You're Welcome, Universe

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text, cover art, and interior illustrations copyright © 2017 by Whitney Gardner

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780399551413 (trade) | ISBN 9780399551420 (lib. bdg.) | ebook ISBN 9780399551437

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Acknowledgments

  For all the girls looking to leave their mark on the world

  Six stencils in and it’s gone. Okay, the tag vanished by Stencil Number Two, but I have a point to prove. I’m not covering up your scribbled slur with just anything. I’m making art here. I’m creating. I’m on fire.

  I’ve never thrown up such an intense piece—I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pull it off in time. My arm flies across the wall, pink paint striping across the last stencil. It looks like it’s going to work out. I chuckle to myself. This is what it’s all been for, the hours of paint-pen practice, filling up every inch of every sketchbook with tags and words and pictures. All my hard work has paid off, and it’s all up here on the wall.

  I know I shouldn’t be tagging the school. I know that. But I wasn’t the first, and that mess had to go. Jordyn told the principal that someone tagged the gym, she had to. The vandal singled her out, and word gets around real quick at Kingston School for the Deaf. But three weeks went by, and “Jordyns a SLUT” was still there on the back of the gym for all to see. And good ole Principal Howard hadn’t done a damn thing.

  No one gets to call my best friend a slut, especially not up on a wall, not on my turf. She asked for help, and I took matters into my own paint-stained hands. I designed a killer piece, cut out the stencils, shook up the cans, and got to work.

  I’m getting away with it. I’m about to get up. On my way to becoming an all-city queen of street art. I rip down the last stencil, take a step back, and admire my work. It’s killer. You’re welcome, Universe. I check over both of my shoulders again, eyes on constant watch. I can’t rely on my ears, so my eyes work overtime. It’s nice and dark. I pretend I’m nothing but a shadow.

  I’m so proud I just can’t help myself and I text Jordyn a picture of the new mural on my way back home.

  “You don’t have any proof!” I snap at our principal.

  “Don’t lie to me, Julia. You’ll only make it worse.” His hands are big, with stubby fingers. He might be hearing, but he signs perfectly. He has to, or he never would have gotten the job.

  “I’m not lying! You can’t say it was me.” I know there are no cameras on that side of Kingston. I know there won’t be any footage to review.

  “I have all the proof I need. Look at your hands!”

  I’m so stupid. I was being lazy. I’m going to need to buy gloves. Lots and lots of gloves.

  “This was from art class.” I sign as fast as I can before dropping my hands out of view and into my lap.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance to tell the truth, Miss Prasad.” Mr. Howard seems more agitated than angry. He keeps sighing, looking at me with droopy, tired eyes.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry.” Let me go already, you’ve got nothing. He stares at me, waiting for a better answer. I’m not giving it to him. I’m not confessing to anything, as much as I want to take credit for it. He hangs his head and pinches the bridge of his nose.

  “Well, what can you tell me about this?”

  My heart shakes up in my chest like a paint can as he produces a cell phone from his desk drawer, the case dotted with red cherries. It’s Jordyn’s. He slides it across the desk like some detective on Law & Order.

  I don’t want to look. I don’t need to. I know what’s about to happen. And I know without looking that Jordyn, my best friend in the universe, sold me out. How could she?

  “The paint on your hands, the picture on her phone. You can’t tell me you didn’t do it.”

  “Fine. But I was covering up—”

  “That’s not your job.”

  “Well, whose job is it? Because that nasty graffiti was up there forever.”

  “Not your job. We had someone scheduled to take care of it.”

  “But mine is art!”

  “That’s not art, it’s vandalism. I’m worried about you; you’re not exactly showing any remorse here,” he lectures. My face flushes hot with rage. He’s not worried about me, he’s relieved he has someone to pin it on. I wonder if the slut-shaming toy-tagger got the fifth degree, too. I doubt it.

  “I don’t understand what the big deal is! I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t destroy anything. I’ve tagged the girls’ room dozens of times. No one cared then—”

  “You what?!” His face is turning as red as mine.

