As I carried the garbage to the kitchen trash, the front door opened and slammed as Ava came back in.
“They were actually nicer than I thought,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans. “That went great, huh?”
Ava’s cheeks were bright red. “Yeah, great. For you.”
Completely confused, I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
She pushed past me to get a drink from the fridge. “Thanks for totally stealing all the attention,” she muttered.
“Stealing… attention…” I repeated the words slowly. “Wait, are you mad that they liked me? Wasn’t that the point? You wanted me to impress them.”
“I wanted to impress them!” she yelled, slamming her glass down on the countertop. “But it became the Riley show, and they only wanted to talk to you.”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe she was mad about this. “I was just making conversation. I thought you’d be happy. The girls were totally interested.”
“Yeah, interested in you. I wanted this party to make them more interested in me. Your job was to make me look cool.”
I clenched my jaw. “News flash, Ava. Everything isn’t always about you!”
Ava gasped.
Now that I’d started, all the things I’d been holding in came tumbling out. “All you care about is the gym and your comps. You don’t care about me or what’s going on in my life.”
“That’s because you don’t let me!” Ava screamed, her face red, her eyes filling with tears. “You keep me separate from Cee and your other friends. I wasn’t allowed in your club. You’re not the old Riley I used to be able to count on. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
Her words hit me like a fist. This whole time I’d been upset that she wasn’t like the old Ava, and she’d been thinking the same about me. Maybe we’d both changed.
I straightened my shoulders. “I’m not the old Riley. And you’re not the old Ava. We’re not the old us. So we should stop trying to pretend that we are.”
Then I turned and left my best friend’s house, wondering if it would be for the last time.
CHAPTER 22
THURSDAY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the fun day. The theme was “Say it loud, say it proud; the secrets of girlhood are no longer secret.” Basically, we would say the words we usually kept to ourselves or whispered. I’d been looking forward to it ever since we made the plan. But now I could barely drag myself to my locker.
After Ava’s party, I’d gone to bed without dinner, claiming a headache. Though it wasn’t a lie. I did have a headache… and a stomachache… and a heartache.
The girls were practically giddy in the halls, loudly saying the “inappropriate” things we usually only whispered about.
“Aunt Flo is in the house!” Lin yelled as she strolled by with two friends.
“With her Cousin Red!” called her friend.
The last of the threesome shouted, “My uterus is shedding its lining!”
Lin and the middle girl stopped and stared, “We’re using metaphors, Miranda.”
I didn’t even laugh. I shrugged off the zip-up hoodie that I used as a fall jacket and hung it in my locker, then pulled out my books. I’d been looking forward to this day. We were all going to talk about our periods, whether we currently had them or not, as loudly as possible. It would drive trolls like Brody crazy. And it would feel good. But instead I felt terrible.
Stella and Camille came up on either side of me as I slogged toward homeroom.
“Ugh, I have cramps,” Stella said in an obviously exaggerated yell.
Camille reached over my head to high-five her. “We’re blood sisters!”
Stella slapped her hand, neither one of them realizing yet that I wasn’t really into it. “I’m day one,” Stella shouted. “Flood day.”
Camille grimaced. “Ugh, that’s rough. I’m day five. Panty-liner day.”
Cee strolled up to make us four across. “Weird, my heaviest is day two, not one. And I don’t get to wear a liner until day seven.”
“Seven?” Camille put a hand over her heart. “Oh my goodness!”
“Mine’s only four days total,” Stella said.
“So jealous!” Cee said, her eyes cutting to me, as if wondering why I wasn’t playing along.
Ms. Bhatt and Mrs. Hopkins had walked out of the teachers’ lounge together, right in the midst of the loudest menstrual cycle–tracking conversation in Hawking Middle School history.
Mrs. Hopkins bristled. “Girls, please. Can we behave like ladies?”
“We are,” Stella said. “Ladies have periods.”
Mrs. Hopkins shook her head and moved on, but Ms. Bhatt smirked.
Stella and Camille giggled and ran off, prattling on about jumbo tampons.
Cee nudged me with her elbow. “What’s up? You’re not embarrassed, are you?”
“Not at all. I was looking forward to this.”
“Then…”
I heaved a sigh. “I had a huge fight with Ava yesterday. I said terrible things. She said terrible things. And I feel awful.”
“I think the feeling is mutual.” Cee motioned with her chin.
I turned to see Ava staring at me from a classroom doorway. She looked miserable, maybe even worse than me. Once I noticed her, she hung her head and turned away.
The warning bell rang.
“Gotta go!” Cee called.
I got through homeroom and my first class and then forced myself to forget about Ava for the time being and focus on the day’s mission. I even got into a healthy debate about menstrual cups—period innovation or abomination?—in the hall on the way to my second class.
The theme of the day seemed to be working really well. So many girls were participating. The problem was that, as the day went on, the girls liked it a little too much. Rather than keeping it in the halls as planned, they brought it into the classrooms. They interrupted the teachers. Miss Nancy’s weird warning about toothpaste echoed in my head as I walked into the cafeteria for lunch. But then a brand-new worry spiked in my brain.
