Pickle (19 page)

“Don't just try to make her feel bad. We have to think how to fix things,” Oliver said.

“How are we going to fix it? She pretty much killed the P.T.A. and all of the other extracurricular stuff, too!” I said. “Forget it, this meeting is over.” I cleared off the table and stormed out of the restaurant. I was supposed to stay and help with dinner, but first I wanted them to know how mad I was. The pickle makers followed me out and found me right in front standing on the sidewalk. I should have gone around the block or something.

“Ben, please. You guys listen to me for a second.” Sienna grabbed my arm. “I think that saying we can't meet is unconstitutional. We were just studying that kind of stuff at my old school before we moved. It's in the First Amendment, and it's called the right to peaceably assemble.”

“I don't think that applies to kids,” I said.

“There's no reason it wouldn't,” Bean said. “It says something like people can be in groups, as long as they're not fighting and stuff, right?”

“Right,” Sienna said. “So, we should be able to meet for pickle making. Or volleyball, or whatever.”

Oliver said they were both crazy, and that kids don't have any rights.

“Well, we should,” Frank said. “And how better to get rights, than to
demand
rights!”

I wasn't ready to forgive and forget with Sienna, but the idea of doing something, to show them that we couldn't be pushed around like this … I liked it. Principal Lebonsky couldn't stop everybody from doing all the stuff they loved just because we messed up. It shouldn't be like that, but I could see how we might be able to fix it.

“How bad do you think the kids at school want to get their teams back?” I asked.

“Bad. I saw a couple of the soccer players crying in the bathroom,” Bean said. “Over
soccer
.”

“What if we protested?” I said.

“Who would care?” Oliver said.

“I'm not talking about just us. The pickle makers aren't the only ones who matter,” I said. “I mean the entire school. I think
everybody
would protest.”

“Why? Kids that aren't in any clubs don't care,” Oliver said.

“Yes they do,” Frank said. “People can choose what they want. Who they want to do things with. Even if it's not a club. It's about freedom.”

“Could we get the word out for everybody to meet up?” Bean said.

“Maybe, but what good would that do?” Oliver said.

“It could get the clubs back,” I said. “It would show Principal Lebonsky that she can't just change things because she's mad. That we're old enough to decide what we want to do for ourselves. That's what she said at the beginning of the year—we're older now and we are supposed to be responsible for our choices. We can't if she won't let us.”

“We can do it. I know we can,” Sienna said. She was done crying. “I started this. I need to fix it. Can you guys help me?”

We didn't need to vote or anything. We were all excited. Oliver said it would be his most important role yet.

“We need to protest for our right to assemble, right?” I said. “We could tell everyone to come with their teams, for a sit-in or whatever.”

“My parents went to a protest rally when they were knocking down some old building in Denver for condos. Back when they were still together.” Sienna said. She'd cried her makeup off, but it kind of just made her prettier.

“We could do it Monday morning at the assembly,” I said. “It's perfect!”

“What assembly?”

“Pat announced it the other day. There's something on Monday morning about eating more colorful foods, or something,” I said. Frank and Oliver looked like they were on board, but Bean still frowned.

“How could we tell everybody in time?” Bean asked, and I swear to cheese Frank busted out a calculator.

“It won't work—the seventh and eighth graders are never going to want to do it if they think sixth graders put it together,” Oliver said.

“Nobody will have to know. Six of us each tell six people. They each tell six people.
They
each tell six people. It will spread through the whole school and no one will know where it started,” Frank said. He glanced down at his calculator. “I estimate that the entire school would be informed in under three hours.”

“What if the same people get told twice?”

“So?” I said. “Tell everybody to tell new people. At least the people in their clubs or on their teams.”

We decided to have a backup plan, just in case everyone didn't hear. Oliver wanted to put signs up on the bathroom mirrors, but Frank said that a teacher or somebody might go into the bathroom during the day and see the sign.

“Nah, when teachers go in the student restroom for something they always leave the door open. If we put the sign on the back of the door, nobody will see it but kids,” Frank said. He was right. Even when Rick went in there to mop, the first thing he did was prop the door open with the bucket.

And then Frank suggested a way to make the protest especially awesome from something he'd seen online. The League of Pickle Makers had a plan, but only one day before the weekend. And the assembly was first thing on Monday.

We got to work right away.

 

46

Getting the Word Out

I went around the bathrooms right after school ended on Friday to check the signs, and they were all still taped up. It was a pretty genius idea to put them on the backs of the doors, but here's the really great part. When we told kids about the assembly, we said that we had heard from somebody else and we were supposed to pass it on, like we were just links in the chain. Nobody knew where it started, and the P.T.A. stayed undercover. Everything was smooth as butter.

It didn't even take three hours to get the word out, like Frank had estimated. I knew things were in motion because kids I didn't even know were stopping me between classes and at lunch to whisper protest instructions. I said I'd be there. I didn't even have to pretend that I was surprised and excited. I was—surprised, I mean—even though we were the ones who planned it. I couldn't believe how enthusiastic everybody was. Frank was right about students being fed up. I passed Principal Lebonsky on my way out of school. She looked like she was in a huff, but no more than normal. I said goodbye, and she just nodded.

Now all we had to do was wait.

