The Prettiest

by Brigit Young

  After a moment he responded, pls dont mention it.

  How’d you get out of class? she asked.

  Ha. Science class. All I’m doing is extra credit stuff, anyway. Not trying to brag. Just really easy for me. So Miss Melvin didn’t mind if I left.

  She had something important to ask him, and she got right to it. Hey, so…, she wrote, do you still have that Green Hornet mask? Could I borrow it?

  33

  NESSA

  Lara and Erin are in! Nessa wrote to the group that night.

  Nessa had hooked Erin O’Brien so easily at rehearsal. Two words into her sell and Erin had said, “I will do anything to help you take down that nitwit. Just say the word.”

  Ugh, fine, Sophie responded to Nessa’s text.

  Power in numbers! Nessa wrote back.

  But minutes later, Sophie called her. An actual call. On the phone.

  Nessa picked up and said, stunned, “Hello?”

  “I don’t trust these girls.”

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “Lara most likely hates me. Remember how people hate me?”

  Nessa did remember, because she hadn’t been Sophie’s biggest fan, either.

  Right on cue, Sophie added, “You hated me. Maybe you still do.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  Sophie didn’t respond. Nessa could hear TV playing loudly in the background and a little girl’s voice chattering away. Way too many seconds of not-talking went by.

  “Do you watch Dance House?” Nessa asked.

  “Of course I do! Go Teeny, right?”

  “No! Teeny’s the worst!” Wow. How could Sophie like hair-puller Teeny?

  “Teeny’s doing what she needs to do to win the show!” Sophie argued.

  “Teeny’s ruining it for everybody else,” Nessa shot back.

  They debated every dancer on the show’s three-year history.

  “Hey, wait.” Nessa stopped Sophie in the middle of her rant about unfair judging. “You think I never liked you. But you treated me like I was see-through until, like, two seconds ago.”

  No answer from Sophie.

  “You didn’t talk to me,” Nessa went on. “What was I supposed to think about you?”

  The TV continued to blare in the background.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sophie answered after a beat. “Fair point.”

  Nessa hadn’t expected that response. “Hey. I think it’s really awesome that you didn’t kiss Brody, by the way,” Nessa told her. She’d been meaning to say this, at some point. “You shouldn’t have done something you didn’t want to do.”

  Another moment of silence passed by on Sophie’s end of the line. Then, abruptly, Sophie said, “Thanks. Anyway, I should go. Talk later.”

  When Nessa turned out her light that night, her phone glowed with a text from Sophie to the new Shieldmaidens: Welcome to the team.

  34

  EVE

  The green of the mask surrounding her brown eyes made her think of a forest.

  Eve got the mask from Winston in school that Monday morning, and that night she took it out of the front pocket of her backpack where it had lain tucked away all day. She slipped it on her face, and texted him a selfie of her wearing it.

  I’m never taking it off, she wrote to him.

  lol awesome, he wrote back. And then a minute later, more words popped up: I know what it’s like to want to hide, too, trust me. thats how i spent like all of elementary school

  She didn’t know how to respond so she texted back a smiley face emoji.

  But Eve wasn’t hiding. She was fighting back.

  35

  NESSA

  Early that week, Brody came back to school.

  And by then, the school’s ecosystem had been rearranged.

  Eve was still famous, after years of being a nobody, but she wasn’t famous for being the new prettiest anymore. She was known as a monster.

  A monster with a mask. Eve had come to school wearing Winston’s Green Hornet mask from Halloween. Nessa had tried to tell Eve that if she didn’t want to be stared at, a green mask with a little wasp on it wasn’t the way to go.

  What was even weirder was that Eve had left a few superhero masks out in the bathroom and on tables in the cafeteria and now a couple of other girls were wearing them, too. More than a couple. So strange.

  And the Sophies were officially no longer the Sophies because Sophie had left them. Rose Reed now sat in the middle of the Sophies’ table. Even Amina, who’d been higher on the list, seemed to follow Rose’s lead. They all wore pink belts.

