Suggested Reading

by Dave Connis

  It wasn’t even expected mess either. Like, school had an expected mess. Intense homework. Football games. Hanging with friends. Those things were par for the course. That year, things were messy in ways I hadn’t expected or even considered. The ways I had to sneak around and dole out books. The constant walking to my locker. The constant checking in and checking out. The pressure to do all this and still be a slayer student. The upcoming Founders Scholarship dinner and the corresponding scholarship hanging over my head. The growing knot I felt in my gut the more days that went by and the more books I checked out to people I didn’t know. It was all like a layer of emotional fog.

  Classes were starting to feel thick and clunky. I couldn’t parse the information I was getting out as cleanly and quickly as I could before. Days were starting to blur together with white covers and locker trips. All this, and the end of the semester was so far away that people hadn’t even begun to wish for it in normal conversation.

  The words spilled out of my mouth, and the avalanche knocked some tears loose on the way down, so then I was crying in LiQui’s car. I wasn’t crying because of things I knew, but because of things I didn’t.

  I thought.

  I didn’t even know if the things I didn’t know were the reason I was crying, which made me cry more. Suddenly, shutting down the Unlib, which had been a thought playing ding-dong-ditch with my brain, showed up on my front steps, not running away. It made me frustrated and confused because the Unlib wasn’t something I’d ever had the intention of quitting. It was an “until graduation do us part” sort of project. I didn’t have enough quotes yet to do anything with them, but . . . what had I thought those quotes would do? Had I even thought about what was going to happen? Would I just walk into Principal Walsh’s office and hand him quotes and he’d go, Oh yeah, you’re right, Clara. Banned books are unbanned. Solid job. Ciao!

  Besides, since Scott had accused me of power-tripping, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was a different version of Mr. Walsh. Both of us on our power trips. Each of us believing that we were in the right. Neither of us wavering. Locked in a battle. One I wanted to win. Desperately wanted to win. There was something off about everything I was doing, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Was I turning books into weapons? Was winning enough? Was that all I wanted?

  The feeling sank in my gut. No. Winning wasn’t enough for the Unlib.

  I needed a new reason to keep going.

  A better reason. And it shouldn’t have been that hard to find one. I believed in books, right? I was Clara Evans, book girl. Why wasn’t it easier?

  It was all still just as complex as when I’d started.

  I took a breath.

  And then another.

  I closed my eyes.

  Tried to shut my brain down for a millisecond.

  Once I was able to do it for one, I shut it down for two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Then I could breathe again.

  Then I could see again.

  I could feel the warmth of LiQui’s hand on my knee, so I focused on that.

  And I breathed.

  And I focused on those two things until we got to Bookies.

  Honors Censorship for the Angry and Ill-Informed

  Everyone sat in the basement of Bookies, an old brick house converted to a bookstore by its owner, Ms. Lowe.

  As soon as I saw bookshelves through the store windows, I felt lighter. Just thinking about the smell inside. Paper, compressed nature, and hands making words, a must of knowing and magic. Periods. Commas. Digressions. Analogies. The beauty of everyday thought turned poetry. It was all there, and I was hit with a little sliver of peace in the chaos of my brain.

  “So, I’m going to be honest,” I said to everyone. “I haven’t had a chance to reread Perks. I mean, I could come up with stuff, and go off what I thought when I read it two years ago, but it’s not fresh. I’m sorry. This is the first time since Queso started that I haven’t read the book in time, and I feel really bad about it.”

  The Queso regulars told me not to worry about it.

  If only words worked on me at that moment.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking at Ms. Croft. “So, context for the normal Quesoians—this is one of my teachers, Ms. Croft. She was mysteriously fired, and she’s here to tell my class why. Closure and all that. So, Ms. Croft, I know you came to talk, but I want to open it up to book stuff first? That way if any of the normals don’t care to hear your story, they can leave. So. If anyone has anything to say about Perks, go ahead.”

