I KNEW. I KNEW WHO LEFT THAT MESSAGE ON WOLF’S LOCKER, AND I spent the whole weekend thinking of ways to break my promise to Bench, the promise to not do anything stupid.
I spent the whole weekend dreaming of breaking Jason Baker’s jaw.
People say things. And when you are part of certain circles you hear them. Jason had been the one to come up with the phrase, then he bragged to one too many someones that it was his idea and Bench was close enough to hear. It wasn’t a revelation. Jason had been nudging Wolf for as long as I could remember. All off-the-cuff, in-the-moment stuff to get a laugh out of his friends. But the locker felt different somehow. Premeditated and purposeful and permanent in a way his other comments hadn’t been.
Which had me premeditating how to go about punching him in the face.
It was either that or rat him out to Principal Wittingham, though I wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. No more notes, though. There was nothing I could write on Jason’s locker that would hurt him as bad as he’d hurt Wolf. But maybe if I could dislocate his jaw, he wouldn’t be able to talk for a while. That would be something.
Forget the fact that I’d never punched anyone before. Not like Rose. I Googled how to do it, just in case (strike with your knuckles, don’t tuck your thumb inside, put your hips into it). I practiced on my pillow (the wall seemed too hard). At least he wouldn’t see it coming. No way Jason Baker would expect the poet laureate of Branton to take a swing at him. It probably wouldn’t fix anything—not in the long term—but I was pretty sure it would make me feel better.
And hopefully not just me. It had been a miserable couple of days. When I wasn’t dreaming of fattening Jason’s lip, I was leaving phone messages for Wolf that he didn’t respond to. Sending him emails that he didn’t reply to. Seeing him, again and again, his face salt streaked with dried tears, standing on his backyard, destroying a fleet of planes and ships, telling me to go away. It was the Big Split all over again, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was on the verge of losing two friends at once, which only made me want to hit somebody even more. I wanted to just go knock on Wolf’s door, but I was afraid he wouldn’t let me in. And I wasn’t sure what I would say.
“He’s not talking to me either,” Rose said when I gave in and emailed her my number, asking her to call. It made me feel better at first, knowing he was ignoring all of us and not just me, but then I felt worse, knowing he was shutting everyone out. “We just need to give him some space, I think.”
And in the meantime, I thought, we need to protect each other from the wolves.
I sat on the bus that Monday morning, making and unmaking fists and grimacing back at the gray sky that had been threatening rain for days and was finally fulfilling its promise, weighing the pros and cons, knowing I’d probably get suspended if I started a fight, wondering if I even had the guts to go through with it. I blocked out the people around me. I didn’t even realize the bus had stopped for a train and was running ten minutes later than normal. I played the whole scene out in slow motion, picturing the exact moment of impact, Jason’s skin rippling out along his cheek, counting the individual droplets of spit spraying from his soon-to-be-split lips. I couldn’t stop imagining it, because when I did, I just came back to Wolf standing in his backyard, baseball bat in hand, telling me that nothing would ever change.
Too many things had changed already.
The bus pulled up and I fought down the urge to vomit as I stepped into the rain, walking into school with my head down, hoping to avoid anyone I knew—Deedee, Rose, even Bench. I was afraid they would try to stop me. As soon as I entered, though, I sensed it. The hum. I saw the crowd of students spilling out into the main foyer from B Hall, even though the first bell had rung and everybody should already be heading to class. Instead they were all funneling to the same place, whispering, tugging on each other to hurry.
Whatever it was, it had to be serious.
I followed the buzzing crowd and found myself swallowed by a hive of students, all crammed together, all staring at the same something. I suddenly felt light-headed and put a hand against the wall to steady myself.
It was Wolf’s locker. Newly painted. A brighter blue than all the rest.
What you could still see of it, anyways.
I caught sight of Rose near the front of the horde, towering over the students beside her, Deedee at her shoulder. She saw me on my tiptoes and beckoned me over. I pushed my way through until I was standing beside them both, right in front of locker B78. Except you couldn’t actually see the locker number anymore.
Because of the notes.
The whole upper half was covered in them. At least a hundred. Maybe more. Different sizes and colors. Overlapping like links of chain-mail armor.
I just stood there and stared.
“Go on,” Rose whispered to me. “Read them.”
I started reading the closest ones silently to myself. One said, You’re Awesome! Another, You’re hilarious! Several notes simply said, Morgan Thompson Rocks. One note said, You’re So Talented You Make Me Want to Puke, which I assumed was a compliment. There were several Stay Strongs and Be Prouds. There was at least one I THINK YOU’RE HOT.
There were so many.
