Don't Judge Me

by Lisa Schroeder

  “Did something happen?”

  “I’m so sick of them,” I hissed. “I think Aaron and Preston are trying to scare me from saying anything to the principal.”

  “But how would they know?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Someone must have told them.”

  Tori pursed her lips. “Do you think Ben told them?”

  “No,” I said. “He seems to feel pretty bad about the whole thing. It could have been anyone. Like, some of the girls have brothers here, you know. If they went home after the party and talked about what we were doing, someone might have overheard and spread it around. Who knows?”

  “Are you scared?” she asked.

  “A little,” I said. “But it won’t stop me. I mean, we can’t stop now, right? We have some good ideas and if we do nothing, then nothing changes.”

  “I really want things to change,” Tori said. “So, so much.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  * * *

  At lunch, we filled Dion in on the plan.

  “Can I be in the group that talks to the principal?” he asked as he dipped his corn dog into some ketchup. “Like, maybe it’d be good for him to know it’s not just girls getting bullied.”

  “Yes!” Tori said. “I like that. What do you think, Hazel?”

  “Yeah, I like it, too. Thanks, Dion. I know it doesn’t make it right, but Ben was kind of bullied, and that made him turn around and bully a bunch of girls. Like, it has all kinds of effects, you know?”

  “It’s so true,” Tori said. “Okay, so the three of us will be at the principal’s meeting. How are you going to choose the others?”

  I tapped the small pieces of scrap paper sitting in the middle of the table. “I think I’m going to put the names on pieces of paper like this, put them in a hat, and draw them. I don’t know what else to do. That seems the fairest. What do you think?”

  “It might be good to make sure we have some from each grade. So if we are the sixth graders in the group, maybe just draw names for the seventh and eighth graders.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.” I put my baggy of carrot sticks on the table to share. “Mom is going to call today and make the appointment for us. Once I choose the names, we should meet up and talk about what we’re going to say. Unless you want to write a song for us to sing, Tori.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Can I? Please? That’d be super fun!”

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “Yes! Please? Pretty, pretty please?”

  Dion and I answered at the exact same time. “No!”

  “You big meanies,” she told us. Then she winked. “Who I love with my whole heart.”

  I was so happy to have my best friend back.

  With everything happening, I found myself missing Pip a lot. A whole, whole lot. So on my bike ride home, I decided to stop in at the school and see if Ms. Lennon was still there. I had texted Mom to let her know and she’d given her standard response. “Okay, stay safe. Be alert.” I think it was just habit at this point.

  I walked into the office and the secretary remembered me, which made me happy and sad at the same time. Hoover Elementary, and all the people in it, were the best, and it just wasn’t fair I couldn’t be a part of it anymore.

  “Hi, Hazel,” she said. “Stopping in to see Ms. Lennon?”

  “Yes, is she still here, do you know?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen her leave, so she’s probably in her classroom. Go ahead and sign this visitor sheet and you can head down.”

  As I walked down the hallway, I stopped at the classroom where I’d seen my kindergarten buddy, River. The door was open, so I peeked inside to see if Mr. Knight was there. He wasn’t. So I went in, dropped my backpack on the floor, and sat at one of the tables in one of the tiny chairs.

  At every seat, there were drawings with captions about what they’d drawn. The one at the seat I was in said, “I hav a dog and a cat. I love tem. Esept wen the cat skrats me.” She’d written her name at the top of the page in all capital letters—“CHLOE.” And she’d drawn a picture of a dog and a cat.

  I circled the picture with my finger, my heart aching for the days when school meant coloring pictures and reading picture books every day.

  “You can draw one too, if you’d like.”

  I jumped out of the chair and turned around. Mr. Knight stood there in jeans and a green T-shirt that had a bright yellow bee and the word KIND right underneath it. Such a cute way to say, “Be kind.”

  “Oh no, that’s okay,” I said. “I came to visit Ms. Lennon. Sorry. I just …”

  “You miss it a little?” he asked.

  Tears filled my eyes. I wanted to say no. I wanted to say that everything was fine and I’d never felt better and I was excited about being in middle school where selfies ruled the world. But it wasn’t true. Not even close.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “But I shouldn’t, right?”

  As he walked toward his desk at the front of the room, he said, “I tell my own children all the time, everyone grows up differently. There’s no right or wrong in how you do it. My seven-year-old still likes his mom to rock him a few minutes before bed. Not to sleep or anything. It’s just their snuggle time, you know? Nothing wrong with it, though I’m sure some adults would judge us if they knew. I figure, life is hard, and there are no rules about how we get through it. If a little cuddle time is what the kid needs, well, there are worse things in the world.”

  “I bet he’ll grow up to be kind,” I said. “Like your shirt says.”

  He smiled. “I sure hope so.” He picked up some papers from his desk and then walked them over to me. “Here. You can do some at home later if you’d like.”

  They were three of the sheets with a blank space at the top for a picture and then lines below to write something about what you’d drawn.

  I stuck them in my backpack. “Thanks,” I told him.

