Girls in Charge Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Q&A section

  Bullying section

  Also by Debra Moffitt

  About the Author

  Copyright

  One

  Valentine’s Day should be outlawed. Really. I was just getting used to being Forrest’s former fake girlfriend, when it popped up on the calendar like a dentist appointment. The Valentine’s Day carnation sale at my school didn’t help one bit. This annual fund-raiser, organized by the seventh-graders, helped pay for the eighth-grade spring trip. The flower sale involved buckets of white, pink, and red carnations that could be purchased and delivered to the person of your choice. With a note.

  For just a dollar, you could remind your best friend that you adore her, tell your track coach that she’s awesome, or toss a romantic volley at someone you think is super-cute, funny, and wonderful.

  But don’t worry—I did not send Forrest a red carnation. Or a pink one or a white one. I sent him nothing, did nothing of any sort to mark this day of chubby cherubs, candy hearts, and love.

  But I did receive a carnation—a pink one—from someone who decided not to send any note. Or maybe the note fell off. But either way, at lunch on Valentine’s Day, my biggest fear was relieved when I received my note-less carnation. You don’t want people thinking no one cares enough to send you at least one.

  That’s kind of why I sent a pink carnation to Mimi Caritas, Clem’s sixth-grade sister. Clem is a real-deal teen model and Mimi is just an ordinary girl who’s a little afraid to grow up. She’s actually an ordinary girl who until a few months ago hated the PLS and tried to put us out of business. But it’s all been worked out and I feel like she needs a big sister who’s a little nicer and a little less stunningly beautiful.

  I held my breath when the vice president of the seventh-grade class approached our cafeteria table. For a long moment, the always friendly Shannon Andersen stood there, studying her order sheet, with that white plastic bucket of tall carnations sloshing in water.

  Then she reached into her bucket and pulled out a small bunch for Kate—one from me, of course. Shannon reached back in and pulled out a whole bouquet for Piper. Seriously, a committee of boys seems to pursue her at all times. Then it was my turn. I received three—a white one from my friend Bet, a white one from Kate and Piper, and the anonymous pink one.

  “Where’s the card?” I asked Shannon.

  All the other carnations had small, pink construction paper cards attached to them by a loop of red yarn.

  “No clue,” she said.

  I stopped her before she moved on to the next table.

  “But isn’t there some kind of master list or something?” I asked.

  Then I grabbed the edge of her bucket and peered in to see if there were any notes left floating in there.

  “Um, we’re not that organized,” Shannon said, smiling at me but also pulling back on her bucket. “You should see the Art room where we’re putting all these deliveries together.”

  I let her go and started to run through all the possible explanations for the pink carnation I was holding. More than likely it was Jake Austin, who I knew liked me. There’s nothing wrong with Jake. I even danced with him at the Backward Dance. But there was also nothing particularly right about Jake. He was a just a nice guy—a friend—who didn’t give me butterflies in my stomach.

  My stomach lurched, however, at the thought that Forrest’s younger brother, Trevor, might have sent the carnation. After I left a note for Forrest that was accidentally intercepted by his sixth-grade brother, Trevor still winks at me in the hallway. When you’re in eighth grade, on your way to high school, you do not want to be known as the girl who crushes on a sixth-grade boy. Trevor never quite got the message and gives me the winky-wink every time we cross paths.

  For all my questions about this pink flower, one thing seemed sure: Forrest had nothing to do with it. We had remained “friends” following my decision to break off our fake relationship. For us, “friends” meant the occasional hi and not much else. Just the other day, I saw him and his old girlfriend, Taylor Mayweather, standing together at his locker. She looked like she was crying and he was leaning down, trying to get her to look at him. What do I make of that? Nothing good, I’m sure. If Forrest sent anyone a carnation this year, I bet it was her.

  “I need to find a vase for these,” Piper said dramatically. She pronounced “vase” as vahz, and I feared she would slip into French as she’d been doing lately. When Shannon gave her the flower, she exclaimed, “Merci, mademoiselle!” (Thank you, miss!)

  Piper held her flowers upright, as if they were in an imaginary vahz. Then she arranged them in a professional-looking way, as I’d seen her mother do.

  Kate laughed as Piper hurried off, then she turned her attention to me. She knew what I was thinking about. Petal by petal, I was putting together the clues surrounding my mysterious pink flower.

  Two

  By day’s end, I could see that some people’s carnations were already going limp. So I was careful to protect mine on the bus ride home. In my room, I put the two white flowers on my desk in a skinny vase. The single pink carnation went into a tall, blue plastic bottle I found in our recycling bin. I was careful to give it just the right amount of cold water. I set it on my nightstand. Then, silently, I said something that had become sort of a little prayer:

  I will not waste time thinking about Forrest. I will focus on:

  1. being a good friend

  2. becoming a better runner

  3. school

  4. learning how to be a big sister (Mom’s expecting!)

