There was an outburst from Trent in the desk next to mine. “Who scissor-handed the red beast, bro?” he exclaimed loudly toward the end of the period. He was hunched over his cell and his checks reddened when he realized he’d spoken out loud. “Sorry, Mr. Novak,” he mumbled, continuing to text. The red beast was what Conner called his car.
At lunch, it was all over school that the district’s superintendent had seen the picture of the flyer trending on social media. Journalists began calling for comments. Sexual harassment of students by staff was a newsworthy allegation. The cheerleaders were practicing in the quad when the superintendent’s car came to a screeching halt, and she made a beeline through a dance formation. Amid the details that came in waves, there was also talk that someone keyed Asshole on Conner’s car. The cherry on top of a perfect day.
Reports reached us of Bedford leaving campus with a cardboard box. Three female students accused Bedford of making harassing remarks and staring at them suggestively. Parents tied up the school’s phone lines, and a local cable channel’s morning show got a copy of the school dress code, their reporter asking the school secretary if she thought the dress code had created an environment of impunity for the sexual harassment of female students. She answered affirmatively. The parents whose daughters were pictured in the flyer arrived to take them home. Graham said they’d lawyer up, slam the district with lawsuits. Lawsuits, lawyers, reporters, parents, consequences.
It hit me, abrupt and as hard as the water smacks your cannonballing form. We had a say in the world. As us, we were invisible. As the Order of IV, we were powerful. This revelation was as intoxicating as hard apple cider. I wanted to keep having a say.
On the drive home from school I watched Viv peek under her bandage to stare at the shadow left by the penned IV on her wrist. She felt its power too.
We listened to one of my playlists at the cell phone’s full volume. Harry punched the horn to the beat as we drove through our neighborhood. Viv chimed in using her high vibrato. Graham was bent over his cell, scrolling through a feed of our flyers tagged in photos. The tip of his tongue went between his teeth in the way it did when he was surprised.
I was struck with a thought: If you know Graham so well, how did you miss him having crushes on you and Viv? Not crushes. He’d confessed to having been in love. The difference between loving and being in love doesn’t exist until you experience it, so I wasn’t entirely sure what Graham’s secret meant.
I waved good-bye with both arms as Harry reversed from my driveway. There was a kick in my step as I used the rear door to the kitchen. I ditched my bag next to the table and shouted, “Your favorite daughter’s returned.” My parents ran their architectural firm from home.
I picked through the Greek yogurts in the fridge drawer. I hummed to myself, blurting occasional lyrics of the hip-hop song we had been playing in Harry’s car. I was too high off the rebellion to care that I was muddling the words. Usually Graham, Viv, and I headed to the barn after school, and then Harry joined us after his shift at Hilltop Market, but that day Graham had a class at USB, Harry was driving the hour to Paso Robles to a vinyl store, and Viv was practicing for our school’s upcoming Antigone auditions. I’d gotten the topic of the first term paper in Post-Colonial History and I was excited to begin.
I elbowed the fridge door closed and was going for a spoon when susurrant voices reached the kitchen. They were muffled, gradually more audible as I deserted the yogurt on the counter and tiptoed into the hall. Ours was a big, old, creaking house with wood floors that whined and brass door hinges that sang escalating notes like those my cello used to make while I tuned it, before I quit in the fifth grade. I stepped long to avoid an especially squeaky floorboard and went halfway to my parents’ office. Stopped.
“ . . . you aren’t hearing what I’m telling you . . .” Those words of my mother’s came sharp like a dagger through the closed door.
“We can’t continue having the same argument, Ellison. You’re either in this or you aren’t. I won’t be cast as a villain for the rest of my life.”
“And so the blame is on me. God forbid you take any responsibility. . . .”
I reversed. I should have made more noise in the kitchen; lead with a loud joke rather than a silly hello they must have missed.
I left the yogurt but took my backpack to my room and shut the door.
I crawled into my egg chair that hung from a ceiling beam. Its wicker frame was small, left over from when Mom had to boost me up. I opened my laptop to distract myself.
The paper for Post-Colonial History wasn’t due for six weeks, yet there I was, defining my research goals the day the essay prompt was given. The window was open and the salty air rocked the chair gently. I gradually let go of the sinking sensation in my stomach. My eyes drifted from my laptop to the water on the horizon each time I completed a bullet point and my brain skipped from post-colonial medicine in Africa to the Order of IV.
Our blood moon ritual was in two Saturdays. Viv would create the ceremony. What would our next rebellion be? I wanted another plan. I wanted to flex the Order of IV’s muscles. Show our school that IV existed, was powerful, and in the shadows. For the flyers not to be a fluke, there needed to be more.
Slumber Fest wormed into my head. The grown-ups had snapped their fingers and decided that Seven Hills High School’s oldest tradition was canceled. I might have acknowledged that the issue was safety and not adults being tyrannical, but then raised voices from downstairs made it into my egg, reminding me of how at the mercy of adults I was. I pressed my right ear into the cushion. I was sick of listening to what adults had to say, to me, to one another, always with their opinions.
I clapped the laptop shut. I wouldn’t listen helplessly. Not on the day we took down pervy Bedford and the school’s dress code.
I set my egg chair swinging as I threw myself from it, opened by bedroom door, and screamed, “I can’t do my homework with all of your shouting!”
The tight voices went dead. I sensed Mom and Dad a floor below me, listening. I slammed the door. Leaned against it. A long sigh of relief slipped out.
At last. There was my voice.
Viv called me when she was through practicing for her audition. I’d set aside my finished research plan an hour before. “Did you go with the Ophelia or Viola monologue?”
“Ophelia,” Viv sighed dreamily. “She’s so tragic, mad. I don’t even care that she’s the ultimate manic pixie dream girl. Mr. Lancaster’s dropping hints that the spring production will be Hamlet. I want him to see that I was born to play Ophelia. Amanda will be all, Ophelia was a blonde and so am I. I won’t let her snake it from me. Hold on.” She yelled away from the phone. Listened for a beat of silence. Then, “Ina wants to know if you’re having a veggie burger?”
“I’m going to give my parents heart attacks and eat here tonight.”
She shouted back to her mom and then to me, “Uh-oh. Is it zombies versus unicorns over there?”