Truth about Truman School

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  Or so I thought.

  The day my article about school food went up on the site, something else appeared that got people talking even more than my article and the picture of Amr’s moldy cupcake:

  Secret! Secret! Who’s Got a Secret!

  What did you all think of that picture of Lilly Clarke? She used to be a real porker, didn’t she? Well, guess what? She’s got an even bigger secret than that. Log in to this site again tomorrow to find out what it is.

  —milkandhoney

  Trevor:

  Milkandhoney? Who’s milkandhoney? It was like that was all anyone talked about at school. Some people thought it was Zebby Bower because she and Lilly used to be friends and now they weren’t. Plus she was the one who started the Truth about Truman website. But other people thought it was somebody in the popular group. Somebody who wanted to nudge Lilly out.

  Nobody asked my opinion on the whole thing. Which was fine. If I’d named somebody, no matter who it was, I probably would’ve gotten my head shoved in a toilet. And if I didn’t name a name, I probably still would’ve gotten my head shoved in a toilet. A guy like me can’t ever win.

  Lilly:

  Enough was enough. I was not going to let Zebby and Amr ruin everything I’d worked so hard for the past two years. Zebby ignored the email I sent her, so this time I picked up the phone and called her. I hated that I still had her phone number memorized.

  “I want you to stop,” I said right away when she picked up. I saw no reason to make small talk.

  Pause. “Who is this?” Zebby asked.

  I couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize my voice. Or check her Caller ID. “It’s Lilly!”

  “Oh,” Zebby said coolly. I could tell by the way her voice changed that she really didn’t know who I was until I told her. “What do you want?”

  “I just told you what I want! I want you to stop. Stop sending me emails, stop posting stuff about me on your stupid website, stop everything!”

  Zebby paused again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I sighed. Did I have to spell it out? “Milkandhoney?” I said. Duh!

  “What about it?”

  “I know you’re milkandhoney,” I said, daring her to deny it. “In fact, I’ll bet it’s you and Amr together.”

  Zebby let out a short laugh. “It is not!”

  “Right.”

  “It’s not! I don’t even know any ‘secrets’ about you anymore,” Zebby said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we haven’t exactly been hanging out much lately.”

  Thank God for that. “Well, maybe it’s something from back when we were hanging out.”

  “Like what?” Zebby asked. “I thought your big secret was that you used to be … well, heavier than you are now. And not very popular. But everyone already knows that now.”

  “Thanks to you! It’s your website, so it has to be you spreading all that stuff around. You or Amr.”

  “How do you know it’s our website?” Zebby asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. Everyone knows.”

  “Really?” Zebby actually sounded happy about that.

  “Don’t sound so excited,” I said. “I’m not going to let you ruin my life.”

  “Ruin your life?” Zebby let out a short laugh. “I have news for you, Lilly. I don’t care enough about you anymore to bother ruining your life!”

  I felt a little chill when she said that. What if she was telling the truth? If Zebby wasn’t milkandhoney, then I had no idea who was. Or what that person thought they knew about me.

  Zebby:

  A lot of people figured out that Amr and I started the Truth about Truman, but they didn’t care! They read it anyway. A couple kids even came up to me in the hall and said, “Great site, Zebby!” I don’t think I got this much attention when I put blue streaks in my hair. That just goes to show you there was a real need for a newspaper that represents our whole school. Even if a few people were using it for purposes other than what we originally intended.

  Lilly:

  Zebby and Amr probably think I’m this horrible person who dropped them in sixth grade just so I could join the popular crowd.

  It wasn’t like that. Well, maybe it was sort of, but it wasn’t anywhere near as cold as that. We grew apart. That’s it. That’s all that happened. My parents “grew apart.” According to my mom, that’s why they got divorced.Well, sometimes friends grow apart, too. Especially in middle school.

  Zebby and Amr, they just don’t care about a lot of the same stuff I care about. There was this time in sixth grade when we were all walking home from the mall together, and they started singing! Right out in public! And it wasn’t even a real song; it was just some random, bizarre-O thing. The point is, I told them to stop because people were looking at us, but they wouldn’t stop. In fact, they locked arms and started doing it louder. They even started skipping. It was totally immature. Not to mention embarrassing.

  No matter what we were doing, whenever I ever said to them, “You guys, people are looking at us!” their response was always, “So?”

  They didn’t care. They never cared what anyone thought of them. It was like they were still in elementary school. They just wanted to run around, sing stupid songs, and hang out in the tree house. I was past all that.

  And, well … when I lost all that weight right before sixth grade, the popular girls welcomed me into their group.

  It wasn’t that I dropped Zebby and Amr for the popular crowd. Once we got to middle school, I found a crowd that suited me better than they did. Did that really make me such a terrible person?

  Hayley:

  A lot of people probably don’t realize this, but it’s a lot of WORK being popular! And if you’re like the most popular girl in the popular group, it’s even more work because you have to figure out what’s in and what’s out and who’s in and who’s out. The whole school depends on you to tell them stuff like that.

