So Not Okay

by Nancy Rue

“I never refuse you girls a trip to the restroom. Somebody else just went too—”

  “We work at Tori’s house after school though,” Winnie said, “so we’ll get our project done.”

  Ophelia looked like she wanted to bop Winnie over the head with her science book.

  “You’re really into it then.” Mr. V let his mouth go into a grin. How could somebody that cool and nice be taken in by the Wolf Pack?

  “Here’s our Ginger,” he said.

  He unfolded himself from her desk and did a big swoosh thing with his arm like she’d just arrived on a red carpet. She didn’t even look at him. I didn’t blame her.

  “I want that too!”

  That came from Heidi, who had strolled in behind Ginger. Mr. V went over to swoosh her into her desk, and Ginger dropped into hers. Her face was paler than Winnie’s hair.

  “Since we have like seven seconds left,” Ophelia said to me, “you should ask if everybody did their research so we can do our proposal this afternoon.”

  Why did I never notice before how bossy Ophelia was? I almost told her if she wanted to know she could ask them herself, but Winnie was already half crying so I said, “Did everybody do their research?”

  All heads nodded.

  “My mom made us brownies for our meeting,” I said.

  “Cool,” Mitch said.

  Nobody else said anything.

  Maybe this was something even chocolate couldn’t fix.

  Lydia already had the brownies on the table and real hot cocoa heating on the stove when we got to my house that afternoon. Mom had replaced the Valentine’s place mats with the ones shaped like silhouettes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The brownies were on a plate that had part of the Gettysburg Address on it.

  “Didn’t you tell your mom this wasn’t a party?” Ophelia whispered to me while everybody was piling their jackets on the coat-tree.

  I just shrugged. Speaking of being over people.

  I really wasn’t “over” Ophelia. I just wanted the real one back.

  When we were all settled with what sure tasted like a party, I pushed the proposal sheet to the middle of the table. “We’re on step four: what basic facts have you found that you need to learn more about before you can answer your question?” I shrugged. “We all did our research, so I guess we should go around the table and say what we found out.”

  I thought Ginger would shoot her hand up before I even got the words out, but she had been totally quiet all afternoon. We hadn’t heard the foghorn voice one time.

  Mitch told us she’d go first, and she pulled out a picture of a brain and showed us what part handled judgment and making decisions and self-control.

  “There’s no part for ‘mean,’ ” she said. “But stuff can go wrong and make people all twisted. That’s what I’m looking up next.”

  “So you still think it’s all about the brain,” Lydia said.

  “It is,” Mitch said.

  “Let’s call that a hypothesis.”

  “You mean, like on a triangle?” Winnie said.

  Lydia actually giggled. “No, honey, that’s a hypotenuse. Not to be confused with hypothermia or hippopotamus.”

  Winnie’s whole face twinkled. I had to give it to Lydia. I hadn’t seen Winnie do much of anything but whimper for weeks now.

  “I’ll do mine,” Winnie said. “I looked up whether more boys are meaner than girls.”

  “Right,” Lydia said. “So you’ll know whether it has anything to do with gender.”

  “That’s whether you’re male or female,” Ophelia said.

  Like we didn’t all know that. But at least she was trying to impress Lydia instead of griping about Ginger.

  “And what did you find out, Win?” I said.

  Almost invisible lines formed between her eyebrows like ditto marks. “It said boys used to be meaner, but now girls are catching up. Only their mean is different from boys’ mean.” Her eyes ran down the page. “Oh, so my next thing I’m going to look up is how mean is different in girls and boys. Is that okay?”

  “Sounds good to me, Win!” I said.

  I didn’t usually speak in exclamation points like Ophelia, but I was feeling so relieved that the whole thing was going well, they just sort of popped up at the ends of my sentences.

  “What did you find out, Phee?” I said.

  “I was supposed to find as many definitions for the word mean as I could.” Ophelia’s brown eyes got huge. “There are, like, fifty of them. One of them was . . . here it is, ‘small.’ I didn’t get that.”

