*
It feels so good to tag Mitchell’s locker first. Ten stickers. For each one I slap on, I think about Claudia. I think about how humiliated and angry and hurt she was in that empty hallway. I think about Mr. Shelly telling her to forget about it. I think about Mitchell’s ruddy face and dead eyes. I think about his daddy letting him do anything he wants.
Slap, slap, slap. I like how loud each slap sounds, my hand making the metal locker reverberate each time I put up a new sticker.
Then I step back and admire my work. I realize my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Mitchell Wilson gets to read that he’s an asshole ten times today. Hopefully more.
As the sun starts to stream in the hallway windows, I tag a few more lockers of the boys I know play the bump ’n’ grab game. Once, I hear the sound of a janitor coming around the corner, and I duck into an empty classroom. I hold my breath as he walks by, the keys around his waist jingle jangling. His heavy steps are inches away, but he doesn’t find me. If he did, I’d be quick with an excuse. I’d smile and come up with something. Because nothing is stopping me today. Especially not some guy.
By the time first period starts, zines and stickers have been distributed throughout all the girls’ bathrooms on the first floor and most of the bathrooms on the second floor. By the time I head to history class, everyone is buzzing about it. I catch Jason Garza scowling and trying to peel the sticker on his locker off with his fingers, but he’s having trouble.
When I ordered stickers, I made sure to order the kind with the “high bond label.”
I smirk to myself.
“Please tell me you saw these?” Sara asks me as I walk into class. I catch Claudia reading the latest issue, a few stickers in her hand.
“Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” I say.
Sara nods, a smile spreading across her face. “It’s brilliant.”
“Hey, Claudia,” I say, and when she looks up at me, I tell her Mitchell Wilson’s locker is already covered in stickers.
“Seriously?” she asks, her eyes brightening.
“Seriously,” I tell her. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t add another one. Ask to go to the bathroom during class and do it.”
Claudia’s eyebrows rise at my boldness. “Maybe,” she says. She tucks the zine and the stickers into her backpack, but halfway through Mrs. Robbins’s dull lecture on something dull, Claudia raises her hand and asks to be excused. When she comes back, she winks at me.
That wink is worth everything. All the time spent making Moxie. All my Christmas money spent on stickers. Claudia’s wink is worth all of that and then some.
All day long, the stickers spread like a contagious rash, black dots spilling out everywhere, more and more each class period. Girls are smart about how they do it, and the teachers are too dense to catch on. Bathroom breaks, trips to the nurse, requests for a drink at the water fountain. All provide opportunity to duck out and tag some boy’s locker when no one is looking. After each bell rings, it’s like the stickers have been breeding because there are more and more greeting us each time.
Moxie is winning.
And I started Moxie.
And then, on my way to English, my face glowing and my heart racing with pride, Marisela Perez does something magical.
Tim Fitzpatrick—a true asshole sophomore boy who thinks he’s hot shit because he plays varsity basketball—decides to bump ’n’ grab Marisela as we head to lunch. He gooses Marisela around the waist with his thick, clumsy fingers.
“Wait a minute,” Marisela says, grabbing Tim’s shoulder, her voice sticky sweet. “I have something for you.” Dumb Tim falls for it. He holds still and stares at Marisela, like he’s expecting a blow job right there in the hallway.
But Marisela just fishes into the pocket of her jeans, digs out a sticker, and ceremoniously pushes it on him. Right on his chest. She presses down hard enough that Tim actually mutters, “Ouch!” to which Marisela rolls her eyes and walks off, leaving Tim staring at his chest, angrily picking at the sticker that won’t budge.
Lucy, who is standing next to me and witnesses the event, grips my arm and squeals as if she’s in middle school and her favorite boy band member just strolled by.
“It’s like I’m living in a feminist fantasy,” Lucy says. “But it can’t be a complete fantasy because Roxane Gay isn’t here.”
I grin and make a note to look up Roxane Gay later, and Lucy and I keep walking toward class when we spot Seth at the door of the classroom. Lucy eyes me pointedly and heads inside.
“Hey,” he says, giving me a quick peck on the lips. I’m greeting my boyfriend in the hallway in front of everyone. It makes me feel, like, twenty-five.
“Hey,” I say.
“The stickers are all over the place,” he says, his voice low. “It’s so cool.”
“Thanks,” I say, grinning at him. “It’s catching on even more than I thought it would.”
“You’re such a rebel, Vivian Carter,” Seth says, arching an eyebrow, and I feel like a firework.
In English, Mitchell Wilson and his crew scowl and stew in the back row, and when Mr. Davies picks Lucy to pass back the last round of grammar quizzes at the end of class, Mitchell sees it as a perfect opportunity to be an even bigger dick than usual.
“Hey,” he says, eyeing Lucy as she slides his paper on his desk. It has a 75 on it, circled in red. He probably did worse, but Mr. Davies likes football players.
“What?” Lucy says, her voice sharp.
“You’re in that Moxie club, aren’t you?” His beady eyes are staring her down, daring her to say yes. I imagine him groping Claudia in that hallway by the locker room, and I think I have enough anger in me to toss my desk over my head and aim it right for Mitchell.
“There’s no Moxie club,” Lucy says, turning her back on him. She hands out the last few papers and sits down in front of me.
“Yeah, fucking right there’s no Moxie club,” Mitchell says, raising his voice from the back row.
“Students, language,” Mr. Davies mutters from his desk, like all of us have been cursing a blue streak, not just Mitchell. He goes back to shifting papers around in an endless circle on his desk.
Lucy doesn’t turn around, but I can hear Mitchell’s weaselly voice snaking through the room, threatening everyone with his particular brand of poison.
“You did that queer-ass bake sale for the girls’ soccer team,” he says. “You organized it. I saw you.”
Out of the side of my eyes, I catch Seth watching the exchange. I notice Lucy’s shoulders hunch up closer to her ears, like she’s trying to protect herself. My heart is hammering, and I’m trying to figure out what to do. I glance at the clock. Five minutes left.
“You and your little man-hating, lesbo baking club,” Mitchell continues under his breath.
My stomach churns. I want to smack Mitchell Wilson. I want to punch him right in the face.
I clench my fist. I shut my eyes for a moment.