Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? by Cynthia Voigt Page B

you.” He looked at them with an eager, intelligent expression, like some scientist checking out his thesis with a microscope.
    Mikey looked at Margalo. What was she supposed to say to this?
    â€œUs too,” said Cassie. “Me and Tim and Felix did all the work. Did you tell him that?”
    â€œWhat about me?” asked Jace. “I did the sketch of Sven. Everybody says it’s great. Peter Paul says it’s the best of the three.”
    For a moment Cassie couldn’t think of any response. Then she could. “Like I care. Like this is all about you. Which it isn’t,” she pointed out. “It’s about Hadrian and our restraining order.”

    The effect of the restraining order was immediate; that is to say, nothing happened. Friday passed entirely without incident, however much people were hoping otherwise, or expecting otherwise. The trio kept to themselves as much as they could, and when the necessity of classes separated them, they kept their heads down and their mouths shut.
    The mood at Lunch A on Friday was jubilant.
    By the next Monday, Sven had withdrawn from school. Toby held out until Tuesday. Toby was going to finish out the year in Iowa, where his mother had a sister, and maybe he’d stay there for his senior year too. Sven, rumor reported happily, was heading off to a military school after Christmas, and until then he was grounded. Sven’s parents had been infuriated throughout this whole process, by the police, by the suspension, by what had happened to their son—although what exactly they meant by that phrase was not clear. They decided he needed more discipline. This left Harold alone, and alone, Harold became Harold the Harmless.
    Hadrian could now, they all felt, walk the halls in safety, although they all did understand that, for Hadrian, safety was a relative term. Hadrian would always—always in school, at least—have less security than most. But he now had a lot more than before, almost as much as everybody else—which, they sensed, probably wasn’t as much as they thought they had. In any case, Hadrian was happy with the results of the restraining order.
    â€œI guess you’ll really be giving thanks this year,” Tim remarked, and Hadrian agreed.

    As if that weren’t enough, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, John Lawrence was absent from school, which meant that Hadrian, as his understudy, played Bottom during rehearsal. This rehearsal took place in the auditorium, on the stage, where Ms. Hendriks had moved them to give her cast time to get used to an actual theatrical setting. They were rehearsing the awakening scene, which began with people asleep all over the stage. As the scene went on, they woke up and spoke their lines and exited, until only Bottom was left. Until then Hadrian’s acting had been limited to the occasional well-timed snore, which nobody had much noticed, although it made Ms. Hendriks smile to herself. As the last remaining actors went offstage, Hadrian acted Bottom waking up.
    Ms. Hendriks had stood up from her seat at the center of the front row to end that rehearsal, but Hadrian started to speak. His voice was as thick and confused as if he really had been deep in an enchanted sleep. “ ‘When my cue comes, call me.’ ”
    At the sound of this voice Ms. Hendriks fell absolutely still, listening.
    Hadrian stumbled a little, looking around him for friends who had fled long ago, then he seemed to move a few steps closer to consciousness as he came a few steps closer to the front of the stage.
    Ms. Hendriks was all attention.
    Margalo almost laughed out loud from the pleasure of this,of Hadrian acting, of the teacher realizing how talented Hadrian was. This was exactly what she had predicted would happen, and there was the pleasure of Shakespeare’s lines, too, the way Hadrian spoke them.
    Hadrian had the part memorized, and he went smoothly on, with Bottom’s unique