Theo adds, “If his family doesn’t figure out the root of his problem, then how’s he ever going to get past it? Denial works...until it doesn’t.” The Gatekeepers has brought a hidden depth out of my brother. I’m so proud of him. He’s a lot more like Holden than I ever realized.
Kent explains, “Simone’s only allowed to see Liam at school and now they’re moving back to England way early. Her folks say it’s because her dad can’t seem to work here, but I bet it’s because of Liam. She can’t stay away.”
Theo picks at a rough part of his cast. “What a clusterfuck.”
“Her leaving is going to be really bad for Liam,” I say.
Kent says, “She’s the only person he’s even talking to.”
Jasper says, “You know, he’s not been without a girlfriend since, like, the fourth grade. He’s not so great on his own.”
“What can we do for him?” I ask. “How do we go about, I don’t know, gatekeeping him?”
Owen says, “Dude’s a freaking powder keg right now.”
Jasper adds, “Seeing him yelling at you in the hallway, Malcontent? That’s not the L-Money I know. I remember him microwaving hot cocoa to give to the mailman on snow days. I’d be like, ‘What are you doing?’ He’d say it wasn’t fair for the mailman to have to work when the weather was bad, so he wanted to do what he could to make the day easier for him. Who does that?”
“We need to keep an eye on him,” Kent says.
Owen replies, “For sure. Mr. Gorton says that someone else’s suicide suddenly puts the option on the table for others. We’ve gotta be vigilant.”
“Agreed, but how do we help someone who wants nothing to do with us?” I ask.
Owen sighs. “That’s, like, the million-dollar question.”
*
All of us Gatekeepers are gathered, waiting for Mr. Gorton to begin the meeting. People are starting to glance at the time on their phones; he’s never late. Simone has just shown up and I’m surprised to see her here without Liam. She peers anxiously around the room for a minute before she picks the seat next to me, and when she does sit, she barely inhabits the chair. She looks ready to spring up and run away at any moment, a kitten spooked by loud noises and quick movements.
“Mallory, hey, have you, um...seen Liam? You have an afternoon class together, right?” she asks. She sounds tentative, like she’s afraid to even speak to me. Her (clueless) bravado from the day I met her is long gone. She seems diminished somehow, as though no longer firing on all pistons. Like she’s traveling at half speed.
“Haven’t run into him since this morning,” I reply. I noticed he wasn’t in our AP Statistics class sixth period and I wondered if he’d cut in order to avoid me, but I don’t say that. I don’t say anything about his terrible behavior. She seems so breakable right now, all hollowed out and made of glass, and I feel protective. So I offer, “Maybe he went home sick?”
“Yeah, maybe,” she echoes, but doesn’t seem convinced. She toys with her Cheerios bracelet, talking to me from behind her curtain of hair. The blue has long since washed away. “Does...he seem ‘off’ to you?”
I don’t want to sound like a jealous ex-girlfriend but I do want to express concern, so I tread lightly here. “We don’t talk now, so this isn’t firsthand knowledge. From what I hear, he’s not been himself.”
The poor girl looks so glum, so bereft of her (annoying) joie de vivre, which has faded much like her indigo bangs. I add, “The semester’s been really hard on all of us.”
The door to the lecture hall swings open and Vice Principal Torres enters. Following him is Principal Gottfried, who strides in on her tottering heels and power suit. She used to teach second grade reading at my elementary school, so it’s still weird to see her here, all professionally dressed and blown-dry. I still picture her in her fuzzy cardigans and pretty, flowered skirts, untamed curls spilling halfway down her back. She’d hug us when we’d sound out particularly big words and she always smelled like chocolate chip cookies.
Principal Gottfried was involved in some big brouhaha when I was in fifth grade. Something about teachers coaching students on their standardized tests? I guess the superintendent was having an affair with the elementary school’s principal and they were working together to inflate our scores so that the principal would be granted a raise. Principal Gottfried, who was Miss Gottfried back then, was the whistleblower on the whole thing.
I was young at the time, so I was never quite clear on all the details of the scandal. But it was so bad that half the town stopped talking to the other half. One group of parents was outraged that their kids were essentially cheating/being cheated and the other half was outraged to hear their kids weren’t as gifted as the tests results indicated. My mom stopped doing yoga with a whole group of her girlfriends. While I’d like to believe she was one of the people outraged about the cheating, my gut says she was actually Team Special Snowflake.
Principal Gottfried clears her throat and approaches the lectern with a piece of paper in her hands. She dons a pair of bifocals and reads, “Students, I regret to inform you that your club is not officially recognized by North Shore High School. As unrecognized clubs are not covered by the district’s insurance policy, they are forbidden to assemble anywhere on the NSHS grounds for liability reasons. Further, they are barred from use of any and all school resources, both material goods as well as intellectual property, which includes the North Shore Knights website and all other forms of social media.”
We all look at each other in wild confusion.
“What does that even mean?” Jasper demands.
Principal Gottfried glances down at the sheet of paper. Dolefully, she says, “That means the Gatekeepers can’t exist here on campus, Mr. Gates.”
The entire room begins to buzz and dozens of hands shoot up in the air.
“The Gatekeepers are important,” Owen protests, not even waiting for her to call on him. “What are we supposed to do? There’s, like, at least fifty of us in every meeting. Are we supposed to all cram into a Starbucks or something? I feel like you’re playing lawyer-ball right now.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m afraid my hands are tied. The school can’t condone any unofficial activities.”
Owen persists, “Then how do we become all North Shore-official?”
Without meeting his eye, she says, “To be recognized, your organization will need to pursue a charter.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Owen says. “Let’s do that.”
Principal Gottfried grasps the sides of the lectern and gazes out at us with the same kind of expression she’d wear when classmates would stumble over words when reading aloud. “Unfortunately, Mr. Foley-Feinstein, we can’t accept new charters this far into the academic year. We encourage you to submit in the fall.”