I picked up egg sandwiches and coffees and got to the duck pond in record time.
“Why do we continue to meet in a place that makes me uncomfortable?” Jean said. “Next time we’re meeting on a massive spiderweb, Val.”
“Great, Jean. Let’s do that,” Val said, patting the blanket she had laid out under a tree. Jean sat next to me. He had a fedora on and was clutching a duck-fighting baseball bat.
Gordie rolled in just after we finished our sandwiches and his.
“You ate my sandwich?” He looked wounded.
“Can I just say how irritated I am that a random kid from our school was wearing our avatar on his shirt, and some amoral asshole is profiting off our idea?” I said.
“Sadie, we’re all pissed. As soon as I saw the coverage all over the place, I knew it was coming. It’s bullshit,” Gordie said.
“Maybe we should just go public,” Val said. “We’ll call everyone out.”
Alice lifted her finger and held it in the air. “Under no circumstances will we ever go public.”
“So do we just let it go fully corrupt?” Jean said. “Like walk away?”
“We didn’t really have a grand plan to begin with,” Alice said. “We helped Greg O. with his website, dropped some care packages, and started anti-trolling on Val and Jean’s school slam page. That’s it.”
“Clearly it has evolved, Alice. Do we walk away or do we do something?” I didn’t know the answer. I just wanted to protect all the good things we started without the nonsense.
We lay back on the blanket and stared up at the tree branches, heavy with late-summer leaves. Nameless Puppy jumped on our stomachs and licked our faces. Finally, Val sat up and smiled her The wheels in my brilliant and abnormally productive mind are turning smile. “I’ve got it.”
We used up the rest of Jean’s sketchbook and half of another. We spent hours on the blanket in the middle of the duck pond park while the puppy chased away oblivious ducks and gutsy squirrels, bloated from the fruits of summer.
And then we were finished. And we were exhausted.
“What do you think we would have done if all this hadn’t happened?” Gordie said as we walked to the cars.
Alice laughed and heaved her bag over her shoulder. “Been really friggin’ bored.”
Dad had chicken and corn on the grill when I got home. I was three days into vegetarianism so I ate the corn with a side of hummus and pita while Mom sneered and told me I was going to die of protein deficiency.
We settled into our chairs on the porch and watched the fireflies struggle to keep up with the hum of the cicadas. It smelled like fall.
After dinner, Dad and I took the ice cream truck over to Gordie’s for our special group date.
“Hey there, Mr. Valedictorian.” Dad was embarrassing.
Gordie jumped in the truck. “Woody, turn on the music. This is awesome.”
Dad turned on the music, and Keith and Zoe ran out of Gordie’s house.
“Woody! Woody!” Keith ran up to the window. “Wait, I have to get money.”
“No, you don’t, Keith. This one’s free. And I have a little surprise for you.” Dad opened the side door. Keith and Zoe climbed in front. And away we went. We picked up David and gave him a hat to match the new ones Dad had stuck on Keith’s and Zoe’s heads, and we drove all over the East End, playing the music, serving the customers, eating excessive amounts of ice cream.
Gordie and I sat on the floor in the back, facing each other, legs crossed, knees touching.
He licked his lips and that was all it took. I raised my eyebrows and ran my fingertips over his bare legs. He shook his head, and his eyes said, You can’t pull this shit in your dad’s ice cream truck.
“Last, but not least,” Keith called from the front.
“Last, but not least, buddy,” Dad said, pulling into Turtle Trail Recreation Center.
Dad did have the best job in the world.
Is it up yet? Alice texted. Gordie and I were in my stuffy room working on our secret project. Mom had pulled the I’m going to set some clean towels on your bed because I want to make sure you’re not having sex even though the door is open routine.
Yes. Just finished, Gordie texted.
He sat back in my chair in the corner. I lay on the bed playing with Flopper’s tail, feeling nervous and excited.
“Don’t judge,” I said when I caught Gordie staring at me. “Flopper’s gotten me through some rough times.”
Gordie had changed our avatar to a link. The link took people to a statement with the intentions of the founders of the original Unlikelies.
It was our manifesto.
We are the founders of the Unlikelies. We started this movement to disrupt the cyberbullies and high school assholes, the ones who make life much less enjoyable for the rest of us. Then we moved on to turning in the keepers of the underworld, the ones who get young people addicted and leave them for dead. And that was all good. Except that you all became fixated on trying to figure out WHO we were, and you ignored WHAT we stood for. And then we didn’t even know what we stood for.
So we had to pause and think. Pause and think, people.
Pause and think.
We stand for kindness. That sounds cliché. But we can’t help it. We stand for kindness. We believe in sticking up for people who are being mistreated online, in person, wherever. We believe in sticking up for people we don’t even know. And before you change your Facebook photo to our avatar or buy a T-shirt some asshat sold to make a quick buck, pause and think: What have YOU done today to stick up for someone? What have you done to stick up for yourself?
We stand for bravery. We need to step in and help our friends and classmates who are struggling with addiction and depression and all the things you may think you’re immune to. You’re not. We believe in being brave and speaking up and speaking out and turning in the traffickers, the dealers, the soul stealers.
And we stand for respect. Respect our planet. Yeah, it’s simple. But we all need to do better. Respect the person to your left. And your right. Respect yourself. Because you matter. And by the way, go, Ebenezer! You guys rock!
Do something noble. You’re one of us now.
—The Unlikelies
Gordie closed the laptop and motioned for me to sit with him in the chair.
“I wonder if any of this will rub off on our dysfunctional classmates,” I said.
“We’ll see soon enough.”
“Do you think we did it right?” I whispered as I lowered myself onto his lap.
“Well, you know what they say.” He smiled.
“What do they say?”
“If you see something, say something.”
“Good one, Mr. Pause and Think. Pause and think, people.”
Val: What now?
Jean: No clue.
Alice: Sleep until school starts?