Nothing good has ever happened in the Main Hall before.
It’s where we take our final exams and where we were forced to sit through unbearable lectures on our changing bodies and where Ray once dropped a banana behind the podium and the rats managed to find it before the teachers could.
So I’m instantly apprehensive when we’re directed to the hall right after lunch.
“What’s going on?” I ask Abigail as we find seats at the very back. The entire room is basically designed to be depressing, with its drab, windowless walls and uncomfortable plastic chairs. A whole year after the incident, the stench of the rotten banana still lurks around like the villain from a major movie franchise— impossible to track down and never fully killed.
“I was hoping you’d know,” Abigail says between loud bites of her kaya toast. The sticky note on her lunch box today reads keep shining! “Don’t school captains get advance notice of this stuff?”
“Not this,” I say, scanning the room for clues. There’s a laptop set up near the projector, and a thermos sitting on the hardwood floor, which means we’re getting a presentation of some sort.
Then, without meaning to, my gaze slides to Julius in the second row— just as he lifts his head and glowers at me.
A shock goes through my body at the venomous look on his face. I’d hoped his anger would dissipate after yesterday, but it seems to have only fermented.
It’s not just him. Word about my emails must have spread to everyone in our class by now. When I sit down, the girl next to me scowls and scoots her chair away as if I’m the source of the banana smell.
My stomach burns.
The sound of clacking heels distracts me briefly from my misery. A serious- looking woman around my mom’s age strides up to the front, her blonde hair pulled into a bun so tight I pity her scalp, a school visitor badge pinned to her tweed jacket.
Samantha Howard, it says, underneath a blurry photo of her.
She doesn’t say anything, just surveys us like we’ve collectively committed a crime against her family pet, and presses a button. The projector flickers on, casting a slideshow onto the giant white screen behind her.
I take one glance at the title—“The Digital Student: Online Etiquette and Cybersafety”— before my stomach plummets, my misery returning with full intensity.
“Your school called me in light of . . . recent events,” she begins, confirming my very worst suspicions. “They’ve asked that I give you a refresher on how we should conduct ourselves through digital communication channels.”
Thirty pairs of eyes instantly flicker to me.
I’ve done it, I think to myself. I’ve discovered hell on earth, and it’s right here.
“Now, you might be under the impression that since you’re the younger generation and you grew up with your little tablets and laptops and iPads and gadgets, you don’t need any advice, right? You know exactly what you’re doing, right? Wrong,” she says, so loudly a few people jump. “Before we dive in, let’s have a quick show of hands: How many of you in this room own a social media account of some kind?”
There’s a brief moment’s hesitation. Then every single hand in the room goes into the air.
“That’s very disappointing,” Samantha Howard says on a heavy sigh. “Not surprising, but disappointing. And tell me: How many of you post frequently on these accounts? Videos and photos and the like?”
A few hands are lowered, but most of them stay up.
“This is your first mistake,” Samantha tells us. “Everything you post will leave a permanent mark on the internet. Every comment, every interaction, every selfie.” She spits out the word like it’s the name of someone who once poisoned her morning tea.
“After today’s session, I hope you all go back and private your posts. Better yet, delete all your accounts completely. Keep your content to yourself—” She pauses midsentence and blinks at Abigail. “Yes? Do you have a question?”
Abigail stands up, her expression almost as grave as Samantha’s, her platinum hair swinging over her shoulder. “Yes, just one.” She clears her throat. “What do we do if we’re really feeling ourselves?”
Snorts of laughter travel around the room.
Samantha frowns. “This is not a joke. This is a matter of security—”
“I don’t think you’re understanding,” Abigail says innocently.
“I’m talking about, like, really feeling ourselves. Have you never drawn the perfect cat wing and felt the utmost need to share it online, for it to be saved in perpetuity, to become our lasting legacy? Don’t you think it’s a crime not to show the world the new black dress I bought and how good it makes my figure look?”
She finishes her little speech by falling back in her seat and grinning at me.
And though I really should disapprove, I have to bite my lip to stop from laughing as well. Partly because I know why she’s doing this. Abigail has never minded being disruptive in class, but she’s always more disruptive when she senses that I’m in a bad mood. It’s her way of simultaneously raising my blood pressure and my spirits.
“I assure you, young lady, that’s not the kind of legacy you want to leave,” Samantha says, her nostrils flaring. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. I know your prefrontal cortexes haven’t fully developed yet, but you have to start thinking beyond your impulses in the moment. Your digital footprint could affect your school records, your future colleges, your future jobs. Let’s all take a look at examples of what you should be avoiding, shall we?”
She moves on to the next slide, which is a mock-up of an email.
Dear Brady,
Your personality sucks, your face sucks, and your existence sucks. I don’t like you very much at all. You should run out in front of a train.