  Lydia laughed again, this time letting her big head of curls drop against the back of the chair. “I hope it didn’t say all things that are small are mean!”

  “You’re totally not!” Phee said. “You’re one of the nicest people I ever met. I mean, I don’t know you that well, but you’re taking time off work to help us when you don’t even have to. That’s just so . . . nice!”

  Ophelia was switching back and forth so fast between Evil Phee and Good Phee, I was starting to get dizzy.

  “I’m not always so nice,” Lydia said. “But I do try not to be mean. So where are you going from here?”

  Ophelia blinked her big brown eyes. “Home.”

  “She means what are you going to look up next?” I said.

  “Um, I guess I’m gonna figure out which definitions we’re talking about?”

  Lydia nodded at each person around the table. We all ended up nodding too, but I didn’t think any of us knew why.

  “You’re a smart little tribelet,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Tribelet?” Winnie said. “That’s so cute!”

  “What does that mean?” Mitch said.

  But Ophelia said, “Ginger hasn’t told us what she found out yet.”

  At least she didn’t call her “that Ginger girl” like she wasn’t even there.

  Although she might just as well not have been there. Until that minute, Ginger hadn’t even really made eye contact with anybody. Now she glanced up at Lydia and dropped her gaze right back to the brownie she hadn’t so much as nibbled.

  “What were you supposed to look up?” Ophelia said.

  “I was supposed to find five reasons psych—psy—counselor people think kids bully.”

  “And?”

  I couldn’t help it. I kicked Phee under the table. I mean, jeepers.

  Ginger just shook her head.

  “What’s up, Ginger?” Lydia said.

  “I lost it,” Ginger said.

  How could she lose it? She carried everything with her in her backpack.

  “Let’s backtrack.” Lydia’s voice was patient. “When do you remember having it last?”

  “When I got to science.”

  “So you left it there?” Ophelia said.

  Ginger was shaking her head.

  “What did you do with it in science class?” Lydia said.

  “You took it to the bathroom with you.”

  We all looked at Mitch.

  “How do you even know that?” Ophelia said.

  “Because. I time it every day to see how fast she asks for the bathroom pass.”

  “Why don’t you say it to her instead of about her,” Lydia said.

  Mitch turned to Ginger. “You broke the record today. Six seconds.”

  “So you took your folder with you?” I said.

  “I wanted to go over my part while I was in there. I was excited about telling you guys.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ophelia said.

  But I did. It all came together like the last few pieces of one of those gigantic jigsaw puzzles you do when everybody comes for Christmas.

  Ginger taking the pass and the folder with her to the restroom.

  Heidi asking Mr. V if she could go too because she knew he always said yes to the girls.

  Ginger coming back all white-faced and quiet.

  Heidi coming back like she just won a beauty contest.

  Or like she just did something to
Ginger’s folder.

  “Heidi threw it in the trash, didn’t she?” I said.

  “No,” Ginger said. “She threw it in the toilet. After she used it.”

  “I so did not need to hear that!” Ophelia shook her hands like something was stuck to them that she couldn’t get off.

  “I think we all needed to hear it,” Lydia said. “Isn’t that what your project is about?”

  Ginger didn’t answer because she had covered her face with her chunky hands and was crying into them. But Mitch grunted a yes, and Winnie bobbed her head up and down, and I said, “Ya think?” as I got up to get Kleenex for Ginger.

  “How are we supposed to do our proposal done without her part?” Ophelia said.

  Lydia just looked at her the way she looked at Nestlé when he was about to do something bad.

  “Okay, Ginger . . .” Ophelia said, looking like it hurt to say her name. “How are we supposed to get this done without your part?”

  “Do you remember any of it?” I said, handing her the Kleenex box.

  “I remember all of it.”

  Lydia looked around the table. “Who’s going to write this down?”

  Winnie raised her hand and clicked her pen.

  “Give it a shot, Ginge,” Lydia said.

