Today Jo and I went to school without a grownup for the first time in our whole lives! Mom and Dad let us walk together, since it’s only four blocks.
“This is great, right?” I said to Jo, as we walked along.
She nodded and said, “Now they just have to let me ride the subway by myself. Practically every sixth grader I’ve ever met gets to do that.”
Then she said, “It’d be so much easier to see Jake, if I could take the subway alone.”
And THEN we passed the yummy-smelling bakery about a block from us. And she said, “This place looks so good. Jake and I should definitely come here when he visits, don’t you think?”
I could’ve just said, “Sure.” A big part of me wanted to just say, “Sure.” Since I didn’t want to ruin our nice walk.
But a bigger part of me didn’t want to lie to Jo. And it felt like a big lie to let her keep thinking nice things about Jake. So I went ahead and said, “I have bad news about Jake.”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“Jake went to Trina’s again yesterday,” I told her. “He brought her a coconut. Violet texted me about it.”
“Why would he go there again—and with a COCONUT? That makes no sense.”
Before I could even say, “I know,” she kept going.
“I ASKED him what he did yesterday after track,” she said. “He didn’t say ANYTHING AT ALL about Trina. What is he doing?”
“I don’t kn—” I started to say. Again, she just kept going.
“Are you SURE he brought a coconut? I think maybe you misunderstood.”
“I READ it,” I said. “What other word looks like coconut?”
She didn’t say anything then.
I started thinking about what Lula had said—about how I would feel if I was dating somebody who went to another girl’s house and lied to me about it and brought her presents (even weird presents) that meant something between the two of us. I wouldn’t like it AT ALL. I wasn’t liking Jake at all—he wasn’t treating Jo right.
So I said to Jo, “I think you should break up with him. I think Lula thinks that, too.”
Jo stopped on the sidewalk outside of school then and said, “Wait—WHAT? What does Lula have to do with this? Did you have long talks with HER about me and Jake? AGAIN?”
She sounded so mad, but I hadn’t done anything wrong! Of course Lula knew.
“She was on the texts,” I told Jo. “The ones Violet sent. There were no long talks.”
“You have to STOP gossiping about MY BUSINESS with the WHOLE WORLD!” Jo cried. “You and Lula and Violet don’t know anything about anything!” She paused, red-faced and big-eyed, and pointed at me and said, “Nobody even LIKES you!”
Then she rushed away from me, toward school.
That was MEAN, I thought.
People like me, I thought.
Then I shouted at Jo, “I SHOULD’VE WALKED HERE WITH MOM OR DAD!”
She ignored me, yanked open the door of the school, and stomped inside.
I tried to think of people who like me, other than Lula and Violet. And Mom and Dad and Granny, who have to like me.
I was feeling pretty unliked when someone behind me said, “Wow, New Girl. What HAPPENED?”
I turned, and there was Mary Majors, looking concerned. And interested.
“Hey,” I said.
I wanted to ask her, “Does anyone at this new school like me?” But that was too weird.
Instead I said, “You’re early.”
She shrugged. “My mom says if I get another detention she’ll take the door off my bathroom. She doesn’t care that I share it with my sisters, and that everyone could watch all of us pee. She says she’ll do it anyway.”
“Yuck!” I said. And I thought, My mom would never do that.
Mary Majors kept talking. “That was your older sister, just now, yelling at you,” she said. “Right?”
I nodded and felt my face go red and wondered how much she’d heard.
“Come on,” she said. She tugged on my arm, pulling me toward school. “You have to tell me everything. I have two older sisters. I can help—I know I can.”
I walked with her, but I told her, “I can’t tell you the whole story. I really can’t. Jo does NOT want me talking about it.”
“But she’s made YOU upset, right?” Mary Majors said.
“So?” I said.
“So she’s not allowed to make you upset AND say you can’t get help from other people, by talking through what happened. That’s not fair. My sisters used to do that all the time. I don’t listen anymore.”
She’s right—it’s NOT fair, I thought.
“Plus I’m really good at keeping secrets, I swear,” Mary Majors said. She raised her hand like she was taking an oath and looked very serious. Then she held the door to the school open for me. We saw other kids then, in the foyer and lobby. She stepped close to me, and whispered, “Don’t say anything now.” Reminding me that they’d be able to hear. Which was thoughtful of her.
Then she whispered, “I have the perfect secret spot.” And she hurried off down the hall.
I followed her. And I tried to decide what I could tell her.
Finally I realized this: Mary Majors didn’t know Jake at all. So she couldn’t possibly say the wrong thing to him. The way Violet or Lula might (according to Jo). So maybe I could say what I wanted to Mary Majors. Especially if she was good at keeping secrets. Plus I knew I’d be distracted all day long if I didn’t talk this through with somebody. And I needed to be able to focus! I was already having enough trouble understanding things like rates of change and annotations!
At least Mary Majors was someone to talk to.
She pulled me into a girls’ bathroom then.
“This spot is not secret,” I told her.
“Hold on,” she said. She checked all the stalls and said, “Empty. Perfect.”
Then she took a marker and paper out of her backpack and wrote a note like this: