He Said, She Said

by Kwame Alexander

  Standing on the table, I shout to get everyone’s attention. It doesn’t work. I do it again. Same result. Eve and Kym laugh. T-Diddy looks at me and smirks, then mouths, “Let me help you.”

  “Na na na na!” he yells with his hands cupped around his mouth. Random.

  The crowd screams back, “Na na na na!” Then they chant, “Hey hey hey, good-bye.” They sing it twice more, and then they stop and applaud. I have no idea why it works, but I’m glad it does.

  “Fellow classmates, thank you all so much for coming out this morning,” I say to the almost silent crowd. I say almost, because I do get a few boos. Okay, maybe a lot. “Some of you may know that the arts funding has been cut in our school. Well, today we are going to take a stand for what’s right.” I can feel the sweat trickle down my back and forehead. Why are you nervous, Claudia. Jeez! Now I’m stuck. Now more kids are booing. I have no idea what to say next.

  “Hole up, hole up! This is your boy T-Diddy. All homegirl is trying to say is our school is in trouble.” Omar apparently has an idea. “We lookin’ bad, y’all, real bad. Our school is one of the worst schools in the country for two reasons: one, they don’t care about us, and two, we don’t speak up for ourselves.”

  “Preach, T-Diddy,” a kid in the back of the crowd yells, and everybody laughs. I’m surprised they’re actually listening to him.

  “How many of y’all take art?” About fifty kids raise their hands. “How many of y’all take theater? Who’s in the gospel choir?” It seems like most of the hands go up. When he asks, “Who’s in the marching band?” cheers and barks fill the air. Belafonte throws his fist in the air and gets the crowd high-stepping. It’s not like a pep rally. It is one.

  “Well, T-Diddy and homegirl want to school you on something: the governor of our great state and the school board have cut the arts funding, so ain’t gonna be no more marching band or music class or school plays or gospel choir. Feel me!” The boos and shrieks from the crowd are loud and angry. We have ourselves a rally.

  Omar continues, “But we don’t have to accept this. They don’t want us to survive, it’s a setup, but even if you’re fed up, guess what?”

  Seems like everybody in the crowd screams, “KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!”

  Tupac, really? Jeez.

  “Panthers, look up at the sun. Do you know what that means?”

  “It don’t mean it’s summer. Hurry up with your speech, cuz. It’s chilly,” a kid screams from the back of the crowd. Everybody, including me, laughs at that one.

  “True! It also means this: the sun illuminates the head, I mean, the eye of the man, but it shines into the heart, I mean, it shines on top of . . .” Omar fumbles, looking at me for help. I shrug because I have no idea what he’s doing.

  He continues, “I mean, the time is now for us to speak up. The sun is telling us to shine, to speak up now. We must all be the sun. BE the sun . . . yeah, that’s it: BE THE SUN, AND LIKE THE SUN . . . WE WILL, WE WILL, WE—”

  “What we gonna do, Omar?” asks Luther, who along with the other smokers is now as amped as the rest of us.

  “We will do, uh . . . nothing,” he finally says.

  Blu and I look at each other like WTH! I shoot Omar a look of puzzlement and rancor. Seven hundred apathetic kids in West Charleston finally got excited about something other than football, parties, and sex, and this fool tells them to do the same thing they’ve been doing all along: nothing.

  Omar

  Did I really just say “nothing”? I’m so busted! Claudia’s giving me the crooked eye. Not like I had a chance with homegirl anyway. I can’t believe Willie Mack and Freddie opened their mouths. That’s some foul ish. And now I’m standing up here looking stupid over some lala. Ain’t nobody saying jack. They’re just staring at me.

  I can’t wait to get out of here. Five more months till Miami. T-Diddy had the crowd fired up. I was sounding good for a minute, though. Claudia checking me out, smiling. Why is it so damn quiet out here? Somebody say something. Claudia, say something. I helped you out, you could return the favor, Miss Stuck-Up. But you’re probably too good for that.

  T-Diddy ain’t going out like this. I’ll just be quiet too, like Gandhi. Yeah, T-Diddy about to be Buddha up in here. LOL!