Cee, Stella, and Camille had second lunch. It was always just Ava and me together at first lunch. But what would I do now? I peeked around the open doorway and saw that Ava wasn’t seated yet. Maybe she’d skip lunch or eat somewhere else and I wouldn’t have to deal with it. We didn’t walk together out of math class, so she could be anywhere.
I got in line and chose a slice of cheese pizza and a side salad. But when I finished at the register and turned back around, I froze in place. Ava was now in her regular seat like she was waiting for me. The sight of her sitting there with her sad-looking sandwich and even sadder eyes made my heart hurt. But I wasn’t ready to make up or even talk to her. Not yet.
But if I didn’t grab my regular seat, where else would I go? I gripped the tray tightly in my suddenly sweaty hands and scanned the cafeteria. At Hawking Middle School everyone had their place. It wasn’t so much cliques like jocks and nerds, band geeks and wannabes. It was groups of tight friends. And I didn’t see any room for me.
“Hey, are you okay?” a soft voice came up from behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Julia exiting the line with her own tray. “Um, yeah, I just… um. My friend and I, uh.” There was no way Julia was going to understand my incoherent babbling.
Julia’s eyes went to Ava sitting alone and then back to me standing frozen in place. “Would you like to sit with me and Hazel today?”
I breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “Yes, thanks.”
“It’s not a problem. Someone once did a favor for me with a quick sweatshirt move in math class. Figured I’d pay it forward.” She grinned, and I managed a weak smile back.
I settled in at the new table. Julia and Hazel talked about their favorite TV show, which I’d never watched or even heard of, but I laughed and nodded in the right parts.
Lunch was halfway over when someone yelled, “I’m on the rag!”
I paused with my pizza slice in midair,
and half the cheese slipped off and fell to the tray.
“What was that?” Julia asked.
“I got my red wings!”
I turned in my seat and saw two girls—both sixth graders—on opposite ends of the cafeteria, standing up on the tables. What in the world was going on? This was not part of the plan.
A third girl, closer to us, scrambled up to standing on the table, knocking over milk cartons along the way. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “The tomato soup is on the boil!”
The shocked silence of the lunchroom immediately turned to laughter. Kids couldn’t believe it. One girl after the other stood and yelled some period metaphor.
“I’m riding the cotton pony!”
“The painters came to town!”
“It’s time for the great flood!”
“I have the red badge of courage!”
“Was this supposed to happen?” Julia asked me, raising her voice to be heard over the hysterical laughter. “Yelling period metaphors at lunch?”
I shook my head, panic rising in my throat. “No. This must have grown on its own.”
“I got the girl flu!”
“It’s flooding down south!”
The lone lunch monitor, a first-year teacher named Mr. Wixted—who was about twenty-two and looked completely horrified—held up his hands. “Girls, please! That’s enough!”
But they didn’t listen. More and more stood up.
“I’m howling at the red moon!”
“I’ve opened the floodgates!”
Mr. Wixted ran out of the room and came back moments later with Miss Nancy. The lunchroom had descended into chaos.
A few kids started to throw food. Kids were screaming.
No, no, no. This was getting totally out of control.
Miss Nancy’s eyes widened as she took in the situation. And then, somehow, they found mine. I made a small shake of my head as if to say this wasn’t what I’d wanted. This wasn’t me. But she’d warned me, hadn’t she? I’d started this, and now it had taken on a life of its own. We’d lost control.
The lights in the cafeteria flickered off and on, catching everyone’s attention, and we turned to see Principal Pickford standing in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, his face twisted into red-cheeked fury.
“Lunch is over!” he hollered, his booming voice echoing off the walls. “I don’t care if you’re not finished. Grab your things and wait outside your next classroom.”
I tossed my half-eaten pizza and untouched salad and dashed out, head down, trying my best not to make eye contact with anyone from administration. Classes started as normal. But halfway through the next period, all teachers were interrupted by the intercom.
“Please excuse the interruption for this important message,” Mr. Pickford said, his voice deep and controlled. “There will be no more distractions like there have been this week. No excuses. We are in full crackdown mode and will be levying punishments on anyone seen or heard disrupting any part of the school day—including lunch and between classes. These punishments will include suspension.”
Light gasps came from a few girls in class. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. Tomorrow was Friday, the most important day. We needed unity, a show of strength, or it wouldn’t work. But now, with the threat of punishment hanging over our heads, would everyone still band together?
CHAPTER 23
I STOOD AT THE ENTRANCE of school on Friday morning. The day of reckoning. The day the girls would stand together in the face of unfairness. Or sit in class. Or walk in the hall. Whatever. All that mattered was that we banded together. And by that I mean wore leggings.
