Tease(18)



“In what?” Tommy asks, with his best I’m-twenty-months-older-and-therefore-so-much-smarter-than-you expression.

“Sook,” Alex says with a sigh, like he’s just so tired of explaining everything. “You know, like Santa. And Mary Poppins?”

Our mom smiles nicely as she sends a gross glob of leaves into the bag I’m holding and says, “Sweetie, do you mean soot?”

“You dumbass!” Tommy yells.

“Hey, don’t call your brother that!” I say, and at the same time my mom yells, “Language!”

Tommy mutters “Sorry” in Alex’s general direction, and looks sheepish for about three seconds before he asks, “Now can I go inside?”

“Sara and Brielle?” Ms. Enman looks up from the note she’s holding, the one Jeremy Miner just handed her. He’s already disappeared back into the hallway, off to messenger some other note to some other teacher, win Hall Monitor of the Year, be the AV club captain, die a virgin, etc.

“Yep,” Brielle says lazily. She rolls her eyes, like she’s been expecting her name to be called, but I’m actually dumb enough to feel surprised. When we get to the principal’s office Brielle smirks at me. “What a lame effing job this lady has,” she says. “You know they’ve pulled half the girls in our class in here already. God, it’s like, just hire a stupid IT person, figure it out already.”

And that’s when I finally get it: the Facebook page.

My heart drops to my shoes, but two seconds in Principal Schoen’s office and I realize Brielle was right. The woman has no idea who set up the Fat Beyotch account. She’s just rounding up the possible suspects, two by two. Including the two who yelled at Emma Putnam on Friday night.

So I can’t really focus on what’s going on, can’t figure out if I’m in trouble or annoyed or what. I’m in this, like, free-floating panic about what this might mean, and I don’t really hear what the principal says at first. Mostly I’m staring at her shapeless gray hair and wondering whether this would go on my permanent record. Could we even try to explain how much Emma asks for it? She acts so pathetic all the time, and then she goes off and starts texting your boyfriend or calls you a tease or crashes your party, and no one calls her to Schoen’s office.

“Girls, I know Emma has had a hard time making friends,” the principal’s saying. In my shock I’ve just been watching her face, but so far it’s been totally calm, almost ridiculously nonthreatening. Finally some of her words start to sink in, and I start to feel like this is all going to blow over. “And I’m not accusing you of anything,” she says. “If you could just make more of an effort, you know the school has a strict policy against bullying—”

I jump a little at that word, but Brielle already interrupting. “Principal Schoen,” she says carefully, her voice dripping with sincerity, “we’ve really been trying to reach out to Emma. And I’m sure whoever did this Facebook thing was just trying to joke around, you know? I mean, Sara and I tease each other all the time, right?”

She looks at me and it’s eighth grade speech class all over again—I nod vigorously, but I can’t think of anything to say, can’t force any words out of my mouth.

“So I just know that whoever did this,” Brielle goes on, “probably thought it was a way to make Emma part of the group, right? We all do that stuff to each other. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s just funny—I’m sure it was only meant to be funny.”

Principal Schoen looks like she really wants to believe what Brielle is saying. Hell, I want to believe it, and I know better than anyone what a truckload of bullshit it is. I almost wonder if Brielle believes it herself—though I guess the fact that she definitely believes, or maybe somehow knows that Schoen and the rest of them can’t actually catch us, is more than enough to give her voice that confident tone.

But when we leave the office—after the principal asks us again to befriend Emma and report any bullying we see at school—Brielle is pissed.

“I bet that little tramp stamp gave Schoen a list of names,” she says, storming down the hall toward her locker. The bell hasn’t rung yet so the hallways are still empty, and when Brielle spins her lock and yanks the door open so hard it bangs into the one next to it, the sound echoes. “This stupid school is so scared of my parents they wouldn’t dare pull me in for questioning unless she told them to. I am so gonna get her for this.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately I don’t think we’re playing dodgeball today,” I say, in a weak attempt at a joke. We’ll see Emma next period, in gym, but this week has been the badminton unit. Like any of us—or anyone at all, for that matter—needs to know how to play freaking badminton.

“Holy schnitzel, you’re right!” Brielle turns to me with her mouth open in a surprised grin. “Why didn’t I think of that? Jeez, girl, you are a genius.”

“What? I said we’re not playing dodgeball.”

Brielle leans in and says in her movie-announcer voice, “Baby, where we’re going, we don’t need balls.”

The tension of the trip to Schoen’s office finally breaks, and I start giggling like an idiot. Brielle grabs my arm and practically carries me to the locker rooms, like I wasn’t going there, anyway. She flings her purse onto one of the benches and paces up and down—the bell rang on our way here, but we’re still the first ones to arrive. It gives Brielle time to rant some more. Her brief moment of humor is already long gone, so when another fit of laughter rises up in my throat I swallow it back down.

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