Leggings Revolt (6 page)

“I guess,” Rory says.

Theo nods. “We’re in.”

After our workout, Theo wants to stop at the store for a carton of milk.

“Milk?” I put my thumb in my mouth the way Theo did before. “Now who’s being a baby?”

As we walk toward the store, Theo tells Phil and me that drinking milk helps build
lean body mass. Rory and Martie are discussing the Leggings Revolt.

I hold the door for someone leaving the store with a brown bag.

“Hey, did I hear someone say
Leggings Revolt
?” the person asks. That bossy voice
can only belong to one person—Rowena.

The others have recognized her too. “You heard right,” Rory tells her. “Eric came
up with the name Leggings Revolt. All we need now is a plan of action.”

Rowena sets her brown bag down on the sidewalk. Something tells me she is about to
boss us around. “We should start a petition,” she says.

Chapter Fifteen

By the next morning, Rowena has come up with the wording for the petition.
We, the
undersigned, object to the Lajoie High School dress code on the grounds that it is
sexist and targets female students. We believe the new leggings rule is totally arbitrary
and therefore unfair. We insist the leggings rule be abolished, and we also insist
the entire dress code be rewritten, with input from every student at the school.
Furthermore, we want Daisy Fung’s suspension to be struck from her record.

Rowena has made a dozen copies so we can start collecting signatures. She hands me
her pen and points to the first blank line on the sheet.

“Shouldn’t you be the first to sign?” I ask her. “It was your idea. And you did all
the work.”

“I’d rather not be the very first one.” When I ask why, Rowena folds her arms across
her chest and says, “It’s complicated.”

Collecting signatures is more fun than I expect. Because there are still fifteen
minutes before homeroom, I start in the hallway, tapping kids’ elbows and telling
them about the petition. Soon there is a thick crowd of students pressing in on me.
Everyone wants to sign.

“Great idea!” a girl says as she adds her name. “It’s about time we stood up to the
Germinator.”

“Do you really think this’ll work?” Dandelion-Hair asks as he scribbles his signature.

“It’s worth a try,” I tell him.

The girl from Life Sciences class tugs on my sleeve. “I can’t believe Daisy Fung
got a three-day suspension for wearing leggings,” she says. “I want to sign.” When
she signs, I learn her name is Maude.

An older boy claps my back as if we are good friends. “Hey, do you think you could
add something about getting our baseball caps back? The Germinator confiscated my
Expos cap two years ago. That thing is worth big bucks on eBay.”

“You’re Eric, aren’t you?” another kid asks.

“Sure am,” I tell him. For the first time since I started coming to Lajoie
High School,
I feel like I belong. Had I known political activism could make a guy popular, I’d
have stood up sooner! Even older students who usually treat seventh-graders as if
we’re air are treating me with respect.

My sheet already has thirty-five signatures. It’s a good thing Rowena printed lines
on both sides.

I tap the elbow of the person next to me. “Would you like to sign this petition
to make changes to the school dress code? I’ve got a pen if you nee—”

The elbow I tapped belongs to Ivan from the Student Life Committee. Vicky is with
him. They have the same sour expression on their faces.

“What are you thinking, Eric?” Ivan grabs the petition from my hand. “
We, the undersigned
,”
he begins reading in a high-pitched nasal voice.

“Give him back the petition,” the guy who lost his Expos cap tells Ivan.
Ivan holds
the petition up in the air for a second, and then he throws it back at me.

The final bell rings. We have three minutes to get to class. The crowd around me
disperses as quickly as it formed. Only Ivan and Vicky are left. “When Germinato
finds out you’re involved in this, he’ll kick you off the Student Life Committee,”
Ivan says. “Don’t you realize how this will affect your résumé?”

“There’s more to life than résumés,” I tell Ivan. “And in case you haven’t noticed,
your Student Life Committee is a joke. All we do is carry out Germinato’s orders.
Doesn’t it bother you that the dress code is sexist?”

Vicky has not said a word, but now she points to the petition. “Let me see that.”

“You’re not going to tear it up, are you?” I ask her.

“Of course not.” Vicky’s eyes move across the top of the page. I expect her
to scowl
or say something sarcastic, but instead she plucks the pen from my fingers and adds
her signature to the list.

