by Alan Gratz
“That’s a lot of books,” Rebecca said, “but not nearly all of them.”
“But look at this.” Trey unfolded a piece of paper on the table. “The Stupids got challenged because it ‘reinforces negative behavior’ and ‘might encourage children to disobey their parents.’ Here’s a riddle book that got banned because it made kids who couldn’t figure out the riddles feel bad. My Teacher Is an Alien got challenged because it ‘portrays the main character as handling a problem on her own, rather than relying on the help of others.’ Here’s ‘destruction of property,’ ‘teaches kids to lie,’ ‘a real downer,’ ‘anti-family,’ ‘lewd,’ ‘twisted,’ ‘too mature,’ ‘too immature,’ ‘bad grammar,’ ‘promotes poor nutrition,’ ‘includes the word fart twenty-four times—’”
Danny snorted. “What book is that?”
“Walter the Farting Dog.”
“Oh, sure,” Danny said, and we all nodded.
“Look, the point is, once you ban one book, somebody, somewhere, can find a reason to ban every book,” I said. I looked to Trey, and he nodded.
“Even Where’s Waldo? has been banned because somebody found one little woman sunbathing facedown with her top off,” Trey said. “We just have to start thinking like people who see stuff everywhere that bothers them.”
“So … I just have to pretend to be my grandmother,” Rebecca said.
“Or my mom,” said Trey.
A Lawsuit Waiting to Happen
Once we got into looking for reasons to ban books, it was kind of fun.
Anything with witches, wizards, jack-o’-lanterns, demons, or gods: gone. No Harry Potter, no Percy Jackson, no Artemis Fowl, no Chronicles of Narnia.
Anything about sex or the human body or reproduction: gone.
Anything with gay characters in it: gone.
“This one says ‘Oh lord’ in it,” Danny said. “My mother won’t let me say God’s name unless I’m praying.”
“Ban it,” I told him.
“This book has the word ‘scrotum’ on the first page!” Trey said.
I looked at the cover. It was a Newbery winner. “Yeah, just about anything with one of these medals on it, you can find some reason to ban it. Fill out a form,” I told him.
“Shh! No talking!” Mirror Mrs. Jones yelled.
We worked quietly and quickly all week long. That book about the Civil War? Too violent. That book about the Holocaust? Too depressing. That book about diseases? Too scary. A book about lions? Too gory. Every night, I took home a stack of Request for Reconsideration forms to add to the growing pile in my bedroom. We were going to bring them all to the next school board meeting. Really put on a show when all the TV cameras would be there. But we only had four school days left, and lots more books to ban.
Luckily we had Rebecca. She was the one who really shone when it came to challenging books. If ever there was a book we just couldn’t imagine anybody banning, Rebecca could always come up with a reason. I think it was all the time she’d spent practicing to be a lawyer.
“The Lorax? That’s libelous. The Lorax portrays lumberjacks and the timber industry in a negative light.
“Goodnight Moon? The mouse in the room is a health-code violation, the red balloon is a choking hazard, and look at this picture of the illustrator on the back—he’s holding a cigarette! That encourages kindergarteners to think smoking is cool.
“Oh, and don’t get me started about Amelia Bedelia. She clearly has Asperger’s syndrome, and yet children are encouraged to laugh at her? What kind of message is that sending?
“This library is a lawsuit waiting to happen!” Rebecca told me. There was a gleam in her eye as she said it.
“Um, Rebecca, you do remember we’re doing this as a prank to prove a point, right? Not to actually do it.”
“Right. Of course,” Rebecca said. She looked a little sheepish, but went back to the book challenging with gusto.
Danny filled out a form for Frog and Toad Are Friends. “What’s wrong with Frog and Toad?” I asked him.
“They’re a gay couple,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “They are not! They’re just friends!”
“That’s what you say,” Danny told me with an evil grin. “To me it’s the subversive promotion of a gay lifestyle.”