  Ginger squeezed her eyes shut and dragged in a breath Dad probably heard up in his office. “Reason number one: because they’re bullied at home so they need someone to take their anger out on. Reason number two: because they’re insecure—they don’t think they’re worth anything so they’re proving all the time that they are by getting power over other people. Reason number three: because they get away with bossing everybody around at home so they think they can do it anyplace. Reason number four: because they’re afraid of people who are different so they try to squish them down. Reason number five: because they’re afraid other people will hurt them so they hurt other people first.”

  Ginger sagged like she was out of air and opened her eyes.

  “Jeepers,” I said.

  “Did you get all that, Winnie?” Lydia said.

  Winnie was still scribbling, but she nodded.

  Mitch didn’t even grunt. She just said, “That was awesome.”

  “I’m not done,” Ginger said. “Next I’m gonna find out why people think that stuff. Y’know, like do their parents teach them that or what.”

  Huh. And the Wolf Pack had thought she wasn’t smart enough for our section.

  “This is a killer proposal,” I said. “So, Phee, how are we gonna present it to Mr. V?”

  Before it was even out of my mouth I remembered, and before I remembered, she was saying, “I don’t know. How are you going to present it to Mr. V?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Mitch said. “Not like the real project.”

  “But Kylie and them had pom-poms.” The whimper was creeping back into Winnie’s voice.

  Even though I kind of wanted to shake Ophelia like a pom-pom right then, I shrugged and said, “I guess I’ll just read it to him.”

  “We could take turns,” Winnie whimpered, as if she would rather have a cavity filled.

  “I’ll do it,” Ginger said. “Since I messed up and let Heidi throw my folder in the toilet . . .”

  “You didn’t ‘let’ her do anything.”

  We all sat up straight in our chairs when Lydia said it. Even Ophelia. Lydia’s eyes were blazing, but it was her voice that made me hold my breath. It wasn’t a voice you ignored.

  “What that girl did is not your fault, Ginger. If you had fought her, you’d probably be suspended right now. If you’d grabbed it out of her hand, she would have run back to the teacher and told him a whole sob story about how she was just trying to help you and you yadayadayada. If you had told the teacher, you’d be labeled a tattletale. I don’t even have to know this girl to be able to tell you she has a power you don’t understand.” Lydia leaned forward, and everybody else did too. She seemed bigger than us at that moment. “But you’re going to understand it. That’s what you’re all about here, and that’s why I’m helping you.”

  Nobody argued. Not even me. Because about halfway through that I got the feeling Lydia had seen that same scene go down herself. And that she had watched some important paper of hers get flushed down a drain.

  Yet now it didn’t seem like anybody could have power over Lydia.

  Ginger sat up tall in her chair. Her face was blotchy, but the blueberry eyes were shiny even in the middle of the red crying rings. Winnie finished writing and handed the paper to Ginger.

  “How are we gonna make sure our whole proposal doesn’t get pee—doesn’t get destroyed?” Ophelia said.

  Mitch held out her hand. “I’ll keep it.”

  “Good choice,” Lydia said. “For now.”

  While everybody else was getting their coats on, Ophelia dragged me into the bathroom. She looked like she wanted to flush me down the toilet.

  “You were supposed to present to Mr. V,” she said.

  I parked myself on the edge of the tub. “What is your deal? You don’t have to do it. You don’t even hardly have to be there. Kylie can think you had nothing to do with any of it.”

  “Why are you all mad at me?”

  Because you’re almost treating Ginger as bad as they are. That’s what I wanted to say. But Ophelia wasn’t really waiting for an answer.

  “She’s probably gonna do the whole proposal from memory, and Mr. V’s going to think it’s amazing,” I said. “It kind of is.”

  “Are you starting to like her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” Both of her palms were facing me. “I’m not going to stop being your best friend because you can’t get her out of our group and you’re not presenting the proposal. But I’m still upset. You’re being really selfish, Tori.”

