The rest of the service trip was spent mostly in silence for Cornelia. Admeta left Cornelia alone and rejoined her friends for the rest of the trip. Cornelia worked alone the rest of the day. The group went from one graffiti-littered place to another covering up vulgar messages from uncaring vandals. Cornelia was beginning to feel sorrier about her crime. She was still convinced that Mrs. Hakim had given her a bad grade out of malice, but she felt badly that she had damaged school property. Just like the buildings and walls she was working so hard to mask that day, it wasn’t the school’s fault that Mrs. Hakim had given Cornelia a bad grade. She shouldn’t have taken her anger out on school property or anyone’s property for that matter. Painting over someone else’s vandalism had given Cornelia a conscience about her own crime.
At the end of the day, Cornelia called her mother to come get her and had Monica sign off on her paperwork. “You did good work today,” Monica said. “I hope we’ll see you on our next adventure. We’re going out next Saturday.” Cornelia wasn’t looking forward to continuing her service. She felt as though all of the girls hated her and she was certain they all knew that she, unlike them, had not volunteered to be there. She was growing more and more ashamed of her crime.
Cornelia could have chosen to do her service with a different organization, but when she reviewed the duties, The Family Connection’s service opportunities seemed a lot better than most. Other places would have her tutoring troubled kids or feeding the homeless. Cornelia was afraid to do any service like that.
As Cornelia stepped into her mother’s SUV, she gave one last look at the building she was certain she would come to know a lot better in the coming months. Cornelia wondered why anyone would want to bust out windows on a building where people were trying to help the community. She didn’t understand how people could commit a crime against an organization that was trying to help out. Then she came to the realization that she did exactly that when she wrote graffiti on the school’s wall. And tomorrow she would have to return to the scene of her crime.
The next day was Cornelia’s first day back to school after her suspension. She was permitted to keep up on her homework during her time out of school, so she was ready to return, academically. Physically, she could have stayed home watching soap operas for the rest of her academic career for all she cared. She didn’t mind not getting up 6 a.m. or worrying about what to wear or how much make-up to put on. Cornelia thought the couch could have become her new classroom, but Mrs. Hakim wouldn’t hear of it and that made Cornelia even angrier with her.
On Monday morning, Cornelia woke up at 6 a.m. and very carefully picked out a color-coordinated outfit for the day. Then she took a shower and used a blow dryer to dry and style her hair. As she applied her make-up, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her green eyes were sad. She didn’t want to go back to school. The one saving grace was that she was going to get to see Chad in between classes even though she was still grounded from seeing him and she could return to cheerleading practice.
Cornelia didn’t know what the other students’ reactions to her crime would be. Did they even know what she did? She wasn’t sure. Chad knew, of course. He saw it when he drove to school to pick up Cornelia only to discover her in the back of a police cruiser. He forgave her as he always did when she did something bad or stupid. Admeta knew, too, because she had cleaned it up. Would she tell everyone? Cornelia’s friends knew she was suspended and that it had something to do with Ms. Hakim, but Cornelia was pretty sure they didn’t know why and she wanted to keep it that way.
Cornelia finished up getting ready and grabbed half a bagel with light cream cheese and half a banana for breakfast. It’s what she ate every morning, along with a half a glass of chocolate soy milk. After breakfast, Veronica dropped Cornelia off at school. As Cornelia was getting out of the SUV, Veronica tapped her on the arm. “Oh, CC, I forgot. Mrs. Hakim called yesterday while you were out. She said she wanted to put this whole ugly incident behind both of you and she invited you to join a school club called riders on the storm or something like that.”
“Writers on the Storm,” Cornelia corrected her with emphasis on the ‘t.’ “She’s been trying to get me to join that lame club since school started,” she said, grabbing her book bag and purse and getting down out of the SUV.
“Well, now you have joined that lame club,” Veronica replied.
“What?” Cornelia asked in disbelief.
“I told her you would be at the meeting tonight after school,” Veronica said, pausing. “Why are you looking at me like that, CC?”