  Clyfe was talking about Gandhi the other day. What’s that quote he was saying? Something like, “In silence the soul finds the path.” Or “the light comes through the attitude of silence.” Something like that. Wait a minute! Oh, snap, I’ll quote some of that Gandhi ish. Watch out, T-Diddy is about to bring the noise.

  “Y’all heard T-Diddy. We ain’t doing nothing,” I repeat. “In our quietness, we will find the light.” I look at Claudia, and she has the same baffled look as the rest of the students. I wink at her. Am I getting inside your head yet, homegirl? “Time to galvanize the streets,” I whisper to her.

  “Well, you better galvanize them quick, because first bell rings in five minutes,” she says back to me. I had forgotten about the time. I look at my phone. We’ve been out here for twenty-five minutes.

  My adrenaline is on super charge. It’s like I’m back on the field, down a score, with less than a minute left on the clock. I can read the defense. The blitz is coming on strong from both sides. The center hikes the ball, I drop back, fake a handoff to the fullback, run to my right, there’s a big joker coming hard for me. I reverse to my left, there’s two more charging full speed. I look downfield, see Fast Freddie sprinting toward the goal. I pump fake a pass to him, and the animal on my right stops, turns, just long enough for me to dodge around him. I’m running this ball. Willie Mack throws me a mean block. T-Diddy’s going in for the touchdown. Oh, yeah, I’m about to score, Claudia Clarke.

  “What do you mean, we’re doing nothing?” Blu screams.

  There are more rumblings from the crowd. Kids are getting restless.

  “I mean, today Dr. Martin Luther King would be like seventy, if he were alive.” Homegirl holds up seven, then eight fingers. Close enough. “Let’s honor him by taking a stand, Panthers.” The crowd goes wild. I yell at the top of my lungs, “We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’. We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’. We’re fired up.”

  “Can’t take no mo’,” the crowd chants.

  “We’re fired up.”

  “Can’t take no mo’,” they repeat.

  “It means that today at eight fifteen a.m., in protest of all the problems here at West Charleston High School, like, uh, filthy bathrooms—”

  “Yeah, and nasty lunches!” a kid yells.

  “Ancient textbooks . . .” Claudia tries not to smile, but she can’t help herself. “The ridiculous ban on school dances . . .”

  Wild applause from the students. I’m starting to feel this protest rally thing.

  “But most importantly,” I continue, “T-Diddy stands before you about the arts funding being cut. This is the last straw. We’re fired up, can’t take no more!” More loud cheers.

  “This morning, when everyone’s in class. At eight fifteen, right after the tardy bell rings, repeat after me: WE. WILL. ALL. BE. QUIET. For ten minutes. Holla if y’all hear me!” Piercing yells. “A’ight, quiet down, quiet down . . . this is what we gonna do. At the beginning of first period, nobody says a thing, for like ten minutes. Until they listen to what we want, to what we need to change our condition, there’s nothing more to say. Feel me.”

  The warning bell sounds, which means we have like three minutes to get to class. The crowd disperses, chanting, “We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’.”

  I help Claudia down from the bench. “What do you think about your boy now?”

  “I think if you’re going to be using other people’s words, you ought to learn the actual quotes.”

  “Oh, you got jokes. Don’t hate ’cause T-Diddy brought that Gandhi fire!”

  “For a minute I thought T-Diddy was about to go up in flames,” she say, trying not to laugh, and failing a little. She’s a tough nut to crack.

  “Shows how mu
ch you know about the nonviolence movement. Dr. King, baby!”

  “It’s an interesting plan. I hope it works,” she responds.

  “T-Diddy always plays to win.”

  “Well, we better get to class.”

  “Should we meet after school to, uh, debrief?” I say, smiling and hoping she gets my hint.

  “Good-bye, Omar.”

  “Good-bye, Beyoncé,” I mouth as she walks away in black jeans that barely make it up her waist. I was so caught up in the rally, I hadn’t even paid attention to the jeans. Oh, snap, she wore the jeans.

  “The best thing you never had,” Willie Mack says, sneaking up behind me.

  Claudia

  The best part of the whole thing was that for once it felt like we were one school. We weren’t the guys and the girls; we weren’t the cool and the callow; we weren’t the athletes and everybody else. For ten beautiful minutes, we were one united school, one aim, one silent majority.

