~12.01~ It Rhymes with Witch

                                    

                                          
On Monday morning, Mark and I drove down Route 9, stopping at the fork in the road to pick up Jack. Mark liked Jack, but there was no way he was driving up to Ravenwood Manor. It was still the Haunted Mansion to him.
If he only knew. Thanksgiving break had only been a long weekend, but it felt a lot longer, considering that Twilight Zone of a Thanksgiving dinner, the vases flying between Macon and Jack, and our journey to the center of the earth, all without leaving Anston city limits. Unlike Mark, who had spent the weekend watching football, beating up his cousins, and trying to determine whether or not the cheese ball had onions in it this year.
But according to Mark, there was trouble of another kind brewing, and this morning it sounded equally dangerous. Mark's mom had been burning up the lines for the last twenty-four hours, whispering on the phone with the long cord and the kitchen door closed. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher had shown up after dinner, and the three of them had disappeared into the kitchen - the War Room. When Mark went in, pretending to grab a Mountain Dew, he didn't catch much. But it was enough to figure out his mom's end game. "We'll get him outta our school, one way or another." And his little dog, too.
It wasn't much, but if I knew Mrs. Fischbach, I knew enough to be worried. You could never underestimate the lengths women like her would go to protect their children and their town from the one thing they hated most - anyone different from them. I should know. My mom told me the stories about the first few years she'd lived here. The way she told it, she was such a criminal even the most God-fearing church ladies got bored of reporting on her; she did the marketing on Sunday, dropped by any church she liked or none at all, was a feminist (which Mrs. Asher sometimes confused with communist), a Democrat (which Mrs. Fischbach pointed out practically had the word "demon" in the word itself), and worst of all, a vegetarian (which ruled out any dinner invitations from Mrs. Snow). Beyond that, beyond not being a member of the right church or the DAR or the National Rifle Association, was the fact that my mom was an outsider.
But my dad had grown up here and was considered one of Anston's sons. So when my mom died, all the same women who had been so judgmental of her when she was alive dropped off cream of-something casseroles and crock pot roasts and chili-ghetti with a vengeance. Like they were finally getting the last word. My mom would have hated it, and they knew it. That was the first time my dad went into his study and locked the door for days. Anna and I had let the casseroles pile up on the porch until they took them away and went back to judging us, like they always had. 
They always got the last word. Mark and I knew it, even if Jack didn't.
                          
