Girls in Charge Read online

  “Why? Is he your boyfriend or something?”

  “No. He’s just a good guy and would do it, probably,” I said.

  “Everybody knows he likes you.”

  “Whatever. Moving on, what about setting up a Web site? Do you know how to do it?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “And how will you let boys know that it exists? So they send in questions?”

  Forrest shrugged. “They’ll figure it out, I guess.”

  We talked some more and I told him about our PLS schedule and how we meet every school day. I talked about how we decide which questions to answer and what had been difficult so far.

  “Mr. Ford said we can meet in the football coach’s office during study hall. It’s empty all afternoon,” Forrest said.

  I told him how a set place to meet was important and how we were finally back in our plush offices, after a stint in the basement.

  “I remember going in that office with you,” Forrest said.

  “Yeah, that was forever ago,” I said nonchalantly.

  I wanted him to get that I was over him. Even though the getting over part was still in progress. I looked down at my bracelet. I tried to think of any neutral subject, anything other than my endless crush on him.

  “Did I tell you my mom’s having a baby?”

  “Yes. You told me on New Year’s Eve, remember?”

  Great, from one uncomfortable subject to an even more uncomfortable subject—the night I stopped being his pretend girlfriend. I looked over at the clock above the gym door and pretended I had to get going, even though study hall was far from over.

  “Okay, Forrest. Good luck with this. If you have other questions, you can ask Kate or Piper, too. They know just as much as me.”

  I had done it. I nearly pumped my fist in victory once I was outside the gym and out of sight. I spent time with Forrest and I didn’t become a pile of mush. I didn’t analyze his every word and I walked out first. I couldn’t believe it: Was I finally over the biggest crush of my entire life?

  Ten

  When you add something new to a Web site, you can put it in big flashing letters so everyone immediately sees it. Or you can just put it off in its own little corner and see what happens. With the Period Predictor, we launched it big on www.pinklockersociety.org. We placed a grabby headline on the front page of the Web site, promising girls: “Get an answer—FINALLY—and FAST!”

  Click on the button and girls could answer a short quiz and receive an estimate of when their first period would arrive. I was proud of how I based it on the real medical knowledge I now possessed. Developing from a girl into a woman happens in stages, I now knew. You don’t go to bed flat-chested and wake up the next day with grown-up boobs. I had seen that in myself. It takes a while—like two years—for things to progress. And that was a key to our Period Predictor. Basically, you plug in the date you got your first bra and we add twenty-four to thirty months to that. Voilà! We have your answer.

  I could hardly wait for the fan mail to start pouring in. Was there nothing the Internet couldn’t do? What I didn’t reveal was that I was the original test case. I put my information in and learned that I would be getting my period on March 21. Now that was just three days away! I could hardly wait. I carried my supplies with me every day to school. I was ready, ready to finally be growing up in that very clear and obvious way.

  “Great news, Jemma,” Kate said during the next Pink Locker Society meeting. “More than one hundred girls have already downloaded the Period Predictor. You are revolutionizing puberty!” she said.

  “We are,” I insisted, not wanting to take all the credit.

  “Nice job,” Piper said. “We should have charged them each a dollar.”

  “Piper!” Kate said.

  “Just kidding,” she said.

  I agreed, though, and wondered if that’s how businesses were born.

  “Let’s talk about the meeting,” Kate said.

  By that, she meant THE MEETING—our planned meeting with Ms. Russo and Mrs. Percy to spill the whole story to Principal Finklestein.

  “I say we just get it over with, rip off the bandage,” Piper said. “I’d do it today, if we could.”

  “What does Ms. Russo say?” I asked.

  “She says she’ll set it up for Thursday. We’ll all go in. They’ll start the conversation and we can just pipe in with comments,” Kate said.

  My stomach lurched as if we were at the top of the tallest roller-coaster hill ever. And did she really say Thursday, the very day the Period Predictor said I will get my first period? Bad timing, if you ask me. I had thought about whether I should just stay home from school that day. Now I’d have to go.

  I could not see myself in that meeting “piping in” with anything. It was a comfort that my parents knew the truth, but I was still afraid of Principal Finklestein. In my mind, I tried to imagine a happy-ending version of our meeting. I saw us all in his office. First there was tension, then an explanation, then smiles and handshakes all around. Maybe Mrs. Percy and Ms. Russo would be so convincing it would all just take care of itself?

  Eleven

  As if we didn’t have enough to talk about at the next Pink Locker Society meeting, we had a mountain of messages from girls, asking for help of all kinds. The usual was, of course, PBBs—periods, bras, and boys. But we had a new “B” entering the picture—bullies. One girl said a whole bunch of her former friends were giving her bullying stares all the time. They wouldn’t talk to her and were giving her weird looks all the time. That would drive me crazy.

  And another seventh-grade girl said some mean eighth-graders were pushing her out of her bus seat when they went around curves. We answered these questions and told them both to talk to the girls directly. If that didn’t work, we said to talk to a parent or the school counselor. But then a message of a different sort came in. It was clear the writer was not going to ask an adult for help.

