Chelsea Spain’s history teacher was Al Bodnick. He was a tall, skinny man with a wonderful smile. He used to play basketball in his youth, and he was an avid fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Harlem Globetrotters. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Spencer Tidwell, their math teacher. But everybody liked him much better than Mr. Tidwell, who was a tough teacher.
In Mr. Bodnick’s class, they were studying World War I, and most of the students did their projects on famous battles of that war. Chelsea did her project on the many poets who died in the war, including Joyce Kilmer, Alan Seeger, Rupert Brooke, and Wilfred Owen. She wrote a lot about Wilfred Owen because his story was very poignant. He was a captain over other young men. Even though he was just twenty-five, the men under his command called him “the old man.”
Kanika Brewster was in the same class, and she wrote her report on the Battle of the Argonne. Chelsea disliked Kanika, who was mean and arrogant. Chelsea overheard Kanika telling her friend Hana Ray, that Chelsea’s report was “totally stupid.”
“That’s just so stupid to write about poets in a war. What do poets have to do with the war? I’m writing on an important topic, this big battle that just about decided how the war ended,” Kanika boasted.
Kanika usually made As because she was smart. But Chelsea was a pretty good student too, especially in history, which was her favorite subject. She was often just behind Kanika with an A-minus or a B-plus.
Yet Chelsea was worried. Maybe, she thought, she had made a mistake by not writing about a battle. Chelsea put a lot of her heart into her project. She had been touched by the stories of these young, talented poets who had lost their lives in a terrible war. She thought their stories brought the suffering of World War I down to a human level. To say that a thousand men died in a battle was not as powerful as telling the story of one likable and gifted boy who died.
Ten days ago, when Chelsea had turned in her well-researched paper, she was feeling very good about it. Now she wasn’t so sure. Kanika kept sneering in her direction and making comments to her friend and puppet, Hana. “Just wait till old Chelsea finds out what a stupid choice she made. But that’s no surprise. She’s always doing stupid things.”
Now, on the day Mr. Bodnick was returning the graded projects, Chelsea was nervous. The class was coming to an end when Mr. Bodnick plopped the stack of reports in front of him on the desk.
“You all did well on your projects,” Mr. Bodnick noted as he stood at his desk. “I was pleased to find that you used the Internet but you also consulted books. There is a treasure trove of material on the Internet, but sometimes you must take a book and find your information there as well.”
Kanika glanced back at Chelsea and sneered again. “You’re lucky if you get a C,” she whispered.
Chelsea remembered that Jaris had Mr. Bodnick when he was a freshman. Jaris always made As in Mr. Bodnick’s class. Chelsea thought she’d be so embarrassed if she didn’t do as well. Jaris was always saying she was smarter than he was, although Chelsea didn’t believe that.
“I graded the reports on the topic, the quality of the research, but especially the writing,” Mr. Bodnick continued. “I wanted to find your own personal voice in these papers to show me that you weren’t just copying material, but that you were getting into it.”
Kanika got her paper first. Chelsea craned her neck to see the grade, but Kanika quickly turned it over so that nobody could see it. That surprised Chelsea. She always got As, and she’d proudly wave her paper in the air to make everybody else feel bad.
When Chelsea got her paper back, she saw a wonderful note from Mr. Bodnick: “Excellent! This was the best in the class. It made World War I real by highlighting the sacrifice made by these precious young men. Congratulations, Chelsea. Your best work yet.”
A big red “A” was scrawled on the front of the paper. Chelsea was overjoyed. She got goose bumps and whispered to Athena, “I got an A!”
“Great, Chel! I got a B,” Athena replied, “and that’s good. I didn’t expect more than a C.” Athena didn’t care much about her grades as long as she passed.
When the bell rang, the students filed out of the classroom. Chelsea walked alongside Kanika and asked, “What’d you get, Kanika?”
“None of your freakin’ business,” Kanika snarled, stuffing her paper into her tote bag.
“I got an A,” Chelsea crowed. “And Mr. Bodnick wrote all kinds of good stuff on my paper.”
Kanika’s friend Hana, who followed Kanika like a faithful puppy, hissed at Chelsea. “You probably cheated and copied everything.”
“I didn’t cheat,” Chelsea objected. “I worked hard on my report.”
Most of the students went around the corner on their way to English. Kanika, Chelsea, and Hana were all going to health class. They had to walk behind the sports equipment building and up a small rise to get to the health classroom.