Jack was sandwiched between Mark and me in the front seat of the Beater, writing on his hand. I could just make out the words shattered like everything else. He wrote all the time, the way some people chewed gum or twirled their hair; I don't even think he realized it. I wondered if he would ever let me read one of his poems, if any of them were about me.
Mark glanced down. "When are you gonna write me a song?"
"Right after I finish the one I'm writing for Bob Dylan."
"Holy crap." Mark slammed on the brakes at the front entrance of the parking lot. I couldn't blame him. The sight of his mother in the parking lot before eight in the morning was terrifying. And there she was.
The parking lot was crowded with people, way more than usual. And parents; other than after the window incident, there hadn't been a parent in the parking lot since Jocelyn Walker's mom came to yank her out of school during the film about the reproductive cycle in Human Development.
Something was definitely going on.
Mark's mom handed a box to Emily, who had the whole cheerleading squad - Varsity and JV - papering every car in the parking lot with some kind of neon flyer. Some were flapping in the wind, but I could make out a few from the relative safety of the Beater. It was like they were running some kind of campaign, only without a candidate.
Say No To Violence At Jackson!
Zero Tolerance!
Mark turned bright red. "Sorry. You guys gotta get out." He crouched down in the drivers seat, so low it looked like nobody was driving the car. "I don't want my mom to beat the crap outta me in front of the whole cheerleading squad."
I slunk down, reaching across the seat to open the door for Jack. "We'll see you inside, man."
I grabbed Jack's hand and squeezed it.
Ready?
As ready as I'm going to be.
We ducked between the cars around the side of the lot. We couldn't see Emily, but we could hear her voice from behind Emory's pickup.
"Know the signs!" Emily wqs approaching Carrie Jensen's window. "We're forming a new club at school, the Jackson Hugh Guardian Angels. We're going to help keep our school safe by reporting acts of violence or any unusual behavior we see around school. Personally, I think it's the responsibility of every student at Jackson to keep our school safe. If you want to join, we're having a meeting in the cafeteria after eighth period." As Emily's voice faded in the distance, Jack's hand tightened around mine.
What does that even mean?
I have no idea. But they've totally lost it. Come on.
I tried to pull him up, but he pulled me back down. He shrunk back next to the tire. "I just need a minute."
"Are you okay?"
"Look at them. They think I'm a monster. They formed a club." 
"They just can't stand outsiders, and you're the new kid. The window broke. They need someone to blame. This is just a-"
"Witch hunt."
I wasn't going to say that.
But you were thinking it.
I squeezed him and my hair stood in end.
You don't have to do this.
Yes I do. I let people like them run me out of my last school. I'm not going to ket it happen again. 
As we stepped out from the last row of cars, there they were. Mrs. Asher and Emily were packing the extra boxes of flyers into the back of their minivan. Eden and Savannah were handing out flyers to the cheerleaders and any guy who wanted to see a little of Savannah's legs or her cleavage. Mrs. Fischbach was a few feet away talking to the other mothers, most likely promising to add their houses to the Southern Heritage Tour if they made a couple of phone calls to Principal Harper. She handed Earl Petty's mom a clipboard with a pen attached to it. It took me a minute to realize what it was - there was no way.
It looked like a petition.
Mrs. Fischbach noticed us standing there and zeroed in on us. The other mothers followed her gaze. For a second, they didn't say anything. I thought maybe they felt bad for me and they were going to put down their flyers, pack up their minivans and station wagons, and go home. Mrs. Fischbach, whose house I'd slept at almost as many times as my own. Mrs. Snow, who was technically my third cousin to some degree removed. Mrs. Asher, who bandaged my hand after I sliced it open on a fishing hook when I was ten. Miss Ellery, who gave me my first real haircut. These women knew me. They'd known me since I was a kid. There was no way they were going to do this, not to me. They were going to back down.
If I said it enough times maybe it would be true.
It's going to be okay.
By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. They recovered from the momentary shock of seeing Jack and me.
When Mrs. Fischbach saw us, her eyes narrowed. "Principal Harper-" She looked from Jack to me, and shook her head. Let's just say I won't be invited to Mark's for dinner again anytime soon. She raised her voice. "Principal Harper has promised his full support. We won't tolerate the violence at Jackson that has plagued the city schools in this country. You young people are doing the right thing, protecting your school, and as concerned parents" -she looked at us- "we'll do anything we can to support you."
 Still holding hands, Jack and I walked past them. Emily stepped in front of us, shoving a flyer at me and ignoring Jack. "Ethan, come to the meeting today. The Guardian Angels could really use you."
 It was the first time she had spoken to me in weeks. I got the message. You're one if us, last chance.
I pushed her hand away. "That's just what Jackson needs, a little more of your angelic behavior. Why don't you go torture some children. Rip the wings off a butterfly. Knock a baby bird out of its nest." I pulled Jack past her.
 "What would your poor mamma say, Ethan Nestor? What would she think about the company you're keeping?" I turned around. Mrs. Fischbach was standing right behind me. She was dressed the way she always was, like some kind of punishing librarian out of a movie, with cheap drugstore glasses and angry-looking hair that couldn't decide if it was brown or gray. You had to wonder, where did Mark come from? "I'll tell you what your mamma would say. She would cry. She would be turning over in her grave."
 She had crossed the line.
Mrs. Fischbach didn't know anything about my mother. She didn't know my mom was the one who sent the School Superintendent a copy of every ruling against book banning in the U.S. She didn't know my mom cringed every time Mrs. Fischbach invited her to a Women's Auxiliary or DAR meeting. Not because my mom hated the Women's Auxiliary or DAR, but because she hated what Mrs. Fischbach stood for. That small-minded brand of superiority women in Anston, like Mrs. Fischbach and Mrs. Asher, were so famous for.
My mom always said, "The right thing and the easy thing are never the same." And now, at this very second, I knew the right thing to do, even if it wasn't going to be easy. Or at least, the fallout wasn't going to be.
I turned to Mrs. Fischbach and looked her in the eye. " 'Good for you Ethan.' That's what my poor mamma would've said. Ma'am."
I turned back toward the door of the administration building and kept walking, pulling Jack along beside me. We were only a few feet away. Jack was shaking, even though he didn't look scared. I kept squeezing his hand, trying to reassure him. His hair was curling and uncurling, a if he was about to explode, or maybe I was. I never thought I'd be so happy to set foot in the halls of Jackson, u til I saw Principal Harper standing in the doorway. He was glaring at us like he wished he wasn't the principal so he could pass out a flyer of his own.
Jack's hair blew around as we walked past him. Only he didn't even look at us. He was too busy looking past us. "What the-"
I turned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see hundreds if neon green flyers, curling away from windshields and out of stacks and boxes and vans and hands. Flying away in a gust of wind, as if they were a flock of birds soaring into the clouds. Escaping and beautiful and free. Kind of like that Hitchcock movie The Birds, only in reverse.
We could hear the shrieking until the heavy metal doors closed behind us.
Jack smoothed his hair. "Crazy weather you have down here."