by Beth Vrabel
Lilith throws up her hands. She shifts her body position so her knees are under her, even though it messes up her dress. “I waited a couple minutes. Then I went to Mr. Ackins. He was on the stage. No one was around, except for someone adding a few more details to the Oz backdrop. I said to Mr. Ackins, ‘Hey, I just heard about Veronica. I know the play by heart. I can be Dorothy.’ Perfect solution, right? Wrong. Mr. Ackins just looked at me like I was a dead bug or something. ‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘No way we can make so many changes so quickly. You’ll all get passing grades for drama, but we’re canceling the play. I’ve already contacted the principal.’
“Then he called everyone to the stage. He thanked them for their dedication and told them that due to unforeseen circumstances, they wouldn’t be putting on the show after all. ‘But you all should be very proud of the hard work you’ve done.’ Puke. Then someone shouted, ‘The show must go on!’”
“That was you,” Jason says. “You were the one who shouted that.”
Lilith continues, ignoring Jason’s comment. “Mr. Ackins just wished everyone a good summer—that’s it.” Her fists open and close, over and over. “I went back to his office. I was going to talk some sense into him. I mean, all those tickets we sold!”
“But weren’t they free?” Wes says.
“I know the tickets were free! That’s not the point!” Lilith screeches.
They pause while they hear Mr. Hardy’s heavy footsteps across the hall. “What’s going on?” he barks into the room.
“Nothing,” they all say together.
He gestures with two fingers to his eyes, then two fingers to them, and returns to the office across the hall.
Lilith takes a deep breath and huffs it out through her nose. “I was going to tell him that we deserved to have a play—that we had all worked so hard. I mean, if you could’ve seen that set. Even the art club went above and beyond to make it just glow!”
“Even the art club,” Jason echoes.
“You know what I mean,” Lilith says. “But he was on the phone. ‘Hey, babe,’ he said. ‘I’m free tonight after all.’ He told the person—his girlfriend, I guess—that he wasn’t doing the play after all because the lead quit. ‘Yeah, there’s an understudy, I guess,’ he said. ‘There’s a girl who’d pull it off, no sweat. Honestly, she’s a heck of a lot better than the girl who got the part.’ He laughed, then said, ‘But no way am I letting that full-of-herself brat get the spotlight. You know the type. Total pain-in-the-butt know-it-all who thinks she’s a star, when the truth is, she’s a total bore.’”
“Oooooh,” Wes says softly. “Ouch.”
Ally reaches out and squeezes Lilith’s hand again. This time she doesn’t shake it off.
“He turned around then. He saw me. Do you think he looked ashamed of himself? No. He rolled his eyes. He rolled his eyes. I guess I… I sort of lost it. I whipped around, right into someone—I didn’t even see whoever it was, but I know I knocked him down—and then I was suddenly on the stage.”
Lilith stands and faces the wall, away from the group. “It’s okay if people don’t like me. I’m not easy to like. I know that. I’ve always known that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel things. It doesn’t mean I don’t deserve what I work hard to get. I… I lost it. Everything I always bottle up—everything. Do you know how many people roll their eyes at me every day? Do you think any of them—any of you—understand how hard it is to want to be anyone other than who you are?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to be you?” Ally asks.
“Because I’m boring!” Lilith shouts into the wall. “I’m boring, okay! If I’m not being Lilith the drama queen”—she turns and stretches her arms—“then I’m a nobody. If I’m Lilith the actress, it doesn’t hurt that no one will sit with me at lunch. Because they’re all just jealous of my potential, right? If people roll their eyes and call me dramatic, it’s fine because I’m trying to be dramatic. It doesn’t hurt.”
Rex stands, too. She faces Lilith. “It hurts anyway.”
“So I freaked out. I didn’t even know I was doing it,” Lilith says, letting tears fall down her cheeks. “The whole set—that gorgeous, incredible set—I ripped it apart. I stomped on it, flipped it, trashed it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking! And then, suddenly, it’s like I woke up. And the whole drama team was surrounding the stage. They were laughing at me. They were rolling their eyes. Someone said, ‘At least we got a show after all.’ Mr. Ackins was there, too. He shook his head. He rolled his eyes. Again. And then I was in Mr. Hardy’s room—I don’t remember how I got there.”
