Anyway, I was grateful that they had to leave before dinner was ready, since it turned out that the pasta and sauce were just the first two ingredients in a recipe that mixed tomato sauce with a sauce made out of zucchini that had been put in the blender. It actually didn’t taste bad at all, but it was hard for me to want to eat something for which the recipe came out of a book called Add Some Zucchini to Your Life!
That, I said at the table, was not the title of a cookbook. It was a bad pickup line.
The next day I walked to school a hardened criminal. The original plan was for Dad to drop me off, but he decided he ought to pop into the Boredom Factory first, just to let them know he had some things to do and was taking a personal day. He and Anna’s dad would be going into the school together later that morning.
So I walked. It wasn’t a long walk; if I took the screen off my bedroom window and leaned out far enough, I could actually see the school on a clear day, though this was not the sort of thing I liked to do. When I was in my room, I generally preferred to think I was a safer distance away.
I arrived early and found Dr. Brown already waiting outside by the drainage ditch to escort me onto campus, but once we got past the parking lot I saw that the whole flagpole was surrounded by students—way more than there normally were. Brian was there, and so was Dustin, and a whole bunch of kids I didn’t even know. As soon as they saw me, a bunch of people started shouting in my direction.
“Take ’em out, Leon!” someone shouted.
“Free Leon Harris!” shouted another.
Dr. Brown looked more than just a little annoyed; as soon as he saw me, he whisked me away and started leading me toward the front door, but just before he pulled me inside, I was able turn around and flash them a peace sign. Everyone—get this—cheered, like I was some sort of hero or something. A second later, through the door, I could hear a whole bunch of kids outside singing that Pink Floyd song that goes, “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.”
“You’ve got quite a following today, Mr. Harris,” said Dr. Brown as he hustled me down the hall.
“I told you everyone in school would know about this,” I said, trying my hardest not to laugh at him. “My father is coming in to talk to you later.”
“The one who hates Thomas Edison?”
“Gee,” I said, figuring he’d heard that from Dr. Guff. “Some doctor-patient confidentiality you have around here.”
“Interviews with students serving punishments aren’t typically covered by that,” said Dr. Brown. “But your father is welcome to come in. We have nothing to hide, and I’ll be happy to speak to him.”
I thought about asking why, if he had nothing to hide, he kept covering up his bald head with the cheap toupee, but I didn’t. Honestly, I think the very fact that he had a cheap rug at all indicated that he probably wasn’t principal material. When you’re dealing with a bunch of middle school kids, appearance is everything. A nicer rug would have been worth the investment.
He led me straight to the in-school suspension room and shut the door, which annoyed me a bit, because school was still a few minutes from officially starting. Two minutes later, I heard a group of students in the hall chanting, “We are normal! We are normal!” I guessed Dustin had started that one.
I might have been an alleged smut peddler, but I felt invincible. Back in third grade, James Cole and I had somehow gotten the idea that no one ever died while people were clapping for them. We even got this idea that we could get some other people involved and arrange it so we were clapping for each other all the time when we got older, and hence, we’d never die. Of course, that was all nonsense. Plenty of people have been shot and killed while people were clapping for them. Still, the fact that people had cheered for me still made me feel somehow untouchable.
I had never considered myself particularly well liked at school. I didn’t play sports. I didn’t make out with anyone in the halls. Hell, the fact that I knew my heavy metal and knew enough not to go snitching on kids who were acting up were just about the only things that kept me from being a regular target for beat-downs. I knew that news about my being suspended would travel fast, but I never imagined that anyone would chant anything in the halls.
Suddenly, I had become popular.
And from what I had seen of the kids outside, it wasn’t just the nerds and seminerds who liked me; even the dumbass kids who spent most of their classes chasing each other around and calling people fags were shouting and chanting. I guess no one could resist the idea of a movie with nudity in it.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about being popular among those guys; I didn’t really think I wanted them to like me. But that was what avant-garde art was all about. It was supposed to wake people up, make them look at things differently and stop acting like idiots, even if it was just for about five seconds. This may have been the first time in history, however, that it had actually worked.
After about twenty minutes, the door opened and Mr. Streich walked in.
“Hi, Leon,” he said cheerfully. He raised a fist, like he was saying “right on.” Normally I would have thought it was sort of patronizing, but the way Mr. Streich was grinning, I could see that he was on my side, not just teasing me. My dad had been right about him.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Did they send you in here to interview me?”
“No,” he said. “I just wanted to talk about your movie a bit. Your dad called me last night and told me that he’ll be coming in to talk to Dr. Brown later, and I’m going to be there with him. I think your movie was really very creative, even if it was a little inappropriate.”
“It wasn’t inappropriate at all!” I said, for about the millionth time.
“Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” he said. “I don’t really see the harm in it, but a lot of parents would. People get really touchy about that kind of thing, you know. But anyway, I’m giving you an A on it, even if you never finish it and they don’t show it to a single kid.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I was wondering about that.” I had resigned myself to getting an F on the project, honestly, and even felt like it would be another badge of honor, but one less bad grade to worry about was nothing to whine over.
