On the way back to our class, the other kids start talking about Toulouse.
Monique: “Did you hear him sing?”
Ursula: “You call that singing? Mr. Weldon’s right: he sounds like a bird.”
Hubcap: “He’s Mr. Weldon’s new pet, that’s for sure.”
Garrett: “His pet weirdo, you mean.”
Hubcap: “Yeah! His pet weirdo!”
Ursula: “I still want to know what happened to Otto.”
Monique: “The way Toulouse stared at him was creepy.”
She stops to squirt some hand sanitizer into one hand. She keeps a bottle of the stuff in her shoulder bag.
Garrett: “Totally. He’s a freak.”
Hubcap: “Totally.”
Me: “Will you guys … why don’t you … shut up?”
They all freeze. They don’t expect this from me. Neither do I. It’s one thing, though, when people say mean things about you. It’s another when they say mean things about someone else. Especially someone nice like Toulouse. I can’t imagine him saying mean things to anybody.
Before Garrett can get over his shock and shoot back an insult, Mr. Logwood comes over.
“Did I hear a disrespectful remark over here?” he asks.
“Yes, Mr. Logwood,” Garrett says. “It was Woodrow. He told us to shut up.”
I scowl at him. One of the rules at school—the kid rules—is that kids don’t tell on other kids. If a kid does something against the adult rules, even if it’s a kid you don’t like, even if what he did is really bad, or even evil, it’s against the rules to tell the adults. The adults have to find out stuff on their own.
If I made the kid rules, I would get rid of this one. But I definitely don’t make the rules. Kids like Garrett do.
However, another kid rule is that the kids who make the rules can break them whenever they feel like it. When you do as many mean things as Garrett does, you don’t want other people telling on you. But he’s allowed to tell, even on kids who didn’t do anything wrong, even if he has to lie. He makes the rules, then he bends them or even breaks them whenever he feels like it.
“Woodrow?” Mr. Logwood asks, looking surprised. “Is this true?”
“They said … they were saying … mean things … about Toulouse.”
This is the truth, but saying it is against the kid rules. No matter what I answered, I was in trouble here.
Garrett acts offended, but what he really is, is angry. He scowls at me. “That is not true, Mr. Logwood.”
“Totally not true,” Hubcap says.
Monique and Ursula look away. They’re obeying the kid rules.
Mr. Logwood looks at all of us, one at a time. I can tell he believes me.
“Respect, students,” he says. “Do I need to sing it?”
We all shake our heads. None of us want that.