SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

TWT

The Wilmington Times. Like the New York Times, but for private schools who are too boring to think of a better name for their newspaper nobody reads.

It's all Gracie talks about on the Subway to her place after school on Friday. She wants me to help her decorate for the newspaper club hangout. She doodles ampersands on the inside cover of her binder while she yaps. Research, blah-blah-blah. Write, blah-blah-blah. Copy and paste, blah-blah-blah. Even the subway goers are confused by her enthusiasm toward citations and proofs. I freeze her out and pick at my nails until blood rises beneath the cuticle. Gracie rams into my side when the train jerks to a stop. My thumbnail slips too deep into my skin. A drop of blood plops onto her skirt and seeps through the blue gingham.

"Watch it!" She gasps. "You know how much this uniform cost?"

However much Gracie's uniform cost, it can't possibly compare to the money I'd pay to get out of this. Upon entering her townhouse, I'm ushered to her dining room. She empties a bag of craft supplies on the table. I'm supposed to create a centerpiece out of red paper mache flowers and wax candles. Gracie is going to set the table and fluff the couch pillows. She blabbers on about Matthew n' Olivia n' Jade while I ruin flower after flower. I ask if we can talk about something else. Gracie pauses from distributing the placemats and gently takes the flower from my hands. She smooths the crumpled paper and molds it into an accordion. She tells me to connect the two ends with a paperclip. I ignore her and pick at the bloody cut on my finger.

Gracie finishes setting the table and steps back to admire her handiwork (and my crumpled paper mache.) "What do you think?"

"You should be a professional decorator."

She giggles and sits down next to me. "Not about the decorations, silly. About the newspaper club. Can you believe they're my friends now? Jade has been so sweet to me, she sits with me every study hall just to talk." She walks around the table and straightens the candles I set. "You are going to laugh at me, but I was so unhappy last month that I asked my parents to switch schools. But now I have friends, and I have a place to sit at lunch— and you, of course."

I don't have time to choke out a response before the doorbell rings. Gracie bolts from her seat. I feel the cold blast in when she flings open the door. Matthew n' Olivia n' Jade walk in bundled in coats and hats and heavy backpacks.

They exchange some awkward hellos and hang their coats in the closet. When Gracie brings them to the dining room, Matthew furrows his eyebrows at me. "Hey," he says.

I slouch and fold in the edges of one of the flowers. "Sup."

Jade unravels her scarf. "Wait, you write, too?"

I chuck the flower back to the center of the table and cross my arms. "What do you think, Jade?"

Olivia shakes her head. "Then... why are you here?"

"I didn't know this was a club meeting," I tell her. "And anyway, I—"

Gracie scrambles over and pulls me to standing. "She was just picking up some homework she missed."

She drags me out of the room and behind the hallway. She peers around the corner before grabbing my shoulders and whispering through clenched teeth. "What's wrong with you?"

"What do you mean, what's wrong with me?"

"Why are they acting so weird towards you? Did you do something to them?"

"They act weird towards everyone, Gracie Rosenbaum, they're the newspaper club."

"Well now this is gonna weigh me down!" She whines.

I drop my hands to my sides. "Why does it matter to you?"

"They're good for me. And they're a club, and this is the perfect opportunity for me to find my place—"

" 'Your place' should be with people who actually want to be around you."

"What are you saying?"

"You're pinning this on me, but whatever way you think they're acting towards us is your issue. Not mine."

"Huh. I see." She sucks in her lips and crosses her arms. "You know, I knew you'd take this the wrong way."

"Take what the wrong way?"

"How could I say this? You're not the nicest person, Vidya, even my mom thinks so."

I wait a few moments until I'm sure she's not joking, then dial up my glare a few notches below serial killer mode.

"Hey, don't look at me like that!" She peers around the corner to make sure no one is listening then ducks back around the face me. "You know, if you hadn't asked me to do your fricken' homework in the first place, none of this would have happened."

"Woah, woah, woah," I say. "You're the one who wanted this, not me."

She widens her eyes and shrugs. "I don't—"

"What?" I get in her face. "You don't what?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. "I really want this to work out for me," says Gracie. "And I'm sorry, because you've been so helpful and stuff, but, how could I say this?" She picks a ball of lint from the sleeve of her sweater. "Just try to stay out of the way, is all."

I cross my arms. "You dragged me here after school to be your little decoration slave just to blow me off?"

She stares at me for a moment before Mrs. Rosenbaum sticks her head around the corner. "Gracie?" She squints when she sees me, then narrows her eyes. "Your friends are waiting."

We stare at each other for a moment before she pushes past her mother and peels off to the living room. Mrs. Rosenbaum tries to smile at me, then disappears behind the corner. Her socks creak against the fake wood floors. The voices in the living room are a mumble through the walls. I lean against the doorway and listen.

"Cool decorations," says Olivia.

Matthew clears his throat. "What was Vidya doing here?"

"She's creepy," says Jade. "Didn't she try and push you off the seat that day? And what's wrong with her hands? It looks like she has a disease."

Gracie laughs. "I know, right?"

I tip-toe to Gracie's room and lean against the door until I know they're deep in another conversation. The ache in my chest throbs when I lean my head back against her wall. In and out. Breathe. I heave my backpack on my shoulder and go to click open her window and climb down the fire escape. But then I see the piggy bank on her bureau.

The Vidyagirl in my conscience wags her finger. Of course it would be wrong, but wasn't it more wrong of Gracie to use me and blow me off? I hear everyone talking in the living room, something about early admission to high school pre-calc. I bite my lip and run my fingers over the glass eyes of the piggy bank. Gracie is going to grow up. She's going to graduate Wilmington as the valedictorian, then go to some private high school where they have a food court and toilets that flush. She has a mommy and a daddy, always has. Me, I steal from sandwich shops and change families the way Wilmington kids change pencils when the led goes dull. I don't blame her for blowing me off. No one wants to be friends with vicious, violent Vidya. A girl so vile, snakes are charmed by the sound of her voice.

I hear more laughter through the walls. A low rumble of anger sinks in my gut. Screw Gracie Rosenbaum. Screw graduation. I empty her piggy bank on the dresser, pocket the fifty bucks, and grab my backpack from the floor. I push open the window and swing my legs onto the fire escape. The subway station is three blocks from Gracie's place. Running away has never been so easy.