A couple of kids laughed. I kept kicking at my chair leg.
Erin looked Andrew square in the eye. “Whatever.”
This girl named Sarah chimed in. She had gorgeous hair, like down to her butt. I think she was growing it out to donate to cancer or something. “You know, Erin has a point. When my family and I went on safari in Zimbabwe and Kenya last year, we had to learn like ten words in Shona and another ten in Swahili.”
“Oh my God,” a guy in the back muttered. “That must have been exhausting.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
Mistake. Phelps pounced.
“Miss Cruz? Do you have something to contribute to the discussion?”
I took my hands out of my pockets. Something to contribute? Yes. But I knew that if I spoke up, I’d have like forty eyes on me, like I was the representative of all Spanish-speaking people in the friggin’ universe. So I shook my head. Pass.
Mr. Phelps looked disappointed. “Anyone else?” he asked.
“You know what I hate?” Erin’s BFF Kate called out.
“What’s that?” Mr. Phelps sat back on his stool.
“How Spanish is taking over TV.”
Now Mr. Phelps folded his arms. “I’m not following.”
Kate looked exasperated. “You know, how sometimes there are lines or jokes that are in Spanish in shows, and I’m expected to understand them. Without subtitles!”
“Yeah.” “Uh-huh.” “Yup.” “Oh yeah.” So many kids agreed with her! I couldn’t believe it.
Erin’s hand shot back up.
Mr. Phelps eyed the clock. “Yes?”
“It happens in music, too. Like, every time I stream music, there’s always something with lyrics in Spanish. ‘Despacito,’ anyone? It’s so annoying.”
My left knee started bouncing. What, were we an inconvenience? Annoying? I couldn’t take it anymore.
“So, um, excuse me.”
Boom. Forty eyes on me. Called it!
“Miss Cruz?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, so, are you all even aware that, I mean, the word ‘Florida’ means ‘flowery’ in Spanish? And that ‘Colorado’ means ‘red’ or ‘red-colored’? These words are in Spanish because the Spanish were actually here before the English. I’m just saying.” The last part I had read about in our textbook, so I kind of thought I deserved extra credit, no lie.
Dead silence. I could hear the clock ticking on the wall. Then one kid in the front row said, “I’m hip.” I almost slid out of my chair. It was the Asian kid. Cambodian? Whoa.
“Thank you, Miss Cruz,” Mr. Phelps was saying. “You raise an excellent point—”
Then I remembered something else, and out came “Yeah, and the border of Mexico and the United States used to be different before. Like, Mexico actually included the states of Arizona and New Mexico and parts of Texas and California.” I’d read that in one of the books from Mr. Phelps’s shelf. Actually, I should remember to use that info for a slide for the assembly.
Mr. Phelps nodded. This time, I didn’t care how many eyes were on me. I really didn’t. But then Erin said, all snippy, “Yeah, well, that’s not the case now.”
“Well,” I jumped on this (with a capital A attitude, I’ll admit). “I’m just saying that yeah, you may feel annoyed having to press one for English or whatever. But imagine how annoyed you’d be if someone came and kicked you off your own land and told you that your language, food, culture, everything, was wrong. And you had to change it. Or die. That’s messed up, right? That’s annoying, right?”
The class blew up.
“Oh…”
“Boom…”
“She told you, Erin!”
I couldn’t tell what Erin was thinking. She began reapplying lip balm in slow motion. But then all of a sudden she stood and ran out of the classroom. Her face looked on the verge of crumpling.
Mr. Phelps hopped off the stool. “All right. Everyone, take out your notebooks. Write a paragraph reflection. I’ll be right back.”
Here’s what I wrote:
Oh, great. Now I am going to be labeled the angry Latina who told off the blond white girl. See, this is why I never say anything in class.
A few minutes later Erin and Mr. Phelps came back into the room. Erin’s face was beet red. She snatched up her backpack and left the room once more. A couple of kids gave me dirty looks. But I hadn’t said anything that was that bad, or untrue. And you know what, I’d had enough. Enough. “Mr. Phelps?”
“Yes, Lili?”
“Can I get the bathroom pass?”
“Yes, sure. Go,” he said distractedly.
Part of me wanted to run to the nearest bathroom stall and cry. Another part of me just wanted to pretend to be sick and take a nap in the nurse’s room. But then I had a better idea. I dug into my backpack and wrote out a fake pass for Dustin using my most convincing teacher handwriting—the messier, the better. I crumpled up the paper a little (to make it look more authentic), then walked to the math wing, pretty sure Dustin was in algebra. I felt almost light-headed as I stepped into the doorway. The teacher was writing out some scary-hard-looking equation.
And—damn. Steve was in this class too. He saw me first and began to cough real loudly. The teacher looked over at me. “Yes?”
“Oh. Hi. The, um, librarian needs to see Dustin.” I lifted the pass, but the math teacher simply waved a green Expo marker in the air and returned to the problem on the board.
Dustin’s eyes bulged, but his expression stayed cool. He strode past the rows of students and ignored Steve’s coughing, which at this point sounded like a case of TB. For sure I thought the teacher would catch on, see that there was no real need for him in the library, that this was totally cause for detention, but no. She was already on to the next equation.
In the hall Dustin grabbed my wrist. “So… what’s up?”
I couldn’t form the words.
“Lili?”
“I—” My voice caught.
“Wait. Come on,” he said, and led me down the hallway, toward the door to the basement. When we turned the corner, I bumped into Genesis. She dropped her book.
“Hey, girl,” I said, bending over to help her pick it up. But—so bizarre—she just scooped it up and kept walking. Like, flat-out ignored me.
Dustin, gnawing his thumbnail, glanced toward the door. Whatever. I’d catch up with Genesis later. Right then, I needed to talk to Dustin.
After climbing over a set of hurdles and some random cones, we found our space from last time in the basement. I leaned against his chest, and suddenly shivered, goose bumps sprouting on my arms.
“Hey,” Dustin said. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms.
He took off his Westburg sweatshirt. “Here.”
I inhaled his sweatshirt’s scent and put it on. It was too big, but it was perfect. “Thanks.”
Then Dustin dipped his head and kissed me. His lips on my lips. Again and again. I felt like we were deep underwater, the rest of the world muted and far away. Then he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me about a foot off the ground, and I let out a little scream. I wasn’t used to people, um, picking me up. I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Do you think someone heard?”