SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

FRIENDS

Since Gracie Rosenbaum is working her nerdy ass off so I can graduate this year, I let her nag me into coming to her house a week early so we can plan for the newspaper club hangout. Gracie is not yet A Guy From The Newspaper Club. She is new member on probation. Incorporating herself into this group is part of Gracie's strategy to prove herself to Wilmington. I'm supposed to be helping her out. I feel splenetic. Wrathful. Ropable. I don't know what those words mean. They were on the vocabulary list Gracie wants me to study. I think they mean something like "pissed."

Gracie yaps nonstop about the Newspaper club on the subway. The club is run by Mrs. Rishanki. She noticed Gracie's way with words while reading her journal entry on why adverbs enhance any sentence, and recruited her for the club the next day. Matthew, Olivia and Jade are the only other members. Gracie doesn't say much about them, but It's clear that they aren't interested in any sort of relationship with her. I don't blame them. Gracie is nerdy, even for Wilmington standards. She fawns over Charles Dickens and wraps colorful yarn around her geometry compass to make acute angles a-cuter.

The relationship between Gracie and I is parasitic. We're using each other. She's no real friend. She's my pseudo friend, a Wilmington Drone I'm forced to put up with until I graduate in June. I almost turn around and run in the other direction when we approach her town house in Brooklyn Heights. Gracie lives a few blocks away from Lin's parents. I get that war veteren side effect again. I feel the pop, the sick warm sensation, and smell the rust, the metal, the cut, cut, cut—

But that doesn't matter. The bleeding is fine, everything is fine. None of this will matter once I go to Pakistan. Jesus, I'll be tired, though. From what I remember, a good night's sleep is near impossible on an airplane. What will the food be like? Will they serve Pakistani food, or leftover chex-mix from the first class's meal? There's so much I have to work out, but this is going to happen. It will. I don't know how much longer I can survive in this place where no one notices the monsters prowling around my world.

Gracie twists her lanyard key into the lock and creaks open the door. "Home sweet home," she says.

We hang our coats and hats on the hooks beside the door. A ratty black dog skids across the floor and crashes head-first into my kneecaps. Gracie coos at her Precious Puppy. I shove it away.

A voice echos from another room. "Gracie?"

Gracie gently pushes the dog backwards and walks around the corner into the kitchen. I look around her living room. The fresh wood floors were designed to look old and decrepit. She has a massive flat screen TV and a leather couch with cup holders between the cushions. They still have their menorah set up in the center of their dining table. Hanukkah was months ago.

Gracie walks into the room with her mother behind her. Her mother tries to smile when she sees me. "Oh," she says. "Hello, Victoria."

"It's Vidya," I tell her.

Mrs. Rosenbaum turns to Gracie. "This is her?"

"Vidya is helping me plan for the newspaper guys to come over next week. I told her she can stay for dinner."

Mrs. Rosenbaum glances at me, then at the mehndi drawn on my hands, then at the door. "I don't remember giving permission for dinner."

I hitch my backpack on my shoulder and head for the door. "I'll go."

Gracie pulls me back over. "No, you won't. Mom!" She stomps her foot on the rug. "Vidya is gonna help me work on some articles. She's really, really sweet."

Mrs. Rosenbaum sighs. "Do your parents know you're staying later? Should I call them?"

"Foster parents," I correct her. "Yes, they know I'm here. Don't call them. They're real busy with work."

Gracie grabs a bag of non-salted chips from her pantry and leads me to her room. The decorators haven't finished yet, but they might as well have. Her bed has a transparent canopy hung from the ceiling. Her bookcase has glass doors. There are vacuum lines in her carpet. Smells like laundry detergent. The room screams Precious Baby. Must be nice, expressing yourself like that. When you move around a lot, you don't get to paint your walls or hang up posters. At Hope House, the state bought the furniture and told me over and over again not to draw on the walls. Gracie sets the chips on the bed and sits against her pillow. I sit on the floor in front of her vanity.

"You don't actually have to help me write the article." She grabs a chip from the bag. "I just said that to get Mom off my back."

"Uh-huh."

Gracie reaches over to her nightstand and sets a notepad and pen on the bed in front of her. "Back to the important stuff. What type of snacks do you think The Guys From The Newspaper Club would like?"

I spin my hand in a general way.

"Healthy stuff, so they think I'm a good influence? Or junk food so they think I'm fun? Oh!" She gasps. "We can make ants on a log. You can help me chop the celery, but I'll spread on the peanut butter. I don't want you to get your fingers dirtier than they are. Ever thought about getting a manicure? Maybe we can get one together!"

My throat is sore. I need a nap. Gracie braids a strand of her hair and yaps. She is determined to make The Guys From The Newspaper her best friends. I tell her she's wasting her time thinking about that crap. I don't know why she cares so much, but the newspaper club would be fun for me. I would slander Rishanki in the side column or rent out the front page for a petition to abolish student tutors. When I glance down to pick at my scab, Gracie asks why I think The Guys From The Newspaper Club won't like us.

"We are outcasts," I tell her.

Gracie bangs her fist into her bedsheets. "How could you say that? Why does everyone at this school think they're better than us? If I want to write for the newspaper club, they should let me. My essays are lightyears above theirs. I hate Wilmington."

She crumples the bag of chips into a ball and flings it at the wall. It narrowly misses my head and bounces to the floor. "What is wrong with the people here? Is there a disease going around? At my old school, I would have been the star of the newspaper club. Here, I get squished in the halls and people give me mean looks when I give right answers in class. And you're no help. You just mope around with that depressed face like you don't care everyone thinks you're a bitch."

She flops on her bed and bursts into sobs. She screams into her pillow and gives little squeals of frustration when she punches her mattress. I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud. I hear Mrs. Rosenbaum in the next room making a phone call, something about last week's synagogue. Gracie sniffles and wipes her nose of the fabric of her canopy. I pick at my scab for a few moments and wait for her to calm down.

"I am so sorry, Vidya," says Gracie. "I didn't mean a word of what I said. I just miss Manhasset, that's all. Don't pay attention to me."

When I don't respond, she frowns. "Don't give me that look. You will never find your place in the school with that attitude. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll plan the most spectacular hangout, and after Matthew and Olivia and Jade see how cool we are, they'll be begging us to write for their club."

When I ignore her again, she breathes out a withered sigh and begins to cry again. Mrs. Rosenbaum passes by the room with her phone to her ear and stops in her tracks to look through the open door. She watches Gracie sob into her pillow for a moment before lowering the phone from her ear and glaring at me from the doorway. "What did you do to her?"

I don't respond. I'm not cut out for this whole relationship thing. I make enemies, not friends. I break bones, not hearts. I eat the rest of her chips, pick up my backpack, and leave without saying goodbye.