  And Sophie had solidified a new look: happy. She seemed to laugh a lot more. Especially at things Nessa said, which Nessa had to admit she liked. Sometimes, Sophie even dressed for track practice before it began.

  The new Sophie Kane sat with Nessa, Eve, Lara, Erin, and Winston.

  Winston no longer spoke to Brody. And he’d stopped speaking to his “ex–best friend” Caleb, as far as Nessa could tell. But Nessa saw Winston glare at Caleb from across the room sometimes. And Caleb glared right back.

  Nessa tried to imagine how that could happen to a pair of best friends. What if Eve changed so much one day that they couldn’t even stand each other anymore? It sounded impossible. But Eve had been very different lately. First the whole brunette bombshell thing, and recently those masks. Nessa felt her moving further and further away.

  “Evie, you planning on taking that thing off one of these days?” Nessa asked her at lunch.

  Eve gave her a tight smile. “Nope.”

  “It makes you look kinda … twisted.”

  Eve shrugged. “Oh well.”

  “And haven’t you gotten into trouble for it at school?” Nessa marveled.

  “So? What can they do about it?”

  That definitely didn’t sound like the Evie she knew. “Moving on…” Nessa changed the subject. “Any updates on the tech side of things, Byrd?”

  “Um, no.”

  “I don’t think your science genius brain is doing enough for us here with LordTesla’s IP address. You need to help in another way, too. Do lights for the show. Get involved with the sixth grader working the switchboard. He’s a disaster. Mr. Rhodes is so frustrated.”

  “Um, I—I—”

  “No choice. It’s a rule of the Shieldmaidens.”

  A group of Sophie’s old friends walked by them, headed toward the cafeteria door, and they whispered as they passed by. Amina Alvi stopped at their table and stood in front of Sophie.

  “Hey, Sophie,” Amina said. “We miss you at our table.”

  Sophie kept her eyes down on her lunch and raised a hand to signal hello without looking up at all.

  “Okay, cool!” Amina’s tone was breezy, as if nothing was awkward at all. “See ya!” She followed the other girls out.

  “Soph, we may need a Sophie—I mean a Rose—to make sure the other kids come to the show?” Nessa reminded her. “Maybe you could get Amina on board with us?”

  “Brody is the lead,” Sophie snapped, in a way Nessa hadn’t heard since before the dance. “The little sheep will be there to see him, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but…” Lara looked at Nessa and Winston for permission to go on. She still seemed a little scared of Sophie. “We need Rose and those girls there on the right night, when we expose him. If they all come the first night, it won’t work.”

  Eve broke her silence. “None of this means anything because we don’t have evidence. And until we do? I’m the bad guy in school. Not him.” She picked up her backpack and left the cafeteria. “Take one,” she said as she tossed a few of her masks onto the table.

  Eve had a point.

  * * *

  One night after dinner, as Nessa and the Shieldmaidens tried to guess Brody’s email password, Nessa’s dad knocked on her door.

  “One sec!” she yelled out as she wrote some good ones: MONEYBAGS, TONEDEAF123?

  As she giggled away, her dad opened the door and came in.

  “Honey,�
�� he began. Uh-oh. “Honey” meant a talk was coming.

  “Dad, I’m really busy.”

  “Weak attempt,” her dad said, making her laugh.

  She put the phone down.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” he said. “The word on the street is that Evie wrote the list.”

  Nessa rolled her eyes. Even her parents thought Eve was a liar? “First of all, don’t ever say ‘word on the street’ again, and second of all, how could you ever think that—”

  “I don’t, I don’t,” he assured her. Her dad scooted next to her on the bed and ran a hand through her hair. It made her feel about eight years old, but she liked it. “I’m sure Principal Yu doesn’t, either.”

  “You never know,” Nessa grumbled. “All the kids think she did it.”

