The Tori Trilogy (9 page)

I move my mouth, but no sound comes out. I can feel my cheeks burning, and as I glance back toward Mr. London's desk, where he is busy shuffling through papers, to see if he heard Anastasia (he didn't), my eyes glaze over with tears. Oh, no. This is bad, bad, bad.

Shannon comes to my rescue. She slings her arm over my shoulders and pulls me close. “Hey, Anastasia?” she says. “That was super-rude.”

Finally I find my voice. I'm not going to just stand here and let Shannon defend me. I am, after all, the girl who's learned to hold her own against her (usually) obnoxious big brothers. “Yeah,” I pipe up. “I don't know what your problem is, Anastasia Adams. Why don't you just tell me why you don't like me?” My voice is snarky now, and finally I'm satisfied.

“You don't like Tori?” asks Abigail, one of the other girls who are standing around us with their mouths hanging open. “Why not?”

“Tori's great,” Bryn adds defensively. “You didn't have to be so rude about her outfit. I think it's cute.”

Anastasia stares at all of us for a long moment, and then she laughs. This time, it sounds friendly again. “Oh, my goodness,” she says, as if she can't believe what she's hearing. “Can't you girls take a joke? I was only
kidding
.” She smiles at me. “Tori, your outfit
is
cute. I just love frogs.”

I don't believe her. In fact, I'll never again believe a word that comes out of her mouth. Shannon doesn't seem to, either. She and I edge away from the group of girls to go sit at our desks. But Bryn and Abigail and the others look relieved. They
want
to think the best of Anastasia.

Gina enters the classroom just then. She puts her folder away and comes to say hi to Shannon and me. “What's going on over there?” She nods toward the windows, where our classmates are still clustered.

I roll my eyes. “You don't want to know.”

The bell interrupts us with its high-pitched ring. Anastasia and the others break away from the windows and hurry to their desks. A group of boys come stampeding in from the hallway, laughing and shoving each other to get into their seats.

Gina's eyes are still full of question marks.

“I'll tell you at lunch,” I whisper.

She nods, seeming happy with that. Finally, she takes a seat at her desk. The school day has officially started.

In the lunchroom later, I sit down with Shannon right away. I brought a lunch from home today, too, which is an especially good thing, because Sloppy Joes are on the menu, and you've
never
tasted Sloppy Joes from Forest Grove Elementary. One word: ewww. (That's probably why they're named after my brother.)

I unwrap my peanut-butter sandwich and squeeze the bread gently until the strawberry jelly comes oozing out over the sides a little, just the way I like. Then I take a bite. I look across at Shannon.

She has a Lunchables today, one of those that come with crust and sauce and cheese so you can make your own mini pizzas. She's putting one together now, very slowly, as though she's not even paying attention to what she's doing.

I realize that my sandwich tastes like nothing. I must be distracted, too. I put it down on top of the plastic wrap Mom sent it in. “Are you thinking about Anastasia?” I whisper to Shannon.

“How did you know?” She puts her little pizza down, too.

I shrug. “I just can't figure her out.”

“Who?” Gina comes up and slips into the seat beside me, setting her tray on the table. I can't even stand to look at her Sloppy Joe.

“Anastasia,” Shannon and I say together.

“I thought so.” Gina picks up a plastic spoon and tastes her cherry Jell-O. “What was going on with her this morning, anyway? I couldn't believe it when I came in and actually saw her laughing and talking with people. Has she started acting friendlier?”

Shannon and I exchange a look.

“Not exactly,” I say. Then I lower my voice as I tell my cousin all about Anastasia's latest rudeness.

“Wow,” says Gina once I've finished. “What is the matter with her? And what made her decide to be nice to all the other girls but rude to you?”

“That's what I want to know,” I reply.

“I really don't get it,” agrees Shannon. “She was even pretty nice to me this morning. Until Tori came in, I thought maybe Anastasia had just been nervous and that's why she acted kind of rude yesterday. Now I'm not so sure.”

“What are you guys talking about?”

We all glance up to see Emily, her own tray full of Sloppy Joe disgustingness balanced on her arms.

“Over here,” says Shannon, patting the empty seat beside her.

