SAY NO TO VIOLENCE AT JACKSON!
ZERO TOLERANCE!
Link turned bright red. “Sorry. You guys gotta get out.” He crouched down in the driver’s seat, so low it looked like nobody was driving the car. “I don’t want my mom to beat the crap outta me in front a the whole cheerleadin’ squad.”
I slunk down, reaching across the seat to open the door for Lena. “We’ll see you inside, man.”
I grabbed Lena’s hand and squeezed it.
Ready?
As ready as I’m going to be.
We ducked down between the cars around the side of the lot. We couldn’t see Emily, but we could hear her voice from behind Emory’s pickup.
“Know the signs!” Emily was approaching Carrie Jensen’s window. “We’re formin’ a new club at school, the Jackson High Guardian Angels. We’re goin’ to help keep our school safe by reportin’ acts a violence or any unusual behavior we see around school. Personally, I think it’s the responsibility a every student at Jackson to keep our school safe. If you want to join, we’re havin’ a meetin’ in the cafeteria after eighth period.” As Emily’s voice faded in the distance, Lena’s hand tightened around mine.
What does that even mean?
I have no idea. But they’ve totally lost it. Come on.
I tried to pull her up, but she pulled me back down. She shrunk back next to the tire. “I just need a minute.”
“Are you okay?”
“Look at them. They think I’m a monster. They formed a club.”
“They just can’t stand outsiders, and you’re the new girl. A window broke. They need someone to blame. This is just a—”
“Witch hunt.”
I wasn’t going to say that.
But you were thinking it.
I squeezed her hand and my hair stood on end.
You don’t have to do this.
Yes I do. I let people like them run me out of my last school. I’m not going to let it happen again.
As we stepped out from the last row of cars, there they were. Mrs. Asher and Emily were packing the extra boxes of flyers into the back of their minivan. Eden and Savannah were handing out flyers to the cheerleaders and any guy who wanted to see a little of Savannah’s legs or her cleavage. Mrs. Lincoln was a few feet away talking to the other mothers, most likely promising to add their houses to the Southern Heritage Tour if they made a couple of phone calls to Principal Harper. She handed Earl Petty’s mom a clipboard with a pen attached to it. It took me a minute to realize what it was—there was no way.
It looked like a petition.
Mrs. Lincoln noticed us standing there and zeroed in on us. The other mothers followed her gaze. For a second, they didn’t say anything. I thought maybe they felt bad for me and they were going to put down their flyers, pack up their minivans and station wagons, and go home. Mrs. Lincoln, whose house I’d slept at almost as many times as my own. Mrs. Snow, who was technically my third cousin to some degree removed. Mrs. Asher, who bandaged my hand after I sliced it open on a fishing hook when I was ten. Miss Ellery, who gave me my first real haircut. These women knew me. They’d known me since I was a kid. There was no way they were going to do this, not to me. They were going to back down.
If I said it enough times maybe it would be true.
It’s going to be okay.
By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. They recovered from the momentary shock of seeing Lena and me.
When Mrs. Lincoln saw us, her eyes narrowed. “Principal Harper—” She looked from Lena to me, and shook her head. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be invited to Link’s for dinner again anytime soon. She raised her voice. “Principal Harper has promised his full support. We won’t tolerate the violence at Jackson that has plagued the city schools in this country. You young people are doin’ the right thing, pro-tectin’ your school, and as concerned parents”—she looked at us—“we’ll do anything we can to support you.”
Still holding hands, Lena and I walked past them. Emily stepped in front of us, shoving a flyer at me and ignoring Lena. “Ethan, come to the meetin’ today. The Guardian Angels could really use you.”
It was the first time she had spoken to me in weeks. I got the message. You’re one of us, last chance.
I pushed her hand away. “That’s just what Jackson needs, a little more of your angelic behavior. Why don’t you go torture some children. Rip the wings off a butterfly. Knock a baby bird out of its nest.” I pulled Lena past her.
“What would your poor mamma say, Ethan Wate? What would she think about the company you’re keepin’?” I turned around. Mrs. Lincoln was standing right behind me. She was dressed the way she always was, like some kind of punishing librarian out of a movie, with cheap drugstore glasses and angry-looking hair that couldn’t decide if it was brown or gray. You had to wonder, where did Link come from? “I’ll tell you what your mamma would say. She would cry. She would be turnin’ over in her grave.”
She had crossed the line.
Mrs. Lincoln didn’t know anything about my mother. She didn’t know my mom was the one who had sent the School Superintendent a copy of every ruling against book banning in the U.S. She didn’t know my mom cringed every time Mrs. Lincoln invited her to a Women’s Auxiliary or DAR meeting. Not because my mom hated the Women’s Auxiliary or the DAR, but because she hated what Mrs. Lincoln stood for. That small-minded brand of superiority women in Gatlin, like Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher, were so famous for.
My mom had always said, “The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.” And now, at this very second, I knew the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t going to be easy. Or at least, the fallout wasn’t going to be.
I turned to Mrs. Lincoln and looked her in the eye. “‘Good for you, Ethan.’ That’s what my poor mamma would’ve said. Ma’am.”
I turned back toward the door of the administration building and kept walking, pulling Lena along beside me. We were only a few feet away. Lena was shaking, even though she didn’t look scared. I kept squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her. Her long black hair was curling and uncurling, as if she was about to explode, or maybe I was. I never thought I’d be so happy to set foot in the halls of Jackson, until I saw Principal Harper standing in the doorway. He was glaring at us like he wished he wasn’t the principal so he could pass out a flyer of his own.
Lena’s hair blew around her shoulders as we walked past him. Only he didn’t even look at us. He was too busy looking past us. “What the—”
I turned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see hundreds of neon green flyers, curling away from windshields and out of stacks and boxes and vans and hands. Flying away in a sudden gust of wind, as if they were a flock of birds soaring into the clouds. Escaping and beautiful and free. Kind of like that Hitchcock movie The Birds, only in reverse.
We could hear the shrieking until the heavy metal doors closed behind us.
Lena smoothed her hair. “Crazy weather you have down here.”
Lost and Found