The Mockingbirds (19 page)

“Do you send him notes from runners or something?” I press on.

“He knows the same way T.S. knew how to find us.”

“Through Casey?”

Amy shakes her head. “That’s not how T.S. found us.”

“Did she put up a bat signal?”

Amy laughs and I can see her breath when she does. “Alex, it’s not that complicated. T.S. left a note in our mailbox in the student activities office. Same place where you dropped off your vote on the code revisions.”

“Did Carter leave a note? What did he write?
Call me and tell me who you are
.”

“Alex, we’re not some supersecret organization. It’s not like Clark Kent where he has to protect his real identity. My name is on the mailbox as the point person.”

“Oh,” I say, kind of surprised. I was expecting something more cloak and dagger. It’s so pedestrian to have a mailbox for their fake singing group. Then again, it is kind of the perfect cover too.

“I
want
students to be able to get in touch with me if they need to,” Amy adds.

I notice she uses the plural
students
and it hits me I might not be alone. I might not be the only one they’re helping. “Are there other cases this semester?”

Amy nods.

“How many?”

“A couple?”

“You can’t tell me?”

“They’re not as far along as yours.”

“You mean the names aren’t in the book yet?”

“Right,” Amy says.

“What are they about?” I press on.

“Would that be fair if I told you at this point?” Amy asks. “Let’s focus on yours.”

“Fine,” I say. “So Carter went by your mailbox?”

“Last night,” Amy says, and I realize the timing jibes with something Maia said when she returned from debate practice last night. She told me the swim team faction had been buzzing about the book at practice.

“So you’re really taking me to the caf?” I ask.

Amy and Ilana nod.

“Won’t it seem like you’re favoring me, then? I mean, are people going to accuse you guys of being biased?”

“Remember, we don’t decide the case,” Amy says. “The board doesn’t vote on guilt or innocence. The council does. Besides, this is part of what we do on the board. We
protect.
”

“I take it Carter’s not getting protection?”

“Carter doesn’t need protection,” Ilana says. “You do. And we don’t give protection to everyone. Your case is different. It’s a rape case. If you were pressing charges out there in the big old justice system, you’d get protection too. Your identity would be kept secret. They’d maybe even put a blue dot over your face if your trial was on TV. If you accused him of cheating or stealing, you wouldn’t need company in the caf. You accused him of rape, so you get company in the caf.”

Then Amy places a hand softly on my arm and even through my army coat it’s like she has this weird superpower of touch because the second she lays a hand on me,
it radiates calm. I suddenly feel as if I
can
do this. I’m with her, I’m with Ilana. They’re the Mockingbirds; they’re protecting others; they’re protecting me; they’re my bulletproof vest. “Nothing will happen. You’ll see,” Amy adds.

“Do you trust us?” Ilana asks.

I nod. “Of course.”

“Then let’s get some food into you, girl. Because you are getting thinner by the day,” Ilana says, grabbing the waistband of my jeans, a little looser now than it was a month ago. “Oh, and you can lose the hat, sister,” she says, pulling my cap off. She laughs, but it’s a friendly laugh, and the next thing I know I’m walking back into the cafeteria for the first time in a month. I survey the huge room and find him quickly, the same place I saw him last, with Kevin and Henry and the other water polo boys. He doesn’t see me, but still my heart catches in my throat; I swallow hard and steel myself as I make my way through the line.

“You have Mr. Christie for world affairs, right?” Ilana asks me as we grab trays.

“Yeah. Do you?” I ask. She’s not in my class but I know he teaches a couple of different sessions.

“Nope, he doesn’t teach seniors,” she says.

“You’re a senior?” I ask as I reach for some pasta. Cafeteria food never looked so good.

“What, the boobs didn’t give it away?” Ilana teases, casting her brown eyes down at her big chest, then back up to me. “People always think I’m older because I have these
monster boobs. I can’t believe you didn’t think I was a senior!”

