Smiling, Mrs. Breaux rifled through the locker’s contents for a good three minutes, destroying the perfect order. But when she found nothing, her face turned to a pursed-lip frown within seconds. She shut the locker door and marched us down the hall.
“Miss Graves.” She looked at me over her red plastic reading glasses. I suspected she wore them only for the purpose of intimidation, but it wasn’t working on me at the moment. I couldn’t figure out what she thought we were hiding. All this drama felt too great for buttons and fabric scraps.
“Which one?” Melissa asked in a tone that came right up against a line of disrespect, but didn’t quite cross it. “You brought two of them into the hall.”
Mrs. Breaux pursed her lips together again. She alternated between three expressions: smug smile, pursed lips, and wrinkly scowl.
“Remember your detentions with me, Miss Lemoine.” She turned to me. “Please open your locker.”
We walked the remaining fifteen feet to my locker. Mrs. Breaux wouldn’t find anything there, but I had the tiniest fear that Aimee and Leah had somehow broken in and planted something there. It was possible they’d figured out my combination. Or paid some kid to break the lock.
I wiped my suddenly sweaty hands on the polyester of my uniform skirt. I shakily turned the lock’s combination, 36-10-28. The lock clicked open, and I slumped with relief.
My locker had nothing out of the ordinary, just books and papers and binders. A little messy, but nothing incriminating. On second thought, it was a lot messy. Mrs. Breaux huffed unsatisfactorily, lifted the mess of crumpled papers that sat on top of my stack of books, and took out a desiccated apple that was supposed to be part of my lunch last week. I didn’t much like apples, and I’d meant to throw it away, but forgot.
Taking note of the apple with a disapproving sniff, she repeated the rifling process, as though going through the mess of my locker again would manifest whatever sordid object she was looking for. Finally, she slammed my locker door shut without saying a word and turned to Helen. Just in case, I turned my lock quickly, making a mental note to trash that apple the first chance I got.
Mrs. Breaux ushered us down the hall toward the freshman lockers. By now, people had started to trickle into the hall from the cafeteria, grabbing forgotten books or trying to make sure they got across campus in time for their next class. A small crowd gathered to watch us as we stopped in front of Helen’s locker.
“Miss Graves, please open your locker.” Mrs. Breaux clasped her hands together with the command.
“No,” Helen said. She looked paler than usual, but her voice was firm.
“What?” Mrs. Breaux tried her intimidation trick of looking down at Helen over her glasses, but Helen stood a good three inches taller than Mrs. Breaux, so the woman found herself looking up instead. The effect wasn’t quite the same.
“No, ma’am.” A lilting politeness returned to Helen’s voice. “According to the student handbook, only the dean of discipline or the principal can ask a student to open his or her locker. I’m happy to wait for Sister Catherine or Mr. Richard, but, until then, I politely decline your request.”
“Open your locker,” Mrs. Breaux demanded, her face growing sweaty behind her glasses. “Or face detention.”
Helen smiled, a more triumphant reaction than I would have expected from her. Leaning against her locker, she seemed much more confident than the rest of us. Or maybe this was her way of buying time. Either way, she was getting as much as she could out of the moment.
“I am happy to oblige,” she said. “But you do realize that you open the school up to a lawsuit if you knowingly violate my right to privacy and the terms that you agreed upon in your teaching contract.”
I gasped. Helen sounded exactly like our dad when he was on the phone with an opposing counsel. I couldn’t tell how much of her talk was bluffing and how much was based on the actual student handbook, and I had no idea what the teachers’ contracts stated—I’d never seen one. But something she’d said made Mrs. Breaux back away. She recrossed her arms in front of her dowdy paisley polyester dress, an act of firm self-assurance that made me suspect she didn’t know what was in the handbook or her contract, either.
“Stay right here,” she said, walking toward the nearest open classroom door. “I’m getting Principal Richard.”