  “You’re welcome.”

  When I walked into Ms. Lennon’s room, I said hello and she looked up from her desk. “Oh, Hazel, what a lovely surprise.”

  “Thanks for the envelope of thank-you cards,” I told her. “I really loved them. I’m so glad your students like Pip.”

  She stood up and smiled. “It’s going so well. We really owe you a lot. I think everyone’s behavior has already improved. Of course, I’ve made some other changes, too, but I know Pip is really helping. Oh, let me show you this writing project we’ve been working on.”

  We walked over to one of the students’ desks where she showed me a piece of notebook paper with words written at the top: “What I’ve learned from Pip.”

  “They’re writing so many incredible things,” she told me. “Things like how to care for someone who can’t take care of themselves. How to be gentle. How to love something that can’t talk. But my favorite is probably from a boy who’s had some problems at home, which was causing him to act out at school. One of the things he wrote was, ‘Pip has taught me that it’s okay to tell someone I’m scared or worried, like Pip shows people when he goes into his shell. People won’t know unless I tell them.’ ”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I know, right?” she said.

  “Pip taught me some things, too,” I said. “Like, I’m sticking my neck out a lot more, thanks to him.”

  She looked genuinely happy. “Oh, Hazel, I love that. As hard as it is, we have to learn to do that to get what we need in this world.”

  I went over and picked up Pip and held him at arm’s length. When his beautiful little eyes met mine, my heart melted. “I love you,” I whispered as I pulled him close.

  He couldn’t say it back, but I knew he loved me, too. Sometimes words are important. But sometimes it’s enough to just be there, without any words at all. I’m pretty sure Ms. Lennon knew that, because she let me hold him for a long time, the classroom as quiet as a field of daisies on a warm, sunny day.

  When I got home, bad news was waiting for me. Before Mom even said anything, I
knew by the look on her face that something was wrong.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s happened? Is Dad all right?”

  “Oh, he’s fine, he’s in his office, working. It’s just, I’m sorry to tell you this, but the principal wasn’t very open to meeting with you and the other students. He said he’d rather meet with just you and me.”

  “But I don’t want that,” I said.

  “I know, sweetheart. But I don’t know what to do. He asked me what the meeting was about and I said that a large number of girls were upset about how boys were treating them. Then I told him I was calling to request a meeting with a small group of them, and he said he didn’t think that would be an effective use of his time.”

  I stared at my mom with my mouth gaping open. “Say what?”

  She sighed. “It’s pretty unbelievable. I’m not sure what to do next, to be honest.”

  “He might as well have told us to email him our thoughts,” I said. “He doesn’t even care about us, does he?”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely true,” Mom said. “But we definitely have different views as to how much say parents and students should have in what happens at school.”

  I squeezed my fists that hung at my sides. “You know what? We’ll just go there tomorrow and stand there until he’ll see us. We are his students. He’s supposed to be there to help us!”

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  “I’m positive. And you know what? I was wrong. A small group isn’t the best way to do this. We need a big group. Like, the bigger, the better. Can I use the computer?”

  Mom smiled. “It’s all yours. Oh, and check the bag there. I bought you a gift and a few extras if you have any friends who would like one.”

  I pulled four T-shirts out of the bag. Two of them said MY BODY IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. One said ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, EQUAL RIGHTS, AND CUPCAKES. And the last one said I WILL NOT STAY QUIET.

  It was going to be hard to choose just one. I loved them all!

  I went to my room, emptied my backpack, and saw the sheets Mr. Knight had given me.

  I shrugged. Why not? I said to myself.

  Then I sat down at my desk and drew a picture of Pip. And underneath it I wrote, “Sticking your neck out is hard. But sometimes it really is the only way to move forward.”

  * * *

  The next morning, a bunch of us met in the library. I’d chosen to wear the I WILL NOT STAY QUIET T-shirt, since that seemed to be the theme for the day. I was so scared to do this—to rally everyone and demand a meeting. But I knew doing nothing and watching nothing change would be a whole lot scarier.

  I stood up and said, “Hi. Thanks for coming. So, at lunchtime, we’ll all meet outside the library. And then we’ll go to Mr. Buck’s office together. Feel free to let any friends know about what we’re doing. If they want to join us, they can. I feel like the more people we have, the harder it will be for him to say no. Like, he can’t ignore a huge number of us, right?”

  “Right!” Tori said because she’s awesome like that.

  I passed out copies of a list I’d made. “If we get the meeting, these are some of the ideas we’re going to suggest. And I also think we should ask for a monthly meeting to talk about how things are working and to come up with new ideas.”

  I could feel sweat trickling down my back. Keep going, I told myself. Be Pippi.

  “If we get the meeting, I’ll talk first.” Just saying those words made my stomach twist into a hundred knots, but I knew I had to be the one to start things off. “After that, I hope others will jump in and speak, too. And please remember, we’re not going to name names. And we’re not going to say all boys are bad, because they’re not.” I looked at Dion, wondering if he felt out of place. He just smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. If he felt strange, he didn’t show it. I sure was glad he was there.

