Don't Judge Me

by Lisa Schroeder

  “Thank you, Hazel, for trusting us with Pip,” Ms. Lennon said. “I think he’s going to teach us a lot of important lessons. Lessons we will remember the rest of our lives.”

  They weren’t the only ones.

  I didn’t cry until I got to the car. And then I cried a whole lot. Dad hugged me and didn’t say a word, and for that, I was grateful.

  “We need to get going,” he finally said. “I don’t want you to be late.”

  I nodded. “I know. Let’s go. I’ll be fine.”

  As he drove toward school, I texted Tori.

  I just said goodbye to Pip and I’m so sad.

  It took her a while to respond, which wasn’t like her. Finally, my phone pinged.

  Oh no. I’m so sorry. But you found him a good home, right? I have to go to the dentist this morning. Then Mom is taking me out to lunch afterward. Talk after school?

  I texted a quick reply, then put my phone away. It’d be just me this morning. Would the tripping boys let me go, or would they be even worse since I’d be alone? I guess I was about to find out.

  When Dad pulled up to the front doors, he said, “You’re a good person, Hazel Wallace. I’m proud of you. I understand that you’re sad, but with time, it’ll get better. You’ll see. Try and have a good day, okay? I’ll pick you up since you don’t have your bike.”

  “Yeah, I know. Bye, Dad.”

  “Bye, sweetheart.”

  Just my luck, Aaron and Preston were hanging out right inside the front doors.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Preston said. “The girl who’s hoping Ben will want to kiss her ugly camel lips.”

  There were kids all around. I wasn’t really alone.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Aaron said. “He’s a loser. You can do better!”

  “So, you like her or something?” Preston asked.

  Aaron punched Preston’s arm as he said, “No!”

  Enough. I’d had enough. I glared at them and yelled, “Stop it!”

  They both started laughing, which was so rude but not surprising.

  I turned around and marched toward my locker, my heart beating fast. I told myself to never forget this feeling. I’d managed to say something. It’d only been two words, but they were two important words. And those words showed them that I wasn’t afraid to stand up for myself. Wasn’t afraid to stick my neck out so I could move forward.

  It’d felt scary for a few seconds, but now? It felt good.

  At lunch, Dion came into the library with his bagged lunch from home and sat down next to me. A couple of girls were sitting together across the table from us, drawing pictures. And that was it for the library lunch crowd.

  “No Tori today?” Dion asked.

  “Dentist appointment,” I explained as I opened my baggie of apple slices to share. “Lucky her, she doesn’t have to listen to me whine about how hard it was to let Pip go this morning.”

  “Not really sure a dentist appointment is lucky,” he said as he took out his sandwich. “But I’m sorry it was hard, Hazel. Probably just gonna be that way for a while. I know you love Pip. And he loves you. My mama always says we have to hold on to that love, ’cause it’s always there, even if the one we love isn’t, you know?”

  “Yeah. You’re right. Thank you.”

  That was a good friend. He didn’t tell me everything would be okay. He didn’t try to change the subject so he didn’t have to deal with it. He just imagined how I probably felt and knew what I needed to hear.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. Then he smiled. “You know, I’m glad I met you, Hazel. School doesn’t suck quite as bad, thanks to you and Tori.”

  I laughed. “Hey, same!” And that’s when I knew. I knew that I finally had someone who I could tell about the notebook.

  I glanced over at the girls. They seemed to be completely lost in their drawings. Still, I leaned in and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I need advice about something. But you have to promise you won’t tell anyone unless I say it’s okay. Like, if I tell you, it’s just going to be the two of us that know about it for a while. So, do you think you can keep it a secret?”

  “One hundred percent,” he said. “Wait, you aren’t even going to tell Tori?”

  I shook my head. “No, because her brother is involved.”

  Now he looked worried. “Okay. Involved in what?”

  “Well, I found something,” I told him.

  “Yeah?”

  I took a deep breath and continued. “A notebook. I found a notebook with the names of lots of girls who go to this school. Boys are rating them and commenting on their looks. Disgusting comments, you know? Like that’s all that matters about us.” I took a deep breath. “And I think Tori’s brother started it.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “I don’t even know what to say. And you haven’t shown anyone?”

  I shook my head. “I’m too afraid. But I want to do something. I just don’t know what.” I looked at him. “Any ideas?”

  “How many girls?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I didn’t count. Maybe a hundred?”

  “What if you made copies and passed it out to all of them?” he suggested. “You’d have an army of girls ready to help you.”

  “An army of girls?” I repeated. That could be—”

  I was going to say interesting. But Dion finished the sentence for me.

  “Powerful. Hazel, think about it. A hundred girls coming forward and saying things about how our school needs to change? Some boys at our school think they can do anything or say anything and get away with it, right? You could show them that they’re wrong.”

  I pulled out a piece of paper.

  One honey bee is

  nothing much, but a million?

  Good pollinators!

  Dion grinned big and wide after he read my latest haiku. “Exactly!”

