The Latte Rebellion (6 page)

“Oh, cool! You know, Leonard said he thought it was a good idea, too. He’s going to love the posters.”

“
Leonard?
” I nearly swerved into the adjoining lane.

“You know, Leonard from Mocha Loco.”

“When did you talk to
Leonard
?” And why did she not tell me?

“Oh, I didn’t talk to him. He posted to our online guest book. He said Latte Rebellion would make a great name for a café.”

“He
what
?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Sure, he was butting in when nobody asked for his opinion, but on the other hand, maybe he’d be able to talk about it to his friends and get them to buy some shirts. I had to stay practical. “What else did he say?”

“Not much. I emailed him to tell him thanks for stopping by the website, and then he emailed me back on Saturday.”

“You’re emailing back and forth now?”
This seemed to be happening way too quickly. And, to be honest, it wasn’t entirely welcome. All I could think of, dumb as it was, was that Carey and I were like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Leonard was like Yoko Ono. “Isn’t that a little sudden?”

“I can’t help it if you’re jealous,” she said smugly. “He
is
cute, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, maybe he has a cute friend for you.”

“I do
not
need Leonard’s help, thank you very much.” I pulled up into the Wongs’ driveway but I didn’t get out of the car.

“Don’t say I never offered you nothin’,” Carey said, poking me in the arm before getting out. I turned up my nose, pretending to be pseudo-miffed. In reality, though, I did feel a little miffed, and I pulled away from her house with a bit more mustard than was strictly necessary. Carey usually filled me in on stuff like this. What’s more, she just assumed it was okay to talk to a total stranger about everything, alter egos be damned, after making a big deal out of staying low-profile. It made my head ache.

And what was all that about finding me a cute friend? I wasn’t
that
much of a social outcast.

I just didn’t happen to be the one to snag Leonard.

Tuesday morning, I picked Carey up as usual and we drove to school in near-silence. We were both groggy and grouchy because we’d already exhausted this week’s coffee fund making color copies of the propaganda posters. As I was putting my lunch in my locker and rummaging around for my copy of
Death of a Salesman
for English class, I overheard something that nearly made me drop everything.

“Oh, hey,” a girl’s nasally voice said, cutting across the clamor in the hallways. “I went to that Latte website thing and it was really stupid. Did you see it? Just somebody trying to sell T-shirts with some dumbass coffee logo.”

“I know, and they were all on their high horse about some ‘ethnicity’ crap.” This voice was male. “But I was thinking of buying one for my brother. He’s into that kind of thing, like underground stuff.”

“Yeah, whatever. What’s a ‘manifesto,’ anyway? I didn’t get it.” The voices got fainter and then disappeared into the general noise of the pre-first-period hallway. I slammed my locker shut and grabbed Carey, hugging her around the shoulders and whispering frantically, “Did you hear that? Did you hear what they said?”

“I
saw
them! That was Kaelyn and Roger.” Carey was not quite as excited as I was, but she couldn’t keep a smile off her face. If the Bimbocracy King and Queen started talking about the site, it would be all over the school within days. And the irony of Roger helping fund our vacation—the scheme we’d come up with
because
of him and his stupid attitudinal comments—was just too delicious.

Carey and I grinned at each other, the whole Leonard thing forgotten, the need for morning caffeine completely eliminated. We were officially in business. At this rate, we might just have our first sale by the time we got home from school. And then … well, we’d be too busy living it up next summer to care about Roger, Kaelyn, or any of their sycophantic courtiers.

Or so I thought.

3

A couple of days later we were two weeks into our marketing campaign, and we had made exactly fifty-four dollars. It was barely enough to cover our production expenses for the posters and flyers. And that was making me just a little bit concerned.

Only a little, though. A killer idea is a killer idea.

“I really thought this would happen just a teensy bit faster.” I pulled my car keys out of my backpack.

“Tell me about it,” Carey said. “We need a major jump in sales if this is going to work. I’d ask Leonard to help, but he already told me he’s planning to buy a shirt. I don’t know how much more he can do.”

“Well … I already promised Bridget a free shirt for helping us put up posters. And Darla’s waiting until she gets her next paycheck, she said.”

“Oh.” Carey waited for me to unlock the car and slid in on the passenger side. She was frowning slightly and her voice was quiet. “We might
not
sell enough. I mean, we spent all this time, but we should at least consider—”

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “I mean, it’s only been a couple of weeks. We might sell a hundred and ninety-one more shirts tonight, for all you know.” I forced a smile and turned the key in the ignition, the Old Geezer starting up with a hacking cough.

“That’s what Leonard said. He said it could happen any time and we just have to be patient. Personally, I think we should have put up more posters.”

Leonard
again
. I’d just about had it with this Leonard crap. This happened every time Carey got sucked in by a new guy’s gravitational field, but this was
our
project. I mean, if we’d invited him to get involved, that would have been different … and I probably would have, even if Carey hadn’t batted her eyelashes at him. And now he was pulling this insufferable superior-college-student attitude, and Carey was falling for it.

