She's the Liar

by Alison Cherry

  Gianna unlocks the door and shoves her way out into a hallway teeming with girls, but she pauses for a second before the door closes behind her. Her eyes are deep wells of fear.

  “No,” she says over her shoulder. “That’s the thing. We really, really can’t.”

  An email goes out to the cast of Cinderella first thing the next morning. “Due to Ms. Gutierrez’s unexpected departure and the lack of adequate funds to hire an outside director, Brookside regrets to inform you that the fall play is canceled. We will reassess the situation in the spring.” There is no mention of hiring a new drama teacher, no further explanation at all. The email is signed by the Committee, but it’s obviously from my sister.

  It seems weird that there’s nothing from the administration. It makes me wonder if Principal Winslow and Vice Principal Rosenberg even know about what’s happening.

  Next in my inbox is a whole thread of weepy messages from the cast. My phone chimes constantly with texts from Grace, imploring me to come with her to Petition Day tomorrow and beg the Committee to reinstate the play.

  This would all be too much for the Old Abby. That part of me still wants to hide under the covers and mourn the fact that the play is gone. Old Abby wants to tell Christina I’m sick, ask her to bring me soup and hot chocolate and listen to me as I wallow in my sorrow.

  But Abbi knows hot chocolate and tears aren’t going to fix anything. My sister is trying to bring us down, and I’m the only one who can fight her, so I have to do everything in my power to try.

  I respond to the cast email chain. Don’t lose hope yet. My sister is the president of the Committee, and I’m pretty good at getting her to do what I want. I might be able to fix this. I tell Grace that we should wait until next week to petition the Committee together because I want to talk to Sydney alone first. I get back a bunch of grateful, encouraging messages from the cast saying they know I can convince the Committee, and it boosts my confidence. People are counting on me, and I can totally do this.

  I spend every moment that I’m not in class on Thursday searching for Sydney. I try the library, the Student Government Office before first period, her room before and after dinner, the infirmary, the quad, even the chapel. But she must have spies reporting my movements back to her, because I never manage to catch so much as a glimpse of her, and she doesn’t respond to any of my texts. She’s had an entire year to learn every nook and cranny and secret passageway of this school, and I haven’t even been here two weeks. I feel like a detective who’s been tasked with tracking down a master criminal her first day on the job.

  But I know one place my sister will be for sure. She may be working hard to avoid me, but she’d never skip a Petition Day.

  I stand in line after class on Friday, my heart skipping along at a faster pace than usual. Sydney stares me down from the moment I enter the room with my proxy petition, and it’s hard not to launch into the argument I want to have right away. But I know she won’t reveal anything if I grill her in front of the other Committee members, so I force myself to be patient. I present my petition, and she can’t think of a good reason to deny it—it’s for a girl named Preeti, who needs a week-long exemption from PE because of a sprained toe. Sydney seems relieved as I turn to go, and I smile to myself. She has no idea how soon she’ll be seeing me again.

  I pick a spot on an old plaid couch and wait for all the other petitioners to take their turns. It’s boring, but I don’t allow myself to look at my homework or my phone—Syd is wily enough that I’m afraid she might slip through my fingers if I look down for even a moment. Instead I read every piece of paper on the giant bulletin board across from me: reminders about club activities and movie nights and the fall dance with our brother school. There are campaign posters too—elections for sixth-grade representatives are in a few weeks, and it looks like three people are running. The best poster has a really good drawing of a girl in a superhero outfit, flying through the air as her twists and her cape stream out behind her. SAVE THE DAY AND VOTE FOR ANGELINA, it says.

  After what seems like forever, all the petitioners finally clear out, and I hear a burst of laughter as the Student Government Office door opens one last time. I get set to jump up, but it’s just Gianna, Lily, and Maya; Sydney isn’t with them. Gianna spots me and immediately looks away, hustling her friends toward the stairs and out the door.

