Text message, as her family drove into the school parking lot, unknown number:
u there?
hey its brody
u think about what i asked?
What should she do? What should she say? How should she act? Complimented? As afraid as she really felt?
Eve prayed she didn’t see Brody at the assembly. She didn’t want to see anyone. There, in the school auditorium, kids who hid behind those unknown numbers would surround her. And they’d continue sizing her up.
Eve’s parents had refused to leave her at home with Abe. They said she had to “join her community.” At this, Abe had rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, man.” Abe put a hand on her shoulder. “And what if your own community has turned on you, huh?” he added to himself as he headed to his room. “What then, Mom and Dad…”
The assembly was packed. Eve found herself looking at every eighth grader and wondering which of them had sent her which text. She wore a baggy hoodie to hide inside, and she turned her phone off because she couldn’t take any more buzzing.
Apparently Principal Yu had emailed Eve’s parents about getting Eve in to see the school counselor. But Eve told them she was fine. So far, thank goodness, they believed it. Hopefully they could get out of there before Principal Yu had a chance to grab her parents and persuade them to make Eve talk to someone.
Nessa and her parents found Eve and hers, and Nessa filled her in on the entire cast list. They did their special handshake, a series of seven moves.
“I knew you’d get the part.” Eve smiled.
“Well, yeah.” Nessa pretended to pose with a microphone like a pop star. “But, ew, Brody my-dad-ran-for-Senate-one-time Dixon got Harold Hill.”
Should Eve tell Nessa about Brody’s invitation to the dance? She’d kept it to herself all day.
Before Eve could decide whether to say anything or not, Principal Yu came to the stage to speak.
Eve saw that Curtis Milford sat a few rows to the left of them, and she made sure to keep her face pointed toward the right so he couldn’t even try to catch her attention.
As Principal Yu began to speak, several parents’ hands shot up.
Despite Principal Yu’s attempts to assure the parents they’d have a chance to talk, some moms and dads stood up one by one in order to yell, first at Principal Yu and then at one another.
Eve took out her notebook and buried her face inside it. She continued the poem she’d left unfinished yesterday morning. Words and images drowned out the voices around her.
“I just hope this doesn’t start some kind of witch hunt in the school,” one of the standing dads said. “Like every boy here is a suspect. Look, we all did this kind of stuff when we were kids. It’s normal.”
“Oh, ‘boys will be boys,’ right?” a mom hollered at him. Hayley Salem sat next to her. They shared the same nearly translucent skin and hair.
“Oh, like girls can’t be cruel, too,” another mom chimed in.
“And do girls grow up to do the same things we see boys doing?” Hayley’s mom continued. “Do girls grow up to hurt other girls the way the boys do? Have you watched the news recently?”
Speaking over the agitated parents, Principal Yu repeated her whole spiel from the other day about the counselors, how they’d find the kid who did it, how bullying would not be tolerated, and on and on, but the blaring symphony of anger grew louder.
Eve kept writing.
“This is kinda exciting!” Nessa whispered to Eve. “Oh man, Lara’s parents look so mad,” she added.
“I heard she might drop out of this school and transfer to Greenmount,” said a voice behind them.
They turned around and saw Amina Alvi’s exquisite face, framed by her wavy, almost-black hair. Eve saw that Amina’s mom, sitting next to her, shared that perfect face, though hers was framed by a hijab decorated with bright orange and pink swirls.
But why did Eve notice how pretty Amina was? She knew nothing about Amina except that she thought Amina was pretty. Maybe Eve was just as bad as whoever wrote the list.
“She must be so upset,” Amina whispered. “And Greenmount may be a private school, but do you think that means they’re nicer? Pssh. I doubt it.”
Amina’s dad put a finger to his lips, and Amina leaned back in her chair. Then she shook her head and gave Eve a look that said, “Parents, right?” Eve hadn’t spoken to Amina since fifth grade. And she was a Sophie. This was all so strange.
Eve turned back to her paper, scribbling as fast as she could, the thoughts tumbling out in a ramble.
“Lara better not leave the school. She’s got a good part in the show!” Nessa murmured, though Eve was hardly listening.
Try as she might to shut out the yelling, snippets of arguments continued to jump out at her:
“… the tech-age version of graffiti on the bathroom walls!”
