The Alliance (6 page)

I shook my head. “No, not really. I just…” I got out the petition. “I'm trying to start a GSA. I need to get three faculty members to sign but … well, teachers aren't exactly beating down my door. Vice Principal Winston says it's because I don't follow through.”

Mrs. Carney looked over the petition. “I haven't had you in class long enough to know if that's true. You seem like a great student. You ask good questions, you participate in discussion. But, to be honest, I've heard that about you from other teachers.”

I groaned. “Teachers
talk
about me?” Great. I really was doomed.

She smiled. “Teachers talk about
all
the students. You're not being singled out. I don't get the impression that people dislike you. But they think you're capable of more than you achieve. Getting this GSA started could show everyone they're wrong.”

“But that's the problem,” I said. “I
could
prove that I can follow through. This GSA means a lot to me. I think it would really help people, and I'd work hard to keep it running. But I need a chance first. Is there any way you'd consider signing this?”

Mrs. Carney tilted her head as she thought. “You know, you still need to get thirty students to sign this.”

I waved my hand. “Oh, that's not a problem.”

She seemed impressed. “Really?”

I shrugged. “Not to brag, but I have a lot of friends. I'm not über-popular, like Jessie Reed, but I fit in with lots of different groups. Thirty signatures isn't a problem. It's just those three.”

She pursed her lips and handed the petition back to me. “I'll tell you what: can you come here tomorrow morning before the first bell rings? I might have a solution to your problem.”

I tried not to look devastated that she hadn't signed it. I just took the petition back and signed. “Sure thing,” I said. “I'll be here first thing in the morning.”

As I headed for my locker, I wondered what kind of solution Mrs. Carney had in mind. Because if she couldn't deliver those three faculty signatures, the GSA was over before it had even begun.

M

y phone started playing “Yellow Rose of Texas.” Cory's ringtone. I tapped a button and sent it to voicemail. It was the fifth time she'd tried calling since our fight. I so wasn't ready to talk to her yet.

I sat at my laptop in my bedroom, trying to ignore the petition next to me that still only had my signature on it. I was ready to give up completely. I almost went to Mr. Winston to ask permission to recruit during the other lunch periods, but then I thought about Shelly and Maggie. Yeah, I was a jerk to them. I used to be a real jerk to a lot of people. I stopped all that when Jamie came out to me. I couldn't get over how brave he'd been. And he was right: if I wasn't going to tease him about being gay, I couldn't lay into anyone else either.

But just because I'd quit being a jerk didn't mean that people quit hating me for what I'd done. How many people hated me as much as Shelly and Maggie? Was it even worth it to figure out?

My phone buzzed, and I was just about to pick it up and tell Cory off when I realized the phone wasn't playing “Yellow Rose of Texas.” I checked the screen. It was Mr. Ballard.

“Hey, Mr. Ballard,” I said.

“Hi, Scott. How are you?”

“Well … you know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Listen, the police are still looking into whoever was harassing Jamie. Did he ever say anything to you?”

“No,” I said quickly. “You gotta know, Mr. Ballard, that if I knew
anybody
was giving Jamie a hard time—”

“I understand. I didn't mean to say you weren't a good friend to Jamie. I just thought maybe he said something to you. Even if you didn't realize he was trying to tell you something. Anything that might be able to help the police …?”

I thought about it. The week before he died, Jamie had been all smiles. He couldn't stop talking about this guy he met on-line who went to Northside High. They were talking about meeting in person to get some coffee. I'd never seen him happier.

Then, the day before he killed himself, we hung out at the mall, talking about senior year. He hardly cracked a smile all night. He didn't mention the Northside guy at all. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he was worried about passing all his classes and getting into a good school. It didn't make sense. Jamie was a great student. I just thought he was nervous about senior year. But I never got to ask him about it more because the next day he was dead.

“I can't think of anything, Mr. Ballard. But if I do, I'll let you know.”

Mr. Ballard thanked me and hung up. I turned back to my laptop. Mr. Ballard had given Jamie's cell phone to the cops to see if they could figure out who'd been harassing him. I remember him saying that the jerk who was harassing him had done it on-line too. Which meant he probably left a trail …

I pulled up Jamie's Twitter stream. A lot of it was flirting with @NHSDramaGuy. I assumed that was the Northside guy he liked. But as I scrolled through the stream, I started finding other tweets.

