by Katie Henry
“Her trousers don’t have belt loops,” Father Peter says. “Yours do, so you need a belt. Please go see Ms. Edison, she’ll give you one to wear for today.”
“So you’re saying if I took a knife and cut the belt loops off,” I say, “I wouldn’t have to wear a belt?”
Father Peter looks worried. “Do you have a knife?”
“No,” I say, gritting my teeth, “but it’s a stupid rule—”
“At some point, you’ll have to learn to follow the rules, whether or not you like them.”
“Why?” I ask, and I’m instantly embarrassed at how childish I sound.
“Because, trust me,” he says, looking at me with what might be pity or might be understanding, “your life will be so much harder if you don’t.”
Sister Helen’s lecture in theology is about the Annunciation, where the Angel Gabriel appeared to the teenage, engaged Virgin Mary and was basically like, “Hey, little girl. You’re going to get pregnant with a god-baby, and everyone’s going to think you’re a cheating slut and your fiancé will try to divorce you, and then you’ll go into labor in a stable and flee to Egypt later that week because everyone in power wants to murder you and your god-baby. But don’t worry, you’ll get some sweet frankincense and myrrh out of it.”
At least that’s what I hear, as I sit next to Avi and Lucy, who keeps glancing at me. I know she’s worried because I didn’t say a word at lunch. What I’m really getting out of Sister Helen’s lecture is that Jesus’s childhood royally sucked. Having to move around all the time, knowing more than other people but being ignored, and going through all this shit even though God, his father, is literally omnipotent and could make everything easier with a snap of His giant, godly fingers. So when Sister Helen won’t stop talking about God leaving His son in the loving step-care of elderly carpenter Saint Joseph so Jesus could live among the humans he would later die for, I can’t take it anymore.
“What a dick,” I say, in what was supposed to be a mutter but turned out a lot louder. There are suddenly forty eyes on me, and none are wider than Lucy’s.
“I—what?” Sister Helen says, leaning on her desk for support.
“He’s a dick,” I repeat, and this time I do mutter it. “God. For doing that.”
“For . . . sending His son to die for your sins?”
“No,” I say, trying to clarify, “not for— So he knocks Mary up, right?”
“She becomes pregnant miraculously,” Sister Helen says, clearly uncomfortable with my choice of words.
“Technically, the Holy Spirit did the impregnating,” Lucy whispers to me.
“Whatever, she gets pregnant however she gets pregnant, and Jesus is born, and God sits up on His cloud throne and doesn’t even talk to Jesus for the next thirty years. What kind of dad does that? What kind of father makes his kid the absolute lowest priority on his list, and I know, I know, he’s busy running the entire world, but it’s still shitty and he’s still a dick for doing it!”
I’m definitely not talking about Jesus anymore. I know it, and from the look on Lucy’s face, she knows it, too. Everyone else is watching me like I’m a train wreck of a reality show, too entertaining to be disturbing. Sister Helen takes a moment to process what I suspect is the least reverent speech she’s ever heard.
“Michael,” she says, and doesn’t sound mad, only deeply, deeply confused. “I think it might be good for you to take a break. Outside.”
That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.
Lucy comes to visit fifteen minutes later, carrying the bathroom pass. She sits down next to me.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I squeak my shoes against the linoleum.
“No, you’re not.” I start to protest, but she cuts me off. “You don’t have to talk about it. But you also don’t have to pretend you’re fine when you’re not.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“You threw a tantrum in theology. You called God a dick. You’re not fine.”
“Says the girl on Sister Joseph Marie’s personal hit list.”
“Wildly unfair comparison,” she says, picking herself up off the floor. “Don’t forget we have study group today, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, wishing she’d leave me alone already. The longer she stays, the more I want to tell her about what’s bothering me, and the more I want to tell her, the more uncomfortable I get.
“You know, that rant you went on—for a minute, it almost sounded like you were comparing yourself to Jesus. But you’d definitely never do that.”