  I hoist myself off the couch—it has some broken springs, and I’ve sunken in deeper than I expected—and pad down the hall to the office. The door is closed most of the way, but it’s not latched, so I push it open without knocking. My sister is sitting at the table, sorting through a stack of petition forms. “Petition Day is over,” she says without even looking up. “If you want something, you’ll have to come back on Tuesday.”

  “I’m not here to petition,” I say. “I just need to talk to you.”

  Sydney freezes, and when she finally looks up, she does not look happy to see me. “This isn’t a good time,” she says in a flat, expressionless voice.

  I move into the room anyway, pull the door shut behind me, and stand directly across the table from her. She’s wearing those giant lace-up boots again, but I try not to let them intimidate me. “It seems like there’s never a good time. I’ve been trying to get hold of you since Wednesday morning. I can never find you anywhere, and you don’t return my texts or my phone calls. I’ve left you a million messages.”

  She shrugs and looks back down at her pile of papers. “I’m busy. I’m the president, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, I’m busy too. But this is important. Give me ten minutes, and then I’ll leave you alone, okay?”

  My sister rolls her eyes like I’m asking her to shovel a mile-long driveway in the middle of an ice storm. “Fine,” she finally says. “What can I help you with?”

  I sigh, already frustrated. “Come on, Syd. You can drop the act. I know the rest of the Committee thinks you’re all scary and important for some reason, but I’m your sister. There’s nobody else here. Just talk to me like normal, okay?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Sydney says in that same flat voice. “This is how I talk.”

  “It’s not how you used to talk.”

  “Well, things change.” She crosses her arms tight over her chest. “Do you have something you actually want to say? Or are you here to criticize how I speak?”

  I’m obviously not going to find a softer version of Sydney hiding inside this one, so I’m going to have to work with what she’s giving me. “Fine,” I say. “You canceled the play.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Sydney says. “It wasn’t feasible to do the play this fall, so the Committee voted unanimously to hold off until the spring.”

  I know from talking to Gianna that it was only unanimous because Syd somehow forced it to be, but I haven’t figured out how yet, so I can’t call her out on it. “It was important to a lot of people,” I say. “It was important to me.”

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” she says, and it comes out like she’s talking to a five-year-old. “But there can’t be a play without a director, and there isn’t enough money to hire another one now that Ms. Gutierrez has quit.”

  “Ms. Gutierrez was a teacher,” I argue. “Won’t they just replace her? People take drama as a class. Whoever they hire can take over.”

  “It takes a long time to hire new faculty,” Sydney says. “It’ll probably be too late by the time they find someone.”

  “But the whole cast—”

  Syd talks right over me. “The drama budget is ridiculous, anyway. There are two plays a year, and they both need sets and costumes and lighting people and sound people and musicians. Do you have any idea how much that costs? It’s only fair to give some other clubs a turn to work with a big budget.”

  It’s a longer version of what Gianna told me the other day; it’s clear now that she was parroting Sydney. And then I remember my first Petition Day, when that girl with the braids came out of the room bubbling over
with joy because her request for an expensive telescope was being considered. I think about how petty the Committee is—how petty my sister is—about approving or denying requests that don’t require any money at all. And I know this has nothing to do with fairness. This is personal.

  My hands clench into fists at my sides. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the budget,” I say. “Even before Ms. Gutierrez quit, you were trying to sabotage us.”

  “Was I?” Sydney leans back in her chair and crosses her feet at the ankles, shoving those huge boots in my direction like she’s trying to remind me that she could kick my butt. “And what proof do you have of that, exactly?”

  “You kept us out of the theater on Monday when we were supposed to have our read-through,” I say. “You let Robotics Club have the building, and you put signs and caution tape up everywhere.”

  “You’re the one who petitioned for Robotics Club,” Sydney says. “I told you we didn’t have the space, but you made such a compelling case, so I gave them the building that made the most sense. They’re the ones who put up the signs and the caution tape. I was just doing what you asked me to do.”