  “Okay, so I need to tell them,” I said. “Tell some other girls. But how? I don’t want to do it at school. I want to do it somewhere away from here. Where we can talk about it and decide what to do next without worrying some boy is gonna come around the corner any second.”

  While I’d been talking, Dion had devoured most of his sandwich. I hadn’t eaten a thing. I knew I needed to, but thinking about all this made my stomach feel like I’d just gotten off the Zipper ride at the carnival. I picked up an apple slice and nibbled on it.

  “Maybe you should have a party,” he suggested.

  “A party? But we’re not celebrating anything. I mean, it won’t really be a fun thing, will it?”

  “A girl power party,” he said. “Could be kinda fun, don’t ya think?”

  “A girl power party,” I repeated, trying out the words for myself. I liked the sound of that.

  “Dion?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re brilliant.”

  He laughed. “Nah. I just like helping.”

  If only our school could be filled with people like Dion.

  When Dad and I walked into the house after school, it smelled really good. Like freshly baked cookies. And that’s because there was a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk on the kitchen table. Mom was sitting there with a book.

  “Are these for me?” I asked as I took a seat.

  She smiled, causing the little lines by her big brown eyes to crinkle. “I figured you could use a little treat after your tough morning. I’m proud of you, Hazel. I know letting Pip go wasn’t easy.”

  Dad grabbed a cookie and said, “I have a bit more work to finish up. See you in an hour or so, okay?”

  “Okay,” Mom and I said.

  After he left, Mom asked, “Honey, are you all right?”

  “Is it all right if we don’t talk about it?” I asked. “Tori and I already talked about it after school, and I started crying again.”

  “Again? Does that mean you cried after you left him with Ms. Lennon?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Okay, you need to think a
bout other things. So besides that, how was school today? Anything fun or exciting happen?”

  I wanted to say, “That would be a true miracle,” but I didn’t.

  I’d been thinking about what might happen if I told my mom about the notebook. I worried that if she knew about it, she’d want me to do something that would be hard for me. She didn’t seem to care about being embarrassed, but I did. Sure, the girls and I would probably have to do something hard, like talk to the principal. We could make a plan and do it together, though. But the thought of my mom and me walking into that office? It was more than enough to keep me from telling her.

  “Not really. Though I did want to ask you if it’d be all right if I have some girls over on Friday? It’s a teacher work day, remember, so there isn’t any school.”

  I broke a cookie in half. I loved seeing the melted chocolate stretch and then break. I took a bite, and whoever said chocolate makes everything better was exactly right.

  “Absolutely,” she replied. “I asked for the day off months ago, so I’ll be around. What’s going on? Do you have a school project or a test to study for?”

  I shook my head. “I just … I want to get to know some of the girls better. That’s all.”

  “Great! I can help you make some snacks if you’d like.”

  “Okay. I’m not really sure what I want to do yet, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Tori might want to help,” she said.

  “Well, probably not, because I’m not going to invite Tori. I kind of want to get to know some other people without her here.”

  Mom looked surprised, but she didn’t argue with me. “All right. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  I finished my cookies and milk and then got up to take my dishes to the sink. “I’m going to make the invitations right now. Can I use the computer?”

  “Sure.” She stood up. “Oh, wait, I might have a document I need to close out. I was taking notes earlier while I was on the phone.”

  “About your case?” I asked.

  “Yes. About the case.”

  One of the things I’d been thinking about a lot was how the boys at school might treat me if they found out I was the one who’d found the notebook and got the girls together. It scared me. Hopefully we’d have a big group and there wouldn’t be just one girl targeted. But with my mom …

  “Is it hard to go to work with that going on?” I asked.

  She sighed. “I’m not going to lie, it has been difficult. But I know I’m doing the right thing, so I remind myself of that all the time. And I love my job and talking to our customers, so I try to stay focused on that. But there have been a couple of awkward moments.

  “Here’s the thing, Hazel. Life is rarely easy. So we just have to do the best we can to get through the difficult moments and be thankful that we don’t have hundreds of them every single day, like so many other people. You know we are pretty fortunate, right?”

  My parents have always told me that we are blessed to have a roof over our heads, good food to eat, and a nice community with excellent schools. Still, it’s easy to forget that some kids have it a whole lot worse than I do.

  “I know. You’re right.”

  She walked over and kissed the top of my head. “I love you, sweetie. Forever and ever. Times a million.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “Now, let me close that document out so you can make your invitations.”

  She went to the desktop computer that sat on a small desk on the edge of our kitchen. When she was done, she said, “All yours!”

  I sat there for a long time, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, I added a graphic I found on the Internet with the words Girl Power with a pink background and three cartoon fists raised in the air. I put that at the top of the page and then below it typed in the date and time along with my name and address. Below all the details I wrote, “It’s a Girl Power Party! Come for snacks and to talk about how we can make our school a better place for girls.”

  I played around with font colors and sizes until I was happy with it. Then I saved it and printed out fifty copies. A hundred seemed like too many, because what if eighty of them came? We didn’t have room in our little house for eighty people. It’d be tight if even thirty girls decided to come.

