by Renée Watson
“You can answer it,” Dad says. He sniffs his sorrow, clears his throat, and sits up stiffer.
“I know,” I say, but I don’t move.
We watch the show together.
My phone buzzes again.
And again.
My phone is shaking and spasming on the windowsill.
“Whoever it is, is just going to keep calling until you answer,” Dad says.
“I know,” I tell him. I turn the volume up. By the time the show ends and the commercial comes on, Dad has fallen asleep. I let go of his hand, but I stay in the bed with him.
A nurse comes in, my favorite one, Ann. She smiles at me like nothing is wrong, which is actually more comforting than sad smiles that are full of pity and worry. “You’re on overnight duty tonight, huh?”
“Yeah. My mom needed a break, and my brother needed to go trick-or-treating.”
“I’ll bring a cot and some blankets.”
“Thanks.”
When Ann comes back, she’s also brought a few boxes of apple juice and packets of saltine crackers. “A little midnight snack for later,” she says.
I’m two more episodes into the marathon of A Different World when Dad wakes up. He coughs the sleep out of his throat. The first thing he says is, “Is that your phone again?”
I didn’t even notice it buzzing. I forgot all about it. I go to the window, pick up my phone, and look through the notifications.
Dad asks, “So who’s that calling? Got a new boyfriend you haven’t told me about?”
Isaac comes to mind, and I look down hoping maybe it’s him that’s been calling. “You’ll be the first to know,” I tell Dad. Well, Chelsea will. And then Mom, but Mom and Dad are basically the same people so he’s high on the list. I look at my phone: sixteen text messages; five missed calls.
Something is up.
How do I look?” I ask, studying myself in the full-length mirror in the hallway.
“Well, you look good, but I’m still slightly confused,” my mom says, looking me up and down. “What’s with the cat ears? I thought you weren’t planning to dress up this year.”
“Mom, it’s catcalling. See? I have a telephone. And I just couldn’t let a Halloween go by without being in costume. It’s one of my things.”
“Okay, I see that now, but that’s why I thought you were a phone booth. Geez, Chelsea, it’s a little confusing.”
“Ah, Mom. I’m not a phone booth. Those don’t even exist anymore.”
“Well, I thought that was why it was funny. Is it supposed to be funny?”
“No, it’s supposed to be thought provoking.”
“Oh, it’s definitely thought provoking,” she says, pulling me in for a hug.
“It is! See, I’m actually a cat calling, and the joke is that this is the only kind of catcalling that should be allowed in the world. An actual cat calling someone, and not, ya know, catcalling.”
“Right, yes, I do see it. I’m just sorry you and Jasmine couldn’t go as Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes. But I am glad she’s with her dad tonight.”
“Me too. And there’s no way I could go as Gloria without my partner. It would’ve been totally confusing.”
“You’re right. This costume is much clearer,” Mom says. “Enjoy your night. Are you meeting Isaac and Nadine?” The door buzzes just as she asks, and they walk in, both dressed as their favorite superheroes. Isaac is Black Panther with black pants, a black T-shirt, and his hair slicked back, and Nadine is Katana from the Suicide Squad. She has on black jeans, a leather jacket, and Katana’s mask that has the Japanese flag across it and is holding a fake samurai sword that looks pretty real to me. They both look amazing.
“You two look so good,” I say, standing back to take it all in.
“You too,” Nadine says, “I love it. You’re a cat in trouble, right? Like a cat in a tree?”
“What? No, I’m catcalling. See? I’m a cat. And I have a phone. So I’m catcalling.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not totally clear, Chels, but don’t worry. We’ll be with you tonight. We’ll help get that message across,” Isaac says.
“Great,” I say, “always misunderstood. I should’ve gone as a big question mark.”
“Now that woulda been funny,” Isaac says. I roll my eyes and push them both out the door. I don’t want to miss any of the dance, and I definitely don’t want to miss seeing James. Ever since the open mic, I’ve been feeling even more like something could happen between us. I know he’s sort of dating Meg, but for some reason, I feel like that’s gonna be short lived, especially since we’ve been talking more and more, and even though our month of runs is over, we’ve already made plans to get coco helado next week. Things could still happen.