And that was it, wasn’t it? All the book challenges, the real ones, were because one person saw a book in a very different way than somebody else. Which was fine. Everybody had the right to interpret any book any way they wanted to. What they couldn’t do then was tell everybody else their interpretation was the only interpretation.
Three days later, we had Request for Reconsideration forms filled out for five hundred books. There were lots more books than that in the library, of course, but it was the best we could do, even with Rebecca’s lawyer superpowers. Five hundred book challenges would still look great on TV though, and make our point for us. We were ready.
And then, disaster struck.
And by disaster, I mean my little sisters, which amounts to the same thing.
Embracing the Chaos
That afternoon, I embraced the chaos at home. I danced with my dad as he sang The Marriage of Figaro. I played chase with Flotsam and Jetsam. Not even Alexis doing ballet in our room and Angelina running around on all fours like a horse bothered me. Before dinner I sat down at the kitchen table and plowed through my homework without being told to, and I didn’t even mind doing fractions for math. Nothing could ruin my good mood. Tomorrow night, Rebecca and Danny and Trey and I were going to show the school board how stupid they were for banning books. We were going to show everybody.
When it was time for dinner, I cleared my books and took them back to my room. As I passed Angelina’s room, I had to stop and shake my head in wonder. Angelina had turned her bedroom into another stable, but this one was crazy. There was shredded white recycled paper/pretend hay everywhere—on her bookshelves, sticking out of her dresser drawers, in her bed. More than I’d ever seen before. She was going to howl when Mom and Dad made her clean it up, but the tantrum she was going to throw later didn’t even make me want to run away. I didn’t want to be anywhere else tomorrow night. But it did remind me there was one small detail in our big plan for the school board meeting I hadn’t covered yet.
“I need a ride to the school board meeting tomorrow night,” I said at dinner.
My parents looked across the table at each other, talking to each other without talking again.
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea, Amy Anne?” Mom said.
I slumped in my chair. That’s what they always said when they disagreed with me, like I would change my mind if I just thought about it more. But I’d thought about it plenty. And I said so.
“You said you wanted me to stand up for myself more,” I told them. “But that I had to do it the right way. Well, the right way is to go to the school board meeting and tell them that banning books is wrong.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other again. I could see them waffling.
“You said yourself you didn’t agree with the book banning,” I said. “If nobody goes there and says anything about it, they’ll just keep doing it.”
Dad sighed. “Tomorrow night’s awfully busy,” he said. “Alexis has ballet, Angelina has book club…”
“Alexis always has ballet. And Angelina can’t even read. They can miss one night.”
My sisters erupted.
“I can’t miss a single practice!” Alexis protested. “Mrs. Dupond says missing just one class—”
“I can too read! I can read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!” Angelina said, and she launched into reciting it to prove her point.
“Enough—enough!” Dad told them. “You’re both excused.”
Alexis started to argue again, but Dad assured her we would figure everything out and sent her away. She stomped off to our room to use my bedpost as a ballet barre and Angelina wandered off singing the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom song.
Mom leaned down and
rubbed her forehead. “I suppose we asked for this,” she said.
“There are going to be television cameras there tomorrow night, Amy Anne,” Dad said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I knew what he meant. I hadn’t gone up to the podium the last time he’d taken me, when there was almost nobody there. There were going to be lots more people there tomorrow night, and lots more watching at home on TV. A little monster started gnawing at the insides of my stomach, making me cringe. But I wasn’t going to be a good girl and stay quiet. Not this time.
I nodded. I was sure.
“All right,” Mom said. “We’ll find a way to get you there.”
I breathed a big sigh of relief. Everything was set for our big night. I’d promised Trey I’d call him later, but first I wanted to add a few more Request for Reconsideration forms to the big box of them I kept in my room.
But when I got there, the box was gone.
