Leggings Revolt (7 page)
“All right then, Eric, I’d better get back to work.” Miss Aubin looks at her computer
and types something on her keyboard. A second later I hear the whir of her printer.
“Okay then, I should get going,” I tell her. “Hey, thanks for telling Daisy we’re
trying to help her.”
Miss Aubin’s eyes meet mine. “Eric, could you do me a small favor? I left my fruit
salad in the staff room. Would you mind my desk and answer the phone? Just say, ‘You
have reached Marie Gérin-Lajoie High School’ and explain that I’ll be back in about
seven minutes.”
“Do you want me to get your fruit salad for you…”
“No,” Miss Aubin says. Her tone is firm. “Teachers don’t like students in the staff
room.”
Miss Aubin does not shut down her computer.
You can’t blame me for looking at the screen.
My heart beats double-time when I see it is open to a document called
Student Email
List
.
I’ll be back in about seven minutes.
That gives me just enough time to print the list.
I don’t get much sleep on Thursday night. I am up past midnight, emailing my list
of thirty-five students. Rowena, Maude, Phil, Rory, Theo, Martie and Daisy—she is
back at school for what her parents call “a trial period”—are each going to contact
thirty-five students too. Even Vicky offered to pitch in.
When I finally get to bed, I am too hyper to sleep.
In the morning there’s a lineup of teenagers outside the bathroom at the metro. I’m
not the only guy who didn’t want to leave his house in leggings. I wore jeans over
mine, so it doesn’t take me long to peel off the jeans and stash them in my backpack.
When I leave the bathroom, I spot Daisy. “Nice legs!” she says to me.
“I hope you’re not gonna rate my butt!”
“I would never treat anyone like an object,” she says.
We walk to school in a group. I can tell the others feel the way I do, excited and
nervous. Excited to be standing up for what we believe, but nervous about Germinato’s
reaction.
Students are milling around the school’s front entrance. Every one of them is wearing
leggings! Though we
did not specify a color, almost everyone is in black leggings.
I do see a few gray pairs, and some with patterns. One girl’s leggings have a graffiti
design. Germinato is really going to hate those.
I take a deep breath when I see Germinato’s car and another as I push open the front
door of the school.
But the first thing I see makes me laugh, which relieves some of the tension I’m
feeling. A pair of black leggings hangs off the bottom of the painting of Marie Gérin-Lajoie!
Who did that?
There is no sign of either Germinato or Miss Aubin.
Some guy in ninth grade taps my shoulder. His leggings are too short, exposing his
hairy calves. “What do you want us to do?” The question takes me by surprise. People
don’t usually come to me for instructions.
“Uh, just do whatever you would normally do,” I tell him.
I overhear snippets of conversation around me. “Can you believe how many kids are
wearing leggings?” “Where’d you get yours?” “I can’t wait to see the Germinator’s
face!”
I am heading to my locker when Miss Aubin walks out of the staff room. She’s wearing
leggings! “Good morning, Eric,” she says. Then she winks at me.
Now I hear Germinato’s voice from the other end of the hallway. “Those leggings violate
the Lajoie High School dress code. Report to my office immediately. All five of
you, on the double! And you too! And you!”
I swear I feel the blood coursing through my veins, pumping me up. Daisy and Rowena
are on the way to their lockers too, their elbows linked. “Maybe you should stay
out of his way,” I tell Daisy. Then I turn to Rowena. “And you too.” I have not told
her that I know Germinato is her dad.
“No way!” they say at the same time.
Germinato is standing in the middle of the locker area, waving his arms like some
broken robot. His face is red and swollen-looking. “You! Get to my office!” he shouts.
When he sees the three of us, he gets a wild look in his eyes. “What in tarnation
is going on here today?” he asks. “It’s as if everyone in this entire school is wearing
leggings! Rowena! Do you have something to do with this…this disaster?”
As I step forward, the locker area becomes suddenly quiet. I can feel everyone watching
me. “Mr. Germinato, sir, everyone in this school
is
wearing leggings. And it’s not
a disaster. It’s the Leggings Revolt.”
I want to say more, but Germinato does not let me. “Revolt, my foot!” he shouts.
“All of you, to my office now! I am the principal of this school, and you will abide
by my rules!”
“Sir,” I say, and I hope no one can tell that my legs are shaking, “there isn’t room
in your office for six hundred students. Maybe you need to rethink the dress code.”
