Code Name: Whatever

by Emily Asad

  Chapter 5: My Heart on Paper

  He writhed - then sternly manned his heart

  To play his hard but destined part.

  -Lord of the Isles

  Because our new house was outside city limits, we had to awaken super early in the morning in order to catch the bus. Of course I didn’t sleep much now, kept awake especially by my fear of being hacked to pieces in my sleep by my new Satanist step-sister, so I was fatigued even before I rolled out of bed.

  “Turn that horrible noise off!” moaned Erika, covering her face with her pillow.

  I fumbled with the alarm clock. Let the games begin, I thought. I got dressed, checked my backpack to make sure I had all the pencils, papers, folders, and miscellaneous items needed for the new school year. I had cereal for breakfast. By the time the sun came up, everyone was awake and shuffling around, bumping into each other.

  Now, our new house was large, having been built at the turn of the last century by some skilled carpenters, but eight people could make any house seem crowded. And there were only two bathrooms – and Mom and Roger used one of them. That left one bathroom for six people. I wondered how the Brady Bunch did it without killing each other. I was glad I showered at night.

  “But I don’t want to take the bus!” whined Peter, throwing himself at Roger’s legs and holding on tight. It would have been cute if he were four years old instead of twelve.

  Roger was moved, regardless. “All right, son,” he said, pulling Peter to his feet, “you can ride with us.”

  Peter grinned at the word “son” but Mom spoiled his glory. “He’ll take the bus. We don’t have time to drop them all off. If you give in to one, you have to take them all.”

  “What about me?” frowned Matt. “The bus kids hate me.”

  It was true. Matt got beaten up on a regular basis, even though he was a sophomore. It was one reason he was so good at wrestling – he was angry and had a lot of energy to re-direct. Plus he wasn’t afraid of pain.

  Peter, on the other hand, hated the bus because it was unfashionable, and only poor kids took the bus. We were poor – very poor – but for some reason, Peter never quite grasped that important fact. Our clothes were often old, worn-out, and out of style. It didn’t matter to Matt and me. We couldn’t do anything about it, so we learned to live with it. But Peter actually took pride in his appearance. He would have preferred to go to school naked than to wear hand-me-downs. And if he had to take the bus, then he didn’t want to go at all.

  “You’re taking the bus,” Mom said in her ‘don’t argue with me, I’m the adult’ tone of voice. She smacked Peter on the butt. She held up her finger to Matt. “You, too.”

  Peter squawked, grabbed his backpack, and ran outside.

  I didn’t say anything. I just hiked my own bag over my shoulder and followed the boys.

  Our new driveway was pretty long and lined with white-barked birch trees. By the time Peter reached the end, his whines had abated. Now he was only depressed.

  “You look nice,” I said by way of encouragement.

  He shook his head. “When I grow up, I’m going to be rich. I’m going shopping every weekend and I’ll never wear stupid clothes again. And my kids will never have to ride a bus. I’ll buy them all cars.”

  I nodded sympathetically. His words reminded me about my List. My hand flew to my List, which I kept in my pocket. Nobody knew it existed, and I intended to keep it a secret. It was precious – like my heart on paper.

  The bus pulled to a stop just in front of us, and we boarded it. As a sophomore, I should have been able to sit in the ‘respected’ section – the very back, with all the other big kids. However, as an impoverished outcast, I had to fend for myself. Even being one of the oldest kids on the bus didn’t earn me instant respect.

  I scooted toward the window, in case somebody decided to sit next to me, so they wouldn’t have to ask. I hated starting conversations with strangers. I figured if they saw the empty seat, it was an open invitation and they’d leave me alone.

  Margaret and Erika sat together, very quiet, as if they had never ridden a bus before. Maybe they hadn’t. Their mother’s house was pretty close to the school; probably they just walked in years past. Well, they’d soon adjust.

  Matt, the perfect picture of anti-social behavior, spread his backpack and belongings out on his seat, a sort of unspoken warning to anybody who might consider asking him to share. He was wearing his mean face, the one that said he was a bulldog ready to bite somebody’s arm off.

  Peter did what Peter does best: talked with the prettiest girls on the bus. It didn’t matter if they were older or younger. Somehow he always said the right thing. He handed out compliments as if they were candy, but he personalized them so they didn’t sound like lines. He was amazing. And he was only twelve.

  I thought about his behavior and wanted to write something in my List, but I decided to wait until I was alone. Personal belongings were always snatched by the bus bully, and I didn’t want to take my chances.

