The Fight for Kidsboro (45 page)

It was Valerie Swanson, Nelson's sister. She was accompanied by two other girls, and the looks on their faces told us they meant business. Suddenly, things were not so jovial in the meeting hall. Valerie always got what she wanted, and I shivered to think about what she could possibly want now. Everyone else had come to us like desperate souls, worried about the status of the world. Valerie came with a demanding look that said, “I have no concern for you or your city. I just want what I want, and I will get it.” Her long, brown hair was pulled back in clips, and I was momentarily distracted by her good looks. I quickly shook it off, knowing that I needed to be at the top of my game to deal with her.

The three girls walked in sync as they approached the front of the meeting hall. They had no charts, no diagrams, no visual aids—just themselves and whatever frightening cause they were about to stand for.

Valerie, of course, was the spokesperson. “Good afternoon, council members. We represent Girls Against Discrimination.” (GAD?) “We have noticed certain inconsistencies with the way our city council, and specifically, our mayor, makes decisions. Our research team has documented evidence that boys are given special privileges in this town. There are more boys than girls in Kidsboro. There are three boys but only two girls on the city council. Boys get better pay. And boys are hired for government jobs before girls. We want these things changed.”

There Was a short pause. Apparently, This was all she felt she needed to say. She wanted it. Now we were expected to do it. I wouldn't let her get away with this, but I had to act reasonable at the same time. “Valerie,” I said calmly, “I've never noticed a pattern of special treatment or consideration given to boys over girls.”

“Of course you haven't. You're a boy.”

This was her response? I was looking for something more along the lines of this documented evidence she was talking about. “Well … Valerie …” I continued, sounding a bit too much like I was talking to a three year old, “you've got to have more solid evidence than vague accusations. You need to make an argument.”

“Oh, I will. Just not here.”

“Then where?”

Valerie reached into her back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to me. I unfolded it, and across the top of the page was the word
Subpoena
, which meant she was taking me to court. “I'm suing you,” she said.

“For what?”

“Discrimination.”

I looked around at the rest of the city council, trying to feel their support. But all I got were looks that said, “You're on your own, buddy.”

I stiffened my upper lip. “Is this supposed to scare me into giving you whatever you want?”

“Oh, I'll get what I want.”

“And what's that?”

“More government jobs for girls. Another girl on the city council. Equal pay for equal work. And no more new boys will come in as citizens until there are just as many girls here as there are boys.”

I chuckled and hoped the rest of the city council would follow my lead and chuckle with me. They didn't. “Valerie … you know, I would love to … but there's not much I can do about—”

“See you in court,” she said, gesturing to the other girls to follow her out. They were gone before I could get another word out.

I looked at the other council members. I started laughing again, just like I had laughed at all the others. “Does she really think that …Ha! She's so … silly …” I scanned their faces, but no one was laughing with me this time.

Jill stared at me with a scrunched up nose. “Why
are
there three boys but only two girls on the city council?”

I gulped hard.

Alice glanced at me with the same look. “How much money do you and Corey make?”

I wasn't paying much attention to what Mr. Whittaker and Nelson were working on, but whatever it was, I knew it would be amazing when it was done. It was things like this that made Whit's End more than just an ice cream place. Mr. Whittaker was a great inventor who taught all the kids who came into his shop about the Bible (and life in general) through his machines. He and Nelson were working on the Imagination Station, which was sort of like a time machine that let you live in other times. At the moment, they were working on a Bible program for the story of Joshua.

“Could you read off those numbers, Nelson?” Mr. Whittaker asked.

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

Nelson read off a list of numbers from a sheet of paper. The list made no sense to me, but Mr. Whittaker pounded them all into the keyboard.

I waited for Nelson to finish, and then asked the question that had been dominating my thoughts ever since Valerie and her friends had made their announcement. “Do you think I discriminate against girls?”

Nelson took off his glasses and put one earpiece in his mouth. He looked thoughtful for a few moments, and then said with out a doubt, “No.” He looked back at the computer screen, where Mr. Whittaker's program was loading.

“That's it? No explanation?”

“My response doesn't require an explanation. If I had answered ‘Yes, I do think you discriminate, ' then it would require an explanation. But I said no.” He was beginning to sound more and more like Eugene Meltsner, Odyssey's resident genius and Nelson's mentor.

“May I ask why you're asking that question, Ryan?” Mr. Whittaker asked. I told him about Valerie's new feminist group.

“I've never known you to make any decisions that discriminated against girls,” Mr. Whittaker said.

“Yeah,” Nelson said, “you're always suggesting girls when we vote on new citizens.”

“And you seem to get along with most of them,” Mr. Whittaker added.

“Yeah,” I said, my head raised a little higher. “I
do
get along with girls. I don't discriminate. I'm very fair. Right?”

“Right,” Nelson said, his attention back on the computer.

“I don't have to just sit here and accept what Valerie says. I've got plenty of evidence on my side. I can beat her in court!”

“Sure you can.”

“I need to write some stuff down,” I said, but before I could find any paper, Scott walked up.