  “I’m sure. And I know this year hasn’t been great so far for her, or probably for you?” He gave her a questioning look, but she said nothing. “But just remember,” her dad recited his usual phrase, “This, too, shall—”

  “Pass,” she finished for him.

  But it didn’t quite comfort her this time.

  “But, Dad,” she began, speaking slowly so as to say exactly what she meant, “before ‘it’ passes, what are we supposed to do about it? You have to do something when life is hard, when people get hurt.”

  “That is the question,” he said. He thought for a minute. “Love yourself,” he said. “Love others. Be kind. And remember how strong you are.” He squeezed her knee. “I hope that for Evie, too.”

  “Evie has no idea just how strong she is.” Nessa laid her head on her pillows.

  “She will one day.” Her dad got up. He leaned over, kissed her forehead, and headed to the door. “Oh yeah.” He turned back around. “You know some other wisdom I like?”

  “What?”

  “‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’”

  With that, he shut the door.

  Nessa wasn’t so sure about that one, either. Sometimes it seemed like they knew exactly what they did.

  And look what they’d done to Eve.

  36

  EVE

  A few more girls started to wear the masks. Eve and Winston had biked to the dollar store and picked up packs and packs of them.

  “You’re my trusted accomplice,” she’d told him.

  “Your Kato, if you will,” he’d answered, informing her that Kato was Green Hornet’s brilliant sidekick.

  That next morning at school, Winston had reached into his back pocket and pulled out a mask of his own. “Feel the sting of the Green Hornet,” he said as he slipped it on his face. Then he added, “Green Hornet catchphrase,” before trotting off to class.

  Eve left the masks on hallway window ledges all over the school.

  “So you’re trying to convince everyone to deal with bullies by wearing masks?” Nessa asked her once.

  Nessa had seemed annoyed about the masks from the very first day that Eve wore one. What Nessa didn’t seem to comprehend was how free Eve felt with the mask on. Instead of wondering what each person thought about her, or what each person wanted from her, or if a given person would text her something awful later, she could look all of them in the eye and silently say to them: I’m no longer in the running for your lists or comments or judgments. The mask screamed out, “Whatever you thought I was, you were wrong. You don’t know me at all.”

  She tried to write this explanation out to Nessa, but Nessa just texted her back:

  o why didn’t I think of that all the times anyone made fun of me.

  o yea that’s right. cuz it wouldn’t have helped me AT ALL.

  Eve planned on apologizing to Nessa the next day, but she didn’t know what to say sorry for. So instead, she just let Nessa be frustrated with her.

  Then one day, Eve saw a seventh grader wearing one of the masks.

  “Hey, take that off!” a teacher scolded the girl.

  The seventh grader pulled it off, but as the teacher moved away, she put it right back on. As she walked by Eve, the girl held her hand out for a high five.

  Under her mask, Eve’s eyes crinkled in a smile.

  If Nessa could have seen that, maybe she would have changed her mind.

  * * *

  Abe had just passed his driver’s test, and he’d spent the past twenty-four hours convincing their parents that if the law said he could drive, then who were they to say he couldn’t pick up his sisters from school?

  “We’re nervous parents, okay?” his mom had said.

  “Not a reasonable argument!” he’d fought back.

  Eventually, they’d relented.

  “Hi!” he practically sang as Eve got into the car.

  “Hey.”

  “Okay, we have like half an hour before Hannah gets out. So I need you to tell me what’s going on, Britt Reid.”

  “Who?”

  “Ha. The Green Hornet’s alter ego. You need to read up.”

  Abe drove them to a spot near an outlet mall down Greer Road, and they bought hot chocolates. They sat in the car, their drinks steaming, and watched passersby go in and out of shops.

  “Isn’t it wild that tomorrow we’re celebrating a holiday with the rest of the kids in town?”

  “Yeah, actually,” she said. “I never really thought of it that way.”

  They missed so many days of school for their holidays in the fall, and had to spend tons of time catching up on schoolwork, but on Thanksgiving everyone else went home, too. Weird.

