by Dave Connis
I realize now I could’ve just said that first line at the beginning and wiped my hands of the conversation, but panic mixed with I wanna hit this person with an anvil made a weak and uncoffeed mind short-circuit.
He smiled and swung his arm like he was about to call me ol’ chap and offer to take me hunting with the boys. “Aha! I often enjoy a little early-morning time among the stacks myself. Carry on, Clara Evans, by all means.”
He resumed his aforementioned moth pace, and I followed his feverish lead in the opposite direction, amazed at his ability to forget important things.
When Issues Arise, Involve Your Friends Whilst Giving Them Vague Assurances That Everything Will Be Fine (Tactic Three)
I ran out of room in the lockers. I thought I’d calculated the space perfectly, but I quickly realized that if I wanted to be able to slide books in and out quickly and have a little space to breathe, I wasn’t going to have room for everything.
Before, I’d jammed LiQui’s and my lockers to the brim, cramming books in without thought to breathing space, but that wouldn’t work with a library. I couldn’t spend half the time it took to check a book out to someone fighting to get said book out of my locker. I couldn’t waste time turning books around to figure out their IDs. It had to be quick. Fast. In and out. So I was stuck. Standing in the middle of a hallway with a sagging backpack. I couldn’t bring the load I had on my back back to the car. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Animal Farm by George Orwell, et cetera. They were banned classics.
I’d already filled LiQui’s locker, and I had no idea what to do with the excess books. I did know that, at any minute, Mr. Walsh could come around the corner and end everything before it could start.
Ashton Bricks appeared out of nowhere. Thumbs under his backpack straps, he stared at me with this dumb, weird, stupid, annoying smile.
“What?” I said.
“Whatever you’re up to—no. I want no part of it.” He said it like we’d always been friends. Like we’d been hanging out with each other for all of high school.
“Who says I’m up to something?” I asked.
“You’re standing in front of my locker with a sagging backpack looking like you just did LSD.”
“Maybe I did.”
He gave me a Really? look.
I stepped out of his way. He swung his book bag off his shoulders. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about Jack the other night. I didn’t . . . We thought going there would be a good thing.”
“He was a class-A ass,” I said.
“I know,” Ashton snapped. “You don’t have to be all snippy with me. I know what he comes off as.”
What he came off as? What about what all of them came off as?
“Why are you talking to me?”
He turned on his heel. “Okay. Did I do something to you? You’ve been like, a nonstop class-B bitch to me since school started.”
“School started Monday.”
“So?”
“So . . . why do you care?” I asked. “You don’t even know me. We’ve sat next to each other for a grand total of a hundred minutes.”
He sighed, then pulled his locker open. Me being the worst person ever, I stared at the wealth of empty space. All he had in there was a rubber ball and a copy of the first season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. LiQui loved that show.
I wanted to groan. Of course Ashton would have an empty locker.
Of course.
Ashton turned back, seeing me staring inappropriately at his emptiness. He looked at my sagging bag, then back to his locker.
He grabbed the ball and the DVD and shoved them in his backpack. “Here.”
“Here?”
He gestured to his locker. “I’ll make my pet rubber ball live somewhere else. Besides, last time I saw someone look that thirsty was when Resi thought she could date Jack.”
“Thought?”
“Do you want my locker or not? I always put my stuff in Jack’s anyway. His is so much closer to everything.”
I squinted at him. “What’s the catch? You don’t even know what I’ll do with it.”
He laughed. “Clara, you’re the most paranoid person I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not paranoid and you haven’t met me.”
He held out his hand. I looked at it. He closed the gap between our hands and grabbed mine. “I’m Ashton. Nice to meet you, Clara. ‘Nice to meet you too, Ashton. You’re not what I thought you’d be.’”
I was so confused. I had no idea what to say.
“Well, whatever,” he said. “Have my locker. Combo is 621. I’ll see you in Honors Lit. Maybe by then you’ll have figured out that I’m not trying to take your lunch money.”
He turned and left. Locker door open. I watched him walk away. Swaggering like a jock, but different somehow. Like confidence mixed with a lilt that said, I’m not sure if I’m actually this confident.
LiQui slapped her hand on the locker next to me. “I know you’re not watching Ashton Bricks walk away like he’s a whole snack?”
I snapped out of it, then turned around. “What? No. No. No. No. No. Ha. No. Nope.”
“More than three nos is a yes.”
“No,” I said, holding out my hands. “We had this really . . . strange conversation. He and Jack came to Queso Monday night. Plus, the weirdest thing, he’s actually trying to talk to me?”
LiQui shrugged. “Oh. People are allowed to do that, you know. Happens all over the world.”
“No, I just . . . he’s a star-star.”
She shrugged. “I know what he is. I’m a politician and I talk to you.”
“Oh.” I waved her off. “You don’t count.”
“Maybe I should stop talking to you—then we’ll see who counts.”
“Whose side are you on here, LiQui?”
She held up her hands. “I’m just saying, like, chill out. People can talk to you even if you don’t like them. Don’t be one of those people who hate people that hate people.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Think about it. You’re brilliant. You’ll get it.”