Ivan shakes his head. “That petition isn’t going to do any good.”

“How do you know?” Vicky asks him.

“My older brother graduated from Lajoie six years ago. He and his friends put together
a petition. They wanted Germinato to let them use the gym one Friday a month for
school dances. They were even going to give the money they raised to a homeless shelter.”

“What happened with the petition?” I ask Ivan.

“He read it, and then he put it in a folder at the very back of his filing cabinet.
He didn’t even have the good manners to say he’d think about it,” Ivan says.

I look down at the petition. It has forty-six signatures. Phil, Rory, Theo and Martie
have been collecting signatures too. But even if we get every
student at Lajoie
to sign our petition, it may not be enough to get Germinato to rethink the dress
code.

It’s time for more radical action.

Chapter Sixteen

Am I the only kid who gets his best ideas in the shower?

I am soaping my pits when it comes to me. What if, for one day, every single kid
at Lajoie High School wore leggings—even the boys? Germinato couldn’t suspend everyone!
The more I think about it, the more genius my idea sounds.

I want to run it by Rowena, but I don’t see her on my way to school.

Germinato is not at school either. I know because there is no car in the
Reserved
for Principal
parking spot. The other clue is that Miss Aubin is humming to herself.
She never hums.

Mr. Farrell is wearing a tie. “What’s up with the formal wear?” Rory asks him when
we walk into Life Sciences.

“I’m filling in for Mr. Germinato today,” Mr. Farrell says.

“Did Mr. Germinato get suspended?” Maude asks.

I can tell Mr. Farrell is trying not to smile. “Mr. Germinato needed the day off
to deal with some personal issues,” is all he says.

Mr. Farrell makes us work in pairs. I partner up with Maude. Mr. Farrell hands each
pair a section from a map of the world. We get China. We are
supposed to add drawings
of the animals that are native to our country. Maude is trying to draw a panda bear.
I decide not to point out that the animal she is drawing looks more like a cat than
a bear.

Maude is the first one I tell about my plan. “I like it,” she says. “A lot. You’ll
need to go viral—spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Rowena can help with that.”

“Too bad she isn’t here today,” I say.

Maude shakes her head. “I hope everything’s okay at her house.”

“Maybe she’s got the flu.”

“Yeah, but her dad’s away too.” Maude puts her hand over her mouth.

“Her dad?”

“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. You’ve got to promise not to tell
anyone else, okay? The Germinator—he’s Rowena’s dad.”

I slap my thigh. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Maude says. “Rowena doesn’t like people knowing. That’s why she uses her
mom’s last name—Johnston.”

No wonder Rowena didn’t want to run for the Student Life Committee!

“We used to live around the corner from the Germinatos,” Maude says. “My mom thinks
Germinato’s so strict because of all the problems they’ve had with Luanne, Rowena’s
older sister.”

“Problems?” I ask.

“She dropped out of college,” Maude says as she puts a black spot on the catbear’s
belly. “And now she’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” For the first time, I find myself actually feeling sorry for Germinato.
Maybe he thinks that if he had been stricter with Luanne, she might have stayed in
school and not gotten pregnant.

Mr. Farrell announces that he needs to leave the classroom for ten minutes.
“I’m
counting on you people to continue working together quietly,” he tells us before
he goes.

Maude gives him time to get to the other end of the hallway. Then she puts two fingers
in her mouth and whistles to get the class’s attention. “Eric and I need to ask you
guys something. Are you ready to join the Leggings Revolt?”

I explain my plan, and every single kid in Life Sciences wants in. Even Rory is willing
to come to school in leggings. “I’ll borrow a pair from my sister,” he says.

“When are we going to do it?” someone else asks.

Maude thinks we should give ourselves a few days to get organized, and to make sure
Germinato will be in the building. We settle on Friday. That will give us time to
put the word out on social media.

One student is standing guard by the classroom door. “Mr. Farrell’s on his way,”
he tells us.

When Mr. Farrell walks into the classroom, we are working on our illustrated maps.
He surveys the room. “It’s nice to see such focus in here,” he says. “If I didn’t
know better, I’d think you guys were up to something.”

