No she wouldn’t have hitchhiked, I decided. She had to be hiding out somewhere around here. Somewhere where no one would see her.
I wondered where I would go if I wanted to hide from everyone for a while? Probably to that old tree house we used to play in in the woods. It wasn’t too likely Lilly would go there, though. Like I said, she wasn’t exactly the outdoor type. Plus she didn’t even like the tree house. She used to make fun of me and Zebby for still wanting to play in it when we were in sixth grade.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered, what if she was up there? Had anyone even checked?
Zebby:
Amr called me while I was getting ready for bed that night. He wondered if Lilly was hiding out in our old tree house.
“Oh, I doubt it,” I said. I don’t think she ever liked the tree house as much as Amr and I did. Even when we were all friends.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Amr said.
But what if she was up there? All those people were out looking for her … what if she really was that close?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Amr said.
“Wait!” I cried before he hung up. “Maybe we should go up there and check things out?”
“By ourselves?”
“Sure,” I said. “It won’t take very long, and she’s probably not there anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you in your backyard in about ten minutes,” Amr said.
I pulled a pair of sweatpants over my pajama bottoms and grabbed my gray jacket.
“I need to go outside and talk to Amr for a minute,” I told my mom as I strolled past the family room.
My mom looked up from the cross-stitch she was doing. “Now? It’s pretty late, Zebby. Can’t you talk to him on the phone?”
“No, he’s on his way over. It won’t take long. We’ll just be out back.” I walked away before she could make me stay inside.
I grabbed a flashlight from the utility room and went out the back door. Amr was already waiting by my old swing set. He looked a little nervous.
“Are you ready?” he asked, turning his flashlight on.
“Yeah,” I said. Then we plunged into the dark, dark woods behind my house. We had to walk single file because of all the bushes and trees. Leaves and twigs crackled beneath our feet. Even with the flashlights, we could hardly see anything.
We came to the rickety little bridge that went over the creek and I stopped.
“Why are you stopping?” Amr asked.
I shined my flashlight down at the bridge. “We’re not little kids anymore,” I said. “Do you think this bridge will still hold us?”
Amr looked at it. “It will if we cross separately,” he decided. Then to prove it, he hurried across. No problem. When he got to the other side, he turned around and shined his flashlight back on the bridge. “Your turn,” he said.
Gingerly, I took one … two … three … four steps on my tiptoes and then I was standing next to Amr. The woods weren’t as thick on this side of the creek, so we could walk side by side.
All of a sudden, Amr stopped. He turned his flashlight off and told me to turn mine off, too.
“What? Why?”
“Just turn it off.” Amr grabbed the flashlight out of my hand and turned it off himself. Now it was pitch black.
I could feel Amr standing perfectly still beside me. Watching. Listening.
“What?” I said again, still not seeing or hearing what he was.
“I saw a light,” Amr said in a low voice.
“Where?” I squinted, then opened my eyes wide, but I had no idea how he could see anything out here without a flashlight.
“Up ahead. Around the tree house.”
I grabbed onto Amr’s sleeve and we slowly made our way through the trees. I knew the tree house was in one of those old oak trees at the edge of the woods, right before you got to the grassy field. There were pieces of wood nailed into the trunk for steps. And an actual wooden tree house loomed in the large branches of the tree. It had a door, windows, even a roof. No one knew for sure who built it, but it was probably the guy who owned the land where all our houses are now. People said there used to be a big farmhouse right where my house is.
Amr, Lilly, and I had spent hours up in that tree house when we were little. But I hadn’t been there in at least two years. I wasn’t even sure I could find the right tree in the dark. But Amr seemed to know exactly where we were going. I followed him as he forged a trail through the thick underbrush. When we reached the edge of the woods, light from a half moon lit up the grassy field in front of us. Amr steered us to the right and we walked along the edge of the woods a little further.
“There it is,” Amr said, stopping in front of a tree with wood boards nailed to the trunk.
I couldn’t believe he found it in the dark.
I peered up at the dark blob.
“Do you really think she’s up there?” I asked.
Amr shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.” He held his flashlight under his arm, put his foot on the bottom rung, and started climbing.
Amr:
I sure hoped Lilly was in the tree house. If my mom found out I snuck out of the house and went wandering around the woods after dark with a girl, even if that girl was Zebby, she would not be happy. Unless Zebby and I actually found Lilly.
I climbed up onto the platform, and with the flashlight held tight against my side, I crawled over to the door. I reached for the knob and turned. It didn’t budge. “I think it’s locked,” I told Zebby.
“Don’t you remember?” she said as she carefully made her way over to me. “The knob sticks. You have to pull up at the same time you’re turning.”
Zebby reached around me and opened the door. We crawled into the little house and turned on our flashlights at the exact same time.
