Standing Up to Mr. O.

by Claudia Mills

  Jake didn’t say anything else. As the silence started to stretch on again, Maggie summoned all her conversational resources and asked, too cheerfully, “What are you writing your essay on?”

  Jake gave a low, bitter laugh. “Like I’d bother to write one. Nobody in this school gives a damn about my opinions.”

  “I do.” Did she? What else could she say? She couldn’t very well say: Yup, well, that’s true. And she had been wondering about Jake for days, what went on behind those eyes, why he would be the only person in the biology class to see what she saw and feel what she felt.

  Jake reached over and took her hand. Maggie almost tumbled off the bleachers in shock. No boy had ever held her hand before. She felt acutely uncomfortable: she barely knew Jake; she hadn’t spoken ten sentences to him in her whole entire life. And yet in a strange way she had as much in common with him as she did with Alycia—Alycia who still had a father and a perfect A average in biology class.

  “You’re different from the others,” Jake said.

  “I am?” Maggie tried to ease her hand away, but she could tell that she would have to tug pretty hard to release it, and she didn’t want to hurt Jake’s feelings. Nor was the sensation of his warm fingers around hers totally unpleasant.

  “You care about things, about people. You even care about worms.” Jake gave his dark laugh again. “I guess if you can care about worms, you can care about anything. Including my half-assed opinions. Maggie McIntosh, the all-purpose carer.”

  To Maggie’s mingled relief and disappointment, he let go of her hand. She quickly put it in her jumper pocket, giving a little shiver so that Jake would think she had hidden her hand because the afternoon was growing chilly, not because she was afraid he might try to hold it again.

  “You cold?”

  “A little bit.” She was wearing only a sweater, and the sun was sinking low in the cloud-streaked sky.

  Jake slipped off his black leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Better?”

  Maggie nodded. She had never felt more tense and awkward in her life. And yet … there was something undeniably romantic about a boy offering her his jacket. She tried to think of Matt offering her his jacket—offering her anything—and failed completely.

  “Are you going to do the fish dissection?” Jake asked.

  “No. What about you?”

  “Same here. Another F.” Jake said it with perverse satisfaction. Maggie wondered which he wanted more: not to do the dissection or to lay claim to another failing grade.

  “I don’t believe in killing living things,” Jake said, his voice low and earnest. The heat of his body was still in his jacket. Maggie felt its tingling warmth on her shoulders.

  “Me neither,” she said. “But…” She was going to ask him about killing plants, then thought better of it. She had dealt enough with Matt’s questions for one day.

  “But?”

  “Then why do you smoke?” she asked instead. “If you don’t want to kill things, why do you smoke?”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s a habit, I guess. A bad habit. Or maybe I don’t want to kill other things.”

  “I have to go,” Maggie said. She did have to go. Her mother was going to be home early, and they were going to the mall to shop for shoes. She handed Jake his jacket. “Thanks.”

  They climbed down the bleachers. Maggie stumbled once, in her nervousness not to look clumsy in front of Jake. He steadied her with his hand.

  “Well, goodbye,” Maggie said when they reached the bottom.

  “Tell your pal Alycia that I’m not so bad,” Jake said.

  “I will,” Maggie promised. She smiled at Jake. He wasn’t so bad. He really wasn’t.

  * * *

  Usually it took Maggie forever to find a pair of shoes that she and her mother both liked, but that day they were lucky and ended up buying the second pair Maggie tried on.

  “This calls for ice cream,” her mother said.

  Ice cream. Made from milk. Milk from unhappy cows.

  “I don’t think I feel like ice cream today,” Maggie said feebly.

  “My daughter? Not feel like ice cream?”

  “Not today. Really, I’m not very hungry.”

  “Maggie.” Her mother’s use of her real name signaled the seriousness of what she was about to say next. “Are you on a diet?” She turned Maggie so that she could look into her face. “You weigh—what? Ninety pounds? Tell me you’re not on a diet. If you’re on a diet, I’m going to— It’s the media. How skinny do women today have to be? Ninety pounds isn’t skinny enough? Maggles, those models you see in magazines, that’s not how women, let alone girls, are supposed to look. I mean it, I’m going to—”

  “I’m not on a diet.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure her mother would even hear her, mid-tirade, but she did.

