by Ali Benjamin
In middle school, a person could do the wrong thing at any moment, anywhere, without even knowing. Even in gym class! One time, we were playing kickball and for some reason two of my friends barely tried to kick the ball. Easy outs. They’d both laughed, like the game was the stupidest thing in the world.
Then it was my turn. I knew I could get on base if I wanted. I had always been a strong kicker, one of the few kids able to hit the far wall. But suddenly I wasn’t sure if I should. So when the pitcher rolled the ball toward me, I just… froze.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. I heard my friends laughing. Then I saw Anna Spang, standing alone in literal left field. She scratched her arm, all fidgety. The only thing I knew for sure was this: I didn’t want to be her.
I let the ball roll past me. I laughed it off, like my friends. But that feeling—I don’t want to be Anna—stayed.
I started watching her more closely. I noticed how tightly she pressed her books against her chest as she moved through the hallways, like she was protecting herself from some invisible harm. I watched the way she turned the locker dial slowly, hoping no one would notice that she didn’t have anyone to talk to. Everything she did wrong reassured me. I mean, maybe I didn’t know how to be… but at least I knew more than Anna did.
I guess I wanted her to know that, too. Because I started doing things. Maybe I’d get my friends to stare at her. We’d watch from a distance—across the cafeteria, or in the library when we were supposed to be reading. We’d keep our eyes on her until she looked up. Then we’d laugh. Not because she was doing anything funny, but because we wanted her to know she was someone people laughed at.
Anna always tried to pretend she didn’t see us, but we could tell she had by how quickly she looked in the opposite direction, like she’d been slapped. And when she did, I felt the swamp inside me hardening, turning into stone. Like I was building a suit of armor on my insides.
Challenge Accepted
Within a few days, I begin to figure out the routine here. I learn that Fiona really does wear a pantsuit every day. I know that Lydia and Willow and Sam will spend recess rolling dice for their weird role-playing game. I know that Fuzzy will ask for a story at lunch, and that the only time Henry doesn’t look worried is when he’s offering up some sort of random fact. I also know that the goats really do eat the heck out of shrubs; on Thursday, Mr. Farabi says it’s already time to move the goat pen to the next spot.
I’m starting to figure out other things, too: like how much harder it is to feel connected to my old friends than I ever expected. Every night I text them, and sometimes they text back. Even when they do, they seem a million miles away.
On Friday morning, the last day of the first week of school, Mags writes on the board: DEMOKRATIA: RULE BY THE PEOPLE.
“Okay, Originals,” she says. “We’ve talked a bit about mythology and philosophy in ancient Greece. Today I want to talk about the rise of democracy in the city of Athens.”
On one side of me, Fiona moans like she’s in pain. She’s wearing Paulie’s neon T-shirt under her electric-purple blazer. After the Paulie vs. Glebus match, everyone actually started sharing that dumb shirt for good luck.
Diego leans back in his chair. “Come on, Mags, why do we have to learn about all this ancient junk?” he asks.
Mags lifts one eyebrow. “Is there something you’d prefer to discuss, Diego?” Mags asks.
“Well, sure,” he says. “Lots of things.”
“What sorts of things?” She waits, like she’s really expecting an answer.
“I don’t know,” Diego says. “Stuff that’s… you know… related to our lives.”
Mags taps her chin and looks up at the ceiling for a moment. “Okay,” she says. “How about we put this to a vote. We can either spend the day discussing political systems and the rise of democracy, or we can do what Diego suggests, and discuss things you consider more relevant to your daily lives. Quick show of hands: Who wants to talk about democracy?”
Everyone glances at each other. No one’s hand goes up.
Mags looks around the room. “So that would be, let’s see, zero votes for democracy. And who would like to discuss a topic that’s more relevant to your lives?”
Nearly everyone’s hand shoots up. Only Henry doesn’t raise his hand. He’s watching Mags with this funny look, like he’s both amused and impressed.
As soon as I see him, I realize exactly what’s going on.
“Okay, so stuff that’s relevant to your lives wins in a landslide vote,” Mags says.
The class cheers, and Mags walks over to the board. She circles the word DEMOKRATIA, then she turns around and grins. “For the record,” she says, “you just participated in something called direct democracy. So I’d say it is pretty relevant to your lives, no?”
Now everyone understands what she’s done. The room fills with groans. “You tricked us!” shouts Fiona.
“Only to prove a point,” says Mags. “But I am a teacher of my word. So here’s what we’re going to do.” She pulls a stack of index cards from her desk drawer and passes a handful to each of us. “I want you to write down topics you think are more relevant to your lives than the study of humanities,” she says. “Write down one topic per card—anything you’d prefer to discuss during class time. Fold up the cards and place them in this hat.”
She picks up Paulie’s hat, the one she took from Diego on Tuesday. “Starting on Monday I’ll pull one card from this hat every day. If I’m unable to connect what’s written on the card with the ancient world, then I will agree to spend the whole class discussing what you’ve written. But if I can connect the topics, then you’ll agree to trust me that the ancient world does, indeed, have relevance to your lives today. Do we have a deal?”