“Hey, did I tell you he got one of the other baristas at Mocha Loco to order a shirt? Isn’t that cool?”

Yep, Carey was definitely falling for Leonard’s lines. I could tell by her babbling. It was driving me a little nuts. And, let’s face it—I was a tiny bit jealous.

I was about to say something like
isn’t he a little old for you?
but I suddenly felt like smacking myself in the head. The answer to our T-shirt problem was looking me right in the face, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.

“Walking advertisements,” I said, somewhat incoherently, grinning like a maniac.

“What are you talking about?” Carey looked at me like I’d grown antennae. I was starting to get used to that look.

“We should be walking advertisements for our own cause.
We
should buy shirts, is what I’m saying.” I was talking loudly, excitedly. “We can wear the shirts ourselves as much as possible, around town and even out to San Francisco or something. My dad had to invest a lot when he started his store; this isn’t any different.”

“We’ve already invested enough, I think,” Carey said, carefully. “I have other things going on in my life. Soccer. My SAT prep class.”

“Leonard,” I said, eyeballing her. With the Geezer finally warmed up, I backed out of the parking spot. “Seriously, it doesn’t take time to wear a
shirt
.”

“I know, but it just seems like you’re letting it take over all your free time. Plus now you’re going to that weird U-NorCal thing, too. Did you even
start
your history paper?”

“It is
not
taking over my free time,” I scoffed. “And I did too start my history paper.” I turned out of the parking lot and onto the main road, avoiding a herd of students straggling across the street to the convenience store. “Well, I’ve thought about a topic, anyway. I had to spend practically all Sunday night cleaning up the mess my cousins left all over the house this weekend. You know what that’s like.”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “Every night, at my house.” Carey stared out the front window, not looking at me. “That’s why I have to stay focused, Ash. You know it’s the only way I’m getting out of here.”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to be valedictorian. Schools will be falling all over themselves to offer you scholarships,” I said. “This is just another extracurricular activity to add to the list. ‘Started grassroots business venture.’ ”

Carey snorted. “I’d hardly call fifty-four bucks net profit a business venture.”

“Then I don’t understand why you’re so worried about the time investment. We hardly have to do anything; we already did it all. And then we get to take a vacation.” I glanced at her sideways. How many pep talks was I going to have to give? I didn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t want to do this without you,” I said finally. “It’s supposed to be the three of us. Like Musketeers. The Latte Rebels.” I pulled the car up at her house, set the brake, and smiled nervously at her.

She sat there silently for a moment, and then sighed. One eyebrow raised, she looked over at me and said, “If we end up on a cruise ship to Mexico, you are
so
going to owe me a margarita.”

Nani and Nana had left over a week ago and my parents had decompressed, but my house was still a hostile environment for Rebellion Sympathizers. In other words, life went on as usual. In the evenings, my mother was busy with her red pen and spelling tests, and my dad divided his time between badgering his malingering inventory clerk over the phone and badgering me to do my homework.

Good thing he had no idea about the C I’d gotten on my last math quiz. It wasn’t a big deal, just a weekly quiz, but it was mostly attributable to the time and energy I’d been spending on the Rebellion—namely, our jaunts around town putting up posters. Good thing I wasn’t also juggling a job, like Carey. Not for the first time, I wondered how she was able to fit Leonard into that packed schedule.

Leonard.
The more I tried not to think about him and Carey, the worse it got. I hadn’t started this scheme for the hot guys, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean I didn’t
want
one.

Wednesday night I was supposed to go to the college essay makeup session, but instead I let myself wallow on the bed in a fit of despair, my only pathetic company a pile of balled-up tissues, half a chocolate bar I’d found on the kitchen counter, and an old, angsty Alanis Morissette CD.
I’d
talked to Leonard first.
I’d
thought he was cute, too. Carey didn’t even ask me before she decided to blink those gorgeous eyes at him. Not that I’d staked a claim or anything, but this really wasn’t fair. Carey, with her perfect, sporty figure, pixyish hair, and exotic-looking eyes, always attracted attention. And me …

I wiped my face on my sleeve and sat up, looking into the mirrored closet door. I avoided my own gaze, but my eyes just ended up in the places I didn’t want to dwell on. My hair—long and full of split ends, the same drab, nothing brown as my dad’s. Bangs that severely needed a trim. Jeans a size or two bigger than I wanted them to be. My long-sleeved gray shirt stretched awkwardly over my shoulders and boobs, but sagged around the waist that nobody seemed to notice. Apparently, “human lattes” weren’t necessarily as smooth a blend as we were making them out to be.

This one wasn’t, anyway.

Latte. Ha. I was no latte. I was more like a cup of Mexican hot chocolate that had been Irished up and dumped into a pot of chai. No wonder I had a bad taste in my mouth.

“So we’re sticking with the plan,” said Miranda, who was sitting with us at lunch. “Ambitious. Ballsy, even. I like it.”

