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Authors: J. J. Johnson

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7

I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try.

—N
IKKI
G
IOVANNI, POET AND ACTIVIST, B.
1943

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: for publication in the student newspaper

To the editor,

I am writing about injustice. It is occurring
right now, every day, at this school. I’ve
only been here a few weeks and yet it is clear
to me there is an appalling lack of civil liberties
for students. Not to mention a gross
disparity between the rights of faculty and the
rights of students, and an unsustainable,
inhospitable environment.

First, let’s talk about the crazy lack of
civil liberties. Example: Why can’t students
use our phones for actual phone calls? Sure, it
would be disruptive in class time but what’s
the problem with calls during lunch or free
periods? It doesn’t make sense (and discriminates
against students who can’t afford smartphones).
Also, why can’t we have lunch or free
time outside? It is a scientific fact that, due
to lack of exposure to sunlight, three quarters
of teens and adults in the U.S. have a vitamin
D deficiency, a problem that can lead to cancer,
diabetes, and bone and heart disease.*
Let’s combat this problem by going outside! And
those are just two examples out of the multitude
that happen all the time.

As for the disparity between teachers and
students, I could go on and on but I’ll stick
to one example. The bathrooms. Ever been in a
faculty bathroom? They are a veritable breath
of fresh air compared to our facilities! I
mean, just consider the student bathrooms.
First there’s the reek of cigarette smoke and
rancid pee. Then there is never any toilet
paper. Never! And even with four stalls,
there’s only ever one garbage can. Which is
next to the exit. Why, a reasonable person
might ask, is it positioned thusly? Is it just
so when you have your period you get to carry
your pad or tampon out of the stall—again,
without toilet paper—to throw into the garbage?
Well no wonder the toilets are always overflowing
from people trying to flush their pads.
Fact: the women’s faculty restroom has garbage
cans in each stall. It has toilet paper to
spare. It has lovely soaps, and its clean sinks
actually drain. And guess who can’t use said
restroom? Students can’t. I know this because
Ms. Theodore gifted me with five detentions,
just for using the faculty toilet.

Um, where was I? Oh yes. The unsustainable,
inhospitable environment. If you’re paying
attention, you’ve noticed this dovetails nicely
with the aforementioned lack of sunlight, and
disgusting toilets. Also I’ll mention that the
cafeteria uses Styrofoam and disposable plastic,
which is totally unsustainable. How hard
would it be to use regular dishes? In conclusion
(See, Mr. Wolman? I can write a persuasive
essay!): Perhaps you, my fellow students, have,
after spending most of your lives subjected to
these injustices, become inured. You have gotten
used to these things. Or maybe you are simply
apathetic. But that doesn’t mean that the
way things are is the way things should be! It
doesn’t mean student inequities are okay.
There’s a saying: Just because no one complains
doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.

If you’re with me, speak up! We can make this
place better!

Sincerely,

Evie M.

Senior

* You don’t have to take my word for this.
See
Scientific American
, March 23, 2009,
“Vitamin D Deficiency Soars in the U.S., Study
Says,” by Jordan Lite.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Re: for publication in the student newspaper

Hi Evie. Stiv here. We are in the same Global
View class. I just want to say thanks for the
letter to the editor. It is very well written
and funny. Unfortunately, the
Purple Tornado
News
can’t publish articles that reference specific
teachers. It’s a school policy. So if you
want to try rewriting your letter without any
of the specifics and without naming names, I
could read it again. If I think it’s okay, and
the advisor (he’s Mr. Wolman, I didn’t show him
your letter) approves it, then it can go to
print.

Thanks again for writing. See you around,

Stiv Wagner

Editor in Chief, Purple Tornado News

8

And yet it turns.


???

Well well well. Brookner has upped the ante.

“Class, settle.” He claps his hands. “How
about it, Evie? Who said it?”

All eyes are on me. I swallow hard. Word has spread
about my daily
tête-à-têtes
with Brookner, my detentions,
my letters to the paper. Rajas and Jacinda haven’t
come right out and said it, but their worry is palpable.
Apparently I hopped a train from interesting to exasperating,
and now kids are talking about me—not in a
good way. In Global View, Marcie and editor-in-chief
Stiv are friendly enough, but others are not so generous.
Megan, in particular, seems like a bit of a hater.
During lunch, in my safety zone wedged between Rajas
and Jacinda, people are polite. Yet there’s something
missing. You hear it in the curt, one-word answers
people like Matt and Jim give when I attempt to strike
up a conversation. Their eyes say things:
weirdo, misfit,
hippie.