“Wait, you’re serious?” asks Yumi. “We can write down anything we want?”
“Anything. I’ll connect it to the ancient world in some meaningful way, or you kids can lead the discussion.”
Everyone picks up their pen and starts scribbling. I glance over at Diego. He scrawls The annual soccer game against Devlinshire, then folds up the index card and immediately grabs another one. Why Devlinshire is the worst. Then another: Why Mitchell rules and Devlinshire drools.
I turn to peek at Fiona’s card. Already, she’s got three cards folded, and her pen is flying across a fourth. Our favorite Paulie Fink memories, she writes, then adds the card to her pile. She keeps going: Powerful women. Strong women. Women who aren’t well-behaved. Recess. Goats. Are birds just modern dinosaurs and if so, will they ever grow fangs and devour us?
When Fiona runs out of cards, she asks if she can use one of mine. I nod. I’m still staring at my first card, wondering what to write. It’s only when Mags begins walking around the room, picking up cards, that I write anything. I cover the words as I write them, so no one can see:
How to be brave when everything changes too fast.
It’s stupid, I know, but it’s the only thing I could think of. I fold the card in two, and Mags takes it from me before I can change my mind.
Mags smiles, satisfied. “Challenge accepted, Originals. Let’s see how this goes.”
Raising the Scarecrow
“Ugh!” Fiona declares dramatically at recess that day. Nearly the whole class is sprawled out on the grass. Only Diego and the twins aren’t with us. They’re off in the distance, wandering around at the edge of the soccer field.
Henry looks up from his book. “What’s wrong, Fiona?”
“Everything,” says Fiona. Diego’s drawn two big smiley faces on her cheeks, so it looks like she’s got face tattoos. “Summer’s over. The first week of school is always sort of exciting, but now that’s almost over, too. All we have left is boring old school.”
“Paulie would know how to liven things up.” Sam sighs.
“Well,” says Gabby, a little too hopefully, “at least Caitlyn’s here.”
Fiona eyes me skeptically, then frowns. “Caitlyn would never wear a chicken
suit to school.”
“That’s true,” I agree. “I wouldn’t.”
“See?” Fiona continues. She throws herself backward onto the grass and directs her complaints toward the sky. “There’s no more fun. Decades from now historians will point to this moment in history—this very week, even—and they’ll say, That’s it. That’s when the fun died forever. That’s when we entered the Land of Blah.”
She sits up again, flings her arms out to the side. “Welcome to the Land of Blah!” she bellows to no one in particular. “Welcome to the boring-est school that ever existed!”
Yumi plucks out a little tune on her ukulele. “The boring-est school… that ever exiiiisted…”
“I dunno,” I say. “Mitchell might be all kinds of weird, but it’s not exactly boring.”
Gabby looks confused. “What’s weird about Mitchell?”
I want to say, Everything. Everything here is weird. Isn’t that obvious? But the way everyone’s looking at me, I guess it’s not obvious. Not to them.
“Well, for one thing, look around.” I sweep my arm toward the mansion, the broken statues, the long fields. “Literally, this is the only school on the planet that looks like this. And… you know… goats?”
“Well, sure, those things,” says Fiona. She waves her hand dismissively. “But those are exceptions.”
“Plus, other schools have rules,” I add.
“We have rules,” says Willow. She throws out two dice. “There’s a whole student handbook. It’s filled with rules.”
Fiona starts listing them off on her fingers. “No cheating on tests… No throwing balls inside the classroom… No sledding down the back hill on a cafeteria tray.” She glances up at me. “That’s a real one, by the way. It’s written down.”
“Yeah.” Yumi laughs. “Thanks to you.”
“I don’t mean those kinds of rules,” I say. “I mean the rules that people never bother to write down, because they’re already obvious.”
“If it’s not written down, it’s not a rule.” Fiona shrugs, like it’s that simple.
Yumi stops strumming. She squints out at the field. “What in the world are they doing?”
At the edge of the woods, Diego picks up a long, thin tree branch with several broken limbs. He and Thomas start dragging the branch across the grass toward a spot just behind the far soccer goal. As they do, Timothy runs to the far edge of the playground. He examines the bottom half of a broken basketball hoop—just a plastic base and a hollow pole—and drags that toward the goal. I notice Diego’s got Paulie’s good-luck shirt hanging out of his back pocket.
Fiona scrambles to her feet. “Whatever they’re doing,” she says, “I want in.” She sprints across the field, her blazer flapping behind her like a cape.
Diego slides the PICK A WINNER shirt over one end of the branch. Then Fiona and the twins help him lift the branch so it’s vertical. They slide the bottom of the branch into the basketball hoop base. The shirt dangles from those broken limbs.
Just like that, the whole thing is a scarecrow. An odd, headless scarecrow wearing the world’s ugliest shirt.
They secure the contraption by setting some rocks on the base. Fiona sprints back to us. “Hey!” she shouts. “We’re building a whole new Paulie! Good luck for all of us! Come see!”
