by Dave Connis
Both my parents looked at me. Eyes wide as plates. “You haven’t written your speech?”
“Clara, the dinner starts in ten minutes,” Mom said.
I stood, grabbed a pen from my mom’s purse and a handful of cocktail napkins from the hors d’oeuvres table, and rushed to the closest bathroom.
A Quick Napkin List of the Dominoes That Fell
- Jack Lodenhauer
- Ashton Bricks
- LiQui Carson
- Scott Wieberdink
- Ms. Croft
- Mr. Caywell
- Resi Alistair
- The Mav
- Me
The Unmasking of Fear
Courage is [not] a man with a gun in his hand. It’s knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
I stood at the podium. My eyes were red, but my hands were calm. I looked at Mrs. Lodenhauer, who now sat at a completely different table. I looked at my parents. I looked at Resi. I looked at the faces I didn’t know. Journalists. I looked at everyone. My insides were calm.
Most of my moments—good, bad—had happened because I’d let books shape my choices. Even during the last few days, when I was questioning books, they were working, teaching me that they were bigger than my own experience. Teaching me how to see others when I thought I already knew how. Teaching me how to truly believe in them. I was standing in that room because of books, and, thanks to Mrs. Lodenhauer, I was no longer afraid of what they were or weren’t.
I’d started the school year in a war. Not a war against Lupton. A war against myself. I’d been selfish. Only thinking about how books impacted me. About how they changed my life. I’d wanted to prove Mr. Walsh wrong because I wanted the proof. Everything I’d done, every choice, had been about me.
I’d gotten so focused on how I fit into the things LA was saying about books that I hadn’t even noticed that books were changing everything. LiQui had said as much. I hadn’t believed her. But it was true. We’d all been changed. And because books had changed us, they’d also changed the people around us. An impact that could be written off as the simple progression of life. What a power.
Mrs. Lodenhauer, Mr. Walsh, and I weren’t that different from one another.
In one way or another, we were afraid. We were afraid of books, but more than that. We were afraid of ideas, discussions, changes, because we were afraid of what those things could take from us. We were afraid. And I had it on good authority that being afraid was the opposite of being free.
I cleared my throat, fighting the desire to close my eyes. I said, “Hi, I’m Clara Evans. Some of you may know me from the work I’ve done with the Tiny Little Libraries, but I’m going to talk about that one time my school banned a bunch of books, what happened when I started a banned-book library in my locker, and why it matters.”
A Wild Librarian Appears
I stood outside on a patio overlooking the river, getting some fresh air as the speeches finished inside. I needed a minute alone. To let it all settle. To let everything I’d said in my speech spread roots in my mind and heart.
“Well,” someone said, leaning on the railing next to me, “I’m glad I crashed the party, because that was the best speech I’ve ever heard. I’m so proud of you, Clara.”
I turned to see Mr. Caywell. He was all suited up. I guess he knew now what I’d really done with his books.
“Before you ask, I came with my sister. All prior Founders Scholars are invited to the dinner. I knew you’d be speaking, and I wasn’t about to miss it.”
“Thanks, Mr. Caywell. I owe you an apology.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I should be apologizing to you.”
I nodded. “Wait . . . why would you apologize to me? I was the one who lied. Remember that first day of school?”
“Yeah?”
“When I said I’d bring the banned books to the Tiny Little Libraries?”
“Yeah?”
“Well . . . I didn’t.”
“What a surprise,” he said flatly.
“Wait . . . why are you being sarcastic?”
“Because at one point, I got one of your white construction paper books in the book-return box. Wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on once I pulled the cover off and saw a book you were supposed to get rid of.”
“Oh.” I remembered the day I’d found the book from Hanna Chen in my backpack. I hadn’t just forgotten. He’d slipped it into my backpack while I was working on the processing room. “So the whole time you were sending people to me, you knew?”
He shrugged. “And that’s why I need to apologize to you. I was going to say something at first, but then I got caught up in all of it. I knew you’d be putting yourself at risk, and I think I ignored that because I felt that, out of all the students, if someone could pull it off without being caught, you could. I should’ve told you to stop.”
“Should you have?”
He turned and looked back out at the river.
“I don’t regret it, Mr. Caywell. Not now. Whatever happens happens. Even though it took me a while to figure out, I stood for what was right. For what I believe in. Just like you have done for the last however many years. I’ve learned so much. Changed. I’ve got new friends. I’ve seen them change too. And I don’t regret any of it.”
He smiled. “See you on Monday?”
I nodded. “After my meeting with Mr. Walsh. It’ll probably be my last time volunteering.”
“Well, whatever happens,” he said, “I’m proud of you, and you deserve to win tonight.”
I smiled. Mostly because I felt what I’d said. I actually felt it.
I didn’t regret it.
I didn’t regret believing that books mattered.
Brother Leon
Freedom is a tax. We pay it when our ideas are challenged, and we pay it when we challenge the ideas of others.
But we must pay.