Germinato turns his back on all of us and stomps back toward his office. “Should
we go to his office like he said?” a girl asks me.
“Like I told him, there won’t be room for all of us,” I say.
“What if we lined up down the hallway?” Rowena asks.
We hear the crackle of the
PA
system and then Germinato’s voice. “Attention, students
and teachers! I am calling an emergency assembly. Everyone to the gym immediately!”
The first thing I notice in the gym is that Miss Aubin is not the only staff or faculty
person wearing leggings. Mr. Farrell and half a dozen other teachers are wearing
leggings too!
This time no one offers me a Handi Wipe or pretends to cough or sneeze. The gym is
a sea of students, all focused on the podium where Germinato is standing. I think
we all have the sense that whatever happens, we are making history. From what I can
tell, there is only one kid in the gym not wearing leggings—Ivan.
Germinato grips the podium with both hands. He scowls when his eyes land on the teachers
who are wearing leggings.
Because the microphone is on, we all hear him mutter, “Miss Aubin! How could you?”
Every kid in the gym turns to see Miss Aubin walking in. Not only is she wearing
leggings, but she is also
carrying a cardboard sign with a photo of Marie Gérin-Lajoie
on it and a dialogue balloon over her head that reads
Down with the dress code!
Maude jumps up from her spot on the floor and shouts, “Down with the dress code!”
Then, as quickly as kindling catching fire, everyone joins in. Soon the whole gym
is chanting, “Down with the dress code! Down with the dress code!”
“Silence! Silence now!” Germinato sputters into the microphone. But the chanting
continues.
Germinato taps furiously on the microphone, but that does not work either.
Now Ivan pops up from his spot.
“How come you’re not wearing leggings?” someone asks him.
“Because I’m against this revolt!” he shouts back.
Ivan picks his way through the crowd to join Germinato at the microphone.
“Thank
you, Ivan,” we hear Germinato say. “If you ever need a letter of recommendation,
just ask.”
Having Ivan at his side reinvigorates Germinato. “Silence! Silence this instant!”
he booms into the microphone. Finally, the crowd quiets down.
“I have not failed to notice,” Germinato says, “that many of you are wearing leggings,
despite the fact that the Lajoie High School dress code prohibits leggings. I am
your principal, and I have the right to punish you. All of you”—Germinato looks around
the gym, his eyes landing on the students, the teachers and finally on Rowena—“who
are in violation of the Lajoie High School dress code…”
I hear whispering behind me, then Daisy saying, “Do it now!”
I’m surprised that for once Daisy is giving Rowena orders. When Rowena stands, her
hands are trembling. She is
holding a stack of papers. It must be the petition. If
she presents the petition to Germinato now, there’s no way he can hide it at the
back of his filing cabinet.
Rowena walks to the podium, holding the petition to her chest like a shield.
“Go, Rowena!” Rory calls out.
“You rock, Rowena!” Phil adds.
Again that sets the others off, and now there is a chorus of “Rowena!”
Rowena pumps one fist in the air.
“What are you doing, Rowena?” Germinato asks as she approaches.
Rowena steps closer to the microphone, so we all hear her answer. “Da—” She stops
herself. “Mr. Germinato, I hereby present you with a petition signed by 549 students
at this school. It reads,
We, the undersigned
…”
I don’t know who is first to stand up when she has finished reading it to him. Maybe
it’s Maude, maybe Phil, but now every student is clamoring to his or
her feet. And
they are all shouting, “Down with the dress code!”
“Fine!” Germinato shouts into the microphone. “I said,
fine
!”
Rowena spins around, her face inches from her dad’s. “What do you mean by
fine
?”
she asks. Am I the only one who sees the resemblance between the two of them?
Germinato speaks into the microphone. “By
fine
, I mean I will consider your objections
to the dress code. And I have decided
not
to impose a punishment on any of you—at
least, not today.” He smiles as if everything is settled.
When I look over at the benches where the staff is sitting, I realize Miss Aubin
is watching me. Is she trying to send me a message?
I shrug my shoulders and raise my palms. It’s my way of asking,
What’s the message?
Miss Aubin looks at me—hard.
I know what that means.
She is not going to tell me what to do.
I have to figure things out for myself. It is up to me—and the other students—to
affect change. The way Marie Gérin-Lajoie did.