On Facebook, I have been friended…and then
unfriended.

Sure, I could quit my rabble-rouser ways. Conform
to the norm. Go with the flow. Giving up things like my
letters to the editor and this repartee with Brookner
would make life easier. And since I have so much fun
with Jacinda and Rajas—beautiful, uninvolved (according
to Jacinda) Rajas—why not relax, let it roll, just
enjoy? Tempting. So tempting. But what would be the
point? I came to school to experience something new
and
be true to myself. Get a different perspective without
losing my own. Put to use all the stuff that Martha’s
taught me about standing up to injustice and questioning
authority.

Besides, I love discussing the quotes with Brookner.
He’s an interesting guy, much more so than my other
teachers. I like Ms. Crandall and Mr. Wysent, and while
I’m not a big fan of Ms. Gliss, and I’ve had some heated
disagreements with Mr. Wolman and Ms. Theodore,
the other teachers seem okay. I’ve gotten to know the
detention monitor pretty well; he helps me with my
physics homework. But Brookner is far and away my
favorite.

I clear my throat but don’t say anything yet.

Brookner comes onto his toes, pauses like a pendulum
and rocks back onto his heels, adding a rhythm to
the uncomfortable quiet. “No, Evie? Hmm. Okay. This
quote is from Copernicus.” His eyes flit to me. “He’s
referring to the revolution of the planets—”

The man is goading me. “Mr. Brookner.”

He smiles. “Yes, Evie?”

“I’m pretty sure it was Galileo.”

A groan emanates from the back of the class. To my
right, Matt whispers, “Dude, would you just
let it go!
” It
stings.

Brookner tilts his head, “Really, Evie.”

I take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

“Would you care to elucidate?”

“It’s about speaking truth to power.”

A glint in Brookner’s eyes. “Is it now.”

I nod. “It is.” Marcie rolls her eyes. At me or
Brookner? I can’t tell.

Fortitude. “Galileo figured out that the planets circled
around the sun, right?” I look around, smile at Stiv
and Jacinda and Marcie, to encourage them to get into
the discussion. No go. I continue, “The Church said this
was heresy because God made the earth, so it must be
the center of the universe. During the Inquisition, the
Church made Galileo recant his theory. He did, but then
he said, ‘And yet it turns.’ Because he knew you can
deny the truth, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Brookner smiles. “Ah. Speak-ing truth to pow-er.”
He punctuates each of his syllables as if to mark this
as an important moment. He locks my gaze in that
way of his that there’s no getting used to, like he wants
to penetrate deep into your soul. It’s three-quarters
flattering, one-quarter creepy, because sometimes it
lingers too long. It reminds me of one of Martha’s random
friends back in Montreal, who thought he could
cure headaches just by pressing his fingers to your
head. He figured his belief in himself was so strong, it
superseded all others’ beliefs. Brookner is like that. In
another life, he would have been an evangelical
revival preacher, or a transcendentalist acid-tester, a
devotee of his own powers, basking in his followers’
approval and praise.

Maybe I’m being too hard on him. He is the
smartest teacher by far, and I’m a sucker for how he
quotes books and music and movies and ties them all
in together in surprising ways. Like his wacky theory
that world social order can be traced back to the trade
of coffee, opium, and chocolate. Not to mention his
charisma, which can be mesmerizing. I can see why
Jacinda has such a raging crush on him. They are
exactly the qualities that make Rajas warn us about
him, over and over; he’s worried that Brookner will
snare us in a lethal trap of attention and charm. And
then what? Turn us into vampires?

I meet Brookner’s eyes and can’t help but smile, feel
a tingle of thrill. “You know it. Speaking truth to
power.”

“Truth.” He holds my gaze. “You are a believer, then,
Evie?”

Behind me, someone snorts while I consider Brookner’s question. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”

“I see. But you believe in one unifying truth?”

“Yes.” Love.