  “This is about changing our school. Changing how we treat one another. Changing the way some of the boys think about girls. We just want things to be equal, you know?”

  As everyone looked over the list, the librarian, Mrs. Thompson, motioned me over to her desk. The pit in my stomach was now the size of a basketball. Was she mad? Was I going to get in trouble? But she didn’t say a thing.

  She just handed me a piece of paper. I looked down and immediately recognized it. It was a haiku I had written not long after I’d started middle school. I’d stuck it in a book, and I guess Mrs. Thompson had found it.

  One day, I will speak.

  One day, I won’t be afraid.

  One day, things will change.

  “Do you remember how you felt writing that?” she asked.

  I nodded as I blinked back the tears.

  “Carry that feeling with you today, Hazel,” she said. “It’s those kinds of powerful feelings that help change the world.” She rubbed my back. “Because maybe one day is today.”

  There were probably a hundred of us. As we walked through the halls toward the principal’s office, I felt so proud. I didn’t know what would happen next, but one thing I did know? There was no going back now. Whatever happened, we wouldn’t give up. I knew it as well as I knew that haiku made me happy.

  A lot of the students were in the cafeteria eating. Others were in class since we have two lunch periods. One girl had told me she’d asked her teacher if it was okay to step out because she wanted to be with the students who were trying to talk to the principal. I’m sure some others ditched their classes so they could join us.

  Tori walked beside me. “You ready for this?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”

  She held my hand. “You got this. I know it. We’re behind you.”

  I squeezed her hand. “I love your hopeful heart.”

  And I remembered what my mom had said. “If there are people around you who have your back, remember this moment, okay?” That moment when I hadn’t been scared to say what I was thinking, about how things aren’t exactly fair for girls. This was going to be like that, but with more people hearing the words, that was all.

  I glanced behind me and saw an army of people who were with me. Mostly girls, but a few boys, too. Ben was in the crowd now, and he gave me a thumbs-up.

  When we got to the office, we couldn’t all fit, obviously, so a bunch stayed out in the hallway while the original seven who had planned to meet with the principal went inside. There were big glass windows around the office, so we could still see our entire group. And they could see us.

  “We’d like to speak to Mr. Buck, please,” Tori told the secretary.

  “All of you?” she asked, motioning at the group outside.

  Tori looked at me to answer. “If he wants, sure. But just us seven would be fine, too.”

  She stood up. “All right. Hold on.”

  She went down the little hallway where the principal and vice principal’s offices were located. We watched as she disappeared behind a door. A minute later, she came back out.

  “I’m sorry, he can’t meet with you right now,” she told us. “Are you Hazel, by chance?”

  “Yes, that’s me,” I said.

  “He said he told your mom he’d be happy to meet with the two of you. Why don’t you have her set that up?”

  “Because this isn’t about just me,” I told her. “It involves all of us.”

  “Well, he can’t speak to all of you. It’s not possible.”

  At those last three words, my heart dropped to my stomach. Everything I’d done to help get us here, all our excitement, all our work, and nothing would come of any of it? Without any changes at school, would the boys just start another notebook? Would things get worse instead of better if they learned they’d been caught but nothing had been done about it?

  It couldn’t end this way. It just couldn’t.

  “Um, is the vice principal in her office?” I asked.

  “Ms. Carson?” she said. “Yes, she is. Why?”

  “Could you maybe see if she mig
ht talk to us?”

  The secretary didn’t seem thrilled with the idea, but she turned around and went back down the hall. A minute later, Ms. Carson stepped out of her office. She’s tall and wears teal glasses that I really love. She came right over to us and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “We wanted to talk to Mr. Buck, but he won’t see us,” I said. “Can you help?”

  “He told me it’s not possible to speak to so many students,” the secretary tried to explain.

  Ms. Carson said, “And why not?” But she didn’t wait for an answer, probably because the secretary didn’t exactly know why. Ms. Carson looked at Tori and me. “What’s this about, exactly? Can you tell me?”

  Before I could answer, Tori said, “We have a jerk problem at this school, and we’re tired of it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And we have some ideas to make our school better, and we want to talk to Mr. Buck about them. Shouldn’t he want to hear from us about the problems and some of the ideas we have to fix them?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  She turned around and marched down the hallway and into Mr. Buck’s office.

  “I wish I could hear what she’s saying,” Tori whispered to me.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Outside the office, some of the kids were starting to get rowdy. I was trying to figure out what to say to them to let them know this wasn’t the time to act like fidgety second graders. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do anything. Maddie Gray stepped out of the group and told them they needed to be quiet for a couple more minutes; we were just waiting to get the meeting.

  And that’s about how long it was until Ms. Carson and Mr. Buck came back to speak to us.

  Mr. Buck is a large and kinda scary man. He hardly ever smiles, though I guess being responsible for a few hundred middle school kids every day is probably hard. But seeing him coming toward us made me panic a little bit. Would I be able to speak without my voice shaking? Actually, would I be able to speak at all?