Jericha flushed. “Hailey, you will be sorry if you do it again.”
“Well, I can tell you now, Abby Invisible isn’t going anywhere.”
“What gives you the right?” Cassidy started back in. “We aren’t bothering you—”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re bothering everybody—at least everybody who isn’t a member of the homecoming court or a regular presence in the paper’s prep sports stories. You all try to lord over the school like we should be flattered to be in your presence. You tear a new one into anyone who isn’t interested in looking like you, dressing like you, or freaking being you. If you guys don’t want to be material for my comic, stop giving me a reason.”
“Or else?” Jericha asked.
I glared at her.
Jericha shook her head at me slowly. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Keep drawing your little pictures. That’s gonna go well for you.”
They turned and left. I could only imagine how that was going to go down when they reported to Skyler. I’d like to say I couldn’t care less, but that wasn’t true.
I felt a little chill run up my back, suddenly feeling a bit vulnerable. I had laid down the gauntlet once again. It was like getting up from the Bitch Squad’s lunch table and making the choice all over again. But isn’t that life? A series of gauntlets being laid down by you or before you? Choices you make then defining your character? How could I back down now?
“Hey, you’re Hailey, right?”
It came from my left, from some girl I didn’t recognize. She wore track pants and a T-shirt, and she looked extremely fit. My mind started racing. Another unhappy customer? Maybe an enforcer for Skyler? Does Skyler have enforcers? Am I about to get my ass kicked by some chick in track pants? Does she know krav maga? If she does, I’m screwed.
Oh, well. Let’s get this over with. “That would be me.”
“Loved your comic,” the girl said. “So brilliant.”
Oh, thank goodness. I don’t have to learn krav maga. Yet.
“Thanks,” I said genuinely.
“Hey, I’m Lauren,” she said. “I’m on the track team, and … well, I’m on the track team. I’m otherwise pretty invisible. I totally related to Abby.”
“That’s so nice,” I said. “And you’re not invisible. You run. By choice. That makes you some kind of warrior woman.”
Lauren laughed. “I love it. If I’m mad or frustrated … running totally makes me feel better.”
“Running makes me feel mad and frustrated!” I said. Which was true. Oh my God, did I hate running. “And tired. And miserable. So thanks for doing it so the rest of us don’t have to.”
I told Lauren I’d catch her later and headed to class. As I walked, some girl called out, “Abby Invisible rocks!”
“Yeah, she does,” boomed a deep voice behind me.
Chris! I spun around, spinning straight into—
—Andy.
I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face.
“What’s up, squirt?” Andy asked. “You making more trouble?”
“Nope!” I said. “I’m keeping my nose totally clean.” I tapped it with my finger. “See? It’s shiny!”
“Yep, it looks very shiny,” he said, then making me self-conscious about my nose.
“Really shiny?” I asked. “Like I need to powder it?”
“I’m a guy,” he said, with his mouth pursed sideways and his head tilted, reminding me of a confused puppy. “How do I know if a girl needs to powder her nose? You’re the one who said it was shiny!”
“I meant clean,” I said. “Squeaky clean. Out of trouble.”
“Right,” he said. “You and your nose are staying out of trouble. It’s Abby Invisible who’s causing all the ruckus.”
I wrinkled my still-shiny nose, really wishing I had a mirror. “‘Ruckus’? Really?”
“Play innocent all you like, Hailey. I know a couple of the girls already gave you a little shit about it.”
“So I shouldn’t have done it?”
“I’m not saying that. I thought it was hilarious. Just keep in mind who you’re messing with.”
“Is that you talking, Andy? Or is it a message from Skyler?”
He looked hurt for a second. “No! No. I’m your friend, Hailey. I’m just looking out. Don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Or … Anya. Or your other friends. Skyler … well, let’s just say she doesn’t handle rebellion too well.”
“Thanks, Andy,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“Wait, one more thing,” he said. “If there’s any way I can help, you know, let me know.”
“Okay,” I said. “I will.”
It was almost impossible to walk the halls those first few days after the comic came out without having someone say something flattering. Outside of Skyler and her minions—who shot me dirty looks, flipped me the bird, and generally tried to make daily life unpleasant for me whenever they could—everyone who mentioned the comic to me was appreciative. The Invisibles loved it. It was like Abby was their spirit animal. And the fact that it had such a positive response from almost all of the school somehow made them feel better about themselves. I was psyched.
And then I got called to our guidance counselor’s office.
Okay, that’s nowhere near as worrisome as getting called to the principal’s office, which comparatively is nowhere near as worrisome as getting called to see the school resource officer, which is a pleasant term for the police officer—who can actually arrest you, with handcuffs and everything!
Still, my mind was flooded with concerns and questions as I headed to see Mr. Muñez. I never mentioned the true targets of my scorn in my comic, but it was pretty easy to put two and two together, even for the faculty. Sure, we have free speech, but ten minutes on Google will tell you that some schools try to give you a lot less leeway on how much free speech you express in their publications.
Maybe this was all too good to be true. After all the attention and praise, I’d pretty much convinced myself I was about to get in trouble for mocking the fortunate: an ironic twist.