Some of the messages had drawings: hearts and smiley faces and peace signs. There was a rainbow done in marker and another done in colored pencil. The latter was shaped like a flag.
There were quotes, too. Or maybe they were aphorisms. Some of them at least had a name attached. Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King. Taylor Swift. A pink note with fancy cursive said, Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. Whoever wrote it attributed it to Dr. Seuss, though I had my doubts, because it didn’t rhyme. Love thy neighbor as thyself, said another. That one was signed by Jesus.
More than one square said, You are not alone.
And there were still more coming. I looked to see students with pads of sticky notes, slapping them into waiting hands. Kids leaned against the wall to scrawl something before making their way through the crowd to add their message to the locker. The collection of notes fanned out from the center, growing like a virus. Sprouting. Spreading.
Proliferating.
“They’ve been coming for the last twenty minutes,” Rose said beside me, her voice hushed. “Not just students. Teachers too. Nobody even knows who started it.” The second bell rang above us. We were all officially tardy now. But only a few students bothered to head off to class, and no teachers came to shoo us away. I spotted Mr. Sword off to the right. He was handing out blank notes too. “I wish Wolf was here,” Rose added.
I looked over at her, then bent down and dug into my backpack, down to the very bottom, with its broken eraser tops and random bits of paper. I pulled out the crumpled sticky note—the one I’d meant to give back, the one that had been so easily dismissed the first time around. I smoothed it out as best as I could, then found the closest empty space, about halfway down. I was afraid it wouldn’t stay, so I pressed hard. It stuck.
Wolf’s aphorism on his own locker. Words are ghosts that can haunt us forever.
Behind me I heard a familiar snort of laughter and twisted to see first the breakable jaw and then the rest of Jason Baker’s slug-worthy face at the edge of the crowd, whispering something to Noah Kyle. Noah smiled and shook his head.
I had absolutely no idea what they’d said.
I didn’t care anymore.
I turned around and started pushing my way back through the crowd, heard both Deedee and Rose calling after me. “Frost. Hang on. Where are you going?”
I ignored them. I couldn’t get Jason’s arrogant smile out of my head. Sometimes you have to shut up and do something. Rose could appreciate that.
I got free of the mob and turned the corner.
And walked straight to Principal Wittingham’s office. I didn’t even bother to ask the secretary or wait for him to see me. I just barged in.
“I know who put those words on Morgan’s locker,” I blurted out. I’d almost said Wolf’s, but then I remembered, he probably wouldn’t know who Wolf was.
Principal Wittingham folded his hands in front of him with a sigh that suggested his patience had dried up weeks ago. “Thanks, Eric. But I already know who did it,” he said. He nodded to the chairs across from him. The one closest to me was empty.
Bench looked up at me from the other one and nodded.
“I saved you a seat,” he said.
Words accumulate. And once they’re free there’s no taking them back.
You can do an awful lot of damage with a handful of words. Destroy a friendship. End a marriage. Start a war. Some words can break you to pieces.
But that’s not all. Words can be beautiful. They can make you feel things you’ve never felt before. Gather enough of them and they can stick those same pieces back together, provided they’re the right words, said at the right time. But that takes more courage than you’d think.
I went to Wolf’s house that night, after I’d told Mr. Wittingham everything I knew, after Jason was called down to the office and not seen for the rest of the day. Wolf’s mother met me at the door. She looked exhausted, eyes swollen, shoulders slumped. I wondered out loud if it was a bad time, but she and Mr. Thompson both welcomed me inside. “He’s upstairs in his room,” Mrs. Thompson said. “And I’m sure he’d like to see you.”
I had my doubts.
I tiptoed upstairs and stood for a moment outside Wolf’s room with its colorful musical notes painted on the door. Any other time I probably would have just barged right in. This time I fished a Post-it note out of my pocket that I’d brought for just this purpose and slipped it underneath.
It said, Knock. Knock.
After a few seconds I heard him laugh. It was the first time I’d heard Wolf laugh in days, and it made me smile. He opened the door.
“Hey, Frost,” he said, motioning me inside, but I stopped in the doorway. His room looked strange without the planes dangling from their strings, the cars lined up at an angle on his shelves. It wasn’t just empty. It felt hollow. It was as if a part of Wolf had been carved out of him and scattered all over the backyard.
“Didn’t see you at school today,” I said. By the looks of him, I guessed that he probably hadn’t even left his room all weekend long. He sat on his bed with his back pressed to the wall, knees together, arms wrapped around them, as if he was determined to take up as little space as possible. “Wish you would have been there.”