  5. giving good advice on the Pink Locker Society Web site

  Silly as it might have been, I had a personal mission statement now. We had a goal-setting class once, where the teacher said everyone should have one. It sounded weird to me at the time, but now it made more sense. I even made myself a soda tab bracelet to remind me of the five parts. It was five soda tabs threaded on a pink ribbon. I used four silver and one that I painted with pink nail polish in honor of the Pink Locker Society.

  I also found a way to give myself credit for keeping on track with my five goals. I started out the day with my bracelet on my right wrist. If I made it through a whole day without thinking of Forrest, it remained on my right wrist. If I didn’t, I moved the bracelet to the left wrist. At first, I had plenty of left-wristed days. But I was slowly learning how to forget him.

  It was easy to be busy. Track team practices were starting, my mom was getting ready to have a baby (in June!), and the Pink Locker Society was moving in a new and exciting (and possibly terrifying) direction. First off, we were actually moving. Thanks to Mrs. Percy and our reunion with her sister, Edith, we were taking up residence again in the posh office behind our pink locker
doors. No more basement meetings! We couldn’t wait to once again gather around our glass conference table. We longed to update the Pink Locker Web site from our comfy office as we sipped iced tea from our fridge.

  We answered tons of questions about girls’ feelings about their bodies and everyone’s fear of being embarrassed. There were so many ways to embarrass yourself. Maybe your mom won’t let you shave your hairy legs. Or you don’t have a bra and everyone else does. Or everyone is always talking about their periods, and you don’t have yours yet.

  That was me—thirteen and no period. But after answering hundreds of questions about periods, I knew that they come on their own schedule. A girl could be as young as nine or as old as me. So I felt better knowing I was normal but I really did hope that my period would happen soon. I mean, it seemed like something you should have over with before you go to high school, right? Well, high school would be starting for me in the fall.

  So I was still waiting, but the whole experience of waiting had given me a brilliant idea. What if we could predict when someone was going to get her period? I mean, isn’t that the question every middle-school girl wants to know? Yes, they’re tricky, but periods don’t just come like lightning bolts out of the blue. There are stages, you know, steps along the way. For instance, girls develop breasts first, then comes the period about two years or so later. And there were other signs, too, which I knew from talking to the school nurse and my own doctor. Why couldn’t the Pink Locker Society create a kind of Magic 8 Ball for girls?

  So my mind was whirring with plans for the PLS, but I was also a little worried. Here was the part that had my nerves jangling: Mrs. Percy, Edith, and even Ms. Russo wanted us to go public.

  “Don’t you believe in girl power?” Mrs. Percy had asked me.

  Yes, of course. But also no. Here’s why: We could get into big trouble here. The principal had visited my house and told all our parents about the Pink Locker Society. Then he said we needed to stop immediately. So by going public with the PLS, we’d be saying, “Hey, we ignored you and we’re going to keep on ignoring you.” Not to mention my parents. I hadn’t told them we had restarted PLS, either.

  “It’s ultimately your decision,” Ms. Russo had advised. “But I think it’s the right path.”

  Three

  Re-entry day was like going back in time. Sure, our original entry through the pink locker doors had been just six months before. But so much had happened, with all those basement meetings in between. I felt like a different person. But not so different that I didn’t stress about whether I’d be able to open the weird combination lock that had letters instead of numbers. At least the new combination was easy: P-I-N-K.

  The hour of study hall came and I fiddled in my locker for a bit, wasting time and waiting for everyone to clear out. I watched Forrest out of the corner of my eye as he dropped off his stuff and left for the gym. I had this weird feeling that he was doing the same thing, and sneaking a peek at me. But then I realized that was probably too good to be true.

  With my right hand, I twisted my dial to the P, to the I, to the N, and to the K. The mechanical thunk told me I’d done it right on the first try. I opened the pink locker door just slightly. Then I closed my real locker door, with me inside it like a magician’s assistant about to disappear. I opened the pink door and stepped down onto the plush carpeting. Inside, our office was well lit, cozy yet professional. A real-looking office, where real work would be done. No more sitting on jumbo packages of paper towels in the dingy school basement.

  There was a huge arrangement of green ivy and baby pink roses in the center of our conference table. It was so big we had to move it in order to see each other as Kate, Piper, and I gathered around. Piper brought the pink laptop and it started to hum to life. Did you ever just feel like you were in the right place at exactly the right time? That’s how I felt at that moment, at that table, with my two best friends. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had held out my hand and a warm cup of tea landed on it.

  Of course, that didn’t happen. But it did seem magical that someone had fixed us a pot of tea. Our fairy godmothers (aka Mrs. Percy, Ms. Russo, and Edith) had also set out three china teacups on saucers along with some kind of cinnamon strudel bread.