“Hey, did you meet the guy from the
Odyssey Times
?” he asked excitedly.

“No.”

“He came out to Kidsboro today and asked me a bunch of questions.”

“About what?”

“The town, how it worked … he asked a lot of questions about you.”

“Really?”

“Wouldn't that be cool if there was an article in the paper about Kidsboro?”

“That would be great,” Mr. Whittaker said.

“Hey, he'll probably want to interview both of you,” Scott said, referring to Mr. Whittaker and me.

“Yeah, that's right, Mr. Whittaker,” I said. “He'll want to know how the place started.” Having a town run by kids had been Mr. Whittaker's idea. He'd founded Kidsboro and had helped us build the town.

I coached Mr. Whittaker on some of the things to talk about when the
Odyssey Times
reporter came to him. Mr. Whittaker chuckled, knowing exactly what to say. He always did.

2

JUSTICE IS SERVED

A
LL COURT CASES TOOK
place in the meeting hall pavilion, the same place where the city council met. Kidsboro had 36 citizens now, and it seemed like every one of them was there. There were people crammed in under the roof, plus there were more than a dozen outside looking in. A few outsiders were also there either because they were interested in our justice system, or they were just bored. The chance to see somebody get sued always seemed to draw a crowd, but This was an even bigger event. The may or was getting sued.

Because no crime had been committed, This was considered a civil case. Civil cases that required an interpretation of the law were not heard before a jury, only a judge. Judge Amy came out in the long, black robe that her brother had used for his high-school graduation. She looked very official but a little intimidating. Still, I wasn't worried by the fact that this was a “boy versus girl” case and Amy was a girl. She had always been fair. In matters of justice, I didn't trust anyone as much as I trusted Judge Amy.

Valerie was wearing a business suit and had her hair up in a bun on top of her head. I knew her strategy. She wanted to look as much like a boy as possible, so that people would begin to see fewer differences between girls and boys. She wanted everyone to know that the two were equal. This was one of the few times in Kidsboro history that anyone had worn a suit within its city limits. I wore jeans with a hole in the knee.

Valerie winked at me when she sat down at the opposite table. I hated it when girls flirted with me and didn't mean it.

Judge Amy called the place to attention with her gavel. Everyone fell silent. “All right, state your cases,” she said. “Valerie, you go first.”

Valerie stood up. If there had been a jury at this point, she would've smiled at them and flung her hair back. Of course, every boy on the jury would have immediately been on her side when she did that. But since there was only Amy to impress, her face remained rock-hard and serious. “Your Honor, I'm here to state my case against Ryan Cummings, who I believe has discriminated against girls during his tenure as mayor here in Kidsboro. I have documented evidence that proves he has given special privileges to boys.”

“Documented evidence?” Amy asked.

“Yes. May I approach the bench, Your Honor?” I knew this won her big points with the judge—asking permission to approach the bench. Wow.

“Yes.”

Valerie walked up to where Amy was sitting and held out a cassette tape and a stack of papers for her to see. Then she turned and spoke loudly so that the crowd could hear. “In these documents, I have statistics that prove an obvious imbalance in Mayor Ryan's nominations for citizens of Kidsboro, as well as how he hands out government jobs. As you can see here, there are 36 citizens of Kidsboro, and 23 of them are boys—or 63 percent. The government has developed a number of city projects in which it hired workers for a couple of weeks at a time. They hired 27 workers for all of these projects. Twenty-two of them were boys.” There was some murmuring from the crowd. But she wasn't done.

“On average, boys make eight starbills a month more than girls in Kidsboro.” More murmuring, and this time I noticed that most of it was female murmurs. I didn't want to turn around in case every girl in the place was staring at me. Valerie went on. “And, of course, I find it very convenient that there are three boys on the city council but only two girls. Mayor Cummings is obviously anti-girl.”

Valerie glanced at me with a smirk on her face and reached behind her chair. She pulled out a tape player. “Let me show you just how anti-girl he is.”

What did she have on that tape?

“On this tape, I have the voice of Ryan Cummings, our mayor. I'm sure you'll recognize it immediately. You will hear Ryan share his true feelings about girls. This is a taped interview that Ryan did with the
Kidsboro Chronicle
last winter when Jill did an article on the Kidsboro military. Listen carefully, if you will.” I shot a look at Jill, who had her head down. She refused to make eye contact.

Valerie pressed Play, and out came Jill's voice. “Ryan, there are many girls who have volunteered to be in our army. What do you think their role will be?”

The next voice was mine. “Oh, the girls will play a vital role in our military. They'll be right there when the fighting starts … serving the guys hot chocolate.”

Valerie quickly pressed Stop and looked out at the audience. I was too shocked to look around, but I could feel the red-hot stares of all the girls, plus the utter disbelief of all the boys.

I had only been making a joke, and Jill knew that.

Valerie continued. “A person who thinks this way about girls can't make decisions without his bias getting in the way. And indeed, I believe it
does
get in the way. Ryan runs a city where girls are in the minority, where girls make less money, and where boys get more and better jobs in the government. I cannot just sit back and watch this happen to my gender.”