  “So, how’s the whole being-called-the-prettiest-girl-in-eighth-grade thing going?” he asked.

  “Did Mom and Dad ask you to talk to me?” Eve scowled at him. “God, they’re involving the whole world in my life!”

  “Mom just worries!” He sounded so much like their dad that they looked at each other for a moment and then broke out into laughter. It felt good to laugh like that with him again. It was almost like they were back in one of their pillow forts playing cards.

  “So really, though,” he went on as their giggles died down, “what’s going on?”

  Eve told him. Well, she told him the most important bits—the makeover, Brody’s horrible costume, the so-far fruitless plan to expose him, everyone saying she wrote the list, and why she initially put on the mask.

  “So other people are wearing the masks, too?”

  “Yeah. Even my guy friend, actually.”

  “Oh yeah? So this guy is wearing his mask in solidarity with you, huh? Cool.”

  “Yeah?” she answered, unsure.

  Abe smiled. “It’s very cool he’s willing to join ranks with the girls and that he’s on your side; that he’s supporting you.”

  She thought of how the morning after she’d texted Winston, he’d brought his Halloween mask to school for her. The way he smacked his lips in concentration as he scrubbed the paint off her locker. His grin as he put on the Green Hornet mask.

  “Yeah, he’s on my side.”

  “Sounds like a good guy.”

  “I think so.” Eve took a sip of her drink and felt her body begin to warm.

  “And you’re making some other friends these days, besides Nessa. Yeah?”

  Eve nodded.

  But all these questions felt strange. Abe had hardly spoken to her for two years, yet ever since the list had come out, he seemed so invested in her life.

  As he started to ask her something else, she interrupted him. “Why do you care so much?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You kind of disappeared once high school started. No offense,” she added. “And now…”

  Abe sighed. “Like I said a few weeks back … high school is…” He focused on their dad’s Red Wings keychain hanging from the rearview mirror as if it would give him some answers. “Really different.”

  “I feel like you’re speaking in code,” she said.

  “Sorry.” He took a sip of his drink. “It’s just, this whole list thing? Man, it reminded me how middle school can be, like, the worst. A
nd you’ve been going through it all this time, and I…” He paused, seeming to search for the right words.

  Eve wondered if he even knew that she’d missed talking to him.

  “Listen.” Abe leaned toward where she sat, pink-faced, in the passenger’s seat. “I wasn’t always so nice to everybody in middle school. Especially to girls.”

  Abe? Abe, her big brother? She knew he hadn’t always been nice to her and Hannah, pinning them down and pulling their hair and all that, but she couldn’t imagine him being like Brody or Caleb or Curtis or the other kids who mocked her and threw water on her chest.

  “Really?” Without thinking about it, Eve lifted her mask and let it sit on top of her hair like a headband. “How were you not nice?”

  “Lots of ways. Like I laughed at jokes that I knew weren’t okay at all.” Abe appeared to tighten his grip on his hot chocolate. “Even ones about my own girl friends, sometimes.” She saw him shake his head as if he were trying to get rid of a thought.

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t get how much it was hurting them, I think. And I didn’t believe that it would matter if I said anything. Like I was … helpless or something…,” he muttered.

  “Did you rate them?” Eve asked softly, afraid of the answer.

  “No.”

  Eve began to say “Good,” but Abe interjected.

  “But I saw that kind of stuff and I probably joked about it,” he admitted. “Maybe that’s why some girls I was friends with back then aren’t so eager to hang out with me now.” He let out a sad laugh. “Can’t really blame them. I didn’t stand up for them.”

  That sounded like Eve. Not Abe.

  “Look.” He turned to her. “Not everyone figures out how to be good to other people until way later. I didn’t. I wish I could take back the times I just sat there or added some stupid comment I thought was clever while other guys said awful things. I wish I hadn’t cared if those guys liked me. But I can’t take it back. And I regret it.”