The Rivals (4 page)

“Alex,” she says. Her voice is raspy, but it’s a natural rasp—not the kind from crying, or from a cold, but from just having one of those husky, smoky voices. The effect of that voice—from only one word,
my name
—is like the scuffing of boots, the planting of feet, fists raised and ready to fight.

I have a feeling I’m about to get my first case, only I have no idea what to say, what to ask, what to do.

“Are you from Detroit?” I ask just to say something. Then I want to kick myself. Because why am I asking her where she’s from?

“Yeah,” she says, tilting her chin up at me, as though I just insulted her on her turf or something. Like the next thing she’ll say is
What of it?
as she whips out a knife. “You don’t like Detroit or something?”

“No,” I say quickly, realizing my skin is prickling and my heart’s beating a bit faster, like the way I feel in those tense few minutes before I step onstage and play the piano. I tell myself to calm down. Except this isn’t a piano recital where I know all the notes, all the music, when I sit down at the bench. Because there’s no checklist of questions to ask when someone tracks you down in the student-activities office. “I mean, it’s fine. I’ve never been there. I was just asking.”

Then she’s fiddling with her headband, pulling it back farther. I notice her hair is mostly purple.

“Cool hair,” I say, hoping I can deflect attention to her colorful locks.

“I did it myself,” she says.

“I thought about dyeing my hair blue a couple times. But it’s a lot of upkeep, right?” I ask. Sure, I have thought about it once or twice, but I mostly just want to keep the conversation on the innocuous.

“It is, but it’s worth it. You have to bleach it out pretty regularly, but people notice it.”

“Maybe I don’t want it blue, then,” I say.

“You could just do a streak, then. Streaks are easy. I can help you. My mom does hair.”

“Oh,” I say, wondering if this is what it feels like to visit a foreign country where you don’t even know how to say
hello
in the language. Because I have no freaking clue what to say to her or why we’re talking or why we’re discussing
hair
.

“Seriously. You’d look awesome with a blue streak.”

“Maybe,” I say, reaching a hand into my straight brown hair.

“Anyway, that’s not why I’m here,” she says, and finally she’s speaking English. “I came here to find you,” she adds, but the gravel in her voice is suddenly softer as she glances around, making sure we’re alone. “To tell you something.”

“How did you know I was here?” I ask cautiously, wondering if this is how my role with the Mockingbirds starts. Students coming up to me, knocking on my door, tracking me down, catching me after class. I picture throngs of them, stumbling over one another, tripping on the next person, grabbing shirts and backpacks, pulling fellow seniors, juniors, sophomores, freshmen down into a giant mosh pit.

“I was sitting behind you at D-Day. I saw you leave.”

“So you’re following me?” I ask.

She nods. “Hell yeah.”

I find myself wishing once again that I could just slide back to last year, to the way it was before I went to the Mockingbirds, before I became one, before everything about me was made public. “How did you know already that I’m head of the Mockingbirds?” I ask, because it’s not as if the Mockingbirds publicized my appointment with skywriting when my junior year ended a few months ago. Sure, word about my case—and my victory—started spreading, but not everyone here heard or cared that I was next in line to run the group. I was never tracking the comings and goings of the Mockingbirds roster before I needed them.

“I knew you had your case last year, and I knew it was a big one. So I figured you were the one they asked to take over. I’m right, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s me.”

“He deserved it,” she says, narrowing her eyes, and I find myself softening, because she’s not like Natalie; she’s not like Ms. Merritt. She’s on my side, and I’d like to think that means she’s also on the good side, that she believes what I believe about the Mockingbirds—that we can help. “And now you get to be the enforcer. It’s poetic justice. It’s karma, you know.”

I nod, liking the sound of
poetic justice
, but mostly liking the fact that though this girl knows my history, she sees me as a survivor, not a victim; a leader, not a slut. She may know my past, she may be privy to the report card on my sexual history, but she sees beyond it. I like her.

“So how can I help you?” I ask. “And while we’re at it, how about a name? You know mine. What’s yours?”

