According to Gina, if we want a fighting chance we need to start with school-wide advertising. She suggested hand-made fliers could attract the artsy people we’re looking for. She also developed a more official term for the CCC. It’s a vocational club, a place to find your calling. 

When she said so, it felt right.

We scattered ourselves amongst the desks, but eventually, Gina joined me because I really wasn’t up to doing much, and Joel joined Gina, and Ortega joined Joel. Argus and Tigo grouped away from us, but they weren’t far off.

Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes is all it took for the knowledge belonging to each of these five individuals to double inside my aching head. It turns out Joel and Ortega have been renowned psychics at this school for the whole four years I’ve been showing up, and although Ortega has embraced the strangeness that comes with their fame, his older twin has dropped the façade having little to no regrets. Their interactions with Tigo and Argus have made it clear that Joel is the duo’s authority figure and Ortega is another partner to add to their crimes.

"I don't like doin' stupid stuff no more." Joel explained.

And hijole, do they do stupid stuff. Since sophomore year, Argus has tried unsuccessfully to land himself at least one day of suspension. I wonder what bad juju could have befallen his character that he could carve on top of Principle Romo’s desk, admit to the crime, and come out clean with no probation. Ortega had said he was the one to prophecize his bad fortune, but Argus hadn’t listened. When he finished his tale, I sat there in contemplation, watching Gina cut little squares out of pink paper with a look of horror on her face.

“But Principal Romo said it was dead rats,” she said.

Gina is the one who really got them going. Earlier, Joel got a papercut and released a “puta-.” And the moment she casually mentioned how her previous club disallowed cussing, Argus released a slow song of profanity that Tigo followed with a beat against the desk. She didn’t think Argus had it in him, but I knew, and I laughed despite myself.

He only mentioned Principal Romo’s incident to get a second reaction from us—it doesn’t take long, when you really see him, to know that Argus loves a reaction.

“You're funny, Gina,” he replied.

One thing I've discovered about Gina in these thirty minutes is this: The girl has kindness and nurture that others are attracted to like butterflies to nectar. But I think she has no street smarts. Hope’s Heart must have sucked the darkness out of her, I know that shit for sure.

Now, her hands cut slowly, methodically, around a pretty musical note that she drew on glittery construction paper. She probably wants to curse too, just out of frustration with what she's going through, but her years of dwelling with the pious and the studious have made her rigid.

Ortega and I both watch her, intrigued like swallowtails, but maybe for different reasons. I’m not focused enough on arts and crafts, and Ortega—

“No touch,” Joel says, putting his hand over the scissors that his brother is intent on having.

“They’re safety scissors, shit. I’m tryin’ a help.”

“In your hands, not even bandaids are safe, vato,” Tigo says. The last word comes out smooth, but you can tell he doesn’t speak Spanish day to day.

There’s not much I know for sure ‘bout Tigo Gart. All I’ve gathered is that he has a resentment as large and far-reaching as his ego. When he isn’t writing in a journal, he takes jabs at everyone, including his best friend, and throws looks my way like he’s trying to figure out where he can touch a nerve and come out unscathed. But shit’s hard, huh? When my everything is as rough as the skin of my knee.

“It’s alright, actually. You should help,” Gina says to Ortega, who went back to folding little hand-made pamphlets. “Creasing paper gets boring. I would know. I was working in the main office for three years.”

Ortega smiles gratefully, a little shyly, even as Joel objects.

“He likes to cut everything into little eyes. He does it with his own assignments. I’m the one who taught him how to do it and now I’m alive to regret it.”

Gina raises her eyebrows at Ortega, allowing him the chance to explain himself. I watch too, from a chair beside her, expecting to hear something weird come out of his mouth. 

Instead, he rubs his black fuzzy head. “Mch! I’m not gonna. This is important.”

Joel claps back, “And your assignments are what? Basura?”

“Nah, man. Go back to cutting your paper.” He murmurs, pouting, and then louder he says. “Why am I gettin’ all the flack? Mari ain’t doin’ shit either.”

Tigo Gart doesn’t even take a breath, jumping on the chance immediately. “If she’s gonna be in this club, she better do some work. You slow, or something?”

I don’t answer. I can hear the squeak of Argus’ wheelchair. Minutes ago, he went to sit with Tigo at a cluster of desks behind me. Whatever the gesture he makes now, I don’t hear Tigo speak again.

“Mari’s tired,” Gina explains, and our eyes meet, “But she could help me after the club. Right?”

“Aight,” I say. “ Gimme. I’ll cut some paper.” And Tigo’s throat, but I don’t add that.

“Yes! After-club meetings, that’s such a good idea. I’d love to help y'all...but I have to drive us home.” Joel hands me a blue construction paper with partially cut out flower designs. “Let me go get another pair of scissors from the art room next door. The safety ones are a little too small for all of us.”

