Kristy and the Copycat

It went like that all weekend. Mary Anne called and moaned about Logan. Maybe I could help cheer him up, she suggested. Did I want to go to the movies with them?

  I thanked her, but said no, she was the best person for the job of cheering Logan up.

  Karen tried to talk me into going shopping, then into giving each other a manicure (until I pointed out to her that I didn’t wear nail polish and that I kept my nails cut short with nail clippers). She followed me around, falling asleep in front of the late night movie I had on Saturday night, after talking about all kinds of weird “grown-up” things and imitating everything I said and did. She even ate exactly what I ate at dinner.

  Finally, on Sunday afternoon (after listening to Mom and Watson and Nannie discuss the article in the Stoneybrook paper about the “incident” at SMS all through a late breakfast), I lost it.

  Karen had come to my door and knocked.

  “Come in,” I said, not very welcomingly.

  “Kristy, hi!” said Karen, like she hadn’t just eaten breakfast with me an hour before.

  “Hi, Karen.” I looked down at my book pointedly.

  “Good book?”

  “It’s called Emma. By Jane Austen. For school.”

  “Oh.” Karen wandered around my room, running her hand over things. Then she saw my sneakers lying on the floor by the closet.

  “Oh, Kristy!”

  “What?” I said crossly.

  “Can I try on your sneakers?”

  I lost it. “No! Why? Karen, just leave me alone for five minutes, okay? Five minutes!”

  Karen jumped back like I’d hit her.

  “But, but Kristy …”

  “What?” I practically roared, feeling worse than ever and meaner than ever and unable to help myself. “Will you stop following me around? I’m sick of you copying me all the time like some stupid game of Simon Says!”

  “I just wanted … I mean, but … but I want to be just like you, Kristy. That’s all …”

  I opened my big mouth. I closed it again.

  “Kristy?” Karen’s eyes were enormous.

  “Oh, Karen, I’m sorry.” I felt awful. What could I do? “Listen, I have to tell you something, okay?”

  “What?” I could tell that curiosity was overcoming Karen’s shock at my yelling at her.

  “Don’t try so hard to be grown-up.”

  “But …”

  “No. Let me finish. I’m flattered that you want to be just like me. But what you should be is just like you. If you copy other people, and try to be like other people, it’s just, just a big mess.”

  “A mess?” asked Karen, looking not shocked or curious, but puzzled.

  “Trust me, Karen, it’s a mess. You’re you. No one else is like you in the whole world. So you work on being you, just you, and I’ll hang out with you as much as you want. To do it any other way just isn’t any fun.”

  Karen frowned thoughtfully.

  “Well,” I said gently. “Has it been fun, always thinking about how you should act to be like other people?”

  “N-no,” said Karen. She paused, then said, “We can still hang out together?”

  “Def. Just like always. Give me a little while and we’ll do some major hanging out today. Okay?”

  Karen’s expression brightened. “Great. Super. Gigundoly super!”

  “Gigundoly,” I echoed as she bounced out of the room.

  After Karen left, I put my head down on my hands.

  Karen had wanted to be just like me.

  No, you don’t, Karen, I thought. You don’t want to be like me at all. I vandalize things and burn them down and let other people take the blame for it.

  I hated myself.

  And I knew I would go on hating myself until I did the only thing to do.

  I had to confess.

  I had to confess, but I had to do something else first. I had to talk to my friends. I cringed at the thought of telling what I’d done, but it was worse not to be able to talk to them about it. And no matter what I’d done, no matter how bad I would look, I knew that they would stand by me.

  And if ever I needed the help of my friends, it was now.

  I decided to call an emergency meeting of the BSC.

  “An emergency meeting? Wow,” said Claudia when I called her. “You want to have it here?”

  “We can have it at my house,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Claudia. “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  “Kristy, is something wrong?” asked Mary Anne when I called her.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’m hoping you can help.”

  “Okay,” said Mary Anne. And she didn’t asked any more questions.

  “I’ll be there,” Shannon told me. “Don’t worry.”

  “Count me in,” Stacey said. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

  “Just be there and listen,” I answered.

  In fact, every single member of the BSC was like that. I don’t know why I was surprised. I should have known they would be.

  When everyone had arrived, I stood up. “This emergency meeting of the BSC will come to order.”

  Everyone looked at me expectantly. I cleared my throat. They’re not going to stop being your friends, I told myself. They’re here to help.

  I took a deep breath. Just do it, Kristy, I told myself. “You know that fire at the school? The shed? I’m responsible for it.”

  “Kristy!” exclaimed Mary Anne. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about my initiation to the SMS softball team. There are secret initiations for new members. This year, the initiation was for the new members to spray paint the old shed.”

  I paused, but no one said anything this time, so I went on. “While we were there, Tonya and Bea started smoking cigarettes. I think that’s how the fire started. It was the same night.”

  For a long moment, the room was silent and I was half afraid to look at anyone.

  Then Mary Anne spoke. “What are you going to do?”