“You little squid!” Kanika suddenly yelled at Chelsea. She was burning mad. She had gotten only a B-minus on her paper on the Battle of the Argonne. Her report was as dry as dust, and Mr. Bodnick wrote that she relied almost exclusively on the Internet. Hana got a B-minus too. Suddenly, the two girls grabbed at Chelsea’s tote bag, snatching her report and ripping it. Kanika tore the report in half and threw it down into the dirt. Kanika was much bigger than Chelsea. She was just fourteen, but she looked more like a sixteen-year-old. Hana was even bigger. She was an athlete with muscles.
Kanika grabbed the new top Chelsea was wearing and ripped that too. She wrote across the front of the top with a permanent marker “zit faced cheat Chelsea.” The top was a pretty pink, and the black marker ruined it. Chelsea tried to fight back, but both girls slapped her and kicked her. She stumbled down the small hill, landing beside her trashed report. Tears began streaming down Chelsea’s cheeks.
Athena was coming along, and Kanika and Hana fled.
“Chelsea!” Athena cried in an anguished voice. “What happened?”
“They … they beat up on me, Kanika and Hana,” Chelsea sobbed. “Oh, Athena, I was so proud of my report. I wanted to show it to Mom and Pop and Jaris, and now they ruined it. And my cool top. I just bought it, and look what they did!”
Athena picked up the trashed report. “It’s not hurt bad, Chelsea,” she noted. “They weren’t able to tear the front cover where the A and all Mr. Bodnick wrote is written. We can fix it, Chel, and make it look okay. I’ll help you put tape on the pages.”
“I hate them so much,” Chelsea fumed.
“You gonna tell Mr. Bodnick?” Athena asked.
“I should, huh?” Chelsea said, getting up and brushing the dirt off herself.
“It gets worse if you rat them out, girl,” Athena advised.
Chelsea wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Look at my top!” she groaned. “What’ll I do? I can’t go to health class with a rip and black marks all over my top!”
“Turn the top around, Chel,” Athena told her. “Then the markings and the rip are in the back, and, here, you can wear my vest.” Athena was already pulling her vest off. It was a pretty purple vest. “It’ll go good with your pink top. Nobody’ll notice anything wrong.”
“Thanks, Athena,” Chelsea said. “You’re a real friend.” She put on the vest, and she looked fine.
The two girls walked to health class. Chelsea had not had anything like this happen to her since fifth grade when two bigger girls bullied her and stole her lunch. Chelsea didn’t think stuff like that happened in high school. Kanika and Hana had been mean even at Anderson Middle School, but they had never done anything like this.
After health class, Chelsea called Jaris on her cell phone. He was done with his last class too. “Jaris, I was gonna walk home, but would you take me home?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Sure, chili pepper,” Jaris agreed. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Chelsea responded. Usually, when Jaris drove her, she kept him waiting in the parking lot while she talked to her friends. But now she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. She got to Jaris’s Ford Focus even before he did. Jaris took one look at his sister and asked, “Hey, Chelsea, wassup?”
“Some mean girls messed up my history report and ripped my top and marked it up and—” Chelsea began to cry. “They beat me up—”
“Who?” Jaris growled.
“Oh, Jaris, I can’t rat ’em out ’cause then it gets worse. Athena told me,” Chelsea groaned.
“Who?” Jaris demanded again.
“Kanika Brewster and Hana Ray,” Chelsea admitted.
“They still around school?” Jaris asked. His eyes were on fire.
“They walk home together,” Chelsea answered. “They’re probably starting out now from Harriet Tubman’s statue.”
“Get in the car, chili pepper,” Jaris commanded, opening the door. “Wait for me.”
Jaris sprinted across the campus, getting to the statue of Harriet Tubman in seconds. He spotted the two girls walking down the street, laughing and chatting. Jaris waited until no other kids were near them, and then he came up behind them.
“Kanika, Hana,” he snapped in a savage voice. “I just want to tell you I’m going to see the principal now and tell him you attacked Chelsea, my sister. You’re gonna be so busted. Your parents’ll ground you, and all your teachers are gonna know what you did.”
The girls turned, looking frightened.
“We didn’t do anything,” Kanika stammered.
“We … we didn’t rip up her old report,” Hana objected.
“How’d you know somebody ripped up Chelsea’s report?” Jaris snarled.
“We uh … saw it happen, b-but we didn’t do it,” Kanika gasped. “Some other girls did it.”
