The Latte Rebellion (11 page)

“It’s just this … guy I met at that club meeting I went to with Bridget,” I told him. “He’s working on a community clinic project.” I smiled a little, thinking about Thad, but my smile turned to a grimace when I thought about how utterly non-smooth I’d been on the phone.

“A guy?” My dad shifted and peered at me as if he suspected I wasn’t telling him the whole story.

“
Yes,
Dad, a
guy
. Jeez, do you have to interrogate me about everyone I talk to?”

“Asha, please. I’m just asking a question. I’m trying to take an interest in your life.” He sighed and straightened up. “I know you’ve been busy with school, so I’m glad you had a chance to do something with Bridget. I just don’t want you to get distracted.”

“When was the last time I got distracted?” I was now extra glad my parents didn’t know about the Latte Rebellion. “I’ll be fine. Remember, you gave me that speech about time management when I started high school. I won’t let guys distract me.” I fidgeted on the bed, then added under my breath, “Like any guys are ever interested in me anyway.”

“Let’s not start that,” Dad said with an exasperated sigh. I didn’t want to start down that road either—that way lay madness and melancholy—but Dad
really
hated it.

“Just … keep your eyes on the prize, kiddo, and don’t blow it,” he said shortly, and left. I shut the door after him and flopped back on the bed. Relieved, yes, but to be totally honest, I was still thinking about Thad. Awkward phone call or not … something about him made my innards fluttery and my brain gooey. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Either way, I realized that I didn’t really have the grounds to accuse Carey of anything Leonard-related when I was just as clearly guilty of letting myself get—as my dad would put it—sidetracked. Unfortunately, this was not one of those realizations that made me feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I adjusted the paper bag on my head; my forehead was sweating and I hoped it wouldn’t soak through. A month to the day after the first Latte Rebellion meeting, we were holding the second official meeting, back at Mocha Loco with its increasingly familiar burnt-coffee smell. It was just like before—a couple of our posters hanging on the wall behind the table where we were sitting, the three of us sipping our lattes and waiting to get started under the watchful gaze of our cartoon alter egos.

Only this time, every seat in the café was turned toward us.

There had to be at least fifty people crammed into that small, brightly lit room.
Fifty.
My stomach flip-flopped a little. Carey was shifting nervously in the chair next to me and even Miranda seemed fidgety. She’d wrapped her long cornrow braids up into a bun so they wouldn’t show underneath her paper bag—we were all a little extra paranoid that someone at school would find out who we were, ever since Ms. Allison’s weird conversation with me. It seemed like every time somebody wore a Latte Rebellion shirt at school, the teachers would give them sidelong looks and have furtive, whispered conversations with each other at lunchtime or between classes.

I wondered what would happen if someone recognized our voices and decided to say something. Or if word got back to Mr. Malone. Would we get a warning, a black mark? Something that would screw up our academic records? None of us needed that.

I stood up and the room went eerily silent. I gulped my latte and set it down on the glass table with a decisive clunk, and then set my note cards aside. Miranda and Carey looked at me in surprise.

“Due to the potential threat faced by Agent Alpha—myself—Captain Charlie, and Lieutenant Bravo, by outside forces hostile to our cause, who might fear us as instigators …” I cleared my throat and continued in a scratchier voice, in the hopes of disguising it a little. “In order to preserve our anonymity, today’s meeting will be conducted by Sergeant Echo and Field Officer Foxtrot.” I bowed, handed Darla my note cards, and took my seat. I would talk to the core crew of Sympathizers about this later so they didn’t think I was going rogue, but for now I felt some of the pressure ease. This was, after all, supposed to be a group effort.

There was a pause, and then the room erupted in noise. Applause, some of it, but the surprising—and somewhat disturbing—part was the shouts of support: “Keep it real, sister!” “Fight the power!” “Right on, you do what you have to do!” “The Latte’s got your back!” I exchanged glances with Carey and Miranda, and I could see Bridget sitting in one corner looking mildly startled, which for her was the equivalent of utter amazement.

Of course, the Tattooed Lamewad looked perfectly calm, even happy to lead the meeting. But he was the main reason Carey had even agreed to be here, so it was hard to be too much of a hater.

“Okay, people.” Leonard stood up and leaned on the coffee counter. “Let’s get into what the Latte Rebellion should be doing to promote the cause in our manifesto. Think globally, act locally, right? Let’s take suggestions.” He waved a hand in the direction of his audience. Carey uncapped her pen, ready to take notes, looking raptly at Leonard—as raptly as you could look at someone when you had a paper bag over your head.

The ideas started off pretty dull. Bake sales. Car washes. Candy grams during homeroom, with coffee-flavored candy. Then, one person suggested painting a mural of prominent mixed-race and just generally brown people, like Keanu Reeves and President Obama, on the wall of the University Student Union.

It wasn’t a bad thought, but was it really feasible? It wasn’t like Carey, Miranda, or I had any time to actually do any of it. And what if we ended up doing something that would
drain
the vacation fund? I whispered this to Darla, who was sitting at our table, and she nodded vigorously like a little bobble-head.

“Does anyone have ideas that
won’t
deplete our limited finances in five seconds?” Darla grinned impishly. The room went quiet, and you could practically hear all the mental gears grinding. Considering Darla’s obsession with action figures, I was floored by her skills with an unruly crowd.