“I just didn’t think about it,” I say.

“What year do you think I am?” Amy asks as we finish filling our trays. Slices of turkey for Ilana, mushroom soup for Amy.

“Um…,” I say, not wanting to get this wrong either.

“Go ahead. Guess. I won’t be offended.”

“Fine, senior,” I say, going for the easy answer.

She shakes her head. “I’m a sophomore.”

“Are you serious?” I say.

“I don’t have monster boobs,” she says, because she kind of has the body of a paper doll. I never thought about their ages though, especially Amy’s, because it never occurred to me someone who had this much power could be anything but a senior. Except Amy’s a sophomore, younger than I am. I guess this explains why I’ve never had a class with either one of them before.

I wonder what else I don’t know about them; I wonder why Amy’s a sophomore and she’s leading the group and Ilana’s a senior and she’s Amy’s right-hand man, Amy’s muscle, along with Martin, whom I’ve kind of missed seeing lately. Whom I wouldn’t mind doing French rhymes with again.

But then I stop thinking about them because we’re leaving the food line now. I feel my muscles tighten. Amy senses the change and whispers, “You can do this.”

We walk out into the cafeteria together, Amy on one side,
Ilana on the other. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Carter look up, then Kevin. It’s all in slow motion, as if it’s playing out on a movie reel, slowed down frame by frame. They see me, then Ilana, then Amy. The two Mockingbird girls stare at the two water polo boys. The boys look down instantly. They don’t look up again, even when we sit down at our table, where T.S., Maia, Martin, and Sandeep are already parked.

Flanking me, Amy and Ilana pick seats so we’re facing the water polo boys from across the room. That’s how I know Carter and Kevin never look at me again for the whole meal. Even when I go to the salad bar, Amy by my side, they stay like that.

When I finish my pasta, a girl with broad shoulders and sandy blond hair tucked behind her ears, the ends curling back out under them, walks over to our table. She circles around my side and crouches down next to me. She places one hand on my back, the other on the back of Amy’s chair.

“I’m Dana Golden,” she says.

“Hi, Dana,” I say tensely.

“I’m on the girls’ water polo team.”

Uh-oh. She’s probably his girlfriend or his buddy, maybe even his henchwoman. She’s probably going to give us a taste of our medicine. She’s probably going to pin me down and swing at my face a couple of times.

“Was it you?” she asks me. “Because I know he was spreading rumors about you at the start of the term, and
then when I heard he was in the book, I figured it was you. What a pig,” she says.

“You know him?” I ask, but I don’t answer her first question, even though I’m relieved she’s not a friend of Carter’s, or a fan.

“He’s a douche,” Dana answers. “I went out with him a couple times last year and all he wanted to do was get his hands on me. I literally had to slap him one time to stop him. He was pushing himself on me.”

“Did you stop him?” I ask.

Dana nods proudly, her broad shoulders moving up and down as she does. Dana’s got a swimmer’s build and she looks tough. She fought him off. I didn’t.

“Yeah, and he tried to start some rumors about me too, like he did to you. Last spring he started telling all the guys that I totally put out for him. So I just marched right up to him in front of his friends and asked if he had told them how I slapped him too. That shut him up.”

“Wow…,” I say.

“So listen. If you need a character witness, I will totally do it.”

T.S. chimes in. “That’s a great idea, don’t you think, Alex?”

“Sure,” I say, because it sounds like the sort of thing they’d do on
Law and Order
.

“Anyway, keep up the good work. See you around,” Dana says, and heads out of the cafeteria.

“That was bloody brilliant,” Maia says with a clap of approval. “Character witness. I love it!”

“Speaking of character witnesses, have you picked your student advocate yet to try your case?” Amy asks me.

Maia jumps in, waving her arms in the air. “Like a lawyer? Like a prosecutor?”

Amy nods and Maia turns to me. “You know there’d be no one better.”

“Maia, are you trying to say you want to defend me?” I say playfully.

