Suggested Reading

by Dave Connis

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “So, what should we do?”

  A few beats of silence passed.

  “Check back with me tomorrow. I need to think.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said, and, not sure what else to say, I started moving toward the door. “Well, sorry I was late, Ms. Croft. It won’t happen again.”

  “Sure. We’re going to fight this, Clara. Together. You’re the Levi to my Joss.”

  I laughed. “Levi and Joss would know what to do.”

  “They would. They’d collect all those banned books before they disappeared and set up their own library. That’s what you should do. You run those Tiny Little Libraries, right? Maybe you should do something like that here. Make a library in the quiet of some storage closet somewhere.”

  Without much work, the thought wedged itself into my brain. A next-door neighbor to the anger and whatever other feelings that had already moved in. I thought about the books in my locker. I also thought about how I’d already snuck books for most of my life. I was uniquely qualified to be a sneaky book peddler. And I thought about the fact that, suddenly, the teacher who could skin bears was on my side, telling me I should start a library.

  The One with the LiQui

  The needs of a society determine its ethics.

  —Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

  My best friend, LiQui Carson, and her student cabinet (a.k.a. StuCab) sat at the normal table, which, every year, was “second star to the right, and straight on till morning.” (Translated: to the right of the second skylight, to the right again, and against the wall by a big watercolor canvas of an orange sun rising over Chattanooga’s Walnut Street Bridge.) I knew the cabinet. We were friendly, but they were only table friends. Once we left the drab slab of laminate, we were practically strangers passing one another on the sidewalks of New York. LiQui was my real-life friend, my only close friend, really, and, to be honest, my only friend in general, and I sat there because she did.

  I wondered how I was going to keep the ban a secret from her. Or if I even needed to. If she smelled even a hint of a secret, it’d be dragged out of me with brute verbal—and blackmail—force. That was the problem with time and friendship. Even though she’d been there for every moment of glory, she’d been there for every moment of dirt. I’d learned that, more often than not, when it came to leverage, dirt was more useful than glory.

  There was an off chance it’d be a day where she was wrapped up in politics and the student cabinet was a host unto themselves, a conversational train that zoomed along on pure academia and the comparing-penis-size-like act of who could quote the biggest sections of the student handbook. On those days, secrets stayed safe. I prayed to the god of Mondays it was one of those days. I begged the bad day to give me a break, and, before my butt even hit the chair, I knew I’d been tossed a bone. I sat down right in the middle of a rant from LiQui’s VP, Scott Wieberdink (speaking of penis size), about some turf dispute between a high school in Alaska and their town’s local butchers’ union. There weren’t enough tiny candy boxes for all these nerds to fit in.

  “Hey! How was the annual highlighter all-nighter?” LiQui asked.

  “Clara! How was the mango nectar?” Scott asked. “Did you take my advice and ditch the cans and go carton?”

  “I did,” I said. “And, Scott, I have to say, surprisingly, it was better.”

  “Ha! I told you she’d join my side,” Scott shouted, pointing at LiQui. “Five dollars. In my hand. Prontos.”

  “It’s pronto,” LiQui said, reaching into her back pocket for her wallet.

  “When speed is of the essence, you say prontos. And it is. I need to buy a Pellegrino so I can walk by the star-star table and impress Resi Alistair.”

  “Dude,” LiQui snapped, “you don’t have to say her full name. We’ve talked about this. It’s real freaking weird when you only refer to her as Resi Alistair.”

  “I think he feels fuzzy when he says her full name,” I added, actually thankful for the mental distraction from trying to figure out what to do, and how I felt, about the ban.

  Scott snatched the five-dollar bill out of LiQui’s hand and pointed at all of us as he walked away. “Like a damn peach.”

  “That boy does not have the income to get Resi to notice him,” LiQui added.

  “He’s got five bucks,” I said. “I’d notice a boy with one dollar and a book. In fact, I hav—”

  “You think five bucks bought those pants?” LiQui asked, nodding to Resi, who sat at the star-star table. “That knee rip alone cost more than his Pellegrino.”

