Authors: Beth Goobie
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Family, #Stepfamilies, #Social Issues, #General, #Readers, #Beginner, #JUV000000
Sticks and Stones (5 page)
I knew when the high school ones were coming up. Carlos set the projector on high speed. Then he sat, both hands folded on his desk like he was praying for me. I waited for the names of the other girls to finish. Then I stepped in front of the screen. The words hit me full force.
SLUT
, it said across my chest.
JUJUBE GELB IS A SLUT
.
There were gasps from the kids as word after word flashed over me. Old Dead Lips started to stand, then sat down slowly. After a while, there was silence and the steady clicking of the projector.
A different kind of sex ed class
, I thought to myself.
“You’d think words were the easiest thing in the world to give and take,” I told them all. “They’re free, easy to come by. They don’t get taxed. Anyone can own a word, use it any way she likes.”
The bathroom wall kept up its steady flashing over my face. “What’s in a word? You can’t eat a word, drink a word, build it or take it down. You can’t touch a word, but a word can touch you. Like ‘slut.’” In spite of Mom, the word still felt heavy, dirty in my mouth. I paused.
“Lately, it’s been harder than usual to get out of bed in the morning. There’s such a long day ahead. I have so many decisions to make. If I wear this shirt, the
collar doesn’t go up to my chin. So will I look like a slut if I wear it? If I put on these jeans, will someone think they’re tight like a slut’s? They’ll be sure to let me know.
“I watch the way I walk down the halls. I think, Do I walk like a slut? Do I stand at my locker like a slut? The look in my eye — do I look at people like a slut? Do I breathe like a slut?
Am I a slut?
”
I took a deep breath. The room seemed to be short on air. “Everyone knows a slut isn’t really a human being. She’s something you kick around and take dirty pictures of. You can laugh, say anything you want about her because she’s not like you anymore. Maybe she used to be. Maybe she used to be a normal, regular kid. But then someone called her a slut and turned her into a thing. A
nothing
.
“So the word slut goes up on the bathroom wall about me. How do I argue with a word like that? Once it’s up there,
it’s case closed. Nothing left to decide. It’s just a word, but it still takes away my choices — what I can wear, how I can walk, even how I think about myself.”
I said it again.
“Slut
. That word could run my life…
if I believed it.”
No one else said a word. The slides had ended. I stood in the white light on the screen, free of their words. As we packed up, kids came over to Carlos and me. They didn’t say much. Some touched our shoulders or nodded. Old Dead Lips told us he’d given us an A. He cracked a one-inch smile, then said, “Words cannot express how I feel.”
Out in the hall after class, we saw the Slut Club had been busy. We’d all made a lot of posters out of the bathroom wall graffiti. During the last class, Sophie and the others had put them up in the school halls. Now, kids crowded around them, their
mouths like very large holes. It wasn’t the words themselves that were the shock. It was the place they were written. Next to a toilet, they fit right in. Out in the school hallway, they didn’t.
Mom’s right
, I thought.
It’s not the words. It’s the way they’re used
.
Brent Floyd was nowhere to be seen. I imagined the principal running through the halls, tearing the pictures down at warp speed.
“He can’t take much more of this, Captain. His engine will blow for sure,” I muttered.
“Huh?” asked Carlos.
“Nothing,” I grinned.
Chapter Ten
When Carlos and I walked into the house after school, we could hear Mom and Sophie talking. Popcorn lay in the hallway, whining.
“C’mon, I’m hungry,” said Sophie. She was in Mom’s bedroom.
Mom sounded firm. “You’ve had enough.”
Oh no, Sophie’s at it again
, I thought.
We saw Mom standing in front of her bed, holding a box of graham crackers. Sophie was facing her. Suddenly, Sophie burst into giggles, ran at Mom, and toppled her onto the bed. A tickle fight developed.
I rolled my eyes at Carlos. “This is what I live with.”
Pinned on the bed, Sophie noticed us. She howled, “Go get me some food! There’s nothing to eat in the house. I’m starving to death!”