I took a breath, resetting my brain. Calming down. “If you stop talking to me, I’ll cut off your tea supply,” I say, opening Ashton’s locker and stacking more white covers inside. “No more steaming hot cups of Lemon Lifter in the processing room.”
“I’ve been drinking Calming Chamomile anyways. Also, did you say earlier that the bro friends forever were at Queso?”
“Yeah. They didn’t stay. I sort’ve . . . snapped.”
LiQui’s eyes got wide. “I don’t even know how to help you anymore. What’s all this junk?” she asked, waving a hand around at the locker.
“A project.”
“Clara, what sort of sneak are you sneaking here?”
“Why are you so suspicious of my beef?”
She grabbed the book out of my hands and inspected it. “You’re starting an underground library, aren’t you?” LiQui asked.
I couldn’t help but smile. “No.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You’ve got a big set of ovaries, you know that? Also, ‘suspicious of our beef’ is for sure going to be what I sign on everyone’s yearbook. So check this.” She pulled out a giant pile of papers and shook them around. The smirk on her face made me think she’d stayed up all night and found a loophole in the US Constitution.
“Papers?” I asked.
“A bunch of information on contract law.” She said it like I was supposed to be as excited as she was about it, but she could just as well have been talking in Old Norse.
“C, you don’t know what that is?”
“Qui, does anyone?”
“Yeah. Every ass in this school signed a contract that acts as law. You’re telling me you don’t know that?”
I rubbed my temples. “What are you doing with your contract pile?”
“Reading to see if there’s any built-in accountability for administration, because there’s nothing
in our handbook, and faculty and staff contracts are out of the reach of students. But I thought maybe I could infer something by looking through what systems, if any, exist in contract law.”
“You’re a special one, Qui,” I said. “Thanks. I know you’re half doing it because you’re a robot and love this stuff, but thanks.”
She shrugged, then pointed at Ashton’s locker. “I’m doing it to help the revo.”
I pulled a white cover out of Ashton’s locker—Perks—and handed it to her.
“Is this the next Queso book?” she asked.
“Maybe. You don’t know me.”
“Are you shaming me into coming again?”
“I’m just saying Jack and Ashton are coming now. You really have no excuse.”
She grabbed it and then shoved it in her backpack. “Nothing like getting your friends to associate reading with guilt.”
“It’s the only way,” I said.
She laughed. “See you at lunch.”
My year wasn’t starting out well, my feelings were a mess, and I was starting an underworld of banned books. Most things were far from easy, but being friends with LiQui was. I was very aware that she was one of the only things keeping me from being a miserable mess and curling up in a corner and eating a whole pint of thermos queso.
What Could Possibly Happen in Des Moines, Iowa?
In my first victory of the school year, the lockers were loaded before the bell rang.
I walked into Honors Lit looking smug, cocky, and probably like a vandal, but I didn’t care. I felt vindicated. I’d set up my system of proof, and there was nothing Mr. Walsh could do about it.
So there.
I expected something Their Eyes related to be on the blackboard, but instead the words Tinker v. Des Moines were inscribed in big chalky letters. The lack of Their Eyes made sense. It wasn’t appropriate anymore. Less valuable than respecting beef.
Ms. Croft sat in her chair and watched students as they poured into the classroom. She looked over each of us, but when she saw me, she nodded to me with a faint glad you made it on time smirk that she’d given me every class since the day I was late. It simultaneously made me laugh and feel like the worst human on the planet. Par for the course with Ms. Croft, it seemed.
Finally, when everyone was there, she stood up from her chair, ventured out from behind the desk, and walked silently straight toward Jack and Ashton. She pointed at a thick white bracelet Ashton had on his wrist that said “Not your forefather’s equality.”
“That bracelet is for an equal-rights campaign, is it not?”
He nodded, confused as to why she was singling him out in the middle of a class when the most he’d ever gotten was an “Ashton, what do you think the answer is?”
“I’m going to need you to take it off, then. We don’t want to protest social issues on school grounds. It’s not the place.” She held out her hand.
He stared at her, his confusion doubling with each passing second.
“Please, take it off.” Her voice went stern. Unforgiving. On the border of mean and cold.
He took it off, no questions asked, and placed it in her hand.
The entire class could feel something shift in the room as he did, but no one knew what it was. People moved uncomfortably in their seats. Fidgeting away their anxiousness like a pot boiling away water. There was a saltiness in the air that hadn’t been there before. An unforeseen grit that rubbed against the backs of our necks. I realized that I was mad, but I again didn’t know why. It felt like there’d been a breach of something. A betrayal of time and space.
Ms. Croft felt the unease—I could tell by the way she took slow strides toward the front of the room as if she was giving people time to drill daggers into her back. She placed the bracelet on her desk, right at the front, in the middle, so everyone could see, then turned to face us.
“Good morning!” she said, incredibly chipper. No one returned the greeting. Discontent grew like wildflowers. The air in the room was white static, unmoving but noisy. The silence told a story of opinions being formed, frustrations bubbling up.