  Silence. Not even Sean, who was my go-to guy to start us off, felt comfortable diving in.

  The big crowd was too strange. It was fair—we’d been five to ten people since our inception, so to have a million people sitting around felt awkward. It felt more like a lecture and less like a discussion. It officially turned Queso into another messy thing. Normally, we showed up. Chatted. Quesoed. Had a blast. Went home. But then the star-star guys added themselves. And now talking about books was the opening act for LiQui’s gossip table. The ridiculousness of the night just added to the things that felt jumbled and shaky. Was there one steady thing? Somewhere?

  “Well,” I said, “all right, then. Normal Quesoians, sorry this has been a washout, but feel free to head out? Sorry. Next time, we need to pick our next six months of books. Be sure to think of ideas. Maybe we can come back to Perks.”

  As my book club transitioned into a strange second Honors Lit class, I went to the bathroom. Mostly to pee, but also to get away from everyone. To get away from Jack and the weight in his eyes that seemed heavier and heavier the more I was around him. To get away from Ashton and his paradigm-shifting niceness. To get away from LiQui and her all-knowing sage/lawyer brain, which had only gotten worse (better?) since school started. I needed a break.

  I walked back downstairs—ready, I guessed, for the portion of the night where I would learn even more about LA politics. What fun.

  “Ms. Croft,” I said, “the table is proverbially yours.”

  She nodded and wasted no time taking it.

  “First off, thanks for coming and letting me interrupt your book club. When LiQuiana reached out to me to ask what happened, it really frustrated me she didn’t know, especially since she’s the student-body president. I felt like it was important for students to know what happened, even just my students, so coming here seemed like a natural option.”

  I nodded.

  She continued. “I don’t know how many of you know, but on the first day of school, administration released a banned-book list that included over fifty books. It was confidential. It didn’t go out to students. I got angry for many reasons. Reasons I could talk about for a long time. But that’s not the point. The point is, the ban, of course, affected classes. Specifically, my class material choices. So when administration asked me to redo my syllabus to take into account the new banned books, I did. Somewhat. I gave administration the old Honors Lit syllabus, but with changed titles. However, I secretly revamped the syllabus to something I thought of as Censorship for the Angry and Ill-Informed. I wanted to teach my Honors Lit class about censorship and its history. I wanted to push back by giving students the tools to understand the stakes of censorship and banning books.

  “It wasn’t what the school wanted—being a private school, they have the authority to ban what they want—but I was following their rules. I was teaching about court cases, not banned books. I was excited about it, and I got so distracted with coming up with the new program that I forgot to change the syllabus for my advanced English Comp class. I left in a banned book and turned in the syllabus as if it was complete. So, obviously, I was called into the principal’s office for not adhering to the new school policy. He asked me to remove the book from my syllabus as I’d done with Honors Lit.”

  She paused. Took a breath. “As I stood there, witnessing this man ask me to not teach a book, it felt like simply being clever and subtle and teaching censorshi
p court cases wasn’t enough. I wasn’t actually taking a stand. I was adjusting. So I said no, and they let me go for ‘irreconcilable differences in school policy.’ Clara,” she said, turning to me. “After we talked that first day—remember? When we talked about Don’t Tread on Me? I went home and finished it. I really believe Don’t Tread on Me was the thing that gave me the conviction to say no to Dr. Walsh. It’s hard for me to divorce my reasoning from that book.”

  You would’ve thought Ms. Croft saying she was inspired by Don’t Tread on Me would’ve been encouraging to me, but it made me more scared of the Unlib. She’d been inspired by the same book, for the same reasons, and she’d been fired.

  The Founders Scholarship flashed into my mind. My ticket to college. The path of my future. I was a finalist. All the finalists got some money, but the winner got a full ride. To anywhere.

  I hadn’t thought about it until then, but me, LiQui, Vandy—that was all in danger. That was all in the crosshairs. If I got caught, I’d be suspended. If I got suspended, I’d lose my chance at winning the Founders Scholarship.