Lilith sinks to the ground and buries her face in her propped-up knees.
“So that’s the whole story.”
None of them say anything for a moment. Finally, softly, Lilith adds, “I wish I had apologized to the set designers. They must’ve spent months on the set.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jason says.
“What?” Lilith looks up at him.
“It only took a few weeks. I got a lot of pictures of the set, so I can still use them in my portfolio to get into honors art this year. Where would I keep scenes from Oz after the play anyway?”
“The design was yours?” Lilith gasps.
“Yeah, it wasn’t so much the ‘art club’ or ‘set designers.’ It was just me.” Jason scratches his chin and smiles softly at Lilith. “I don’t blame you. That freak-out? It was epic. It was, I don’t know. I wish I had done it.” He laughs. “I don’t blame you,” he says again. “I blame Mr. Ackins. But don’t worry. I got my revenge.”
3:17 p.m.
JASON “The Nobody”
“You’re up, Picasso,” Rex says.
Jason shrugs. “It’s not—”
“A big deal,” the other four finish.
“Yeah, we know.” Wes laughs. “Spill anyway.”
Jason glances at Lilith, who is watching him with wide eyes. “I was there,” he says, “that whole semester, working on the set design for the play.” He scratches the back of his neck. “My dad, he’s always getting on my case about being off by myself, being a loner. He really means a nobody. He signed me up to be on the drama team.” In a booming voice, Jason imitates his dad: “‘If you’re not going to do sports, you’ve got to do something.’ I don’t think he knew that once I signed up, I could do something other than act. And the art teacher was bugging me to get a portfolio together for high school honors art. So I offered to do the set design. I did all of the artwork for the show.” His cheeks flame. “When the others saw my sketches, everyone else joined other crews, like costume or makeup.”
“Because you’re awesome,” Rex adds.
Jason’s face turns a deeper red. “Whatever. But, like, I have this thing. When I was a kid, I thought of it as a superpower, I guess. Only it’s pretty much the worst superpower ever. I can disappear. I can be right in front of people and their eyes slide right on by me like I don’t exist. That’s how it was with Mr. Ackins. I’d be working on the design and hear him say these awful things—to you, Lilith, and lots of other people, too.” Jason’s jaw clenches. “And I didn’t do anything about it.”
“What could you have done?” Rex asks.
“I could’ve done something.” Jason stares down at his knees. “My dad and Mr. Ackins would get along great. My dad is awesome at sharpening words and stabbing me with them.” His voice booms again: “‘Carla, look! Kid’s hair’s longer than yours. Didn’t you always want a girl?’ Things like that, you know. Focusing on how I’m not, like… well, not like Ally in sports or Wes in social situations.”
Rex motions to Jason. “You said something about revenge?”
“Right.” Jason halfway smiles. “It’s kind of lame.”
The other four groan. “Come on, already!”
“Well, Mr. Ackins. He’d say all sorts of awful things to kids, not knowing or caring that I was there. Like that stuff to Pedro, about not fitting in the costume? That was nothing.” Jason shook hi
s head. “Pedro told him he’d work on the skipping scene at home—remember he had trouble getting that down?” Jason says to Lilith, who nods. “Mr. Ackins said, ‘I’d be happier if you skipped the second helpings this weekend’ and then puffed up his cheeks. Like you said, he had his favorites, and he’d let them say anything about anyone and just laugh. Or he’d add to the mockery and cover it with their laughter.”
Jason turns to Rex. “I was in class when he did that to you, Rex—with the thing about the lice.” He stares down at his knees again. “I wrote it down. All the awful things he said. I wrote them in my sketchbook. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help it.”
Jason peeks at Rex. “This next part kind of involves you.”
Rex’s forehead wrinkles. She sinks to the floor, her eyes on Jason.