“I’m looking at you like this because you had the audacity to tell that…” Cornelia paused, searching for the appropriate word, “that…woman…that I would join her stupid club! That’s why I’m looking at you like this!” Cornelia’s brow was furrowed and one hand was on her hip near to where her purse was resting. Her other hand was holding the strap to her book bag which was sitting on the ground.
Veronica took a deep breath and said, “You listen to me, young lady, you need to drop the attitude right here and now. What’s done is done. The least you can do for ‘that woman’ is join her stupid little club. She’s the reason you’re not in juvenile hall right now, so get over whatever your problem is and be sure to meet in her classroom after school.” Cornelia gave her mother the dirtiest look she could possibly garner before slamming the door behind her and heading into school.
As she approached the front doors, she could see the red paint patches Admeta had painted over her graffiti, but she was too upset with her mother to feel one twinge of regret. Cornelia was early, which was unusual. She was usually racing to homeroom at record speed. She had come in early today because she was carrying every school book she owned in her book bag and needed to unload. The first thing she did was go to her locker.
There were very few people in the hallways that early, mostly teachers stopping to chat with one another before homeroom. Most of the students she passed walked by her with their heads down, but that was nothing unusual. Lots of kids walked through the halls like that. Cornelia shrugged it off. As she approached a group of teachers talking outside the Chemistry lab, she could have sworn that they stopped talking when she walked by, but she chalked it up to being overly sensitive.
As she approached her locker, Cornelia looked up to see a piece of white paper taped to the door. On it was a single word, written very crudely with a black sharpie in all capital letters: RACIST. Cornelia read the word over and over again. “Racist? I’m not a racist,” she thought. But what she had written on the wall at school couldn’t have been construed as anything but racist and Cornelia knew it. Cornelia looked around to see if the culprit was lurking, waiting to see her reaction. She saw no one.
When Cornelia stood in front of the school over two weeks ago with a can of silver spray paint in her hand, all she could think about was writing the most hurtful thing she possibly could. She didn’t care if it was racist. All she cared about was making Mrs. Hakim pay for what she did. She didn’t really think that what she was doing was a hate crime. She didn’t think about much of anything at all, except for her contempt for Mrs. Hakim. The words she wrote were bad. They were really bad, especially one in particular, and Cornelia knew it. She just didn’t think about just how bad they were or what the repercussions would be.
Cornelia traced her fingers over the letters in the word RACIST before quickly ripping down the paper, crumpling it up and putting it in the front pocket of her bag. She unloaded most of the books from her book bag and picked up a folder from the top shelf of her locker. As she pulled the folder down, she stopped to look at herself in the mirror that was magnetized to the inside of the door. She didn’t think she looked very good. Her cheeks were flushed with anger and she was having a bad hair day. The part on the left side of her head didn’t want to stay straight, so she had stray hairs going over to the wrong side. “Hello, Donald Trump,” she said to herself, trying to straighten he
r part.
Then a picture of Chad caught her eye. Her locker was filled with pictures of her friends, and especially Chad. She thought he had the sweetest eyes she’d ever seen in her life. He was so sweet to her and she repaid him by implicating him in her crime. Since he’s the one who dropped her off, her mother assumed he had something to do with it. Cornelia suddenly felt a twinge in her stomach. “What if people think Chad helped me?” she thought. Cornelia felt badly about what she had done as far as damaging school property, although she still held a grudge against Mrs. Hakim and was allowing that to cloud her judgment about what she wrote. But the thought that what she did might affect Chad in a bad way was something she hadn’t considered before and the thought horrified her.
“Cornelia!” a female voice came bellowing down the hallway, jolting Cornelia, who turned to look. It was her friend, Amanda Stanfield, whom Cornelia met in junior high student council. Amanda was an extremely thin girl, about the same height as Cornelia, 5’7”. All of her friends secretly suspected she was anorexic and talked about her behind her back, but no one ever commented about it to her face. Amanda was wearing a light pink tank top with an extremely short white mini-skirt and a pair of pink Dolce and Gabbana pumps. Amanda almost always wore pink. It was her signature color. “Hey,” she said.
