“Absolutely not,” the dean says.

I clear my throat.

“I am fat, Dean Pembrooke. You seem to find that particularly contemptible. I don’t find that word to be the insult you want it to be. I don’t find the word slut insulting either. How dare you suggest that I should be ashamed? That I am asking to be shamed? That it’s understandable that someone would be so vicious?

“How dare you police my body? Our bodies. I’m not going to hide because you find my ordinary body offensive. I’m not going to apologize for being fat but not hiding it, not finding it the insult you think it is. You need to figure out why you find any of our bodies offensive, because that’s not okay.

“And I refuse to be a part of that conversation. I’m not going to argue anymore that I deserve to live as a fat person and be visible as a fat person and be respected as a fat person. I’m going to be a fat person, and you’re going to deal with it.

“And we are not going to live as girls—as women—hiding, ashamed of our bodies, allowing you to make us feel small.”

I take a deep breath. Everyone, it feels like, takes a deep breath.

Silence, and shuffling papers, and Ms. Warren leaning over to say something to Ellory.

“In conclusion,” I say into the loudest silence I’ve ever heard, “we accept that we broke school rules and made bad judgment calls. But we refuse to accept your disgust for our bare skin. We refuse to accept the idea that you find our skin offensive, we refuse to accept your judgment of our bodies, and we reject your claim of ownership.”

I clear my throat.

“Thank you. The end.”

There is absolute silence.

We pick up our coats, turn, and the three of us walk out the door and into absolute chaos.

26

“I’m going to be sick,” I say, lowering myself to the cold concrete steps outside the admin building. We’ve slipped away from the crowd, that roaring group of students who gathered around us in the lobby, hugged us, cheered us. They all had found the pictures on their dorm bulletin boards and elevator doors and lampposts, and word had spread about the honor-board hearing, and now they’re all buzzing with the excitement of it and with their own thoughts and stories and opinions.

Even out here in the relative quiet, I still can’t think straight.

“You were amazing,” Katherine says again. She’s been saying it a lot, thinks we must have made a difference, that we must have changed their minds. Nevaeh is at the bottom of the steps, talking to someone she knows.

“You need to eat something,” Jack says to me, rummaging around in his bag. “I have peanut butter cups.”

“Aw,” Taylor says.