by Nat Hentoff
“Well, now”—the principal broke briefly into what looked like a jig—“that new school board would be very happy with a principal who knows how to deal with bad books the right way. A principal to whom any member of the new majority of the board could come with a complaint about a book and know it’d be taken care of fast and sure. Yes, sir, and that kind of school board might want to make that kind of principal superintendent of schools.”
Mr. Moore started to hum, and someone with an unusually acute musical ear might have been able to detect in the drone a badly bent trace of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”
“Now that it’s all over,” Barney said, “are we friends?”
Kate smiled. “It’s not all over. Nothing’s ever all over. That’s what keeps me going.”
“Some day we’re all going to be all over,” Luke said. “Do you at least concede that?”
“Some of us,” Kate said, “will not be all over ever, because some of us will have left a mark, a contribution, on which new generations can build. And others of us”—Kate gave Luke a pitying smile—“will simply disappear, as if they had never been here.”
“That mark you’re going to leave”—Luke grinned back—“is that going to be a big ‘T’ and a big ‘C’ for Thought Control?”
“It’s fascinating”—Kate turned to Barney—“to watch so primitive a mind try so hard to function. It’s like The Little Engine That Could. Except she finally made it.”
“She?” Luke slapped his thigh.
“Why is it,” Kate said, “that a piece of machinery can be ‘he’ in the first place but you yelp like a hound-dog if it’s referred to as ‘she’?”
“Kate’s got a point.” Barney smiled.
“Maybe,” Luke said. “But will Kate admit we scored some points, a hell of a lot of points, in the battle of Huck Finn?”
“You won, didn’t you?” She looked at Luke.
“That’s not what I mean,” Luke said. “Did any of our points finally get through to you?”
“Steve Turney got through to me,” Kate said as Barney listened intently. “When he told the school board he could tell when ‘nigger’ was meant for him. And that it wasn’t meant for him in Huckleberry Finn. That bothered me. I thought I’d been fighting for Steve, for everybody black in the school. And here was this black person telling me to butt out of his business. And he wasn’t playing to the white folks, either. Steve doesn’t let anybody mess with him, you know that.”
“So why didn’t you say something after you heard Steve?” Barney asked.
“I had to think about it,” Kate said. “I’m still not saying I’ve changed my mind entirely about that damn book. I’m just saying I’m a little less sure than I was. Anyway,” she went on cheerfully, “it’s all part of the learning process. So take heart, little engine.” Kate patted Luke on the shoulder. “Your mind will grow too—as much as it can.”
“So you’re going to cool it a little from now on?” Luke said to her. “You’re not just going to jump right into something—and wait until it’s all over before you start thinking?”
“I’m going to jump and think, my friend, all at the same time.” She poked Luke in the stomach. “That’s the way I am.”
“If you don’t think before you jump,” Barney said, “you could drown.”
“Wherever have I heard that before?” Kate shook her head. “Actually, my grandfather had a twist to that. He once told me, ‘When someone plunges in the sea and drowns, you can’t blame the sea. You must learn to swim.’ That’s what I’m doing all the time. Swimming and thinking, thinking and swimming right along. The Little Activist That Could. Next time, I’ll beat the socks off you guys.”
“My, my, my,” Mr. Moore’s voice boomed behind them. “What do we have here? Sweet reconciliation—or is it only a truce?”
“It sure ain’t surrender,” Kate said brightly.
“Well, it’s all behind us now.” Mr. Moore smiled all around. “I’m sure there are no hard feelings.”
“Against whom?” Barney said innocently.
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Copyright © 1982 by Marnate Productions, Inc.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-76523-9
RL: 6.2
Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press
August 1983
v3.0