  Once, Resi and I had found ourselves sitting next to each other in the library. I dropped my only pencil under her chair and had to sneak around her to get it. I had to squat on all fours like Spider-Man, trying to get the stupid thing back. She didn’t offer to help. Didn’t move. She didn’t even look at me. So it was beyond me why Scott would ever be interested in her.

  “Y’all hear about Jack Lodenhauer?” Avi, LiQui’s treasurer, asked. “He got pulled over going home from a party the other night. He was as drunk as a skunk, but the cop knew his family and let him go. Pretty sure the news didn’t even make it to Principal Walsh.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said, and there was a reason.

  Jack’s mom, Mrs. Lodenhauer, was the head of the Lupton Academy Parent Advisory Committee (LAPAC) and the founder of a nonprofit that my nonprofit had considered working with at one point (before I decided the Lodenhauers were junk people): Chattanooga Educators’ Commission for Change. Jack’s dad’s grandfather, Charles Lodenhauer, a Chattanooga railroad industry magnate, had been a founder of LA, and the namesake of LA’s Lodenhauer Hall, the building that housed the computer lab. Mrs. Lodenhauer’s cousin, Rebecca Hursting, was the head of the Lupton Academy Board, or LAB. LAB shared members with the Offerson Foundation, the foundation that had given LitHouse a grant. LAB also shared two or three members with the Founders Scholarship selection committee. Basically, if you were rich and/or a Lodenhauer you were on a million boards at any given time.

  It seemed evident that Jack Lodey, the aforementioned trash can, and his freshman brother, Emerson, were destined for a life of board meetings, and I held no envy for that part of their lives. Jack was also, strangely, a Founders Scholarship finalist. It wasn’t normally common knowledge who was chosen as a finalist, but Jack Lodey had been on the front page of the local newspaper, with the headline “Lupton Academy Student Follows in Family Footsteps with Founders Scholarship Recognition.”

  “He’ll probably win the Founders Scholarship,” I said. “His mom won. That probably means something. Last year Camille Wimarot won, and she was practically Jack Lodey before Jack was Jack Lodey.”

  “Wow. I forgot about her. What’s she up to now?” LiQui asked.

  “Got kicked out of Yale for dealing coke,” I said.

  “What an exemplary show of student leadership.”

  Scott walked by Resi, cracking open his Pellegrino. Resi looked up. It was quick. A small habitual glance, more in reaction to a new noise than from curiosity.

  I don’t know if it was because thoughts of the ban had been pushed aside by discussions of the star-stars, but I had an idea. “LiQui, do you mind if I talk to you about something later?”

  “Always. Well. Unless it’s about the Mav. I’m done talking about the Mav.”

  “It’s not about the Mav.”

  “Ugh, the Mav,” Avi said.

  Suddenly, even though no one wanted to be thinking about the Mav—LiQui’s ex—everyone was thinking about the Mav. Well, everyone except me. I thought about the ban. And how horrible the day had been, for reasons I couldn’t even put into words yet. I couldn’t shush the Ms. Croft voice in my head as she told me over and over to make my own library.

  It wasn’t lost on me that I had a locker full of books.

  And it definitely wasn’t lost on me how easy it would be to start one.

  Friends in High Places


  After school, despite just wanting to go home, I wandered around the administrative wing of Lupton Academy. LiQui had told me that the student-cabinet office was over there somewhere, but it was as unfamiliar as a Bed Bath & Beyond. Despite being best friends with the student-body president, I’d never gone to her office. Why would I have needed to? Anything that made me mad at LA I immediately forgot about when I went home for the day. The StuCab was her realm. The library was mine. That was why, five minutes into my search, I’d only seen the administrative offices and a fancy low-calorie-snack vending machine I hadn’t known Lupton had.