  When the bell rings at eight fifteen, Mr. Washington, our comedian government teacher, begins calling the roll backward for no other reason than he thinks it will amuse us. It doesn’t. By the tenth name, he looks up to see if in fact all ten are absent. They aren’t.

  To be fair, our class, like most classes at West Charleston, is prone to bouts of terrible behavior—talking on the phone during class, teacher pranking, and lots worse. But today, for once, we sit in our seats, attentive and focused. The look on his face isn’t one of surprise, but sheer bemusement at our antics.

  “I see it’s going to be one of those days, people,” he remarks. After taking a sip of his organic apple cinnamon tea—Mr. Washington is a self-proclaimed organic nut—he resumes the roll call in his best Bill Cosby imitation. Only he sounds more like drunk Bill Cosby. It takes everything under the sun not to laugh at that.

  By the twentieth name, it is apparent he’s given up on us—and his humor—when he pounds his desk, jumps up from his seat, and shouts “So nobody’s here? Okay, then maybe you should be in ISS.” He pulls out his infamous pad that he uses to write students up, mainly the same three kids in the back of class, for in-school suspension. There are slight rumbles, but nobody speaks. “Last time, people,” he continues. “Claudia Clarke, don’t tell me they’ve coaxed you to the dark side.” I just look at him and shrug.

  Ironically, we’ve been studying about civil disobedience in his class. From the Roman Empire to the civil rights movement to Occupy Wall Street, we’ve studied centuries of nonviolent resistance. And here we were practicing our own form of it, with Omar Smalls as our very own Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Not! He just got lucky. His silent protest seems to be working, at least in Mr. Washington’s AP Government class.

  “Mr. Washington, like, may I see you for a moment, like, now?” says Ms. Morgan, the giddy English teacher with the permanent smile painted on her face.

  “Sure, give me a minute.” He picks up a stack of papers on his desk and hands them out. “Well, you don’t have to talk to take a pop quiz.” The widening of eyes and arms thrown into the air signify our collective moans and groans. Mr. Washington then grabs his tea and joins her in the hall.

  I feel bad that I didn’t warn Mr. Washington about the protest. Omar said it probably wasn’t a good idea if we told any teachers, for fear they might try to shut us down. First thing he said that I agreed with.

  A couple of kids hole up four fingers to indicate how much time we have left. I look at the clock on the wall. Eight twenty-one. I start answering the twenty-question pop quiz. This silence is foreign to me.

  In my four years at West Charleston, I have never been able to hear the sweet sound of the birds outside our windows, let alone hear myself think. But this morning the black-bellied birds are loud and lovely. Why can’t all mornings be like this? Minus the stomach growls from the guy behind me, who apparently skipped breakfast.

  When Mr. W comes back in, at eight twenty-four, he doesn’t look as puzzled. He takes a sip of tea and speaks to us in his best British accent, which is also his worst.

  “It appears that whatever has taken hold of you is contagious. Ms. Morgan’s sophomore class is giving her the silent treatment as well. Bollocks.”

  The clock reads eight twenty-five, and a collective gasp consumes the room, like we’ve all been underwater and now we’ve risen to the surface.

  “Mr. Washington, we’re fired up, can’t take no mo’,” says Belafonte.

  “Yeah, you should be proud of us, Mr. W. This is straight democracy in action,” Blu adds.

  “Claudia, give me the four-one-one on all this democracy in action hullabaloo,” Mr. Washington says.

  “They’re right, Mr. Washington, we’re taking a stand. The students at West Charleston High School are no longer sitting idly by while our school slides down the academic gutter. You can try to take our band and our library and our drama and our teachers away, but you can’t take our souls. And our souls will never let the powers that be take the arts from us. Our souls are on fire, Mr. Washington.”

  “And we’re gonna burn this mutha down if we have to,” screams one of the troublemakers from the back.

  “Metaphorically, of course,” Mr. Washington says.

  “What did Ms. Morgan say to you?” Blu asks.