I smiled broadly and toasted her and Carey with my orange soda. We’d had the same classes as Miranda for years, though we hadn’t spent a huge amount of time with her until she helped us with the Rebellion shirts. Still, she’d always been friendly to us. Maybe it was because we were nice to her back in eighth grade when she showed up on the first day of school, new in town, with a mouth full of braces and a big fluffy perm. Now she had ears full of piercings and burgundy cornrows.

“Well, I can’t wait for my shirt to get here,” Miranda said. “Yet another thing to confuse and annoy my parents.” She grinned evilly. “I’m seriously counting the days until I can move out.”

“Try having three little brothers,” Carey said. “And I don’t even
get
to move out.”

“Come on,” Miranda said. “You, of all people, are bound to get a full ride somewhere.”

“I don’t know …” Carey stared at the irritatingly bouncy pep rally going on in the quad for tomorrow’s football game. Kaelyn was right in the middle, of course, flipping up her itty-bitty cheer skirt and putting on a show for the rest of the Bimbocracy. “If I don’t get any scholarships, it’ll be U-NorCal for me. I won’t have much of a choice.”

I put an arm around her and felt the tension in her hunched shoulders. “Seriously. You get straight A’s. You’re in Key Club. You have ample work experience and superior customer service skills. And, now you can put ‘started my own business’ on the list.”

“It’s not a business, Asha! It’s just fun and games.” Carey looked down at the table and fiddled with her half-eaten turkey sandwich. There was a long silence.
Fun and games?
I squinched up my face. Was that all it was?

“
Don’t worry,
” I finally said. “Like I told you before, all we have to do now is make sure the flyers and posters stay up, send a few emails, and wait for the cash to roll in.” I squeezed her shoulder, then let go.

She looked back up at me and smiled weakly. “I wouldn’t say no to extra cash, that’s for sure.”

“Just you wait,” I told her. “Colleges will be throwing money at you. Literally, they’ll be showering you with fistfuls of cash. You won’t know what to do with it all. You’ll have to start the Carey Wong Trust Fund for the Caffeine-Deprived.”

“I’m totally on board with this,” Miranda said, grinning.

“Golly, thanks, guys,” Carey said, flicking a stray breadcrumb at me. She sounded a little more like herself again.

“Back on the topic of the Latte Rebellion,” Miranda said. “If you ever want me to draw anything else for you, like cartoons of Agent Alpha and Captain Charlie, let me know. It’d be fun.” She crumpled up her lunch bag and aimed it at the nearest trash can.

“You mean like a comic strip?” Carey looked at Miranda curiously. Miranda was one of the cartoonists for the school paper.

“Yeah, like
The Latte Rebellion Chronicles
or something. It’d be way better than doing those caricatures of the football team like I’m supposed to for next month’s
Herald
.” She rolled her eyes.

“That would be killer,” Carey said. “We could put them on the website.”

“Or make propaganda leaflets,” I added. “Drop them all over campus.”

“Yeah,” Miranda said. “Something like that. Hey, have you thought about holding meetings? I bet people would come.” Miranda was part South American—Ecuadorian, I thought—so I wasn’t surprised she was a Sympathizer, but this was a totally new idea. We’d never talked about having meetings. It hadn’t even occurred to me.

“We’re not really a club,” I said, exchanging a glance with Carey.

“Not yet,” Miranda said. “But it would be really easy to create one. I bet Mr. Rosenquist would agree to be the teacher advisor. I can ask him if you want.”

“I guess.” I rolled up my Velcro lunch bag and stuffed it into my backpack. “We can think about it, anyway.”

“You should. I’d totally help you set it up.” Carey and I grinned, but Miranda didn’t. “I’m serious—the Latte Rebellion is a great idea. There’s an African American Association and an Asian American Club and a Chicano Club. There isn’t really anything for people who are just … brown. Biracial. Multi-ethnic. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Unless we take over the Key Club through sheer numbers alone. Bring it down from the inside,” Carey said in an exaggerated whisper.

We all laughed. But Miranda had got me thinking. What if we did start a club? It would be yet another all-important line-item for our applications—“started discussion group,” maybe, or “spearheaded establishment of extracurricular organization”—not to mention a major plus for any leadership scholarships.

It would be especially great for Carey. It was her dream to go to Berkeley or Stanford, and if she got a leadership scholarship … then she’d definitely be able to go. No question about it. And maybe I’d be there at Berkeley, too, or right down the road at Robbins College.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. No matter what Carey said about time commitments, I
had
to convince her to do this. It would be worth the negligible extra time it would take to get a group organized—I mean, what did we really need to do? Arrange a time and place, submit a charter to whoever was in charge of these things at our school, and get approval, that was all. And the payoff would be so worth it.

It would be stupid
not
to do it.

The following April:
Ashmont Unified School District Board Room

At the sight of Exhibit A.3—the description of our “terrorist group”—murmuring broke out all over the room, including on the dais where the panel sat. While the disciplinary hearing officer called on Principal Philips and Vice Principal Malone to recap the events that led to this charge, a few of the school board members leaned their heads together and whispered, casting sidelong glances at me and making me squirm in my seat. As if the word “terrorist” hadn’t been enough to do that all on its own.