  I planned on spending the evening folding the papers and taping them up. I’d decided it would be easiest to invite girls who were in my classes. That way, I didn’t have to figure out who certain girls were, since I didn’t know many names of the seventh and eighth graders. Some of them would be in the notebook and some of them wouldn’t be, but hopefully it wouldn’t matter that much. What mattered was that we figured out a way to make our school a better place for all of us.

  It was really too bad that the invitations hadn’t been ready that morning so I could have done most of the work with Tori absent. Except I hadn’t even known I was going to have the party then. Dion had helped me so much—what a good friend.

  With the invitations done, I went to my room. My eyes immediately went to the spot where Pip’s box used to be. The room felt so empty now. Lonely. I thought of Pip at the school. Would he mind being alone at night? Did they give him enough vegetables to last until morning? Did he miss me as much as I missed him?

  I plopped down on my bed with a big sigh. He was fine. Fine! The kids had been so excited to have him in their class. He’d get way more attention than I could have given him.

  Even so, that didn’t mean I wasn’t supposed to miss him. Sometimes we know things are for the best but have feelings about it all, anyway. Like, maybe you know it’s for the best that you don’t have cable like most everyone else in the world because that means you spend more time outside, and you love being outside. But when everyone’s talking about some amazing award show or the best Hallmark Christmas movie ever, you still wish you had cable. For a little while, anyway. That’s just how it is. It’s normal. Right?

  “I miss you, Pip,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry.”

  Why did everything lately have to feel so … wrong?

  After I crawled into bed, I turned to my friend Pippi Longstocking for some comfort. I’d always wondered what it must be like to be Pippi. She’s not afraid to say what’s on her mind. Not only that, but she makes it seem so easy, though it’s probably not easy at all. Like, when she walked into a shop that had a sign that read DO YOU SUFFER FROM FRECKLES? advertising a cream that could supposedly help get rid of them, she spoke her mind. Pippi wanted to make sure the shopkeeper knew that there’s nothing wrong with freckles, since she had them all over her face.

  “I don’t suffer from them. I love them,” she told the shopkeeper, followed by an enthusiastic “Good morning!” Somehow, she did it nicely but still made her point. How did she do that? And how come I couldn’t be like that?

  I hadn’t forgotten what Dion had said. “When I’m dancing, I tell myself I’m not Dion. I pretend I’m someone else.”

  Although I’d managed two words with Preston and Aaron, I was probably going to need more than that in the coming days. So maybe I needed to pretend to be Pippi Longstocking: strong, smart, and fearless. That’s what I wanted to be.

  What would Pippi have done if she’d found the notebook? She probably would have marched right out to that table where Tori’s family had been eating spinach pizza, slapped it on the table, and said to Ben, “This is not okay, and I would like to know what you’re going to do about it to make it right. Good evening!”

  I thought of Pippi the next day at school as I used my ninja skills to hand out the invitations. I passed them around to girls in most of my morning classes, except first period, because Tori was in that class with me. Most of the girls looked very confused at first, like I was handing them a recipe for mud pies. But once they’d read them, I got a lot of smiles and thumbs-up.

  At lunch, Dion arrived before Tori. I talked quickly. “Before she gets here, I want you to know that I’m doing it. I’m having a girl power party at my ho
use Friday morning.”

  He held up his hand for a high five. “You go, girl. Proud of you.”

  I opened my lunch and gave him a bag of M&M’S that I’d picked up for him at the Plaid Pantry, our corner convenience store. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  He looked at the candy and then back at me. “You got that for me?”

  “Yes! Why wouldn’t I? I’m pretending to be Pippi Longstocking, thanks to you.”

  “Pippi who?”

  Just then, Tori walked through the doors. “Never mind,” I whispered. “Just act normal.”

  As Tori sat down, Dion pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “Hazel, I tried writing a haiku last night. You make it look so easy, but this thing took me at least an hour.”

  “Can I read it?” I asked. “Please?”

  “Yeah, me too!” Tori said.

  “Okay, sure,” he said. “I know you’ll be nice even if it’s bad. And then I want to stick it in a book like Hazel usually does. Y’all know how thrilling that seems? Someone’s gonna open a book and find a haiku that I wrote? Like, seriously?”

  “I think we’ve got ourselves another haiku ninja,” Tori said. “I’m feeling a little left out.”

  Dion grabbed a pencil along with a piece of scrap paper the librarian left out for us. He pushed both toward Tori. “There you go. Always room for more haiku ninjas in the world.”

  “I don’t know,” Tori said. “I’m not a very good writer. Math is more my thing.”

  “Have to try it and see,” he said. “You never know. It felt funny to me at first, but then I really got into it. And instead of my brain having a pity party, I put it to work coming up with a little poem and it’s like that’s just what it needed.” He ripped open the bag of M&M’S I’d given him. “Just like right now we need some chocolate to help us get through the rest of the day.”

  He poured some into each of our palms. As I popped the candies into my mouth, I read what he’d written:

  When birds get angry,

  they can fly to distant lands.

  I have bird envy.

  “Wow, Dion,” I said. “That’s really good.”