CHAPTER FIVE
A school super early in the morning feels haunted. It doesn’t look all that different on the outside, but without teenage bodies filling its halls and slamming its lockers, it seems like a cavernous, creepy space on the outskirts of some parallel universe, full of the spirits of teenage dreams that died sad, tragic deaths involving multiple-choice quizzes and prom-night disasters. All I can do as I pull open a side door is shake off the weirdness and hope there isn’t anyone inside to catch me.
I pick the language hall as my secret entry point. I know the head custodian, Mr. Casas, gets here crazy early to unlock the doors and turn on the lights and power up the air-conditioning or the heat—both always seem to break on the hottest and coldest days of the year, respectively. It’s not technically against the rules to be here at 6:30 on a Monday morning, but if this plan of mine is going to work, no one can see me.
My heart thrumming, I slide into the first girls’ bathroom I see. Once inside, I take a breath and reach inside my backpack for my copies of Moxie. My hand slips around a stack of about twenty zines, then pauses. If I pull them out and put them down and walk out, I can’t take it back. Not with the early bell ringing in thirty minutes.
The plink plink of a drippy sink taunts me in the background.
You. Can’t. You. Can’t. You. Can’t.
I’m a girl who studies for tests. I’m a girl who turns in homework on time. I’m a girl who tells her grandparents she’ll be over in five minutes and shows up in three. I’m a girl who doesn’t cause a fuss. I even shrink into my desk when a teacher calls on me in class. I’m a girl who would prefer to evaporate into the ether rather than draw even positive attention to herself.
Drip. Drip. Drip. You. Can’t. You. Can’t.
Total truth? Sometimes I catch myself lip-syncing lyrics into the mirror alone in my bedroom, and I get embarrassed for myself even though there’s no one there to see me but my own reflection.
DripDrip. DripDrip. DripDrip. YouCan’t. YouCan’t. YouCan’t!
If I get caught distributing Moxie, I can only guess what kind of punishment Principal Wilson will dream up. A zine criticizing his precious school would definitely earn me a huge, public punishment. Way worse than anything that would have happened to my mother when she walked down the hallways of this very building with illegal blue hair. I glance at the lady boxer on the cover of Moxie, trying to channel her total badass attitude.
But damn it! I’m dutiful Vivian, and I’m going to be dutiful about this, too. After all, these zines exist because I made them. They’re real. I can’t stop now.
And with my breath held, I slide the stack onto the windowsill, just underneath the filmy first-floor windows that the girls crack open sometimes so they can smoke without getting caught.
There. It’s done. I look at the copies for a moment, trying to imagine how they’ll appear to someone who has no idea where they came from. Hopefully like a Christmas present. Or a treasure hunt clue.
Walking quickly through the hallways, my mind running excuses as to why I’m here so early. (I’m supposed to meet a teacher to make up a quiz. I wanted to see my college counselor. I had insomnia so I decided, what the hell, I might as well get here early.) I stop at each girls’ bathroom and drop off stacks of Moxie until there’s only one copy left. I never see Mr. Casas or any other adult. Finally, I make it to my locker and slide the final remaining issue underneath some old spirals.
The first bell rings, and it’s not long until bodies start streaming into the building as the sun rises. As I walk to American history, I scan the faces of my classmates, wondering if every girl I spot has already been inside a bathroom. Wondering if an issue of Moxie is tucked inside a notebook or folded inside the back pocket of a well-worn pair of jeans. I feel my heart pulsing, full of something important.
I take my seat in the second to last row as the bell rings, and Claudia runs in a beat later, sliding into the seat next to me. Our teacher, Mrs. Robbins, is fiddling around with papers at her desk. She doesn’t even look up to greet us.
Our friend Sara is seated in front of us, and she takes advantage of Mrs. Robbins’s lack of preparation to turn around and face Claudia and me. It’s then that I see a copy of Moxie in her hands. I can feel my cheeks redden and tip my head forward so my hair covers my cheeks.
“Did y’all see this?” Sara asks.
Claudia reaches her hand out. “No, what is it?”
Sara hands the zine over, and I watch as Claudia’s eyes skim the words I wrote Friday night while she was half-heartedly cheering the East Rockport Pirates on to a win over Refugio.
“Whoa,” Claudia says.
“What is it?” I ask instead, praying I look normal as I peer over Claudia’s shoulder.
“See for yourself,” Claudia says, and I lean over the zine so I can read my own creation. I try to contort my face into one of surprise and curiosity.
“Huh,” I manage. I feel so unnatural I can’t believe they’re not all staring at me.
But my friends’ eyes are on the zine. “It’s totally right on,” Sara says. “I mean, all of this is totally accurate. But I wonder who made it? Like, who are these Moxie girls it’s talking about? Are they some sort of club or something?”
“Did you see the thing on the back?” Claudia asks. “About coming to school on Friday with stars and hearts on your hands?” She shrugs and raises her eyebrows. “Not sure what the hell that’s going to accomplish.”
Claudia’s words sting because it hits me that I never really thought about what the stars and hearts are going to do. Riot Grrrls used to do similar things to help like-minded girls find each other at punk shows. But I’m not sure what the girls with decorations on their hands will do on Friday. I’m not sure any girls will show up to school with their hands marked up at all.
“I guess it’s cool it got made, at least,” I say, fishing for some validation.
“Too bad Mitchell Wilson and his asshole friends won’t even realize it exists when they’re the ones who need to read it,” Claudia says. “Here.” She tosses Moxie over Sara’s shoulder and slumps back in her seat as Mrs. Robbins heads over to her podium to begin her millionth lecture on the Teapot Dome Scandal or something else equally mind-paralyzing.
When the bell rings to end class, Sara leaves Moxie behind on her desk as if it’s a forgotten homework assignment. I resist the urge to pick it up and take it with me like some sort of overprotective mother.