“You’re busted, you little twits,” Jaris growled. “I’m reporting you to the principal, and I’m personally telling all your teachers what you did. I’m telling Mr. Tidwell and Mr. Bodnick and Ms. Colbert, and there goes your reputations. How do you like that?”
Kanika started to cry. “You c-can’t … we didn’t mean to do it,” she wailed.
“We’re sorry!” Hana sobbed too.
“Then I’m telling the cops,” Jaris went on, yelling in their faces. “And they’ll probably come to your house tonight. You attacked another girl and damaged her property. They might take you down to juvie and stick you in a room with a bunch of tough girls.”
“Nooo!” Kanika moaned. “We’re sorry. It was just a joke. Oh, please don’t tell everybody!”
Both girls looked terrified. Jaris was over six feet tall and muscular. To fourteen-year-olds, he looked big and menacing. But what terrified the girls even more was the thought that they would be ruined at Tubman High School. Both of them were good students, and their parents had high expectations for them.
“We’ll do anything!” Hana sobbed. “Please don’t tell everybody. Don’t call the cops!”
“Lissen up, you little creeps,” Jaris commanded. “You ever touch Chelsea again, or damage her stuff, I promise you I’ll tell the principal, all the teachers, your parents, and the cops. They might even kick you out of Tubman and make you go to another school. You ever so much as elbow her in the hall, you’re history around here!”
“We won’t! Never, ever!” Kanika gasped, seeing some light at the end of her dark, frightening tunnel. “Tell Chelsea we’re sorry. We’ll do anything to make it up to her.”
“We won’t bother her ever again,” Hana promised.
“That’s right,” Jaris snarled. “You do, and I’m gonna be your worst nightmare, you little creeps. Now get outta here before I change my mind and get you busted right now.”
The girls turned and ran from Tubman High as fast as they could go. They looked as though the devil was after them. Jaris took a deep breath, smirked, and returned to his car.
“What’d you do?” Chelsea asked, wide-eyed.
“I scared the living daylights out of those little twits,” Jaris told her. “They won’t be bothering you again. I can guarantee it. I didn’t rat them out, but they know I will if there’s a next time. You okay, chili pepper?”
“Yeah,” Chelsea answered, pulling out her damaged report. “Look at the good grade I got for my project. Mr. Bodnick wrote all kinds of great stuff too.”
Jaris looked at the comments. “Wow!” he remarked. “Bodnick never said anything that good about me when I had him. That’s spectacular, Chelsea! When we get home, I’ll fix up the report and make it almost good as new for you.”
“Athena let me wear her vest in health class so I wouldn’t look so awful,” Chelsea told her brother. “Look at my pretty pink top, Jare. They used permanent markers and ripped it too. My pretty pink top that I just got.”
On the way home, Jaris turned onto the freeway, and they ended up at the mall. They spent twenty minutes at the Cave, and Chelsea came out with a beautiful honey-colored cami. Jaris had paid for it.
“For your birthday,” Jaris told her.
Chelsea giggled. “You already gave me that gift card for my birthday, and I got my jeans with it,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” Jaris responded. “I forgot. You gotta understand, chili pepper. As you get older, your memory fails.”
Chelsea jumped up and kissed her brother’s cheek. “Love ya loads,” she sighed.
Jaris and Chelsea had agreed that what happened to Chelsea at school would stay between them. They wouldn’t involve Pop, who would surely make a federal case out of it. If Mom found out, she’d spend the whole evening talking to the Brewster and Ray families, and the girls would be punished. Then they’d be twice as mad at Chelsea, and she’d be tagged as a snitch. The way Jaris handled it, they thought, was best all around.
Jaris repaired Chelsea’s report for about twenty minutes. By the time Chelsea showed it to her parents, it looked pretty good. Chelsea said she had dropped it, and someone had accidentally walked on it. Both Mom and Pop beamed with pride.
“This Bodnick gave you quite a boost, little girl,” Pop noted. “Looks like you’re impressin’ him.”
“We’re so proud of you, Chelsea,” Mom commented. “You worked so hard on that report, and it paid off.”
At school on Friday, Chelsea wore her new honey-colored cami. When she and Athena walked into Mr. Tidwell’s room, both Kanika and Hana looked busily at their math books. All last night, the girls had lived in terror that Chelsea’s nasty brother would rat them out and that soon the police would be at their door. Every time the phone rang at the Brewster and Ray house was cause for alarm. But no call came from the school. And no police came to the door.