  Dear PLS,

  I don’t like to ask for help, but here I am asking. I’m a pretty and popular person. You would never believe it if you knew who was writing this. But someone is making my life so hard. I want to stay home from school every day. I’ve even cried about it AT SCHOOL. I laugh it off and even tease the person back, but I can’t do it anymore. It’s just too hard. It was fine when she was making fun of my lip gloss or my boyfriend or whatever, but now she knows that I don’t get good grades. I never have.

  I’ve had tutors and special summer camps and everything, but it just doesn’t work for me. I think probably I don’t really need school because I’m sure I’ll be a successful person at something glamorous. I have my looks. But I have to pass eighth grade. And right now, I’m not. I don’t want to tell any teachers about this bully problem. Then a certain extremely tall and conceited person will tease me for being a snitch. And I can’t tell my friends because I don’t want them to know I’m flunking. What do I do?

  Signed,

  Student F

  “What do we tell her?” Piper asked. “There’s no answer. That mean girl is not going to stop.”

  “I wonder who it is?” I said, my mind ticking through the popular girls bold enough to assure us that she “has her looks.” Then I ticked through a list of the tall girls at our school who could be the bully.

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell her,” Kate said. “Let’s at least say we support her.”

  “That doesn’t seem like enough,” I said.

  “Well, it’s all we have,” Kate said.

  “Let’s tell her to ask her friends to help her,” I said.

  “But she doesn’t want anyone to know,” Piper said.

  Was it enough just to be a cheerleader for this girl? I hoped so because that’s all we offered Student F in our response. At least we answered her, I guess, before we moved on to making plans for the BIG MEETING. It was a day before Thursday.

  Thursday, otherwise known as the day I was supposed to get my first period. We decided we each would h
ave one point to discuss. I was supposed to talk about the number of girls we’d helped already—more than one hundred questions answered. Kate would stress the history of the PLS and the importance of continuing it. Piper would talk about the Internet’s global reach and how our helpful advice could spread far beyond the girls at Margaret Simon Middle School.

  “Magnifique!” she said. “Our points are perfect.”

  * * *

  During study hall, we filed nervously into Principal Finklestein’s office. Ms. Russo and Mrs. Percy were already there.

  Ms. Russo broke the ice and explained the purpose of the meeting, but the second she said “Pink Locker Society,” the principal’s expression went blank. Ms. Russo discussed the background of how the Pink Locker Society had originally begun, long ago, and how it could and should have a place in the future of Margaret Simon Middle School.

  “I have to stop you right there, Jane. That club was banned months ago,” he said.

  “Yes, but what Jane’s saying is that perhaps that decision could be reconsidered,” Mrs. Percy said.

  Principal Finklestein stopped and listened to Mrs. Percy’s full sentence.

  He let her continue. She laid out a logical case and a sound plan for allowing the Pink Locker Society to operate openly, just like any school club.

  “The girls have really done an admirable job of answering questions, sending lifelines, if you will, to middle-school girls who are struggling,” Mrs. Percy said. “Peer-to-peer counseling has merit, as you well know, according to all the latest education research.”

  More silence from Principal F., which we took as a good sign. I let my mind drift for a moment. A Pink Locker Society that didn’t need to hide would be a glorious thing.

  As he listened to Ms. Russo and Mrs. Percy, he would occasionally look at us. I smiled and nodded, feeling good about the direction we were heading. I looked at the note cards in my lap, ready to report on the hundred questions we’d already answered. I was going to speak after Piper. Feeling so upbeat now, I thought I might end my bit with “Girl power!”

  Piper started in about the revolutionizing power of the Internet, but Principal Finklestein stopped her immediately and stood up.

  “I’m sorry, Piper. I don’t have any more time for this closed issue. My only decision now has to do with disciplinary matters,” he said.

  What?

  Mrs. Percy gave it one more try, but he shut her down as well.

  “Adele, you have my continued respect, as we’ve worked together for thirty years now, but I have the school district’s reputation to consider. And my own.

  “As I believe I’ve said before, we can’t have children giving advice to other children about delicate issues.”

  Yes, he had said that, at my house, to my parents and everyone else’s parents on that horrible day.

  “They’ve been responsible in their duties,” Ms. Russo said. “They’ve consulted the school nurse more than once.”

  “That’s all well and good, but this Web site is nothing but one big risk,” Principal F. said. “I don’t have time to police every word on that Web site. Just like I don’t have time to edit every single report from Bet Hirujadanpholdoi that runs on Margaret Simon TV.”

  “These girls can be trusted,” Mrs. Percy said in a firm voice.

  “Something goes haywire and you know who the TV news crews will be calling, don’t you? I’m not losing my job over some half-baked attempt at ‘girl power,’” he said, putting finger quotes around the words.

  We all looked at the floor, feeling one hundred percent defeat. We looked up again when he said our names.

  “Jemma, Piper, and Kate. Did I or did I not ask you to cease operating this Web site?”

  “Y-yes, but…,” Kate began.

  “Then you can understand why there is likely to be some punishment coming for disobeying me.”

  “What?” Ms. Russo said in disbelief.

  “I can’t rule it out,” he said.