  My idea was to discuss the prior banned books—The Hunger Games, The Color Purple, and Huck Finn—not the current ban. I thought that, maybe, if I started in a place that was already “general knowledge,” so to speak, then I could push back on the bigger ban I “didn’t” know about with the smaller ban I “did.” I thought that, maybe, if I could get the student-body president to sign off on some sort of grievance letter, that’d be all the school needed to start a discussion around books and why the administration felt that my life had been a pile of dirt up until that point. And maybe, why they felt some books were more beneficial not read by their students?

  The student-cabinet office didn’t have a nameplate on the door, and it was between two other offices, so I ended up walking by it three times before I got frustrated and started peeking into rooms. Finally I saw LiQui sitting at a desk behind an oval conference table.

  “Hey, corrupt politician. Where are your minions?”

  “Who knows. Probably gone already. It’s all right. I don’t mind being left with the mess. It gives me an excuse to not go home.”

  “So inglorious.”

  “It’s good. Seriously. I’m not in it for the fame; I’m in it for the change. Anyway, we’re not talking about me. What’s up?”

  I told her about the books that had been quietly banned. My plan of writing a letter endorsed by the student-body president.

  And I very, very carefully left the current ban out.

  “So you’re telling me we used to have these books and now we don’t?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean, yeah. I’ll sign that. That’s ridiculous. How long has it been going on?”

  “Years, apparently.”

  She pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. “The process when it comes to complaints about leadership: you give them to me, and if I can’t solve them, then I sign off on them and give them to Principal Walsh. Who should respond, when he’s not busy waging wars against beef propaganda.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

  “You read that article in the LA Bottler today about how students could help the cafeteria workers keep the cafeteria clean, the one that had nothing to do with how LA food tastes?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, according to my sources, Prince Walsh is writing a correction article saying that the newspaper ‘painted the staff in a bad light and that the article is wrongfully making people suspicious of our beef.’”

  I laughed. “Beef propaganda. He’s okay with saying books are useless, but he’ll fight to the death for Lupton’s beef?”

  “I guess. So, let’s write this fire right now, while you’re here. I’m down for the fight. Why are you mad about it? Let’s start there.”

  “Why am I mad about it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, what’s driving you to write this letter?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m just . . . I’m mad.”

  “Okay, well, there’s not much punch to that. You’ve gotta turn it up a bit.”

  “I’m mad that they’d ban books that changed my life, writing them off as dirty. Mad and offended that they think I can’t handle them. My whole life has been touched by this list of books. LitHouse. The library. I mean, my whole life. And they’re saying it’s wrong?”

  “There you go.” She started writing. “Also, I know you didn’t tell me all of your plan. Where’s the good stuff?”

  I sighed. “You mean the part after the school repents their sins? Where Lukas and I make out on a pallet filled with autographed books, and he buys me really expensive watches?”

  “Uh, yeah? Do I look like I can’t handle that?”

  The Letter

  Dear Dictator

  LA Big Brother

  Jerk of Unusual Size

  Principal Walsh,

  I recently went into the library to check out the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker. To my surprise, our library didn’t have it. A lot of people consider this book a classic. Not only that, but an important book for students to read.

  I asked the librarian if he’d accept a donation of a copy, and he said, “No. It would disappear.” I pushed for more clarification and he mentioned that the book was banned along with a few others, years ago.

  As of right now, all I’d like to hear is an explanation as to why your chosen course of action for these books was to ban them. I’m simply at a loss as to how this fits under the three principles of Lupton Academy.

  I hope this discussion will lead to a greater discussion, and, possibly, a better solution that can be approved by leadership.

  Sincerely,

  Clara Evans,

  with approval from LiQuiana Carson, student-body president

  A Lack of Coping Skills

  As I drove home, I thought about the day. From its crappy start with my having been raised in a barn, to Ms. Croft, to the sad fate of being next to Ashton Bricks in Honors Lit. Everything churned like an unfortunate-event stew in my gut. There was no one I could talk to about it, so all the steam was trapped inside. Even the queso in my future couldn’t ease all the feelings. I couldn’t figure out why, or even how, someone could say that a story was inappropriate to read. Had I missed something? Was I the butt of some joke? Were books the spinach between my teeth no one had told me about, and I was just walking around smiling at everyone?