The room’s attention swivels back to me.
I duck my head, my whole face red- hot with humiliation.
Even though it’s not my email, the reference is clear— and, evidently, deliberate.
“Can somebody tell me what’s wrong with this?” Samantha asks. Nobody volunteers, and for a few incredibly naïve, foolish seconds, I think I might be safe. We can get back to that nice lecture on how posting selfies will result in our inevitable murder. But then Samantha looks out at the room. “Participation is important. If we’re feeling shy, I’ll pick someone at random.
How about . . .”
So long as it’s not Julius, I pray in my head, my fingernails digging into my skirt. Just don’t let it be Julius—
“You,” Samantha says, and points right at Julius.
Maybe I should run out in front of a train.
“Me?” Julius repeats, as our class dissolves into furious whispers. When he rises from his seat, his back straight, hands in his pockets, I’m offered an unwanted view of his side profile. For once, he doesn’t look smug about being called on to answer a question.
“Yes. What’s the problem with this example?” Samantha prompts. “Should someone— no matter how they’re feeling—
send out an email like this?”
Julius’s eyes cut to me, quick as lightning, cold as ice. “Well, I don’t think anyone should ever write an email like this to begin with. It’s remarkably immature, and a sign of the sender’s unresolved anger issues— not to mention low self- esteem.”
“But what if the recipient deserved it?”
I don’t realize I’ve stood up and spoken until everyone whirls around to stare at me, the concentrated weight of their attention like a hammer to the stomach. But I’m only staring back at one person. Julius. The tightness of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes.
“So you’re saying it’s the recipient’s fault,” Julius says with a laugh. “Wow. Sure.”
Okay, stop talking, the logical part of my brain tells me. Shut up and sit down right now.
But my mouth seems to have cut ties with my brain. “I’m just saying that maybe if the recipient were a little less infuriating, and wasn’t quite so adamant on tormenting the sender for years on end—”
“Maybe if someone weren’t so sensitive—”
“It’s called having a normal human reaction. Emotions, you understand. I know that may be a foreign concept—”
“Excuse me, you two,” Samantha calls tersely from the podium. “This isn’t the point of the activity.”
We both do something we would never dare with a teacher—
not even an art teacher—we ignore her.
“You didn’t seem to care so much about anyone else’s reaction when you were writing the emails,” Julius says, his voice rising.
“Again, I didn’t mean for them to get out,” I snap. I’m very distantly aware that the hall has gone dead quiet, that everyone’s watching, listening, witnessing this. Someone’s holding up their phone. But nothing registers except the anger pumping thick through my blood, the desire to destroy the boy standing across from me. “I was just venting—”
“Have you ever heard of a diary, Sadie? It might be a worthy investment.”
“Don’t disgust me. I would never write diary entries
about you—”
He cocks his head. Smiles with his lips but not his eyes. “And yet it’s clear I’m all you ever think about.”
“Think about killing,” I amend, grinding the back of my teeth together. I could kill him right now.
“See?” Julius gestures to me, as if delivering a speech. “This is what I mean about the unresolved anger issues.”
“You mean that you’re the source of them? Because yeah, you’d be correct—”
“Silence!” Samantha yells.
I snap my mouth shut and pull my attention away from Julius.
It could just be the unflattering artificial lights in the hall, but Samantha’s face has turned an awful shade of gray. The veins in her forehead are on open display, so visible they could be used as a diagram for first- year premed students. “Never,” she seethes, “in all my years of visiting schools have I come across students so— so rude and undisciplined. This behavior is absolutely unacceptable.” She stabs a finger toward our badges. “And you’re meant to be the school captains? This is the kind of example you choose to set for your peers?”
I hadn’t thought it possible to taste any new flavors of humiliation, but apparently I can. The skin on my cheeks and the back of my neck is so hot it itches.
“Before coming here, all I’d heard about Woodvale was how it’s one of the top academic institutions in the state. Selective.
Prestigious. ” She yanks out the wire from her laptop as she speaks. “But this is— well, it’s just beyond disappointing.” Picks up her thermos from the floor. “I’m afraid I simply cannot go on.” Lifts a dramatic hand to her chest like an actress in a tragic play. “I’ll have to end this early.”
With that, she marches out the door, a few seconds of silence following close behind her.
Then Georgina says, hopefully, “Does this mean we get a free period?”
Before anyone can celebrate, the door swings open once more, and Samantha comes marching in again. Her complexion has changed from gray to crimson. “I just remembered that I won’t be paid the speaker’s fee if I don’t stay for the full session.” She sniffs and plugs her laptop back into the projector, continuing to the next slide as though that brief episode never happened.
“Now, where were we? Ah, yes, your digital footprint . . .”