  “Confess. I can’t live with myself, I can’t let the boys’ baseball team take the blame … but first I had to talk to you guys. I shouldn’t have done what I did, shouldn’t have let myself be pressured into doing something just because everyone else was. It’s stupid. Cowardly. I … and lying to all of you, keeping this secret … that’s been awful, too. Because I couldn’t talk to you, it was like I didn’t have any friends anymore. Like I was all alone.”

  “You’re not alone, Kristy,” said Stacey.

  “No way,” said Claudia.

  Jessi and Mallory exchanged glances and then Jessi said, “Count on us.”

  “Me, too,” Shannon chimed in.

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Mary Anne.

  “Don’t you want to say anything?” I asked.

  “Like what?” asked Claudia.

  “Like what I did was wrong. And rotten. And …”

  “Kristy,” Mary Anne interrupted. “You already figured that out. You don’t need us to make you feel worse than you do now. And besides, that’s not what friends are for.”

  Stacey rested her hand on her chin thoughtfully, saying, “Plus, it isn’t easy to stand up to a crowd. Like when I was trying out to be a cheerleader, remember? We’ve all gone along with things that we knew weren’t right. But now you are trying to do the right thing, and that’s what’s important.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh.”

  “So,” said Stacey with brisk practicality (and maybe because she saw how choked up I was). “What are friends for? What can we do in this situation?”

  “You’re going into the principal’s office tomorrow?” asked Mallory.

  I nodded, still regaining my self-control.

  “You should go in early,” said Stacey. “Get it over with. Like a test, you know?”

  “Good idea,” I managed.

  “And we’ll go with you,” said Mary Anne.

  “You will?”

  “Yes. We’ll be there when you go into his of
fice, and when you come out, okay?”

  Everyone else echoed their agreement.

  “And even though I can’t be there,” said Shannon, “I’ll be there in my thoughts. Let me know what happens.”

  “I will,” I said.

  I surveyed the emergency meeting of the BSC. My friends. How had I gone so long without talking to them? What would I have done without them now?

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Well then,” I said, with a slightly watery smile, “this emergency meeting of the BSC is officially adjourned.”

  * * *

  That night, I slept well for the first time in a week. I couldn’t change what I’d done, but I could do the right thing now. I knew what I was facing tomorrow. I knew I would be facing severe punishment, maybe even being suspended or expelled. But that wasn’t so bad as wondering, waiting, feeling guilty and alone.

  I wouldn’t be allowed to play softball anymore. And even if I were, I wouldn’t want to, because I’d be an outcast on my team.

  But then, that wasn’t my only team. I smiled in the dark, thinking of the Krushers. And I wouldn’t be an outcast to my friends.

  It was a comforting thought. I turned over and fell deeply asleep and didn’t awaken until my clock radio went off.

  When it did start, I woke up instantly. For a few seconds, I couldn’t recall why I woke up so quickly, and with such a feeling of something huge about to happen.

  Then the newscast reminded me. I sat up quickly as the announcer said, “… the recent vandalism at Stoneybrook Middle School has been solved.”

  What! Had someone else — Dilys, Bea, Tonya — confessed?

  I leaned closer to the radio, not believing my ears, as the announcer went on, “A group of teenagers from Stoneybrook High School have come forward and confessed to starting the fire that demolished an old shed on the edge of the SMS property. The fire also caused serious injuries to the good samaritan who reported the blaze and attempted to put it out before it got out of hand. The names of the members of the group are being withheld, but one of the members of the group is quoted as saying she couldn’t let the SMS baseball team take the blame for something she had done. Another group member, a boy, said, ‘My friends and I were looking for excitement, but we didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. We lit the shed on fire and ran away. Then we were going to come back and make a big deal out of putting out the blaze. We thought we would look like heroes, but that guy got out there before we did and anyway, the fire was out of control.’ ”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I was shocked. The fire wasn’t my fault after all! I wasn’t guilty — or at least, not guilty of arson.

  I flung my arms out and fell back in bed, dizzy with relief and amazement and disbelief. Not guilty.

  Except of doing what I knew was wrong in the first place. Of being a copycat instead of being myself.

  I lay there, being amazed and relieved and feeling wonderful until I heard Nannie’s voice calling, “Kristy? Are you getting up this morning?”

  “Yes,” I shouted, leaping from the bed. I practically danced around the room (although Jessi might not have recognized it as dancing!) and made another amazing discovery: the can of red spray paint wedged under my bed, where I’d slung my backpack the night of the fire. It must’ve rolled out.

  “Aha!” I cried.

  “Kristy?” That was Watson.

  “Coming,” I sang, executing a neat underhand pitch and tossing the spray paint into the garbage.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d been listening to the news. At SMS, the only topic of conversation on the steps where everyone was hanging out was the fire and the confessions. I saw Mary Anne with Logan as I took the steps two at a time and gave her a thumbs up signal. She smiled and nodded vigorously. I knew the others had heard, too, then. I would see them at lunch and talk it over — quietly and discreetly!

  Right now, I needed to see some other people more.

  As if my thinking about them had conjured them up, Dilys, Bea, and Tonya emerged from a cluster of people nearby.

  “There you are,” said Tonya. She grabbed my arm and I grabbed Bea’s and Bea grabbed Dilys and we all sort of dragged each other off to one side and away from the crowd.