“Oh, hey,” was Cornelia’s weak reply. She still wasn’t sure what to expect. She had been grounded from the phone, internet and cell. Chad was the only person she had contact with during her suspension and that was only because he was able to visit a few times after school when Cornelia’s mother wasn’t home.
“What’s up? First day back, huh?” Amanda asked, cheerfully.
“Yeah.”
“I tried to call you, but your mom wouldn’t let me talk to you.”
“I know. She’s being a total…” seeing two teachers standing nearby, Cornelia decided to play it safe, “…witch. She grounded me and took away my cell and my laptop. I thought it was a bit harsh, myself.”
“Wow, that is harsh. But, Cornelia,” Amanda began.
“Yeah?”
“Well, what you wrote…that was harsh too,” Amanda said, reluctantly, trying to find the right choice of words. “Don’t you think it was racist?” Amanda asked and Cornelia answered with a sigh.
“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Cornelia replied. “I didn’t mean it to be racist. I just wanted to hurt her, you know? I thought of the worst thing I could say and that was it.”
“You certainly found the right words, then,” Amanda replied.
“I know,” Cornelia said, and paused. “Do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you, stupid,” Amanda said, pushing Cornelia on the shoulder. “I would, however, appreciate it if you never use those words again.” Amanda was the smartest person in Cornelia’s clique and Cornelia respected her opinion a lot.
“Oh, believe me, I won’t,” Cornelia reassured Amanda.
Amanda thought about what Cornelia said for a few moments and then asked, “Is that because you’re ashamed of what you said or because you got caught, CC?”
“Amanda!” Cornelia protested.
“Well? Be honest, CC,” Amanda replied. Cornelia stood there like a statue for a moment.
“I guess if I’m being honest,” she began, “it’s a little bit of both.” And for the first time, Cornelia felt genuine regret for her crime, not just because she got caught, but because of the hateful thing she wrote.
“Well, that’s a start,” Amanda said. “It really was an awful thing. I never thought I would hear words like that from you, CC.”
“And I would never say that to anyone. I guess standing there with that can of spray paint I felt empowered to be meaner than I ever could be in person, you know? Like when someone’s annoying you on the internet?” Cornelia asked.
“I guess,” Amanda replied. “Why did you do it, anyway?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Amanda, if that’s o.k. with you,” Cornelia said, feeling sorry for herself because one of her best friends actually had the audacity to call her out on her bad behavior.
“Whatever,” Amanda began but was interrupted by the sound of two female voices yelling in unison.
“CC!” the girls screamed. Cornelia was apprehensive at first, but when Rebekka Karol and Sarah Cushman came running over to give her a hug, she relaxed a bit. Rebekka and Sarah were both on the cheerleading squad with Cornelia. In fact, Sarah did everything that Rebekka did. When Rebekka cut her long, brown hair last year, Sarah cut her hair too. Although Sarah’s light brown hair had grown out to shoulder-length while Rebekka kept hers short. When Rebekka tried out for cheerleading, so did Sarah, but Sarah barely made the squad. Rebekka was tall and thin, while Sarah was shorter and rounder and not able to pull off the moves as gracefully as Rebekka. Sarah even tried wearing green contact lenses to mask her brown eyes, but she kept getting infections, so she had to give them up. Sarah was Rebekka’s shadow and Rebekka enjoyed having a lapdog to drag around.
“You’re back!” Rebekka said, giving Cornelia another hug.
“You’re back!” Sarah echoed, also giving Cornelia another hug.
“Yeah,” Cornelia said.
“Well if you ask me, your suspension was much too harsh,” Rebekka said. “That old dustbag, Hakim, had it coming. It was about time someone did something about her. Honestly, I don’t know why they allow her to teach.”
“Yeah,” Sarah chimed in. “She’s bizarre. And what’s with that stupid veil she wears? It’s so weird.”
“She’s Muslim, remember?” Amanda butted in.
“Oh, yeah, well there’s that too,” Rebekka replied.
“Yeah,” Sarah chimed in, smiling.