Disaster
I panicked, looking under the bed, on my bookshelves, in my backpack. But the box wasn’t in any of those places. I remembered very clearly leaving it on the floor beside my bed, and now it wasn’t there.
I marched up to Alexis, who was holding onto my bedpost and doing ballet exercises. “Where are my Request for Reconsideration forms?”
“Your what?” she asked, still mad about me suggesting she could miss a ballet class.
“The big box of papers that was right here beside my bed before I went into the kitchen to do my homework,” I told her.
“Oh, that,” she said. She swung her leg out in a wide circle. “I moved it so I’d have room to practice my rond de jambe.”
“Where did you move it?”
“Mom’s office,” she said. “With all the other boxes of paper.”
I tromped down the hall to the office/exercise room/guest bedroom/storage room, mad that Alexis had touched my stuff. The box was there, just like she said it would be.
But it was empty.
“Alexis!” I yelled. “Alexis, what’d you do with the Request for Reconsideration forms!?”
Alexis came out of our room. “I told you! I put them in Mom’s office!”
“The box is here, but it’s empty!” I told her.
“Well, it wasn’t when I put it in there!”
That’s when I realized where the empty box was sitting.
Right. Beside. The shredder.
“No,” I said. “No no no no no!”
Mom came out of the living room. “What’s all this yelling?” she asked.
I ran past her into Angelina’s room, where she was nestled down in the huge piles of shredded paper like a horse asleep in the hay. I snatched up a handful of the shredded paper and yanked it apart, trying to read what was written on the thin little strips.
“Hey! That’s my hay!” Angelina yelled.
I grabbed another handful. And another. They were full of chopped-up black typewriting and handwriting scrawled in blue and black ink. At the top of one were the letters REQ. At the bottom of another was the end of my signature—ger. No. No!
“That’s mine!” Angelina screamed. “That’s mine! You can’t touch it! It’s mine!”
I threw the shredded paper on the floor and grabbed Angelina by the shirt. “This isn’t recycled paper! You shredded up my Request for Reconsideration forms!”
Angelina wailed like I had hit her, which only made me want to more. But before I could do anything else to her Mom and Dad and Alexis were in the doorway.
“What’s going on here?” Dad said.
“Everything’s ruined. Ruined! She shredded up all our Request for Reconsideration forms! That was the whole point of going to the school board meeting tomorrow! Our whole plan! It took us a week to fill all those out, and now they’re ruined!”
I kicked at the piles of shredded paper, sending them flying in the air like snow. Angelina dropped to the floor and sobbed.
“I hate you!” I screamed at her. “I hate you all! I hate this stupid house and everybody in it!”
“Amy Anne!” Mom said.
Alexis and the dogs shrank back from me as I ran past my parents and down the hall to my room. That was it. I was done. I was leaving.
I pulled the little suitcase I used when we went to Granny’s house out of my closet and threw it on the bed. I tossed in shirts and skirts and underwear and socks, my favorite stuffed animal, the little statue of Belle I’d bought at Disney World last year, the reading medal I’d won in second grade, what little money I had left over from the B.B.L.L. book-buying account, and a few of my favorite books—including From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I didn’t know where I was going, but I didn’t care, so long as it was nowhere near my awful house.
“Amy Anne is packing her suitcase!” Alexis yelled from our doorway. She looked frightened. Behind her, the dogs paced nervously, their tails down. Good, I thought. I hoped they all missed me when I was gone.
I zipped up my suitcase and dragged it down the hall. “I’m running away!” I announced.
Alexis started sobbing behind me, but Mom and Dad didn’t cry or try to stop me. That just made me madder. I stomped down the hall toward the front door, but Angelina came flying out of her room and wrapped herself around one of my legs.
“No! No, Amy Anne, don’t go! I’m sorry I used your papers! I’m sorry! Don’t go!” she cried.
I tried to kick Angelina off but she was too big, so I dragged her along like I was wearing a ball and chain. Angelina wailed and clung to me tighter.