Everyone starts running toward the weird scarecrow, or statue, or whatever it is they just made. A few steps in, Henry stops and turns around. “You coming, Caitlyn?”
I want to ask Henry what makes this Paulie Fink kid so unforgettable. I mean, I left a school, and do I think for a minute that anyone back home is making a monument in honor of me? That they’re fighting over a T-shirt of mine, or chanting my name?
They’re not. Already, it feels like my friends barely remember who I am.
I shrug. “I never even met Paulie.”
Henry eyes me carefully. “I’m not an Original, either. I didn’t come here until third grade. So you and me, we’re sort of in the same situation.”
Huh. So Henry has been out of the cave, too.
“And Paulie,” he adds. “He came in fourth grade.”
“Well,” I say. “I guess that makes us the Unoriginals.”
“Unoriginals,” he says. He smiles. “Yeah, that’s good. The Unoriginals. It’s like we’re our own little club.”
“We should get uniforms or something,” I say.
In the distance, the Originals have formed a train, each person’s hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them, and they’re dancing around the field.
“You were right, you know,” he says. He looks away from me, toward the other kids. “What you said before. About how the kids here don’t seem to know the same rules as in other places. In my old school kids used to steal my backpack. They’d play keep away with it, and if I hadn’t zipped it up, all my stuff wound up all over the floor. Sometimes even my closest friends did it. Then they’d tell me they were just kidding.” He says this all very matter-of-factly, like he’s not even embarrassed to admit it.
In the distance, they’re chanting again. “Paul-ie! Paul-ie!”
“Anyway,” Henry says, and now he’s looking right at me, “all I’m saying is that different doesn’t have to mean bad. And as long as it’s here, maybe we should try to have fun.”
“As long as what’s here?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“As long as what’s here? That Paulie scarecrow?”
He looks confused for a second, then he pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Yup,” he says. “That’s what I mean. Anyway, I think we’re all Originals now. So let’s go check out our new Paulie.”
I shake my head no, and he jogs away.
I try to picture my friends back home chanting my name: Cait-lyn! Cait-lyn! Cait-lyn! For a second, I can even see it, too: a train of kids dancing their way down my old hallway, past my old locker. But it’s just a quick flash, and then it disappears.
Interview: Henry
Nope, you’re right, Caitlyn. I wasn’t talking about that scarecrow-statue thing when I said that as long as it’s here, we might as well try to have some fun.
No, I guess I wasn’t talking about the Paulie statue at all.
I meant everything. The school. This whole hidden world up here, like our secret fort in the woods.
Miss U
I wish Henry telling me to have fun was enough to make me enjoy being here, but it’s not. Every day I just keep sending texts to my friends back home, wishing I was there. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they don’t. Here’s what it looks like when they don’t respond:
Hey, how are you
This place is still super weird
I have one friend though!
Unfortunately she happens to be in kindergarten, LOL
I liked that photo you sent of everybody all together
I WISH I COULD BE THERE
I miss u
Write back, okay?
Please
Mom says she’ll bring me back home to see you guys
Tell me when is good for you
Mom needs a couple of weeks to plan the trip, she works a lot of weekends
She says her job is tiring
I’m like, Mom, you had a job that was tiring before you moved.
Could have just stayed, LOL
Do you ever watch Next Great Megastar
A girl here is obsessed
But she also likes goats
you got my message about me coming down?
miss you
Then out of the blue my friend Mira writes to tell me that she’s planning a huge sleepover, and that I have to be there. I write back immediately:
Yessssssss!
Tell me when it’s happening!!!!!!
My mom says she needs a little notice is all
omg, I can’t even describe what it’s like here
One kid is really into puppets
And the boys keep playing these dumb wrestling games
And everyone is obsesse
d with an ugly neon shirt
For a while they took turns wearing it
The same filthy shirt
Now it’s hanging on a branch like a scarecrow
They say it’s good luck
Maybe I’ll steal it and wear it to the party LOL
seriously
can
not
wait
It takes some back-and-forth to find a date for the party that I can actually make. When we do figure it out, I’m so excited, I can barely contain it.
October 27!!!!!!!!?
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mom says she’ll drive me!!!!!!
Oh wait.
We have a soccer game that day.
And since I’m the 11th person in the class, they need me on the team.
No, actually never mind. I don’t care.
Just don’t tell my mom about it haha
She’d just tell me I have to play.
I WILL BE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anna Spang will be there too right?
Ha—that’s a joke
I really really really really really really really really really really really can’t wait to come home.
A MONTH WITHOUT PAULIE
The Land of Blah
I’ll say this for television: You never have to slog through any boring parts. Take Megastar, for example: The show jumps from one dramatic moment to the next. If that requires skipping ahead in time, the editors have all these little tricks to show time passing. Need to jump forward a few hours? They might show clouds passing overhead at high speed. An entire day? They’ll show a time lapse of the sun setting, then rising again. They even have tricks for showing longer periods of time: a hand crossing off red Xs on a calendar, or pages from a daily calendar fluttering away into some mysterious wind.