She leaned against her desk. “Okay, fine. I’ll start. I’m mad. One of the reasons I’m mad is I’ve been forced to change my entire syllabus for this class. So I thought it’d be a perfect time to go over parts of American history that, I believe, should be necessary to know for anyone who is interested in books. Who knows what Tinker versus Des Moines was?”
Again, no one spoke.
“Anyone?”
Silence.
“In 1965, a few students had this idea to wear some black armbands as a nonverbal protest against the Vietnam War. The principal of the school found out and told the kids they’d be suspended if they did. The students wore them anyway. Guess what happened? They were suspended. The parents were upset, rightfully so, and they sued the school for violating the first amendment, the right of free speech. After losing at a district court, and the court of appeals, they took their case to the Supreme Court. All of this took place in a public school, of course. Private schools don’t have to abide by public-school rules, but the principle stands everywhere. We are free to protest. There is nothing more American than a protest. The Boston Tea Party in 1773? Protest. The ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from Martin Luther King in 1963? The Women’s Suffrage Parade in 1913? Protest. All of these protests rejected the status quo and had their fair share of naysayers, who called the people who did it ridiculous. It’s easy for most to look back in time and praise those who fought for the rights of others. The protests of history are much easier to accept than protests of the present. History doesn’t require anything from us. It doesn’t even require us to know it. The present? It requires our all.”
She looked up at us, then at the bracelet lying on her desk. She picked it up, then walked back to Ashton and held it back out to him. He reached for it, but when his fingers wrapped around it, Ms. Croft wouldn’t let go.
“Next time,” she said, seriousness punctuating every syllable, “question. Push back. Don’t just accept things. Time doesn’t change things. Humans change things. Time adapts.”
She walked back to the front of the classroom. The class realized what had happened, why she’d taken the bracelet, and how we’d all sat there, complicit. Her point was made.
She leaned against the desk. “Next time, instead of sitting there glaring daggers into my back, do something. Say something. And I don’t mean some tirade on a blog or social media that’ll get you more likes than solutions. If you don’t realize the importance and responsibility of the freedoms we’ve been given, then you won’t realize what freedom actually is.” She looked at me as if I needed more persuading. “For the next few classes, we will discuss court cases specifically dealing with censorship and free speech, starting with Tinker versus Des Moines. Homework for this, and for the next few court cases we discuss, will be essays outlining the arguments for each side. Am I clear?”
She wasn’t happy with the few confused nods she received, so she asked again. “I need to hear you. Am I clear on this?”
A smattering of firm yeses echoed through the room.
I stared at her, more than a little in awe of the way she’d decided to fight Mr. Walsh, and I felt a bloom of pride that I’d followed her advice. That, though I hadn’t told her I’d started a library, we were both fighting LA. That I wasn’t alone.
Apparently, We’re All Members of Jeff Goldblum’s Book Club
I was putting books back onto the library shelves during my free period when LiQui walked in.
“Hey,” I said.
She held up the white cover I’d given to her earlier that day, then pointed at the quietest corner of the library. A spot behind a shelf and in the most non-visible part of the room. A place listed in Forbes Travel Guide’s Top Ten Places to Find a Couple Making Out.
I looked back at Mr. Caywell, who was busy typing away on his computer, then followed her into the corner.
“Check this,” she said, hol
ding out her phone. I grabbed it and started scrolling. “Prince Walsh sent this to the StuCab after we talked this morning. It’s the new student handbook. Guess what’s in it?”
“No way,” I said. “This is their announcement?”
“More like a bet no one’s going to read through sixty pages of updated student policies. You see how they did it?”
The thing was, I didn’t see how they did it, which I assumed was the point. “I’m not going to lie, LiQui, I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
“See? It’s doing exactly what they wanted. Look.”
I zoomed in on the text, and there was a small section under the rules that said:
Students should be aware that there are multiple media items prohibited on school grounds, including such books as The Anarchist Cookbook. As with all other policy infringements, having these items on the Lupton campus comes with a three-strikes policy. For a complete list of items, please see your student-body president.
I snorted. “Who’s going to say no to that book being prohibited? Especially in the South?” Did they really have the gall to equate Don’t Tread on Me with The Anarchist Cookbook? “That’s the most underhanded and veiled insult I’ve seen at Lupton. Do you even have a list?”
She shook her head. “This is how it works. They’re betting their students have too much homework to read for fun. But let’s say they do read for fun, and let’s say that someone is weird and brings a banned book to school for whatever reason. Well, first of all, have you ever brought a banned book to school? Not recently, but in the past.”
I nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, of course you have; you’re a bad person to ask. I never have. And that’s the reality of it. You’re one of the few, Clara.”
“Yeah, and you literally just called me weird.”
She waved it away. “Anyway, say you bring one of your bannies to school and you get caught. You’ll be told ‘having your book on campus is against school policy.’ If you care enough to ask, ‘Well, why?’ Prince Walsh will say, ‘It’s in the student handbook.’ But let’s say this kid isn’t you, and let’s say this kid isn’t on their A game and doesn’t realize that what Prince Walsh said wasn’t really an explanation. They say, ‘Okay, sure.’ They walk away. Prince Walsh doesn’t have to deal with it.”