“I was in the hall once, and you were there. Ahead of you, that kid, Winston, was getting picked on.” Jason glances at Wes. “By Ashley.”
“Ashley’s a jerk,” Wes says.
“Then why is he your friend?” Rex counters.
Wes looks away. “Maybe he won’t be for long.”
“Ashley was trying to get Winston to give up his Algebra homework,” Jason says. “He was like, ‘Come on, geek! Are you going to make me beat it out of you?’ Saying stuff like that.”
“I remember this,” says Rex, smiling.
Jason smiles back. “Yeah. You just walked up and stood behind Winston, holding up your phone like you were recording. Winston didn’t even know you were there. But Ashley did. And he told Winston, ‘Never mind, dork. I’ll do it myself.’” Jason laughs. “All you did was stand there. It sort of clicked. People will say all sorts of things if no one else is listening—if no one does anything about it.
“So that morning, when Mr. Ackins said all of those things about you, Lilith, I heard them. What he said on the phone—the way he looked at you afterward. I was there after Mr. Hardy ordered you to his office, when he asked Mr. Ackins what was going on. ‘Kid’s crazy,’ Mr. Ackins had said. ‘She’s a drama queen, what do you expect?’
“Mr. Hardy glared at him. Like, I mean, bushy eyebrows confess-your-sins Hardy glare.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Rex says.
“We all are,” Wes pipes in.
“I knew then that Mr. Hardy was onto him, but what could Hardy do when no one ever heard the things Ackins said? No one ever made him face his words.” Jason pauses. “Mr. Hardy told Ackins to go to his office, too. I started to write down what he had said in my sketchbook. But it was like the words were too big or something.
“I had these black spray paint bottles for the set design. I shoved them into my bag, and I went to the parking lot.” Jason stares at his hands. “Mr. Ackins’s car is white. It was white, I mean.”
“No way!” Lilith gasps.
Jason takes a deep breath. “It was so stupid—I could’ve gotten in so much trouble. I mean, I did get into a lot of trouble. I sprayed the whole car with his own words. I wish I would’ve gotten a picture of it before the police arrived. For my portfolio, I mean.”
He looks up at the rest of them. They’re all staring, not blinking or moving.
“I’m just joking. I didn’t do it.”
Wes falls to his side with a groan. Rex laughs and shakes her head. Lilith balls up a piece of notebook paper and nails Jason in the head with it.
Ally just shakes her head. “Why didn’t you? That would have been so perfect.”
Jason takes a big breath. “There was a car seat in the back of his car. Did you know he’s a dad? So, I pulled out the papers instead. I told you that I wrote the words, but I sketched the people, too. Just their eyes, I mean. I sketched their eyes when they heard him say those things. I went back into the school. I went to the copier room—I told you, I can be, like, invisible. No one stopped me. I made forty stapled copies. And then I went around the school. I put a copy on every teacher’s desk. I put the rest in the teacher’s lounge. And then I went home.
“Mr. Hardy showed up at my house that night with the booklet.” Jason shakes his head. “He told my parents he thought I had done outstanding work on an art project. My dad was floored. He then asked me to be part of an anti-bullying campaign at the high school this year. I’m supposed to recruit all of you.”
Jason ignores a second balled-up paper shot to the head.
“That’s why you’re here?” Wes says. “To recruit us into some stupid little club?”
Jason shrugs. “I guess. I mean, Mr. Hardy made it really clear that I’m here because I shouldn’t have used office supplies. But I think the club is the real reason. He told me to figure out a way to talk to you guys about it today.”
“I am not going around school telling people to be nice to each other and tattling on bullies,” Rex says. “That’s like putting a giant target on your back.”
“Yeah, no, thank you,” Lilith adds. “I already have no friends.”
“Exactly,” Rex says.
“That’s not true,” Ally says. She gets up and stands between the two of them.
“So we’re, like, friends now?” Rex says with a scowl on her face.
Ally shrugs. “Why not?”
“Yeah.” Rex snorts. “Sit together at lunch. Save a spot for Amelia. We’ll paint our nails and have sleepovers.”
