After a few moments, Izzy said, “I could take a second look at it.”
The bell rang. I looked at Grace. She grabbed her bag and got up and left.
I squeezed Millie’s arm on my way out. “This isn’t over yet,” I said. “The jury is still out.”
“Thanks, Raina,” she said. She turned and walked toward Ms. McClain’s desk.
This was bad. Very bad. We were down a witness, possibly a lawyer, whose aunt also happened to be our adviser. My only comfort was that things couldn’t possibly get any worse than essential parts of the team almost quitting.
APRIL 22: STANDING ORDER
For my morning ritual during the weeks I had rehearsal or a show (which were most of them), I would get up, do vocal exercises in the shower, eat breakfast, and then run lines in my head or out loud, depending on how many other people were around. If Mom were home, I’d talk to her, but I would often recite soliloquies or sonnets. She didn’t seem to mind or was possibly too tired to bother arguing. These days, I thought over my Mock Trial character development. I didn’t have lines, just a statement, so there was more freedom there. But now one of my characters was also kind of a jerk.
On the bus to school, I racked my brain to come up with ways to make Eden Ward, president of the Real Love Club, seem more human. Eden was not a fan of gay marriage. Or gay anything, really. She believed, as did her group, in the preservation of “traditional family values,” which meant a couple had one dude, one girl, and then a lot of babies in the bounds of matrimony. The men went to work; the women stayed home. She seemed to blame the suffrage movement for many of society’s ills. She seemed almost like a parody of a real person, so much so that I wondered if Mock Trial case designers were having a bad day when they wrote Miss Eden Ward. Though I could think of a few people here in good ol’ Steelton that could have hung with Eden on the daily.
I wandered into the library before the first bell to return some books. Millie was there at the desk.
“Hey,” I said.
She jumped. “Oh. Hi.”
“You okay?”
“Mr. Darr just went into Ms. McClain’s office with Jeff and Brandon.”
“Oh?” That did not sound good.
“Something’s up. I can tell. I came here to try and brainstorm a solution to the Nikita problem. I’ve been avoiding it since we canceled practice the last two days because … you know.”
She didn’t want to say “the team was on the verge of splitting up.”
I nodded.
“I wish I could hear what is going on in there. We need a heating grate,” she said.
“What?”
“Or maybe we could put a glass to the door. Does that work?”
“I don’t know about heating grates or glasses, but I can tell you the walls are pretty thin. Maybe Ms. McClain has super librarian ears, but the woman can hear if you and your boyfriend have a make-out session in the study room next to her office.”
“Gross.”
“I’m beginning to agree with you on that point. Come with me.” I grabbed Millie by the arm and pulled her to the quiet study room next to Ms. McClain’s office. Just as I thought, you could hear what was going on in there just as easily as she could always tell what was happening in here. Especially if you pressed your ear against the drywall.
“And it’s only fair,” said Mr. Darr’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. You boys worked hard,” she paused, “but it was the Steelton girls who qualified for nationals. Not you.”
“And that is just the thing. According to national rules, there is no girls’ team or boys’ team. That was a special state exception brought on by a technical loophole in our district. Almost anywhere else, that wouldn’t have worked. But nationals recognizes the school as a whole. As such, we can send any students we want. They do not have to have been on the winning team.”
Ms. McClain’s office fell silent. Or maybe they had started speaking so quietly I couldn’t hear. I strained my face against the gritty plaster.
“No,” came Ms. McClain’s voice.
“Connie,” said Mr. Darr. “I’m the Mock Trial adviser of record. Some of the girls can go. I understand you might need some more team members as it is.”
“Being the Mock Trial adviser of record means you filled out a piece of paper years ago. That’s it.”
“Be that as it may, the principal agreed with me that we should send the best team possible to represent the school.”
“And my girls have proven that they are that team. If you were supposed to go to nationals, then you would have placed first.”
I made a mental note to send Ms. McClain flowers on National School Librarian’s Day. Or, if there wasn’t such a holiday, to start learning how to invent it and make it nationally recognized. I turned to Millie to ask if she knew about Librarian’s Day, but I realized she wasn’t next to me anymore.
“Millie?” I said. I did a full three-sixty. She’d left.
I tried to casually emerge from the study room as if I’d been in there for a nonspying-related purpose. The library looked empty from my vantage point.
“Millie,” I tried to whisper-shout again.
Ms. McClain’s door opened. Mr. Darr walked out, followed by Brandon and Jeff. Brandon wore his guilty face, but his posture appeared irritatingly triumphant. Stride long, head up, back straight.
“Raina, can I…”
“I WAS RETURNING BOOKS,” my internal volume sensor kicked to bits by a sudden, intense rage. “THEY WERE OVERDUE FROM A CLASS PROJECT AND I AM SORRY.”
“Oh, it’s okay, a few days…”
I advanced on Brandon. Jeff was a nonissue and it was probably illegal to yell at a teacher.
“Listen, dickwad.”
“Ms. Petree, perhaps…” Mr. Darr said.