We walk in, and the gym is totally transformed. The lights are low, and there are strobes in the corners and a makeshift disco ball above us. There are fake skeletons, pumpkins, and black and orange streamers all over the bleachers. The back table is loaded with cookies, popcorn, and soda, and the music is already playing, with most of the seniors out on the dance floor, since they’ve been here setting everything up.
“This looks soooo good,” Nadine says. “I love it. We could stage a whole creepy photo shoot in here. Chelsea, look at me. Be a cat, and now pretend you’re calling someone.” I make my best cat impersonation and hold my phone up.
“Make sure you hashtag it with #catcalling. The internet will understand.”
Nadine keeps her phone open and goes to Instagram to post it. “Whoa,” she says as soon as she opens her app.
“What?”
“This.” She holds her phone up so Isaac and I can see it. It’s Meg and two of her best friends. They’re all dressed up like princesses. Meg is Rapunzel, with a long wrap of blond braid trailing down her back. Her friends are Snow White and Cinderella. They’re clearly the sexy versions of these princesses, dressed in short skirts, with tiaras and sheer tops on. Underneath the photo it says: #princesslife #princessesrock #goodlife #princesslikeagirl #squadgoals #whysoserious #jokesonthem
“What the . . .” and before I can finish, Nadine holds up her phone again.
“Is that?” I ask, and look closer. It’s another photo that Meg posted of some kids from the acting ensemble. One is dressed like Mammy, with a long dress and scarf and holding a box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix in front of her, and one is holding a movie poster of Pam Grier from Coffy. She has an Afro wig on and is wearing a red tube top. Both of the girls are white. Underneath them it says: #mammyrocks #mammyspancakesarebest #sweetsapphire #jokelikeagirl #jokes #soserious.
I take my phone out and start texting Jasmine.
Just checking on you. Hope your dad is doing better.
I’m here with Isaac and Nadine. They both look awesome. Black Panther and Katana.
I’m dressed as catcalling. I’m sure you’re laughing your head off right now, since I KNOW you get those kinds of jokes.
Guess who else is on their way?
I send the screen shot of Meg and her punk princess power.
James isn’t here yet. Where is he?
Just when I’m in the middle of sending texts, I look up and see them all walk in. Angie Marshall is dressed like a princess too, with a fluffy dress on and a tiara. I can’t believe she’s with them. She’s actually one of the cooler members of the group, and one of the only ones who reached out to Jasmine when she quit to tell her how messed up Meg’s comments were—she’s also one of the only other black girls in the group. Her boyfriend, Corey Finn, another guy from the ensemble, walks in with her.
OMG. Angie Marshall is dressed like a princess too!
Not cool!!!!
Okay, something weird is happening. This dance is taking a turn.
“What are they wearing?” Isaac asks.
“Oh, they’re just wearing your basic sexist and racist costumes,” I say.
“And it looks like they’re targeting you all,” Nadine adds.
I pull out my phone to go on Instagr
am too. I look up the photo they must have posted when they were getting ready. It says #jokesonyou #partylikeagirl #PrincessAllDay #PrincessPower.
“Oh no, no,” I say when I see them walking toward us. I can see Isaac clenching his fists.
“You okay?” I ask.
“No,” he answers, and I can see he’s pissed, not just because of their insanely racist costume choices, but because they’ve also taken Jasmine’s and my work and made a big joke out of it.
“Yo, Angie, what’s with your costume?” Isaac asks as they make their way over to us.
“Back off, man. It’s really not that serious. It’s a joke,” Corey says, starting to smile.
“Yeah, it is serious. You all need to take those costumes off. They’re offensive for a whole bunch of reasons,” Isaac says, moving closer.