  We arrived a few minutes before the bell rang. I hurried to unload my backpack into my locker and make it to my first class on time. I had Chemistry, which I knew would not be my favorite subject.

  At least we would not be dissecting frogs this year. I had almost puked last year when my frog slipped off the table into a little puddle of formaldehyde on the floor! The kids made jokes about my frog not being quite dead yet, and I had nightmares for weeks about slicing into living amphibians.

  I sat in my customary position in the classroom, toward the front but near the wall. That way I could see the notes and teacher easily, without being too obvious about it. I was no teacher’s pet.

  Roll call began. The teacher stuttered over the names. I heard him say “Margaret Shenton” and wondered why my little stepsister would be taking sophomore courses. He got to the end of the list and looked up. “Is there anyone I didn’t call?” he said in his nasal voice.

  I raised my hand. “Margaret White.”

  He peered at the list. “You’re not on here. Are you sure you have the right class?”

  I began to blush. Everybody was looking at me. I wished I could melt into the wall beside me. “It says chemistry, first period,” I insisted, holding up my schedule. A sudden thought struck me. “Oh, wait. I’m Margaret Shenton.”

  The class laughed. Mr. McLeonard looked at me over his glasses, which were far down on his nose. “Is there a reason you don’t know your own name?”

  I gulped. “My… my mom got married, um, a few weeks ago,” I stammered, “and her husband is adopting us.”

  He nodded, not really listening. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us before I begin class?”

  I began to shake my head, and then stopped. I may as well confess everything, since the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. “I’m supposed to go by my middle name, now. Beverly.”

  “I didn’t hear you. Speak up.”

  My blush grew to crimson. I could barely breathe. I managed to squeak out the words again.

  He made a note on the sheet, and then turned on the overhead projector. He droned on and on about his lesson plans and homework assignments, but I did not pay any attention. Several of the other kids in class stared at me for a few minutes longer. I kept my face turned toward my chemistry book so I wouldn’t see them.

  A piece of paper landed on my book. It was crumpled up. I unfolded it. “Margaret Beverly White Shenton,” it said. I looked behind me but could not tell who threw it. I tossed it into the trash can.

  Another ball of paper landed near me. It read, “I’m so stupid, I don’t know my own name.”

  My blush began to return. I twisted in my seat, searching for the culprit.

  “Miss Shenton, is there something wrong with your chair?” asked Mr. McLeonard.

  I did not realize he was speaking to me. I continued to look around.

  “Miss Shenton, turn around at once. You’re disrupting my class.”
He walked over to me and rapped a knuckle on my desk.

  I jumped, my heart skipping a few beats, and faced him.

  “You’ll never pass this class if you keep flirting with the boys,” he said. “Pay attention.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I flicked the next ball of paper off my desk without reading it.

  When the bell rang, I practically dashed out of the room, away from that pit of vipers.

  My next class, Geometry, also had me registered as Margaret Shenton. I realized that every class would be the same. I would have to explain my whole name change situation several more times before the end of the day.

  I wondered how long the parents had been planning this humiliation for me.

  By fourth period, I almost had it down to a routine. Blush and stammer, and then retreat into absolute silence. Except that I could not be silent in this particular class – it was choir. And my nemesis Naomi Bell shared the class with me.

  “Another divorce, Margaret? Oops, I guess it’s Beverly now,” she whispered. “What a stupid name.”

  I tried to concentrate on what Mrs. Crofton was saying, but it was hard to ignore Naomi. In the first place, she was probably the prettiest girl in the entire high school – everybody took fashion cues from her. She was my height, but there the resemblance stopped. She had perfect blonde hair, big blue eyes, naturally red lips, and flawless skin. Plus her wardrobe was custom tailored. And she usually wore a tennis bracelet with real diamonds and sapphires.

  I, on the other hand, had scraggly red hair that refused to be tamed. I always had a few zits, plus freckles, and my eyes were green. I love having green eyes – I’m the only one in the entire school whose eyes are a true emerald and not just hazel – but my eyelashes matched my eyebrows. Yellow. They made my eyes look small and beady.

  I thought my clothes were decent, today at least, my first-day-of-school best. My cousin had outgrown them and sent them to me. There was nothing wrong with keeping nice clothes in the family.

  I was just thinking about how nice it was to finally have some “in” clothes when she intruded in my thoughts again. “Ralph Lauren jeans? How stylish. Surely you didn’t pick them out yourself.”

  Her friends giggled. “Are they from Second-Hand Rose?” they asked, referring to the thrift store.

