Posted: List 4

I showed up to Wolf's early, eager to get out of my own house and away from Mom, who was on the phone with the lawyer, discussing alimony.

When I got there his mom was trying to finish raking the front yard before it got dark. Hardly any leaves had fallen yet, but Mrs. Thompson was finicky about her lawn. Every hedge perfectly trimmed. Every tree pruned.

He had a whole trove of little plastic figures.

My name is Moose Wrathbringer and I’m a spell-casting ninja with a history of carrying out covert assassinations for top-secret guilds.

My name is Moose Wrathbringer and I’m a spell-casting ninja with a history of carrying out covert assassinations for top-secret guilds.

I cast a spell of absolute zombie annihilation on the whole lot of them, sending them back to the foul abyss or zombie-making factory from whence they came.

Rose sat back smugly and popped another Funyon. “Never mess with a ninja wizard princess.”

It was still only nine o’clock so we eradicated what was left of the pizza, opened a box of fudge brownies, and watched old Dr. Who episodes.

What made it unique was the battleground. Every skirmish took place on three square inches. Sticky notes were the weapons and words were the ammunition.

There were earnest entreaties to Hug a Teacher! or Kick a Squirrel Today!

There were earnest entreaties to Hug a Teacher! or Kick a Squirrel Today!

But the really nasty ones—the ones with fangs—were either tucked into the slats of lockers or left on the bathroom mirrors. Like the graffiti scribbled on the backs of stall doors, the messages you found in the bathroom used a different vocabulary, easily worthy of a parental advisory warning.

There were a few conscientious objectors who saw where it all was headed and tried to put a stop to it, taking down any note they saw regardless of what it said.

For a moment I was certain Casey was going to stuff the paper in her mouth and try to choke it down secret agent style before Ms. Sheers could pry her lips apart, but instead she melted in her seat while Ms. Sheers took the note from her.

They stared, arms crossed, a silent stalemate.

We built an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile out of a paper towel roll for my history presentation (Wolf was in charge of the poster—he had much neater handwriting), complete with the letters USSR, which, as it turned out, didn’t have the word “Russia” in it at all.

By her senior year the number of signatures in my mother’s yearbook had dwindled to fewer than ten.

“Fine. Then I choose Betty Brant,” Wolf said, clearly exasperated with me.

Wolf looked forlornly at the empty bag of cheese turds.

While I understand that, for most of you, this was intended to be fun, several faculty members have expressed concerns about messages they consider offensive. This kind of behavior undermines our mission here at Branton Middle School, which is to educate in a safe, nurturing, and inclusive environment.

He paused to let the weight of his pronouncement settle in.

“You heard Principal Wittingham this morning. I’ve seen some of the messages you all have been writing to each other. Most of them are innocuous”—Mr. Sword liked to toss around words that most of us didn’t even know how to spell, probably to help us expand our vocabulary, but also maybe to show that he was still the smartest one in the room—“but I’ve seen some that were very...disappointing.”

Those fingers that danced over his piano keys, that painstakingly held tiny plastic pieces of miniature ships in place, were balled into white-knuckled fists.

She was ready to jump to all kinds of conclusions. I decided to stop her.
“We’re writing an essay on Shakespeare,” I said. “Rose asked if I’d look over hers.” It seemed plausible enough.

Now I regretted not at least stuffing the dirty laundry into the always-empty hamper.

I took a deep breath and realized that the whole room exuded a mustiness, sort of mildew meets armpit.

She always just seemed to materialize everywhere, apparating like Harry Potter.

Rose tugged on a strand of tawny hair hanging in front of her face, twisting it around and around.

Then she reached into the wastebasket under the desk and rescued my misshapen komodo dragon, turning it over and over in her hands.

From the kitchen Mom started to really croon.

There was no way of knowing it at the time. No portents of doom. No crows circling overhead. It wasn’t raining frogs.

I shut my locker. They were almost all noteless now, thanks to Principal Wittingham’s proclamation and the darting eyes of the sweater- clad authorities prowling the halls.

The sticky notes were still a perfect weapon—secret and succinct—but you could tell the rules were changing.

He spoke with the resigned sigh of a superhero lamenting the fact that he has to go save the world yet again.

Deedee dipped two trembling fingers into his front pocket and fished out his ebony die with the gold- emblazoned dragon on it.

He went to stuff it back in, but Cameron snatched it from Deedee’s hands and took it between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the dull halogen lights, catching its reflection in the dingy mirror.

Cameron exchanged looks with his two buddies, some predetermined signal.

She was taller than all of them, her face taut, lower lip tucked under her top teeth, and I realized this was the first time I’d ever seen her really, truly angry.

Possible she was bluffing, but I didn’t think so.

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” he said, mustering the necessary bravado to save face with his friends.