by Nancy N. Rue
“That day in the cafeteria when you came up to me. If you knew so much, why didn’t you just say, ‘If Kara hadn’t tipped him off … ‘?”
“Kara?” Selena turned abruptly to her other leg, but not before I saw her realize her own mistake.
“It wasn’t Kara, was it?” I said. “It was you.”
“What difference does it make who it was? It was the truth.”
“Only you didn’t know it, Selena. You just made it up.”
She whipped her head around to look at me. Her eyes were in paper-thin slits. “Fine. But I was right about you.”
“I know,” I said.
But I was wrong about Kara. So wrong.
I could still hear her crying, I don’t even know what I did!
Because she didn’t do it.
The top half of my body folded over my legs, and I buried my face in my hands.
“Roid, what’s goin’ on? Hey—Roid.”
Rafe was at my side, but I couldn’t answer him. All I could cry was, “I was wrong! Oh my gosh, I was wrong!”
I vaguely heard Ms. Edelstein say, “Is she okay? Cassidy— what is it? Is it your knee?” And then I felt hands, warm and damp, on my back. Ruthie’s hands.
“Dude—you want me to call 9–1–1?” Tank said.
I pulled my head up in time to see him motioning to Rafe with his cell phone—and Selena hurrying away.
“No, moron.” Uma hurried to us and gave Tank a swollen-eyed look before she went to her knees in front of me. “You need something?” she said. “You want me to call somebody out?”
“That Asian girl,” Ruthie said.
“No!” I shook my head at them all, gathered around me like they were about to do an intervention. “I just realized I made a really bad call about somebody and—I just messed up, okay?”
“I hate it when I do that,” Uma said.
“What else is going on?”
I looked at Ms. Edelstein, who was surveying me over the tops of her glasses. “You’ve looked like you’re about to receive a life sentence ever since you walked in the door today.”
“It’s the hearing,” Ruthie said.
“Ruthie—” I said.
Ms. Edelstein shushed me. “What hearing? What am I missing?”
I was suddenly too emotionally wasted to do anything but nod at Ruthie—who started with Genesis and told Ms. Edelstein and all of Loser Hall about what I was going to be up against the next afternoon. Nobody even seemed to take a breath until she was through. Even when she was, none of them said anything. Every face looked as hopeless as I felt.
Except Ms. Edelstein’s. “All right,” she said. “Enough with the gloom and doom. Why do we think Cassidy can’t do this thing? She stood up to all of you, didn’t she? You were the scariest bunch of hoods I’d ever been stuck with until she came in.” She glanced at Ruthie. “Not you,” she said. “I just thought you’d taken a vow of silence.”
“Now we can’t shut her up,” Uma said. And then she smiled at Ruthie. She actually smiled.
“You can do this,” Ms. Edelstein said to me. Her eyes took on a gleam. “Just stand up there and pretend you’re telling Loser Hall where it’s at.”
*
When I got to the Center, Ben greeted me with a grin and gray-eyed sparkle.
“The MRI was negative for a new tear,” he said. “Just some inflammation. It shouldn’t put you too far behind schedule if you want to play in the fall.” He did his wonderful head tilt. “It’s all up to you, of course.”
“Actually,” I said, “it’s kind of up to what the board decides.”
“And doesn’t that come back to you convincing them they’d be nuts not to let you participate? Which, compared to the things you’ve already been through, should be a slam dunk.”
“Cute,” I said.
I got started on my calf stretching, but I couldn’t get my mood to stretch with it. Even with everybody cheering me on—Mom and Boz and Rafe and Ben, and all of Loser Hall— didn’t it still come down to me convincing the board that I didn’t know I was taking steroids? If I could have proven that a month ago, I wouldn’t have been ousted in the first place. They might say I was now a better person than I’d been back then, but the fact remained that I had no proof that I had not been told that what I was taking was an illegal substance. The idea was truly in their heads that I was a user. Changing their minds was going to be like unringing a bell.
