Activist

PART ONE

NOW

SEPTEMBER

with smiles,

our faces shine

bunches or braids,

black, pink, green –

caught in the sun;

brown and blonde,

we burn,

bright rivers of girls;

red and gold,

We run,

RAINBOW

with smiles,

our faces shine

bunches or braids,

black, pink, green –

caught in the sun;

brown and blonde,

we burn,

bright rivers of girls;

red and gold,

We run,

Dilly, Lori, Ria

and me.

Our names are

atoms

exploding

colour,

and we are not the same

but we are everything to one another.

FIRST DAY

Here we come.

Gilded air greets us and

bows like a waiter

proffering knowledge

from a tempting silver spoon,

we pass manicured lawns,

and smiling teachers out to meet us.

I stop,

try to breathe,

here we go:

okay,

I can take it,

I will face it

and another school year begins.

TOWERS

Surrounding us:

walls.

Brick wrapped in ivy the red of old blood,

the flashing crimson of last year, the year before,

when I started to understand

the way things are here.

Why wouldn’t Mum let me leave, go somewhere else?

The college in town? I could have got a bus,

ridden my bike,

but she worries, says, no –

it’s too

dangerous.

I pause at the gates.

The woods call,

the trees,

the cradle of branches

where I have spent the summer

staring at the sky, trying to work out answers

to the questions my GCSE papers didn’t ask.

SAME OLD

A brand-new form.

People I like, but also

people I don’t.

They’re all so loud,

going on about fancy holidays abroad

and who hooked up with who.

They leak mercury laughter, release pesticide smiles.

Dilly laughs, pulls a face, and nods.

Yup, same old same old, I suppose.

PERIOD ONE

Maths and the relief of equations.

Unemotional, the page

demands my cool deliberation.

I try to lose myself in the work,

not to wrestle

with the knowledge of

binary systems

and

gaping

holes.

I try to ignore the urgency of sunshine.

The clamour of fresh air.

I try to concentrate on

the possibilities here

(Mum’s voice reminding me to

think of your future,

the doors wide open for you,

how lucky you are)

but there are whispers

as pens and pencils scratch at paper,

and phones flash under tables,

the distractions of

rifling pages.

Someone coughs,

and someone laughs.

Lori and I meet eyes.

I shake my head and get back to work.

TERRITORY

The bell rings for break and we rush

towards the common room,

shaking off yawns,

hugging friends we haven’t seen for hours.

One lesson down. Four to go.

It smells musty,

and I can’t touch the green of the day

or see myself walking across the ancient quad

out of here.

Music plays, cans hiss.

I taste last chances and

something off.

We sit, a tangle of friends.

The look in Lori’s eyes as she says,

"Shit, Cass, I missed you,

thank God you didn’t leave and go to St Nick’s –

for a while there we were worried,

weren’t we, Ree?

Where’ve you been all summer anyway?"

She hugs me tight as if to prove it,

covering my cheeks and face with sloppy kisses.

Maria links my arm, agrees,

puts her head on my shoulder,

leaning in.

We claim a space

in the jungle of bodies, the chaos of noise.

CORDELIA

I look up.

Our corner

is diagonally opposite from

their corner

but we try not to take any notice of

the lads who whoop

when Cordelia walks past

coming to join us.

She flicks a finger, a perfect flash of disdain,

dodges snapping crocodile jaws,

moving fast and safe.

I sigh, we roll our eyes –

well, that’s what worked this time last year

when we kept their nonsense

almost

quiet.

TREMORS

But something’s going on this morning,

something’s rumbling,

you can feel it in the hot glances,

a pulse that’s quickening and rising.

What the hell is it now?

I can’t be doing with their war.

Okay, here we go. It starts.

God, I’m already tired.

READY

What? I call across the room,

(because that’s what my friends expect –

that I’ll speak up – and I guess I sound

the same, my voice as loud as it always was).

What’s up with you lot?

It’s Camilla who marches over,

swishy and sexy in her uniform

which is supposed to make us look

smart, not hot,

but she manages both

in a way I can’t

and, quite frankly, don’t want.

She looks me in the eye and says,

"Come on then, Cassandra. Admit it.

Was it one of you lot?"

Was what us?

I look at my mates,

we shrug and raise our eyebrows, and ask her

what the hell she’s going on about.

AIM

Camilla shoves her phone under my nose

and a page reloads.

We gather, close

and read.

FIRE

My friends watch me.

Wait.

I push Camilla’s phone away,

and quietly, seriously, I look her

dead in the eyes.

"Camilla – come on,

you know what it’s like –

are you seriously saying

you’re surprised?"

Tell me, she says, her face flushing,

who posted this pack of lies?

"How the hell should I know?

And what makes you think it’s not true?

Or that this has something to do with

one of your mates?

Enlighten us.

I mean, this post doesn’t name names."

We stare, she blinks first, almost flinches

when I won’t look away and I hold it, right there,

the challenge to decide

if she really wants to do this

with me,

right here.

Why doesn’t she get

that the fact that

someone has had to post online

on an anonymous site

that she’s been drugged

and raped

because there was no one to tell

because no one heard when we said

that the boys

treat the girls here

like meat

should be what’s making her scream?

She knows I’m goading her, insinuating

something she doesn’t want to accept,

but just as

I’m about to tell her

she needs to rethink her allegiances,

that her idea of feminism is seriously confusing me,

our phones ping,

unsolicited

notifications trill and twitter,

I stare at a message

flashed

and flashing

on my screen,

a picture of someone’s

dick

cock

penis

whatever you want to call it,

unimpressive appendage, appallingly lit.

I hold up my phone, show the room

I’m not scared, shaking my head,

taking the piss.

What else can we do but mock

the state of it?

What would happen if we reported this?

Come on, then, Lori shouts,

"which sad little man

thinks this is cute?"

But the game here isn’t to make us laugh,

it’s to make us scared.

That’s what gets me,

that’s what makes me

too impatient

to wait for some authority

to act and reassure me

that it’s okay, a one-off, they’re good guys really

and we ought not get so

mad.

WE RISE

I don’t recognise the account

but I know the style

of the next photo – even more pornographic,

utterly vile.

So I get up and go,

over to their side

of the room,

swallowing bile and

armed with disgust,

a weapon that only fires

so far

but is all

I’ve got.

You know what, Jamie Jenkins, you’re completely gross,

I snarl into his face,

"and I’m going to show this screenshot to the police

on the day you get arrested,

as I’m sure you will,

for being an actual pervert

whose brain,

– if he has one,

and that’s up for debate –

is currently lodged somewhere between his legs."

His friends are watching, creasing up and

howling with the comedy

of harassing us,

at me

standing there

trying to convince them

that they

Just. Aren’t. Funny.

Jamie’s grin is wide and white,

body spasming at how

hilarious he thinks he is.

Who says I sent that? he laughs

Like, you can prove it, right?

I stab a finger in his direction.

"Did you even read that post?

Don’t you give a shit about that girl?

She’s one of us.

Someone here, in this school,

maybe in this room,

and all