“We could bring in a guest speaker,” Ayesha Jones said suddenly. “Hold a public seminar.” She was in student government and debate club, so I wasn’t surprised she suggested it. What did surprise me was the flurry of shouted approval, enthusiasm, and ideas that came next. It seemed like everybody was into it. Even Carey couldn’t think of a downside. After all, with a guest speaker, neither of us would have to do the talking.

“Maybe you should call it a rally. It sounds more upbeat,” Bridget said. Another cheer went around the room, then people actually quieted down and got organized. Darla wrote down suggestions for speakers and locations in a ridiculously tiny notebook that had a Transformer on the cover. Then, she and Leonard came up with a step-by-step to-do list and delegated so efficiently that even my dad would have been impressed.

I had to hand it to Leonard: he was good at getting people organized. Darla, meanwhile, was amazing at drumming up support and excitement. I was in awe. And, frankly, I was kind of jealous, wishing just a little that I hadn’t given up control of the meeting. It was probably better this way, though, having Agent Alpha sort of fade into mythological status. I could get more done behind the scenes, especially if I didn’t have to hide my head under a bag, I told myself. But I still felt torn.

When I looked back at the entire situation so far, it was crazy; surreal. I never thought so many people would notice or care about the Latte Rebellion, not really. I just thought people would buy our shirts because they thought the design was cool, and then basically we’d take the money and run and no one would remember much about it. After the shirts ended up at the bottoms of people’s closets, the website would live on as one of those strange artifacts of some passing fad that nobody understands anymore, like the Peanut Butter Jelly dancing banana website.

I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen now, but clearly, that was not it.

The following April:
Ashmont Unified School District Board Room

Carey went back to her seat, her head bowed and not meeting my eyes. Nothing else that happened today could possibly be any worse. Even if the disciplinary hearing board decided to expel me, I wouldn’t feel as raw or as torn apart as I did thinking about Carey, about how our friendship was never going to be the same, because she’d obviously placed me at the bottom of her priority list.

Then, my guts twisted again as the hearing officer called for Miranda.

“Ms. Levin, please speak loudly and clearly so that all the panelists can hear you.”

“No problem,” Miranda said grimly, standing rigidly in front of him. She was an inch or two taller than he was, which created the impression that she was the one asking the questions. Her long braids were tied up tightly into a bun and she was wearing wire-framed glasses I’d never seen before. Knowing Miranda, they were just for show, but they made her look a few years older.

“Now, Ms. Levin,” the hearing officer croaked, “I understand that you, too, were heavily involved in this ‘Rebellion.’ I’d like to hear your impression of the events, and how you happened to get drawn into Ms. Jamison’s ill-advised disruptions of the educational environment.”

“Gladly.” Miranda took a few index cards out of her pocket and I could hear a collective sigh go around the disciplinary hearing panel. “I’ll keep this brief. Asha and Carey might not have known it when they first conceived of the Latte Rebellion, but this was a cause worth investing time into, an opportunity to inform and educate, and a set of ideals worth fighting for. It was
not
a ‘terrorist threat.’ Not at all.” She met the hearing officer’s gaze levelly and fearlessly.

“Are you denying that Ms. Jamison’s actions caused a disruption during school hours?” He looked at her skeptically.

“Ms. Jamison did what needed to be done,” Miranda said, and there was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the audience. I could feel my dad glaring at me from the seat to my right, and I bristled. He’d been acting as if I should have just ignored everything that happened, as if it didn’t matter what was important to me. “And no, I don’t think what she did caused the disruption. We all know what happened, and witnesses will tell you that Asha was not the instigator. As for what she
did
do …”

My muscles tightened, but I couldn’t look away from Miranda.

“All Asha did was enable our voices to be heard. Voices that don’t always
get
heard,” Miranda said. Her voice was shaking a little, but still calm. “The Latte Rebellion wouldn’t have gotten as big as it did if it hadn’t been needed. Sir, do you realize there are people out there who still think that to be proud of being mixed-ethnicity is somehow un-American? Somebody left a comment on our website saying that if we’re not happy with the way things are, we ought to go back where we came from.” She let out a short bark of a laugh, but I could hear surprised murmurs from elsewhere in the audience. I glanced quickly at my parents, and saw that my mother—
my
mother—was enthralled, watching Miranda as if she’d never seen her before.

“I don’t know about you,” Miranda continued, looking now at each member of the panel in turn, “but if we can open even a few eyes to reality, and have people appreciate us for who we are, then all of this was worth it.
All
of it.”

The hearing officer seemed shocked into silence, along with the rest of the room. As for me, a little of the weight I’d been carrying all morning had been lifted, and I finally felt hope for the first time that day.

Then my father leaned toward me and said, quietly, in my ear, “If this is the type of trouble your friends at school are getting you into, then maybe taking you out of there would be a blessing in disguise.” My mother nodded.

I sucked in an angry breath, so outraged that I wanted to scream at him, but I kept my mouth clamped shut. I didn’t trust myself to say anything coherent. Plus I’d probably get booked by the school board for creating another “disturbance.”

If my parents weren’t on my side, then no matter what Miranda said, I wasn’t sure I had much hope. The whole disciplinary hearing panel could vote me back into school—hell, they could throw me a parade and shower me with confetti out on the football field—but if my father wanted to pull me out anyway, it didn’t make any difference. None of this did.