  “So now, when I try to make something worthwhile, art even, you’re up in arms, calling me a vandal?” Just tell me how much detention I have so we can all move on with our lives, and I can X-Acto–cut Jordyn out of mine. I wonder how long she had to sit here before stabbing me in the back. She’s s
pineless, so she’s always asked me to break the rules for her. Which I’ve done plenty of times, because I thought we were a team. I bet all Mr. Howard had to do was ask, and she rolled right over like a David Hockney dachshund. The light by Mr. Howard’s door flashes, indicating first period is about to begin. All my anger fizzles away and I just feel weak, depleted at the thought of Jordyn heading off to her first class, no worries, all smiles, while I get interrogated.

  Mr. Howard stands up and walks to his office door without saying a word. He opens it and my stomach flips; all my bravado turns bashful as he ushers my mothers into the room. It’s one thing to piss off the principal. I can barely look at my parents as he tells them I’m expelled.

  —

  It’s silent.

  Who am I kidding? It’s always silent, but this—I can feel it. Like for the first time, I know what the word really means. It pounds in my head. Silence is the loudest sound. Ma doesn’t scowl in the rearview. Mee doesn’t sign a word.

  I messed up. It was beautiful. Not a masterpiece but, I don’t know, close? Didn’t matter, got caught. Shouldn’t have done it on school property and definitely shouldn’t have texted anyone evidence; those were toy mistakes and I knew better. I stood up for Jordyn, tried to save her dignity. She cried and cried the day we discovered it. And when it looked like the school wasn’t going to help her, I did. I helped her, and she ratted me out—I just don’t understand. I get expelled and Jordyn gets what? Nothing.

  The expulsion was an overreaction, if you ask me. But that was the “final straw” and “the school won’t be responsible” for whatever “mayhem” (really?) I cause next. My first real piece and I’m expelled. And now I need a new tag. Go ahead, call me a vandal, say I’m some sort of delinquent, it isn’t going to insult me. It’s not going to stop me. Please. This is what I live for.

  Silence. I stare at the backs of my parents’ heads, waiting for one of them to start in on me. Waiting for Mee’s pointer finger to fly to her chin with that grimace she saves for special occasions.

  Disappointed.

  —

  It never comes, so I kick off my shoes and rush upstairs as soon as we’re home. If they’re not talking yet, I’m not going to be the first. I crash-land onto my bed face-first and grip the quilt in clenched fists. I pound the mattress. What’s! Wrong! With! Her?! Who would do something like that? She was the only real friend I had, the only one who knew me and my whole paint-splattered story. It eats at me, worming its way through my stomach and up to my brain. Neither organ can make any sense of it.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I’m hoping Jordyn has a damn good explanation for what she did to me. Because only one person I know would be texting me right now.

  JORDYN: Srry :(

  JULIA: щ(ºДºщ)

  That’s it?

  JORDYN: They were gonna call the cops. On meeee!

  JULIA: ¬_¬

  JULIA: No. They weren’t.

  JORDYN: Mayb.

  JULIA: They kicked *me* out!

  JORDYN: I didnt think they would really do it.

  JULIA: WHY

  JORDYN: Idk. I mean u did break the law and stuff.

  JULIA: Standing up for you!

  JORDYN: U didn’t have to. I didnt ask u.

  JULIA: Are you kidding me?!?!

  JORDYN: It’s not like u care abt getting in trouble.

  JORDYN: I did u a favor. Ur gonna be famous now.

  JORDYN: Don’t be so mad.

  I stuff my phone under my pillow. I don’t care what else she has to say. Nothing can make up for what’s already been done. Nothing.

  I love gray days. Every tree, building, telephone pole highlighted against the gesso-colored sky. This past week has been especially overcast and it’s a relief. I thought getting registered at a new school would take at least a month, that I would get to stay out of the educational system for a while. But with both of my moms at the helm, it only took four days. Now, three weeks in at Finley, the spotlight hasn’t grown any dimmer. I welcome the clouds. Bring on the fog.

  It’s getting to be that time of year when it’s still dark in the morning and the roads are empty. The drive to Finley is one of the few things I don’t hate about the transfer. You would think the forty minutes it takes to commute from Queens Village would suck, but I love driving. Gives me time to think. I drive through the ’burbs of Greenlawn with the tree-lined sidewalks and traffic lights reflecting in the wet road. The leaves aren’t turning yet, but they’re about to. I spot a red leaf here and there, pilot lights to the season. Just me and my car, Lee.

