It Wasn't Me Read online

  But Molly’s not one to leave a potentially reputation-ruining silence alone. “It was useful,” she says. “You know, having the time without you. I mean! Not without you, but without any talking. Quiet. Silence. Noiselessness.” She gulps. “NO NOISE!”

  Code Red! Molly apparently has ZERO game when it comes to playing it cool with teachers. She is the worst delinquent in the history of delinquents.

  I flash a panicked look at Jax, who rolls his eyes.

  “Jeepus, what a rookie,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s all good, Ms. Lewiston,” he says, louder. “We got the story read, and even got Theo here to talk. You know, tell us all about his photos and stuff. Feels like, I don’t know, we bonded.”

  Ms. Lewiston’s eyebrow, which began its Everest-height climb during Molly’s endless rambling, goes even higher.

  But Jax is a pro. He grins and pulls his chair toward the center of the room. “It’s good, right? I mean, it’s all part of the process.”

  Erik follows his lead and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Yeah, I think we’re getting somewhere.”

  Alice squeaks again.

  Ms. Lewiston looks at me. I pull my fedora on and look down at my backpack, taking longer than needed to put my pencil and story away.

  Finally she nods and sits down. “Great. That’s great to hear,” she says, and her voice is hard to read, but we don’t care, because we’re all too busy avoiding each other’s eyes to pay attention.

  When we’re finally all in place, Ms. Lewiston has her bag of Starburst back out.

  “How’s everyone doing?” she asks, and it’s notable that instead of doing the mumble-shrug nonanswer, all six of us actually respond, calling out variations on “Good,” “Cool,” “Okay,” and “HEY, MORE STARBURST!” (Three guesses on who that last one is, first two guesses that aren’t Molly don’t count.)

  “Good!” Ms. Lewiston smiles. “And yes, my stash is back out. Anyway,” she says, and maybe I’m imagining the slightly knowing look in her eye, “I brought treats because it’s time to really unpack what’s going on here.”

  Jax catches my eye and mouths, quite clearly, “Rematch…bring it on.”

  I burst out laughing and turn it into a fake cough. “Sorry,” I say-cough. “Coffee went down the wrong tube.” I keep hacking for another few seconds to legitimize my claim, but when I look up, Ms. Lewiston has moved on.

  “It’s time for honesty,” Ms. Lewiston says, and now no one is laughing. “It’s time to admit mistakes, acknowledge wrongs, and realize that we all need to move forward.”

  I look back down at my desk, all laughter gone. Stupid. Rookie-level stupid. I had allowed that school version of Stockholm syndrome to cloud my judgment so that I actually felt chill, like these are my people. They aren’t. Or at least, one of them isn’t. And if it isn’t Erik, if he’s actually not like his dipwad friends, well…that means someone else hates me. And somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better. My stomach clenches, and I straighten up and let my hair fall over my face.

  Ms. Lewiston’s voice is soft. “The goal of the past few days has been to get you six to see each other with new eyes, to question your own assumptions about each other, and to learn to trust one another.” She looks around. “I hope we’ve succeeded somewhat on that front.”

  People mutter and nod, but I stay silent. The fact is, I did learn more about my classmates than I have in seven years of togetherness. And I did trust them, sort of. But now we’re back here, where Erik, or one of the others, has to admit they hate my photos enough to ruin them. Twice.

  Ms. Lewiston goes on. “Some things to think about before we proceed. One is that intentions are often different from results. We learned that when we talked about lying, and what happens next. Another is that we often don’t know everything about why someone took the actions he or she did. When we discussed the story, we saw how that can play out. It’s possible he—or she—didn’t mean to cause harm.”

  Molly looks up. Her cheeks are flaming red again.

  “He or she? Do you really think me or Alice did this? I mean, does this seem like something I would do?” She looks around. “And if we’re being honest, I think we all know that.” She looks at Jax and Erik for a second, then looks away.