  Sometimes I like to sort of push the envelope, if you know what I mean. Like once I told people that these really tacky shirts from Target were in. Hello! They were from Target!

  But it didn’t matter. The very next day like five girls came to school in those ugly shirts.

  It makes me wonder sometimes … how far could I go? What kinds of things would people like Brianna or Cassie or Kylie do for no other reason than I told them to?

  Brianna:

  I don’t mean to sound whiny or anything, but no one ever listens to me. If people had listened to me back in sixth grade, we never would’ve started hanging out with Lilly. I never understood what Hayley or anyone else saw in her. She wasn’t all that pretty. She didn’t have a great personality. She didn’t even live in a very nice house. So why did Hayley let her start hanging with us back in sixth grade?

  We first met Lilly at gymnastics the summer before sixth grade. She was new at gymnastics that year, and I remember she was totally scared of the uneven bars. Isn’t that weird? I mean, why would you even sign up for gymnastics if you’re scared of the uneven bars?

  But she was. And I think she was scared of the balance beam and the vault, too. She only liked the floor exercise. We didn’t pay much attention to her at gymnastics since we didn’t know her. When we saw her at Truman in the fall, we were like, “Hey, we know you,” but it wasn’t any big deal. We still didn’t start hanging out with her. That didn’t happen until I had my appendix out.

  I’m not entirely sure how it happened since I wasn’t there. I was in the hospital. But Hayley said there was an uneven number in gymnastics that day and somehow she and Lilly ended up spotting each other. Then they ended up sitting together at lunch at school. I have no idea how that happened. And before I was even up an
d around after my operation, Lilly had wormed her way into our group.

  I didn’t get it. Couldn’t Hayley see that Lilly just wasn’t one of us?

  But Hayley seemed to think she was exactly like us. Better than us even.

  “Look how everyone turns and watches her when she walks down the hall,” Hayley said. “She must’ve been really popular at her old school. So if we hang with her, we’ll be popular, too. You want to be popular, don’t you, Brianna?”

  Of course I wanted to be popular. But I wondered if Lilly was really as popular as Hayley thought she was. I mean, she didn’t dress like a popular girl. Not back then. But Hayley was right about people in the halls gawking at her. Everyone always turned and looked when she walked by. Like I said, I didn’t get it. But, whatever. We started hanging with her. And by Christmas, the three of us were the girls everyone wanted to be friends with. We were the popular girls.

  Anonymous:

  Have you ever noticed that people say and do things online that they would never do in real life? It’s true. For instance, I would never go up to Lilly and say, “Wow, you used to be really fat,” but I don’t have any problem saying that to her online.

  It’s different online. You can say or do whatever you want online because no one has to know it’s you saying or doing those things. And you don’t actually have to face the person you’re being mean to.

  Lilly:

  The next morning, as soon as my mom got in the shower, I hurried into the living room and turned on our computer. My mom didn’t like me getting on the computer before school, but I had to see if milkandhoney had posted my “secret” yet. My fingers were shaking so bad I could hardly type www.truthabouttruman.com.

  When the site came up, I saw huge block letters at the top of the screen:

  LILLY CLARKE IS A LEZBO!

  What?!

  There were three sentences in smaller letters below the headline. Don’t believe me? Click here to read Lilly’s blog. Find out who she’s in love with.

  I gasped. I didn’t have a blog! And everyone already knew who I was “in love” with—Reece!

  I was scared to click on that link, scared to see what I might find there. But not clicking on it was even scarier. I had to know what was on there before I went to school. So I clicked … and I found myself on a website that was all done up in purple (which happened to be my favorite color). It had lots of pictures and animations. There was a picture of me in the upper right hand corner (my normal eighth-grade picture, not that awful fifth-grade one). The words “Lilly’s Lesbian Diary” sort of danced across the top.

  There was only one entry:

  Hi! Welcome to my blog. My name is Lilly and I’m an eighth grader at Truman Middle School. I’ve decided it’s time to come out of the closet and tell everyone that I am a total lesbian. And I’m proud of it. I’m going to use this blog to write about all my lesbian experiences.

  I stared in horror at the computer screen. I didn’t write this. I didn’t write any of it. I wasn’t a-a … lesbian! I didn’t even know any lesbians, except for maybe Emily Tate. Everyone said she was one.

  I kept reading:

  Here’s my list of the top five girls I want to go out with:

  5. Morgan Kennedy

  4. Kylie Holtzman

  3. Cassie Wheeler

  2. Brianna Brinkman

  And the number one girl I want to go out with is … .(drumroll please!)

  1. Hayley Wood

  All popular girls!

  “Lilly?” my mom called. “Where are you?”

  “I-I’m right here,” I called back, hoping my voice didn’t give anything away. I quickly shut everything down and tried to act normal when she came out, but it was hard. My entire body trembled. My heart pounded so hard I thought it was going to explode.