“Delaney Zirinski,” she says, and the name clicks instantly.

“Delaney, you’re the girl who—” I start, then catch myself before saying more.

“Yeah, I’m the girl
who
,” she says, throwing it right back at me.

I’m embarrassed as I fumble around on the job. And I deserve to have my words tossed back at me. Because here I am identifying her by the legend that precedes her, when I, of all people, should know better.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I say, because I don’t want to do to her what people are doing to me.

But, like me, she is twined to her past. Everyone knows her here. Or knows
of her
, at least.

“It’s cool,” she says, and then she stands taller, straighter, prouder as she continues. “I’m the girl who got kicked out of Matthew Winters. I’m the girl who got invited back. I’m the girl who said
you can take your lame-ass apology and shove it
.”

I want to be like her. I want to
own
my past like she does. I want to say
let them talk
and then walk away without caring what people might think about me.

Delaney Zirinski descended on Themis Academy last year in a cloud of controversy. She
had
gone to Matthew Winters in Exeter, New Hampshire, and had been accused of cheating by other students. The school investigated the claims—there was even a full disciplinary hearing with teachers and students jointly presiding over it—and found her guilty. She was promptly kicked out in what became a very public display of the school’s vaunted
zero tolerance
policy. But then, lo and behold, it turned out Delaney had been framed. Set up by the other students. The school’s headmaster made another very public display—this time of humility. He said all the right things:
it’s our fault; we’re so sorry; you are welcome back.
But Delaney and her mom would have none of it. Then Ms. Merritt swooped in, offering Delaney a slot at Themis Academy and embracing her with open arms.

Did I mention that Matthew Winters is one of our biggest rivals? Both our headmistress and the dean were thrilled to grant
asylum
to the student one of our biggest rivals shouldn’t have disgraced. They made sure to point out that Themis would never cast aspersions on a student. What they didn’t say was that Themis would never do anything about anything, period.

Delaney takes one more look down the hall, then says in a low voice, “So you can probably figure that cheating—in any way, shape, or form—is one of my least favorite things.”

I nod.

“You can probably also figure I would want to stay as far away as I could from any accusations of cheating.”

I wait for her to say more. I picture Amy talking to me for the first time last year and do everything I can to channel her calm and her warmth.

“That’s why what I am going to tell you can never be associated with me in any way. I need to be far away from this.”

“Okay,” I say. “What do you want to tell me?”

“There is a group of students here plotting out how to methodically, systematically, and regularly use drugs to cheat this semester.”

“Already?” I say, and it comes out as a snort and a scoff and a laugh all at once. It’s doubly ironic, considering the pledge we all just took. “But classes don’t even start till tomorrow.”

“I know. But it’s Themis, so they’re prepared,” she says, waving her hand in the air, separating herself from the rest of the school.

“You mean they prepped over the summer? Like summer reading?”

“Yep. They called it summer training. They want to be ready, in top shape for the second school starts.”

“What are they doing exactly?” I ask.

“Prescription meds. You can guess what kind, right?”

I nod, because I can. “So is this like a cheating ring or something?” I ask carefully.

“Yeah. Several students already. And it’s about to be a lot more.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of the deliberateness of it. The planning. They’re like an army, plotting how to use the meds to cheat in a very specific way,” she says, and an image flashes by of Themis students huddled together in a sort of war room, a mastermind-y general type holding a pointer, tapping a blueprint of a bunker, barking commands at some elite group—Delta Force, SEALs, that sort of thing—so they all think they’re untouchables. “And it’s every day, several times a day. Taking more, using it in
different ways
,” she says, sounding out those words slowly, and I nod again, because I have a feeling I know what she’s talking about without her having to say the words
snorting it.

“Are you talking about Anderin?” I ask.