“I already know about the notes, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “It’s not as if I don’t hear things.” He didn’t sound angry, not exactly, but I still couldn’t help but feel like there was accusation hidden in there somewhere.
“Rose?” I guessed.
Wolf nodded. “She also told me that you went to Mr. Wittingham’s office.” He paused, then added, “Thanks for that.”
I shrugged. “To be honest, Bench kind of beat me to it.”
Wolf seemed surprised. Obviously Rose hadn’t told him everything. “That’s Bench for you. Always has to be first at everything,” he said.
I wanted to tell Wolf the rest. About our shouting match and the things Bench had said, how it had nothing, really, to do with Wolf and everything to do with him. It isn’t about you. But it was. It was about all of us. Maybe Wolf could sympathize with Bench feeling out of place, not quite knowing where he belonged. “He wants you to know he’s sorry,” I said.
“Bench told you that?”
“Well. Not in so many words.”
“It doesn’t take that many,” Wolf remarked. And for a second I saw that flash of anger, that same one I saw when he slammed the note on Jason’s desk, when he drove his brother’s bat into his model bomber. Wolf shook his head. “He doesn’t need to apologize. He didn’t write that on my locker. I knew who it was all along. I mean, it’s not like this was the first time.”
Wolf sat on his bed with me still leaning against the doorway and told me about all the other things Jason Baker had been saying to him all year long. Most of them were names not worth repeating, whipered among his friends just loud enough for Wolf to hear. The Roman thing was the latest in a long string, but apparently Jason thought it was clever and kept at it, needling Wolf whenever he got the chance. Calling him Gayus Thompson. Coughing out the word Romosexual. Giving him that same legionnaire salute that he’d given the three of us at the football game whenever they passed each other in the hall.
And he wasn’t the only one. Wolf had heard others whispering the same thing behind his back, a few kids who thought it was just as funny as Jason did. It caught on. Just like the notes.
“Jason Baker’s a total class-A butt-munch,” I concluded. I may not have gotten the chance to fatten his lip, but he sure deserved whatever Mr. Wittingham was going to dish out. I sort of hoped he’d be expelled. And maybe the Big Ham could dunk his head in the toilet a few times on the way out. But writing “Total Roman” on somebody’s locker probably didn’t warrant physical torture, whether you knew what it meant or not.
“That doesn’t really help,” Wolf said, “calling him names.”
I flinched, suddenly feeling worse for thinking that would make him feel better. There’d been enough of that sort of thing the past two weeks. I was about to take it back—even though I didn’t want to—when Wolf smiled.
“But you’re right. He is. Class A for sure.” He scrunched up my Knock. Knock. sticky note and threw it at me, hitting me square in the chest.
You got me, I thought, suddenly hearing Rose’s voice in my head, wheedling herself into the conversation even when she wasn’t around. I stood in the doorway and watched the last two weeks flash by in reverse, from the notes on Wolf’s locker all the way back to that first moment when Rose Holland sat at our table. Jason and Wolf. Deedee. Bench. The Gauntlet. All the nasty messages. The ones that stuck and the ones that didn’t. It seemed like somewhere along the line we could have stopped it. Kept it from coming to this, to me standing in Wolf’s bedroom, feeling like I let him down.
“You still thinking you might not come back?” I asked.
Wolf nodded.
“Because of Jason Baker?”
“Screw Jason,” Wolf said, scowling. “It’s none of his business who I like and don’t like. Though I sure as heck don’t like him.”
“Then why leave?” I asked. After all, he hadn’t seen the notes yet. The new ones. His locker was covered in them. Maybe when he saw them, he’d change his mind. He’d realize we weren’t all like Jason Baker. Most of us weren’t anywhere close. But even as I thought it, I realized that wasn’t true either. We were all guilty of saying something we probably shouldn’t have. Rose’s voice echoed in my head again. I could start over, be myself, and there would be somebody who would appreciate it. I just had to find them. But Wolf still had us. He had me and Deedee and Rose. And I told him that. Maybe not in so many words. Or any words, for that matter. But I gave him a look that I hoped meant that the tribe was still here. That this was no reason to quit. Or not enough reason.
“Sometimes you need a change of venue,” Wolf said. “I’m not leaving you guys behind. It’s just this whole year so far . . .” He stopped, tapping his fingers on his knees for a moment, maybe playing a familiar tune or maybe just making one up in his head. “I just need to get away from the noise. Maybe a new school is the best thing for me.”
I nodded. I understood. Maybe. A little. I didn’t know how it felt to be Wolf, of course, but I knew about needing space. It was hard enough trying to figure out who you were, who you liked, what you believed in, what you were good at. Even harder with everyone else telling you what you should or shouldn’t be. And even if you did figure it out, you still had to summon the courage to actually be that person, regardless of what other people thought. Maybe a new school would be different. It couldn’t be too much worse.