Wes and Jason glance at each other. “I’m not going to paint your nails, man.”
Jason grins and wiggles his fingers at Wes. The nails are inked black with Sharpie. “No need.”
Lilith crosses her arms. “I will. If any of you want to sit with me at lunch, that’s cool with me.” She narrows her eyes at Ally. “Even you.”
Ally smiles. “That sounds nice.”
No one says anything for a minute. Wes stares at his fingers. “Yeah, okay,” he says eventually. “I’ll say hi to you guys in the hall.”
“Oh, wow,” Rex says and fans herself with her hand. “The great Wes will say hi to me in the hall? Picasso, this club of yours is working already.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Wes says. He throws his head back. “I’m going to try to change, okay? I just don’t want to be like, ‘oh, yeah, sure, we’ll all be besties now.’ I don’t know what high school’s going to be like. None of us do! All I know is I’m off student council. Mr. Hardy told me when I got this detention. I’m going to have to figure stuff out. Figure out who I want to be. And, yeah, it’d be cool if we all could hang out again. But I don’t know.”
“I was thinking about that. What if it isn’t a club for kids?” Jason says. “What if it’s a club for teachers?”
“Seriously?” Rex asks.
Jason nods. “Yeah, like we’d talk to teachers. Mr. Hardy said I could structure it however I want, so maybe we say it has to start with us telling teachers what we need first, how they should handle things, what they should say.”
“Well, this club thing explains a couple of things,” Lilith says. “Like why Mr. Hardy was leaving us alone so much all day. He was giving you space to recruit us.”
“Stupid, huh?” Jason says. “Why would he put me in charge? I’m no leader. I’m a nobody.”
“Yeah, and I’m just a flirt.” Wes crosses his arms.
“And I’m the drama queen,” Lilith murmurs.
“Just an athlete,” Ally adds.
“Rebel over here,” Rex finishes. She leans forward and joke-punches Jason in the shoulder. “You’ve led us all day. You just didn’t know it.”
“Yeah, it was pretty annoying, actually,” Lilith says.
Rex laughs. “You know what’s funny? All of you guys are here, and I’m the one everyone thinks of as a bully. But each of you is here because you tried to—or did—push someone into doing what you wanted.” She shakes her head.
No one says anything for a minute. Then Ally slowly says, “Why are you here, Rex?”
“Do you even have to ask? Aren’t I like known for being in trouble?” Rex says, a smirk on her face.
Ally raises an eyebrow.<
br />
“What?” Rex says.
Lilith shifts to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Well, you’ve been tracking TBN for six months.”
“I told you—Mr. Hardy is giving me detention—”
“All the time, yeah,” Wes says. “But Mrs. Mitchell said it’s the first time she’s had kids here.”
Rex pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. “Guys, we have less than twenty minutes until we have to do this stupid skit. We’ve got, like, nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Ally says. “Lilith told us she has the whole Wizard of Oz down. Here’s your chance.” Ally smiles at Lilith.
“I don’t know…,” she says, swaying back and forth a little and fluffing her dress.
Wes winks at the rest of them. “Or we could—”
“Oh, all right! All right,” Lilith says. “I’ll do it.”
“And what about the essay, the one that Mr. Hardy expects us to write?” Rex points out.
Jason holds up his sketchbook. “Got it covered. So long as you guys are, you know, in the club.”
He hands Rex the sketchbook. The other three gather around her to read the essay.
“Wow, man,” Wes says. “This is perfect.” He grabs the pencil from behind Jason’s ear and signs the essay. Passing the pencil around, they each sign it.
“I don’t think Mr. Hardy’s going to like it,” Rex says.
“Who cares? It’s honest,” Ally says. “So that’s taken care of. And we have plenty of time for your story, Rex.”
Rex grabs a fistful of her hair and tugs. “Not much to tell, is there? I had to be here today, just like you guys.”
“But why?” Lilith asks.
Quieter, Jason says, “You can tell us.”
Rex’s jaw flexes. “What did Mr. Hardy tell you, Jason?”