  Then we all began to talk at once. We were practically screaming and jumping up and down with relief, possibly even more excitedly than when we’d found out we made the team.

  “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!” sang Bea.

  “Believe it,” said Tonya with a huge grin.

  Dilys couldn’t stop smiling either, and none of us could stop talking.

  “It’s over,” said Tonya. “It’s really over …”

  Then Dilys said, “Almost.”

  “Almost!” exclaimed Bea. “What are you talking about, Dilys?”

  But I knew. We weren’t home free. My eyes met Dilys’s and by mutual agreement we all began walking further away from the crowd, up the steps and into SMS.

  “In here,” I said, ducking into the first empty classroom. Students were beginning to mill around outside, going to their lockers, but no one would be so uncool as to head for a class before the first bell.

  I pulled the door shut behind us.

  “What’s going on?” asked Bea.

  “We’re not home free,” Dilys said. “We still did what we did. If that fire hadn’t started, people would be talking about who vandalized school property.”

  Tonya made an impatient sound, but I said, “You’re right, Dilys. What we did was wrong. But the only thing we are responsible for is spray painting the shed. And only the members of the softball team know.” (I decided not to mention that the BSC knew, too.)

  “So?” said Tonya.

  “So it was wrong,” said Dilys.

  “You don’t want to tell anyone?” Bea’s voice got shrill.

  “I don’t know,” said Dilys.

  “You can’t!” exclaimed Tonya.

  “I was going to,” I said, before Dilys could answer. “I was going to go to the principal’s office first thing this morning and confess. Because it was wrong, and because I didn’t want the boys’ team taking the blame for it.”

  Bea’s mouth dropped open, and Tonya looked surprised. But Dilys didn’t.

  Dilys said, softly, “Good for you, Kristy. I wish I’d had the nerve to do that.”

  Tonya started to say something, then stopped. She looked from Dilys to me, and then said, “Well, what good is that going to do now?”

  “None,” I said slowly. It was true.

  “And even if you wanted to fix the shed, to repaint it, you couldn’t,” Tonya pointed out. “It isn’t there anymore.”

  “Besides, the guy who got hurt is getting better. They say he’ll be fine. And the boys’ team has been reinstated and the principal has offered them a formal apology.”

  We were all silent, thinking.

  Then Dilys said, “I guess there is no need to confess now, after all.”

  “No,” I agreed. “But I don’t think there should be any more initiations. Trying out for the team — and making it — is initiation enough.”

  “How are we going to stop it?” asked Bea.

  “We’re all members of the team,” said Dilys. “We have a vote, too. We can stop it.”

  Another pause and then I said, “So we’re all agreed. We don’t confess. And we don’t do anything stupid like this again.”

  “Agreed,” Dilys said.

  Bea opened her eyes wide. “Oh, no! What about the notes?”

  “The notes. Forget the notes,” said Tonya. “No one would believe them, anyway.”

  “True,” I said. “But —”

  “I’d still like to know who wrote them,” interrupted Bea, which was exactly what I’d been thinking.

  Dilys cleared her throat, looking sheepish. “The notes. Well … ah … I wrote them.”

  “What!” Tonya jerked around to stare at Dilys, but somehow, now that I’d heard Dilys say it, I wasn’t so
surprised. She’d always been so quiet, never quite agreeing, never quite disagreeing. But I’d always had the feeling that she’d seen things more as I saw them.

  “Yes,” Dilys was saying. “Even the ones to myself. I wanted to confess, right from the beginning. I was hoping the notes would force everyone to change their minds.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Tonya. “I don’t believe this whole thing. It’s unreal.”

  “It’s real, all right,” I said. “And I’m never, ever going to forget it. You know what, Dilys? I’m glad you wrote those notes.”

  “Well, I think all of you are crazy,” said Bea. “Me, I’m just glad it’s over. Really over. Now we can play ball!”

  The first bell rang just then, and the thunder of people heading into the building to class began to build in the halls.

  “See you at practice,” I said.

  We left the classroom and went our separate ways. The day was just beginning, but I already felt like I’d lived through a lifetime. I wasn’t complaining, though. Just then, life felt great.

  “Are you still going to play on the team?” Mary Anne asked me at lunch.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. “Some things will have to change …” I stared down at my lunch and gave something gray and squishy a tentative poke. “You know what? This isn’t lunch. It’s compost.”

  “Kristy!” wailed Mary Anne.

  “Some things will never change,” said Stacey.

  We all began to laugh. It felt like forever since I’d been able to laugh with my friends. And it felt great.

  I was thinking about that moment as I got ready for practice that afternoon. Me and my friends, laughing together.

  Maybe I could work things out with my team. Learn to play with them, teach them a few things, too. The first game was coming up, and I wanted to play in it. I liked some of my teammates, like Dilys, especially. Coach Wu was terrific.

  Being on the team could be terrific, too.

  I decided I’d wait and see. But whatever happened, I was never, ever going to give in to pressure again and do something that made me feel uncomfortable. I was going to stand up for what I believed in. Because as corny as it was, it was true: it wasn’t just whether you won or lost.

  It was how you played the game.