  I shrugged.

  “Second-hand clothes for a second-hand slut,” hissed Naomi.

  I turned to face her, surprised at her venom. “What’s your problem? I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “You’re intruding upon my personal sense of aesthetics,” she said primly. At my blank look, she clarified. “That means you’re so ugly, you’re making me sick.”

  I glanced at Mrs. Crofton, who was flipping through some sheet music. Would she ever come to my defense? And did I want to make an issue out of this, thus opening up future opportunities for shame?

  “If you need clothes so bad, you can have mine,” Naomi sniffed. “I have plenty of old things that I’d be glad to give you.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or nothing. Just leave me alone.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “What’s it to you anyway? I’m nothing to you. We don’t even live in the same world.”

  “You’re an embarrassment to the world,” she spat. “It’s people like you who tax the system and make hard-working people like my parents have to support you. How many times is your mom going to be on welfare? Just don’t expect me to help you when you get old and can’t afford groceries.”

  “I don’t expect help from anybody,” I said. My voice grew high-pitched. I fought to keep it under control. “And my mom’s never been on welfare. She works hard, too. We always take care of ourselves.”

  “Girls, that’s enough,” said Mrs. Crofton. “We’re on page two of ‘How Great Thou Art.’ Are we ready? Get out your pencils so we can mark the breathers.”

  I opened my sheet music and readied my pencil.

  “I only have a marker, Mrs. Crofton,” said Naomi sweetly, raising her hand.

  “That’ll do. The first break comes after ‘wonder’ followed by another break after ‘hands have made…’”

  Naomi reached over with her black magic marker and began to mark on my sheet.

  “Hey, cut it out!” I pushed her away.

  “Margaret Beverly pushed me!” she whimpered.

  Mrs. Crofton looked over at us.

  “She’s writing on my music,” I explained.

  “This is not kindergarten,” Mrs. Crofton frowned. “Margaret, uh, Beverly, don’t push.”

  Naomi smirked at me.

  I wished I had fingernails so I could claw her face, but I was a confirmed nail-biter. The worst I would be able to do was leave fingerprints.

  Naomi wrote on my sheet again. I moved so she could not reach it. And then, she did something that almost made me cry.

  She wrote on my new jeans with her black marker.

  They were ruined. The ink was permanent.

  I gasped.

  Naomi shrugged and smiled sweetly. “Oops.”

  Mrs. Crofton conveniently missed the whole scene.

  I scooted over as far as my chair would allow, out of Naomi’s range. My cheeks burned with anger and frustration. They were my only new jeans. Even if they weren’t new new, they were new to me. They were my best. She had destroyed them.

  I was so upset that I could barely sing, which was a bad situation on the first day of school, since Mrs. Crofton was trying to separate us into the appropriate groups. And this was not just any choir; this was A Cappella choir, the top group in the entire school. Over two hundred students auditioned for it each year, but only twenty of us were chosen. I was one of the lucky ones. I did not want Mrs. Crofton to regret her decision and bump me down to a lesser group.

  I knew that Naomi was planning more mischief, but the bell rang before she could carry out her wicked intentions. I fled. It was lunchtime. I hoped that Matt had the same lunch period, because I desperately needed to vent my emotions.

  I found him at his locker.

  “You look awful! What happened?”

  I told him about my day.

  He was a sympathetic listener. “Labels. You gotta love ’em.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look,” he said, “she feels threatened by you. They all do. You don’t belong to any particular group. You’re smart, so you could be a nerd, except that you’re also athletic, so that discounts you. You’re musical, as good as they are, and without having to take lessons. You’re pretty, too, but you don’t have the right clothes to be in the popular crowd. And you’re my sister, so all the wrestlers like you.”

  “I wish I belonged somewhere,” I pouted.

  “No, you don’t. You’ve got too much potential to limit yourself. You don’t need them. Make your own rules.”

  I had to smile at him, even though I didn’t believe a word he was saying. “Where did you get to be so smart? You could have your own talk show. Matt Straightens Out the World.”

  He chuckled. “Keep your chin up, kid.”

  “Don’t call me kid.”

  “Whatever. I’ll see you after school.”

  There was that word again. My new identity. “I thought we were going to eat lunch together.”

  He hesitated. “I don’t mean to abandon you in your moment of need, but… I can’t be hanging around my sister if I’m gonna get any chicks. You understand…”

  So. I was being dumped for the hopes of other female attention. I pasted on my best fake smile. “I understand.”

