Promise Me Something (27 page)

The class laughed again—not with menace, but with expectancy. They had no allegiances to Tim or anyone else; they simply wanted to be entertained.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Mr. Murphy added, shooting him a pointed look. “You don’t become rich and powerful wearing a shirt like that.”

I was impressed by the red splotches that appeared on Tim’s cheeks. If they were part of his act, they were pretty convincing. “I like this shirt,” he said.

“I wonder why,” deadpanned Mr. Murphy.

Carefully, ready to bring phase three of our plan into effect, I raised my hand. I made it look tentative, as though I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be called on. Mr. Murphy must have forgotten my name, because he just looked at me blankly and said, “Yes, Miss…?”

“Fey,” I answered in a small voice. It took all my courage just to look him in the eye. “I was wondering if it was normal for women to be with each other too. At these…” I trailed off. I couldn’t bring myself to say
orgies
.

A few boys across the room wolf whistled at my question. Levi looked over at me admiringly, and I felt a stab of pride for the first time all week.

“Lennie, let’s do our next project on that,” John called across the room. Lennie just tossed back her long hair and smiled serenely.

“Enough!” barked Mr. Murphy. “Between you and Twinkle Toes over here, we’ll be at this all day.” Tim’s cheeks flushed again, whether from humiliation or satisfaction, I couldn’t tell.

“Let’s get serious,” said Mr. Murphy. “Who would like to read aloud?”

But “Twinkle Toes” wasn’t quite enough to get a teacher fired, so I pulled the recorder another inch out of my pocket and raised my hand again.

“Thank you, Miss Fey.” He turned his attention to me. “Starting from the top of 206.”

“No, I have another question,” I said, ignoring every instinct of self-preservation in my body. This tangent wasn’t even remotely part of our plan. “Did they have polygamy in ancient Rome?”

“Polygamy?” Mr. Murphy’s eyes widened. “What kind of question is that?”

“I was just wondering,” I said.

“Look”—he ran a hand over his close-cropped hair—“I’m only going to say this once, and if you don’t like it, you can take it up with the author of a certain book.” He walked over to his desk, opened the top right drawer, and lifted a copy of the Bible. Then he cleared his throat. “A family starts with one man and one woman,” he said. “Not two men. Not two women. Not one man and three women.
One
man and
one
woman.”

“My mom grew up in a polygamous family,” I lied. “She was Mormon.” A few people started whispering, and I had to look straight ahead so I wouldn’t lose my nerve.

“I’m not insulting anyone’s religion,” said Mr. Murphy, though he was actually doing just that. “I’m telling you what
I
know to be true.”

I didn’t let my gaze waver. “How can you know?”

“The same way he knows he hates me,” spoke up Tim. “Categorically.”

In an instant, Mr. Murphy grabbed the sissy hat off his desk, crossed the room, and leaned menacingly over Tim. “What’s that, Ferguson? You think I hate you?”

Tim didn’t say anything.

“Wear this.”

“No way.” Tim swept the hat off his desk and onto the floor.

Mr. Murphy’s face turned a deep shade of purple as he bent over and picked it up. Then he shoved it onto Tim’s head. “It was an order, not a request.”

Tim pulled it off. “You can’t make me wear it just because you hate me.”

“I’ve got news for you, Ferguson. I don’t hate faggots.”

The class was so quiet I could hear the desk creak when Mr. Murphy leaned in farther, one of his big tanned wrists resting on the surface. “I hate it when they interrupt my class.”

The room erupted in whispers as two splotches of deep, angry pink exploded onto Tim’s cheeks. I could feel the recorder hot in my hand, capturing every moment, but in place of the satisfaction I expected to feel was a sadness that flared suddenly like the tip of a match. For me, it was mission accomplished. For Tim, it was life.

It didn’t take long—about half of lunch—to transfer the audio file onto my laptop and fix the volume levels. The hardest part was editing out the extraneous beginning so that the conversation started with Levi asking, “Did they have a word for gay back then?”

Tim did most of the work, since he was the one who knew how to use the editing software that came with my computer. Levi and I just leaned over his shoulder and watched him click away, our elbows touching occasionally. We were in the no-talking corner of the library, but we whispered every so often about what to do next. Tim thought we should create a fake email account and send the file to everyone in the school. Levi wanted to send it exclusively to Mr. Murphy, to see if he would apologize first. I had a better idea, but I didn’t voice it right away. It was still taking shape in the back of my mind, mushrooming out like a nuclear blast, like the last split second of life as I knew it.

I hadn’t told anyone yet about Olive’s letter. Even when I spilled my soul to Tim over g-chat, I’d omitted that part of the story. But the longer I kept it to myself, the more of a coward I knew I was. There was only one right thing to do, and it involved the stack of letters I’d found tossed near the dumpsters, where Grace had run after pulling the fire alarm. I was pretty sure she’d meant to plaster the row of bulletin boards outside the cafeteria—before she got caught anyway.

“Are you guys worried about getting suspended?” I asked as Tim emailed each of us a copy of the file. It was the least of my concerns, but I needed to gauge how committed they were.

“Come on,” said Levi. “Do you think Olive would have worried about that?”

“Of course not,” I answered. “But are
you
worried?”

“You can’t get suspended for sending an email unless it contains a virus.”

“Or porn,” said Tim.

“What if we’re not just going to send an email?” I pressed my hands against my lap. They were shaking. “What if we’re going to break into the school?”

“What?” A sloppy grin spread across Levi’s face. He thought I was joking.

