Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

this is random but do you want to go bowling? Like now?

Shockingly, Chantel replied, Sure!

Okay, that wasn’t expected.

Twenty minutes later, the four of them were trying on two-toned bowling shoes. Red and navy blue. “I look good in these,” Mary observed.

“I’ll order a couple of pizzas,” Ernesto said. “Some wings, too. Soda okay? Root beer? What about you, Chantel, what floats your boat? How do you like your pie? Cheese, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, the works?”

“Just don’t say Hawaiian,” Mary advised. “Ernesto believes that pineapple on pizza is a crime against nature.”

“Cheese, please,” Chantel said. And to Mary, “Come on, let’s go pick out our balls.”

The two girls wandered off while Mrs. O’Malley and Ernesto set up camp in Lane 16.

“I was surprised you texted me,” Chantel said.

“Yeah, I’ve been, like—”

“Busy, huh?” Chantel said. “Spending time with Alexis and Chrissie.”

Mary didn’t answer. She plugged her fingers into a pink-and-purple ball with a tie-dye design. It looked awesome but weighed a ton.

“I prefer a light ball,” Chantel said, weighing the heft of a solid red ball in her hands.

Mary tried a green marble ball. It wasn’t right, either. Also: not very pretty. “Oh wow, this one’s cool!” She lifted up a bright neon orange ball.

Chantel was scowling, intently flipping through images on her phone. She held it out at arm’s length to show Mary. It was an image of a heavy black girl in a bathing suit, from knees to neck. A silhouette of a pig’s head sat on top of it. Below it were the words, OINK, OINK! CHANTEL WILLIAMS WANTS TO MESS AROUND WITH YOU!

Whoa, that’s messed up, Mary thought. Before seeing this image on Chantel’s phone, Mary had remained in a twilight between knowing and not knowing. She’d been aware that stuff was going on without learning the details. But now seeing the hurt in Chantel’s face, the impact hit home.

“You do this?” Chantel asked.

“What? Oh my God, no!” Mary sputtered. “Where’d you get that?”

Chantel’s face was hard and resolute. She waited.

“Seriously, I swear,” Mary said.

Chantel flipped through some images, but seemed to decide against sharing them. She pocketed the phone. “There are others that have gone around that are worse. Hakeem told me. He’s disgusted by the whole thing. I’m surprised you haven’t seen them.”

Over Chantel’s shoulder, Mary saw Tamara Agee and a few other girls from school enter the alley. Please, no, Mary thought. The last thing she needed was to be seen with Chantel. To Mary’s relief, Tamara walked in the opposite direction.

“You have no idea what this is about?” Chantel’s eyes fixed Mary in place the way a pin through the thorax secures an insect to a display case.

“No,” Mary said.

“I want to believe you, so I will,” Chantel reasoned.

She knows who is behind it, Mary decided. But she isn’t sure about me.

“Do you know who did this?” Mary asked.

“I have a good enough idea, but I’m not one hundred percent positive,” Chantel said. “You know them. People you’re friends with. I just ignore it. What am I going to do, take on the whole pack by myself?”

Mary raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, “Why not?”

“It’s not who I am. I refuse to be shamed by them,” Chantel said. There was steel in her voice. But in that brief moment, Chantel’s guard dropped. Mary saw a sparkle of moisture in her eyes. Not yet a tear, but the pool from which tears are formed. Chantel said, “I can’t get into trouble. My parents would take away my privileges.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Chantel wavered slightly. “Nobody’s perfect, Mary. I’m not the angel you think I am. There are things I’d prefer my parents didn’t find out. I’ll handle this on my own. I just need it to go away.”

“I hope it does,” Mary agreed, uncomfortable with what she knew, and the dishonesty of her omission. She wasn’t ready to face those truths.

Chantel looked back, pointed. “There’s your mom, waving to us. Is this Ernesto guy her boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Mary said.

“You like him?”

They watched from a distance as Ernesto rolled a practice ball down the lane. He looked compact and surprisingly powerful for a short, stocky, elfishly bearded dude with pizza sauce (already!) on his shirt. The pins thundered into one another. A raucous strike. Ernesto gave up a hoot and performed a comic dance of joy with a big-time fist pump, causing Mary’s mother to laugh out loud.

“He’s okay,” Mary said. But her thoughts were elsewhere. How did she get in the middle of something between Chantel and Alexis? They continued to pressure Mary to get involved in the next phase of their attack against Chantel. And Mary kept putting them off.

Why did she have to pick a side?

Mostly she wondered: Was knowing—just knowing—a crime?

31[catch]

Somehow Mary got assigned the crummy job of raking the front lawn. Not all the leaves had fallen yet, so it struck her as a waste of time, like making a bed that you were only going to sleep in again later that same day. What was the point? She wore black jeans and an unbuttoned flannel over a long-sleeved tee. The raking was harder than it looked when other people did it. Mary felt an ache in the muscles in her arms and upper back. Good exercise, she decided, and an opportunity to think.

Chantel weighed heavily on her mind. It turned out that Tamara did see them at the alley after all, so word got back to Alexis and Chrissie. They weren’t thrilled with that news, though Mary did her best to downplay it. They still sat together at the lunch table. All seemed forgotten—until yesterday, when they came to Mary with a task.

A task? Maybe a test? They asked for Mary’s involvement in “a little thing” they were planning for Chantel. While Mary raked leaves down to the curb, considering her options, she saw Eric walking a golden retriever down the street. It was curious, because Eric didn’t live close by. Mary shifted her feet, placing her