  He punched my shoulder and took off down the hall.

  I retrieved my lunch bag from my locker. As I approached the lunch room, I could see Erika in the corner with a group of seniors. I smiled and waved.

  She rolled her eyes, obviously disgusted. And then she turned her back toward me.

  I took the hint and bypassed her. There were other corners in the room. I hoped one was s
till abandoned.

  While I was standing there, exposed, trying to find a quiet place to sit, Naomi and her little gang decided to target me for another round. She pointed her finger directly at me and raised her voice. I could not hear what she was saying, but suddenly, everyone at her table turned around and stared at me. In one voice, they burst into laughter.

  It was the kind of laughter that made my skin crawl. I didn’t know what rumors Naomi was spreading about me now, but I knew I couldn’t stay. The wing outside the gym would probably be abandoned; I decided to eat my lunch there.

  I stopped at my locker to grab some beanbags for juggling, and then made my way to the gym. Sure enough, it was empty. I sat down on the stairs that led up to the wrestling room; the landing was wide enough and hidden enough for my purposes.

  My cheese-pickle-mayonnaise sandwich did little to soothe my damaged ego, but juggling was a sure-fire way to boost my self-esteem. Not to brag, I’m the best juggler I knew, aside from the folks at the circus who came through once a year. That may sound a little egotistical to you, but it’s not that big of a claim. There are only twelve thousand people in the whole town of Fergus Falls. It’s easy to be the best when there’s no competition!

  As I eased into a cascade pattern, I turned my thoughts to flesh-eaters like Naomi and wondered why they always seemed to prey on outcasts like me. No answer sprang to mind, and it was a question I had given lots of thought.

  I hope she gives herself an ulcer.

  That thought made me smile in wicked pleasure. Shame on me. I tried to erase that negative image from my mind, focusing on my beanbags instead

  One, two, three… one, two, three… The beanbags plopped in my hands in a solid rhythm. Their noise echoed softly off the wall as I practiced Mill’s Mess, a very complicated pattern. I didn’t make much progress. After twenty minutes I decided to try something else.

  Voices echoing down the corridor distracted me. I hated thinking that somebody might stumble near the staircase where I was practicing. Was there nowhere to be alone in this whole school? Oh, well. I decided to ignore whoever it might be. I was there first, after all.

  It was Naomi.

  Ignoring her was impossible. Especially because her voice was shrill and loud. “She’s such a slut,” she was saying. “I can’t believe they let people like that roam free on the streets. I wonder how many more babies she’s going to have before they make her get her tubes tied.”

  Her cronies laughed. I wondered who the target of their derision might be this time.

  “Oh, and did you hear Margaret in choir today? It sounded like she had swallowed a cricket! I sure hope Crofton kicks her out of the group. She doesn’t belong with the rest of us.”

  One of her friends had the guts to disagree. “She has a pretty good voice. Better than Kayla, at least.”

  “She can’t sing, and you know it. The only reason Crofton has her there is because she took pity on her.”

  My blood froze. Now she was criticizing my voice? What else could she find to fault? It’s not like I had much in the first place, but she was stripping away every shred of dignity I possessed.

  “At least she can float between alto and soprano,” said Amber.

  “She’s not a floater,” scoffed Naomi. “She’s so bad, she can’t be one or the other. Hey, why are you taking her side anyway? Do you like her or something?”

  “Of course not! I think she’s really stupid,” she replied defensively.

  I could see them through the railing. Naomi checked her watch. “I don’t see him. He was supposed to meet me here. He’s late.” She whirled around and walked out of the wing. Her stoolies rushed after her.

  My hands were too weak to hold the beanbags, and they fell to the floor. My knees were weak, too. I sat down on the step and put my head on my arms.

  It was true. My voice wasn’t pretty, but it was reliable. One of the reasons Mrs. Crofton kept me in A Cappella was to keep the other girls in key. Without music, it was easy to go sharp or flat, but I never did. I could hear the music in my head.

  Naomi’s comments cut me to the heart. Singing was my one true talent, and now it seemed like a waste of time. That, too, had been ripped away from me. I felt incomplete.

  I wanted to cry. I really wanted to. It might have purged my building humiliation. But I never could cry like other girls. In my family, you had to be strong. Mom only gave us five minutes to cry, and since it was hard to stop once you got going, it was better to not start. The logical thing, therefore, was to deny my emotions than to expose them. That was one of the first rules I had written in my List.

  It doesn’t matter, I chanted silently. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch hour. If only it would ring for the end of the day.