Get Even Read Free

finger as she filed into the gym with the rest of her AP Government class for Friday’s assembly. The white noise of student chatter punctuated by the occasional squeak of rubber soles against the highly polished maple floor faded into the background as her nerves overwhelmed her. Margot was crawling out of her skin—almost as if it was her first mission with DGM instead of her seventh—and it took every ounce of self-control not to flee campus at a full sprint and beg her parents for a transfer to the local public high school first thing in the morning.
    Calm down .
    Margot had known exactly what she was getting into when she agreed to join Don’t Get Mad. She remembered the moment vividly, as if only two hours had passed instead of almost two years. Freshman religion class, and Kitty, Margot, Bree, and Olivia had been randomly grouped together for a community service project. The four of them had virtually nothing in common: no mutual friends, no shared interests whatsoever. But when it came time to choose an outreach program for the project, all four of them picked the same one—an antibullying awareness group.
    No surprise, really. There was a huge disparity between the wealthy students at Bishop DuMaine and their scholarship classmates, between those with privilege and those without. Bullying was rampant—from rich girls who label-shamed poorer students to locker-room fights and lunch-hour shake downs—and Father Uberti had turned a blind eye. All he cared about were high test scores and athletic championships, both of which boosted enrollment.
    So during an afternoon study session when the conversation turned toward the latest hazing incident at school, and Kitty half-jokingly commented that someone ought to give the varsity football team a taste of their own medicine, Margot—who had experienced firsthand what happened when an administration allowed bullies to rule unchecked—had agreed. DGM had been born.
    Still, the stress of what they were about to do was taking its toll. Margot squeezed her eyes shut and took a slow, silent breath through clenched teeth. Remember what Dr. Tournay says: panic is a state of mind—quiet the mind, quiet the panic.
    Margot inched her way toward the bleachers; the excitement in the gym was palpable, increasing Margot’s antsiness. She had to remember that she was doing something important. She couldn’t go back in time and erase the nightmare that had been junior high, but she could make sure that no one else had to endure the same bullying, or be driven to the same desperate decision that she had made four years ago.
    Just as her nerves began to steady, something heavy barreled into her from behind, knocking her off-balance. Her eyes flew open as her backpack sailed through the air from the force of the impact, hitting the floor of the basketball court so violently the flap ripped open, spewing its contents in all directions.
    Her assailant spun around, flipping his own mostly empty backpack onto the ground next to her oversize cargo pack in a display of outrage. Rex Cavanaugh.
    “What the hell, freshman?” Rex bellowed. “Watch where you’re going.”
    Margot swallowed the biting comeback forming at the tip of her tongue as she eyed the entrails of her backpack strewn across the gym floor. The remote control! She dropped to her knees, frantically retrieving her belongings. If the remote was damaged or lost, the mission would fail.
    Rex snatched his bag off the floor next to her. “Great manners. Not even a ‘sorry.’ Idiot.”
    Pens, loose papers, an array of notebooks. But no remote. Margot seized her bag. She ripped open Velcro pockets and unzipped countless organizational compartments, rifling through her supplies in search of the palm-size remote. Please be there.
    Inside the laptop sleeve her fingers closed around the plastic controller, intact and unharmed. Margot sighed. Crisis averted.
    The loudspeakers crackled as the facilities manager set up a microphone.