Read The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place for Free Online Page A

her Fringie to her stomach. I asked, “What happened?”
    Berkeley Sims stepped forward and said, “Maybe you can tell us.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Ashley exchanged a knowing smile with Berkeley before saying, “That mess was not here when we left, and you were the only one in the cabin.”
    I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t speak. I hopped over the lowest rung of the ladder and made my way up to my bunk, holding on to both rails of the ladder so that they could not see me shaking.
    Looking like two low-wattage infrared bulbs, Aliciaand Blair came over. Stacey and Kaitlin joined them, and then, as if on some unspoken signal, the six of them formed a semicircle and stood shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the bed, giving as wide a berth to the pool of vomit as the space between the beds allowed. I don’t know who said “Clean it up” first. Maybe it was Kaitlin, but it could have been Ashley. I looked around from face to face. They returned my stare, and in that brief exchange of looks, I saw it happen. I saw them change from nasty to vicious. Right before my eyes they closed in, silently at first. Then they linked arms at their shoulders, and with the precision of a line of Radio City Rockettes, they started chanting, “Clean it up, clean it up, clean it up.”
    I was no longer shaking. I was frozen in place. My blind inner self must have told me that they were beyond reason, beyond logic. Anything I could have said—had I been able to speak—would not convince them otherwise. I sat up there on my bed and watched them invent their rage. They had become a warrior gang. They needed a victim. Me.
    They picked up a rhythm. “Clean it up, clean it up, clean it up, up, up.”
    In a groupthink pause between chants, Gloria came in.
    They shut up and quickly dropped arms.
    Gloria assumed the girls were gathered around my bunk out of concern for Heather. “How is she?” she asked. The girls broke up to let Gloria through. She sidestepped the base of the ladder and sat down on the edge of Heather’s bed, just where Mrs. Kaplan had sat earlier. She said, “Jake’s over in the mess hall. Why don’t one of you go tell him what happened. He’ll know what to do.”
    Ashley volunteered to go, but not before exchanging a vile smile with Kaitlin and Alicia.
    That evening when Gloria came back to the cabin, I sat up in my bunk and sang “God Save the Queen.” I sang all five verses all the way through and then sang them all the way through again.
    I was looking out the window, but I was seeing nothing. I was thinking about the three kinds of
we:
The plural
we,
the editorial
we,
and the royal
we.
I could thank my id, the part of my psyche that is totally unconscious, for knowing that Mrs. Kaplan thought she was a queen. My subconscious knew even before I did that the woman thinks she is a royal
we.
It was my id that instinctively chose “God Save the Queen” as the song I should sing. I started to hum it.
    Uncle asked, “What are you singing, Margitkám?”
    â€œThe same song that I sang yesterday.”
    â€œWhat song was that?”
    â€œThe British national anthem. I started singing it yesterday afternoon. Later, I sang it sitting up in my bunk.”
    â€œAlways the same song?”
    â€œAlways ‘God Save the Queen.’” In a weak tremolo I began:
    â€œGod save our gracious Queen,

Long live our noble Queen,

God save the Queen!

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us;

God save the Queen!”
    â€œWhere did you learn that?”
    â€œSixth grade. My language arts teacher was an Anglophile. She made us learn five verses. She said there was a sixth, but she didn’t like it, so we only learned five. Listen to the second verse. It’s my favorite.”
    â€œO Lord our God arise,

Scatter her enemies

And make them fall,

Confound their