  “What are you doing?” Mom asked. “Are you on the computer?”

  “Yeah … I was just … checking Centerpoint … to make sure I got all my homework.”

  My mom looked at me funny, like she didn’t quite believe me.

  I stood up. “I better get ready for school now,” I said. Even though school was the last place I wanted to go.

  How in the world was I going to face everyone at school?

  Brianna:

  I checked the Truth about Truman website while I dried my hair before school. Lilly’s “secret” was up: LILLY CLARKE IS A LEZBO! There was a link to her diary, which was all about her “lesbian experiences.” Plus a list of girls she “likes.” Hayley and I were at the top of the list.

  Hayley was going to FREAK OUT when she saw this.

  I turned my hair dryer off and checked my buddy list to see if Hayley was online. She wasn’t, so I grabbed my cell phone and texted a quick message to her: go 2 truth about t. then call me.

  I had a feeling Lilly’s days in our group were numbered.

  Hayley:

  I got Brianna’s text message just as I was turning on my computer. I had already been planning on checking out that site, but thanks anyway, Brianna.

  I rubbed foundation makeup into my face while I waited for the page to load. There it was: LILLY CLARKE IS A LEZBO! Don’t believe me? Click here to read Lilly’s blog. Find out who she’s in love with.

  I wiped my fingers on a tissue, then clicked on the link, which led me to this purple website that was all about how Lilly likes girls. There was even a list of all the girls she likes on there. Our entire group was on that list! And I was number one.

  There were seven comments about all this on the Truth about Truman. Most of them said things like, “They’re ALL a bunch of lezzies!”

  I gasped. Who said that?

  Somebody who called themselves Megagulp, but who was Megagulp?

  Okay, we needed to do some serious damage control. We couldn’t have people thinking our group was made up of lesbians!

  This was when I started having some doubts about Lilly. Whether she was gay or not, that was her business. But beyond that, there was something else that was bothering me: People didn’t respect her anymore. And if they didn’t respect her, they wouldn’t respect us.

  I didn’t have all my makeup on yet, but I picked up my phone and called Brianna anyway. We had to figure out what we were going to do about this. And we had to figure it out before school.

  Trevor:

  Just because it said on that website that Lilly Clarke was gay didn’t mean she really was. Kids have been saying that about me since third grade, and believe me, I’m not gay!

  I didn’t even know what gay or queer or homo meant when I first heard those insults in third grade. I thought queer meant weird. Even back then, there was something about me that was different from the other kids. I didn’t walk like them; I didn’t talk like them; and I’ve never been into sports or bands or movie stars. So by everyone else’s definition, I guess I was weird.

  I looked up homo at dictionary.com and found out it was short for homosexual. Then when I read the definition, I had sort of this aha moment. Not about myself, though. About my Uncle Cole and Uncle Mike. Uncle Cole is my mom’s brother. Uncle Mike is the guy he lives with. In a one-bedroom apartment.

  Were Uncle Cole and Uncle Mike homosexuals? I asked my mom back in third grade. She wanted to know where I heard that word. I didn’t want to tell her kids at school had called me that, so I told her I read it in a book.

  She said yes, Uncle Cole and Uncle Mike were homosexuals, but gay was a better word. Then she asked if I understood what that meant. I don’t know if I really understood yet back then, but I said I did because I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Uncle Cole and Uncle Mike were two of my favorite people in the whole world. (They still are!) I didn’t want to think about them being we
ird or different.

  As I got older, I realized they really weren’t all that different from anyone else. Not in any way that actually mattered. And Uncle Cole is one of the few connections I have to Mom, so I’d have to be really stupid to think it mattered that he was gay.

  But when you’re in middle school, it matters a lot if you’re gay. It matters a lot if people just think you’re gay. It’s like one of the worst things you can say about someone in middle school.

  Amr:

  Whoa. If there’s one thing that makes people more nervous than Muslims, it’s people who are gay. At least in middle school. I don’t think there’s ever been a popular gay person in the history of middle school.

  Lilly was going to have a hard time getting past this. At our school, if people even think you’re gay, you may as well be gay.

  Zebby:

  At first I thought I was on the website Amr made for his mom’s garden club last year because the background and layout were exactly the same. But then I actually read the words: Lilly’s Lesbian Diary.

  Lilly was a lesbian? Really? And even if she was, that was the big secret?

  I’ll admit, part of me wondered if it was true. I mean, how could someone as boy crazy as Lilly turn out to be gay? But what did I know? Maybe she just acted all boy crazy to cover up the fact she was gay. Or maybe she wasn’t gay at all. Maybe milkandhoney, whoever he, she, or they were, made it all up? I was pretty sure somebody had made up that whole diary thing. Who calls a diary “My LESBIAN diary?” Would a real lesbian do that? I don’t think so.