The Latte Rebellion (21 page)

11

When I emailed Thad the next day, I came really close to telling him that it had been Carey and me all along, that we were Agent Alpha and Captain Charlie and we’d started the Latte Rebellion almost as a joke. Also that, what with the smoke bomb and constantly getting roped into meetings and “roundtables” and agenda-setting, I was starting to feel a bit exhausted. But Thad was so
into
the idea of the Rebellion being a viral notion spreading like wildfire because of the Internet. I was afraid that if I told him how it started, he would be disappointed. Disappointed in the Rebellion, and disappointed in me.

The truth was, I was incredibly intimidated by reading Thad’s paper on the Rebellion. He made it sound so much more
momentous
than it had ever been in my mind, even after I realized it was about more than just Carey and I making a buck. But now that there were chapters all over the country, now that we’d made the news … I was starting to be convinced that the Latte Rebellion really was something significant—something I had frighteningly little control over.

So I didn’t say anything. I just told him how great the paper was, how insightful, and that he would definitely get an A+ with whipped cream on top if I were teaching the class. That seemed to make him happy. He also said he wanted to see me again. When he said that, I knew I’d made the right choice by keeping my mouth shut about Agent Alpha—for once, my crazy ideas were
not
going to get me into more trouble.

Later that night I called Carey and told her about my latest conversations with Thad. Unlike how she was with Leonard, I wasn’t interested in keeping this hush-hush.

“So are you going to introduce me to him?” She sounded indignant.

“Possibly. If you ask me very very nicely.” I smiled, feeling a little vindicated given how annoying she’d been about Leonard when she’d first gotten together with him.

“This is totally unfair. Miranda got to meet him. Multiple times.”

“If you’d come to the rally, you would have,” I blurted out, even though I really didn’t want to rehash that painful discussion from February. “
He
made it to my speech.”

“We covered this, Asha,” Carey said. There was an awkward pause, and I heard static as she sighed into the phone. “I had soccer practice.”

“I know, I know. I’m just saying.”

“Well, quit saying it. I’m glad I didn’t go. I’m sure they would have roped me into appearing in my paper bag hat like you had to.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. Not entirely true, but I still wished she’d been there. “You could at least come to the Rebellion meeting at school this Wednesday. That won’t require you to miss class, work, tutoring,
or
baby-brother-sitting. We’ll just hang out.”

“Huh. I don’t know,” she said skeptically. “I have to say, Asha, I’m surprised you guys still want to hold meetings at school after you were practically assaulted.”

“That’s why this is important.” I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice.

“Yeah, well, what about Malone? ‘You’re not U.S. citizens, you’re high school students,’ ” she mimicked. “What if he finds out you’re still—”

“He won’t find out,” I said. “We moved the meetings to Mr. Rosenquist’s room. Anyway, if you don’t want to go, just say so.” I was getting exasperated with this conversation.

“We already talked about this,” she said impatiently. “How many times do we have to go over it? I’m sorry, Asha.”

“That’s fine,” I forced out, even though it wasn’t fine. I’d support
her
if the Key Club got trashed by disgruntled Interact Club malcontents. But I had to admit that was unlikely, and this was different. It was agitation on a scale neither of us were used to.

“Attention, students.” Principal Philips paused and cleared his throat; I could hear papers rustling in the background. Everyone was blinking back sleep during homeroom period, which for me was history class, and half-listening to the morning announcements over the PA system.

“Due to an incident on campus last week, as well as some unsettling news coverage prior to that, it has come to the notice of the administration that a group known as the Latte Rebellion may be involved in gang activity or other disruptive goings-on.”

A bunch of people giggled. I stiffened.
Gang
activity? Was he joking?

“This group is not officially sanctioned by the school administration or the Inter-Club Council, and some of their, uh, philosophies may in fact be inflammatory. Therefore, to minimize disruption to your high school experience, Latte Rebellion flyers, T-shirts, and any other materials have been banned from the University Park campus. As of tomorrow, anybody caught reading Latte Rebellion printed matter or wearing shirts or other paraphernalia will be given detention. Repeated offenses may result in on-campus suspension.

“In addition, all students will be required to attend an assembly this afternoon to review disciplinary regulations and the dangers of gangs in our community.

“Thank you, and have a productive school day.”

There were murmurs throughout the classroom—lots of “oh, my God, can you believe it?” or “did you hear the Latte Rebellion’s a
gang
?”; one audible “
what
Rebellion?” and some fairly unanimous groaning about the assembly. I turned around to Carey, sitting behind me.

“This is
so typical
,” I whispered loudly.

“Well, you have to admit they have a point,” Carey whispered back. “They’re scared things will get out of hand.” She frowned. “To be honest, they kind of have.”

“How can you say that? We’ve accomplished a lot.” I was hurt. Even after everything that had happened, this felt like a new wound. I knew she wanted out of the Rebellion, but it felt like she was siding against me. Against what used to be
us
.

“
Shhh
,” Carey said, as Mr. Velez walked past our desks to the front of the room. He told everyone to quiet down, and started talking about our next unit on the Vietnam War. I could hardly sit still, but figuring out how to do Rebellion damage control would have to wait until later. And so would the heart-to-heart I needed to have with Carey.

At lunchtime, in my car in the school parking lot, we held an emergency meeting of the Latte Rebellion—at least, Miranda and I did, munching baby carrots and chili cheese Fritos and trying not to freak out. Carey was mostly just eating the Fritos and making a poor attempt to put up with us.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, with a frustrated sigh. “Just because it happened to be
our
meeting that got targeted, the administrators have to get all authoritarian on
us
.”