“Sorry.” I smiled sweetly at him. I drew in breath to my core, stomach out. You need to engage those muscles not to strain your vocal cords. But real power comes from holding back. Feeling the emotion but letting it out in a long, cool strain could be just as effective. A power pose, like feet hips length apart, balled fists at your waist, completed the picture. “It might seem like Jeff, or your adviser, or your team, but I know you came up with this idea. You are the smartest of all of them.”
Jeff sniffed at that. I didn’t bother to look at him.
“You checked the rules. You knew all along that this could happen. You tried to taunt me with it, that one time a few weeks ago. I get it now. But know this.”
I stepped close enough to kiss his neck.
Or headbutt him.
Instead, I just smiled. “You didn’t win states. And you won’t win now. You can never win against me again, Brandon.”
Grades and graduation be damned, I turned to Mr. Darr. This one was for Millie. “And I don’t know who you think you are.” I surveyed him up and down like I did when I tried to psych out my audition competition. “But I’m pretty sure arguing that men should take what women earned isn’t going to play well in the newspaper. I’ve been in it enough, representing this school in every theater festival ever. I know they’d be intrigued by this story.”
“You should be careful how you talk to a teacher, Ms. Petree,” said Mr. Darr.
I was a wait-listed woman. That may technically mean I still had a lot to lose here, but I didn’t care.
“Then maybe you should consider how you treat students.”
Mr. Darr glared at me, then Ms. McClain, and turned and stormed out. Brandon backed away from me, and he and Jeff ran after Mr. Darr.
“That,” said Ms. McClain slowly, “was an interesting strategy, Raina. How did you know what happened in there?”
“I was eavesdropping,” I said.
Ms. McClain sighed and rubbed her temples, like Mom did so often.
“Did he reconsider? Did I miss something?”
“No. He’s pretty convinced there should be auditions again for the national team.”
> “Can he do that?”
“He seems to think he can. But from me to you, that whole adviser thing doesn’t mean much. We don’t get paid extra. He has been administering the team budget since I didn’t push it. Even so, he doesn’t control it. And the principal owes me about eight years of favors, so I’m not worried.” She looked me in the eyes. “He seemed to think there was some dissention in the ranks. That we might not have a full team. Is that true?”
“If we had a full team, you’re sure we would be the ones to go to nationals?”
“Oh yes,” said Ms. McClain.
“Then we have a full team.”
“Promise?”
“Okay, at the moment we technically don’t. But we will. I promise.” I held up my pinkie, and she linked hers with mine.
“I consider this a binding verbal contract, young lady,” she said. “You make sure we have a full team, and I will get us to nationals.”
“If there’s one thing I live and die by, Ms. McClain,” I said, releasing my hand from hers, “it’s that the show must go on.”
APRIL 26: NOTICE OF INTENTION TO OFFER EVIDENCE
The show was making a fantastic argument that it would not, in fact, go on.
I had tried pretty much everyone I could bear to ask to join Mock Trial, and they had all been a no. Millie was ignoring calls, and she wasn’t responding to texts. I searched the school for her until I reached the girls’ bathroom.
Once inside, I recognized the sniffles immediately.
“Hey, Millie,” I said.
No response.
“Ms. McClain can fight Darr. My money is on her any day.”
“But we need a team.”
“We will have one.”
“We are down a witness.” She blew her nose. “Grace won’t even look at me. Izzy and Veronica are on the fence.”
“We will find a witness. We have—” I thought about it. “Two weeks. I got this.”
The stall door opened.
“That’s nice of you to say, but I just don’t think we can do it.”
“No,” I said. Maybe it was the smell of ammonia-based cleaning products; maybe it was that I wasn’t ready to let go of my newly found interest in pretrial motions. “This is where it began, Millie.” I gestured around us. “Remember? You and me? This is where it started. This is not where it ends. I swear. You brought us together the first time. You helped me. Now it’s my turn.”
A tear ran down her cheek.
“Really? You won’t give up yet? Just give me two days. Two days and we will have a team. Er. Maybe till Friday. But we will have a solid team by Friday.”
“Okay,” she said, wiping her chin. “I will believe you.”
Millie didn’t sound convinced, but it was a start.
She blew her nose again and washed her hands. She looked back at me. “You’d make a decent lawyer,” she said. “You are very convincing.”
This did not prove true later in the day in my attempt to make good on my bathroom promise.
“Nikita, please,” I begged. I full-on knelt on the cafeteria floor, hands clasped as if in prayer to the god of proms and ill-timed extracurricular events. “You went to the prom last year. I saw you there with that senior guy with the beard.”
“Ah, Mallik,” she said fondly. “He went to Stanford, you know.”
“Good for him. Nikita, this is more important than pictures. Think of it—glory. Renown. College applications. Surely that is more compelling than overcooked chicken and a few balloons.”
