Guys, we have to stop putting bitches on a pedestal. The more you get to know them, you realize there’s no such thing as sweet and innocent. They’re all selfish, lying manipulators who want stuff for free. They’re the original players, but they get mad about us having game? They’re just begging to be put back in their place.
I’m going to be totally honest with you—girls are good for fucking and making sandwiches. That’s it. This may sound shocking, but in your hearts you know it’s true. The feminists have been ruling things for so long they’ve made us ashamed of speaking the truth.
I, for one, will not be silenced any longer.
—AlphaGuy541
ERIN.
“Miss DeLillo,” Principal Slatterly says, with a smile on her face that Erin knows does not mean what most smiles mean. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” Erin says. She knows Slatterly does not want to know how she’s doing. All morning, Erin has watched everybody file in to talk to the principal, one by one—Mrs. Poole, the vice principal, guidance counselors, everyone who works in the office. Now it’s Erin’s turn. For the past thirty minutes, she’s been doing her best to prepare, scribbling an if/then flowchart of possible scenarios and complications. She lost track of the number of times she’s counted backward from one hundred. She’s even had to do the alphabet backward, which she reserves for truly serious situations. And this is serious.
“Are you getting all the support you need this year?” Principal Slatterly says with a tone that Erin would normally associate with kindness, but right now she’s not so sure. Slatterly is the enemy, right? And enemies are usually not known for being kind. “How is your IEP working out?”
“Fine,” Erin says, but she is uncomfortable with the fact that Slatterly technically asked two different questions. “Yes,” she says, to answer the first question. But now the two answers are out of order.
Z, Y, X, W, V—
Erin doesn’t try to stop her rocking. It’s the only thing keeping her from running out of the room.
“That’s wonderful, dear.”
This is where logic has led Erin: she did the actual stealing of e-mail addresses. While everyone else in the Nowhere Girls is guilty of minor things, few of them probably even illegal, Erin is the only one so far who has done an actual serious crime. Rosina and Grace have tried to convince her that it doesn’t matter, that the school can’t actually prove the e-mail addresses were stolen. Because all student e-mail addresses follow the same format, the Nowhere Girls technically could have figured out every single one and typed it in by hand—no stealing necessary.
While Erin will admit this is a reasonable explanation, it is also a lie. Lies get caught and liars get punished. The e-mails are school property and Erin stole them. Erin broke a rule, a law.
Erin reminds herself that lying isn’t always bad. Even Lieutenant Commander Data lied in Season 4, Episode 14, of Star Trek: The Next Generation (episode title: “Clues”). In order to protect his ship and everybody on it, Data had no choice but to allow the Paxans to wipe the memories of the entire crew of the Enterprise and feed them with a false story of what happened, leaving Data with the responsibility of carrying the truth, alone. His lie saved everyone he cared about. (That is, if he had the capacity to care.)
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, Erin,” Principal Slatterly says. “Would that be all right with you?” She’s speaking slowly, enunciating each word. Slatterly thinks Erin’s an idiot. If she actually took the time to look at her IEP files, she’d know the opposite is true.
“Okay,” Erin says, realizing she can use Slatterly’s ignorance and sterotypes to her own benefit.
“You’re friends with Rosina Suarez, aren’t you?”
Erin shrugs. What would an idiot do? “Rosina lets me sit by her at lunch,” Erin says as she sticks her finger in her ear.
“And she’s your friend,” Slatterly says. If this were Law & Order, Erin would say, Objection, your honor. Leading the witness.
Erin twirls her finger in her ear a little. “I don’t know. We don’t really talk to each other or anything. Do you have to talk to someone to be their friend? Maybe we’re not friends. I wish we were friends.” Erin stares into space and lets herself rock as much as she wants to.
Principal Slatterly sighs the sigh that means frustrated. Erin is not giving her the answers she wants. The anxiety in her chest is turning into something else, something not quite painful. She is a better liar than she thought. Maybe she will add acting as one of her interests. Maybe that is something she can talk to Sam Robeson about, since that is Sam’s main interest, in addition to sex.
“It must be hard for someone like you to make friends,” Slatterly says. “Maybe you’d be willing to do things you normally wouldn’t do, in order to make a friend. You might be persuaded by someone like Miss Suarez to do something bad. Something only you could do because of your work in the office, maybe? Because you have access to certain information other students don’t have?” Slatterly stares at Erin for a moment, to make sure she understands. Erin must still look like an idiot because Slatterly keeps talking. “I know Miss Suarez can be very convincing, Erin. Very charming. There’s no shame in being taken advantage of by someone like that. You’re vulnerable, Erin. You have . . . limitations. It’s not your fault.”
Slatterly pauses to let that sink in. Erin knows she is supposed to feel safe now, supposed to trust the principal because she gave her permission to be vulnerable. She’s good; Erin will give her that.
“We failed to protect you,” Slatterly continues. “That’s our job. That’s on us. It’s reprehensible for someone to take advantage of you like that, to make you do their dirty work. To make you steal for them. But you can make this right. You have the power to do that. This could all be over in a second if you turn the troublemakers in. You’d be a hero. You know that? Everyone in the school would love you for ending this crazy disruption, and everything could get back to normal. Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t you just love to be a hero?”
“Like Superman?” Erin says. “Would I get to wear a cape? I would really like to wear a cape.”
“Sure, honey,” Slatterly says with a smile that seems close to genuine. She thinks she’s getting somewhere. “You can wear a cape.”
“A red cape?” Erin says. “A shiny one?” She never knew lying could be so fun. She never knew she’d be so good at it. How is it possible she is so in control right now? The old Erin would be in full meltdown mode by now. Since when is there even a new Erin? When did that happen?
“Whatever you want, dear. You’re the hero.”
Erin stares at Principal Slatterly, her jaw slack. She tilts her head to the side the way Spot does when he’s confused, the way actors do when they’re playing stereotypes of people like her. “What are we talking about again?”
Slatterly’s breath comes out in a big huff. “What is it you do in the office exactly?” Her voice is sharp. She is done playing nice.