“Ouch!” Something hard whacked me in the forehead. I dropped my flashlight and it rolled along the wood floor.
“Oh, my gosh!” Zebby said, stunned. “You really are up here!”
I rubbed my forehead and Zebby aimed her flashlight at a girl who looked like a sad imitation of Lilly, huddled in the corner. The girl wore jeans and a torn blouse, and her hair hung in tangled clumps around her blotchy face. She didn’t look anything like the Lilly I knew. She had obviously been crying. A lot.
She shrunk back a little and put her arm up over her eyes to block the light. “GET OUT!” she yelled at us.
I felt something go whizzing by me. It hit the wall behind me with a thump. I grabbed my flashlight and aimed it behind me so I could see what else had almost hit me. A dirty white tennis shoe. And there was another one just like it beside me.
“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE HERE!” Lilly screamed, squinting in the bright light.
“What do you mean we have no right to be here?” Zebby yelled back, still shining her flashlight in Lilly’s face. “This isn’t your private tree house. We’ve probably spent way more time up here than you have.”
Lilly’s face crumpled and she started crying again. Wailing, really. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone cry like that.
Zebby lowered her flashlight. I could tell by the look on her face that she felt bad for making Lilly cry again. She motioned for me to do something, but I didn’t know what to do. So I motioned for her to do something. But she didn’t know what to do, either. So we just sat there and waited for Lilly to cry herself out.
Lilly:
What made Zebby and Amr, of all people, decide to come looking for me? And what made them decide to look for me in the tree house? I could tell by all the cobwebs and bugs I found up here that no one else had been up here in a very long time. That’s why this seemed like the perfect hiding place.
I knew I had until after school b
efore my mom would realize I was gone yesterday. So when I left school, I went home and quickly gathered up all the stuff I thought I’d need: sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, extra clothes, food, water, book of Sudoku puzzles. It took me five trips to get everything up into the tree house, but then I was set.
A couple of people actually climbed up here last night. I think one of the people was Zebby’s dad. But they couldn’t get the door open. I crouched down under the window and sat really still when they shined their flashlights in. They didn’t see me, so eventually they left.
I thought that was it. I could stay up here forever now. They wouldn’t come looking for me up here again. The only problem was I couldn’t go home to use the bathroom or have a shower or get more stuff because my mom was always there. I ended up using the woods for a bathroom (gross!). And I was starting to run out of food and water. I didn’t know how long I could really stay.
“Everyone’s looking for you,” Zebby said after a little while.
“So?” I sniffed. My head ached and I needed a tissue, but I didn’t have any up here.
“So, you’ve been gone a long time. Maybe you should come down now?” Amr said.
“I’m not ever going down,” I said.
“You can’t stay up here forever,” Zebby said.
I glared at her. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t have enough food,” Zebby said. She shined her flashlight in all my grocery bags, as though it was any of her business how much food I had. “And you don’t have a bathroom. And, well…we’re not staying up here forever. So when we go down, we’ll just tell everyone you’re up here anyway.”
“You better not!” I warned.
“We will,” Zebby said. And I knew they would. Why wouldn’t they?
But they didn’t make any move to leave, and neither did I. We just sat in silence for a few minutes.
Then Amr said out of the blue, “Brianna got suspended.”
“She did?” This was news. “How come?”
“Because she’s the one who posted all that stuff about you online,” Amr said. “She’s milkandhoney.”
Funny, I used to think Brianna was milkandhoney, too. But I’d had plenty of time to think while I was up in the tree house a day and a half. I shook my head. “I don’t think Brianna’s milkandhoney.”
“Yes, she is,” Zebby said. “The police traced an IP address back to her.”
I still didn’t believe it. “Maybe somebody set things up so it looked like she was milkandhoney,” I said.
“Who would do something like that?” Zebby asked.
“Maybe … the two of you?” Milkandhoney had to be Zebby and Amr. There was no one else it could be.
Zebby let out a big breath of air. “For the thousandth time, Amr and I are NOT milkandhoney!”
“Well, it’s not Brianna,” I said. “She never had a copy of that awful picture of me.”
“It was in the memory book,” Amr said. “All she needed was for someone to give her a copy of the memory book. Anyone from Hoover could have done that.”
“Anyone who saved it for three years,” I said. How many people really hung onto their memory books from elementary school? Zebby probably did; Zebby hung onto everything.
“None of my friends even knew I used to be fat,” I went on. “They didn’t know it was me in that picture. Not until you guys announced it.” Zebby opened her mouth to object, but I talked right over her. “It has to be someone from Hoover; no one else from Hoover hates me as much as you guys; therefore, milkandhoney has to be you!”
