Listen to the Girls

1

The last day of seventh grade started with Jacoby Park’s nose squirting blood all over the back row of Bus 1709 and ended with rumors swirling about Mr. Chavis harassing students.

Okay, let’s back up.

From the second to last row of the bus, Jacoby stares at me, wide-­eyed, signaling for help with both hands clamped to the middle of his face.

“Your nose?” I ask.

It’s obviously his nose, but with Jacoby it could be any type of crisis, really. He’s known for unusual accidents and general panic, but during the summer, his nosebleeds are normal; it’s been happening since I met him in third grade. Jacoby nods, and I know exactly what to do. I grab a maxi pad from my bag, unwrap it, reach across the aisle, and stuff it under his nose.

Crisis averted.

Yes, he does still have blood on his hands, and a stream runs from his wrist to his elbow, but the main spout is plugged.

“Thanks,” Jacoby whispers.

“Why are you whispering?” I whisper back. Funny how that happens. “No one’s here,” I say in my regular voice.

There are only ever a handful of us heading from our neighborhoods in South Charlotte to Eastridge Middle on the other side of town. We have enough room to spread out in our own zones on the bus before anyone else gets on. Jacoby always takes up the back two rows with all his art stuff. Charlee Turner, our other best friend, likes being near the center of the bus—­usually napping on our morning ride, like she is now. And I—­Calla Howard— ­end up right in the middle of them, which is how I prefer it.

The Keys twins are the only other regulars on our route, but they’d started their summer vacation early, I guess. Lots of kids had been talking about skipping on the last day—­something about a Lake Norman last-­day-­of-­school lake party, some rich kids thing—­but Charlee, Jacoby, and I decided not to. Okay, that’s not exactly true. Our parents wouldn’t let us miss, so here we are: our normal trio.

We pull into the bus lot at Eastridge, and I move to the front of the bus, bumping Charlee’s arm to wake her on my way. A pale-­red line creases her light brown freckled forehead. She’ll be rubbing away sleep lines all morning.

“Ummmm . . .” Charlee starts after we’re all on the sidewalk.

“It’s nothing,” I say when she points at Jacoby.

“Wait . . . you don’t see that?” Her head whips toward me, and her pink yarn-­wrapped braids follow.

“What?” I urge her with my mind to let it go, but Charlee’s not one of those people who gets subtle hints. She usually says and does what I wish I was brave enough to.

“Bro!” She turns to Jacoby. “You have a pad over your nose.”

Jacoby had somehow curled the sticky ends and stuck them on either side of his face.

“You think anyone will know what it is?” he asks.

Charlee shrieks, “Ja-­co-­by, can you be serious?”

“It could be a bandage,” he says. “Right?”

“Except it looks like a pad . . .” She’s about to bust out laughing.

I step in. “It looks like it’s stopped bleeding, so maybe just go to the bathroom and make sure?” Jacoby waves and heads that way.

With that fixed, Charlee and I walk past the courtyard.

“You baby him too much,” Charlee says.

“And I don’t baby you?”

She doesn’t say anything, which means I’m right. I am the responsible, problem-­solver friend, and no matter what kinds of messes our trio gets into, I’m usually the one who comes up with the answers to avoid trouble—­or at least smooth things out.

Jacoby is my play brother/friend/bestie, all rolled in one. His face is more serious than he is, which makes people stay out of his way, but he’s a big, brown teddy bear with twists. I look out for him, and he looks out for me. Jacoby’s usually the one who knows when I need the hug I’m too afraid to ask for.

“Let’s do this one more time.” Charlee daps me before making her way down the two-­hundred hall, where her class is.

“See you at lunch . . .” I call after her. “And don’t have anyone else sitting at our table.” But it’s not even worth saying. Charlee’s a people person—­there’s no way she isn’t going to have at least a few regretful non-­skippers huddled up on the last day of school.

I pass by the tech hall, which is mostly dark except for Mr. Chavis’s classroom. I see him outside his door, posing in front of a tripod—­his daily “teacher outfit of the day” post, I bet. He told me yesterday he was closing out the year with his Tar Heel blue-­and-­white Jordan 1s—­the OG UNCs, my personal favorite of his collection.

Before I ease into my seat in first block, gifted English with Mrs. Porter, I make a mental note to stop in to say goodbye to Mr. Chavis after lunch since I don’t have graphic design today.

In English we turned in final essays last week, so we’ll just be having an open discussion on how the year went and what to look forward to in eighth grade. But honestly, the only person thinking about next year is Mrs. Porter. My mind is entirely on summer break; it has been for the past month, and this school day can’t be over fast enough. This is the first year Mom and Dad aren’t making me go to summer camp, so it’ll be sleeping late and hanging at the pool, and when I say I can’t wait—­I can’t wait!

I’m getting antsy for the discussion to start (and be over) when I realize the normal classroom chatter has turned into whispers, then laughs, then gasps, before Mrs. Porter finally makes everyone put their phones away.

“Class, my rules still apply until the final bell rings.” She taps the phone basket. Like she’s really going to collect devices on the last day.

Something’s going on.

I’m completely out of the loop until Devin Falcon fills us all in. If there is someone else’s business to be in, we can all count on him to be in it up to his neck.

“Y’all think Mr. Chavis really did it?” Devin pauses and looks around the room. The whispers are back.

“Did what?” someone from the back of the room calls out.

“Harass those girls . . .” Devin replies super casually.

“Is this for real?” Baron Sheard asks. At least someone else is just as clueless as I am.

Mr. Chavis?

This has to be some kind of mean joke. Or some student who’s mad about a bad grade. Right? He’s literally the nicest teacher in the whole school.

I wonder if he knows.

“You didn’t see the EboniiNews blog post?” Isha Blackwell asks the entire classroom. “It just dropped this ­morning.”

No, I think to myself, and I really wish I could use my phone. EboniiNews, a YouTuber and local Black news blogger, never gets it wrong. She keeps us informed. She’s awesome, and since she’s young—­not, like, teenage young but not parent old either—­we all look to her to tell us the real. Unfiltered.

I twirl and untwirl, twirl and untwirl a hanging curl around my finger before I realize I’m setting myself up for a bang of frizzy curls. Instead I braid my fingers into each other and stare at the clock over the whiteboard.

“Enough!” Mrs. Porter raises her hand above her head. “I don’t participate in rumors, and neither should you.” I can’t tell if she had heard about this whole thing, but her voice definitely cracks a little.

My stomach squeezes itself into a tight knot. Balled up in the middle of my gut is the ickiest feeling that today isn’t going to be as smooth as I’d thought.