“Don’t twist my words!”
“… impossible to reason with you people.”
“Do we really need to turn this into some kind of drama?”
“… nobody meaner than a middle school girl.”
“There are other options than this school, you know…”
“Not everyone has those options!”
And on and on.
Principal Yu said something about “meaningful dialogue,” and Eve heard her dad scoff.
Then another woman stood up, and the clear bell of her voice seemed to take over the room.
“I think we need to hear from the children,” she said. “How do they feel about this?”
Eve lowered her head farther into her notebook.
“I notice that most of the children here today are girls. Understandable. Me, I came with my son.”
Eve could hear the rustle of her classmates looking over shoulders to investigate which boy came with this mom. Even Eve looked up.
Beside the woman, his head hanging as low to the floor as Eve’s, sat Winston Byrd, the quiet Brody guy.
“I propose that our sons need this assembly most of all. Look, these girls have been made to feel less than human,” she went on.
Eve remembered her brother saying the same thing.
Winston’s mom stood tall, her demeanor confident, as if she did this all the time. “To not be on the list, you’re getting the message that you’re ugly. And in our world, where from the age of one a girl’s looks are treated as all-important, a girl being perceived as ‘ugly’ sends her the message that she has less value. And for those on the list, they’re being told that their purpose is to be looked at. Ranked. The poor girl sitting at number one … How does she feel?”
Eve felt her mom stiffen at the same time that she did. No one would make Eve talk, would they?
“Our boys need to hear this. They need to begin to understand their classmates’ pain. I mean, in this context, being number ten, five, or one is not a compliment, okay, girls? Okay, boys?”
“Better than the alternative,” her dad grunted as her mom lightly hit his arm.
“Dad, stop it.” Eve may have whispered aloud, or maybe she just thought it. What did he know about being a girl?
“I think we should hear from each of these girls,” Winston’s mom continued. “Let’s give them a voice. Boys, listen. Girls … speak.”
Eve stopped hearing her. Would they start with number one and go in order? How could she escape?
Winston’s mom made a lot of sense, and Eve agreed with what she was saying, but Eve had never asked to be number one. She certainly never asked to be the spokesperson for this lady’s point of view.
“I gotta go,” Eve whispered to her mom and Nessa, and she stumbled over the laps in her row, dropping some loose papers from her notebook as she went, but not stopping to consider them. She had to leave.
She ran out the door, searching for whatever other room lay nearest to her, where she could hide.
“Hey!” Eve heard a boy’s voice behind her, but she ignored it. “Hey, wait!”
The choir room. Right down the hall.
She pulled open the anchor-heavy doors and let them clamp shut behind her, escaping the voice. She was done hearing from boys right then.
She put her back against the door by the wall and let herself slide to the floor.
The tears came. Rushing out seemingly without end, like the text messages she’d been getting all day.
And as the tears poured, she heard the creak of a choir chair from somewhere in the darkness beyond her.
“Who’s there?” Eve spoke to the shadows.
The shadows spoke back: “Well, isn’t this just perfect.”
“I’ll go.” Eve turned to push the door.
“Who do you think you are?” the voice called to her.
Eve glanced back to see a figure emerge from the depths of the choir room, where the tall kids always sat. And there, with her arms crossed and a sour glare on her face, stood Sophie Kane.
“You’ve been here for the whole assembly?” Eve managed to squeak out.
“I’ve been here long enough to hear you freak out, let’s just say that,” Sophie answered, looking Eve up and down the way Brody had in the hallway the morning the list came out. “Of all people, of course it’s you.” Sophie stormed toward her. “You…”
Eve had never been in a fight before. Was Sophie going to slap her? Should she run? Why couldn’t her legs move?
“You think you can get away with this?” Sophie hissed, getting closer and closer.
What was Sophie Kane talking about?
“Oh wow.” Sophie laughed a frightening laugh. Like a supervillain. “You little…”
“I’m … sorry?” Eve didn’t know what she was sorry for, though.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to my life?” Sophie ran a spastic hand through her hair.
“Me?” Eve’s jaw dropped.
“Yes, you.”
“What are you talking about?”
But before Sophie could answer, they heard the door begin to open.
Eve and Sophie froze, catching each other’s eye.