“Trust me, Lilly,” Amr said. “Zebby and I aren’t milkandhoney. So if you don’t think Brianna is, either, then let’s see if we can figure out who is.” He shifted position. “Here’s what we know so far: Milkandhoney is obviously somebody who doesn’t like you, or somebody who has a grudge against you for some reason. It’s probably somebody who went to Hoover, but not necessarily…”
That sounded like Zebby and Amr to me …
“Milkandhoney is a coward,” Zebby said. “We know that, too.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You’re calling yourself a coward now? That’s big of you.”
“Anyone who says nasty things online under an anonymous screen name has to be a coward,” she said.
“It’s got to be someone who knows something about computers,” Amr said. “They scanned that picture in and uploaded it themselves. They knew how to send stuff anonymously and set up a fake email address. They knew something about webpage design. That We Hate Lilly website was pretty crude, but the other one, Lilly’s Lesbian Diary, that one had animations and stuff. Someone knew what they were doing when they created that.”
“It’s also got to be somebody who hangs out in the media center after school since that’s where a lot of the messages originated,” Zebby said.
“Who hangs out in the media center after school?” Amr asked.
“Once again, you guys,” I said.
“Not me,” Amr said. “I have to go home and pray every day after school.”
“You and your friends were in there quite a bit these last couple of weeks,” Zebby said to me.
“Not that much,” I said. “Just when we were looking up cheerleading stuff.”
“Brianna and Hayley were in there by themselves a couple times this past week,” Zebby said. “And Trevor Pearson and Sara Murphy are in there almost every day.”
My blood went cold.
Why hadn’t I figured this out before?
“I think I know who milkandhoney is,” I said.
Zebby:
“Who?” I asked. “Who’s milkandhoney?”
But Lilly wouldn’t tell me. She just all of a sudden headed for the door. Which surprised me a little. How did figuring out who milkandhoney was suddenly make her decide to come down from the tree house?
I stuck my flashlight in my pocket. “What are you going to do?” I asked as I scrambled down the ladder behind her. Amr put his flashlight in his mouth and followed after me.
“Are you going to confront milkandhoney?” I called down to Lilly. “Are you going to tell the police? Or Mr. Gates?”
“I don’t know,” Lilly said when we were both on solid ground again. “For now, I’m just going to go home. If that’s okay with you.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Fine. Whatever.” I never said anything about Lilly made sense.
We tromped through the woods in silence, our flashlights lighting the way. As soon as we stepped into my backyard, we found out half the neighborhood was now out looking for Amr and me.
Our parents weren’t too mad when they found us, though. Not when they saw we’d brought Lilly back with us.
Lilly:
I had a long talk with my parents when I got back. I found out they knew about those websites and what people were saying about me online. They also knew that all my friends had dumped me. And I was actually glad they knew; that way I didn’t have to explain it to them.
What they didn’t know was how much of a struggle the last three years had been for me. Even when I had friends. I was always so afraid I was going to do something wrong, or gain weight again, and they wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore.
I never told anyone this, but I didn’t always like who I was when I was with those girls. There were times I didn’t even recognize myself. I was…mean sometimes. And I said or did things just to impress everyone else. I was so worried about what they thought about everything that I never stopped to ask myself, what do I think about this?
Maybe it was time to figure out what I thought about a few things.
I told my parents I didn’t want to back to Truman anymore. I wanted to go to Roosevelt, the other middle school. Or even St. Jude’s. Even though I’m not Catholic. I didn’t care where
I went as long as I didn’t have to go back to Truman.
“That’s ridiculous!” my dad said. “Those kids who have been bothering you have been caught and punished. There’s no reason you can’t go back to school!”
Brianna was the only one who’d been caught. And I found out later that even though she wasn’t milkandhoney, she was the one who started the We Hate Lilly website. She and my other so-called friends. But that didn’t matter. Believe it or not, I didn’t want to switch schools just because everyone at Truman hated me. I wanted to switch schools because I needed a fresh start. I needed to figure out who I was…away from my old Hoover friends and my Truman friends and everyone who’s ever known me.
My dad didn’t buy it. “If we let you switch schools, we’d just be allowing you to run away,” he said. “You can’t run away from your problems, Lilly.”
“It’s not running away!” I argued. “How come it’s okay for adults to get new jobs and move away and even get divorced when they want out of something? But it’s not okay when kids need a fresh start?”
Neither of my parents had an answer to that.
“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” my mom said. Then she sent me to bed.
I had a hard time falling asleep. I could hear my parents talking in the other room, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Finally, around midnight, I heard the front door open and close and I heard a car start up and pull out of the driveway. My dad was going home.
My mom let me sleep in the next morning. She didn’t make me go to school. But she did ask if I still wanted to change schools.
I told her I did, so she made some phone calls. Half an hour later it was all set. I would be starting Roosevelt on Monday.
Okay, maybe my dad was right. Maybe I was running away. But sometimes running away was an okay choice.
Zebby:
Truth about Truman School Page 12