I rolled my eyes. Apparently she needed to find someone to watch over us. The nearest door belonged to Ms. Hebert, the biology teacher. Mrs. Breaux, gesturing in our direction and whispering about our misdeeds, pulled tiny, disheveled Ms. Hebert into the hall by her arm.
“I’ll be right back,” Mrs. Breaux said. “Don’t let them move a muscle.”
Ms. Hebert’s eyebrows arched up stealthily. Newer teachers weren’t supposed to show dissent to the senior faculty members. But we’d all been perfect students in Ms. Hebert’s class. In fact, Helen should have been about to enter her classroom now for biology, but was instead trapped near her locker.
“Helen, why don’t you let the poor woman have a look?” Ms. Hebert said. “Surely your books aren’t the products of some terrorist plan.”
Ms. Hebert sounded so reasonable and calm, but Helen still shook her head. I was surprised, since Ms. Hebert was one of Helen’s favorite teachers.
“I’m already being punished for something I didn’t do,” she said angrily. “I’ve been forbidden from doing any extracurricular activities for the rest of the semester, and if they come up with some kind of ‘evidence,’ I’ll probably be expelled. I’m not going to make it easier for her.”
Ms. Hebert put her hand on Helen’s arm and squeezed it, a tiny gesture that seemed far more genuine than any of Mrs. Turner’s hugs. Ms. Hebert wasn’t like some of the other teachers, especially not Mrs. Breaux. I wouldn’t say that being young made her more relatable, but she lacked the bitter finishing note of the more hardened teachers. Her brown wavy hair hung well past her shoulders, and she wore informal clothes—tunic shirts and long, swishing broomstick skirts and jangling bracelets. She wasn’t old enough to have been a hippie, but she looked like a kind, sober Janis Joplin.
None of us said anything until Mrs. Breaux returned, Mr. Richard in tow. From halfway down the hall, we could see her gesturing angrily to the principal, who shook his head as he waddled toward us in his too-big suit. Mr. Richard always looked like he was shrinking inside his clothes, which went along with how some of the teachers ran right over him. I hoped he’d informed Mrs. Breaux that teachers couldn’t look in students’ lockers without consent, and that Mr. Richard would back Helen up.
“Miss Graves,” Mr. Richard said, clearing his throat. “Please open your locker.”
Evidently my hopes were for naught.
Her hands shaking in anger, Helen opened the lock with a short half twist that meant she’d never locked it in the first place. As soon as she opened it, she let out a gasp and raised her hands to cover her mouth.
Someone had papered the entire inside of her locker with full-color photos of aborted fetuses. The posters were full of blood and gore, with baby killer scrawled across each one in Sharpie. Larger pictures, on poster board, were taped to the walls of her locker, while smaller photos were taped to the covers of her books and notebooks. Whoever had done this had left no surface empty. And the pièce de résistance—a pig fetus stolen from the biology lab, stuck in a jar of formaldehyde—was placed right in front.
My stomach turned at the display, and my heart ached for Helen. Only some kind of monster would do this to her. First, to break into her locker with all this hateful crap. Then, to make sure Mrs. Breaux got tipped off that something illicit was in one of our lockers, and that she needed to be the one to root it out. She was the only teacher I could think of who’d be so aggressive.
I peered into Helen’s locker for a closer look. I knew those posters—they were from the fake abortion clinic on Chimes Street. The ones the woman had t
hought were “necessary” at the protests. Melissa and I hadn’t seen them that day—just the pamphlets and the lighter propaganda—but the woman had said that some girls had come in for them specifically.
But I’d seen them elsewhere before. Some of the members of the pro-life club got a stack last spring to protest at Delta Women’s Clinic even before Operation Rescue announced its “Summer of Purpose.” But Sister Catherine said the tactics were against school policy, so she took the posters and locked them up. So whoever had visited the clinic before we did must’ve vandalized Helen’s locker, because it sure wasn’t Sister Catherine.
Melissa nudged my arm. “Fake abortion clinic,” she whispered.