She gives me the smallest, slyest smile, and heads back to class.
By the time I get down to the basement that afternoon, the group’s already embroiled in the favored Heretics Anonymous discussion topic: how much this school sucks.
“Sister Joseph Marie made me take my earrings off today,” Eden’s telling everyone as I sit down in the circle. “Because they have these Celtic spirals on them, and she said that was a pagan symbol so I couldn’t wear it, which is—ugh. Just because it isn’t a cross doesn’t mean it’s evil.”
“You know what I’m really sick of?” Avi says. “The constant plug in the morning announcements about helping the elementary school kids down the block prepare for their First Communions.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Lucy says. “They’re cute. It’s fun.”
“They keep using the word ‘choice.’ Like, help support these kids in their choice to receive the Lord’s body,” Avi says. “What choice? They’re eight.”
“Okay,” Lucy agrees. “But so? When they’re older, they can choose not to be Catholic, if that’s what they want.”
“I said no to getting confirmed,” Eden points out. “It turned into a huge awful fight with my mom, but every religion agrees people have free will, right?”
“Not Calvinists,” Lucy says, and I’m glad to see no one else knows what she’s talking about, either.
Avi shakes his head. “I could become a Buddhist or a Mormon or a Republican and I’d still be a Jew, too. My mom’s Jewish. And her mom is. I didn’t get a choice in that.”
“You don’t want to be Jewish?” Max asks. “You get to ride around on chairs and stomp on glasses.”
“No, I do,” Avi says. “But not because of chairs or glasses. It’s a community, we take care of each other. Even if you don’t keep kosher or even believe in God, you’re still Jewish and you still belong to this huge line of people who fought to survive, over and over, so you could exist. I like being Jewish, but it’s not something I chose. And I don’t think most Christian people had a choice, either.” Avi pushes his glasses up farther on his nose. “Because of colonialism.”
“Wait. What?” Eden says. Lucy groans.
“I’m serious. All of you were born Catholic because someone conquered and colonized your ancestors. Ireland, Korea, Mexico.” Avi gestures to Eden, Max, and Lucy in turn.
“The Irish were Catholic before they were colonized,” Eden says.
“Um, Korea was a colony of Japan,” Max points out. “They weren’t Catholic.”
“Okay,” Avi concedes. “But—”
“And I’m Colombian, but obviously don’t let that stop you,” Lucy says.
“Same thing.”
“They’re not even on the same continent.”
“Same idea!” he says. “I’m Jewish because everyone before me was, and you’re Catholic because Spanish assholes forcibly converted your ancestors. How’s that a choice?”
Lucy sighs. She looks over at me, probably realizing I’ve been quiet all meeting. Not because I’m feeling ignored, but because I don’t have a single thing to add to this conversation.
“What do you think, Michael?” she asks, like I’m the weird kid in the corner at recess.
“I think this is stupid,” I mutter.
Lucy frowns. “Colonialism?”
“Modern history would agree,” Avi says.
“This is stupid,” I say. “Sitting down here a
nd doing nothing but complaining is stupid.”
Lucy blinks at me. She looks around at the rest of the group. “This is what we do. We listen to each other, we try to help. What do you want us to do instead?” she asks. “What else can we do?”
Hearing Lucy say that, with such a half-hearted, defeatist shrug, makes my blood turn cold, then way too hot.
“Anything!” I yell. Lucy shushes me, but I wave her off. “You can do anything other than sit in this room and bitch about how terrible this school is. You can do anything else.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Avi snaps.
“It’s a support group,” Eden says. “That’s what support groups do. They talk.”
“We can’t change this school,” Lucy says. “All we can do is be there for each other.”
“But what about everybody else?” I ask. “The people who aren’t in this room—why don’t they get a support group?”
“Because they wouldn’t all fit down here,” Max says.
