Circle of Silence - Carol Tanzman M.

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      “Faculty meeting.”

      “He let you stay?”

      I shrug the obvious answer. “He’ll be here by four-thirty. Come back then if you want to talk to him.”

      She glances past my shoulder. “What’s on your screen?”

      I click it closed. “Something I’m working on.”

      Hailey gives me a stony stare. “You think you’re so clever, ValGal. Best friend’s on your team, so producer vote goes your way. Got the hot guy, too, because Carleton thinks you’re the only girl in class who knows how to do stuff. I know everything you know—and more.”

      She stomps off. Hailey hasn’t liked me ever since I screwed up a science lab in seventh grade—getting us both a shitty grade—but you’d think she’d be over it by now. That rant was on the vicious side. Even Bethany doesn’t hate me that much. At least, I don’t think she does.

      I return to editing, but my mind’s all over the place. As soon as Carleton enters, I head for the office. Mrs. Kresky gets Mr. Orel on the walkie-talkie. The custodian’s mopping the language hallway.

      “Mr. Orel. Remember the toilet and pail on the third floor? Were you the person who took it away?”

      Not a rhythmic beat of mop swishing is missed. “One of the younger janitors carried it down.”

      “Where’d he put it?”

      “Trash bin. Pickup was this morning.”

      “The pail, too?”

      My disappointment must show because Mr. Orel stops cleaning. “Yes. But don’t fret. The flag’s fine. Ever since the incident, I take it down as soon as school ends. Come tomorrow morning, it’ll be flying high.”

      “That’s great,” I tell him. What I’m thinking is: Some reporter. Why didn’t I notice the letters on the pail before today?

      Power and Liberty are like Heat and Moisture; where they are well mixed, everything prospers.

      First Marquess of Halifax

      MP LOG

      So it was cool. We did the first two pranks. Just as I thought, everybody talked about them for days. People wondered who has the balls to do what we did.

      In the third-floor hallway, I overheard someone say they wished they’d thought of this. But even if they had, they wouldn’t follow through. The truth is, no one’s ever done anything like what we’re doing for two reasons. One: deep down, people are afraid. They think they’ll get their asses kicked or their mothers will yell at them when they find out what they’ve done or they’ll get sent to the office. And two: you have to be smart to pull off stuff like this without getting caught. It’s brains, not muscle, that are important. You can always find the muscle you need, but you can’t make yourself more intelligent. That’s a fact.

      Most times even the people who think they know you don’t, because they only see what’s on the outside. The outside’s a flimsy cover that no one takes the time to lift so they can see what’s really underneath.

      Now people are saying they want to be MP—whatever MP is. It’s hard not to laugh out loud because no one has ever wanted to be me before. It isn’t only that I’ve become hard-core. It’s that I know something no one else does—exactly what MP stands for. No one else can understand because not one single person saw the message I left. If they had, they’d realize:

      MP is power. The kind of power that sneaks up on people, smacks them in the face and makes them regret their sorry existence.

      6

      At last, people pay attention to Campus News. I know this because it’s Bethany who says something at the dinner table.

      The twins shoot peas at each other, using the engineering principle of spoon-as-lever. Dad is busy pointing out how advanced this is to an extremely annoyed mom when my sister clears her throat.

      “Val was on TV.”

      The conversation-slash-argument stops. Bethany rarely initiates a dinner topic. She can barely manage a mumbled yeah or nah when asked a question.

      “Excuse me,” Mom says. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear—”

      “Val was on TV at school,” my sister repeats.

      There’s a moment of silence as the parents try to figure out what Bethany’s complaining about. She rarely speaks my name without whining about something I’ve done—or not done.

      “Campus News,” I remind them. “I’m a producer. I told you guys….”

      “Right,” Dad says, except I’m pretty certain he has no idea what I’m talking about.

      James sets his milk at the edge of the table. “Was it fun to see her, Bethie?”

      “Don’t call me that,” she snaps. “It’s knee. Beth-a-knee. I’ve told you a million times—”

      “He’s only six,” Mom soothes, at the same time moving his glass inland to avoid catastrophe. “James, her name is Bethany.”

      “Nobody calls you Jimmy,” my sister points out.

      “They could. I wouldn’t care.”

      “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” Jesse chants, accompanying himself with his favorite percussive instrument: fork-pounding-on-plate.

      Dad holds up his hand. “We get the point, Jesse. What was Val talking about, Bethany?”

      In any other household, the question would be directed to me because, well, I was the one on the screen. But here? Bethany speaks and the world stops spinning. It’s like trying to get druggies to talk about where they score. You don’t dare stop ’em once they start.

      “Last week someone took the flag from the front of the school and replaced it with a bunch of underwear—”

      Jesse shrieks. Bethany shoots him a superior glare. He clams up.

      “This week someone put a toilet in the third-floor hallway,” she continues.

      “A potty?” James shouts. “Did anyone pee in it?”

      Despite Bethany’s frown, he and Jesse laugh. My sister gets all huffy and refuses to say another word.

      I jump in. “Sorry to disappoint, little dudes, but not a single person used it for, um, personal activities. There was a beach pail in the bowl.” For whatever reason, that seems even funnier. The boys’ whooping becomes contagious. Laughter circles the table.

      “Okay, girls, don’t keep us in suspense,” Dad says, “Who’s the culprit?”

      Bethany shrugs. “No one knows.”

      For the first, and maybe last time in the history of the universe, I agree with her. “So far, nobody’s taking responsibility. But it makes watching Campus News interesting, right, Bethany?”

      My sister stabs a French fry, deaf once more. Too bad. The truce was kind of nice while it lasted.

      * * *

      Neither interesting, nor nice, is how Marci sees any of it. Especially when body parts show up. Not flesh and blood body parts, though from a distance, that’s what it seems. Up close, it’s obvious they’re plastic. A department store mannequin pulled apart. An arm dangling high above the third-floor staircase railing; in a second-floor bathroom, a bald head and neck hang from a noose. An upside-down leg with a red high-heeled shoe, sticks out from a trash can at the side of the school.

      Every part has the same message:

      THIS COULD BE YOU.

      MP.

      “What’s that

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