  “You’d tell me if you were? So many young girls, they say they’re not on a diet, but all they drink is diet soda, and they’re off weighing themselves ten times a day—”

  It was best to tell her and get it over with. “I’m a vegan.”

  This time her mother didn’t hear, Maggie spoke so softly.

  “A what?”

  “A vegan. You know, like the people at the conference—the ones you hate…”

  For a moment, her mother looked stunned. Maggie knew what she was thinking: Dear God, what did I ever do to deserve a daughter who is a vegan? Finally her mother said, “Why? May I at least ask why?”

  “It’s sort of a long story. Well, you know I don’t eat meat anymore. And Matt says that it’s really worse to eat eggs and milk products than to eat meat, because at least when they kill animals they do it quickly, while animals on factory farms are in terrible pain all the time.”

  “Matt said this.”

  “Matt Dixon. He’s my lab partner in biology.”

  “What does he eat?”

  “Oh, he eats everything.”

  “But he doesn’t think you should eat anything?”

  “He didn’t say that. I told you, it’s a long story. But, anyway, I don’t think I’m like those conference people. Because I still eat honey. I don’t think it hurts the bees when we take it—though I guess they’re pretty disappointed when they get back to the hive and find it’s all gone.”

  “Maggie, you tell Mr. Matt, for me, that there are such things as free-range chickens—happy chickens who are allowed to run free, laying happy eggs. From now on, that’s what we’ll buy. They sell them at Olson’s dairy, right off Route Eleven. Yes, your old-fashioned family farm, where they also happen to keep happy cows. I believe they keep happy bees there, too. And, for your future reference, I do not hate the vegans attending Bob’s conference. I merely find them extremely self-righteous and annoying. Which is how I suspect I’d find your friend Matt.”

  “So you’re not mad?”

  “I am not mad. But I am hungry. So let’s stop at Olson’s on the way home. I’m in the mood for a huge, fluffy, cheesy, eggy omelette.”

  Maggie gave her a grateful hug. “Me too.”

  9

  Maggie worked on her opinion essay all through the long Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend. She usually wasn’t the type to brag, but when she read over the final draft, freshly printed from the computer, she did think, in all honesty, that it was the most convincing essay ever written in the history of the world. Anyone reading it would definitely give up eating meat and unhappy-animal products forever, and never do a dissection again.

  As she read the essay a second time on Monday afternoon, lovingly adding a few commas and semicolons here and there, the phone rang. Maggie picked it up.

  “Hi, Maggie,” a boy’s voice said. It sounded like Jake, probably too cool to bother saying his name. Maggie hated it when people didn’t identify themselves on the phone. It was rude and arrogant to assume that everyone in the whole world would recognize your voice instantly.

  But of course Maggie had recognized Jake’s voice instantly. She remained silent, waiting for
Jake to do his part.

  “You don’t know who this is, do you?”

  Maggie still refused to answer.

  “It’s Jake.”

  “Hi, Jake.” Maggie thawed a bit. The only boy who had ever held her hand was also the only boy who had ever called her on the phone. And he did have a great voice—low and confidential, as if whatever he was saying was meant for her alone.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Nothing much. Working on my opinion essay. I just finished it.” She could close her eyes now and see how her essay would look printed in the typeface of The Grand Valley Gazette.

  “You really go in for prizes and stuff, don’t you?”

  Was that an accusation? Some people liked to be good students. Some people thought it was a sacrifice, not an accomplishment, to be getting F’s on every biology lab.

  “What about you?” Maggie asked, to turn the conversation back to Jake. “What are you doing?”