Just then, I heard someone outside the office shouting, “Free Leon!”
“Hear that?” He grinned. “You’re a celebrity now.”
“I noticed,” I said. “I’m not sure what to think of it.”
“Well, just don’t let it go to your head,” he warned. “Half of these kids’ll forget all about it next week.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But if they spend one day acting less like idiots, my work here is done.”
He smiled again and said, “That’s one way to look at it.”
“This is all just Mrs. Smollet’s fault,” I said. “Her and Joe Griffin.”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t agree with Mrs. Smollet all the time, either, but her opinions are valid, too, and it’s important to remember that. Of course, that doesn’t mean we have to let her run the world.”
“I’ll say,” I said.
He patted my shoulder.
“It’s gonna be quite a scene after school, I think,” he said. “Coach Wilkins has been telling all the kids in his class that you’re a political prisoner and that they should all show up to support you after school. But you didn’t hear it from me.” And he walked out of the room.
A few minutes later, I started to hear the sound of his voice, and the sound of my father’s voice, and the sound of Mr. Brandenburg’s voice, all talking to Dr. Brown, but I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying. Then I heard the sound of Mrs. Smollet talking, sounding all defensive.
Then they all stopped for a minute, and I saw a blue light under the door, which I guess meant that there was a TV showing the movie. I could just barely hear the narration being read out loud by Dr. Brown. After a few minutes, Mrs. Smollet spoke again. Then everyone spoke all at once, and then, in the m
iddle of it, some kid in the hall shouted, “Free Leon Harris!” loudly enough that everyone could hear it in the office. I would have just about killed to be able to tell what was going on in that room. I moved up to the door and pressed my ear against it, but I still couldn’t make out more than a word or two. Mrs. Smollet said “moral fiber” once, but she was the only one shouting loudly enough that I could hear anything she said. Everyone else was being a bit calmer.
It was only at this point that I realized that if I put my ear down on the floor, by the crack under the door, I could probably hear a lot better—some gifted kid I turned out to be. Hoping that no one would swing the door open and bash my head in, I got down on my knees to listen.
“Oh, heck,” said my father’s voice. “I probably go to church more often than you do.”
“This is all like some sort of conspiracy,” said Mrs. Smollet. “The two of you are raising a couple of little heathens, and I’m the one being persecuted! And just for trying to be religious!”
This was probably the first time I’d actually heard Mrs. Smollet claim to be religious herself—normally she just talked about being really moral. I guess she thought they were automatically the same thing.
“Now, let’s calm down for a moment,” said Dr. Brown, trying to play the peacekeeper. “No one’s running any conspiracies here. I think we all need to take a deep breath. I’m not calling anyone’s parenting skills into question.”
“I am,” said Mrs. Smollet.
If I hadn’t known better than to do so, I would have charged in there and slugged her myself. Sure, I may complain about my dad—it’s natural to complain when your parents are a few chicken tenders short of a sampler platter. But there was only one person who was going to call my dad a bad parent and get away with it—me.
“Muriel, please!” said Dr. Brown. I hadn’t known that her first name was Muriel. I didn’t know anyone was still called Muriel. “This project wasn’t even a part of your class. Now, if you’ll excuse us, the conference is between Mr. Harris, Mr. Brandenburg, and myself.”
“And the devil makes four,” she huffed. And I heard her get up and walk out, slamming the door behind her. I had to give her credit—that was a pretty good closing line.
No one said anything for a second or so. Then there was some muttering, so low that I couldn’t even make it out with my ear practically in the room, and a couple of nervous chuckles. Then I heard everyone get up, and some doors open and shut, and I decided to get back in my seat before someone opened the door and took my head off.
Where the hell did Smollet get off? First, from what I gathered of the talk, she’d been telling my dad he didn’t go to church enough; then she turned right around and said she was being persecuted for her religious beliefs? My dad probably did go to church more than she did. It would explain a lot if Mrs. Smollet was really a devil worshipper in disguise, and when we’d been pretending to be Satanists, she’d just been irritated that we weren’t taking her dark lord seriously enough. At least Dr. Brown had had the good sense to kick her out of the room before I charged through the door and threw her out myself. Why had she taken a job as the gifted-pool director when all she wanted to do was play morality police?
I sat for a while, trying to get my mind off how pissed I was by scribbling down a list of what I still had to do to finish the movie in the notebook I had in my backpack. The list really just amounted to filming the kiss scene and explosion, recording the narration and music, and editing it all together.
The day went by a little bit faster than the day before had, partly because about every fifteen minutes I would hear some other kid walk up and shout, “Free Leon!” Waiting for that gave me something to do besides just eating my lunch.
It was early in the afternoon when the door opened and Mrs. Smollet walked in. She looked even more upset than she normally did, and was carrying a whole stack of papers.
