Coach Baxter enters, shoulders hunched, face clouded with anger. He doesn’t bother trying to quiet the class down. The football team everyone had such high hopes for has lost every one of its games so far this season. They are the laughingstock of the greater Eugene metropolitan area and the entire Willamette Valley.
“Poor Coach,” Connie says in a fake whisper, which elicits more than a few giggles. Yes, Coach Baxter is a sexist jerk with a whole team of guys who look up to him that he’s doing nothing to lead in the right direction, but Grace can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. She can’t help but feel a little sorry for whoever this Corwin guy is, even if he is an asshole, even if he started it. It’s hard for her to see anyone suffer, even if maybe they deserve it a little. She wonders if all growth has to hurt. She wonders if change always requires some kind of pain from someone.
She wonders about Jesse, if what he said about his own change is true. She wonders why she’s so afraid of believing him.
“Attention, Prescott High School,” booms Principal Slatterly’s voice from the ceiling speakers. No “Good morning,” no “Hello.” She sounds as grumpy as Coach Baxter looks.
“I want to make something very clear,” Slatterly says, her voice serious and gruff. “I am implementing a zero-tolerance policy for the kind of disruptive activity that has been going on recently. This is an institution of learning, and I will not tolerate any behavior that makes Prescott High School an unsafe environment for learning. This escalating hostility between students is unacceptable. Anyone caught posting things on school property without administrative approval will be immediately suspended. Computer techs have been hired to investigate the theft and illegal use of school e-mail addresses. We will discover who is behind all the recent upheaval, and they will be brought to justice.”
“Yeah, right,” a girl says in front of Grace.
“Justice, my ass,” says the marching-band guy.
“That is all,” Slatterly says. “Oh, and the chess club is meeting in Room 302 this afternoon, not Room 203. Go Spartans.”
“Well, that was depressing,” a guy says a few seats away, one of Sam Robeson’s friends from drama club.
“Shut up, faggot!” says one of the football players.
“You shut up!” the guy says right back.
“Don’t call him that!” usually quiet Allison yells at the football player.
“Everyone shut up!” yells Coach Baxter. “You’re all giving me a headache.” He sits down at his desk. “Independent reading time,” he says. “Get out your books.”
*
“Do you think it’s for real?” Melissa Sanderson says. “Do you think Slatterly really has people checking the Nowhere Girls’ e-mails?”
“She’s totally bluffing,” Rosina says. “Even if she could access the e-mails, we don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure whoever started this thing was smart enough to keep any personal info off their e-mail account.”
“Yeah,” Elise Powell says. “Plus the e-mails stopped days ago. And I’m pretty sure they always went out to everyone, so no one was singled out or anything. They can’t punish all the girls of the school for just receiving e-mails.”
“I don’t know,” says Krista, whose hair is now purple instead of blue, while Trista has changed hers to orange. It is getting easier to tell them apart. “Can’t they trace the e-mails back to the sender, even if it’s an anonymous account? Like triangulate where the message was coming from, and send like a SWAT team there or something? I think I saw that on a show one time.”
“That’s cell phones,” says Trista.
“Shhhh,” Elise says. “Security guard, one o’clock.”
All heads turn toward the large man in blue who has inched closer to their table over the course of the conversation. Rosina flashes him a big smile and waves. He takes one step away, pretending to not have seen her.
“We’re being watched,” Erin says severely. Rosina tries to stifle a laugh, but that just makes the whole table crack up. Even Erin smiles. The security guard looks away.
“I saw Sam in the hall this morning,” Elise says. “She has second period with Eric. She said he was barely conscious and totally reeked of booze.”
“I guess that’s one way to deal with it,” Rosina says.
“Has anyone read The Real Men of Prescott blog lately?” Melissa says.
“Why would we?” Rosina groans.
“We have to see what we’re up against,” Melissa says.
“Whoever’s behind it sure is pissed at us,” says orange-haired Trista.
“You know it’s Spencer Klimpt, right?” Melissa says.
“No!” Trista says. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Melissa says. “I thought everyone knew that.”
“No one knows for sure,” Elise says. “It’s not like he’s admitted it or anything.”
“But it’s pretty obvious,” Melissa says.
“But didn’t he graduate last year?” Krista says. “Why would he care what’s happening here?”
“Because he hasn’t gone anywhere,” Melissa says. “He’s still working at the Quick Stop, still hanging out with his old friends. High school is the best life he’s ever going to have.”
“What a loser,” Rosina says.
“A loser with four thousand one hundred seventy-two followers,” Erin says, looking at her phone.
“Jesus,” Rosina says.
“The stuff he says really resonates with some guys,” Melissa says. “It’s scary.”
“The same kind of guys who think immigrants are ruining the country and stealing their jobs,” Rosina says. “They have to blame someone for their lives sucking. So why not pick someone whose life sucks more than yours?”
“Exactly,” Melissa says. “These guys can’t get laid, so they hate women. Couldn’t possibly be something wrong with them.”
“Wait,” Trista says. “That means those girls on the list he posted, the girls he slept with? Some of them must go to this school still. They’re, like, people we know.”
“Yeah, but no one’s going to come out and admit it,” Rosina says. “Can you imagine? ‘Oh, yeah, number whatever is me. I’m the ugly one who was bad in bed.’ A couple of them are pretty obvious though.”
“Which ones?” Krista says, wide-eyed.
“It’s none of our business,” Melissa says with an uncharacteristic sharpness in her voice. “Come on, you guys. Those girls don’t deserve that.”
The table is silent.
“Do you think one of the girls on there is Lucy?” Trista says softly.
The bell rings but the girls don’t move. They stay seated, silent, while the lunchroom erupts into its usual chaos. Slowly, they begin to pack up. They grab their things and head to class, weighted down by the unfinished conversation.
Melissa and Rosina both stay behind, Melissa looking at her phone, Rosina poking around in her bag. “Um, bye?” Melissa says. Rosina thinks she hears something in her voice, a hint of not wanting to leave, too. But she doesn’t know if she can trust her ears, if hope and want are making her hallucinate.
“Bye,” Rosina says, and then the inches between them turn into feet, into yards, and magnets pull at Rosina’s heart and pound it against her rib cage as it tries to follow Melissa out of the lunchroom.