Kanika and Hana had decided they would avoid Chelsea like poison ivy. But first, just to make sure everything was all right, they wrote a note and signed it. As Chelsea was leaving class, Hana thrust the envelope at her and then rushed off with Kanika.
Chelsea opened up the envelope. A five dollar bill was folded into a note, which read, “Lawson’s has a sale on tops for five dollars.” Kanika and Hana had signed it.
When Jaris saw Sereeta at school on Monday morning, he was eager to find out how her weekend with her mother had gone. Sereeta was smiling as she walked up to him, but she didn’t look overjoyed.
“How’d it go, babe?” Jaris asked.
“It wasn’t bad,” Sereeta responded. “The weather was great for sailing, and I think Mom enjoyed herself.”
“Only problem is, Mom has the guilts, Jaris,” Sereeta added. “She’s all sad about what happened to me after the divorce.”
“Yeah, she called my mom about that too,” Jaris confessed. “She feels she let you down.”
Sereeta was silent for a few seconds. Sadly, they both knew that her mother had let her down. But there was nothing to be done about it anymore. Sereeta had missed out on a real home during the turmoil of those years. But those years were behind them now, and there was no such thing as a do-over in real life.
“I told Mom that just because there were problems in the past is no reason we can’t make the best of now,” Sereeta reported. “I told her how much it means to me to get away with her and just enjoy our time. My grandma’s kinda negative about the whole thing. She’s down on Mom. Thinks I should just erase her out of my life, but I can’t do that, Jaris. I love her.”
“Grandmothers can be a pain sometimes,” Jaris remarked. “Pretty soon I’m gonna have to spend a whole day with Grandma Jessie. She wants to spend the day with me to celebrate my seventeenth birthday. It’s enough to wish my birthday would just drop off the calendar. I’m gonna have to hear all about it. What a lousy school Tubman is. What a crummy neighborhood we live in. What a loser Pop is.”
Sereeta laughed. It was always good to hear her laugh. Jaris was sure she was laughing more now than in all the years since middle school. Things were better for her now. Jaris wanted to believe he was helping her a lot too. Sereeta’s grandmother was a big plus. Even though she was down on Sereeta’s mother, she loved Sereeta dearly, and she was a rock in the girl’s life.
As they walked, Jaris noticed a single tear running down Sereeta’s cheek. Jaris gently touched her face, turning her toward him. “Babe, what is it?” he asked.
“She told me something that made me so sad,” Sereeta finally admitted.
“What?” Jaris asked.
“She … my mom, she …” Sereeta cleared her throat. “She said she has no feelings for Jake. That’s what she told me. Oh, Jaris, remember when Mom was expecting the baby, and I was so jealous? I thought all she cared about was the baby. I saw the baby as replacing me completely in my mother’s heart. I said mean things, like I hoped the baby cried all night and kept them awake and stuff. I was so jealous, but now I feel bad for Jake.”
“Sereeta, your mom needs to tell her doctor about that,” Jaris advised. “They can help her. I remember some actress who wrote a book about feeling that way about her new baby, and she got help. This actress, it was really brave of her to admit what was happening. But she helped a lot of women with the same problem. Tell your mom to mention it to the doctor.”
“I know she should, Jaris,” Sereeta granted. “But Mom’s so ashamed. She said good mothers love their children.”
“She can’t help those feelings, Sereeta. Keep after her to talk to her doctor,” Jaris insisted.
Sereeta nodded to show that she understood what he was saying. Then she turned and smiled at Jaris. “Jaris, somebody heard you yelling at Marko. Something about he better stop spreading those stupid rumors. Either that, or you were going to knock his teeth all over the school parking lot.”
Sereeta paused to shake her head, still smiling at Jaris. “Babe,” she went on, “you don’t need to do that, you know. You don’t need to always be Sir Jaris riding in on his steed, coming to my defense. I know that’s the way you are, and, yeah, it makes you irresistibly lovable. But it must be a burden sometimes to be a knight in shining armor. You gotta remember, Jaris, I’m pretty strong. I cry sometimes, but deep down I’m strong. I love you for sticking up for me like that, but you needn’t. Just stand by me and love me and that’s enough for any girl. It sure is enough for me.”
“I can do that,” Jaris promised.
Sereeta’s smile deepened. “I’m stronger than you think, babe,” she insisted, “and a lot of it is because of you.”