Cee, Stella, Camille, and I had spent the night before debating in group text. Did we really want to flagrantly break the rules the morning after Mr. Pickford had threatened suspension? It was a risk. But one we’d decided we had to take. We’d started this movement to protest unfairness toward girls in school, and if we stopped now, we’d accomplish nothing. Friday was the big day it had all been leading up to. The movement had started small, with the Red Club girls, but had grown over the week with more and more kids participating. Today was meant to be our biggest protest yet. And it required no words, no embarrassment, just a simple clothing choice.
Cee came up behind me and rested her chin on my shoulder. “What do you think? Will it work?”
“It has to,” I said in an almost whisper.
“Are you nervous?”
I glanced down at my long, flowy purple shirt and the black leggings I wore underneath. Prohibited, evil, demon leggings. “Yep.”
She looped her arm through mine as we headed toward the main entrance. “Don’t worry. We’re all going to be wearing leggings. They can’t suspend everyone.”
I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. I put my hands on my hips. A power stance. I was ready. After all, well-behaved women rarely made history.
I gripped Cee’s arm. “Let’s do this.”
But as soon as we passed through the double doors of the entrance, everything was wrong. Girls in leggings were already sitting on the floor of the hallway, lined up outside the office. And, even worse, everyone else seemed to not be wearing leggings. My eyes darted around the hall, taking in girls’ outfits—jeans, khakis, skirts—the vast majority were not following the plan. And when they noticed me and Cee, they cast their eyes down and hurried away.
“You!” a voice boomed out. “And you.”
Cringing, Cee and I turned to face Principal Pickford and his giant pointing finger.
“Get in line with the others,” he said. “Your parents will be called to come get you.”
Cee and I joined the short line of girls in leggings and slumped down the wall to the floor. Camille and Stella soon joined us.
“Well, at least we’re comfortable while we’re waiting for our execution,” Camille said.
Stella glared at a sixth grader in khakis as she slunk past. “I can’t believe most of the girls chickened out.”
I sighed and put my head down on my knees.
“This is so unfair,” a deep voice said.
Cee gave me a sharp elbow, and my eyes snapped open. I found myself staring at two high-top sneakers. My eyes roamed up a too-short, ill-fitting pair of leggings… and found Cole standing before me.
I scrambled up to standing, though I still had to look up because the kid was so darn tall. “Yeah, totally unfair,” I said.
Cole shook his head in disgust. “Like, what’s more distracting in class… a girl dressed comfortably in her seat or a kid like Brody talking and throwing pencil erasers the whole time?”
“I KNOW, RIGHT?” Camille shouted from the floor.
I shot her a look, and she made a zippering it shut motion across her mouth.
I turned back to Cole. “I can’t believe you wore them.”
He grinned sheepishly. “I got a whole bunch of my friends to do it too.”
Then a whole bunch of his friends are getting suspended, I thought. And it’s my fault for telling him the plan.
“No,” he said, pointing at me. “Don’t feel guilty. We decided this on our own.”
“And they weren’t the only ones,” Camille said, laughing.
Several members of the football team walked past, with Mr. Pickford yelling at them to line up against the other wall.
The quarterback, Warner Washington, nodded his head at me.
“You’re wearing leggings?” I said in shock.
He shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t see the difference between leggings and football pants, but no one would blink an eye if I wore my uniform to school on game day.”
“Well, thanks,” I said.
He nodded again and went over to join his teammates.
I couldn’t believe the number of people who didn’t participate in Leggings Day, but I also couldn’t believe the people who did. I even spied Ava sitting at the far end of the line of girls. We locked eyes for a moment. I was proud of
her for joining in. But would any of it matter?
The bell rang shrilly, echoing through the hall. I felt that instinct to rush to class, but I couldn’t. I was stuck here waiting for my parents to get called. I’d miss out on so much, maybe even a pop quiz.
Cole’s leggings-wearing friends called out, waving him over to the opposite wall.
“You’d better join them while you can before your parents ground you,” I said.
He leaned forward and whispered, “I’ll just blame this girl I like. She’s kind of a bad influence.” Then he winked and ran off.
My jaw dropped open, but I quickly shut it because it felt like my heart was going to soar right up my throat and out of my body. I turned to the other girls to see if they’d heard, but they were whispering among themselves, comparing notes about what they thought their punishments would be. And that brought me right back down to the floor—literally.
“I really thought today would work,” Cee said. “That they’d realize the only education that was getting interrupted was ours. That they’d see us all together and realize they couldn’t send us all home.”
But only twenty girls wore leggings. And twelve boys. And, yes, they sent us all home.
* * *
My mother didn’t speak to me during the car ride. Not one word. In a way, that was even worse than getting yelled at. Mr. Pickford had decided to “go easy on us” and just send us home for the day—no suspensions. But on Monday each student, with a parent, had to meet with him in his office. So I had that to look forward to over the weekend.
When we got home, Mom pointed at the staircase and said, “To your room. I’ll call you down for dinner.” That was it.
I overheard her on her cell canceling her house-showing appointments for the day. What did she think? That she had to work from home to keep an eye on her delinquent daughter?
Once the school day ended for everyone else, the texts started rolling in. The excuses were varied.
I forgot it was today.
Revenge of the Red Club Page 11