“Come on. We’re just messing around. It’s just a costume, and we wanted to play around with stereotypes by becoming some of the unique characters written about on the very serious Write Like a Girl blog,” Angie says, laughing.
“The work there IS serious, and it’s changing a lot of people’s attitudes, and thoughts, and—”
“Dude, take it easy. What’s the big deal? What’s up?”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s just got a crush on Jasmine,” Meg says.
“What?” Corey asks, really laughing now. “I didn’t know you were into fat girls.”
And that’s all it takes—all it takes for me to see that Isaac really is in love with Jasmine, and all it takes to confirm that he’s not about any of this trash. He pulls his arm back and punches Corey right in the face.
“Isaac,” I shout. A group has gathered around both of them. Corey stands up and pushes Isaac back into a pile of balloons with skeleton faces all over them. Isaac lunges for Corey again and grabs him by the shoulders. They wrestle, knocking over the entire bowl of fruit punch. Fizzy pink liquid sloshes to the ground, and two of the princesses slide while trying to stop the fight. Meg’s wig gets caught on the leg of the overturned table, and it pulls her long blond hair to the ground. I can see a few of the other guys move in to stop the fight, when suddenly the lights turn on, and Principal Hayes is standing between them with one of the chaperones.
“Get these two out of here,” Principal Hayes says. “We’ll be dealing with both of you on Monday.”
“Wait, no, it’s not his fault,” I say, pushing through the crowd and stepping all over Rapunzel’s now sticky wig.
“Excuse me?” he says, looking right at me.
“They’re the ones who instigated it. I mean, just look.” I gesture at Angie, who is nursing Corey’s bloody lip.
“They what?” Principal Hayes asks.
“They came dressed as the stereotypes. There’s Mammy and Sapphire,” I say.
“It’s called a joke,” Meg says, taking a step forward. “Can’t you get that? Get over it,” Meg says back, so calm, but at the same time, she kicks her wig in my direction. As if I’m an afterthought, as if I don’t matter at all. All of a sudden, I move toward Meg. I don’t know if I’m gonna try to hit her or launch into a speech, but I’m mad in a way I’ve never been before.
“Enough,” Principal Hayes shouts. “This dance is officially over. Please see yourselves out. Done. This. Is. Over.” Everyone groans, and a few people kick the balloons around the space. Some of the seniors start to clean things up.
Just then, James walks into the cafeteria and looks in my direction. He sees the lights on and the punch spilled all over the floor. “What happened?” he mouths in my direction. I point my finger at Meg and her group, who are gathering their wigs and sashes, and shrug my shoulders. He holds his hand up to his ear and mouths, “Call me.” I don’t know if I will, or even want to, after this.
Principal Hayes tells me he’d like to see me in his office. Nadine and Isaac wait for me outside, and as soon as I finish getting a ridiculous talking-to, I meet up with them and call Jasmine.
It only rings once. “Jazz? We might be in trouble,” I say. “Um, so, yeah. I mean, well, I might be in trouble.”
“What did you do?” Jasmine asks.
“Well, Principal Hayes ended the dance—which I didn’t think was fair because, I mean, it wasn’t like everyone showed up like that, and it was only halfway over anyway. It wasn’t fair, and he also didn’t understand what a big deal those costumes were.”
“So what got us in trouble?” she asks.
“Well, I was pissed. I told Principal Hayes how I didn’t think it was fair.”
“That’s it?”
“I may have said a little too much.”
“What else did you say?” Jasmine asks.
“After Principal Hayes told me I needed to act in a more mature way to get my point across, he said something about how he couldn’t believe something like this would happen at this school. And so I told him that there’s a lot of messed-up stuff that happens at our school. He actually looked surprised, and said, ‘Like what?’ so I told him.”
“You told him what?”
“That he needed to fire any racist teachers—like Mr. Morrison, who clearly should not be teaching at a school like this. And I may or may not have said that you were going to send your blog post to the New York Times and every other major newspaper in the city if he didn’t do something.”
“Chelsea!”