  “You could’ve at least given us a different room,” I say.

  Sydney shrugs. “I told Maya to contact Grace about it. It’s not my fault if she didn’t.”

  I have a feeling that isn’t true, but I can’t prove it, so I press forward. “You made sure all the pianos in the school would be off-limits that day too. How were we supposed to sing through the score without a piano?”

  “We approved a petition for one piano to be tuned,” Sydney says very slowly and patiently.

  “That’s the only one that wasn’t in use! The band and choir both had rehearsals, and the practice rooms are too small for us to fit in!”

  My sister blinks at me slowly. “I don’t see how any of that is my fault,” she says.

  I want very badly to throw something right now. “You made Ms. Gutierrez quit!” I sputter.

  Sydney snorts. “She got a part in a Broadway show. How could I possibly have made that happen?”

  “I don’t know, but I know you had something to do with it!”

  “I run the Brookside student government,” Sydney says deliberately. “I don’t control the entire world.”

  I hate that everything she’s saying sounds so reasonable, and I hate that I’m positive I’m right but can’t prove it, and I hate that the thing I love is being taken away, and I hate that even one single aspect of my life is in my sister’s hands. She gets to control literally everyone else at this entire school. Why can’t she leave me this one thing?

  “You’re canceling the play because you don’t want me to have it,” I say.

  The corner of Sydney’s mouth quirks up in a humorless smile. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she says. “The world doesn’t revolve around you.”

  “You’ve been against me auditioning since the first day of school. That night we went out for pizza with Mom and Dad, you told me there was no way I could possibly do it and that I should be in Art Club instead. And then I saw you in the auditorium the day the cast list went up—you looked so irritated when you saw my name up there. You obviously hoped you’d be the only successful one at this school, and you can’t stand that I’ve found something I’m good at too and that you’re not the only one with a bunch of new friends, so you’re trying to take the play away from me—”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sydney snaps, cutting me off. “This argument is pointless. The play is canceled, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “There is something I can do about it,” I say. “I’ll come back on Tuesday with Grace and the other cast members, and we’ll petition to have the play reinstated, and—”

  “And I’ll say no,” Sydney says. She picks up her REJECTED stamp and twirls it between her fingers.

  “You’re not the only one on the Committee. The other girls don’t want the play canceled—I talked to them. They’ll vote against you, and—”

  “They won’t vote against me, Abby,” my sister says, and when I picture the look on Gianna’s face when I asked her why they didn’t overrule Sydney, I know it’s true. For whatever reason, those girls will rally around my sister regardless of whether it’s right.

  I stand there silently, cheeks flushed with rage, lava pumping through my veins, and Sydney stares back at me. She looks cool as an ice sculpture. She even looks the tiniest bit bored.

  “I think we’re done here,” she finally says. “There’s nothing left for you to do. Go to dinner with all these new friends of yours and leave me alone to do my work.”

  “We’re not done here,” I say. “We’re not even close to done.”

  I turn on my heel, and I storm out of the Student Government Office.

  I blaze across the quad, so angry I’m probably leaving a trail of scorched grass behind me.

  I burst into the dining hall, and I spot a table full of my castmates. I march up to them, my eyes and my heart and my blood on fire. This is not over. There is something left for me to do.

  Everyone goes quiet when they see the look on my face.

  “Abbi,” Grace says. “Are you okay? Did you talk to your sister? What happened?”

  I take a deep breath, and then I say, “I’m going to run for the Committee, and then I’m going to save the play. Who wants to help run my campaign?”

  Just like always, I wake up wishing everyone else would disappear.