“Who’s to say we don’t have a terrorist right here in our midst? Has the Department of Homeland Security checked this woman out, I wonder? Probably not. She could have a bomb strapped to her chest today for all we know and no one will do anything about it because they’re all too afraid of being politically incorrect. I say she got what she deserved,” Rebekka said, sternly.
“God, Rebekka, harsh much?” Amanda asked. Not awaiting a reply, Amanda turned to Cornelia. “I gotta get to homeroom. I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Ciao,” Cornelia said, waving.
See ya, CC,” Amanda said, not acknowledging Rebekka and Sarah. The truth was Amanda only tolerated the pair because they were Cornelia’s friends.
“Tata,” Rebekka echoed, adding under her breath, “stick girl.” Sarah snickered but Cornelia ignored the remark.
“Come on guys, she’s our friend,” Cornelia said, turning around.
“If you can’t make fun of your friends, who can you make fun of?” Rebekka began. “Oh wait, I spoke too soon. That’s who we can make fun of,” Rebekka said, pointing down the hallway. Cornelia turned in the direction Rebekka was pointing only to see Admeta pulling books out of her locker.
“Come on guys, let’s just go to homeroom,” Cornelia said, trying to push her friends in the other direction.
“And miss this priceless opportunity?” Rebekka asked, grinning. “I think not.” Cornelia grabbed Rebekka’s arm, but Rebekka pulled away and headed toward Admeta with Sarah hot on her heels.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle!” Rebekka said very loudly to Admeta. Admeta ignored her.
“Come on guys, let’s go,” Cornelia yelled from down the hall, but Rebekka and Sarah ignored her.
“I said, bonjour, mademoiselle; don’t you have any manners?” Rebekka asked, kicking the back of Admeta’s foot. At that, Admeta stood up and turned around to face her tormentors. Cornelia took off toward the three, looking around for the two teachers that had been there a few minutes before.
“Oh, I have manners, perdant. I just don’t happen to be French so I saw no need to reply in kind,” Admeta said, moving closer to Rebekka.
“What did you call me, Conchita?” Rebekka challenged. Sarah stood at Rebekka’s back, ready to pou
nce if necessary.
“I don’t see anyone named Conchita here, Rebekka. To whom are you referring, perdedor?” Admeta asked.
“There you go again, what is that?”
“What is what, sweetie?” Admeta asked, unafraid.
“That P word you were using,” Rebekka said, indignantly.
“Can we just get to homeroom?” Cornelia pleaded.
“That p-word was actually two p-words,” Admeta said, smiling sweetly.
“Fine then, what were they?” Rebekka insisted.
“The first time, I called you perdant, which is French, the language you addressed me in. The second time I called you perdedor, which is Spanish, and which just happens to be a language I am fluent in, even though English is my first language, just like you,” Admeta said, defiantly, pointing her index finger at Rebekka’s nose. “And that’s the language you should address me in, seeing as how we’re both Americans. Last time I checked, that’s what Americans spoke.” Admeta stood with her arms crossed in front of her and her book bag sitting on the floor. She didn’t carry a purse like most girls.
“She’s right, Beks, English is the official language of the U.S., now let’s go,” Cornelia said, tugging on her friend’s arm.
“Actually,” Admeta corrected, “the United States doesn’t have an official language. English is the de facto language, but that does not make it the official language. You have to pass a law to do that and so far no one has.” She gave Cornelia a fake smile. Cornelia was too busy watching her two friends to notice.
“Forget about the official language. You still didn’t tell me what the freaking p-word means!” Rebekka shouted.
“You didn’t ask me what the words meant, Conchita. You just asked me what the words were. Are you sure English is your first language, Rebekka?” Admeta asked and then snickered defiantly. Rebekka’s eyes narrowed.
“What?” Admeta asked. “Why don’t you say what you mean next time? On second thought, how about there not be a next time?” Admeta said, bending over to pick up her book bag. “I have more important things to do than hang out with racists.”
“What did you say?” Rebekka shrieked.
“Yeah!” Sarah yelled, a little too loudly. Cornelia stayed silent as she thought about the note that she had found on her locker that morning.