 

47

Waiting

Over the weekend I thought about how we could have planned it better. I didn't know if what we had done would be enough, but I did get a bunch of emails, including two from seventh graders and four from eighth graders, making sure I knew about it. A boy I didn't know eating lunch at Lupe's mouthed “Do … you … know … about … Monday?” I nodded, and he gave a thumbs-up under the table. Maybe it would work, but maybe it would bomb. Waiting until Monday was worse than waiting for Christmas.

 

48

We Assemble

The League of Pickle Makers/P.T.A. sat smack dab in the middle of the bleachers so we could see everything that happened. We took up half a row about twenty feet up from the podium. I made eye contact with Hector when he came into the gym, but he looked away. And then he sat down in the middle of the second row. Excited kids filled the benches around us.

Everybody seemed really pumped up. The gym was extra loud, like a basketball game or something, not a lecture on eating more vegetables. The bleachers were full of kids all talking at once until Principal Lebonsky started with the one-two-three-eyes-on-me claps. Everybody quieted down, but the gym still seemed to be buzzing. She introduced a lady with a picture of smiling broccoli on her T-shirt. She listed every food she could think of that was a rainbow color for thirty minutes. I was fine with the tomatoes and raspberries, but by the time she got to the grand finale of eggplants and purple kale, I was ready to jump out of my seat. I wasn't the only one. She finished and the whole gym cheered. The vegetable woman looked really proud, like she'd convinced us all to give up chips and candy forever. When she left, I felt relieved that she wouldn't know why everyone was
really
so excited.

“All right, children. Settle down,” Principal Lebonsky said. Bean growled and a few kids around us made faces. I wasn't the only one who doesn't like it when she calls us “children.” She tapped her fingers on the podium while she waited for the gym to get quiet. “I want to start off with a hearty congratulations to our extracurricular enrichment groups that worked so hard preparing exhibits for our Pioneer Fair. I only had time to see the displays from our Knotty Knitters, the League of Pickle Makers, and the Beaver Bakers, but they all certainly met expectations.” I'm not sure that was a compliment, but everybody clapped really loud. I think they clapped with protest excitement, not pickle and yarn enthusiasm. Principal Lebonsky cleared her throat. “Even though our judges did not get the chance to make evaluations for the competitions, each of you are winners because many pioneers succeeded and did not succumb to starvation and fever.”

It was a little awkward, but we clapped for the pioneers.

“I'm going to succumb to starvation before she's done wagging her finger at us,” Bean whispered.

“Despite your potential talents for the Pioneer Fair, you all know that having organized groups is a privilege, not a right,” Principal Lebonsky said. The crowd muttered. “Each of you needs to bear the torch of student responsibility. When I know with
absolute
certainty that the senseless shenanigans have ended, then I will
consider
allowing extracurricular activities and sports play again.” The buzz from the crowd got louder. She held up some character cards, which I'd only ever seen her use with Hector. I thought she would pass them out, but she just read some quotes from Benjamin Franklin and one of the Roosevelts. You couldn't really hear her when she said we were excused to go back to class. She leaned closer to the microphone and said it again.

Nobody moved.

She did another of her one-two-three-eyes-on-me claps. Frank had said she would. It was our cue. The gym grew quiet as people realized that this was the part that they had been waiting for. It was time. Everyone stopped talking and froze in place.

Bean had her hands up like she was in the middle of describing something. The girl at the end of our row froze while tying her shoe. Leo Saylor looked like a statue putting his backpack on. Hector was turned around in his seat looking straight at me. I tried to read his expression, but he was too far away.

I heard a couple of girls in the back giggling. And then, from under the bleachers, a cricket chirped.

“Fountain Point football, FOREVER!” one of the football players yelled, and the other football players jumped up, yelling and clapping. The instructions we had given out said to freeze in place for two minutes. I didn't think it had been two minutes yet, but I'm glad that they were excited. The football captain gestured and the team, who'd been kind of spread across the bleachers, worked their way down to sit at center court and start the flash mob. We all unfroze and clapped. The kids, I mean. The grown-ups just looked confused.

“You can all just return to class.
Right now
,” Principal Lebonsky said again. Maggie Rubio stood up, but she just moved down to the gym floor with her volleyball team. The chess club went next. They all wore chess club T-shirts with the big horse piece on the front. I wondered if it was just coincidence and then the dance club stood up and took their sweatshirts off to show those crazy blue sparkly leotards they have. They all went down the bleacher stairs to the gym floor, too. Dancing.

A few teachers got up and tried to talk to their students on the floor, but the kids wouldn't budge. Some wouldn't even look at the teachers. Then the science club, the band, and the drama club moved down. Oliver pulled a top hat and cape out of his backpack and put them on with a twirl. He winked at us and headed down to join the other theater people on the gym floor. Oliver wasn't the only one dressed up. A seventh grader pulled a jester hat and some balls out from under his sweatshirt and juggled. Some kid ran in late to the gym with a Fountain point shirt stretched over a beaver costume that may or may not have come from Lee's. They were all singing a song about a parade passing that I could only guess came from
Hello, Dolly!
The cheerleaders hopped down the bleacher stairs shaking pom-poms and
woohoo
ing. Some of the clubs that didn't have uniforms wore matching shirts. Some of the kids that were in more than one thing wore clothes to match a couple of groups and sat between them. I guessed the kids with ropes were the lasso club. Leo was with them, but he had a basketball jersey on, too. Almost everybody was out of the bleachers. They stomped and pounded the gym floor with their fists. The whole gym rumbled. Bean elbowed me.