It was the first time Eve had actually looked Sophie Kane directly in the face. Sophie’s eyes were as dark blue as morning glories, and she was perfectly tan, even in October.
Wait. Was that a fake tan?
Here Eve was, thinking about a girl’s looks again.
“Don’t come in!” Sophie ordered.
As Nessa entered, Sophie scurried toward the back of the room.
Nessa slammed the door shut behind her. “Oh man. You’ve been crying. Look, don’t listen to that lady. She’s got some of the girls talking about their feelings now, so it’s gonna go on all night.” Nessa wrapped an arm around Eve.
Eve felt the tears stirring inside her again. “I had to get out of there.”
“I know,” Nessa comforted her.
A loud sigh came from the chairs.
“Is…,” Nessa said as she separated from Eve, “someone in here?”
Eve nodded in Sophie’s direction.
“Can we put some chairs in front of the door or something?” Sophie complained from where she sat. “Is there a lock? How do we stop the whole frickin’ school from barging in here?”
“What are you doing here?” Nessa turned to Sophie. “Shouldn’t you be with your minions?”
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be talking about your feelings with Principal Yu?” Sophie shot back.
“I’m making sure my best friend is okay!” Nessa pulled Eve in tighter.
“Okay?” Sophie stood up again. She seemed to tower over them, even from far away. “Okay? No one is okay, thanks to her.” She pointed her finger right at Eve as if she were putting a curse on her.
“Me?” Eve took a step toward Sophie.
“Yes, you. Of course you’re okay. You’re the new Thing.” Sophie shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“What?” Eve’s gut spoke for her.
“Don’t play stupid with me, Snow White,” Sophie Kane roared. “I know you wrote the list yourself. Soon everyone will know.”
Nessa jumped to her defense with “She didn’t—” but Eve surprised herself by cutting Nessa off and speaking all on her own.
“You think I’m ‘okay’? You think I want people telling me I stuff my bra? You think I like it when someone texts me ‘you’re kinda hairy’? Like, what?!”
“Geez, Evie, I didn’t know…,” Nessa broke in.
“Why do you think I dress this way, huh?” She motioned to her brother’s hoodie. “You think I want to be looked at?”
Even more tears rose back up and leaked out, down her face and onto the front of her clothes. “You think I don’t know this was never supposed to happen?” She tried to hold in a sob, but it forced itself out, anyway. “You think I think I’m some supermodel or something? It’s obviously some cruel joke.” Eve wiped her eyes. “Just please, tell all your friends to leave me alone!”
And then the only sounds in the room were Eve’s cries and the light pats of Nessa’s palm on Eve’s back, until Sophie groaned.
“Okay, so you’re trying to say you didn’t put that Post-it on my back?” Sophie jutted a hip out, and her arms guarded her chest once again.
“What? I was trying to get it off you!” Eve threw her hands up in the air. “What is even happening?” She turned to Nessa. “Let’s just go. Please.”
“You’re right.” Nessa shook her head at Sophie. “She’s just like the rest of them.”
“I’m not!”
At Sophie’s words, Eve and Nessa stopped.
“Just wait. Let’s say I believe you and you didn’t write it.” She looked from Nessa to Eve and back. “Who did, then?”
The three of them stood in silence.
Eve had no idea who wrote the list, but whoever it was, she could feel them with her now, always. It was someone who had looked at her too much. Maybe someone who wanted to mock her. And not just her, but the girls left off the list, too. Someone who didn’t care about their feelings, or about how a number could dissolve into a girl’s skin like ink and never leave.
“I don’t know,” Eve said at the same time as Nessa began to name names.
“It could be a girl.” Nessa angled herself against the door. “I’ve wondered that. Hayley Salem?”
Sophie nodded. “Yeah, yeah, for sure, that’s what I’ve been saying! A girl!” She walked to the piano and leaned against it.
“And, yeah, probably someone in the top ten.” Nessa took a step toward Sophie. “Someone who would get something out of it, right?”
“But Hayley Salem would make herself number one.” Sophie shook her head at the thought. “She’s too stupid. She’d make it obvious. She wouldn’t put herself as five. And why would any of them put Eve at the top of the list?”