Maia bats her eyelashes, giving me a coquettish smile. Maia’s been dreaming about attending Harvard Law School since she was three, so I’m not surprised she’s salivating at the chance to play attorney here. Then I feel that same pang of doubt I felt yesterday. Is Maia interested for me or for herself?

I turn to T.S. “Did you want to do it?” I ask her.

Maia emits a huff. “C’mon. You know T.S. doesn’t.”

“Maia, would it kill you to let Alex decide?” T.S. asks.

Maia holds up her hands, like she did the night we first went to the Mockingbirds.

“Do
you
want to do it?” I ask T.S. again.

“I want you to decide,” T.S. says.

There’s no question. “Maia would be perfect,” I say.

When we leave the cafeteria Ilana gives me my hat back. It looks like I won’t need it again.

That evening Jones meets me outside my dorm and we head over to the music hall. Mr. Christie and Ms. Peck—she’s Jones’s advisor, so it’s like they doubled up on us—were so enamored of the Gershwin idea, they asked us to perform
Rhapsody in Blue
for their staff meeting. Not even the Faculty Club, just a regular weekly meeting. I know it’s supposed to be an honor, like extra credit for extra-special students, but still it just feels so ridiculous. Wind us up, watch us go.

“What do you say we go wild tonight and screw the old masters?” Jones suggests.

“Ooh, that sounds vaguely dirty, Jones,” I say as we cross the quad. Yellow light from the old-fashioned streetlamps lining the quad spills across the stone pathway, guiding our
way. I use the light to avoid another run-in with an ice slick.

“I’m serious. Do you really want to practice frigging Gershwin again?”

“I like Gershwin,” I say. “Even if we have to perform it at their stupid meeting.”

“But what if we did it like we were rappers or something covering
Rhapsody in Blue
?”

“So just totally subvert things?” I ask as he opens the door, unlocked as always, to the music hall. We both pull off our fleece pullovers and toss them on the floor. No teacher, no need to use a coat rack.

“Yeah. What do you think?”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, Alex. Don’t you just want to shake things up a bit?”

I’m already shaking things up, I want to say. Instead I say, “Not that way,” and sit down at the piano, then rub my hands together to warm them up.

He grabs his violin and pulls up a chair. “Saw you having lunch with Amy and Ilana. What’s that all about?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, not looking at him.

“Alex, I’m not stupid.”

“I never thought you were.”

“They’re in the Mockingbirds,” he says firmly.

“How do you know?” I ask, trying to sound casual, but wondering if he went by the mailbox like T.S., like Carter.

“Because I pay attention. So are you in the Mockingbirds?” he asks point-blank.

I scoff. “No! Me? C’mon. Why would I be in the Mockingbirds?”

“Then why are you hanging out with them at lunch? You’re not part of the cheating case.”

“Cheating case? What are you talking about?” I ask him.

Jones shakes his head, kind of disapprovingly. “This dude in my dorm says his roommates are forcing him to do all their math and chem homework. He’s this total math savant. I mean, he’s actually taking math classes at Williamson right now, applied math, not even intro level college math. He is already way beyond that. So his roommates are making him do all their math work. Guess they’re telling him they’ll tell everyone what he says in his sleep if he stops doing their homework. I don’t know—sounds as if he’s a major sleeptalker and maybe shares a little TMI while he’s snoozing.”

“That kind of sucks,” I say.

“Yeah, and he’s talking to the Mockingbirds about taking on his case.”

The math genius must be one of the other cases Amy alluded to before lunch, one of the ones she wouldn’t tell me about. “How do you know?” I ask.

He gives me a look, then rolls his eyes. “Alex, he lives down the hall from me. I know what’s going on. I keep my
eyes and ears open. Besides, they’ve been by, talking to him, talking to the roommates too. I guess they’re
investigating,
” he says with a note of derision as he sketches air quotes with his fingers. “It’s kind of lame, though,” Jones adds.