“They always do this,” Miranda said, leaning forward from the back seat to grab the chip bag. “Like freshman year, when they thought everyone wearing a Raiders football jacket was in a gang, so they banned any clothing with the Raiders logo.”

“Except this is worse,” I pointed out, “because we’re actually doing something worthwhile.”

“If it was so worthwhile, maybe the Inter-Club Council would have accepted your petition, and you wouldn’t be in this mess!” Carey said, staring out the side window, her hands clenched in her lap.

“
My
petition?” My head ached. I wanted to tell her to butt out, but I settled for a martyred sigh, leaning back against the headrest.

“Oh, come on, guys, are you kidding? This is
awesome
,” Miranda said excitedly. “You know that the minute people with authority say something’s banned, it immediately makes people a million times more interested.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think most of the people interested in the Rebellion are already in it anyway, and most of them go to U-NorCal and won’t care what some high school principal is saying.”

“No way. Are you forgetting how many people at this school already have our shirts? I wonder what they’re going to do with them now.” Miranda fished the last Frito out of the bag. “I’m going to wear mine outside of school every chance I get. I might even wear it to class under my sweater and unveil it the second I get off school property, just to annoy Mr. Philips.”

“You guys,” Carey said tensely, “come on. I totally don’t need your angst right now—I’m stressing about that English paper due next month, plus we have a soccer game against St. Elizabeth’s on Saturday, and I have to work an extra shift on Sunday.”

I was starting to get tired of Carey’s constant more-studious-than-thou attitude. I was fully aware she had to work; I had witnessed her single-minded determination to get a scholarship. I felt a stab of guilt for being angry at her, because I knew how much she wanted to move out of the house, but now that she’d actually gotten accepted to her top choices? You’d think she’d be a little less wound up.

“Carey,” I finally said. “You’ll be
fine
. You’re the smartest person I know. Seriously.”

“Oh please,” she said, but with a tiny smile.

I was still peeved, though. She
knew
there were extenuating circumstances to our club petition not getting passed. But then again, our failure to establish an official club was yet another critical incident in the history of the Latte Rebellion that she had decided to miss. Of course, that was before she’d decided to bail on the whole thing. I didn’t even like thinking about it. And now I was afraid she was bailing on our friendship. That was the last thing I wanted, even if I
was
angry at her.

The following Friday, I was eating lunch with Carey and Miranda at our usual table when Maria McNally rushed over, granny glasses askew.

“Oh my God, you guys! You will
not believe
what I just heard! Somebody sent a message out to the Latte Rebellion mailing list—”

“Wait, there’s a
mailing list?
” I shook my head. Every time I turned around, there were some new shenanigans connected to the Rebellion. It was dizzying.

“News to me,” Carey said, unsurprisingly.

“
Anyway
,” Maria continued breathlessly, straightening her glasses, “there’s going to be a nationwide sit-in at every school and college around the country where there’s a Latte Rebellion chapter!”

I almost choked on my sandwich.

“Whoa,” Miranda said, her eyebrows raised. “What does
that
entail?”

Maria seemed disappointed at our failure to immediately keel over in shock at her announcement. Her shrill voice calmed down a little, and she frowned.

“I’ll forward you the email. Apparently someone made an anonymous post on the discussion board about how Principal Philips has banned Rebellion paraphernalia, and then a few people from other high schools said they’d had their club charters revoked even earlier, after the news about that gunman. And then all these people chimed in, saying we should ‘stay positive’ and ‘hang in there’ … and then suddenly someone planned a sit-in. I don’t know who. I guess it’s like a flash mob kind of thing.”

“So what exactly
is
the plan?” Miranda sounded interested. Meanwhile, I was reeling. Thad was right—this
was
an epidemic.

“We’re supposed to get everyone involved that we can, like get them to sign up or pledge support,” Maria continued excitedly. “Then, on April 18th at noon, everyone is supposed to gather at a central conspicuous location and hold, like, a mini-rally. People from the club can talk about their experiences and it’ll raise awareness of the Latte Rebellion cause. You guys are in, right?”

“Yeah, right.” Carey rolled her eyes. “There’s a study session that day for the AP French test.”

“I think it rules,” Miranda put in. “It’s about time we took a few risks. Otherwise nobody who isn’t already involved is ever going to care.”

“Exactly,” Maria said.

I nodded, slowly. “But Malone already has his eye on us.”

“Oh, but this is way more important than Mr. Malone. How else are we going to get him and everyone else to understand? And, Asha, you
have
to be a speaker,” Maria gushed, her brown ponytail bobbing. “You and Miranda. You have the connections with the U-NorCal people. And,” she said more quietly, “if Agent Alpha just happened to show up …”

“I’m not sure I have time to prepare anything.” I frowned. “It’s only a week away.”

“Asha, this is
important
.” Maria’s voice was whiny now. How she could go from shrill to excited to whiny in a matter of minutes was truly amazing to behold.

“I’ll get back to you,” I said firmly, and took a huge bite of turkey sandwich, effectively ending the conversation. I was still getting used to the idea of a sit-in, and I
really
didn’t know if it was a good idea to resurrect Agent Alpha, especially if there was a chance I could get caught.

“I’ll work on her,” Miranda said, and I glared at her. “I’ll speak at the sit-in,” Miranda continued, “and I’ll talk to some teachers. I can think of one or two who might be sympathetic. It would definitely help in case anyone decides we’re breaking the rules.”