“I know, I know. I said too much,” I admit. I can see Isaac and Nadine giggling beside me. I know Isaac is relieved that Principal Hayes dropped any punishment due to the sensitivity of the situation. “He wants to talk to us about our blog. He thinks we’ve been writing things just to be instigating these kinds of situations.”
“Where is all this coming from? We haven’t instigated anything. Has anyone posted anything negative in our comments section?” Jasmine asks.
“I don’t know, I haven’t checked in a couple of days. I was too busy getting my costume right, which totally didn’t work, by the way.”
“Well, can you check?” Jasmine asks. “Do you think there might be something under my first post?”
“I’ll check as soon as I get home,” I say. “I’ll call you back.” I hang up without even mentioning James or asking about her dad.
daisymae commented: one question?? who cares!!??
purplelipstick commented: lies. lies. lies! these people are always trying to start something . . .
vagabond commented: maybe if they all didn’t act like jezebels, sapphires and whatever else, then Hollywood wouldn’t cast them all in those same ole parts.
chrometilt commented: ths pst actlly fls RACST to me!
lenabee commented: how about you learn how to spell racist? also, this blog is NOT RACIST. it is simply commenting on how RACIST the movie industry actually is. how about get educated first before you start commenting on intellectual blog posts. thank you.
chrometilt commented: BITCH. Did I spell that right???
vagabond liked this
lenabee commented: What does the academy value in a black performance? The NY Times actually posted a video about THIS SUBJECT! Of the 10 black women up for best actress Oscars, all played characters in poverty. 9 were homeless or nearly so.
harlemchick commented: #TRUTH
chrometilt commented: #CRAP
wahibaby commented: Learn how to ACT!?? Then maybe you’ll get other parts?
harlemchick commented: shocked at how ignorant people can be
websteravenue liked this
blackdreamer212 liked this
hudsondreamer commented: this post is as ignorant as this blog.
daisymae commented: and again—who cares!? no one’s gnna watch this girl on stage anywy! who’s gnna cast hr?
harlemchick commented: seems like YOU care since you keep commenting. I G N O R A N T!
chrometilt commented: some girls just need to shut the hell up! like this dumb-ass blog.
vagabond liked this
purplelipstick liked this
honeydew liked this
wahibaby liked this
girlonfire liked this
I’ve rehearsed with Chelsea ten times how to apologize to Principal Hayes. We have it all planned out and go over it an eleventh time on our way to his office.
“Got it,” Chelsea says. “I’m sorry if I was disrespectful, but I do believe our school has some issues that need to be addressed,” she repeats.
“Perfect,” I tell her.
When Chelsea and I get to Principal Hayes’s office, he is sitting at his messy desk, which is cluttered with file folders, books, pens, and Post-it Notes. His tie is loosened, and he’s leaning so far back in his office chair that it looks like he could fall out of it. He’s swiveling from side to side until he sees me and Chelsea walking in. “Ladies,” he says. “Come on in. Have a seat.” Principal Hayes stands and walks around his desk, joining us in the section of his office that has four chairs around a small coffee table. “I’m glad we could talk,” he tells us.
Like we had a choice to come here. We should be eating lunch right now, but during first period we both got a notice from the office saying we needed to come see him at lunchtime.
Chelsea and I sit down beside each other. Principal Hayes sits across from us. “So, I wanted to follow up with your, uh, concerns, Chelsea. I am sorry you feel that this school—”
“I don’t feel it, I know that this school has some racist teachers and that it was unfair—”
I pinch Chelsea, clear my throat.
She talks quieter but finishes her sentence. “I think our school doesn’t actually live up to its mission, and we should do something about it.”
“I appreciate your zeal, I do. But you have to understand that you can’t just make accusations about staff here and think I’m immediately going to fire someone. It doesn’t work like that, Chelsea. And that’s not actually what I want to talk with you about.”
“Of course it’s not,” Chelsea says.
“Consider this your official warning. Your club will be shut down if you continue to incite discord throughout the student body.”