“I hope you’re happy, Leon,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?”
“Well, I hear people shouting that you should let me go now and then,” I said, not even bothering to keep myself from smiling.
“Did you put them up to that, Leon?” she asked, looking furious. “Are you behind all this?”
“Nope,” I said. “If I’d asked them to, they never would have done it. Most of these kids probably hate me.”
“Well, obviously they don’t hate you that much.”
It was right then that I realized what was happening. The jerks might have hated me, but they hated school even more. They weren’t protesting for me, they were protesting against school. That was good enough for me.
“Maybe they don’t, maybe they do,” I said. “But it looks like they certainly hate you.”
“This whole town is going to hell in a handbasket!” she muttered.
And she walked out, slamming the door behind her with a satisfying bang.
Ha.
I ended up in in-school suspension for the whole day after all, but Dr. Brown said he wouldn’t have to escort me out. “I probably should,” he said, “but your sentence is over, and it’s probably better that I not go out there. It’s you they’re going to want.”
“I’m sure there won’t be a riot or anything,” I said, though I wasn’t really.
“I hope not,” he said, shaking his head sternly, as if to warn me not to try to stir one up myself. “But there’ve been a lot of teachers saying that kids are shouting ‘Free Leon’ and stuff like that in their classes. Coach Wilkins was trying to rally the teachers for you in the teachers’ lounge. He made quite a scene, in fact.”
“That sounds like him, all right,” I said.
“For the record, I’d just like to say that I’m sorry all this happened. After talking to your dad and Mrs. Smollet today, it’s fairly clear that she was overreacting. I always trust teachers’ judgement when they want a student suspended, but I should have tried to calm her down first. There’s a fine line between monitoring students’ behavior and pushing your own agenda, and sometimes it gets a little blurry.”
I didn’t know quite how to respond to that. “Well, thanks,” I said. “I can’t say I was expecting to hear that.”
“I’m not an ogre, Leon. I’m just a principal. And don’t worry; as I said, I’m not letting this go on your permanent record.”
When I stepped outside, probably thirty people were standing around the flagpole, where they were shouting out the words to that Pink Floyd song again. When they saw me, they stopped singing and cheered and clapped. Once again, I felt like I was invincible. As far as I know, I was. No one shot at me, so there was no way to tell for sure.
Coach Hunter, from gym, was standing in the background, watching with his arms folded and looking like he’d rather be shopping for women’s shoes. I guessed that they’d sent him out there in case things got out of hand. In a way, this made him my bodyguard.
More people were chanting. I noticed Coach Wilkins was standing there, shouting, “Give art a chance!” and trying to get a chant going, though no one seemed to be going along with it. Still, I appreciated the gesture, and he looked like he was having all the fun in the world, shouting and carrying on and making a general fool of himself, trying to relive his wild, radical youth, I suppose.
I didn’t have long to figure out who was there and who was doing what, though, because I was getting mobbed by kids who wanted to pat me on the back. I raised my arms and flashed peace signs with both hands. They cheered some more.
“When can we see the movie?” someone shouted.
“Soon!” I shouted out. “Victory party at Fat Johnny’s tonight after the game!”
Technically, since I’d had to serve out the full day, it wasn’t exactly a victory, but I had come out with my dignity intact, and the school sort of had its tail between its legs. That was enough of a victory for me.
All the kids from the gifted pool were there, along with a bunch of kids I just barely recognized, and a few more who I knew fo
r a fact hated my guts. I guess when you’re all going up against the school, no kids are enemies.
Meanwhile, Joe Griffin was standing off to the side, looking pretty pissed. I thought maybe I should go talk to him, but that wouldn’t have been very nice. Like Mr. Streich said, his opinions were valid, too, and going over to rub his nose in the fact that his opinions didn’t rule the world would have been ungraceful, like giving a guy an extra punch in a boxing match when he was already knocked out.
The whole thing didn’t last very long, because half of the kids had to get on their buses before they were left behind. I guess you can’t really get a good riot going when most of the rioters have to catch a bus. Within ten minutes I was walking home alone, but I felt like a king.
Dad was waiting on the front porch.
“You should have seen it, Dad!” I said. “People were chanting and screaming and everything.”
Dad grinned. “It seems like you were a pretty popular guy today,” he said.
“It’s weird,” I said. “I never saw that coming.”
“You wanna know how the conversation went at the school?” he asked.
“More than anything,” I admitted. “I heard the last minute or so under the door, but I didn’t hear most of the beginning.”
“Well, Max Streich met me in front of the office, and we went in to talk to the principal. We were mostly talking about how we thought the school was going too far. Then Anna’s father showed up and said the same thing. Then that one lady, Mrs. Smollet, came in. She’s quite a piece of work, isn’t she?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“She told us that if she had her way, you would be expelled altogether, or at least removed from the gifted program. Then she went into this rant about how your mother and I must be horrible parents.”
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