“She told him she was doing research for a school paper,” Isabel said. “She’s not an idiot.”
“He didn’t ask questions,” Becca said, her voice low. “He just answered mine.”
“What exactly did you tell him?” I asked. They were the first words I’d spoken to her in over a year, and they weren’t the ones I’d imagined when I pictured us talking again. I’d pictured something more like an apology and less like an accusation.
“I asked what would happen if a teacher manipulated students into doing illegal things for her. Like selling drugs.”
“It’s not that simple,” Raj said.
“I’m not done,” she said. “He told me that what the teacher had done was a very serious crime, and the police and the district attorney would treat it that way. So I asked about the students, whether they’d get in trouble too. He said it was possible, but if they were all under eighteen and they all had basically the same story, then they’d probably be able to make a deal. Probation, maybe, and they could get the record sealed so it didn’t hurt them later.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” I said.
“And that doesn’t factor in the possibility that she could turn on us,” Alex said. “I don’t think we’re the only ones involved, by a long shot.”
“You’re not getting it,” Becca said, and I recognized the tone she used when she got frustrated. “You guys are small potatoes here. Nothing any of you did is that big a deal. What she did is horrendous. She’s a teacher, which means she’s a state employee, and she’s in a position of trust. Which she totally took advantage of.” Her voice softened. “She had power over you, and she abused it. I get that you guys all feel bad about what you did, but you didn’t hurt anyone.”
I wasn’t sure she was right about not hurting anyone. Who knew what kinds of terrible things might have come from what Ms. Davenport had made us do? I’d been lucky that I hadn’t reacted badly to the Novalert, but that might not be true for everyone Raj sold it to. And we had no idea how big this whole thing really was.
But what Becca said about power spoke to me. She’d said what I was feeling about Ms. Davenport taking advantage of us, only better than I could say it. “I want to get the power back,” I said. “And I think we can do it.”
“I’m not going to the police,” Isabel said. “I don’t care what Becca’s dad says about us not getting in trouble. I’m not willing to take the chance. And if you do it without me, I’ll tell them you’re lying.”
“I get the no cops thing,” I said. “You’ve made that clear from the beginning. But I don’t think we need the cops to get what we want. Becca’s right—what we have on her is way worse than what she has on us. We have the picture of her getting the drugs from Mark.”
“That makes Mark look worse than her,” Justin said.
“I thought you didn’t care,” Alex said.
“I may be pissed at him, but that doesn’t mean I want him to go to jail.”
“You’re missing the point,” I said. “That’s just one of the things we have. There’s also the texts, and the things we know she made us do, and Alex, you must have something on her whole money thing, right?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “But I could come up with something.”
“And Alex and I have been doing research, and we have some stuff about her family that she might not want to get out. So together, we kind of have a lot. We can use what we know to make her stop doing this. To us, and to everyone.”
“How?” Isabel asked. “I mean, I’m all for taking her down, you know I am. But I’m not seeing how we do it yet.”
“We do to her what she did to us,” Alex said. “We send her a blocked-sender text with one of the photos we took the other night and tell her we need a favor. Then we have her meet us somewhere. We lay out what we know and we tell her to stop.”
“What if she doesn’t listen?” Raj asked. He was picking at his fingernails, like he had in the coffee shop when we’d talked. Raj was usually so confident, it was weird to see him nervous and unsure.
“She’ll listen,” Becca said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Are we all supposed to go?” Justin asked. “I’m not sure I really need to be part of this confrontation. It might be better to have a smaller group involved.”
“I kind of want to strangle her,” Alex said. “Not sure I’m the best person for the job either.”
I looked across the table at Isabel. “You know her the best out of all of us,” she said. “I remember you were her biggest fan freshman year.”
“Which makes it even harder to think about confronting her now,” I said. “And I’m in her calculus class too.” But she was right that I knew her better than any of the rest of them did. And I wanted to see this through.
“I’ll go with you,” Alex said. “I can restrain myself from violence. And I can scare her with what I know about the money stuff, if it comes to that.”