  What was I doing?

  Did someone have a time car that could drive me back to the beginning of this semester?

  Could I get a do-over?

  “There’s a banned-book list fifty books long?” a girl from Honors Lit asked. “How have we not heard about this?”

  I pressed my lips together. I would not speak unless it was a joke. I didn’t trust myself, but I was fresh out of jokes.

  Ms. Croft shifted in her seat. “We can bring this to court,” she said. “In fact, I’m planning on it. I’m planning on going to the press in the next few days. I’m wondering if any of you would be interested in helping fight this?”

  I froze. I didn’t look up. I knew she expected me to say something. I was book girl. LitHouse, my Tiny Little Libraries, blah blah blah. If I didn’t say yes, what was I? I just wanted the night to end. I was done. With the day. With all of it. I wanted to go home, deal with my parents, then slide into my bed and disappear into the land of my duvet cover.

  The table was again silent.

  “Well, think about it,” Ms. Croft said. “LiQuiana has my email if you decide you want to be involved.”

  “Ms. Croft,” LiQui said, “thank you so much for coming and giving us the deets. I’ll connect with everyone in the morning and see if they want to jump into the fight.”

  Ms. Croft stood, and I could tell she wasn’t going to let me leave without talking to me about my involvement in her crusade.

  “Clara,” she said, stepping toward me as everyone stood, grabbing their things.

  “Look, Ms. Croft, I—”

  “I’m surprised you don’t want to help. Do you not want to? What would Levi and Joss do?”

  I couldn’t think. My mind felt like it was collapsing in on itself. Like the sheer weight of gray area combined with the unknown and how I was getting hangrier and hangrier was swallowing my ability to process.

  “I’ve gotta go, Ms. Croft. We’ll talk later.”

  And I walked away from her. Leaving her in the basement.

  And Then Your Hero Hid in the AC Nook Outside

  And I stared at the sky. The same sky my ancestors had looked at when freedom ran rampant like a river. Levi, inside, was bartering with money that wasn’t ours for a book that could get us killed simply for referencing it.

  In that combustion of time and consequence, I couldn’t see the true colors of anything. Everything was history and monuments and the blur of power and death, and I wondered if all this was worth it. And I wondered if anyone else ever felt that. Lying in a foxhole. Shooting another man or woman. Was it worth it?

  My head spun.

  I found myself wanting bread, which, I felt, was just fine.

  Despite what Levi said, there was a time and place for bread.

  —Lukas Gebhardt, Don’t Tread on Me

  I nearly ran out of Bookies, passing the shelves I’d been so happy to see just an hour earlier. I stood outside, in the shadow of the building, in a little nook where the AC unit sat, trying to get my brain to do something besides short-circuit under the weight of all the things I couldn’t figure out.

  A stream of people poured out through the door, and I watched as the parking lot emptied. I watched Ms. Croft leave, and I couldn’t help but think that her small glance in my direction was because she smelled my guilt and confusion on the wind.

  I stood, my back against Bookies. Looking up into the sky. I felt like Joss, when he had to step outside during a deal with one of their book dealers. He stepped out because he wondered if the fight was worth it; I’d stepped out because I wondered if I even knew what I was fighting for anymore.

  The air and the hum of the AC settled around me and I closed my eyes. And for a minute there was nothing, and in that minute I tried to capture the nothing so I could shove it into my pocket and bring it out when I needed it.

  “I read Perks. I’ll read that other one next,” a voice said. I opened my eyes, and Jack stood in front of me.

  “Yeah? What did you think?” I asked, closing my eyes again. I wanted to focus on the nothing.

  “It was beautiful.”

  The nothing faded. Replaced by my awe. I looked at him.

  “Perks is the reason I came to your club,” he said. “I heard that you were into it. I thought . . . I thought maybe we could talk about it. Maybe talking to you would be good.”

  “Talking to me? What do you mean?”