I bring a chair from the side of the room and stand up on it so everyone will see
me. I’m not even shaking. I feel like a tree planted firmly in the earth.
“Hey, that’s Eric!” someone calls out. “He’s the brains behind the Leggings Revolt!”
“Mr. Germinato,” I yell, “your offer is not good enough. We don’t want you to
consider
our objections
to the dress code. We want the leggings rule dropped
now
. And we want
your assurance
now
that the dress code will be revised with our input.” I turn to
look at Daisy. “And we want Daisy Fung’s suspension wiped from her record
now
.”
Germinato throws his hands up into the air. “Fine!” he says.
And with that, the whole gym erupts into cheering and clapping. The walls vibrate
from the noise.
There have been many changes on the Student Life Committee.
Lunch is no longer catered by the school cafeteria. Instead, we get to order in.
Today we’re having Indian from Monsoon Moon. They make the best samosas and butter
chicken in Montreal.
Another change is that everyone has a say—even me, the seventh-grade rep.
Today I am reporting on the dress-code negotiations. “There’s been more progress,”
I tell the others. “Mr. Germinato has agreed to drop the rule prohibiting visible
bra straps.”
“Did you speak to him about my idea of auctioning off his collection of confiscated
baseball caps?” Ivan asks.
I open my binder to the notes I took during my last meeting with Germinato. “He was
open to the idea,” I say. “As long as the proceeds go to charity.”
“
Open to the idea
,” Sandy, the ninth-grade rep, says. “I never thought I’d hear those
words spoken by Germinato.”
I don’t tell the others what I know. That Germinato’s new attitude may not be the
result of the Leggings Revolt. Ever since I told Rowena that I know Germinato is
her dad, she has been filling me in about her home life.
It turns out that Germinato and his wife are going to help raise Luanne’s baby.
The
whole family has been attending weekly counseling sessions. According to Rowena,
the therapist has strongly encouraged Germinato to be a better listener to young
people.
Miss Aubin raises her hand. She still takes minutes at our meetings, but she has
also begun sharing some of her own ideas. “I thought I’d mention that Marie Gérin-Lajoie’s
birthday is coming up on October 19. I was thinking that perhaps the Student Life
Committee might want to mark the occasion.”
“We could organize a party in her honor,” Vicky says.
“I’d like to see a poster display explaining her role as an advocate for women’s
rights,” Miss Aubin says. “I could talk to one of the history teachers. It could
be a class project.”
“We should do something with Marie Gérin-Lajoie’s portrait,” Sandy suggests. “Kids
walk by that painting
without even looking at it. We need to find a way to make it
speak to students.”
The word
speak
combined with my memory of the sign Miss Aubin made for the Leggings
Revolt gives me an idea. “What if we asked students to come up with dialogue balloons
with stuff Marie Gérin-Lajoie might say if she visited our school today?”
Miss Aubin smiles as she includes my idea in the minutes. Then she looks up at me.
“I think I know what Marie Gérin-Lajoie would say. She’d say she was proud of each
and every one of you. And,
Long live the Leggings Revolt!
”
Every book has a story behind it. In winter 2015, I was doing writing workshops
with students at St. Thomas High School in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. I happened to show
them my ideas notebook and read them my list of book ideas. They liked
Leggings
Revolt
best. Then something wonderful happened: they agreed to turn up during several
of their lunch hours to share their thoughts about dress codes and, later, to read
and critique this story. Many thanks to St. Thomas librarian Carolyn Pye for inviting
me to her library and to Quebec’s Ministère de l’Éducation du Loisir et du Sport’s
Culture in the Schools Program, which makes visits like these possible. Thanks to
the following St. Thomas students for your enthusiasm and inspiration:
Jeff Chan,
Fatma Elgeneidy, Samuel Helguero, Giordano Imola, Matthew Kasovan, Eric Kopersiewich,
Kiara Lancing, Magalie Langlois, Maude Larrondeau-Soule, Brianna Losinger-Ross, Madison
Moore, William Pugsley, Cynthia Sauvageau, Katharine Scarlat, Owen Stafford, Emma
Starr, Lindsay Thomas, Averie Tucker, Marisa Vertolli and Samantha Vissani. And,
as always, thanks to the terrific team at Orca, especially my smart and sensitive
editor, Melanie Jeffs.