Free The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney Page A

year and started a blog called “The Dishonorables.” It was an attack on students who weren’t part of the group. The administration heard about it and did nothing.
    “Why would they?” I asked, a little underwhelmed by the whole thing. “It was just a stupid blog. People say dumb stuff on the Internet all the time.”
    “It wasn’t just saying ‘dumb stuff’ on the Internet. It was relentless insults and taunts and bullying. And one of the girls was so messed up from it—from the name-calling—she left Themis and…”
    “And nobody cared then?”
    “Other than her, no. That’s my point, Alex. Students shouldn’t have to deal with that,” she said, getting that look in her eyes like she was on a mission, like she was about to suit up and play soccer. “Themis totally ignores everything because the very idea of bullying destroys their notion of who Themis students are—of who they’re educating to be future leaders of the world and all that stuff. They let it happen,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “So I decided to do something about it.”
    That something was the Mockingbirds.
    Then she handed me the book—
To Kill a Mockingbird
—and told me to read it. “If
stuff
happens while you’re at Themis, just know you have options.”
    She left the room, and I returned to Liszt because it all sounded kind of melodramatic to me. Then I started atThemis, and I didn’t really think about the Mockingbirds for the next two and a half years, except to use the copy of the book Casey gave me in my freshman lit class.
    Now I’m thinking I might need to crack open that book again.
    I look at Martin the Mockingbird as he writes one more note:
BRING QUARTERS.

    Boo Radley’s been leaving gifts for Scout and Jem as I bite into my apple. I turn the page, and now there are two pennies in the knothole of the tree next to their house. I take another bite, there’s twine; then another, there are two soap figures; another, then the knothole’s covered in concrete.
    Which seems quite
unjust
to me, I decide as I toss the apple core into the trash.
    Maia brought the apple back for me because I wasn’t about to set foot in the cafeteria again. She has her headphones on. She blasts them whenever she’s studying, so I can tell she’s listening to Roxy Music now. Maia has a thing for British bands from the last century.
    “Maia!” I shout. She’s tapping her foot and she’s hunched over a book on her desk, so she doesn’t hear me. I take a piece of paper, crumple it up, and throw it at her. I hit her shoulder. She looks up, pulls the headphones off.
    “Might there be a more civilized way to get my attention?”
    “Did you know Martin was in the Mockingbirds?” I ask.
    “Martin Summers,” she says. “Of course. He’s on the board, along with Amy Nichols and Ilana Ahearn.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I like to know these sorts of things,” Maia says playfully.
    “I don’t even know who those other people are and I definitely didn’t know Martin was on it. He told me in physics today.” I add, “Do you think everyone knows who’s in the Mockingbirds?”
    “Some students know. It’s not supposed to be a secret entirely. That’s partly how they have influence. But I don’t think they broadcast the names. It’s designed to be somewhat clandestine. And you know me—I like to know the things that not everybody else knows. Even if you asked T.S., she couldn’t tell you the names of the others. She barely even knew Martin was on it, and she sees him more than we do.”
    “Maia… do you think
he
knows everything already? Martin, I mean.”
    “I honestly don’t know,” she says. “But why are you so worried about Martin?”
    I shrug. “It’s just I pictured strangers or something, students I don’t really know. It all seemed very abstract and removed when we talked about it earlier today and totally like some bizarre Internet prank when Casey told me about it before I came here.