  A loud “Yo!” split across the parking lot. LiQui. “Clara?”

  “I’m here,” I said, emerging from my nook of normalness. To my surprise, Ashton followed behind her. I looked at Jack. Any vulnerability he’d shown me retreated somewhere deep inside him, and the loss was incredibly disappointing.

  “You okay?” Ashton asked me.

  I let out a sarcastic snort. “I feel like I asked you that recently and didn’t get an answer.”

  He gave me a sheepish grin.

  “Have y’all met?” I said, motioning between him and LiQui.

  Ashton shook his head, then held out his hand. “Hey, I’m a fan of your president work. You should for real run. Like, for the USA. I’d vote for you. I’ll run your campaign.”

  LiQui’s head cocked to the side. A smile, one part astonishment, two parts amused, turned her lips into a crescent O. She looked at me, and I gave her a knowing nod.

  “Well, aren’t you a glass of sweet tea?” she said.

  “Oh God,” Jack replied, and for a minute I thought he was mocking LiQui and I was about to pull out my verbal guns, but then he added, “Don’t say shit like that about him. He doesn’t need it.”

  “Look,” Ashton said, “anyone who deals with LA administration without selling their soul and kissing ass is badass in my book.”

  LiQui fanned herself. “Keep going. Say more nice things.”

  Jack just stared at the ground.

  “I would, but we’ve gotta go,” Ashton said. “Clara, tonight was . . . weird. Really weird. Thanks.”

  “You’re telling me.” I looked at Jack. “Hey, I recommend starting on Catcher after Perks. Holden and Charlie are super similar.”

  He nodded. Then they left.

  LiQui turned to me as soon as they were out of earshot. “Come on. Let’s split so we’re not two punks standing in the dark.”

  I watched Jack walk away and wondered what I’d just seen from him. Wondered why he wanted to talk to me. Had that been his intention all along? If so, why had he been such a jerk about the club the first day he came? Why was he a jerk at all?

  Where had the Jack Lodenhauer I’d just met come from?

  Don’t Tread on Me, Chapter 43: Joss

  Levi was quiet, scribbling on a paper in the lamplight.

  “What are we doing?” I said, tossing down my pencil. It echoed for eternity against the cave walls. “We’re sitting here hiding when our world is still fighting. At least when we were soldiers, we were fighting.”
/>   Levi looked up. “Who says we’re not fighting?”

  I looked at him. “Are you fighting, right now?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Are you holding a gun?”

  “No, but a gun is about as necessary to a fight as a hammer is to make soup.”

  “What are you doing, then?”

  “I’m writing. I’m writing everything I’ve ever wanted to say, and I’m telling everyone everything they’ve ever done is just bread and circuses.”

  “What if people don’t listen to anything but murder, crumbled cities, orphaned kids? Blood?”

  “Then they’ll listen to our stories.”

  “Stories have no power here, Levi. Stories aren’t enough to end a war.”

  “Joss, what do you think started it?”

  Can the Day Be Over Already?

  I could smell the parental disappointment as soon as I walked in. The house also smelled like put-away dinner, and we needed to have the you snapped at a teacher, are you a serial killer now? discussion before I could eat, so I just needed to accept being hangry for a bajillion more hours. I should’ve put my fist in the queso. The stupid choices I’d made.

  Before I could even drop my bag, Mom emerged from the living room into the kitchen, Dad in tow. Mom had a Star Wars tee on the top half of her, and ripped jeans on the bottom half. A closer look revealed they were my ripped jeans. I didn’t say anything. I figured most kids complained about their parents being uncool, and I knew for a fact that my mom wasn’t even trying to be cool by wearing my ripped jeans and a Star Wars tee, which made her awesome. Really, though, if my wardrobe helped her be relevant to society, and made my friends jealous of having a mom who sometimes called my dad “bro,” it was my duty to let it happen.

  “Hey,” she said, my dad following behind her.

  “Hey,” I said to both of them. “Long time no see, Dad.”