SAFIYA

JANUARY 3, 2022

Truth: When people show you who they are, believe them.

Truth: This statement is false.

Lie: This statement is false.

Asma was talking, but I didn’t hear her. It was like my entire body was screaming but my brain was frozen. All I could hear was my heart beating in my ears. I kept staring at my phone, looking at the definition of “ghost skin”: a white supremacist who hides their beliefs to blend into a group or society and be undetectable. What the hell? A neo-Nazi had hijacked my column? Our principal, Dr. Hardy, was probably going ballistic. Maybe if I was lucky, he’d been too busy with back-to-school stuff to check the site. Maybe I could take the whole thing down before he saw it. Why would anyone do this? How? I had to get to the newspaper room. I had so many questions and zero answers—the absolute worst-case scenario for a journalist.

“Hey. Hello? Safiya, are you listening?” Asma’s hand on my shoulder jogged me out of my fog. “You’re going to see Ms. Cary, right? I have to go ask Ms. Arch for an extension on my paper, but I’ll meet you after. This is seriously effed up.” She gave me a small smile as we stood and headed toward the building.

Ms. Cary was our journalism teacher, and we ran the DuSable Spectator out of her classroom. Asma was right: I had to get inside, take down Ghost Skin’s article. But there was a pit in my stomach. Everyone had already seen the rant, or would see the screenshots that had probably been taken and were floating around in group chats. They’d all be staring, whispering about me. I was the editor. It was my responsibility. But right now, I didn’t want it. Right now, I felt sick.

As soon as I walked in and turned down senior hall, I saw our principal in front of the journalism classroom, feet planted, arms crossed, face scowling. “Safiya Mirza,” he hollered, unnecessarily loudly, down the hall. “I need to speak with you. Now.” Hardy was big on public shaming. He would’ve made a great Puritan. He had the whole “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” vibe down cold. All he needed was a ruffled collar and shoes with wide buckles.

“Dr. Hardy, I understand and share your concern, but it’s highly unlikely that anyone on the newspaper staff would have written that… that… statement. And certainly not Safiya. She is—”

“You think I wrote that?” I asked, my voice rising. I’d been silent, listening to him go off on editorial responsibility and slipshod management and inappropriate pranks and accountability. But now he was accusing me and the Spectator staff. Hell no.

Ms. Cary subtly gestured at me to take it down a notch. I took a deep breath. A wave of annoyance passed over Hardy’s face as he narrowed his eyes at me, making the wrinkles on his forehead even more prominent. He didn’t even try to hide how much he didn’t like me. But being an admin butt kisser was never my goal.

In the fall, I’d written about how the administration was a dinosaur—out of touch with the times and the student body. He gave me a ton of grief for that column, a lot of side-eye, but right after Thanksgiving break, he made sure that either he or the assistant principal was in the lobby greeting students. A few of the very wealthy parents must’ve read my piece and called to question his administrative style—that was usually the only way anything got done around here. But he’d made it clear I was on his crap list for writing it. “Be careful, Ms. Mirza. You mess with the bull, you get the horns.” That was one of his favorite phrases, which he repeated to me many times after my piece was published.

Also, he never let me forget that I was a scholarship kid who should be constantly grateful. I was at DuSable only by the grace of others. How could I possibly forget that, even for a moment, when he was always there to rub it in, like it was a wound.

“Ms. Mirza. If not you, then who was it?” Hardy asked.

“Obviously some racist who hacked the school website. Oh, and a happy New Year to you, Dr. Hardy.” I added a wide fake smile to punctuate my sarcasm.

“Don’t play coy with me, young lady. This is not how I hoped to start the winter quarter, but here we are. No surprise that you’re involved with this mess.”

“Involved? I had nothing—”

“Dr. Hardy,” Ms. Cary interjected, somewhat softly. “As I said, I’m certain Safiya had nothing to do with this.” I could tell she was nervous—she was twisting the ends of her strawberry-blond hair, and her face looked pale and more pinched than usual. She was a new teacher and didn’t have tenure. And Hardy had the uncanny ability to make everyone around him uncomfortable, no matter how big or small the crowd. He was one of those administrators who seemed to dislike all kids except for… well, students like Richard. The shiny, beautiful ones, whose parents made big donations to the school.

“It’s obviously not me. I mean, look at me.” I didn’t mean for him to glare at my scuffed Docs, ripped jeans, and blue-and-green-plaid flannel shirt, which he did, without amusement. I meant, see me for who I am. “I’m a brown-skinned Muslim girl with Indian immigrant parents. Why the hell would I hijack my own column to put up a bunch of poorly written racist crap?”

“Language, Ms. Mirza. Your intentions are beyond my comprehension. But perhaps this was a way to create drama. To stir some cancel culture fervor.” He shook his head. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. It made no sense. But he continued. “I expect you and the newspaper staff to get to the bottom of this. And beginning today, principal approval is required for every story you post to the Spectator. You get the paper in order ASAP, or I will shut you down. For good.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell him that if anyone was creating cancel culture drama it was him, but Ms. Cary jumped in before I could speak. “Understood. I’ll work with IT to see if we can figure out who hacked the site and how.”

“And I’ll address it in my column today—” I started to add.

“You will do no such thing,” Hardy interrupted. “Were you not listening to a word I said? There is to be no reference to this so-called hack. If that is indeed what it was. If we don’t talk about it, it will simply die out. Want to stop a fire from spreading? You cut off its oxygen.”

“But I—”

“Don’t press me. I will not hesitate to remove you as editor if necessary. This is a school-sponsored paper, and the buck stops at my desk.” I had to hold myself back from laughing at Hardy mid-lecture. “The site doesn’t go back up until it’s been scrubbed and appropriate content is put up and approved by me. Have I made myself clear, Ms. Mirza? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go deal with what I can only assume is a barrage of parent phone calls about this.”

I nodded as Ms. Cary walked Hardy to the door. I quickly grabbed my phone from my back pocket, and when I refreshed the Spectator site, all I got was a 404 error. I wanted to throw my phone across the room. I wanted to throw it at Hardy. But that would only end badly for me. Besides, I had terrible aim. My stomach twisted in knots. Hardy was looking for an excuse to shut down the paper. To get rid of me as editor. After my column on the administration last semester, he’d called me a “thorn in his side.” He was not big on being subtle. My head spun. If I didn’t figure out who the hacker was, Hardy was going to get everything he wanted.