Emily walks around the table and sits. Then we all fill her in on our conversation.

“Gee,” she says finally. “I'm glad Anastasia is not in
my
class.”

Gina shakes her head. “I can't believe we were so excited about the new girl.”

“I know!” I agree. “You even told Abuelita and Abuelito that you couldn't think of a reason she wouldn't be nice.”

“I can't believe I said that.” My cousin peels the top half of the bun off her Sloppy Joe and frowns down at it. She picks up a napkin to wipe her mouth and sighs. “I'm sorry, but I just can't eat this. I'm going to keep the Jell-O and throw the rest out. I can't even look at it without losing my appetite.” Gina's not dramatic, so you know it's
got
to be bad.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Emily says. She hasn't touched her Sloppy Joe, either. “I mean, what is
this?”
She pokes the meat mixture very carefully with the end of her spoon, as if it's some bomb that's going to explode. A slimy, greenish glob sticks to the spoon, and we all sort of gag.

“Is it mold?” cries Shannon.

“That does it,” says Gina. She grabs her tray and stands, and so does Emily. Together they head to the garbage cans lined up by the lunchroom entrance. Neither of them notices Anastasia Adams walking from the opposite direction with her own tray of Sloppy Joe until it's too late.

Emily trips over her untied shoelace and goes flying into Gina, who's only a step ahead of her. That sends Gina flying, too, and then, at the worst possible moment, they both crash into Anastasia, all three of them landing on the lunchroom floor in a sticky mess of Sloppy Joe meat and soggy buns and dirty napkins.

At once, the entire room goes quiet. And I mean
quiet.
The lunch ladies stop working, the kids stop eating and talking and joking. Mouths open wide, and we all stare. Just for a moment.

But what comes after the silence is much worse. Anastasia pulls herself away from the mess, stands up, and looks down at her purple sweater and designer jeans. They are covered with lumps of Sloppy Joe meat, splashes of Sloppy Joe sauce, and a few of those slimy green things Emily found in her lunch.

Anastasia opens her mouth in a scream. “
You!”
She stabs her finger through the air at Gina. “Look what you've done! Look at my beautiful clothes!” She takes a step closer to my cousin, still shaking that finger in her face. “How
dare
you?”

Emily picks herself up from the floor and offers a hand to my cousin. “It wasn't Gina's fault,” she explains to Anastasia. “I tripped on my shoelace and fell, and that knocked Gina over, and we both bumped into you.”

“Way to protect your little friend,” Anastasia sneers. “I know what happened. It was
her
.”

“No, it wasn't,” argues Emily.

But by that time, the lunchroom supervisors are on top of it, telling Anastasia to calm down, making sure that nobody's hurt, paging the custodian to come clean up the floor. One of them picks up the fallen trays, another starts tossing napkins and Sloppy Joe buns into the trash.

“Let us help,” offers Emily, but the supervisors wave her away, and she and Gina head slowly back to our table.

“Are you guys okay?” I ask.

Gina nods. “I've got some Sloppy Joe stains on my clothes, but I'll be all right.” She sits down, staring at her lap.

Emily sits, too. “It really was my fault,” she says. “I don't know why Anastasia tried to blame it on Gina.”

My stomach ties itself up in knots. I think back to my conversation with Nate in the kitchen last night. Did my brother have an idea about what was happening with Anastasia? And if he did, why didn't he share it with me?

After school, I gather my stuff, shove it all in my backpack, pull on my jacket, and head outside to the front steps to wait for Mom. The last several days were rainy and gray and super-gloomy, but today, for a change, is beautiful. It's sunny and the sky is bright-blue and even though it's chilly, it's not freezing-cold. Most of the leaves have already fallen from the trees, and on the ground there is a carpet of red and orange and yellow and brown.

I sit down on the top step, warm in the sunshine, and watch the pick-up lane of the school parking lot for Mom's car. Kids pour past me, but I feel alone, lost in thought. Gina left early for a dentist appointment, and although from where I sit I can see Emily and Shannon and my other friends having fun on the playground, I don't feel like joining in. Usually I'm all over those monkey bars...but not today.