My fears seemed to be confirmed from the second I sat down.
“Thanks for coming over, Hailey,” Mr. Muñez said. “I’ll get right to it: People are talking about your comic strip.”
“Oh, really?” I replied nervously.
“Yes,” he said. “It certainly caught the students’ attention, but some teachers pointed it out to me as well.”
“The newspaper staff approved it,” I stammered, quickly adding, “A lot of students actually liked it.”
He looked at me oddly.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “They should … it’s quite good.”
Now I looked at him oddly. “Does this mean I’m not in trouble?”
“That depends on how you define ‘trouble,’” he said.
“Pretty much the standard way, Mr. Muñez. You know, detention, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, jail, prison, Mrs. Long’s advanced calculus class.”
“No, none of that,” he said. “I—”
“Mr. Muñez,” I said quietly. “Seriously, please just don’t take the comic strip away. I’m sorry if some people got upset, but I think it actually does some good. It’s my way of speaking out for kids who don’t feel they have a voice at the school. It’s—”
“Hailey…”
“No, really. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll clean the toilets with a toothbrush. I’ll—I mean, I’ll even run track.”
He looked puzzled. “Run track?”
I sighed. “Yes. If I have to.”
“So you’d rather clean toilets with a toothbrush than run track?”
“I really hate track.”
“Eh, artists.” He sighed. “Hailey, let’s take this from the top. I wasn’t clear before: You’re not in trouble. I’m just the guidance counselor. The only way a student in my office is in trouble is if she wants to get a scholarship to be an opera si
nger, and she sounds like Mr. Spaid.”
We both laughed out loud at that, and I instantly relaxed. Mr. Spaid’s voice was a running joke around the school. The science teacher sounded like Batman from The Dark Knight but with walking pneumonia.
Mr. Muñez continued, “But just because it’s ‘art’ doesn’t mean it should be hurtful. The girls were upset by it and there is a line, albeit a fine one. Make sure it’s satire and not too specific. But otherwise, have fun with it.”
“Thanks, Mr. Muñez,” I said, turning back just before leaving.
“But there is just one thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’d better not see a ‘Mr. Muñez’ in there,” he said with a big smile. “But if he is, he’d better be awesome.”
I smiled. “He will be. And don’t let Miss Hoyt hear you use that word.”
“What word? Why?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” I said.
* * *
I remained on a high all day. Nothing could bring me down, not even the more-than-occasional vicious glances from Skyler and the rest of the Hateful Harem. All the way home, I balanced my lot in life with theirs, and mine was looking up. They’d never be more than shallow shrews. Someday their looks will dry up, and they’ll be nothing but bad attitudes with good hair. Extremely wealthy bad attitudes with good hair, but whatever. Maybe their parents would get convicted for tax evasion.
It was really nice to have my art be appreciated. I hadn’t even been aware of how much I really needed a pat on the back or a few flattering and encouraging words. The last month or so had been an emotionally taxing stretch. Dad was busy with work all the time, Mom seemed more stressed than usual, and even though Noel and I hadn’t been close in a long, long time, I missed her. She’d replied to a few of my emails with curt replies, while others weren’t answered at all. Mom said Noel was just super-busy with school, and I believed that, but having read her diary, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Noel was blowing me off because I wasn’t worthy of her time. She didn’t know how much better I looked now, how I’d used her journal to become more confident. As far as she knew, I was still a loser—and she, true to form, was being a hater.
So all this was racing through my head when I approached my house and saw two cars in the driveway. That never happened this early in the day. There might be no cars, or there might be one car (Mom’s, and actually it’s a minivan-SUV hybrid, not technically a car, but whatever). But there was my dad’s car, right there next to what I liked to call Mom’s “SUVan.”
What the hell was he doing home?
I approached the front door nervously and slowly opened it, peeking through as I did, and—
“Holy shit! You’re home!”
(In my defense, the s-word was out of my mouth before I could even form a thought. That’s what you get when you’ve barely seen your dad the past few weeks and suddenly he’s standing in the foyer when you walk in, arms crossed, staring at you.)
Dad was stone-faced. “Apparently I’m going to need to keep a closer eye on you, if that’s the sort of language you’re throwing around lately. What a way to greet your only father.”
Oh, thank God, I thought. I knew when Dad was messing with me. And Dad was messing with me.
I set down my book bag and pointed a finger at him. “Well, if I saw you more than once every sixty days, if I had, you know, a strong paternal role model in my life, maybe I wouldn’t have to resort to such gutter language as—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dad said. “I get the picture.”
“Dad, so what are you doing home so early? And where’s Mom? Her car’s in the driveway…”
“Oh, she’s next door at the neighbors’, you know, with the lady, her son’s your friend…”
“Yeah, Andy,” I said.
“Right. They’re doing … uh, I don’t know.” He smiled. “Chick stuff.”
I laughed. Man, I’d really missed him.
“So, Dad, what’s up? Why are you home so early?” Had the school called him?
“Hailey,” he said, “I know this move has been rough on you, and I’ve felt bad that I haven’t been around much, so I moved a few things around today. I thought maybe you and I could go do something. I mean, if you don’t already have big plans with … um, Channing Tatum or Taylor Lautner or some other Hollywood hunk or something.”