He sweeps his arm in a grand gesture and begins to
pace. “Then you, Evie, are a believer. But what if your
truth is wrong?”

“The truth can’t be wrong. That’s why it’s the truth.”

“Doesn’t it vary according to your point of view?”

I tighten my ponytail. “Maybe your
view
of the truth
varies. But the truth is…untouchable. It doesn’t vary. It
just
is
.”

“Ah. A true believer, indeed.”

My cheeks burn. I glance over at Jacinda. Lips
pursed, she’s staring at Brookner, in thrall. Brookner is,
in turn, staring at me.

“Yes, well. Time shall reveal all, hmm?” He opens
the textbook. “Now. Moving on. If you will all open to
page 110, we can read the words from Galileo himself.”

Textbooks knock onto desks, pages flip, the room
relaxes. I stare at the drawing of Galileo Galilei on
page 111. As I suspected, Brookner knew the source
of the quote. He credited Copernicus to get me talking.
Tricky man.

Jacinda clicks her pen, poised over her notebook.
Thank God she doesn’t think of me as a weirdo or
smart-ass or know-it-all; she clearly holds a lot of social
influence around these parts. If Rajas and Jacinda didn’t
have my back, I would’ve already been thrown to the
wolves.

At least it’s only a few more periods until lunch. And
Rajas. Available, not-involved-with-anyone Rajas. Who
seems very glad I’m here. Unlike Ms. Gliss, who hasn’t
given me a break since the dreaded Lunchtime Mobile
Phone Incident in September. Since then she’s slapped
me with two more detentions, both for insubordination.

Insubordination. The perfect foil for abuse of power.
A catchall for anything a teacher doesn’t like. Such as
my ankle taking too long to heal.

“You need to join the class,” Ms. Gliss had informed
me. “Your fitness is already suffering.” She made a
point of staring at my stomach. “I have no doubt your
ankle has healed by now.”

“It’s not ready for field hockey, but I’m happy to do
gentle yoga.” My offer degenerated into a debate about
whether students have the liberty (my word) to subvert
(her word) their teachers’ class plans.
Bam.
Detention.

The next Gliss detention was for not having the right
kind of sneakers. I argued that students should not be
required to buy sweatshop products. She remained
unmoved. I told her there was no way I could ask
Martha to pay for overpriced sneakers. Ms. Gliss
remained stoic. So then I asked her whether Nike paid
her for endorsements.
Wham.
Detention.

And Jacinda had defended her, urging me to bite the
bullet and buy the sneakers. I love Jacinda, but I don’t
think she gets the concept of limited means. Martha
and I have everything we want, but that’s because we
don’t want much. There’s no getting around the fact
our budget is tight.

Another detention had nothing to do with sneakers
or faculty bathrooms. I was feeling sorry for the python
who lives in our biology classroom, so I took him out of
his habitat for a little snuggle before the bell rang. Mr.
Wysent was pretty nice about it. He seemed apologetic,
but said it was policy to assign detention to anyone
who, under any circumstances, opened a school animal
habitat. Mr. Wysent alluded to some sort of frogs-inthe-
cafeteria-jello fiasco a few years back. So, again
with the detention.

Gym with Ms. Gliss, a smelly hay infusion bio lab with
Mr. Wysent, then the mind-bending study of physics. It’s
a long morning.

At the appointed lunchtime rendezvous location,
Rajas is waiting for me; my heart pounds its customary
Rajas rhythm. I look around. “Where’s Jacinda?”
She always waits here in the hallway with Rajas, usually
checking her phone for e-mail from her Internet
Lover.

“She has a Cheer Squad meeting.” He shrugs. “Some
crisis or other.”

“Oh.” I still can’t believe Jacinda’s a cheerleader—captain, no less. At first, I thought she was kidding. But
it does explain her weird dynamic with Ms. Gliss. And all
the
Glee
references. “I wonder why didn’t she tell me?”

“Maybe she thinks you wouldn’t approve.”

“Why wouldn’t I approve? I’m not
that
judgmental!”

Rajas laughs. “Oh, so you
do
approve?”

“Um…no.” He’s right. I have a strong anti-cheerleader
bias. Well, not strong so much as colossal. From Martha,
maybe? Or all those movies about catty girls? Note to
self: there’s a lot more to Jacinda than some superficial,
airhead, mean-girl cheerleader stereotype. Maybe it’s
time to reexamine said stereotype?

