

The more Meredith squealed, the more I repeated to her that she knew how to ride. But she had to look at the street.

“Then you'll be gone!” she shrieked.

“I'm right here. I won't let you fall.” She was heavy and my arms were getting tired of holding her and the bike upright. I wanted her to start pedaling.

“Promise me,” she whimpered.

“Mere, I promise,” I said.

She turned right around and pedaled. The bike whipped out of my hands and she was off down the street. She laughed, and shouted back, “Are you still there?”

I was running behind her shouting, “I'm right here!”

“You still got me?” she shrieked again as she started pedaling faster.

“Yes, Meredith! You're doing so good!”

“I know!”

She rode for another hour with me running behind her. She never turned around.

As we were putting the “horses” back in the “stable” that night—our ritual of wiping down our bikes, pretending to clean and brush our horses before they went to sleep—Meredith turned to me and said, “I know you weren't always right behind me because I was going so fast. But that's okay. I knew that you weren't ever going to let me fall.”

Smith grabbed the microphone. “Okay, here,” she said. She pointed at tiny Thanh-Mai sitting on the ground. “Thanh-Mai. Stand up. Come over here.”

Thanh-Mai, a small Vietnamese girl in a green sweater and a plaid skirt, stood to join Smith. On the metal stairs, her steps sounded heavy for such a little girl. Her footsteps echoed over the crowd, clanking and scraping as she lumbered up to Smith. The crowd was getting more and more restless.

“This is Thanh-Mai,” Smith said. “She's a sophomore here and she's in Student Council. She plays three instruments and can speak two languages. Thanh-Mai knits and is going to be a pediatrician when she grows up.”

Thanh-Mai didn't seem to know the focus was on her. She was frozen. Smith turned toward her. “Tell them what you're passionate about, Thanh-Mai.”

Thanh-Mai's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear what she said. The crowd didn't either, and people were shouting to have Thanh-Mai speak up.

“She said she cares about animal rights! Listen, y'all! Thanh-Mai is an active member of PETA. She protests the rodeo and the circus when they come to town. So does Sandra.” Smith pointed at Sandra and motioned for her to join them.

“Sandra is a junior and she's on the debate team. She cares about animal rights, the environment, and works at soup kitchens for homeless teens.”

Smith motioned for the other Action Grrlz to stand up. They all formed a line on the third stair of the bleachers. They looked dazed. They didn't know that Smith was going to call so much individual attention to them. Smith stood over them. If she noticed they were uncomfortable, she didn't let on.

“Jenny raises money for AIDS research. Monica is drug free. Frannie is straight edge. Karen volunteers at a hospital for girls with eating disorders. Amy is a Republican. We're all different girls, but we all want to talk about what we believe in.”

Each girl straightened up as her name was announced. They looked at each other and smiled. They hadn't thought of themselves as activists before. Hearing their names and their interests announced over a loudspeaker made it sound more legitimate. Unfortunately, they were the only ones listening to Smith's announcement. The crowd was now openly ignoring Smith's speech. Some of them had their backs turned to the bleachers and were loudly joking with each other.

Smith gripped the microphone tighter and shouted, “And you don't give a fuck about us, right? You don't give a shit about who we are or what we do.”

The crowd quieted. Kids turned back around as Smith's curses hung in the air. A few cheered. One kid shouted, “Not really.” Another group laughed.

“And why should you give a fuck about us? We don't give a fuck about you, either. That's how we've worked it. We do our thing and you do yours. Nobody's inviting anyone to talk. Well, we're changing that now.”

Smith took the microphone off the stand and sat down on a bleacher step. Her hair was still whipping around her face, and she held it back with her free hand. I could see her legs shaking as she said calmly, “The Action Grrlz want to talk to you. We want to open up lines of communication. We are inviting you in. And you will know us by our heads.”

I never saw Thanh-Mai pull the clippers from her backpack, but suddenly the girls were cheering, the crowd was gasping, and Thanh-Mai was shaving Smith's head clean. Clumps of red hair floated in the air, drifting toward Smith's feet on the metal stairs as she stomped with excess energy.

“Did you know about this?” Dale asked.

“No!” I whispered. My voice was gone. My legs felt cold. I suddenly realized that I'd never met Smith's mother. I had a feeling I was going to very soon.

Smith stood with clumps of hair still attached to her head. Patches of white skin stood out as she yelled into the microphone, “We are the Action Grrlz! If you see one of us, stop and talk to us! We want to know what you think!”

I watched as twenty other girls took turns shaving each other's heads. Bits of hair picked up in the wind and swirled around us. It was a hairstorm. I realized that my mouth had dropped open once a curl floated to my lower lip. I looked over at Dale. He was smiling, filming the crowd. The crowd was cheering as clouds of hair silently floated over them. Smith picked up on the energy and continued over the hum of the clippers.

“Nothing changes if you don't talk about it. If you don't let new people into your life, you can't get new experiences. Every person you meet changes your life. You're supposed to meet that person for some reason, good or bad, you know? The Action Grrlz want to encourage those first meetings. Ask us what we're fighting for. Then we can come up with new ways to change things that suck.”