Moxie: A Novel by Jennifer Mathieu

Author:Jennifer Mathieu [Jennifer Mathieu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626726345
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Published: 2017-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The few weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break are just, I don’t know, such an exercise in futility. No one wants to be at school, and that includes the teachers. It’s a three-week countdown until a precious, blessed break when we can sleep in, numb out on television, and forget about worksheets and grammar exercises and chemistry labs.

And as far as the girls are concerned, holiday vacation will be a break from the bump ’n’ grab.

The bump ’n’ grab started not long after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Just like “Make me a sandwich,” it started small at first. A few boys did it—boys like Mitchell and Jason and their buddies—and then it started to spread like a match to dry kindling, with so many boys playing along that making it down a hallway was like picking your way through a minefield.

The bump ’n’ grab is exactly what it sounds like. A boy bumps you in the hallway. Maybe quasi-gently with a hip. Maybe more forcefully like he’s enjoying himself a little too much.

When you stumble, there’s a grab. Sometimes you get goosed around the waist. Sometimes you get pinched on the butt. And as quickly as it starts, it’s over, and the boy is off down the hall, maybe squawking that he’s sorry. Maybe laughing at the top of his lungs.

The whole thing really gets you into the holiday spirit. Ha, ha, ha.

This morning, as I make my way to English, it happens to me. I can’t even get a sense of which guy does it, he’s so fast, but his fingers manage to make it just under my shirt, cold and rough on my waist.

I want to yell out, chase him down, scream out loud. But I’m frozen from the shock of it, standing so still that some kids behind me whine that I’m blocking the hallway.

My cheeks burning, I make my way into class. With just a few days left before break, Mr. Davies has decided to show the film version of Romeo and Juliet (even though we’ve never read the play, so go figure), and I collapse into my seat, thankful for the cool darkness of the classroom. Lucy leans toward me over her desk.

“You okay? Your face is all red.”

At the front of the classroom Mr. Davies seems appropriately checked out, so I lean in and in a quiet voice tell Lucy what happened. She listens, frowns, and then mutters, “Asshole!” a little too loudly. A few kids around us laugh.

“Shhh…,” I whisper. But in the same breath, I want to scream Asshole! out loud, too.

“I don’t get this,” Lucy argues. “Is it some kind of game?”

The sappy music from the Romeo and Juliet movie drones on. Several kids around us are nodding off, and Mr. Davies’s chin is resting on his chest. In a few minutes he’ll probably be audibly snoring. Considering permission granted, I explain to Lucy that the bump ’n’ grab is one of many games some of the boys at East Rockport like to play.

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