I reached into my backpack, behind my math book, and pulled out the photocopied stack of letters. “What if we get here early tomorrow, before anyone else, and hang these up?”

“Whoa, what?” said Tim.

I shoved the pile toward him.

“Is that a letter?” Levi reached over and grabbed a copy. “Holy crap.”

I waited while they read the page from beginning to end; then the three of us sat there in silence. After a long time, I forced myself to look over at Levi, but his face was blank. “Wow,” he said at last. “I had no idea.”

“Something’s weird about this,” said Tim, looking over the letter. “She sounds angry, not depressed. And why would she blame Murphy more than anyone else? No offense.”

I felt my skin prickle.

“Come on,” said Levi. “She hated Murphy.”

“But he definitely didn’t have that kind of power over her.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she wasn’t ashamed of being gay.”

“Of course she was.” Levi frowned. “She was in the closet. If she was proud of being gay, she would have come out, like you did.”

Tim shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

I felt annoyance coupled with gnawing shame. “Are you saying I’m worse than Mr. Murphy?” I asked. “Because maybe I am, but I don’t think—”

“Don’t take it personally.” Tim cut me off. “You guys remember the Valentine’s party, right? How I got stuffed in the closet? Well, Olive and I talked for a minute while she helped me untie the tape. We talked about all the assholes in this school, Mr. Murphy included.”

“So?”

“She seemed pissed, not depressed. She had a fight in her.”

“Maybe this was it,” I said. “A really messed-up way to make a point.”

Tim sighed. “Maybe.”

“Either way, Murphy deserves to fry.” Levi flicked the digital recorder that was sitting in front of us on the library table. It spun around twice and pointed at me.

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes to stop the world from spinning. “No question about that.”

Once we shut down my computer, Tim and Levi headed to the cafeteria to scarf down lunch while I set off on a mission to visit Ms. Mahoney, my English teacher. Room 108 was on the ground floor of the school in the back wing. It overlooked the senior parking lot—a sight I knew well after spending so many hours staring out the window during class. And it was that same window—the one we propped open with a book back in September—that I needed now.

Ms. Mahoney was alone when I arrived, eating lunch at her desk. Resting on a rumpled brown bag was a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a green apple, and a bottle of water—not too different from the stuff Dad used to pack me in elementary school. Only in Ms. Mahoney’s case, it seemed like sort of a pathetic excuse for lunch. With a deep breath, I stepped into the room and prepared myself to lie straight to her face.

“Hi, Reyna,” Ms. Mahoney said, looking up from her papers as I approached her desk. “How can I help you? Are you here to talk about your
House on Mango Street
essay?”

“I think I left my bracelet in here,” I said, gesturing toward the back wall of the classroom. “During second period. I was over by the window—I think the clasp might have broken.”

“Say no more.” Ms. Mahoney rose to her feet. “I’ll help you look for it.”

“No!” I said quickly. “Don’t get up—you’re eating.”

I headed toward the windowsill, where books were stacked on top of one another, but Ms. Mahoney persisted. “It’s really no trouble,” she said, wiping sandwich crumbs against her skirt as she crossed the room to join me. “What kind of bracelet is it? Silver?”

“Yeah, with charms,” I lied. “There’s a ballet charm and a little soccer ball and a tennis racket. It’s really important to me. My best friend from another school gave it to me.” I knew I was rambling, but I needed to distract her long enough to get to the window.

“Goodness,” she said. “How long have you had the bracelet?”

“Since I was ten,” I said, stepping up to the windowsill and pretending to look through the stacks of books. There were a bunch of Shakespeare plays, some Toni Morrison novels, a dozen copies of
Fahrenheit 451
, and a few other titles I didn’t recognize. As Ms. Mahoney moved one of the stacks to look for my bracelet, my eyes landed on the window latch. If I could just unlock it—if I could just open the window a crack and slide one of the paperback novels under it, then Tim, Levi, and I would have a way into the building without a key.

But Ms. Mahoney was the one rambling now—telling me about a charm bracelet her little sister bought for her when they were kids, and how she lost it one day on a field trip to the zoo. I couldn’t just lean over and flip open the latch. Instead, I reached out and knocked over the tallest pile of books on the windowsill. Two dozen copies of
Fahrenheit 451
toppled over and scattered onto the floor. Startled, Ms. Mahoney jumped backward, squeaking, “Oh!”

“I’m so sorry!” I said, bending over immediately to gather the fallen books. “I’m so clumsy. It’s just that I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t find the bracelet—”

“It’s OK,” said Ms. Mahoney. “I understand.”

As soon as she bent toward the floor, I reached behind the remaining books and unlatched the window. Ms. Mahoney lifted up a handful of books, set them on the windowsill, and bent over again. The minute she looked away, I leaned forward, grabbed the bottom of the window, and leveraged all my weight to pull it open. Too much. A draft blew through and made me shiver. Ms. Mahoney reached up to set a few books on the windowsill. I held my breath as she stayed crouched, reaching for a book that had slid all the way under a desk. I grabbed a copy of
The House on Mango Street
, shoved it under the open window, and pulled down—just in time. Ms. Mahoney stood up, a pile of
Fahrenheit 451
stacked in her arms. “Here we go,” she said, setting them back on the windowsill. “No harm done.”

I looked at my handiwork. The window was open just barely a crack, the faint draft blocked by the stacks of books in front of it. It wasn’t the ideal way to break into the school, but it would have to do.