I stopped to rest my now screaming calf. I guessed I could stand in front of the board and tell them what I’d told Gretchen. Somehow, I didn’t see that working. All I could do now was say pleasepleaseplease. I wondered if the widow in the RL story was that eloquent.
The minute I got home, I checked to see. And then I fell asleep with RL hugged to my chest, and the words “please, please, please” still on my lips.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mom picked me up right after school to drive me to the hearing. The sun was sparkling on the snow on the peaks, and not a single cloud marred the sky. I wished my mind could have been as clear. Seeing Mom helped.
“I thought about bringing you a change of clothes,” she said. “Maybe make you look older or something. But then I thought, no, you should just be you.” She reached over and squeezed my good knee. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to be anybody else.”
I gazed out the side window and wished I was just going to the Center to moan over how many squats Ben made me do.
“Is Dad coming?” I said.
For the first time since I got in the car, Mom pushed her hair behind her ear. “I told him it was still on.”
From the way she accelerated through the yellow light, I was pretty sure she’d told him a few other things too.
“If it weren’t for me, would you and Dad ever fight?” I said.
She pulled her eyes from the road for an instant to stare at me. “We don’t really fight over you, Cass. We fight over some fundamental differences between us that come out punching where you are concerned. You don’t need to worry about that—especially not today.” She picked up her purse from the console and put it in my lap. “I brought a bar of seventy percent.”
“I love you, Mom,” I said.
“Loved you first, Cass,” she said.
*
The woman who was obviously in charge, judging from the way she threw her shoulders back when she told people what to do—which seemed to be everyone—told us to sit in the front row so I could come up to the speaker’s chair when they called me. Yeah, they might have made it more nerve-wracking, but I didn’t see how. Especially with Mr. LaSalle sitting across the aisle from us. He must have gotten a fresh buzz cut for the occasion, because his scalp showed angry pink as he cracked his knuckles like he had way more important things to do. He could have skipped the whole thing, and that would have been fine with me.
Four other people assembled and sat at the front table. One of the women had bleached hair and drawn-on eyebrows, and the other owned several chins and wore her glasses on a chain like she was afraid they were going to get away. I wouldn’t have put it past the man beside her to try to steal them; he kind of looked like a grown-up version of Lizard. The final board member, another guy, was the last to join them. He was the only one who looked directly at me, with his head lowered to reveal the front half of his very bald head. It was like being stared at by a skull.
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” I whispered to Mom.
“Seriously?” she whispered back.
I shook my head. But it would have made a good excuse to get out of there.
Once Head Lady got things started, there was no escaping. While she read the decision Mr. LaSalle had written on March 9, every glare from the front table was directed at me. I was sure I couldn’t have felt guiltier if I’d actually been guilty. Mr. LaSalle’s report would have earned about a C for structure in Mr. Josephson’s class, but he got his point across: I was a deliberate drug user and I needed to be shunned.
Next, Head
Lady read the official appeal. She wasn’t two sentences into it before I knew my father had written it, filled as it was with words nobody used in normal conversation and statements you would only argue with if you wanted your head bitten off. It was like he was right there, pointing his entire self at the five people on the board. I guessed in a way he was. I felt about as much warmth and security as I would if he’d actually been sitting next to me.
Now the looks the board gave me ranged from quizzical to annoyed. Chain Lady squinted through her glasses. Lizard Look-Alike made notes on a pad. Skull sighed so hard through his nose I could see his nostrils flaring. Dad might have been great in court, but his words on a page didn’t seem to be convincing anybody. Why had I thought I could do this on my own?
When she was finished reading the appeal, Head Lady jerked her head in my direction.
“We want to hear this in your own words, but a few people have come forward on your behalf and we’re obligated to hear them.”
It didn’t seem like I should turn around and look to see who they were—not with everyone at the table shuffling around like all these “people who had come forward” were an extreme inconvenience.
Head Lady consulted her file. “Ms. Edelstein, is it?”
“Yes,” said a familiar voice behind me.
