The Queen Bee of Bridgeton (8 page)

Sasha rolled her eyes. "Yes, they're real. They're a stupid group of girls who think they own the school. I'll tell you about them later. Right now, you need to get to class."

"I can't go to class. What if Heather sees that cow? Sasha, we have to do something."

"I can't, sweetie.  Class is about to start."  Sasha may have needed her perfect attendance record, but I really didn't care about mine.  What was one
more tardy
amongst the twenty-seven I had already accumulated this year?  She must have read my mind as she looked at the clock and said, "If you're
gonna
to be late anyway, put on the extra uniform I have in my locker.  You smell like urine."

I wished I knew who this Bitch Brigade was so I could replace Heather's name with theirs. But since I didn't know, I had to be satisfied with just taking off Heather's sign and hoping she hadn't seen it or heard about it yet.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as simple as just whipping off the sign.  The pranksters probably anticipated someone trying that and the sign was securely attached around the cow's neck with a wire nearly choking it.  It bordered on animal cruelty.

No matter how I pulled and tugged, it didn't come off.  I needed a wire cutter. But where in the world would I find a wire cutter in the middle of first period on the third floor of the McIntyre building?

I took my blazer off and tied it around the cow's neck covering the name.  Then I decided to somehow get the cow out of the building. I remembered Sasha saying that cows were afraid to go down stairs, so I thought if I led the cow down
backwards,
it wouldn't know it was going down stairs.  Amazingly, it worked.  It was
slow
going and awkward, but I definitely got the cow to cooperate.  I had to move the back legs down one step then run around to the front of the cow and put the front legs down and repeat one step at a time. 

The bell rang signaling the end of first period.  Everyone stared at me and the cow laughing as they passed me on the stairwell.  Humiliating, yes, but I didn't care.  I just didn't want Heather to feel like a cow for the rest of her life. 

I continued to coax the cow down the stairs with tears in my eyes when I heard someone say, "Can I help?"  Will had his blazer off and his sleeves rolled up ready to jump in and work.  I nodded. 

"So, you're pretty good at this," I said after we'd been working in silence for a few minutes. "Have any aspirations to be a professional cow mover?"

Will smiled. "It's definitely a close second on my list of dream jobs."

"What's number one?"

"Well, I'd love to get drafted to the NBA. But given that I'm only six foot and white, I don't think
that's
gonna
happen any time soon. So, I think I might try to sign with a European team and develop my game oversees for a while."

"Europe? I love Europe. I went to a dance camp in Spain one summer. I'm hoping to go there next year too."

"Really?
Maybe we'll see each other there."

"Maybe."

Forty minutes into second period, we had the cow out of the building. 

"Thanks," I said to him while we stood in the parking lot exhausted.

"No problem.  I hate the Fat Tuesday prank.  It's cruel. It was sweet of you to try to help." Will's eyes sparkled causing me to blush and fluster.

"You should be in class," Headmaster Collins barked, stepping up behind us.

"I know…I'm sorry…I just…I couldn't…it's a cow," I stuttered.

"It's the Fat Tuesday prank, sir," Will
explained
. "We were just trying to keep this year's victim from getting hurt."  Headmaster Collins stared at us for a moment with a sour expression. I thought we were in such trouble.

"You should still be in class."  

I dropped my head and sheepishly walked back toward the building with Will just a step behind.

"Ms. Garrison, Mr. Maddox," he called after us. "Tell your teachers I said your
tardies
are excused."

We don't know who you think you are. But anyone who lives in this hell hole isn't worthy of Bridgeton. Do what we say or you're
gonna
pay. - The Bitch Brigade

I read the note over and over again. When I closed my eyes to blink away the tears of frustration and anger, I still saw the words as if they were engraved inside my eyelids. No matter what I did, or how hard I worked I'd still be the unworthy, poor black girl from
Venton
Heights. I snatched the note off of the door and stuffed it into my dance bag before entering my apartment.

"What's wrong?" my mother asked as she stirred a pot of what smelled like spaghetti sauce.

"Nothing.
I'm fine." I dried my eyes on my sleeve and swallowed my emotion. I didn't want to worry my mother. I sat down at the kitchen table hoping to spend a few minutes talking to her. I barely saw her anymore. When Sasha and I were little and we lived in the little white house with the red shutters, we all used to be so close. My mom only worked during the day and she would always be home in time to pick us up from school and take us to the library or to a museum. So even if I'd had a bad day at school, I could always look forward to being home. I was always part of something. I belonged to a family.