Dad crossed his arms and leaned against Angelina’s door frame. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit, Amy Anne?”
I stopped. I had so much I wanted to say to that, to say to all of them. The good girl Amy Anne would have said it in her head. But I was done being the good girl, so I said it out loud.
“No,” I said. “No, I am not overreacting. I’m the one who always has to do things I don’t want to do so everybody else will be happy. It’s ‘Amy Anne, set the table.’ ‘Amy Anne, let your sister use your books as fences.’ ‘Amy Anne, let your sister use your bed.’ But when I want something, it’s ‘Amy Anne, just be a good girl and let it go.’
“I’m tired of sitting on the sunny side of the car because Alexis is too hot. I’m tired of eating pudding for dessert because Angelina has to have the last cookie. I’m tired of always watching My Little Pony instead of Little House on the Prairie. I’m tired of doing my homework in the bathroom because Alexis has turned my room into a ballet studio and you’re watching TV in the living room and Angelina is using the kitchen table as a pony stable! And I’m tired of people moving my stuff and shredding my papers up to make fake hay and ruining everything!”
I peeled the crying Angelina off my leg and pushed her to the wall.
“Why do you think I pretended to be in clubs and stayed late after school every day?” I threw at my parents. “Because I hate this house and everybody in it!”
I marched down the hall before Angelina could latch on again, and the dogs slinked out of my way. No one said a word as I slammed the door closed behind me.
Runaway
I had made it as far as the four-lane road outside our subdivision when Mom found me. She pulled up alongside me in the car and rolled down the window.
“Amy Anne, come home,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Where are you going to go?”
“To Rebecca’s house,” I told her, even though I’d just thought of it and didn’t know how to get there. All I really wanted to do was get as far away from my house as I could.
A car honked at Mom for sitting in the right lane, and she drove ahead and pulled into the next driveway. She got out and was standing next to the car when I walked up. She and the car were blocking my way.
“Your little sister is a mess,” Mom said. “She thinks you’re never coming back.”
“Good,” I told her. “I’m not.”
“They didn’t mean i
t, you know,” Mom said. “They didn’t know what they were doing, either of them. They didn’t ruin your papers on purpose.”
“But they did. They ruin everything, and they never get in trouble for it. It’s not fair!” I could feel myself starting to cry again, and I hiccupped a sob.
Mom bent down. “Come here,” she said. She pulled me into her arms, and I cried into her shoulder. “I wish you hadn’t stomped and yelled, but you’re right. You do make lots of allowances for your sisters. Your dad and I appreciate it, but sometimes we forget and take it for granted. We’re sorry too.”
“I’m sorry I said I hate you,” I told her. “I don’t hate you.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. Will you come home?”
I sobbed again. I didn’t want to give up, but I didn’t really know where I was going to go or how I was going to live without my family and my home. Running away was so easy for Claudia and Jamie, but they were characters in a book, not real like me. I nodded into her shoulder.
At home, Angelina and Alexis and the dogs practically knocked me down at the door. Angelina and Alexis threw their arms around me and hugged me tight.
“I’m sorry I moved your box without asking,” Alexis said.
“I’m sorry I shredded your papers,” Angelina said.
It sounded like Dad had coached them on their apologies, but I still appreciated it. Dad hugged me too, and told me he was glad I had decided not to run away after all.
“Can we print new forms for you?” Dad asked. “Your mom can run you by her office tonight, if it will help. Were they something to do with the school board meeting tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” I said, still sniffling. “But it’s too late.”
“We made new papers for you!” Angelina said.
She and Alexis handed me pieces of paper where they had drawn wobbly lines and filled them in with random words. Alexis’s were full of ballet terms she had written out by herself. Angelina’s were full of the names of My Little Pony characters Alexis had written in for her. I knew they were just trying to help, but it made me upset all over again. I was going to have to call Trey and tell him it was over.