Except it wouldn’t have us.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry if I let you down. If I wasn’t there all the time.”
“You’re here now,” Wolf said matter-of-factly. Ever the voice of reason. We counted on him for that. Maybe this was what he counted on me for—for just being there. I could do that. At least I could try.
We stared across the room at each other for an eternity while I worked up the guts to say something emotional and blubbery and totally against the rules. Something cheese-ball like I’m with you every step of the way, or one of the fortune-cookie nuggets pulled directly from the Post-its still hanging from his locker. But Wolf saved me by standing up all of a sudden with a sly grin on his face, a look that I’m pretty certain he picked up from Rose.
“I haven’t had dinner yet,” he said. “My parents have been so worried about my emotional well-being that they kind of forgot to feed me. You hungry?”
My stomach rumbled. Power of suggestion. “If you’re asking if I want you to try heating something in the microwave again, I’m going to have to go with no.” Burning the house down seemed like it might just push the whole Thompson family right over the edge.
“I was thinking ice cream, actually. Give Rose and Deedee a call. Make my mom take us out. Mr. Twisty’s?”
I grinned and nodded.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The next day Wolf came to empty out his locker, well after dismissal so as not to attract too much attention. We were with him—me, Deedee, and Rose. His mother was in the principal’s office filling out the necessary paperwork required for his withdrawal from BMS.
It was official. He really wasn’t coming back.
I’m sure the Big Ham was serving her apologies and promises on a platter, anything to get Wolf to stay and not to turn this into an even bigger deal than it already was, but for once Wolf’s parents agreed on something. Branton Middle School wasn’t the best place for their son.
When Wolf saw his locker he froze. It was completely covered now, every inch, the messages climbing up onto the wall above it. The day it happened, kids kept coming, adding to the ever-growing pile, making a mountain of notes, some stacked on top of each other so that by the last bell it looked like a paper blanket skirting the ground, a waterfall of words. So many notes. More, it seemed, than there were even students in the school. Even now, the locker still smelled vaguely of new paint, though that was probably just my imagination.
Rose and I stood on either side of Wolf, propping him up. We were getting good at that.
“It’s pretty incredible,” Deedee said. “Don’t you think?”
Wolf didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t find the words. Didn’t matter. He had plenty to choose from. He quietly ran his fingers over the notes, tapping them gently, as if he found some kind of melody there, a secret song that only he could hear. I wasn’t sure he was even reading them, but then I saw him smile. He must have gotten to I THINK YOU’RE HOT.
“You can take them,” I said. “Pretty sure they were all meant for you.”
Wolf shook his head. “Nah. I think the longer they stay up, the better.” He dropped his hands and stepped back. His voice cracked a little. “It’s crazy. I don’t even know this many people. I bet half of them barely even knew I existed.” He leaned over and settled his head on Rose’s shoulder, and we stood like that for a minute or two. I realized this was the last time I would ever meet Wolf at his locker and my heart started to ache.
“C’mon,” Rose said. “Let’s get your stuff, get out of this place, and go do something fun.”
Wolf nodded solemnly and carefully opened his locker so as not to knock any of the notes free. It was practically empty inside already. His math textbook. A magneted mirror. An empty bottle of Coke and a BMS sweatshirt that he might never wear again.
And at the bottom, one last note that had been folded into an origami fish and shoved through the slats.
“I wonder who that could be from,” I said.
Rose smiled knowingly. “I didn’t write it, if that’s what you’re implying,” she said. “I actually found it stuck to my locker the day of the Gauntlet. I don’t know who wrote it, actually, but it seemed like good advice, so I stuffed it in here for you.”
Wolf crouched down and unfolded the note. He held it out for us to see. It was written in black marker, all caps.
KEEP YOUR HEAD UP. KEEP YOUR EYES FORWARD. AND DON’T LET GO.
“I thought maybe you could use it more than I could,” Rose said. “Besides. Everyone knows origami wombats are good luck.”
“Wombat, huh?” I said.
Rose nodded. “Derr,” she said to me. “What else would it be?” As usual I didn’t have an answer. But I didn’t mind being derred by Rose anymore. Some things just take time to get used to. I caught a glimpse of Wolf in the mirror stuck to his locker, maybe a little misty-eyed, the three of us standing behind him.
“You don’t have to go,” Deedee said, saying out loud what we’d all been thinking.
“No. I don’t have to,” Wolf answered. Then he stuffed the wombat in his pocket and softly closed the door.