The Mockingbirds (16 page)

“I just want you to feel safe again, Alex,” T.S. says. “Because judging from the way you’re eating, you haven’t felt safe in weeks. I know you’re scared. You walk around campus avoiding him, taking the long way to class, not going to meals. Are you going to skip every meal this year to avoid him?”

“I don’t know,” I say, taking another bite of my chicken.

T.S. grows agitated. “Don’t you want Themis to feel safe? My God, you were at the Faculty Club performing the other day, and now they’re going to go see Carter play water polo. They don’t have a clue. They can bring in the best teachers in the world, they can challenge our minds, they can send us off to Ivy League colleges. But they are powerless outside the classroom. They offer you hot chocolate and then plan the next puppet show.”

While T.S. pauses to catch her breath, I look at my sister, her brown hair like mine, her brown eyes like mine. She’s my almost-twin on the surface. But we’re not the same. She’s Susan B. Anthony; she’s a rabble-rouser; she’s standing up for the rights of the downtrodden. Me, I can barely even commit to one of Julie’s weekend volunteer projects.

“Why did you start the Mockingbirds?” I ask pointedly.

She holds my gaze, doesn’t look away. “Because I had to.”

I scoff. “What does that mean?
You had to?
”

“Because I couldn’t just stand by and watch students hurt each other.”

“Right, I know that, Casey. But why
you
? What motivated you? Was it just seeing the seniors bully the other kids and that was enough? That was all it took? You said, ‘whoa, I have to be the one to stop this’?”

I’ve never asked her these questions before. I’ve never dug into her reasons. They didn’t matter. Now they do.

She takes a deep breath. “You know the girl who committed suicide right before you got to Themis?”

I nod. “I know of her. She’s why we had the training day on warning signs.”

“Well, she was being bullied.”

“She was one of the kids the seniors were bullying?”

Casey shakes her head. “No, she wasn’t part of that. But she was a senior too, same year as me. Same dorm. Same floor.”

“You knew her?” I ask.

Casey nods, looks away for the briefest of seconds, then back at me. “I heard what was going on with her,” Casey says. “I saw what it led to. I saw what can happen when things get out of control.”

“That’s why you started the Mockingbirds.”

“I didn’t want that to happen again. I didn’t know at the
time what that kind of behavior could lead someone to do. To end her life. So when I saw the seniors bullying the kids who weren’t in the Honor Society I couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen again. I knew I had to do something. I had to give them options.”

“Casey,” I say softly, “I’m not going to end my life just because of what one stupid asshole did to me.”

“I know, Alex. You’re stronger than that, and you have options. So what do you want to do?” she asks. “Press charges?”

It’s as if I’m on a cop show. A guy in a suit with a five o’clock shadow brings me to a room with a one-way mirror, shows me the lineup, and tells me to take my time. He waits patiently while I size up the suspects.
The one in the middle,
I say.
Him?
the cop asks. I nod, certain.
Book him,
the cop tells his associate.

I take another bite of my chicken. I’m almost finished with it and I’m still ravenous. I reach for a piece of Casey’s naan bread. “This is my life. This is my junior year. I don’t want the whole school knowing my business. Well, more than they already know,” I say.

“The hearings are closed,” Casey explains. “Just the council, the plaintiff, the accused, and the witnesses you call.”

I give her a look. “You can call it closed all you want. And it can be closed. But you know as well as I do that everyone will know.”

“Yes, everyone will probably know. But some people know already—they know Carter’s story. Whose story do you want them to know? The one where you were ‘begging for it’? Because that’s what they’re going to know. Or do you want people to know the truth, that he date-raped you? Because you can help other girls to stay away from him and protect themselves from other boys like him. You do this, be the first, and you make it harder for other boys this year, next year, years to come, to do this ever again. This is bigger than you.”

All I want to do is go back to me, the
not
political me, the
not
legal me, the me I was when I could just play music, just go to the music hall and be with my piano and my notes and my composers and not be afraid to walk to class and not have to hide out during dinner and not to have to eat Clif Bars for sustenance. Because I am hungry, I am really hungry. I am so hungry I reach for more of Casey’s bread and then I stab my fork into her saag paneer and I gobble that up and then I take a bite of T.S.’s lentils with yogurt dip.

And I hate being this hungry.

And I hate that I can’t be me.

And I hate that I can’t do anything anymore without the memories of Carter and that day and that night haunting me, following me everywhere I go.

And I want to go back to the way it was, the way
I
was.

The thing you love most is taken away
. That’s what hap
pens if you’re found guilty by the Mockingbirds—the thing you love most is taken away. For me, it already was. Beethoven’s not mine anymore. But maybe if I do this, I can have his music back.

I swallow the last bite of lentils. It tastes good. Then I look at my sister and my best friend. “I’m in,” I say.

A few days later, Amy visits me. “I heard you were hungry,” she says as I open the door to my room.

“Sure,” I say, gesturing for her to come in. She’s wearing a thin gray turtleneck sweater and skinny jeans and carrying a casserole dish with potholders. A canvas bag is tucked under her arm. She tips her chin to my desk. “Desk for the dinner table?”

“Absolutely. The desk is the best table there is,” I say, pushing my laptop aside to make room for the food. I wasn’t expecting Amy tonight, but I’m not entirely surprised either. She places the blue-and-white casserole dish down, removes the top, then takes two plates, two forks, and a large serving spoon from her bag.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” I say.

“I made mac and cheese,” she says, and I guess that makes Amy a rarity—one of the only Themis students to use the kitchens in the common rooms.

“I love mac and cheese.”