  “Well, she’d gotten wind that some kind of senior silent prank was going to take place, so she just gave a quiz in her class. But no one talked in her class. Is this a schoolwide thing?”

  “We are not a prank or a thing. We are a protest,” Belafonte says defiantly.

  “Well, good for you, Mr. Jones.”

  “This is a movement, Mr. W,” Blu adds.

  “The students of West Charleston want our arts funding reinstated, and today’s silent protest was to let our voice be heard,” I say forcefully, and realize I am now standing up. Mr. Washington starts clapping, like he’s just seen a good play.

  “Bravo, bravo! Well done. What you’ve just done is more than any government class taught by a handsome organic vegan can teach you.” He’s back to trying to be funny and failing miserably. “Give me those quizzes back. A’s for everyone. Let’s watch a movie.”

  Well, we weren’t silent after that announcement. He may not have been too funny, but right then Mr. Washington pretty much guaranteed that all of us would be voting for him to win WCHS Teacher of the Year for the third straight year.

  Sitting there thinking about the teachers who got laid off, and the library being closed, it dawned on me that our little protest probably wasn’t going to get their jobs back, any more than Dr. King’s March on Washington ended racism and poverty. That reality was further cemented in my mind when I went to talk with him during the movie.

  “Hey, Mr. W.”

  “Claudia, whose idea was this silent treatment?”

  “Believe it or not, Omar Smalls’s.”

  “Omar ‘T-Diddy’ Smalls?” he asks in disbelief.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, good for him,” he says, smiling.

  “What kind of idiot school board doesn’t think we need books? What kind of school has a library that’s only open two days a week?”

  “Our school isn’t failing; we’re failing our school. I’m afraid West Charleston is turning into a twenty-first-century prison of mediocrity.”

  “Well, the inmates are taking over, Mr. Washington.” This puts a smile on his face.

  “Have you given the principal a list of demands? Has anyone called the school board? What do your parents say about this? What are the next steps? What’s your plan?”

  Demands. School board. Plan. Huh? We don’t have any of that; at least, I don’t think Omar does. We’re just trying to bring attention to the funding cuts. Next steps? That sounds like homework. Which is the last thing I need on my already full plate—physics, English lit, French, trig, AP Government, and the Panther Pride.

  “Ms. Clarke, you’re a smart student. Don’t let the sun catch you sleeping.” What’s up with all the sun metaphors? Jeez!

&
nbsp; “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Washington.”

  “The night’s the time to close your eyes. Your soul may be tired tonight. But tomorrow in the morning light, there’s work to be done. So don’t let the sun catch you sleeping,” he sings.

  He strums an invisible guitar to go along with his horrible singing. After he takes the last sip of his tea, he goes back to turning the virtual pages of the book he’s reading on his iPad.

  I’m not sure what Omar has in his mind, other than trying to run game on me. But I’m the activist, and I don’t need him to keep this movement, uh, moving. Wake up, Claudia. This is a whole lot bigger than raising a few dollars to save chimps.

  Maybe I’ll just convince him to help me a little more. He did get the students to come out to the rally. Yeah, I’ll just string Mr. Football along until the protest gets some legs. Then I’ll cut him loose like the stray dawg that he is.

  Omar

  “BeTheSun,” Fast Freddie says, laughing. “ThatWasClassicT-Diddy.”

  “Don’t sleep. T-Diddy got plenty of tricks for these tricks,” I say, even though my fake ladykilla plan failed, and there’s nothing else up my sleeve but a thirsty ego.

  “Where’s my money, dawg?” Mack says, holding out his hand.

  “C’mon, son, if y’all ain’t talk that ying yang about the bet, I’da been all up in that. Fo’ sho!”

  “T-Diddy, that was tight,” says Leah, a cheerleader I used to get with, from a nearby table.

  “That silent protest was tight, T-Diddy. My teacher canceled our test,” another kid says, walking past me.

  “Let me get some of them fries, Mack,” I say, snatching the whole bag before he can grab it.

  “Dude, don’t make me jump over that table,” he says, standing up like he wants some of this. “Gimme my joints back.”

  “Why you wildin’ out like them Bayside boys?” I hand him back the bag of fries, now half empty. He’s scowling like I stole his wallet or something.