“Yeah, good point.” Nessa moved farther inside the room, inching closer toward Sophie at the piano. “And a girl who just wants attention doesn’t get much out of a list that gives Evie all the attention, right?” she theorized.
“Why would anyone want this kind of attention? Maybe it’s someone who hates me,” Eve muttered, moving away from the door, to stand beside Nessa.
“So who hates you, then?” Sophie asked, her expression skeptical.
“Well, did you write the list?” Nessa mimicked Sophie’s hip-out stance. “Because you sure seem to hate her!”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “No, I’m serious. Who hates you?”
“I don’t know.” Eve pictured each unknown number that had texted her and tried to match a face with the numbers and messages.
“Weird.” Sophie sighed. “Well, maybe you’re just a random name, and the whole point was to get at me. Lots of people hate me.”
Was that pride Eve detected in her voice?
Nessa laughed. “Oh yeah, says the most popular girl in school.”
“Um, excuse me? Don’t you know that ‘most popular’ and ‘most hated’ go together?”
She wasn’t wrong, Eve realized. Weren’t she and Nessa always looking down on Sophie and Brody and their friends? Didn’t everyone assume they were snobby and fake?
“Yeah, I mean, think about Brody Dixon,” Nessa said, echoing Eve’s thoughts. “He’s literally the last person I want to do this show with.” Nessa took a sharp inhale. “Wait.” She gasped again, and her hands fluttered in the air like she was trying to grasp onto something. “Wait, that’s it!”
“Oh my God.” Sophie put her hand over her mouth.
“Of course!” Nessa laughed. She walked up to Sophie, stopping inches apart from her. “Duh!”
“Of course.” Sophie smacked the top of the piano. “Of course!” she repeated.
“What?” Eve hurried after Nessa. “You think it’s Brody?”
“Who else would it be?” Nessa brought out her phone and pulled up the list, the light of the screen creating a glow around her.
“Do you think it’s him alone or with his friends?” Sophie leaned in toward Nessa, ignoring Eve.
“Who knows?” Nessa answered. “But you know he put them up to it even if it was his goons. Let’s check the list. I bet all the girls not in the top fifty are people Brody made fun of at some point. Like me. This is the kind of list a straight-up bully makes. A jerk. A jerk who never really gets in trouble for anything he does.”
Brody had made fun of Nessa in elementary school, Eve remembered. But not in a long time. Right?
“Wait.” Sophie lifted a hand as if to stop the proceedings. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Why would he do this to me, though?” She broke away from them to go pace by the chairs. “He asked me over to his house twice! I mean, I can show you!” She waved the phone at them. “He was basically acting like we went out. I’m sure you two know that.”
Eve hadn’t heard that at all, actually.
“So why would he put me as number two? It’s not like I did anything! I just—” Sophie stopped midsentence and froze.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“Is she okay?” Nessa whispered to Eve.
“Oh,” Sophie said in a softer voice, her eyes elsewhere, toward the piano pedals and then to the ceiling. A light shake of the head and then: “Never mind.”
“You okay?” Nessa asked.
“Yeah. I just understand something now.” Sophie flipped around to speak to Eve. “Eve, he asked you to the Halloween dance, yes?”
“Um, yeah,” Eve admitted.
Nessa turned to her. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Before Eve could answer, Sophie continued. She spoke like a lawyer, question after question. “What was he acting like when he asked you?”
“Um … nice?” Eve looked to Nessa for help, but Nessa said nothing. “I mean, I don’t know, no one has ever asked me anything like that before.”
“Come on, did it seem like he liked you?”
Eve thought of Brody Dixon’s face that day as he’d invited her to go to the Halloween dance with him. The whole time she’d wanted to open the locker behind her and cram herself into it as the most awkward moment of her life unfolded. But when she did meet his eye, he looked … normal? Honest? Kind of sweet?
“Well, I don’t know…,” Eve began.
“Come on,” Sophie repeated. “What did he say? Tell me.”
Eve told her how Brody had said they’d have a lot of fun at the dance, how it didn’t have to be a big deal, how it was a shame they never talked, and how people didn’t talk to one another because of these stupid separate groups everybody was stuck in. Then he told her it was no pressure and she could just think about it.