And we must pay gladly, knowing that to have it any other way would be to lose freedom itself.
—Lukas Gebhardt, Don’t Tread on Me
It was Monday. Probably my last day at LA.
I stared at his door, remembering that all my friends, even Ashton, were waiting for me at the library. If nothing else, I’d still have them. Schools didn’t dictate friendships.
I knocked on his door.
“Come in.”
I took a breath and walked into Mr. Walsh’s office. It was clean. No white covers to be seen.
Mr. Walsh sat in his chair.
He waved to the chair I’d sat in more that semester than I had in my entire time at Lupton.
“Mr. Walsh,” I said, sitting. “I know you know, but I want to confess before—”
He waved a hand. I stopped.
“Sixty books were turned in,” he said. “Sixty.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s why I want to take respon—”
He waved a hand again.
“Most of them had quotes on them,” he said.
“Yes, but I don’t think you should hunt down every person who wrote a quote. I was the one who put them up—”
He finally looked at me. “Ms. Evans, let me do the talking.”
I bit my lip and then looked down at the chair. He stood, put his hands behind his back, and walked over to his window.
“Did you read any of those quotes, Ms. Evans?”
“All of them, sir.”
“‘I found bravery here’ on a banned copy of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. ‘I have seen through another man’s eyes, and I am changed forever’ on a banned copy of Don’t Tread on Me by Lukas Gebhardt. Then there’s ‘Someone remind me, going forward, to hug first and ask questions later’ and ‘This book reminded me to actually care about things. Thank you.’”
He paused, and then turned to me.
“And how do these quotes strike you?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think I understand th
e question.”
“Did they move you? Were they what made you decide to confess to running the library to a room full of Chattanooga movers and shakers? To a room filled with multiple members of the board of Lupton Academy? To jeopardize a potential college scholarship?”
“Sort of,” I said. “I mean, yeah. In a way. A lot of things did. Mostly the fact that I was going to be expelled anyway. It wasn’t that brave.”
“Have you read The Chocolate War, Ms. Evans?” he asked, sitting back in his seat, this time holding my gaze.
“Not in a long time,” I said.
“The book is prohibited media. In fact, I caught you walking in the halls with two copies of The Chocolate War. If you’re attempting to save some sort of face by saying you haven’t read it recently, it isn’t necessary.”
“I honestly haven’t reread that one yet, Mr. Walsh. You catching me with those copies was just unlucky because I was taking them from the library donations pile.”
“Ms. Evans, why are you in my office?”
“Uh. Because I’m about to be expelled?”
“Yes, I’ve been directed to expel you. But my question still stands. Why are you in my office?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have anything to say.
“I want you to go back to your locker and get your things.”
There it was. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, attempting to push the tears back. I heard Levi’s and Joss’s voices, telling me to look up. To look him in the eye. In a swell of volume, they were joined by LiQui. By Jack. By Ashton. By all the quotes on the white covers.
I opened my eyes and looked at Mr. Walsh. “Yes, sir.”
“After you do that,” he said, “I want you to go to class. I want you to study. And I want you to always answer yes.”
I sat still. Not sure if he was joking.
“You want me to go to class?”
He nodded.
“You want me to study?”
He nodded.
“You want me to always answer yes?”
Again, he nodded.
“To what?”
He stood, walked over to the door, and opened it.
My heart beating fast, I grabbed my backpack and waited for him to answer.
“‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’”
I stared at him. Had he read The Chocolate War? How did he know that quote?
He looked at me and nodded. “One last question, Ms. Evans.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek. “Yes, Principal Walsh?”
“Was there a book that started all this?”
“Don’t Tread on Me by Lukas Gebhardt.”
He nodded. “I think I’d like to read it.”
I smiled. “You should.”
“You’re going to be late to class.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
All the Right Fires
I walked toward the reopened library to find my friends. I followed my normal path, the one that’d take me past my locker, but it didn’t seem that normal. It seemed . . . hopeful. Different in a way I couldn’t describe. Like everything felt bigger than it had the last time I’d walked that path. The grandeur of second chances. The vistas of being sure of who you were and what you believed.
My locker came into view. I stopped in front of it and stared. Rehashing. Reliving. Rethinking.
My combination lock was gone, which was probably something that had happened after I left on Friday. I guessed I’d have to get a new one.
I swung the door open, ready to see a gray metal emptiness instead of a vast wall of white.
But.
Covered banned books took up the whole space.
Stacked from the bottom of my locker to the top.
Only one copy stood on its ends, and it was wrapped in white construction paper.
On the front, a quote:
I’m sorry, Jerry.
—Brother Leon
Principal Walsh.
I could only guess it was one of the copies of The Chocolate War he’d taken from me a few weeks ago. Had he picked it up to read it then? Or had he read it when he was younger? Maybe he’d decided he wanted to be a school administrator because of it. Maybe he’d started his career with the goal of keeping any school he touched from becoming the school in The Chocolate War, and somewhere along the way he got lost. Maybe this whole incident had brought him back. Reminded him.