“I made it from scratch. My mom has this awesome recipe,” she says, and starts scooping big spoonfuls of gooey mac and cheese onto the plastic plates. “She uses a block of cheddar, a block of Monterey Jack, and a block of cream cheese.”

“So this is probably similar to what Hollywood stars eat when working on their six-packs?” I joke, and point to my abs.

“Totally. Anyway, it’s supergood and perfect for this time of year,” Amy says, pulling out the chair from Maia’s desk.

I glance at the food, and my mouth starts to water. My desire for it is almost sinful. “It looks delicious,” I say, uttering a complete understatement. “Plus, it beats sandwiches.”

I sit back down at my desk, where I had been sketching out the next scene in
The Tempest
before Amy appeared. Maia’s practicing for a debate tournament. T.S. is studying—or something—in Sandeep’s room. Amy hands me a plate and fork, then takes one for herself and settles in. I take a bite of the mac and cheese and it’s amazing. I want to roll my eyes and moan, but I restrain myself.

“T.S. called over the weekend and said you’re ready to move forward,” Amy says.

I nod. “Yep.”

“So what made you decide?” Amy asks.

I hesitate, wondering if this is a test I have to pass, if I have to answer correctly. Amy senses my nervousness and adds warmly, “Don’t worry. I just like to ask.”

“Well, you sort of know already, right?” I say, then take another bite. “I mean, you wouldn’t have brought me homemade mac and cheese unless you knew.”

Amy smiles; her light blue eyes have some kind of soothing quality, as if she can see into you and feel what you feel and know what you know.

“T.S. told you I don’t go to the caf anymore, right?” I add.

Amy shakes her head, her ultrashort hair barely moving as she does. “Nope. But I never see you there. And you mentioned the comments his friend made at lunch that day so I put two and two together.”

There she goes again, knowing stuff.

“I guess I’m getting kind of sick of feeling like I have to hide,” I say. “The few times I’ve run into him, he seems to think I would want to be with him,” I say, the vein in my forehead pulsing a little harder at the memory of his twisted expectations. “Which is totally sick and makes me sick. That he could do that and think I’d want to go out with him. To top if off, I get headaches sometimes and I never did before. And T.S. told me she was researching the effects of date rape and headaches are one of them. I think it’s because some days it’s all you can think about and your head feels as if it’s going to explode.”

“People suck,” Amy says, agreeing. “That’s why I have a job.”

“Do you get a lot of cases each semester?” I ask.

“Enough,” she says offhand, then takes another bite of her mac and cheese. That’s all—
enough
. She finishes chewing, then asks, “And you’re sure?”

“Of what happened?” I say, taken aback. Do I have to prove it again? Recite the story all over again?

“No, I believe it happened. I mean, are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t?”

“Not at all. I believe in this, in what you’re doing, in what we can do for you. It’s just these things can consume you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them. Just know that they have a way of becoming bigger than everything else.”

But it
already
is bigger than everything else.
It
already is the defining moment of my junior year. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by
it,
my habits by
it,
my music by
it.
This—the Mockingbirds—is how I deflate
it
.

“I get it,” I say.

The receiver did this. The freshmen did this. I can do this. I can be bigger than me. I can take a stand. My sister started this group for that very reason.

“Good. I’m glad. And we’re going to protect you. That’s part of our mission,” Amy says, putting her plate down on the floor and reaching into her canvas bag. She takes out
her notebook—the mockingbird on the cover looks like it’s watching me—removes a sheet of paper, and hands it to me. She places the slightly worn notebook back in the bag. “Don’t worry, this isn’t like some binding contract. It’s just you need to sign it for our records to say you want us to go forward and press charges against Carter.”

“You want me to sign something?” I ask, holding back a laugh. It’s not really funny, it’s just—well, it’s just the Mockingbirds take this so seriously. But it is serious, I remind myself as I take the sheet of paper and read. Just a few lines saying I approached the Mockingbirds on my own, I asked them to hear the case, and I authorize them to press charges against Carter Hutchinson for sexual assault on the evening of January tenth. There’s another line too, and it reads:
If the accuser is found to have lied, he or she agrees to accept the standard punishment.

I pause for a moment, astonished again by all the checks and balances in the Mockingbirds. The Mockingbirds exist to police and to protect, so they could be seen as favoring the people who seek their help. But then if you dare to think that, you learn that those who are judged innocent are vindicated with a leadership post, and you learn too that if an accuser has filed false charges, he or she gets the comeuppance. Even-steven, indeed.

I reach for a pen and sign the paper. I hand it back to Amy.

“It’s just for our records anyway,” she says, tucking the paper back into her notebook with a smile.
Records,
the
Mockingbirds have
records
. I bet they keep them stored in a secret vault somewhere, maybe in the basement, maybe even in the laundry room. I bet there’s a dummy dryer—you open the door to it, reach your hand all the way to the false back, turn a hidden knob three times one way, three times the other way, then push open the safe. Inside are stacks of red flyers and white papers and rule books and case histories and guidelines for picking the New Nine and the board and a list of all the bad students ever.

“Where do you keep your records?” I ask.

Amy chuckles, amused by such a question. “In our files,” she says, because of course she’s not going to tell me where. She picks up her plate and continues eating. I take another bite of my food, then ask, “So who’s on the council?”

“It rotates, as I said. But they’re good kids. All nine of them. Sort of who you’d expect.”

I don’t really know who I’d expect. “Like Martin or Ilana?” I offer up, hoping for some kind of answer.

Amy’s eyes go wide and she smiles like I got it right. “Exactly. Exactly like Martin and Ilana.”