  Twelve

  Piper started asking questions of Ms. Russo even before we were fully ushered out of the principal’s office. Mrs. Percy stayed behind for who-knew-what reason.

  “Shhh!” Ms. Russo said, and shuffled us down the hall. Piper was livid.

  “I cannot believe he wouldn’t even listen to us. I swear he does not care at all about girls and he obviously doesn’t respect ‘the power of the global Internet,’” Piper said, using her own air quotes now.

  Kate was surprised.

  “I thought we’d at least have a chance to make our points,” she said.

  I was scared.

  “What punishment does he mean? Detention? A suspension?”

  Ms. Russo started talking, but honestly, I wasn’t listening. My mind started to wander to whether he might just expel us from school entirely. Did this mean I would never go to college? OMG, maybe he was calling the police to get them involved. Could we be accused of fraud or something for taking that pink laptop back and not using it for homework, like he said?

  And another thing: It was already after lunch and I still hadn’t gotten my you-know-what. I would give it the whole day, of course, and I was mildly relieved it hadn’t happened at school. It could have happened while sitting on the pale blue cushion of one of the chairs in the principal’s office. But still, I wasn’t happy. I thought this day would end with two major accomplishments. So far, it was holding at zero.

  Kate must have sensed my silent panic and took me by both shoulders. She gave me a serious look. I guess you could say she snapped me out of it. I took a breath and started hearing what Ms. Russo was saying.

  “This is just round one. We’ll fight this,” she said, but she had no energy in her voice.

  “Fight it how?” Piper asked. “He said no and he’s ready to bring the hammer down on us.”

  Kate said we should keep answering questions.

  “He didn’t tell us to stop,” she said.

  “Uh, he did tell us. Five months ago,” I said.

  Kate said she was not one for getting into trouble, but it didn’t seem to her that we could get in much more trouble at this point.

  Ms. Russo said we had to assume we were still presenting our Pink Locker Society session at Tomorrow’s Leaders Today. She said she wished she had told “George” (aka Principal F.) about that.

  “Maybe we should have told him about that. He loves when his school is recognized. But maybe he would have been even angrier,” Ms. Russo said quietly, sounding like she was talking to herself. Then she snapped out of it and turned to us.

  “By the way, how is Forrest doing with the Blue Locker Society? Does anyone know?”

  When I told her we had talked, she said to keep helping him.

  “Really, boys are clueless on this stuff,” she said. “He needs all the help you can give him.”

  We looked up and saw Mrs. Percy heading toward us, a serious look on her face. Her sensible shoes pad-padded briskly down the hall. She gave us a reassuring look.

  “Don’t be alarmed but he’s digging in his heels.”

  I reached out and touched her shoulder to get her attention.

  “Are we getting suspended?”

  “No,” she said, but the look on her face stayed flat.

  “Worse?” I asked.

  She exhaled and told us that something important was now on the table.

  “It’s the class trip,” she said. “He feels that would be an adequate punishment and wouldn’t go on your permanent records.”

  The permanent record was something you could write off, but not when you were an eighth-grader who—weeks from now—would be applying to the best high school in the city. Mrs. Percy said she’d try to “work her magic” on the principal, but I couldn’t put much faith in that. If he respected her so much, why had he come roaring at us with disciplinary action with her right there in the room?

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in a fog. Whenever I saw Kate and Piper, we just kind of shook our heads at each oth
er. We had been tra-la-la-ing down a certain path and now we had absolutely no idea where to go. I thought about telling my parents what happened, but instead I decided to do what everyone else was doing: hope that Principal Finklestein would change his mind.

  Thirteen

  I tensed up on Friday as soon as I heard the bell that signaled study hall. We had no assigned room for study hall to free us up for PLS business. But now that Principal F. knew what we were up to, we didn’t know what to do. Should we roam the halls and get snagged for not having a pass? Or should we sneak through the pink locker doors and continue this rule-breaking activity? Personally, I thought about spending the entire period in the restroom awaiting my period. It had not come on Thursday as the Period Predictor said it would. I ran my information through it one more time and got the same result. Still. Waiting.

  “Let’s go, Jemma. No fear,” Piper told me. She linked her arm in mine and marched me over to my locker.

  “Meet ya in there,” she said.

  I twisted and turned the combination, checking over my shoulder twice before jumping in.

  Kate was already there, curled up on the couch with the laptop.

  “Come here, Jem,” she said. Then, silently, she pointed to about ten new messages. They weren’t new questions or the fan mail we were used to getting. They were complaints about the Period Predictor.

  “This simply doesn’t work,” read one. “The Period Predictor is worse than a horoscope!” blared another. “I predict you will take this off your site,” predicted another.

  I threw my head back and looked at the ceiling as if it held an answer.

  “This is your baby, Jem. Maybe you need to tweak it a bit, so it works better?” Kate said.

  “I gave it my best shot,” I said. “It should work, based on everything I know.”

  Kate nodded sympathetically.

  “But it didn’t even work for me,” I admitted.

  Kate raised her eyebrows.

  “What’s this now?” Piper asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “We’re getting a few comments about the Period Predictor,” Kate said.