“Shh. I know.”
Around us, the small crowd turned into a near mob with everyone clambering to see the “evidence.” Some of Helen’s former pro-life friends covered their mouths in horror like she had. A handful of students laughed, and still others stared with car-wreck fascination.
“See! Look at the evidence!” Mrs. Breaux boomed, stretching her arms wide, certain the crowd’s shocked reaction meant she’d found something truly incriminating. She stood with her back to the locker, never even turning around to see what was there. Her words implied an altogether different kind of wrongdoing—that she’d found something scandalous, and we were finally on our way to getting the punishment we deserved.
“You’re a sick lady, Mrs. B!” someone shouted from the crowd. It sounded a little like Trip Wilson.
When a few more people shouted more vulgar things from the safety of the masses, Mrs. Breaux’s triumphant glare melted into a blend of confusion and anger.
“This is unacceptable! You all have—”
“You might want to turn around.” Mr. Richard quietly steered her toward Helen’s locker.
As she turned, Mrs. Breaux let out a small shriek of surprise. Her mouth seemed to get stuck in the shrieking position, making her look like Munch’s The Scream, once the sound faded.
“This has gone on long enough. Helen, why don’t you go into my classroom?” Ms. Hebert pushed her way to Helen’s side. “I’m sure Athena and Melissa can clean out your locker for you.”
Helen’s defiance melted into tears as she looked at the locker full of pro-life propaganda again. She grabbed her biology book from her locker, ripped the fetus-paper cover off, and jammed it into her backpack. Without saying a word to Mrs. Breaux or Mr. Richard, she stomped into Ms. Hebert’s classroom.
“People, you need to go to your classrooms,” Mr. Richard said. But for a man who prided himself on his disciplinary qualities, he didn’t have much effect. Dozens of juniors and seniors kept standing there, watching Melissa and me clean out Helen’s locker.
Mrs. Breaux had already disappeared. Some people just didn’t know how to apologize.
* * *
I approached my own locker with suspicion at the end of the day. I had locked it after Breaux’s search, but I felt like it was smart to remain wary.
Wisteria was already there, shoving her black-covered textbooks and purple-and-black composition notebooks in and out, doing the homework shuffle.
“That was so mean, what happened to your sister,” she said, shaking her head. Today, her black-as-night hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her bangs fell straight across her forehead like Bettie Page, or a goth Veronica Lodge. She leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper. “So, um, can I get a button? Or a patch? You know, maybe make the full statement? ‘So what if she did?’ I think that one is the best.” She bounced with more enthusiasm than I thought appropriate, considering the subject matter.
“Sure.” I fished one out of my backpack and handed it to her. I’d been giving the few people who’d approached me a choice from whatever I had on hand, but after today’s incident, I wasn’t about to put my stash on display.
“Awesome!” She proudly pinned it to her backpack. “Thanks, Red!” She looked up behind me, and her Cleopatra eyes widened. “Oh! You’ve-got-company-gotta-go-bye!” Wisteria rushed off, faster even than her words flew out of her mouth.
I turned around, hoping to see Kyle and fearing to see Mrs. Breaux or Mrs. Turner. Kyle and I hadn’t talked much since our date on Friday, since I’d been spending so much time with Melissa and Helen and her friends.
But instead, I found Trip towering over me, six-feet-plus of muscle encased in a layer of protective linebacker bulk. “Biscuit muscle,” Melissa called it. A blush crept up his face when I looked up at him.
“It’s, um, really crappy what happened to your sister’s locker today.” He leaned down, dropping his voice to almost a whisper. “And I, um, think it’s also really crappy what Sean said to you the other night. I’m not a huge Leah fan, and if you think she’s behind what’s going on with your sister, well... Let’s just say I’d believe you over her anytime.”
I felt an urge to hug Trip. Which I didn’t do, because it would be weird. I wasn’t a hugger, and we weren’t close enough friends for that.