  Jax leans back. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re too perfect to mess up? You’d probably rather die than ever get in trouble, is that right?”

  I wince a little at the word die. Though obviously we all say things like “I almost died,” now that I know about Molly’s brother, I can’t help wondering if that word feels like a slap every time.

  “Shut up,” Molly hisses. “You don’t know anything.”

  “You sure? I’m betting I can be pretty clear on what’s going on at the Claremont household.” Jax stands up and, in a high voice, imitates Molly’s mother.

  “Hi, honey! I’m home! Is our little Molly-kins here?”

  Then he’s her father: “Hi, darling! How was your day at the office? And of course Molly-kins is here! Where else would she be?”

  “Of course she’s here! She’s perfect!”

  “Perfect!”

  “SHUT UP!” Molly screams, also standing up.

  Ms. Lewiston jumps to her feet. “Jax! Molly!” She puts a hand on Molly’s shoulder. Molly has tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Jax stares at the ground, breathing hard.

  “Both of you, take a walk with me. Now.” With that they leave the room, the no-slam door shutting silently behind them.

  Erik, Andre, Alice, and I stare at each other.

  Alice speaks first. “That wasn’t very nice of Jax,” she says, but instead of sounding angry or gossipy, she sounds curious. “I wonder why he did it?”

  Erik shrugs, a quick, angry gesture. “Who knows? I mean, it did sort of feel like Molly was accusing him or me, but…” He trails off. “You win or lose before the game starts, you know?”

  There’s a meditative silence while we ponder this.

  Alice blinks (two of the three eyes) and says what I suspect Andre and I are both thinking: “No, I don’t really know.”

  Erik looks surprised that we’re not fluent in jock. “Oh. Well…I mean, it’s all in the mindset, right? If you’re in a bad headspace, it’s really hard to focus and bring any winning energy to the game. You got to have your head there first.”

  To my surprise, Andre nods at this. “Same as playing live or even recording. If you don’t get your head into the music, it doesn’t work. You have to be totally there, you know? You have to commit.”

  I look at Alice and shrug. I don’t think photography is like that. I don’t have to get my “head in the game” or “commit” or whatever.

  While we wait, I go through my backpack, mostly so I don’t have to stare at the three people left in the room. I pull out my latest pinhole camera and start fussing with it. It’s a pretty simple one, a big old tin that used to hold crackers or something that I found at a yard sale. It’s big enough that I’m hoping to try again with what went so wrong in the darkroom—a really long-exposure photo.

  Alice leans over. “What is that?”

  “Just a pinhole camera. You know, like we did in photography last semester.”

  Andre squints at it. “Except ours didn’t look anything like that.”

  Erik looks too. “Seriously. Ours were little plastic nothings. That’s, like…cool.”

  Alice nods, and her third eye wobbles. “That looks so rad! It’s like something out of a steampunk movie,” she says. “What are you going to take a photo of?”

  I shrug. I actually had an idea to take the words Ms. Lewiston had written on the board, about everyone fighting a battle we can’t see, and frame them in low light and shoot that. But I didn’t want to say that for some reason.

  “Oh! You could do a sick shot of a tr
ee,” Erik says, his voice cracking in excitement. “Think about it. You could, like, shoot from below into the branches!”

  I look at him, trying to get a read on whether this is sarcasm. If it were me, I can guarantee it would be sarcasm. But he looks like an eager puppy who’s waiting for a tennis ball. It’s increasingly hard to believe he’s playing me.

  Mentally I shrug. Even though his idea is totally clichéd (plus, where are we supposed to find a tree in here?), I feel I should compliment him on taking baby steps toward something not sportsball-related.

  “That would be cool,” I say, admirably keeping my snark on a tight leash. “But I was thinking about shooting something in this room. Maybe lighting something with really low light and leaving it for a superlong exposure.”

  Erik nods slowly, like I said something insightful about point guards or defense. And I realize we’re both being kind.