Because it’s got to be Anderin. It’s the latest ADHD drug, the new Ritalin, the new Adderall, but better, stronger, faster. It’s like steroids for the brain. I know that plenty of college students think nothing of popping an Annie before a big test, saying it makes you perform better. My sister, Casey, who’s a senior at Williamson, has told me Annie is pretty much the rage over there. Still, there’s a difference between taking a pill every now and then before a test and taking it every day. And there’s an even bigger difference if the cheating is so premeditated. Because at the end of the day, it is what it is—an amphetamine.

Delaney nods.

“Who’s doing it? Can you tell me?”

Her phone rings, the opening notes to an Arcade Fire song. She grabs it from her back pocket, looks at the screen, and says, “Crap.”

She doesn’t answer the call, though; the song keeps playing and the vocals start. But it’s not the band’s voices I hear. It’s someone else—raspy and gravelly. It’s Delaney doing a cover of “Wake Up.”

“You can sing,” I say, trying to mask a grin, thinking we should recruit her for our Faculty Club performance.

“Yeah,” she says in an offhand way. “I’m in an all-girl band back home.”

“An Arcade Fire cover band?”

“We have our own songs too. Listen, I totally have to go,” she says, holding up the phone.

“Wait,” I say quickly. “I need more. Can’t you tell me more?”

“Not now. But you can start looking into it, right? Investigating it? Just don’t say the tip came from me, all right?”

“So why are you telling me, then?”

She gives me a look like
duh.
“Because it needs to stop. Because I can’t have this touch me again,” she says, and I instantly understand where she’s coming from. I understand deep in my gut how much you can want to get away from your past. And for the first time, this leading thing feels natural.

But only for a second. Because I still don’t get why this cheating ring would affect her.

“But why would it touch you? Are you involved?”

“No,” she says, and sneers at me. “And I’m telling you because I cannot afford to be even remotely associated with this.”

“But why would you
be
associated with this?” I press.

“I’m not associated with it! Other people are, and you need to stop it,” she says, and her raspy voice has that same toughness it did when she first said my name. I picture her as the type to twist your shirt collar, jam her forearm against your chest, and say,
Don’t say a word
. “And you cannot, under any circumstances whatsoever, say this came from me.”

Even though I feel a kinship with her, even though I plan to do whatever I can, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to agree to every directive sent my way.

“If you want our help, I’m going to have to tell my board members,” I inform her.

She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Fine. I have to go,” and just as quickly as she clomped down the hall, she’s clomping the other way now, leaving me alone in the student-activities office with my first tip.

School hasn’t even started, a bell hasn’t even rung for a single class, and there’s already stuff going down.

That’s the Themis way.

I perform my next official act as leader of the Mockingbirds and call an impromptu board meeting, texting Martin as I leave McGregor Hall. That’s what our rule book says to do. Tips should be shared with the board to be vetted and discussed. That’s why we have a board, so it’s not one person making all the decisions.

Got tip. Can you round up Parker for a mtg in 15 min?

His response comes seconds later.

Justice never sleeps. We will be there.

I head downstairs to the basement laundry room of Taft-Hay Hall, scratch out a note that says
The Knothole is in session
, and slap it on the door. I claim the dingy red chair in the back, flip open my Mockingbirds notebook, and say hello to Martin and Parker when they arrive moments later. They opt for the couch. Not only is Parker our third board member, he’s also one of Martin’s roommates this year, along with Martin’s best friend, Sandeep.

“Our first official meeting,” Parker says, rubbing his hands together and flashing a toothy grin. He could be the poster boy for Whitestrips. He’s a senior, but he looks younger. He’s tall and lanky, but not in a rock-star way. More in a Mormon-knocking-on-your-door way. His short blond hair is the color of sand. His face is smooth, stubble-free, and I don’t think you’d find shaving cream or a razor in his medicine cabinet.

And he thinks he’s fried gold because his daddy is a senator.

He was a council member for all of last year, so he was eligible to move up to the board. The night before final exams started in late May, we gathered in here and met with all the contenders. There were four of us who decided—Martin and me, and also Amy and Ilana, who served on the board until she graduated last year. Ilana’s final official act before leaving Themis for Columbia was to vote on who’d replace her.