  “Hanging out. Thinking about you.” Maggie caught in her breath. “That was all I called to say. That I was thinking about you.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything. What was she supposed to say? Thanks. Or: What were you thinking? Or: I was thinking about you, too. Silence on the phone was even more uncomfortable than silence in person. On the phone you couldn’t see the person—his gestures, the look on his face, whether or not he was smiling. It was odd to be holding on so tightly to the receiver, listening to … nothing.

  “Well, I gotta go,” Jake said finally. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Tomorrow,” Maggie echoed softly. Jake hung up first, then, after a long moment, Maggie.

  “Who was that?” her mother called to her from the kitchen.

  “A boy from school.” Maggie tried to say it casually, as if boys called her all the time.

  “A boy from school?” Her mother stood in the doorway now, obviously interested. “I hope it wasn’t Matt What’s-His-Name, with more menu advice.”

  “No, it was a different boy.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Nothing,” Maggie said. But she knew that the smile that insisted on hovering around her mouth was giving her away.

  * * *

  In biology class on Tuesday, Maggie began to feel the fish dissection drawing near. Mr. O. kept making little references to it. “When you dissect your perch on Friday, you’ll see…” “One thing I want you to look for on Friday is…” At each mention of Friday, Maggie flinched. Did she have to tell Mr. O. that she wouldn’t be doing this dissection, either? Or would he figure it out when he saw her sitting stiffly in class Friday morning, staring straight ahead as Matt cut into the gleaming belly of the cold, dead fish? When he did figure it out, would he be more or less angry than he’d been when she refused to dissect Squirmy?

  At least the fish Matt would be dissecting didn’t have a name. He wouldn’t be dissecting Perchy.

  The opinion essay was due on Wednesday, so Tuesday’s English class was spent in what Ms. Bealer called “peer critique groups.” In peer critique groups, students shared their work with one another in small groups and commented on it. It was always scary for Maggie reading her work aloud to other kids in the class, but sometimes they had helpful things to say. Ms. Bealer had a rule that all the criticism offered had to be constructive criticism.

  Both Matt and Alycia were in Maggie’s English class, and that day they were both in her peer critique group, as well. Jake had English a different period; the only classes he had with Maggie were biology and art, and she had barely noticed him in either of those until the last couple of weeks, when she had started to notice him everywhere.

  Alycia read her essay first. It was beautifully written, like all Alycia’s essays, and it was full of vivid and memorable facts about waste in America. Maggie had never realized before how much unnecessary packaging there was in the world. She was going to tell her mother that, in addition to buying free-range eggs and family-farm milk, they were going to have to carry their own reusable canvas sacks to the grocery store and buy bulk macaroni and flour and spices.

  After Alycia finished reading, Maggie couldn’t think of any constructive criticism to offer. When her turn in the circle came, first she gave an honest compliment: “It’s wonderful.” Ms. Bealer said they were always supposed to begin with a compliment.

  “But…” Maggie wasn’t sure how to put her finger on what was missing in Alycia’s essay. It was just too easy to argue against needless waste. Was there anyone left on the planet who thought waste was good? “I was just wondering. Is there, like, anything to be said on the other side?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything,” Alycia said. Which wasn’t surprising, as there was nothing to think of.

  “Well, then, it’s a great essay,” Maggie concluded.

  Matt didn’t have much to say about Alycia’s essay, either. All he told her was that one of the facts in her second paragraph really belonged in her third paragraph, and Alycia agreed that it did.

  Matt’s essay on genetic research was wonderful, too. The unwelcome thought struck Maggie that there was going to be a lot of competition for the opinion essay prizes. In her peer critique group alone, there were two essays as good—almost as good?—as hers. And that was in one critique group in one class taught by one teacher.

  But Matt’s essay left Maggie somehow unconvinced. Matt thought it was fine to go ahead and change people genetically, adding a gene here and subtracting a gene there to make people taller, healthier, smarter. Everything Matt said sounded true enough, and every sentence rang with his characteristic scorn for anyone who thought differently. Still, when Matt finished reading, Maggie didn’t feel like running out and having herself genetically altered.