  When I got home, I stormed inside our house, slammed the door behind me, and walked straight to the fridge. I needed to curb the bitterness quick, so I ripped the door open, causing all the sauce, dressing, and condiment bottles to rattle against one another. I grabbed barbecue sauce, bacon bits, and a block of cheddar cheese. I set them on the counter and fished a plate and a bag of baked potato chips out of the cupboards.

  And then I made some damn vittles.

  Because I was mad.

  Mom appeared from the living room as I was shredding half the cheese block. “Welcome home, honey. Oh, what are you doing? Whoa, easy. I need some cheese for dinner tonight and I don’t have a coupon for another bag.”

  She always spoke with this poetic cadence. She had the kind of vocal tone you could get lost in if she was telling you some story from her day. Dad always told her she needed to start a podcast, but her graceful voice did nothing for me.

  I put the cheese in a Ziploc bag, opened the fridge door, and threw the block inside.

  “Uh-oh,” Mom said, “you’re making aggressive vittles. What happened?”

  I held up a hand. “I don’t even know yet. I’m just mad.”

  I threw the plate of potato chips covered in cheese and bacon into the microwave and punched in 01:00.

  Mom sat down at the kitchen island. “You want to talk about it? I just got feedback on the thirtieth version of a logo for a client and I don’t want to see what they said. I’m all ears.”

  I shoved my hand into the potato-chip bag, breaking a few on the way in. “That’s the thing. I don’t know what to even talk about yet. It’s complicated. Sorry. I’m not trying to be vague. It’s all too fresh.”

  “I understand,” she said, grabbing a chip out of the bag. “You’re just like your dad. You can’t talk about it until you’ve parsed every bit of it to death.” She shook her head. “I’m stuck in a house filled with internal processors.”

  I grunted and pulled my vittles out of the microwave. The sight of bubbling cheese was comforting.

  Mom stood. “Well, when you fi
gure it out, you’ll tell me, right?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. Heads-up: I won’t be around for dinner. Book club night.”

  “Oh yeah. Well, more leftovers, then. I won’t have to get as much lunch stuff at the store tomorrow.” She pulled out her phone and struck something off her grocery list. “Hey, maybe we can go get coffee this weekend and talk? I have a—”

  “A coupon?” I interrupted.

  She smiled. “Of course. Buy-one-get-one for honey lattes at Good Cup. Maybe we get them to go and take a stroll on the Riverwalk?”

  “Okay.” I hugged her. I’d learned at an early age that when Mom offered the use of a coupon, you took it.

  After she walked out of the kitchen, I scarfed down the vittles, then intensely considered making more, only talking myself out of it because I needed to go and eat a different cheese somewhere else. I grabbed my copy of Don’t Tread on Me, got back into my blue and busted Honda Civic, and headed toward downtown Chattanooga.

  Queso . . . What Are We Reading Next?

  When I’d first gone to Mojo Burrito, I hadn’t really been too crazy about it, but then they moved to a bigger location and got a bigger kitchen and . . . holy guacamole on a shrimp po-boy burrito. Suddenly it called to me daily. It called to me like the sea called Moana. And the queso? The only thing stopping me from putting that junk in a thermos and carrying it around with me was . . . Actually, that was a good idea.

  Anyway, the point was: Mojo was like the Force. You could be anywhere at any time and always sense its presence. If someone used a word containing the letters M, O, or J, oftentimes it was only a matter of seconds before you had a burrito in your hand.

  From the first day of Queso, there was always queso. Hence Queso . . . What Are We Reading Next? I prayed and prayed and prayed that the divine godlike substance would make me forget about everything. A sort of strange amnesia queso to put my mind at ease.