The Fight for Kidsboro (56 page)

She nodded slowly, but I wasn't convinced.

“I'm not allowed to give you help on this. It has to be your project.”

She took the stack of papers and looked at it as if it were written in Swahili. I had sympathy for her. “I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.”

“Do your best.”

“I will.” She turned and headed for the door, hunched over like an old woman with a bad back.

This was a project that I felt would be challenging, but could be done by most people my age. I had serious doubts about Lauren being able to handle it, though. I felt like I had just given out my first pink slip.

Over the next two days, Scott and I ducked behind bushes and trees, watching the special-interest groups unravel like a bad sweater.

Valerie and her clan were gathered at the spot where they'd been told to build the bathroom. They all had their shovels out, but no one was digging. Scott and I crouched behind some bushes to listen to what they were saying.

“Come on, we have to do this,” Valerie said.

“I think I'd be better at helping build the walls,” Patty said.

“What's the big deal? It's just a hole.”

“Yeah, but it's the thought of what it's going to be,” another girl said. “And ho ware we going to be able to walk down the halls of our school ever again? Everybody'll call us the Toilet Girls.”

“Yeah,” Patty agreed.

“It's just gross.”

“Nobody will even come near us.”

“I can't do it.”

“Okay, okay,” Valerie said. “This is silly. We need to do it. This will prove once and for all that we're equal to boys—that we can do anything they can do. There's nothing in there but dirt. We don't have to ever use it, we just have to dig it.”

“Then you do it,” Patty said.

“No way,” Valerie said. “It's disgusting.”

The slingshot guys were having a powwow in one of their designated areas. Scott and I crept up behind the group, ducking behind a couple of trees.

“I can't come up with anything,” one said.

“Why do we have to prove we're a benefit to society? We just want to be able to use slingshots,” another said.

“Look, I don't agree with this ruling any more than you do, but we have to think of something. We have to show we have some purpose. Now everybody think!” Ben, their leader, ordered.

They all bowed their heads and squinted their eyes shut, clearly trying to squeeze every ounce of intelligence out of their brains.

“What are we here for?” Ben said. “What's our purpose?”

“Protection. We're here so that Kidsborians can feel safe in their homes.”

“Right. Protection. But from what?”

They all looked at each other, and then one said, “Bears?”

“How can we prove that, though?”

“Man, if only a bear would attack or something.”

“Oh, that would be perfect.”

“Maybe we could lure one here. Put out some food or something.”

“I've never seen any bears around here.”

“We'll have to go deeper in the woods.”

“Yeah. There's tons of bears out there.”

“That's it. We go find a bear, shoot it with a slingshot, then drag it back here and tell everybody we saved them from certain death.”

“Yeah!”

“That's it!”

“Let's do it!”

They picked up their slingshots and marched on ward, heads held high. They all high-fived each other, whooping and hollering as they headed deeper into the woods as a group. Scott was holding his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

Suddenly, one of the slingshotters stopped. “Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“We're gonna shoot a bear?”

They all halted, and it suddenly dawned on them what they had decided to do. They exchanged frightened looks.

“We can do this,” Ben said. No one else seemed convinced, but no one wanted to admit his fear. They moved on into the woods, though there was no more hollering, and their steps weren't quite so quick.

Scott and I were pretending to casually walk past the farmers' garden. We slowed our steps to overhear Mark and the Clean Up Kidsboro group having a feud with the farmers. “What is that?” Mark said to farmer/doctor James. “What are you putting on your plants?”

“It's bug killer,” James replied.

“That stuff pollutes the environment. You can't use it.”

“If we don't use this, the bugs'll eat everything. These beetle things are all over the place.”

“I guess they're gonna have a feast then.”

“Sorry, but you'll have to fight pollution somewhere else. This is our garden, and it's got to look a lot better than this in three days if we're gonna keep our funding.”

“You keep using that death spray, and you won't have a garden to show.”

“What do you mean?”

“You put one drop of it on your plants, and we'll rip 'em all out by the roots.”

“What?”

We passed by the feminists, and they had begun work on the latrine walls. I imagined they were doing this to put off having to dig, which was much more offensive. They had built a frame of wood, and it looked rather good.

Scott and I were kneeling behind some tall bushes, watching Melissa and the animal rights group attempt to train their dogs to pick up rocks in the middle of Kidsboro's main street and take them to the creek. Apparently, this would be the way they would show that their dogs benefited Kidsboro—by getting rid of dangerous rocks that people could trip over.

The trainers weren't having much success. “Come on, Tornado,” an owner said to his terrier. “Pick up the rock. Pick it up, boy.” The owner looked around to see if anyone was watching, then got down on all fours and demonstrated the technique to his dog. He picked up a rock in his mouth and carried it away, then turned around to see if his dog would do it. At this point, Scott and I were both stuffing our fists in our mouths to keep from bursting out laughing.

The dog just looked at his owner as if to say, “Well, if
you're
going to pick up the rocks, then there's no sense in me doing it. You can take them to the creek. And while you're there, would you mind filling my water dish? It's kind of a long walk.”

Two days later there was panic in the air. None of the groups were making much progress with their assignments, and they had only 24 hours left. I was nearby the designated slingshot area as the guys returned from another unsuccessful bear-hunting trip. They came back with a couple of dead crickets.

“But crickets are gross,” one of them said. “They spit this tobacco-like stuff, and they jump on you. The government should pay us big bucks to rid our town of these pesky marauders of freedom.” The rest of the guys weren't buying it. They must have known that two dead crickets were not enough to pass the test. I found out later that it had taken 14 shots from four different people to hit the first cricket with their slingshots. The other one they had just stepped on.

The feminists were holding a six-person rally at the meeting hall pavilion to psyche themselves up for digging the hole. The walls were complete, but they had yet to break ground with their shovels. Scott and I peeked in.

Valerie was at the front, her fist waving madly. “We can do this, girls!” Wild cheers. “We are entering a new age where there is no difference between boys and girls!” More applause. “An age where we can do anything boys can do! I have a dream! I have a dream that one day boys will be cleaning the kitchen cabinets, and girls will be choosing the president's cabinet. I have a dream that girls will be found within the capitol walls and boys in the shopping malls!” The girls were now in a frenzy. “I have a dream that one day there will be girls and boys standing side by side, kings and queens, dresses and jeans, Chrises and Christines, using all their means, to dig latrines!”

Valerie had them going crazy, and didn't want to lose them. She grabbed a shovel and raised it above her head. “This is the symbol of girls now!We use shovels! We dig dirt!We do construction! We get dirty!” They all raised their shovels.