  Kate poured the tea and I started talking about my plan for the Magic 8 Ball Period Predictor. A girl could answer some questions about herself, her age, and physical changes she had experienced so far. Then, using a bit of computer code, we could compute an estimate of when she’d get her period. How perfect would this be! No more worrying it would happen at some unfortunate time—like at school or on the first day of a beach vacation.

  “Are you sure, Jemma?” Piper asked.

  “Yeah, these things are pretty unpredictable,” Kate said. She gave me a knowing look. She was the only one who knew I wasn’t in the period club yet. Piper assumed I was and I never corrected her.

  “I disagree,” I said. “Periods are predictable if you know certain things about puberty and what happens first, second, and third.”

  “And that’s something you know now?” Piper asked.

  I explained how the medical books say a girl’s period usually comes two to two and a half years after she starts developing breasts.

  “Therefore, we ask girls on what day they got their first bra and add two to two and a half years to that,” I said.

  “I have to say it would relieve a lot of worry and confusion,” Kate said.

  Questions about first periods accounted for approximately twenty percent of all questions submitted to the Pink Locker Society. In other words, one out of every five questions was about this subject, I said.

  Kate raised her eyebrows, impressed.

  “It could potentially cut down on our workload,” I said.

  We had made good on our goal of answering five questions a week, but we were buried in more questions than we would ever have a chance of answering.

  “Yes, let’s try it,” Piper said. “Why not?”

  What I didn’t reveal was that I had already done this calculation for myself. The Period Predictor said I would get my period no later than March 21—just three weeks away.

  Four

  There’s something weird about your mom being pregnant. Of course, you can guess the obvious, non-weird parts. You spend lots of time thinking about your new brother or sister. We were planning a baby shower, for example. The name game can eat up an evening. And we’d chosen a new color for the guest bedroom, which would become the baby’s room. It was yellow, owing to my parents’ refusal to find out if we were having a boy or a girl.

  “Let’s cherish the pleasant surprise,” my mom explained when I asked—no, begged—that they find out already. Now for the weird part. I worry about my mom and the baby and that everything will turn out all right. I mean, Mom will be going to the hospital and everyone knows it’s hard work to have a baby. I don’t want her to be in any pain. Would they want me in the delivery room? Wow, I hope not.

  I also worried (a little) about how things would change when the baby comes. I wasn’t talking about the diapers and the crying, which everyone jokes about. I was thinking about our day-to-day world. It had been just the three of us since … well, since forever!

  From the topic of my particular little family, it’s not much of a leap to think about the future day when I might get married and, eventually, have a baby of my own. It feels as far as Mars from me right now. And boys might as well be Martians because I don’t understand a thing about them, even though I spent seventy-one days as Forrest McCann’s pretend girlfriend.

  Yes, he put his arm around me and kissed me. We even talked about real-life stuff. But I remember him saying, “Girls always want answers, Jem. I don’t have any answers.” He told me even he didn’t know how he felt or why he did the things he did. So if that’s the case, how could I ever understand him?

  Stop, stop, stop. You don’t want to move that bracelet today.

  I looked down at my soda tabs th
at reminded me of my five goals. Big sisterhood, school, friends, the PLS, and running.

  Did I mention I’m on the cross-country team for real this year? And now that spring is on the way, practices have begun. I’m not super-fast yet. I’ve run in a few 5Ks, which are about three miles. But the truth is I wasn’t prepared for the hills and I needed to stop and walk. I do not want to do that in a real cross-country race. When I run in a race, I’m thinking about looking silly and not finishing and everyone who’s passing me.

  But when I’m just running, no pressure, my mind just clears, like clouds lifting. My thoughts go to a new place and I sometimes figure out what I’m going to do about this or that. I get in a rhythm and my brain goes somewhere that I can’t get to otherwise, even in a quiet room all alone. It could be the sweating or the measured puffs of breath. Or maybe it’s the steady beat of my feet as they hit the ground. I’m never really running away from anything. But what I’m running toward I don’t exactly know.

  Five

  We all jumped out of our cushy office chairs when the phone rang. Kate answered and we all watched her as she talked.

  “It’s Ms. Russo,” she said, and pressed the speakerphone button.

  “And Edith,” another voice chimed in. “It’s no secret that you girls will be graduating eighth grade before you know it. Where did the time go?”

  “And what have you decided about going public with the PLS?” Ms. Russo asked.

  We hadn’t decided anything as far as I was concerned.

  “I agree that the secrecy thing just takes up a lot of time,” Piper said. “Let’s get it out in the open.”

  Kate nodded her agreement.

  “I agree,” she said.

  “Excellent,” Ms. Russo said.

  Then Kate and Piper both turned to me, warily. I was clearly the holdout here.

  “We haven’t heard from Jemma on the question, have we?” Edith asked.

  “I-I don’t think it’s excellent,” I said. “Won’t we get in trouble, like instantly?”

  “We’re going to see to it that you don’t,” Edith said.