@HoustonJamie if u killed yourself no one would care

@HoustonJamie houstons dirty enough without fags like you messing things up

@HoustonJamie really just die already cant stand seeing your face in the halls

They were all from somebody named VictorEE. I didn't know anybody named Victor. I looked through last year's yearbook for the initials E. E. Nothing.

Cant stand seeing your face in the halls.

That could only mean one thing. Whoever it was went to Southside.

I clicked on VictorEE's profile to see if I could figure out who they were. They didn't list their real name, of course. Most of their tweets were talk about the Cowboys and the Oilers. When VictorEE wasn't talking sports, he—it had to be a he—was mocking people. He told someone named @RainbowTexan they should drink acid. He told @TerryHarlow that AIDS was God's vengeance.

Most recently, VictorEE was hating on just one person. His five latest tweets had all been aimed at @CMendoza. I clicked on CMendoza's profile and saw the photo of a girl I recognized.

Carmen Mendoza. I kind of knew who she was. Everyone knew she was a lesbian. She lived in River Oaks, the rich part of town, but you'd never know it by how she dressed. Unlike most rich girls, who flaunted what they had, Carmen never made it a thing. That's why a lot of people liked her.

According to her feed, she was giving back to VictorEE just as good as she was getting. She seemed to enjoy making him angry. But the more she stuck it to him, the more violent his tweets got. I hoped she knew enough to watch her back.

That settled it for me. I
had
to talk to Mr. Winston about recruiting in other lunch periods. So people hated me. I'd have to find a way around that. Southside
needed
a GSA to deal with just the sort of thing that was happening to Carmen Mendoza. I couldn't stop now.

– – – – –

I got to school early, hoping to catch Mr. Winston. Convincing him to let me visit all the lunch periods wouldn't be too hard. My grades were perfect. I'd only be missing English—which I was acing—and a study hall.

But as I walked through the doors, I heard an overhead announcement.

“Scott King, please report to Mrs. Carney in Room 318. Scott King to room 318.”

Mrs. Carney? I was still a bit sore about the advice she'd given me. Talking to the football team had ended with the team ignoring me and me breaking up with my girlfriend.

When I got to Room 318, she invited me in and closed the door. Sitting at a table across from her desk was the girl I'd seen last night on Twitter: Carmen Mendoza. She didn't look thrilled to see me.

“Sit down, Scott,” Mrs. Carney said. “I think the two of you need to talk.”

“S

trangers on a Train.”

Mrs. Carney sat at her desk, waiting for us to respond to the weird thing she'd just said.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“It's a Hitchcock movie,” Scott said. “We watched it last year in Media Studies.”

I frowned. The last thing I needed was Scott King lecturing me on movie history. Why was he even here? Mrs. Carney said she wanted to help me get signatures for the petition. There was no way I could think of where that solution involved Scott “Golden Boy” King.

Mrs. Carney nodded. “Glad you remember it. Tell Carmen what it's about.”

Scott looked at me like he had no idea why she was asking this. “Well, it's about these two guys who meet on a train. One is a tennis player who hates his wife because she won't divorce him. The other is this rich guy, or at least he would be rich if his dad gave him the family money. These two guys talk about the people they hate, and the rich guy says the easiest way to solve their problems would be to kill them.

“But they can't just
do
it. They've each got a motive. The police would figure it out quick and arrest them. So, the rich guy suggests they swap murders. ‘Crisscross,' he called it. The rich guy would kill the tennis player's wife, and the tennis player would kill the rich guy's dad. No one would suspect anything.”

I turned to Carney. “What does this have to do with anything? You said you'd help me get the signatures I needed for the GSA petition.”

Scott held up his hand. “Wait a minute. What GSA petition? You mean
my
GSA petition.”

I whirled on him. “No, I mean
my
GSA petition. I'm trying to start a
real
GSA.”

Scott's brow furrowed. “And you think my GSA isn't real?”

“Okay, both of you, stand down,” Mrs. Carney said. “This isn't about real or fake GSAs. You both have the same goal. But, from what I understand, you're having trouble reaching it. Am I right?”

I looked down at my desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scott doing the same. We were both quiet for a long time.

“I can't get any teachers to sign,” I said finally. “Just three lousy names is all I need, and I can't get them.”