  “It’s very well written,” Maggie said, for Matt’s compliment. “But it made me wonder: Don’t you think changing people that way is—doesn’t it seem like playing God?”

  “People intervene in the course of nature all the time,” Matt said impatiently. “You get a strep throat, you take antibiotics. Is that playing God? People used to die of polio, and smallpox, and TB. Now they don’t. Were the scientists who invented the vaccines playing God?”

  “But don’t you think changing people’s genes is different?”

  “No,” Matt said.

  The bluntness of his answer irked Maggie. Fine, she wanted to say. Don’t listen to any criticism. Assume that anyone who offers you constructive criticism is a raving idiot.

  The other three people in the group read essays on seat-belt laws, smoking, and censorship. None of their essays were anywhere near as good as Alycia’s or Matt’s. Maggie’s turn came last. Her voice shook as she read the first paragraph of her essay, but it grew stronger as she continued to read. As she heard her own arguments unfolding, one after another, she convinced herself all over again of the essential rightness of what she was saying. When she was finished, she looked at Matt. Was he convinced now? How could he not be? But all along, Matt had acted as if everything Maggie said and thought and did was worthless.

  “It’s great, Maggie.” The honest admiration in Matt’s voice caught Maggie by surprise. “You almost had me convinced.”

  “Almost?”

  “Well, I have to say I find the arguments you give for the other side strangely appealing. But it’s a great essay. I wouldn’t change a thing. Except maybe the conclusion.”

  Maggie knew that Matt was teasing about the conclusion, but she could tell he sincerely meant the praise. And, she was discovering, compliments from Matt Dixon were as pleasurable as they were rare.

  The others in the group agreed with Matt’s appraisal. Alycia said, “I’m so glad I didn’t do the worm dissection! I’m not going to do the fish dissection, either. You’re going to win the contest, Maggie. You’re going to get first prize for the whole seventh grade.”

  “We could all win,” Maggie said, shy in the face of so much praise. “They’re giving out six prizes total, including the three honorable mentions. And ther
e are six of us in our group. We could all win.”

  Ms. Bealer stopped by their cluster of chairs. “How are you progressing? Have our constructive critics been doing their job?”

  Maggie smiled at her. “We think we’re all going to win the essay contest.”

  “Do you know who the judges are going to be?” Alycia asked.

  “The other English teachers and I thought the contest would be more fair if we weren’t judging our own students’ essays. So we’ve asked three other teachers to serve as judges this year: Ms. Bellon, Ms. Kocik, and Mr. O’Neill. The winners will be announced at the end of next week.”

  It took a full second for the name to register.

  Mr. O’Neill.

  Mr. O.

  * * *

  Finally, on Thursday, as the end-of-class bell was ringing, Mr. O. called out over the commotion, “Maggie, I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  Here it comes, Maggie thought.

  Once the others had left, Mr. O. motioned to Maggie to sit down. “I’ll write you a late pass for lunch,” he said. So this time he wasn’t inviting her to have lunch with him. Well, he couldn’t have lunch with students every day. How many other Grand Valley students had eaten lunch with a teacher even once?

  Maggie sat down in her regular first-row seat. Mr. O. pulled his chair around in front of his desk, so it was next to her lab table, and straddled it backward. The casual posture suggested a low-key, friendly conversation, but there was something in Mr. O.’s eyes that didn’t look low-key and friendly.

  Yet his tone, when he began talking, was as gentle and caring as ever. “So. Maggie. Tomorrow. The fish dissection. Will you let Matt and me help you do it?”

  Miserably, Maggie shook her head. Part of her wanted to say yes, to say whatever Mr. O. wanted her to say, to thank him for caring about her enough to use his lunch period to try to talk to her one more time. But a bigger part of her needed to say no.

  “What am I going to do with you?” It sounded like something her mother would say; it sounded like something a father would say. “You’re too good a student to fail this course. Believe me, Maggie, there’s no one I want less to fail than you. But if you keep on getting F’s in the labs, you’ll leave me no other choice. Does your mother know that you’re in danger of failing?”