"Well, I made some spaghetti for you and Sasha. I
gotta
get to work." My mother put the lid on the spaghetti sauce and whipped off her apron revealing her nurse's uniform.

"Mom, do you ever feel like you just don't belong?"

"Oh, Baby girl, are you getting picked on at school again?" She looked at her watch. "I really
gotta
get out of here. My shift starts at seven and I still have to catch a bus across town. Just tell Sasha who's bothering you. I'm sure she'll take care of it."

My mother grabbed her purse and kissed me on the cheek before dashing out of the door leaving me alone.

I went to my room and turned on Mozart's symphony number 25 in G minor in order to drown out the ghetto symphony of gunshots and sirens. I strapped on my
pointe
shoes and practiced my
échappés
and
bourees
to Mozart's stirring string composition while trying to stamp out thoughts of the Bitch Brigade.  Dance was my way out. Ten years from now, when I'm dancing for the Russian Ballet, I'm not even going to remember those bitches. What did it matter what they thought of me?

I felt my courage rise along with the crescendo of the music. Who cared about them?
The fact that I lived in this hell-hole and I went to bed to the sound of gun shots and police sirens actually made me stronger in some sense.
If I could grow up in this place and not end up dead or pregnant by sixteen, I think I could handle a little second grade-like threat from a couple of blond bimbos. I grabbed the note out of my bag, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the trash.

Already feeling a bit relieved, I sat down to watch a video of Natalia
Karleskaya
with the Russian Ballet. As I watched, however, my mind kept wandering back to the note. I had been invisible at Bridgeton for two years. Most people didn't even know my name. So why did I suddenly become a target? It must have been because of Will. That was the only explanation.

And what exactly would they do to me? Name a cow after me?
Big deal.
Revealing where I lived would be embarrassing, but I'd get over it. It would actually affect Sasha more than me. So I had nothing to fear, right? But for some reason, a sickening sense of dread plopped in my stomach and grew at an alarming pace.

My thoughts drifted to that girl in the stairwell. What if that was the result of a Bitch Brigade threat?
And what about the sudden rash of honor trials?
What if the Bitch Brigade had somehow caused those too? Something told me these bitches were responsible for much worse things than Fat Tuesday cows. It was about time I figured out what these girls were really up to.

I didn't know exactly where to start my little investigation. Since I didn't have any friends at school, I didn't really feel comfortable walking up to a virtual stranger and asking if they knew any bitches. I guess I could have asked Will, but our…relationship, if I could call it that, was still pretty new. That would've been a pretty bizarre question.

That left Sasha.

"How much do you know about this Bitch Brigade?" I asked her while we ate lunch at our tree on the West Lawn.

"Why do you want to know?" She didn't even look up from her planner.

"Well, the cow incident was pretty mean and I'm starting to think they had something to do with a naked girl I found in a stairwell."

Sasha's head snapped up. "What?"

"That didn't come out right." I briefly explained what I knew about
Emmaline
Graham. When I finished, she returned her attention to her day planner. How could she seem so unconcerned? "Plus, I found a note from them on our apartment door."

She looked up again.
"In
Venton
Heights?"

"Do we have another apartment?"

Sasha slammed her planner shut. "I have to go."

"But you said you would tell me about them. I feel I should know the people threatening me. I need to know what I'm up against."

"I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. But you should really stop asking questions, especially about
Emmaline
." Sasha crammed her barely touched food into a trash bag.

"So it was them, huh?"

Sasha didn't respond, but I could tell by the way she bit her bottom lip that I was right.

"And you know who they are, don't you? How can you let them get away with this?" I asked.

"Sonya, it's a little more complicated than that. Trust
me,
you just need to stay out of it. For your own good, no, for
our
own good, just stay out of it.

I tried to take Sasha's advice and ignore the possible danger of the Bitch Brigade. I knew Sasha could handle the situation. She'd take care of them the same way she did
LaPorscha
. I had nothing to worry about. So why was I still so worried?

The only thing that got my mind off the Bitch Brigade was spending time with Will. And we spent a lot of time together. Most mornings
Will
would meet me at the studio with flowers and a bagel and then help me clean. Some mornings, though, he was mysteriously absent. On those days, he'd meet me outside of my chemistry class with a single white flower. Then he'd apologize for being late, saying he'd had to press snooze three times. Then after school he'd meet me at the dance studio after basketball practice so we could have dinner together. And if he was late to that, he'd say it was because he had to shower three times.
Hmph
.
I wonder if those were just excuses. Maybe he had another girl on the side.