  “Here,” I say, scooting closer. “Do you remember in class when Mr. Smith told us how these things work? It’s a pretty basic setup. The smaller the pinhole, the less light, so the longer the exposure to light you need. But there’s one more variable, right?” I don’t wait for an answer. “Because the size of the camera matters….If it’s a big box like this one, and a tiny hole, and I use really low light—like, almost-darkness low light…well, I could set it to ‘take’ the picture over ten or even fifteen hours.”

  Andre and Alice move their chairs closer.

  When Ms. Lewiston opens the door, we’re all huddled over my desk, where I’m showing them how to load the photo paper.

  Jax saunters over. “Yo, what’s going on here? You building a robot?” His voice is casual and jokey, but there’s a new quietness in how he moves.

  Molly comes in silently behind him and looks over my shoulder.

  “I’m almost done. I was making a pinhole camera and talking about how I want to set up a long-exposure shot. Like, seriously long, as in, overnight long. And see if I can use really low light but still get a cool result.”

  Jax and Molly nod like they know what I’m talking about and it matters to them.

  “Actually,” I continue, because apparently when I’m nervous and people seem to be actually listening to me I get verbal diarrhea, “I have some other materials in my bag, so maybe I’ll make a few cameras”—I look around—“or, you know, you guys could help—”

  Alice nods so hard the severed finger flies out from behind her ear. “That would be so cool! And if you made a bunch of them, you could set up a few different shots with that long-exposure thing you were talking about and see which ones come out best.”

  I glance at Ms. Lewiston, who’s watching us.

  “Would that be okay?” I ask. I want to say, “Can we please do something slightly more enjoyable than this circle thing, like perhaps stabbing ourselves repeatedly in the eyes with forks?” But I don’t.

  Ms. Lewiston nods. “I have to make a quick phone call, so I’m going to step out into the hall. Why don’t you work on the cameras until I get back.” She looks around. “And at the end of the day we’ll get back into circle and see if anyone is ready to share. So think on that while you’re working.”

  I look up at the clock. It’s less than an hour until dismissal. I can’t help wondering: Will today end with a confession? Will we be done with this—four people declared innocent, and someone here, someone who’s been pretending to open up and admitting that they did it? And then what? I’m still here, my stuff still ruined, but with a name to go with this idea of a bully? A name and a face and their favorite candy and all sorts of other facts I didn’t know until this week? Will that help? Really?

  As my fingers move over the pieces of the cameras, I let my mind go to photography, to the science of light and dark and framing and perspective. As I talk and work, I realize that part of me doesn’t want to know the truth today. If we set up these cameras, I’ll need to come back tomorrow anyway. Seems weird to think that no one else would be here to see them.

  When Ms. Lewiston leaves, we all relax a little. Molly and Jax don’t talk to each other much, but they’re both more mellow, like Ms. Lewiston did some Jedi mind trick on them and chilled them both out.

  Jax looks at the tin box camera. “That’s pretty dope,” he says. “What are you planning for that one?”

  I shrug. “Not sure yet. I want to leave them overnight, but I have to figure out how to keep the light levels constant, and low enough that it isn’t a white blob.”

  Alice squeaks. “Oh! What about the fake-candle thing that Ms. Lewiston uses for our circles? You could do something awesome with that, right? I mean, maybe you can use it to light the edge of a knife, and have a drop of blood on it, which could reflect the light. Though if it’s really slow exposure, maybe the blood would dry and be flat. So in that case, we might want to use nail polish….” She trails off as she notices that we’re all staring at her. “What?” she asks, scowling.

  I don’t quite know where to start, but Molly says gently, “You know we can’t have knives in school, right?”

  Erik nods so vigorously I think he might injure himself. “That’s true. Aidan on the soccer team…he had a Swiss Army knife in his backpack from a camping trip and he was sent home for the day even though it was his dad’s! But”—Erik gets a little pink and mumbly—“I still think that was a really cool idea. I mean, if we could, I think it would be awesome.”