“Isn’t that your study hall teacher?” Mom whispered to me as Ms. Edelstein hurried up the aisle.
Actually, I thought it might be an imposter. The woman who took the speaker’s chair wasn’t holding a stack of geometry papers and a red pencil.
There was a mumble of introductions, and then Ms. Edelstein was speaking. Her voice had its usual dry edge.
“My sixth-period class is a study hall for at-risk students,” she said. She paused to give Mr. LaSalle a dark look. “It’s a class Cassidy Brewster should never have been placed in, because the only thing she is at risk for is losing sleep over other people’s problems. However, I’m glad she was placed in my class, because she has turned kids around in there that I wouldn’t have given you two cents for four weeks ago. Every single student in there—and we are talking everything from a potential suicide to a hardcore graffiti artist—has had his or her life changed because of this young woman.”
Chins-and-Chain was nodding, and I felt my shoulders rising from their sag.
“Have you ever seen evidence that she has continued to use steroids?” Skull said. “Rage, for instance?”
I sucked in my breath as my past meltdown scene with Ms. Edelstein in the hall outside Room 109 flashed through my mind.
But she shook her head. “Cassidy doesn’t do ‘rage.’ Righteous anger, yes. And if I were her at this moment—” Her eyes found mine. “I would be angry too.”
Head Lady thanked her politely, and Ms. Edelstein left the chair with a smile for me. Chins-and-Chain was still bobbing her head. Lizard Look-Alike was still scribbling on his pad. I didn’t know what it all meant, except that I owed Ms. Edelstein. I owed her big time.
“Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward?”
I did start to turn around then, although I didn’t need to because P-W’s jewelry jangled as she swept up the aisle and took the speaker’s chair. No way. No freakin’ way.
“In what capacity do you know the student?” Head Lady said.
“‘ The student’?” Mom muttered. If her hair had been tucked any tighter, she would have pulled it out by the roots.
“I’m Cassidy’s art teacher,” P-W said. “She has become one of the top students in my class.”
Lizard Look-Alike raised his pencil. “What does her being an artist have to do with whether we should let her play basketball?”
In spite of my current agony, I could barely smother a grin as P-W turned on him. “A true artist is a well-disciplined individual, sir. Otherwise, she could never turn out work like this.”
She nodded to somebody in the back, and suddenly the white wall behind the table was alive with a photograph that, once someone else dimmed the lights, showed Rafe and me standing next to our Legal Wall. My heart turned over.
“Impressive.” Blonde-With-Eyebrows leaned forward to gaze at it. Until now I’d assumed she was napping with her eyes open. “This is hers?”
“Hers and that of the boy there with her. This represents hours of work and dedication, and mine is not the only class where she shows that kind of commitment.”
“I’d like to speak to that,” said yet another voice from the back of the room.
There was absolutely no way. Mr. Josephson could not be there. I stifled a groan. Every inch of ground Ms. Edelstein and Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward might have gained for me was about to be lost.
Head Lady ran her finger down her file. “Mr.—”
“Josephson. Randall Josephson.”
He strode to the front like the boardroom was his classroom and the five people at the table merely students who didn’t understand the assignment. P-W stood to give him her chair, but he shook his head and held up what appeared to be several typewritten sheets.
“Is that a prepared statement, Mr. Josephson?” Head Lady said. “Time doesn’t really allow—”
Mr. Josephson cut her off somewhere around the knees. “I don’t think there is anything any of you have to do this afternoon that is more important than making sure this young woman gets a fair shot at her future.”
“I would agree with that,” Blonde-With-Eyebrows said.
Chins was nodding. Lizard Look-Alike made a circle with his hand and said, “Go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
Mr. Josephson wasn’t two words into it before I realized he was reading my essay on The Scarlet Letter. The one where I told the entire story. I could hear Boz’s suggestions in there, but the words were mine, and because of Ruthie, I hadn’t missed a detail.