When he leaves, I pick up the designs and examine them. Musical notes, technology, tools for arts and crafts, flowers for gardening. All the clubs that were guillotined by the school are represented here. They belong to him, and they’re well drawn, lines hardly visible once you cut them. I think about adding my own, a little butterfly, but I decide against it.

“Here, glide it like this,” I hear Ortega say, and I put the construction paper down.

Gina’s in the middle of cutting a straight line but the paper keeps getting caught along the way. She leans sideways, allowing Ortega to loom over on one shoulder and guide her hands up the paper.

“My bro gets cut up all the time, but the ass won’t let me help him. He gets pissed when I check out his art projects.” He sits again. “Maybe there are bad spirits in the house.”

“Maybe,” Gina responds. Her ears grow red. “Thank you, Ortega.”

“No problem, Güera.”

Tigo lets a rush of air escape his nostrils. I can hear him behind me say, “ I didn’t know you liked small tits, Orte.”

The tip of my tongue juts out from my teeth and stops before the inside of my lips. I have the feeling like I wanna spew hot oil, my chest telling me to speak sour, and because Gina’s looking at me like she knows I’m about to say something she doesn't want me to, the feeling sprouts roots and grows.

“Man, you’re just mad Gina’s not falling for your dark poet bullshit.” Ortega wags his eyebrows. He slices through the tension so quick that I actually exhale when he speaks.

“You write poetry, Tigo?” Gina asks politely. Not mad at all. Not like I was.

“If you’re talking sonnets, no. I don’t do love poems either.”

“Oh! Are we talking about Tigo’s poetry?” Joel returns with a pair of scissors in his bandaid-covered hands. “I’ve read his stuff. It’s so good. Keep tellin’ you to publish, Tigo”

“Please boy, you talk like it’s easy. Not all of us have a full-scholarship and galleries lined up.” Although his words aren’t nice, they’re not as blunt as the blows he throws the others. Ortega reacts like he’s been insulted, but I can’t even begin to imagine how.

Joel smacks his lips, defensive but not angry. “Tigo, my scholarship was a chance in a million.”

“I get it. I’m just meant to be a wasted genius,” he says. “And some of us are just meant to be straight trash, right Mari?”

Argus, who had been unusually quiet up until now, says, “You worked hard, Joel. Tigo could use half your drive to talk to a college counselor.”

“Or a regular counselor,” I say without a second thought.

“Oh, so you do speak. I thought you were brain dead.” He’s dead mad. No wit in his voice. Something about a counselor must have wrung a cord.

“We remain in this classroom with your ass and we’ll all be,” I say.

“The doors right there, goth hoe.”

“Then maybe you should walk right through it and not come back.”

“Oh please, you get into one fight and you think your tough shit.”

“And you think cause no one’s taken your pen and stabbed you with it that you’re untouchable.”

He snorts, “Why don’t you and your pathetic groupie fuck outta here?”

“Mari—” Gina stands.

I had turned around and shoved a desk so hard it slid all the way to where his cluster was, knocking the supplies on the surface to the ground.

"—please calm—"

I sever through her words with blistering hot rage, all directed at Tigo Gart. “I don’t give two shits what your problems are. If you wanna bruise me, stop beating about and pick up your fucking fists because I'm done talkin'.”

“I'm not hitting you, girl.”

“Really, cause you’ve been doing it since I stepped in front of you. Do you think your words are any softer than the punches we can throw each other? Prove it then.”

The room cannot possibly hear the suffocating anger that makes my heart pump so hard. They can’t know it’s making my chest full and my head as light as wings and my stomach as heavy as the tires left abandoned on my street.

“Ey, Mari.” A hand touches my shoulder. Ortega stands about ten inches past my own height, and though he’s not using his stature to intimidate me, I know he’s saying that he’s capable of putting up a barrier between me and his friend. “Let’s go outside, girl. Cool off.”

I shrug off his touch. If I’m going to leave, I’m not doing it with an escort.

“Okay. Let’s all chill. Meeting over for today,” Joel says. “Um, Gina if you—oh...” His voice fades away. I’m out and in the hallway before I decide to turn around and really break my pacifist streak.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Coming here. If I wanted to get verbally punched, I’d stay at Trinidad’s heels. I’d do the things Linda wants for her kids and let Rosario have her digs come in swift. If I wanted to remind myself that I’m a bruja, a wicked witch, I’d go to church with Estela and set myself aflame.

“Mari, wait!”

She’s walking near, not too close but enough so I can tell she’s a couple of feet behind me. I slow before I round a corner.

“Let’s go,” Gina whispers. But she’s authoritative. Calm. Strong.

Suddenly, my temper isn’t as suffocating anymore.