  Alice beams. “Thank you!”

  Interesting.

  Still, I have work to do if I’m going to get these things set up before we have to go home or, worse, circle up again for another round of “Who hates poor Theo?”

  I poke around in my bag. “It looks like I have enough stuff for four cameras, though each one will be a little different. Here’s the thing: when you want to do a long exposure like this, not only do you have to make it a pretty big camera, relatively speaking, and make the hole pretty small, but you also need some kind of filter.”

  “Isn’t overnight going to be way too long?” Andre asks. “I mean, when we did pinhole cameras in art, I think the longest we ever left them was five minutes, maybe?”

  I nod. “Yeah, we did—”

  Jax interrupts. “And that was the one where I totally whiffed it and forgot to make the second hole, so basically got nothing. I tried to tell Smitty that it was a picture of the Black Experience, but he wasn’t buying.” He shakes his head and gives a barking not-funny laugh. “Just another total fail.”

  I look at Jax. “If it makes you feel any better, when I first got to use a serious film camera, like the kind professionals use, I went out for three hours in the neighborhood, setting up shots, getting all serious about framing them and stuff, and moving around shooting from different angles like some kind of rock-star photographer. All I needed was the scarf and the man-purse to be, like, an Italian superstar.”

  Jax snorts, and I laugh too, shaking my head.

  “When I got home, all psyched and fired up to get into the darkroom, I realized I had never loaded the film properly in the first place. I literally hadn’t taken a single shot the whole three hours I was out there jumping around like Ansel Adams on Red Bull.”

  The others laugh, and Erik shakes his head, saying, “Classic mistake. Gotta prep the field before you can play ball,” which I ignore.

  But Jax looks at me, his face scrunched. “That must have straight up bummed you out,” he says. “I mean, did you ever get to take those photographs?”

  I shake my head. “Naw. But honestly, they weren’t that great. They were, like, arty tree shots and stuff.” Oops. I quickly glance at Erik, but he’s too busy visualizing prepping the field (what?!) or whatever to notice I’m dissing his tree-branch idea.

  “Anyway,” I say, “point is that in photography, there are always screwups. And yeah, it can be a huge downer when you think you’ve missed some once-in-a-lifetime
shot, but—”

  Erik interrupts. “ ‘You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take!’ ” He sounds WAY too excited.

  I look at him. “Um…yeah, that’s a good way of putting it, I guess.”

  “Wayne Gretzky. The Great One. That’s what he said, and man, it’s like, my…my…”

  “Your mantra,” Alice says.

  “Your guiding principle,” Molly says.

  “Your bumper sticker,” I mutter, and Andre and Jax both snort-laugh.

  Erik turns pink, and I feel a little bad. Looking at him biting his lip and staring at his desk, I wonder again if I could have gotten it totally wrong.

  “No, seriously, it’s a good motto,” I say. “It’s true. If you worry too much about setting up the shot, or messing with the lighting, or even whether your equipment is any good, you’ll never actually press the button and take the picture.” I stand up and start pacing. “And that’s the thing—nowadays most people shoot digital, and they can take literally thousands and thousands of photos without even switching out a memory card or battery. Which is great, and means everyone can take a million pictures and hopefully get something good.”

  Erik starts to speak, probably to say something about swinging at the ball or shooting the puck, but I’m on a roll and I ride right over him.

  “But that takes some of the magic—and the risk—out of it. When I shoot film, and especially when I use pinhole cameras, I only get a limited number of shots. With the pinhole I might only get one try, ever. So I have to balance that risk…not taking the shot versus wasting my shot. You know? That’s what makes it fun.”

  They’re all staring at me, and all of a sudden I have the same feeling I had when we were supposed to sing “This Land Is Your Land” in music and I belted it out, all the way through the second verse, before I realized we were singing only the chorus. I immediately let my hair fall in front of my face.