“Thanks, Trip,” I said gratefully. “Do you maybe want a patch or a pin? I don’t have that many left right now, but I think...” I dug into the bottom of my backpack, trying to fish out the few remaining things, but Trip smiled and tilted his backpack toward me. Front and center, he’d pinned a bright orange So What? button.
“That’s so awesome! You’re the best!” And then I hugged Trip anyway. After a day where the grossness of humanity had been on full display, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
After I let go of him, Trip stood awkwardly in front of me, blushing, like he wanted to say something more, but then he caught sight of something over my shoulder.
“Oh, hey, your boy’s here,” he said less than enthusiastically. “See you soon?”
“Of course!” I wondered if I’d upset him by hugging him—sure, we weren’t hugging friends, but it was a friendly hug, not a boundary-crossing or sexy hug.
As Trip waved goodbye and practically ran away, his face beet red, I turned to Kyle with a smile.
“Want a pin or a patch? I bet we have something that’ll look great next to that Clinton/Gore button,” I said, hoping to build on the good that had happened today, instead of focusing on the bad. I hadn’t seen Helen yet, but I hoped she was getting the kind of positive response that I was, or at least starting to feel better. I dug in my backpack for the gallon-sized plastic bag with all my campaign supplies. “Sara and Jennifer have most of them, but...”
“Oh, that’s okay,” he said, reaching out to pull my arm back from my search. He gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go. “I’ll get one when you have a better selection, okay?”
“But you don’t even know what I have.” I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice. He didn’t have any reason not to take one. Wisteria and Trip had been enthusiastic. Why not Kyle, who, as far as I knew, was the only other surefire liberal person around?
He must have read my face, because he backed up a little and gestured to my backpack with a grin, as if to make up for hurting my feelings. “All right, let’s see what you’ve got!”
I glanced down the hall, making sure that no teachers were in sight. When the coast was clear, I tugged the bag up from the bottom of my backpack and pulled out the three So What? pins I had left. “Take your pick!”
Kyle grabbed the one in the center, black on bright green. “I think this one’ll do.”
“Excellent choice,” I said, smiling up at him. “Now, put it on. I bet it’ll look great with the rest of your collection.”
He put it on his backpack and gave it a light tap, like it was something to be proud of. Which, to me, it was.
“I think it looks good,” he said, brightly enough to make up for whatever slight I’d perceived earlier. “So, um, about tomorrow...”
“Oh, shit,” I interrupted, grimacing. Tomorrow, we were supposed to play music again, and this time maybe work
on writing some songs together, instead of blasting through covers. But after years of never having anything social on my Wednesday schedule except the now-canceled comics shopping with Sean, I’d made separate plans with both Kyle and Melissa and Helen. “I...double booked.”
I worried for a second that he was going to be annoyed. “But I think I can change my plans with Melissa and Helen?” I offered. “Or, rather, they can get along without me.” As soon as I said it, though, I wasn’t so sure. They could do the work without me, of course, but whether they could get along without me was another question. “We were going to plan out the rest of our campaign...”
I trailed off. Instead of looking disappointed, as I’d expected, Kyle looked relieved.
“You don’t need to cancel with Melissa and Helen,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “You guys are doing important work! And besides, I was about to say that I have someone coming over for peer tutoring tomorrow, so I was going to need to switch things up anyway.”
“Oh.” I could fit a lot of things into that “oh.” Disappointment, confusion, and the tiniest bit of suspicion about why he said “peer tutoring” instead of naming whomever it was he was tutoring. I couldn’t justify my suspicion, but I kept having the nagging feeling that something was off about Kyle’s tutoring plans.
He gave me a quick kiss on my forehead, which wasn’t exactly romantic, but it was a public display of affection at school, so I took it as a good sign.
“Ah, don’t be so dramatic,” he said with a smile. “We’re still on for Friday, right? And it’s not like we won’t see each other at school before then.”
Rebel Girls Page 20