“You need a hearing aid, Conchita? Because you sure ask a lot of questions,” Admeta said, laughing. Then she turned to her right and said, “Oh, hello, Ms. Hakim,” just before Rebekka could lunge at her.
“Good morning, Admeta” replied Ms. Hakim in a thick Arabic accent. The teacher was coming toward the girls from down the hall. She was short, of average build, and was wearing a brown suit with a brown veil over her head, covering her hair, neck and shoulders.
“I’m going to homeroom,” Cornelia said, and then took off like a shot down the hallway in the opposite direction of Mrs. Hakim.
“This isn’t over,” Rebekka whispered to Admeta.
“It was nice to see you too, Conchita!” Admeta shouted at Rebekka, and then waved and smiled as wide as she could. “Oh, by the way, the word you were wondering about? It means,” she said, and then put her thumb and index finger to form the shape of an L on her forehead to indicate the word, “loser.” Rebekka was fuming, but with Mrs. Hakim there she could do nothing, so she headed down the hall. Sarah shot Admeta a dirty look and followed Rebekka down the hallway toward their homeroom.
“Conchita?” Ms. Hakim asked when she reached Admeta’s locker.
“That’s what she called me,” Admeta said, looking down.
“Don’t do that, Admeta,” Mrs. Hakim said, putting her hand on the girl’s chin to lift her head. “Don’t ever let words make you feel badly about yourself, especially ones said out of hate, anger or ignorance. And never fight back with words of hate, anger or ignorance yourself. Loser? Isn’t that what that means?” Admeta was shocked her teacher had understood her sign language.
“I know, Mrs. H, but those girls are so snotty and full of themselves. I had to say something. They walk around this school like they own it. They think they can say anything to anyone and get away with it. Look what Cornelia said about you,” she said, with tears welling up in her eyes. “She barely got a slap on the wrist because she’s from the hill and her family has money.”
“Actually, Admeta, she got, how did you say, ‘a slap on the wrist?’ Because I asked the judge to give her a light sentence.”
“I know,” Admeta replied. “Why would you do that, Mrs. H.?” she asked.
“Because, my dear Admeta, of a little thing called forgiveness. I had to forgive Cornelia’s crime just as you will someday forgive those girls. Someday, you will understand that their words were spoken out of ignorance and ignorance must be forgiven if we are ever to get past it.”
“She deserves to be punished for what she did,” Admeta said.
“What she deserves is forgiveness and education. And she’s going to begin tonight. She’s joining Writers on the Storm. She’ll be at tonight’s meeting,” Mrs. Hakim said with a smile.
“What? Mrs. H., she didn’t even know what Writers on the Storm was until yesterday. How could you let her join?”
“I let her join, my dear, because contrary to your personal feelings about Cornelia and despite the fact that she has issues in English class, she is a good writer. She will make a fine addition to our group, you’ll see.”
“I seriously doubt it,” Admeta said, frowning.
“Well, then, Cornelia will just have to prove you wrong, now won’t she? You’re always up for a challenge, no?” Mrs. Hakim asked, still smiling. She had a way of rolling r-sounds when she spoke. Cornelia sounded like Corrrrnelia. Admeta thought Mrs. Hakim’s accent sounded similar to a Spanish accent in that regard. Mrs. Hakim also pronounced her ‘t’s as distinctly as Admeta and Admeta liked it that way. The way Mrs. Hakim spoke reminded her of her mother.
“I don’t know, Mrs. H.,” Admeta admitted.
“Well, tonight you shall see, okay?” Mrs. Hakim asked optimistically and patted Admeta on the shoulder blade. Admeta thought Mrs. Hakim sounded funny when she used American expressions like o.k. It just sounded funny coming from her. She was always very proper in her speech, but Americanisms would occasionally pop out when you least expected them.
“Whatever you say, Mrs. H.” Admeta said, defeated by her teacher’s positive attitude.
“Now let’s get to homeroom. The bell is about to ring, no?” Mrs. Hakim asked in her usual cheery manner. Then the two turned and walked toward classroom 97.
Chapter 5
Writers on the Storm