“Did you give your project?” Mom got up and came toward the door. Right away, Sophie went for the graham crackers.
“Jujube was great,” Carlos said.
“Of course she was.” Mom grabbed at the graham crackers. Everything was pretty much back to normal — even my eyebrow had grown in again. There was only one last thing to take care of.
By the end of the week, the school found the money to paint over the graffiti. The Slut Club decided to have a party to celebrate. One of the girls bought a cake and twelve candles — one for each of us. We sat in a back hall, singing “Happy birthday to clean walls!” After eating the cake we joked about Carlos. Then everyone started in on Carlos and me. O.K., O.K. — so it was official. We were going out.
“Ahhhh — they’re in love,” Megan sighed.
“Shut up,” Sophie told her, laughing.
Megan turned up her radio and we tossed a hackeysack back and forth. I heard a door close farther down the hall and looked up from the game. A guy was coming toward us, his head down. He hadn’t seen me yet or he wouldn’t have kept coming. It was Brent.
The other girls noticed me staring and fell quiet. The radio kept blasting as the twelve of us watched him walk toward
us. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t even look up. When he was just about ready to walk through the middle of us, Megan cut her radio. He looked up, saw me, saw all of us watching him, and stopped dead.
He’s scared
, I thought.
Sophie gave a puppy growl and said, “Woof, woof.”
Brent flushed and the girls laughed.
“Jujube.” Brent’s voice cracked.
Carlos stiffened.
“Yeah?” I gave Brent a dead fish glare. His face was red now — a definite red. He took a deep breath.
“Y’know,
none
of this came from me. I swear, I didn’t say a word about you.”
I just looked at him. My hands were in fists again.
“It was the other guys.” Brent was talking quickly, his eyes darting everywhere. “They asked why we were out at my car. They started joking about it, then
everyone started in on it.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I said.
Suddenly, Carlos asked, “When the other guys started joking around, what did you say?”
“Nothing,” Brent insisted.
“Let me get this straight. They started telling crude jokes about me and you said
nothing?!”
I demanded.
I could see it happening. The other guys asked the questions, made the jokes. Brent sat there silent with a smirk on his face.
Brent took a few steps back. “Hey, it was just a joke. Why’d you have to take it so personally?”
“For you, it was a joke. For me, it was my life,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess. Like I said — sorry.” Brent turned and walked away.
For a second, none of us moved. Then Sophie wound up and fired the hackeysack. Her aim was perfect. She hit
Brent right in the butt. He broke into a jog and ducked out a side door.
I grinned. “I think the Slut Club should have regular meetings — keep this school in line.”
Carlos bumped my shoulder with his. “Keep the world in line?”
I looked at his lips. They were so close. I could spend a lot of time kissing them. “Maybe. But then, maybe I’m too busy,” I said.
“Ahhh,” Megan sighed.
o
rca s
o
undings
Orca Soundings is a new teen fiction series that features realistic teenage characters in stories that focus on contemporary situations and problems.
Soundings are short, thematic novels ideal for class or independent reading. Written by such stalwart teen authors as William Bell and Beth Goobie, there will be between eight and ten new titles a year.
For more information please call Orca Book Publishers at 1-800-210-5277.
Other titles in the Orca Soundings series:
Bull Rider
Who Owns Kelly Paddik?
The Trouble with Liberty
The Hemingway Tradition
One More Step
Kicked Out
No Problem
Refuge Cove
Death Wind
Available now
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Death Wind
William Bell
Her dress was ripped and her tears made white streaks in the dirt on her face. She stared into the mass of jumbled lumber. Allie could hear a baby wailing from somewhere in the mess
.
Allie’s life has taken a turn for the worse — her parents fight all the time and she thinks she is pregnant. Unable to face her parents, she runs away. She hooks up with her old friend Razz, a professional skateboarder, and goes on the road — right into the path of a fierce tornado. To survive in the horror and destruction that follow the storm, Allie has to call on an inner strength she didn’t know she had.
William Bell is the bestselling author of a number of teen novels. A former teacher, William Bell lives in Orillia, Ontario.
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