Chapter Seventeen

Word spreads quickly about the Leggings Revolt. I am at my locker when a tenth-grade
girl hands me a bag. “For the cause,” she says. Inside are three pairs of black leggings.
I can use a pair, and I’ll give the other two to guys like me, who don’t have leggings
or a sister to lend them some.

Rowena has set up a Facebook page that already has over two hundred Likes. That’s
impressive when you consider enrolment at Lajoie is just under six hundred. “You’re
good buds with Miss Aubin,” Rowena tells me. “I bet you could sweet-talk her into
giving you a list of email addresses for all the students.”

Before, I’d have tried to talk Rowena into doing it, but now that I know Germinato
is her dad, I don’t bother.

At recess I am back in front of Miss Aubin’s desk. Miss Aubin waves me away. “Can
you give me five minutes?” she whispers, pointing at her computer screen. I tilt
my head, expecting to see words on the screen. Instead, there is a grainy image of
Daisy, looking sad, and her mother waving her arms in the background. I have interrupted
some kind of online meeting.

I mouth the words
no problem
to Miss Aubin. I consider waving to Daisy,
but then
decide that would be dumb. Especially since I hope to eavesdrop. I grab a seat about
six feet from Miss Aubin’s desk. Because I have my World History textbook with me,
I flip it open and pretend to study.

Miss Aubin’s eyes flit toward me, then away.

“Mrs. Fung, I believe it would be a mistake to transfer Daisy out of Marie Gérin-Lajoie
High School,” I hear Miss Aubin say.

From where I am sitting, it’s hard to make out Mrs. Fung’s answer, though I manage
to catch the words
rules
and
metro
. The Fungs must know about Daisy’s habit of putting
on makeup at the metro station.

Now Miss Aubin addresses Daisy. “I’m all for freedom of expression, but I wonder
if you’ve thought about the sort of image you present when you dress in a way that
draws attention to your body.”

I hear Daisy’s answer, which means she must be shouting. “Why should I have to care
about my image? Why don’t you talk to the boys instead? Get them to stop looking
at girls as if we’re objects!”

“I see your point, I really do, Daisy,” Miss Aubin says. “There’s no question that
boys’ attitudes need to change. But perhaps if you” —Miss Aubin pauses to choose
her words— “toned it down, even a little…”

“I only dress to be comfortable!” Daisy insists.

Miss Aubin looks directly into the camera at the top of her computer. “I’m in favor
of dressing comfortably. But is it possible that some of your fashion choices might
be attracting the wrong kind of attention from the boys?”

Daisy shakes her head. “Whose side are you on anyhow?” she asks Miss Aubin.

“I happen to be on your side, Daisy. I’d just like you to think about the impact
of your choices.”

“Fine,” I hear Daisy say. “I’ll think about it.” She still sounds angry.

Miss Aubin sighs. “That’s good. There’s something you should know, Daisy. I’m not
the only one who’s on your side. The students at Marie Gérin-Lajoie High School want
you back, and they want the suspension wiped from your record.”

Which makes me wonder if Miss Aubin has seen the petition.

I wait until Miss Aubin calls me over. When I get to her desk, she eyes my textbook.
“You weren’t really studying World History, were you, Eric?”

“I was, I mean…well, not exactly.” Why is it so hard for me to lie to Miss Aubin?
“I overheard a bit of your conversation.”

“A bit?” Miss Aubin raises her eyebrows.

“Okay, a lot. Thanks for trying to keep Daisy at Lajoie. She’s really something,
isn’t she?”

“I hope you’re not referring to her physical appearance,” Miss Aubin says.

“Of course not. Though I do like her physical appearance. When I say Daisy is really
something, I mean all of her.” As the words tumble out, I realize how much I mean
them.

“So, Eric, is there something I can help you with today?”

I almost forgot my mission. “We’re trying to organize this thing”—I don’t want to
use the word
revolt—
“to show our support for Daisy. And, well, I was wondering, you
wouldn’t happen to have a list of all the students’ email addresses, would you?”

Miss Aubin grips the edge of her desk. “I could get in all sorts of trouble for sharing
that information.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have asked…”