“Brought your lunch?” Rajas asks, bringing me out
of my thoughts.

I lift my cloth lunch bag to answer.

“Good.” He looks around, all shifty-eyed, and takes
hold of my arm. His touch electrifies every nerve ending,
scalp to toes. “Come on.” Careful of my not-fullyhealed
ankle, he jogs me away from the cafeteria, past
the gym, turning a corner into a hallway I swear I never
knew existed.

“Where are we going?”

“Shh,” he says. “Be stealth.”

We turn another corner and stop in front of a classroom.
He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the
door, peering into the room like he’s making sure the
coast is clear. He motions me to follow.

In the dark, I bump into him. He fumbles around
until a switch clicks and fluorescents flicker on, bringing
the huge room—about half the size of the gym, but
without its wall of windows—to light. Table saws, circular
sanders, miter boxes, work benches.

“The mythical shop class,” I marvel. “You have a key
to Camelot?”

Rajas cocks his half-grin. “Mr. Pascal just gave me
one. Not supposed to let anyone else in here but…I figured
you’d like it. Plus, look—” He points to a door I
hadn’t noticed, on the outside wall. “We can duck outside
for fresh air. Which I know you’ve been jonesing
for.”

“It’s perfect!” I throw my arms around him. “I love
it!”

His muscles tense. Oh nooooo. Is he uncomfortable
or just surprised?

I shrink back, unhugging, but he stops me.

He leans in. I lean in. And I don’t believe it, because
it’s all happening so fast, but our lips pull into each
other and we’re kissing, his tongue warm but not as
wet as I’d imagined, and our chests pressing together
and it smells like sawdust in here and my stomach
floats because I’m in free fall. It’s not a face-mashing
kiss like in the movies. It’s the perfect first kiss. Gentle
and sweet and slow and sexy all at the same time.

Rajas pulls away. “I swear this wasn’t my plan. For
bringing you here.”

“Fine by me if it was.” I smile, but now things feel
awkward. “So. Show me around?”

He wipes a thumb across his chin.

“Crap!” I clamp my hands over my face. “Did I drool
or something? I’m kind of new at all this.”

“Really? You don’t say.” Laughing, Rajas tries to pry
my hands from my cheeks.

I grab his hands. “Maybe I just need more practice.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

We kiss again. Oh God. If we keep going, I will melt
into a puddle on the floor. Deep breath. I pull back just
enough to say, “Okay. What are we doing here?”

“Um, hooking up?” His dark eyes twinkle.

“No, I mean what are we doing
here
, in shop class.”

“Oh yeah.” He laughs. “Well, remember when we
met?”

How could I not? One tends to recall being struck by
lightning. “What part?”

He nods toward a corner of the room. “I brought my
rocker in. I finished it.”

So he did have an innocent reason. Damn. Does that
make our kiss more exciting—a spontaneous ourattraction-
cannot-be-suppressed thing? Or is it lame
that I practically jumped him?

Wait. What am I doing? What’s with the self-doubt,
Suzy Self-conscious? I’m nothing if not thick-skinned
and confident. But…the way I feel about Rajas. It makes
me soft and exposed, like a raw oyster. My protective
shell has been shucked. And then tossed out to sea.
And then sucked away with a riptide. I wonder about
Rajas: does he feel insecure and vulnerable too?
Sometimes I think I catch glimpses of it.

Rajas takes my hand to lead me to his chair.

Oh man. What a chair. It’s amazing. It’s not fancy,
not cheesy or ornate. It’s simple, classic, well-made.
Clean lines, with bark on the arms and splats, so you
can appreciate the wood’s origin. It is functional and
artistic, totally connected to the natural world.

It is stunning. Wow. He made this.

We’re still holding hands. His hands are a little
larger than mine, a bit rougher. The calluses on his
palm bump my own; his thumb is wrapped in a bandaid.
They are strong, capable hands. I sensed all this
before—this guy carried me out of the state forest,
after all—but seeing his work, it’s all coming together:
his hands, his subtle mind with a gift for constructing
things, for discerning beauty and utility. This is a person
who can make something exquisite and real.

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