“‘Since that day,’” Mr. Josephson read at the end, “‘I have walked the halls of my school with a large invisible L on my chest. In a place where I was once hailed as a star, an athlete who brought honor to the school, a leader among my peers, I now stand on a scaffold every day and suffer the humiliation of failure and betrayal and broken dreams. Some of that I brought on myself. I should have discussed any medicine I was taking with my parents. Maybe I knew deep down that the secrecy I was sworn to was suspicious and wrong. That was my mistake, and I’m trying to learn from it. But I wonder—do I have to wear this scarlet letter for the rest of my life?’”
Mr. Josephson raised his eyes to the room. “It is signed, ‘Cassidy Brewster.’”
The room was silent. Even Mr. LaSalle had stopped working his knuckles. I looked at Mr. Josephson through a film of tears and mouthed the words, Thank you.
“We appreciate your coming forward, Mr. Josephson,” Head Lady said. “We’ll take your comments under advisement.”
She held out her hand as if she expected Mr. Josephson to put the paper in it. But he crossed to me and placed it in my lap.
“I knew you had it in you,” he said.
There was a blue A+ at the top.
Mr. LaSalle stood up. “May I say something?” he said, and he then proceeded to talk before anybody could tell him not to. “I don’t argue with the fact that this student—”
“Cassidy,” my mother said.
Head Lady blinked.
“Her name is Cassidy,” Mom said. “I’d appreciate your not referring to her as ‘the student.’”
“Amen to that,” said Chins-and-Chain.
Mr. LaSalle’s entire head turned red, down to the roots of his haircut. “Fine. I don’t argue with the fact that Cassidy is a stellar student, she’s had a turnaround, blah-blah-blah … but the policy is clear. You take steroids, you’re out. Period. End of story.”
Lizard Look-Alike raised his pencil again. “But we’ve heard evidence that the stu—Cassidy—wasn’t aware the medication she was taking was steroids.”
“What evidence?” Skull said. “She wrote a nice paper, supposedly telling all, but it’s still just her word.”
“Thank you.” Mr. LaSalle t
hrew up his hands as if that decided it, and sat back down.
“Is there a problem back there?”
Head Lady was craning toward the rear of the room, where words were being exchanged in hoarse whispers. As much as I would have loved to have seen them just then, I hoped all of Loser Hall hadn’t shown up. I really didn’t want them to watch me go down—and it was obvious now that that was where I was headed after all.
“What’s going on?” Head Lady said.
“She didn’t know she had to get on the speakers’ list,” someone answered.
“Who?”
“Look, I’ve heard all the character witnesses I care to hear,” Skull said.
“I’m not—I have proof,” still another voice said.
Another voice I knew.
Gretchen’s voice.
*
Gretchen looked so cobweb frail as she told her story, I was afraid she might blow away before she finished. As far as Skull seemed to be concerned, it wouldn’t have mattered. While I was wrapping all my hopes around her testimony, he was visibly busy unwrapping them.
Even when Lizard Look-Alike stopped scribbling on his pad and Chins kept nodding and Head Lady and Eyebrows took to giving each other “aha” looks, Skull leaned his chair back and shook his head.
“How is Ms.—”
“Holden,” Gretchen said.
“How does Ms. Holden’s statement give us any more than we already have?”
“It corroborates Cassidy’s testimony,” the blonde woman said.
“And we’re supposed to just believe the person who provided her with the stuff in the first place?” Skull shrugged. “It’s not like she’s under oath.”
“What would satisfy you, Mr. Blake?” Head Lady said.
“Because we all want Mr. Blake to be satisfied,” Mom said under her breath.
Gretchen stuck up a tentative hand.
“You want to add something?” Head Lady said.
“I just want to say that by coming forward with this, I’ve given up my chance of having my med school suspension removed.”
“Well, aren’t you just the noble one?” Skull said.
Head Lady gave him a withering look, but he still said, “I’d like to see some hard evidence.” He let the front legs of his chair down. “Look, if we’re going to override a district policy, we have to have more than he-said-she-said.”