Nikita chuckled. “Listen. I hear what you are saying. And I’m going to tell you a secret, that you better not let get out. Because it will make me look sensitive or weak or something, and you can’t have that on the dance team. The dancers are vipers, I tell you.” She moved toward me. “My grandmother is really sick. She’s had lung cancer twice and beat it, but this time it’s bad. She lives at home with us and loves this kind of thing. She was proud of the trial stuff, thinks I can be lawyer like my dad. But she’s been going on about not seeing me and my sisters in our weddings. Caught her crying in the garden about hemming clothes for great-grandchildren. She’s finishing my dress from my aunty in LA, and she seems happier than she has in ages. And did you see Our Town? Made me realize I should be home more. Not to mention that maybe I could be on the Mock Trial team next year.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. A team existing after we graduated.
And what could possibly trump a sick grandmother?
“Okay. I understand.” I slumped. “I don’t suppose you have any dramatic friends who would like an all-expense paid trip to Pittsburgh over prom weekend?”
“Sorry,” she said.
“For the record, family love is not weakness!” I said as she turned and walked away from me. Damn Emily Webb, I thought.
But then it struck me.
The truth had been staring at me this whole time. The dark, gloomy, unfortunate truth.
“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute,” I muttered, left study hall, and marched with grim determination to the drama room.
“Well, hello! This is a nice surprise,” said Mr. Cooper.
I smiled at him because the man seemed to mean it.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I need to talk to Claire.” I looked down at her bored face. The off-season in Drama Club is painfully slow. All they did was study plays for next year. She was pretending to read the Merry Wives of Windsor.
“I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends,” I said.
She glanced down at the script she was holding and tossed it on the table.
“Say no more,” she said and followed me to the library.
APRIL 29: NOTICE OF TRIAL READINESS
Getting everyone assembled had not been easy.
Izzy said she’d do it if Veronica came. Veronica said she’d come if Grace came. Grace had been the last holdout, but I bribed her with incredibly expensive yarn donated by Megan’s grandmother for the cause.
Claire came without question.
“Okay, everyone,” I said uneasily. The vibe in the room was not one of conquering defense strategies. “Nationals is in a week. Or a week-ish, anyway. As you may have heard, the dudes could take our spots if we can’t come together. Claire here”—I waved to her—“has generously volunteered to be our sixth team member.”
Izzy grinned. “Awesome!”
Claire flashed her annoyingly straight smile. Girl had never even had braces. God, her effortlessness still annoyed me. But this was for the cause of justice.
“We have a full team. The issue we have to resolve, then”—I looked at Grace and Izzy—“is that some people are uncomfortable with the defense.”
“They don’t like gay people,” said Grace.
“I don’t know who they do like,” said Veronica.
“Yes. True,” I said.
Millie just sat there.
“I can’t be a defense lawyer on this. I just cannot,” said Grace. “My heart isn’t in it.”
“I can be a lawyer,” said Veronica. “But it will be wild.”
“Okay, okay. I thought about that and I have a suggestion.” I felt a little light-headed. What I was about to suggest was so far out of what I thought I’d be doing this year that I surely was dreaming. “Grace, could you play a witness?” I said.
“Play a … what?”
“You don’t have to be a lawyer. You could take Taylor Quinn, the soccer player. She doesn’t hate anyone except distractions from the big game. And you have mentioned how you always wanted to try acting. This is a good venue for that. Trust me.”
“Yeah … I mean, I read her statement. I just…”
“It was Nikita’s role. Claire will take mine.”
Grace considered this. We sat for what felt like three years in silence. “Yes. I would be okay with that,” she said finally.
“Really?” I said.
“Re
ally?” Millie said, her head popping up.
“Yes,” said Grace more firmly. “I could do that. But who would be the third lawyer, then?”
I drew in my breath. Feet hip’s length apart. Fists on waist.
“Me,” I said.
16
EMILIA GOODWIN,
:
NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
:
MOCK TRIAL ASSOCIATION
Plaintiff,
:
OF THE USA
:
v.
:
:
THE ANYTOWN USA
:
Case No. 1LSTCHANC0
SCHOOL DISTRICT,
:
:
Defendant
:
APRIL 30: EXTRAORDINARY WRIT POSITIONS
I stared at the needles in my hands.
I looked back at the video on my computer.
I looked at the needles again.
“Why don’t you go back to affirming with that app of yours,” said Claire. “Or your motivational quotes book.” She rolled over from her stomach onto her back on my bed. She flipped through a shiny brochure for Carnegie Mellon University. “Or channel the energy you use to rant about the current makeup of the Supreme Court.”
“It isn’t enough,” I said.
Plus, Grace liked to knit. Maybe this would help things with her. Maybe we couldn’t be a thing, whatever we were. But I hated how every day our relationship seemed to devolve a little more. Raina had saved nationals by persuading Claire to finally join and by switching her role to lawyer. We had six girls again, so the least I could do was to try to make sure all the others were speaking to their team captain.
“Slipknots are hard,” I said.
“Give me that.” Claire sat up and took my needles. She expertly cast on a few stitches.
“How’d you do that?” I said.
“Summer camp counseling. Drama only took up half the day. Other half—crafts. God knows I didn’t want to be a lifeguard, and I don’t like the feeling of glue on my hands.”
Six Angry Girls Page 22