“Look, if this school hurts us, it’s probably hurting other people too,” I say. “Maybe we just don’t know about it. And they should know they aren’t alone.” I look at Lucy. “Because it’s worse feeling alone here than other places.” There’s an idea that’s been churning in my head for the last half hour, but I’m not sure how to put it into words. “I think we should go public.”
The four of them explode into a chorus of nos, and I raise my voice.
“I mean Heretics Anonymous should go public. The rest of the school should know about us, even if they don’t know exactly who we are.”
“You’ve lost it,” Avi says. “First you told a nun God was a dick, and now you want to lead a revolution.”
I glare at him. “All we do is talk. Talk about how much St. Clare’s sucks, and how it’s so unfair, but we don’t try to make it better. I think we can make it better. And not just for us.”
Lucy’s mouth is twisted into a worried line, but there’s a light in her eyes, and I can tell she’s already thinking up ways to make St. Clare’s livable, while also evaluating every potential obstacle in doing so.
“Okay,” she says. “How?”
“What?” Avi yelps. “Lucy, no. Do you want to go to college? Because I want to go to college, and if we get caught—”
“What about the sex ed assembly?” I say to Lucy. “The one you were talking about the other day. Why do you hate it so much?”
“Everyone hates it,” she says.
“Theresa doesn’t hate it,” Eden says.
“Theresa’s in love with the chastity speaker,” Lucy says. “Too bad he’s married.”
“Too bad he’s closeted,” Avi mumbles.
“Okay, but why does everyone hate it?” I ask.
“So there’s this guy—” Max says.
“Purity Paul,” Avi interjects.
“—and he comes every year and talks to us about how sex is evil and gross and bad, except when you’re married. Then it’s holy and special,” Max says. “And after he’s done, they show us this video that basically says the same thing but also has super-bad production values.”
“Production values? Half the stuff in the video isn’t even true,” Lucy says. “That’s why I hate that assembly. They lie to us and think it’s justified.”
“What do they say?” I ask. “Condoms are Satan’s party balloons?”
“More like, condoms fail one in six times. Or masturbation turns all your love inward, so it’s harder to love another person. Or birth control will make you infertile.”
“So we find a way to tell the truth,” I say. “Maybe we highjack Purity Paul’s talk.”
“In my experience, he’s very possessive with his microphone,” Max says.
“What if we made our own video?” Eden says. “To replace the other one. What if we made one that was true?”
“What, and then pop it in the DVD player?” Avi says. “How long would that last, ten seconds?”
Lucy nods. “I think it’s better if we use the original video. And every time that video says something untrue, we correct it. Like, annotate it, with the right information.”
“It wouldn’t be that hard to re-edit the video, if we could get the DVD,” Eden says. “And last year, I think only Father Peter and Sister Helen supervised the movie. We might be able to get through a few minutes before they notice.”
“Sister Helen has the DVD in her classroom, on the bookshelf,” Max says. “I saw it once when she confiscated my cloak.”
They all turn to Avi. He sighs. “I guess robbing a nun is one for the bucket list.”
Lucy looks at me. “So you want to do this?”
For a second, I wonder why she’s asking me. And then I realize. She’s handing over the reins. Definitely not forever, probably not even until the end of this meeting, but she’s giving me permission to make a plan. The last time I was responsible for something, it was a beta fish, and it died after I overfed it. Hopefully, this will be more successful.
“Let’s do it.”
9
EVERY DAY, EXACTLY four minutes after the lunch bell, Sister Helen exits her theology classroom on the second floor, leaving the door closed but unlocked. She takes the stairs down to the first floor, turns left, and stops at the vending machine by the front entrance. She buys a small bag of gummy bears, makes a detour at the teachers’ lounge to get the rest of her lunch, then returns upstairs to her classroom, taking the staff elevator back up.
This, Lucy calculates, gives us approximately five minutes to enter her classroom, find the DVD, and get out before anyone sees.
“Maybe less,” she says, as I stand by her locker, a few feet away from the theology classroom. “If the elevator doesn’t take forever to come. But it usually does.”