  Olivia and Hannah are up and dressed, crashing around and giggling like demented hyenas as they gather their stuff for field hockey. They’re the ones who get up early for practice, but they also wanted to share the bunks in the inner bedroom, so I’m the one who’s stuck sleeping in the bed next to the main door and being disturbed every single morning. I keep asking Vice Principal Rosenberg to put the Committee in charge of rooming decisions, but she keeps saying no, which is extremely annoying. I roll over in a showy way, flapping the blankets around more than necessary so my roommates are sure to notice how irritated I am. Then I pull my pillow over my head, clamp it around my ears, and punctuate the performance with a “hmph.”

  “Sorry, Sydney,” calls one of them, though if they were actually sorry, they’d make at least the tiniest effort not to wake me up. I can’t even tell which of them is apologizing. At this point they share pretty much everything, including a voice.

  “Bye,” the other one says as they head out, or maybe it’s the same one. “Have a good day!”

  It’s weird how people say that so casually, like it’s something anyone can do.

  I manage to drift back to sleep for almost an hour before my alarm starts blaring. For a few sweet minutes, I allow myself to daydream about staying here all day, alone in my quiet, empty room. But I know I can’t. Today is Petition Day, and I am needed.

  I tell myself it’s as good as being wanted.

  I get out of bed and put on my uniform and my lace-up boots, which I always wear on Petition Day. My Dungeons & Dragons character, Capriana the Rogue, wore giant boots, and even though I don’t play anymore, dressing like her helps me channel her strength. Capriana started out as chaotic good, always doing what was best for the group, but she never got the respect or the power she deserved until she changed her alignment to evil and learned to rule through fear. She didn’t care whether people liked her. She knew you could always cash in on respect.

  I created her, so if she can do it, I can do it. I am doing it.

  I shoulder my backpack and step outside.

  Everything is easy while I’m in class. My mind whirs like a well-oiled machine as I sink into the comfortable lull of schoolwork; I feed my brain information about Romeo and Juliet and the Bill of Rights and French vocabulary, and it feeds me correct answers. My hand is at home in the air. When I’m in class, I don’t have to think about where to sit. People are eager to be my partner for presentations. Sometimes I can even pretend it’s because they want my company, not because t
hey know I’ll do more than my share of work.

  I don’t mind doing extra. I’d rather things be right than fair, and I know they will be if I’m in charge.

  And then the end-of-day bell rings, and it’s time.

  When I arrive at the Student Government Office, there are already ten or twelve petitioners waiting. They shoot me hopeful smiles and flatten themselves against the wall to let me by, and a rush of power sweeps through me from the soles of my boots to the ends of my hair. I think about the time Capriana slaughtered the villagers she was supposed to protect and stole all their money to supply her own group, doling out a little at a time so everyone had what they needed. Was it the fair thing to do? Maybe not. But it worked. She made herself indispensable, and nobody could leave her behind unless they wanted to starve. I’ve worked hard to make myself indispensable here at Brookside, just like Capriana, and nobody can take that away from me. I deserve this.

  Lily Zhang, the other eighth-grade representative, is already in her usual seat when I go inside, her long hair brushing the pages of the book she’s reading. I predict that it’s one of the Chronicles of Wings and Teeth books, and when she flips it shut, I see that I’m right.

  “Hey,” she says. “Lots of people today, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I nod at her book. “Any good?”

  Her eyes brighten. “So good. This is my fourth time reading it.”

  “Getting lots of story ideas?” Lily is pretty cool, and she seems to agree with me about Committee stuff most of the time. But just in case she’s ever tempted not to vote with me, it’s good to give her periodic reminders that I’ve got copies of her secret fanfic about being in a relationship with Brandozer the dragon.

  Lily doesn’t respond, but her cheeks flush as she shoves the book into her backpack. I sit down next to her in my special chair and check my phone. I don’t have any texts.

  The seventh-grade reps, Maya Santos and Gianna Cardelini, show up a few minutes later. It looks like they’ve been laughing about something, but they put on their serious faces as soon as they join us at the table. This is our fifth Petition Day since school started, but I still haven’t gotten used to having only four people on the Committee. It’ll feel more balanced once the election happens and we’re back up to six.