Oh God. Dad memorized those names just to make that joke. He must have googled “Hollywood hunks” and gone with whatever he found.
I rolled my eyes, but really I found it sweet. Just the fact that he took time to set up a dorky little joke for me meant he still cared. And honestly I’d been beginning to wonder.
“Actually, I have a little soiree with Zac Efron set up, but for you, I’ll call and let him down easy,” I said.
Dad looked confused. “Zac? Um … is he … a boy from class?”
I shook my head and laughed. “You’re a sad old man, old man! Where are we going? Make it good…”
Dad smiled. “Well, I happen to have two tickets to the Egyptian in Hollywood, which is showing a classic film tonight.”
“Yeah? What’s it about?”
“It’s about a man who’s stuck in a rut, he can’t escape his daily existence, he’s doomed to go through the same boring, unfulfilling life forever…”
I liked where this was going. “And who’s in this fine film?”
“Well, there’s a young man named Chris Elliott, and a lovely actress named Andie MacDowell, and the star is a young up-and-comer by the name of—”
“Bill Murray!” I squealed.
Dad chuckled. “Yeah, I think that’s his name. You in?”
“I’m in.”
“Is Mom coming?”
Dad shook his head. “Oh, you know her. She knows how much we love Groundhog Day. She’s going to let us go have fun together. We’ll get pizza and ice cream too. Just like old times.”
I paused for a second. “Nope, not just like old times.”
“What?” he asked. “We’ve watched this movie fifty times. You love this movie. And pizza … and ice cream.”
“I know,” I said. “But let’s do Chinese chicken salad instead of pizza. And frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but—”
“Wow,” Dad said, apparently just noticing. “You’ve been dieting. Yeah, of course I’ve noticed.” He stood up, leaned over and kissed me on top of my head. “You look amazing, sweetheart.”
And even though I knew he was covering for not noticing before, he still somehow made it all better. I wished I saw him more, but we were going to have fun that night. And we did. It was the first time I’d ever seen Groundhog Day in a theater with an audience, and it was a blast.
I worried that these opportunities to just be a kid with my dad were becoming a thing of my past, but for that night, I just sat back and had a great time.
* * *
The following Monday—my eyes not entirely open after having two glorious days to sleep in—I was in the main hallway, heading toward my locker.
That’s when I smelled it.
Fish.
The entire main hall stunk of disgusting, rotting fish. Every face I passed had the same expression, the one I could only assume was involuntarily plastered on mine: blegh.
“Oh my God,” one girl said, and held her nose.
“Ugh,” another student groaned.
My eyes were almost watering from the stench. I neared my locker with the plan to get in and get out as quickly as possible, because something was rotten in Denmark—that much was certain.
In retrospect, it should have tipped me off that the stench only got more pungent as I neared my locker. By the time I was turning the lock, it was downright suffocating. And when I opened my locker, yep, that’s right:
Shakespeare only had it half right. Something sure was rotten, but it wasn’t in the state of Denmark … it was in my locker!
I felt myself simultaneously turning green from the sten
ch and red from anger and embarrassment—I have no idea what color that makes, but it’s probably good that I couldn’t see my face.
My locker and all its contents—books, notepads, backpack, you name it—were all coated in fish guts, parts of fish, whole fish, the whole enchilada. (My mind flashed on an enchilada and that turned into a dead fish enchilada and I felt a little vomit rise up in my throat, then choked it down.) It was like someone was trying to catch a great white shark with all the chum in my locker.
But wait: Just like in every terrible late-night infomercial, there’s more!
Dangling from a hook above the marine massacre that had become my locker were two Barbie dolls tied together in the sixty-nine position.
If that were not charming enough, the scissor sisters had a note attached to them:
Hey Lezbo! Since you obviously love
Anya’s tuna so much, here’s a snack
we KNOW you’ll enjoy!
I stepped back, woozy and nauseated. I didn’t need CSI to determine who was responsible for this disgusting prank. Skyler and her crew had to know that breaking into a locker is considered serious stuff, out-of-school-suspension level at most schools. That’s not even factoring in the juvenile and obviously homophobic implication of the message.
Had these dumbasses even heard of hate crimes or gay bullying? And if I’m not even gay, I pondered, is it still gay bullying? I’m pretty sure it is. What assholes.
And PS, If we were gay? We’d make a damn hot couple.
They went above and beyond the call to hit me below the belt. It looked like things were only going to get uglier.
The rest of the school day was (thankfully!) uneventful, and I was exhausted when I got home. I hit my bed and figured I’d be out like a light until dinner, but even though I couldn’t move a muscle, my mind was racing. There was so much going on. Every single day was a new adventure, good, bad and everything in between.
Something occurred to me: Before we moved, things usually sucked, sure, but they sucked in a fairly predictable way. I mean, there were no expectations. Every week was kinda the same: No boy would be interested in me, most of the girls would be bitches, the teachers would be an uneven mix, maybe one good one, definitely one shitty one, and the rest treading water in a sea of mediocrity.
Confessions of a Hater Page 11
