“Oh, like girls can’t be cruel, too,” another mom chimed in.

“And do girls grow up to do the same things we see boys doing?” Hayley’s mom continued. “Do girls grow up to hurt other girls the way the boys do? Have you watched the news recently?”

Speaking over the agitated parents, Principal Yu repeated her whole spiel from the other day about the counselors, how they’d find the kid who did it, how bullying would not be tolerated, and on and on, but the blaring symphony of anger grew louder.

Eve kept writing.

“This is kinda exciting!” Nessa whispered to Eve. “Oh man, Lara’s parents look so mad,” she added.

“I heard she might drop out of this school and transfer to Greenmount,” said a voice behind them.

They turned around and saw Amina Alvi’s exquisite face, framed by her wavy, almost-black hair. Eve saw that Amina’s mom, sitting next to her, shared that perfect face, though hers was framed by a hijab decorated with bright orange and pink swirls.

But why did Eve notice how pretty Amina was? She knew nothing about Amina except that she thought Amina was pretty. Maybe Eve was just as bad as whoever wrote the list.

“She must be so upset,” Amina whispered. “And Greenmount may be a private school, but do you think that means they’re nicer? Pssh. I doubt it.”

Amina’s dad put a finger to his lips, and Amina leaned back in her chair. Then she shook her head and gave Eve a look that said, “Parents, right?” Eve hadn’t spoken to Amina since fifth grade. And she was a Sophie. This was all so strange.

Eve turned back to her paper, scribbling as fast as she could, the thoughts tumbling out in a ramble.

“Lara better not leave the school. She’s got a good part in the show!” Nessa murmured, though Eve was hardly listening.

Try as she might to shut out the yelling, snippets of arguments continued to jump out at her:

“… the tech-age version of graffiti on the bathroom walls!”

“Don’t twist my words!”

“… impossible to reason with you people.”

“Do we really need to turn this into some kind of drama?”

“… nobody meaner than a middle school girl.”

“There are other options than this school, you know…”

“Not everyone has those options!”

And on and on.

Principal Yu said something about “meaningful dialogue,” and Eve heard her dad scoff.

Then another woman stood up, and the clear bell of her voice seemed to take over the room.

“I think we need to hear from the children,” she said. “How do they feel about this?”

Eve lowered her head farther into her notebook.

“I notice that most of the children here today are girls. Understandable. Me, I came with my son.”

Eve could hear the rustle of her classmates looking over shoulders to investigate which boy came with this mom. Even Eve looked up.

Beside the woman, his head hanging as low to the floor as Eve’s, sat Winston Byrd, the quiet Brody guy.