What Eve didn’t say was that she’d never wanted to go out with anyone in her life—that was for girls like, well, Sophie Kane—but the only somewhat-okay part of that horrible day had been when Brody Dixon had looked her in the eye and said, “No pressure.” Even now, thinking of those words let her exhale.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Sophie nearly sprinted back to where Nessa stood. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” Nessa nodded. “‘Stupid separate groups.’”
“Explain?” Eve moved to sit on the piano bench.
Nessa sat beside her. “Brody probably actually likes you.”
Sophie sighed a loud, long sigh.
“And he put you as number one,” Nessa went on, “because otherwise—”
“He couldn’t ask you to the dance if you were a nobody.” Sophie surprised Eve by sliding in on her other side.
Were they not enemies now?
“And,” Sophie added, “I think he wanted a replacement. For me.”
All Eve could say was “Oh.”
They sat so close that Eve could smell the school shampoo on Sophie Kane’s hair.
“It all checks out now.” Sophie spoke in a low whisper. “That’s why you’re number one, and I’m number two…” She looked as if she were attempting to work out a math problem in her head. “He’s auditioning his next girl. And trying to hurt me while he does it.”
“But why would he want to hurt you?” Nessa asked, leaning over Eve toward Sophie.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sophie muttered.
For a moment, the three of them sat quietly. A loud truck went by outside.
And then Sophie slammed a fist on the piano keys and Eve and Nessa jumped.
“Whoa!” Nessa looked toward the door as if someone might hear them and come in.
“He can’t treat people like this!” Sophie’s voice escalated to a low growl. “Did you know he lives in one of the biggest houses in Glisgold?” Her leg began to bounce as if she’d had too much pop. “He has a game room. And three TVs. Maybe more, actually. His dad’s bedroom? I mean, it’s like its own house. Oh, and he has a dog room! A room where the dog sleeps! And Brody gets everything he wants. And you should hear the way he talks about girls.” Sophie scooted in closer to Eve on the bench, speaking in a near whisper now, as if the worst parts about Brody were a secret. “It’s like if a girl isn’t pretty—”
“By his standards,” Nessa interjected.
“Exactly. If a girl isn’t pretty in his opinion, she’s just a waste of time. Unless she’s good at homework or something and he’s on a group project with her.” Sophie put a hand to her heart. “Oh my God, is that why he asked me to study? No. No. It couldn’t be that.”
Eve reflexively shook her head to signal “No, of course not,” but she didn’t quite know what Sophie was referring to. Brody sounded so much crueler than the boy who’d spoken to her earlier that day. But still, she didn’t forget the Brody of fifth grade, who had once taken her favorite book and thrown it in the mud.
“The thing is,” Sophie went on, “it’s not like he’s not smart. He is, kind of, but only in that way where your parents have helped you with homework your whole life. And he’s always giving attention to one of my friends one week, and another the next. Yeah, it’s been me recently, but maybe he’s changed his mind again. It was Amina before me! He’s really … He is a jerk. You know what?” Sophie declared. “I despise him.”
“Well.” Nessa strummed her nails on the top of the piano. “I agree! Evie, do you remember how he constantly called the one boy in fifth grade dance class ‘twinkle toes’?”
“He was a classic bully back in elementary school,” Eve told Sophie, who had only come to their school in the middle of sixth grade. “Like out of a bad movie.”
He never got in trouble, though. Eve remembered that part well.
“Not just elementary school,” Nessa said. “He made a joke about Erin O’Brien’s wheelchair last year, do you remember? Before the show he said, ‘I heard about Special Olympics but never Special Broadway.’”
“Gross,” Sophie murmured.
“Yeah!” Nessa nearly hollered. “A little more than ‘gross’!” She put on her theater-trivia voice and continued, “Also, has he not even heard of Ali Stroker, the Tony Award–winning Broadway actress who happens to use a wheelchair? Like, he’s not just mean and macho or whatever, he’s ignorant!” Nessa paused. “I wish I had brought that up when he said it. I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah,” Eve agreed. “Me either.” Why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she remembered that until now?
“He has made every single girl in this school feel horrible,” Sophie said slowly and deliberately. “He can’t keep doing it.”
“But what do we do?” Nessa asked.
“Yeah.” Eve shrugged. “What can we do?”
“Are you kidding?” Sophie turned to them both, a gleam in her angry eye. “We get justice.”