I don't understand why it is that Anastasia bothers me so much. But no matter how hard I try, it's like my mind and my heart just won't let the problem go. I bite my lip, wiggle on the step, and check the purple vinyl watch that my grandparents in Michigan sent me last Christmas. Only a few minutes have passed since the final bell, but it seems like much longer. I wish Mom would hurry up and get here. I just don't want to be at school anymore....

“Tori?” The unexpected voice behind me makes me jump.

I twist around to see Reid Benson, a boy from my class that almost everyone likes. No, I don't mean
likes
in a mushy, gross love way...but just plain likes. He's smart and funny and really nice, not like those other creepy cootie-carriers in 5L. Now he's standing behind me with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Oh, hi, Reid,” I say. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He laughs, then drops his backpack at the top of the stone steps and plops down beside me. He looks at me carefully and then asks, “Tori, are you okay?”

The question surprises me. “I guess,” I reply. “Why did you ask?”

“Why did I ask?” Reid laughs again. “Tori, you're the girl who's always in on the action, the girl who never sits still. Why aren't you out on the playground, talking everyone's ears off like usual?”

“Oh, thanks,” I say sarcastically.

“I didn't mean it like
that
.” Reid grins. “But seriously, you seem like something's bothering you. When I came outside, you were staring at the ground like you were really sad or something.”

“I was?” How embarrassing. But at the same time, I think it's super-nice of Reid to care enough to ask. That's the kind of kid he is, and the reason we all like him. I scuff my sneaker on the step below me, trying to decide whether or not I should just tell him. Finally, I say, “It's nothing, really. Just...well, Anastasia. She's so mean, but...her meanness is...I mean, well, it's not like she's mean to everybody. Just certain people, at certain times, and....” I shrug. That probably made no sense at all.

I'm surprised to see that Reid's nodding like he totally gets it. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I know exactly what you mean. Anastasia's in my History Huddle group, and both yesterday and today...let me tell you, it was
bad
. Today she was nicer to the other kids in the group, which made it even worse for me.”

I look at him, my eyes growing wide. “Yeah!” I agree. “That's how I felt, too. When I got to the room this morning, she was all sweet and chatty with Shannon and Bryn and Abigail and I think Jessica was there and I forget who else. So I thought, maybe it had just taken her a little bit of time to get used to it here, and I went up to her...but then, she was super-snotty to me.” I tell him all about what happened, the way Anastasia made fun of my outfit and then tried to say she was only joking.

“And then,” I go on, “she
screamed
at Gina for what happened in the lunchroom and blamed it on her even though it was Emily's fault, because Emily was the one who tripped, but when Emily told Anastasia that, she kept saying it was Gina...well, I guess you saw what happened....”

Reid nods, but he doesn't say anything, so I keep talking. “And yesterday, she acted so
weird
toward me! She kept staring at me, and when I asked her what she was doing, she told me I was interesting, whatever that's supposed to mean, and later on, she stared at Gina the same way. Like, for such a long time that it made us uncomfortable. And then Shannon told her that Gina and I were cousins, and she got all weird about that, too, and tried to find out more. I can't really explain it. You just had to be there, I guess.”

“You don't have to explain it,” Reid says flatly. The seriousness in his voice almost makes me gasp. “Think about everything you just said, Tori. And then add it to the way Anastasia treats me. I think it's pretty obvious what's going on.”

My mind flies back over the past couple of days, all of the time I spent with Anastasia. Like Reid suggested, I think about what I told him. And then I think about the fact that he said that Anastasia treats him the same way. I also think about Nate, about that strange expression on his face last night when we talked. My stomach doubles over in a cramp. “It can't be....” My whisper trails off.

“But it is,” Reid finishes. “Anastasia Adams is racist.”

Without warning, my eyes fill up with tears.

Did I mention that Reid is black?

Chapter Five

Racist.
I think about that word as I finish my conversation with Reid and start down the school steps and across the sidewalk to Mom's car. Of course, I've heard about racism before. But it never seemed to have anything to do with me or my life as a modern girl. Instead, it made me think of the 1960's and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement and all those things we learned about in history. Things that happened so long ago that they don't even seem real anymore.