Queer Friendship and Active Shooter Drills: Fight + Flight by Jules Machias

Trigger warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, bullying, grief, gun violence in schools

Fight + Flight has two main characters, Avery and Sarah, who take turns narrating. They attend the same school and each begins the book interested in the other. Bold, active Avery is openly pansexual; she knows she has a crush. And, as a middle school student, she knows the best route is passing a note in class! Sarah, quiet and anxious, tries to emulate Avery when she needs to speak in front of the class. She can’t imagine hanging out, though. She’s already decided to say no—

And then they’re huddled together under their teacher’s desk, listening to shouts and gunshots from the hallway.

The commotion is quickly revealed to be a drill. Some students joked around during the last active shooter drill, and as this one wraps up, the principal announces over the loudspeaker that he hopes this time students have taken things seriously. Needless to say, the event leaves the students traumatized. Avery and Sarah grow closer in the aftermath, but while Sarah focuses on a positive goal of helping her classmates recover, Avery spirals into revenge.

The dual points of view work so well in this book. Each girl has a unique voice. Avery narrates casually and jumps from thought to thought; Sarah’s chapters are written as journals, complete with her adorable sketches. I love an epistolary style, and it suits introspective Sarah. While Avery’s narration and dialogue pretty much align, Sarah’s hesitant speech contrasts with her emotionally honest writing.

Both characters’ disabilities impact their lives consistently. Avery has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Her joints tend to bend farther than most, but what started as a cool party trick for a kid has become a monotony of pain and PT in early adolescence. Avery struggles to ask for or accept help. Needless to say, she’s not loving these new limitations. Sarah has been consistently anxious since her aunt died and her cousins moved away. A character like Sarah—quiet, sweet, shy—could easily be made into a gooey cliché of a girl too pure for this world. In that way, I appreciated the author having Sarah worry about befriend Avery. Avery, Sarah knows, has some kind of disease. What if they get close and Avery dies and leaves Sarah behind?

Where this one loses me somewhat is the messaging. I think it wanted to say that everyone is trying their best and deserves compassion. And, to a point, I agree. However, the gaps between “their best” and “actual help” can vary. Avery’s parents really try to be there for her, but never take the time to really sit down and get her to open up about her feelings: completely valid examples of trying their best. Sarah’s parents constantly keep Fox News on in the background, despite how this impacts her openly gay brother, and resources are clearly stretched in their home. The book seems to be playing a tired old “both sides” song, portraying Fox News as just another viewpoint, never pushing back against the parents’ claims of “defending the unborn”, and couching their neglect of Sarah as an effect of economic stress. Sarah is constantly sniffling and sleeps in a basement room without a door. The parents don’t have a lot, sure, but I can’t fathom parents who can’t let her sleep in their living room or at least scrounge up a secondhand rug from Goodwill for this room: it has a bare concrete floor.

That sort of perspective kept the narrative’s ultimate treatment of Avery from feeling justified. Avery, the narrative seems to say, is wrong. Avery came up with a plan to set off fireworks outside the principal’s house: this was wrong. Avery can be pretty forceful with her best friend, Mason, roping him into wild schemes; not only is this wrong, it’s racist. The parallel drawn here is especially weak, with Mason reminding Avery of a time he made a disparaging comment about her being on her period, but never repeated it after being told off. So why was Avery meant to know how Mason felt without being told? Even the principal is humanized in the narrative, while Avery endures an absolute buffet of crow pie.

So the book doesn’t stick the landing. Overall, though, still a solid offering. Avery and Sarah are strong characters. Their journeys through trauma and disability are relatable and overall empathetically written. Sarah’s illustrations throughout are so cute, and Avery’s narration absolutely pops. I loved watching the girls develop a friendship and a maybe-something-more-ship. Definitely a worthy addition to the shelves of sapphic middle grade literature!