  Good ole Lee. I bought her off of Craigslist this summer for twelve hundred bucks, a 1994 Oldsmobile. She’s older than I am, but she’s got some moves left. When I got her, she was this horrible maroon color. Now she’s perfect: black and white, with flecks of color here and there. Krasner meets Basquiat. That’s Lee. She’s the only real friend I have left, the only one who’s never let me down.

  I fish through my bag on the passenger seat, getting my morning ritual started en route. Pull out a can of Red Bull, hold it between my thighs (I’m an expert at driving one-handed), and crack it open. I hate coffee. It’s either bitter or sour or chalky, not to mention the bad breath. Red Bull isn’t the most delicious morning elixir, but a girl’s gotta get a jolt from something.

  Pulling into the parking lot of my new hellscape, I look for a spot up front in case I need to make a quick getaway. I haven’t actually tried escaping from school yet, but you never know. Doesn’t matter that the overly accommodating administrators reserved a spot for me next to the front doors. I refuse to park there. I can walk. Don’t baby me.

  I don’t get the best spot this morning, but it’s not a gym day, so I probably won’t feel the need to flee. I reach to put Lee into Park when—SLAM!—she lurches forward and my seat belt digs into my chest. I swivel around in my seat and look out the rear window.

  Kyle Fucking Stokers.

  He tried to park in my spot, not noticing that my car was already there. What a tool. He’s one of those people who’s unaware of anyone or anything else in his vicinity. Bow down to him, the only person on earth who truly matters. So of course this whole ordeal is about to be blamed on me. Doesn’t matter that I was already parked, minding my own business. I exist, therefore I am at fault.

  I get out, not bothering to put on my shoes. My socks are getting damp as I walk around on the wet pavement. Lee’s bumper is okay, no real harm done. Tough bird. Some of my paint job has come away, but the maroon showing through isn’t a tragedy. I’m the only person who would even notice. Before I can get a closer look, there’s hands on my shoulders and Kyle spins me around to face him. He’s yelling.

  “What—-—-——-parking here?!”

  There’s always a moment when one of these kids asks me a question and I have to figure out if speaking is worth the risk.

  I cross my arms.

  “You—--aint—my bum—r!” he rages. It’s not easy to lip-read when people are yelling at you. Despite what the distorted-face yeller might actually think.

  I stare back at Kyle. He probably spent more time on his dusty blond hair this morning than I ever spend on mine. He has great eyebrows, but that’s beside the point.

  “Well?” He gestures to his car again and again, trying to drive his point home.

  Walking over to his slick silver car, I spit on my sleeve. I should be yelling at him. I should scream and say, “You ran into ME, dipshit!” Honestly? He’s not worth it. I buff off the paint and gesture at the spot. All better. I raise my eyebrows and smile. He doesn’t catch the sarcasm.

  “Bitches shouldn’t drive,” he says slowly, deliberately. I catch every word. He turns and walks toward the school. I imagine throwing my keys at him, chasing him down, kicking his shins until he’s on the ground. I slam my fists into his chest over and over and—

  There’s a tap on my shoulder and I snap to. Kyle disappears into school through the double doors.

  “Ju
lia! Where are your shoes?” Casey signs. She’s looking at me like I’m crazy, not a hair out of place in her perfectly cut chin-length bob. Her eyes behind her black-framed glasses are magnified to a ridiculous size, like something out of a Margaret Keane painting. I point over to Lee.

  “One minute,” I reply. “See you in history.” I shoo her away from me, because the last thing I need is Casey thinking she can solve all my problems outside of class, too.

  I get back in the car and peel off my socks. Great. Now I’m going to end up with blisters. Mee bought me new Doc Martens before the transfer. She winked when she gave them to me—a signal she reserves for when something is to be kept just between us. Ma would kill her if she knew Mee was buying me gifts now. Rightfully so; I know I don’t deserve them. But they make me smile. They’re yellow, my favorite color. Problem is, they’re impossible to break in and twice as impossible to drive in, so I drive in my socks and put the boots on before school. I squeeze my size 10 feet in and lace them up loosely.

  I reach into the backseat to grab my hoodie, but the one I pull out isn’t mine. It’s Jordyn’s, all purple and pilly. It even smells like her. How long has it been in here? Sand spills out of the folds, and I remember that day on Coney Island when we shared a spicy mango on a stick. Like we always did. Like we never will again. Not any time soon. I shove it under the passenger seat. I can’t stand to look at it right now.