  I was getting annoyed.

  “You heard all that stuff she said about the reasons and what Lydia said about Heidi being powerful. And Heidi isn’t even as powerful as Kylie!” Ophelia grabbed my arm. “What if they do all that stuff to us? That’s what I’m so scared of.”

  “Hey, Ophelia,” said a voice outside the door, followed by heavy banging. It was Phee’s brother. “Did you fall in the toilet? Dad’s waitin’ for ya.”

  “You can’t do this to us,” Ophelia said to me.

  And then she flipped her hair around and left.

  I just stood there and did a little hair flipping myself. Because what about what everybody was doing to Ginger?

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day, Tuesday, Ginger did present our proposal to Mr. V totally from memory. Although Ophelia pouted so hard I could have sat on her lower lip, Mr. V praised us like we were getting the Nobel Prize, but not just for that. He also thought what we were saying was awesome and that we were going to say some important stuff the whole class needed to hear. He said we were awesome, and even though it had taken us a while to hit our stride, we were really on a roll.

  Yeah, and he said it all so loud the entire room heard it all the way from the lab. I knew that because the minute I left the classroom at the end of the period to go to lunch, I felt warm breath right around my ear. It didn’t smell like Ophelia’s grape cough drops or the Downy Winnie’s mom used in her laundry.

  It smelled like strawberry shampoo and brand-new clothes and the gum only the Pack got away with chewing.

  “You do this project and you are so dead,” the peppermint breath said into my ear.

  With a flip of splashy hair, the breath owner was gone. I didn’t even have time to see which one of the Pack it was.

  After that, I took my time getting to the cafeteria. I even considered going into the restroom and having lunch with Ginger. For about half of a second.

  It wasn’t that I was scared to face the Pack. I just wanted to get alone and figure out what “dead” meant.

  “Let’s get a move on, Tori,” Mr. Jett said behind me. “What’s with you and falling behind lately?”

  What
was with him always being the one to catch me doing it? I picked up a little speed, hoping he’d pass me so I could slow down again and think, but he ushered me into the lunchroom like we were going to a wedding. I’d have to define “dead” later. But I couldn’t get Ophelia’s words to leave me alone: What if they do all that stuff to us? That’s what I’m so scared of.

  Our group didn’t meet at my house after school that day because: (A) we didn’t have anything to talk about until everybody finished the rest of their research and (B) I had a date with my mom. Thinking about that got me through the rest of the classes, which wasn’t easy with Ophelia acting all stiff and Winnie looking like Gumby between the two of us and the Pack firing arrows at me with their eyes. And Ginger suddenly acting like we were attached with Velcro.

  I am not even kidding.

  From the start of lunch on, you’d have thought we’d signed a BFF treaty.

  As she followed me from class to class, she asked me exactly thirty-two questions about Lydia, Nestlé, my dad, my mom, and my last four science projects. Before I could even answer one, she moved on to the next so I stopped even trying. She didn’t seem to notice.

  She asked Mrs. Fickus if she could move her seat to sit near me in English. Mrs. Fickus said she wouldn’t change her seating chart. It was the first time I thought I might like Mrs. Fickus.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like Ginger, even the way Ophelia didn’t like her, which was more like not liking what could happen . . . Anyway, I just didn’t want to get in trouble, which is what happened in Spanish when Mrs. Bernstein did let Ginger change her seat to sit in front of me, and she whispered questions to me the entire class period. When I finally looked at her to say, “Shhhhh!” Mrs. Bernstein got all over me for talking in class.

  And then she shook her head at Kylie, and Kylie shook hers back.

  Big throw ups.

  Ginger smelled kind of like laundry that sat around too long before it got washed, and her voice could lead you through the San Francisco fog. That was definitely irritating as a stiff tag in the back of a new T-shirt, but I could’ve just shrugged that off. I mean, she was smart. She came up with stuff I never even thought about, like:

  Do you think Lydia’s parents are little people too? How does that work?