I remembered the look he’d given the banned copies when he took them from me in his office.
He’d remembered. I didn’t know what he’d remembered, but it had been enough to bring me here, in front of this locker.
Did the board know he was doing this? Did Mrs. Lodenhauer know? I shook my head. No. When I was in his office, he’d said, “I’ve been directed to expel you,” but . . . he hadn’t. He’d have to face whiplash when the board found out I was still here. But the board didn’t walk the halls. He did. Was that why he was giving me back the white covers? Did he want me to keep going? Was this book code for “rebuild”?
There was only one way to find out.
I grabbed a copy of Don’t Tread on Me I still had in my backpack, and then grabbed the copy of The Chocolate War Principal Walsh had wrapped. I ran back to his office and knocked on the door. He was there.
“Yes, Ms. Evans?” he said.
I walked in, holding out Don’t Tread on Me. “You said you think you’d like to read this?”
When I’d started the Unlib, I’d been afraid that books couldn’t do the things I thought they could. But there I stood, handing a banned book to the same person who’d made me question them in the first place, believing in them even more than I had before.
In those seconds, it felt like all the words and magic in the universe converged right where I stood, telling me the told and untold stories of bravery, strength, hope, and hurt. Whispering in my ears that there were still so many books, choices, and changes that hadn’t yet dared to disturb the universe.
Goodbye, Lupton Academy
It was May.
I’d survived.
I wasn’t afraid.
Not of books, at least.
Dying of heatstroke before I could even have a day not owned by a school?
Yes.
Of that, I was certainly afraid.
I sat, covered in long black gross sticky graduation-gown fabric. To my left, LiQui. To her left, Resi Alistair. To my right, Ashton. To Ashton’s right, Jack. We were sweating out all the knowledge we’d learned since freshman year, sitting in a bunch of stickier nylon chairs on the football field (the SPA expansion would bring a much-needed auditorium). Parents surrounded us on the bleachers where we’d once sat. Where LiQui and I had sat for four years. Where Ashton and I had had our first conversation. Where Jack and I had eaten three bags of Twizzlers.
Principal James Willings stood in front of a podium on a small elevated stage up front, reading out name after name with his deep rumble of a voice. When a name was given, the correct student would move out from waiting in the wings and begin their walk across the stage to grab a tiny rolled-up piece of paper with nothing written on it. While they were walking, the new principal’s assistant would read a small snippet about what that student was going to do next.
Principal James Willings was obviously not the same person as Principal Milton Walsh.
The day after Principal Walsh refused to expel me, he resigned. He didn’t even give his two weeks’ notice; he just left. The day after that, Ms. Croft’s story broke on the front page of the local paper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press: “Lupton Academy Teacher Fired for Raising Questions About School’s Banned-Book Policy.”
The article pretty much outlined everything Ms. Croft had told us at Queso, with a special guest appearance by “former principal Milton Walsh” in which he confirmed that the board, indeed, had directed him to fire her. Apparently, he was done playing Lupton’s—or, rather, the Lodenhauers’—games.
NPR picked up th
e story. After that? CNN. Then suddenly Lupton Academy was everywhere. Being pushed by all sides to reform. And for a month or two, the Unlib I’d rebuilt swelled. Students who hadn’t wanted anything to do with me the first go-round were suddenly checking books out. Things seemed like they were going to change. The student body as a whole started to push back. LiQui led the charge. Administration kept saying things like “We’re reconsidering the policy” or “We’re reviewing it during our next board meeting.”
But . . . they never did.
All they did was shuffle people around. Switch out board members for relatives.
As of the day before graduation, the mention of “prohibited media” still remained in the student handbook.
Resi walked back down our aisle, back from getting her nothing diploma. It seemed like we’d been here for ages, but we were only halfway through the Bs. The Mav had just crossed the stage, and Ashton was on deck. Leave it to pre-heatstroke and extreme boredom to make you realize how many friends you had in the first ten letters of the alphabet.
I leaned my head back, trying to regulate my temperature from surface-of-the-sun down to Hot-Pocket-just-out-of-the-microwave, when I felt a plastic bag press against my arm. I looked down and saw Jack holding on to a giant family-size bag of Twizzlers.
“Eat them while Ashton is up there. That way you can actually enjoy them.”
“You’re living in his house now,” LiQui pointed out. “You should be giving him first dibs.”
I laughed, grabbed two out of the bag, and passed them down to Resi and LiQui.
“How’s that going, Jack?” I asked. “Ashton a good roomie?”
“Literally the best. Coming out for real has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. The Brickses aren’t trying to bleach me clean. I feel like I can breathe.”
The second Jack Lodenhauer came back from Parkview Mental Health Center, he came out to every friend who didn’t know. This, of course, spread. Quickly. For a minute, people cared, and it was the talk of the town, but then some moved on. Some didn’t. But they weren’t, for the most part, people who loved him. All his friends? They stayed. I stayed. We stayed.