Lucy is pretending to reorganize her locker and I’m pretending to watch. Her locker is already intensely organized, without a single piece of lined paper crumpled at the bottom or an assignment sheet sticking out of a book. Our plan is not nearly as well organized as Lucy’s locker. The assembly’s only a week away, and with all the work we have to do on the annotation, today is the best day to pull off the DVD heist. Lucy spent a few days tracking Sister Helen’s lunchtime routine, since she’s the one who’s going to steal the DVD. I still don’t think she should be the one to do it, but Lucy is the one with the most plausible alibi, if she gets caught. Anyone would buy sweet, pious Lucy picking through a nun’s bookshelf for some weird Catholic book. Me, not so much.
“Are you nervous?” I ask her. Because I am, so I can only imagine what she’s feeling.
“About my first attempt at breaking and entering?” Lucy says.
“It’s not breaking and entering if the door’s unlocked. It’s just entering.”
Lucy shuts her locker and turns to me, hugging her book bag to her chest. “I need you to take this seriously,” she says, her voice low. “You’re my lookout. I’m counting on you.”
Something swells in my chest, and I can’t tell if it’s pride that Lucy needs me for something, or absolute pants-shitting fear I’m going to screw it all up.
It’s nearly ten minutes past the bell when Sister Helen closes the door to her classroom and heads down the stairs.
“Two hundred seconds,” Lucy says, looking a little paler than usual. “No problem.”
There’s another row of lockers next to the classroom’s entrance, which cuts off the line of sight from the door to the rest of the hallway. I’ll stand there, watching out for anyone who might be looking for Sister Helen, and of course Sister Helen. My job is to act natural and inconspicuous.
I’m going to throw up.
There’s no one else in the hallway as Lucy opens the theology classroom door and takes a first tentative step inside. My eyes are fixed on the hallway ahead when someone taps me on the shoulder.
“Hey,” Max says as I recover from my heart trying to jump outside my body. “Avi and Eden sent me to check on you guys.”
I’m happy to
see him, and not just because he isn’t a nun. If Max is here, Lucy’s fate isn’t solely in my hands.
“Lucy just went inside. I’m going to watch this way—” I point up the hallway, the direction Sister Helen left. “—you can watch the other way.”
As Max and I stand by the lockers in silence, my eyes keep darting between the hallway and the theology room door, where Lucy is doing something that could get her expelled. Something that was my idea in the first place. I should be in there, not her, and I don’t know what I’ll do if she gets caught, because I like her.
I’ve been trying to pretend like I don’t, but I do. I like her. When she touches me—usually by accident, like when she brushes my arm reaching across the lunch table to check Avi’s Latin homework, but sometimes on purpose, like when she grabbed my hand to lead me down the stairs to the first HA meeting—it’s like every nerve in my body wakes up. Like being on a roller coaster, that jolt you feel the moment you start the biggest plunge.
I’ve only had one girlfriend: Rebecca Blanchard, in ninth grade. It lasted three months and largely involved watching reality TV shows about weddings (her idea), sloppily making out (my idea), and eating whatever my mom had baked that afternoon (both our ideas). The relationship fell apart because I started to get the feeling Rebecca liked my mom’s brownies more than she liked me.
Lucy can’t like me either, at least not the way I want her to. I know that. She’s waiting for someone, someone as smart as she is, as kind as she is, someone who talks to God and hears something back. I have to tell someone about this. If I don’t, I’ll explode and do something really stupid. Like kiss Lucy. Or commit arson.
Avi already thinks I’m a bad influence. If I told him I wanted to get Lucy naked, he’d probably have me killed. Eden would tell Lucy everything. Max is my best bet, and who knows when I’ll get him alone again?
“Can I ask you something?” I say, peering around the bay of lockers to check for Sister Helen. No one’s there.
“Sure.”
I take a deep breath and try to ignore the prickling on the back of my neck. “Do you—do you think Lucy’s hot?”
