“Nobody told me there was another kid here with the same issues I have,” Leo said, excited.
“Me either,” Lee said.
“I don’t remember you from the first day. You sound familiar, though.”
“So do you.”
Leo was beside himself with happiness. As much as he liked Jory, here was a guy who totally understood all that he had been experiencing. As they talked it was clear that he and Lee had tons of things in common, from overly emotional moms to an interest in planes to not wanting to make a big deal about their impairment. Had Leo’s eyesight been better, he would’ve seen that they had even more in common—their appearance, for instance. But all he could see of his new friend was a shadowy silhouette topped with a mass of blond hair. As they continued to discuss their mutual problems navigating school, Lee became agitated.
“When I thought it was just me, I was willing to put up with a lot, but there are two of us. Shouldn’t this school try to accommodate us a little better?” Lee huffed. “Would it be so hard to print signs with bigger letters? Is it too much to ask for teachers to call on us by name so we know we’re being addressed? How about putting some books with large print in the library? Would it kill them to provide the room numbers in Braille so we don’t have to count the doors to figure out where we are?”
“I’m with you, buddy!” said Leo, pounding the table, inadvertently hitting the button. Instantly, seven copies of Lee appeared, making eight in all.
“I’m with you, buddy!” the seven new boys shouted from atop the table.
“Whoa! Where did all of you come from?” Leo gasped.
“We shouldn’t have to hide our disability!” cried one boy.
“Yeah!” agreed another boy. “Why should we be ashamed of who we are?”
“We? Are all of you visually impaired too?” asked Leo.
With a resounding “yes” the boys began eagerly discussing their problems having to deal with people who didn’t understand their condition, treated them like infants, ignored them, and refused to make the small gestures that would ease their difficulties. Leo counted the heads as best he could.
“I can’t believe there are nine of us, we all have the same problems, and nobody has done anything about it!” Leo said, pounding the table and the button once more. Immediately sixty boys spilled off the table. Four remained on top, so that when Leo slammed the button one more time, shouting, “You know what? We don’t have to take this anymore!” Twenty-eight more boys materialized and everyone tumbled off.
The room was now quite full of Leos, climbing over each other, wrestling one another, and getting into minor shoving matches as they scrambled to their feet. What the original Leo saw was a great, growing mountain of people who all understood him, supported him, and wanted significant change.
“What can we do?” Leo #7 asked.
“We need to demand that all aspects of the school be available to all students, even if they have a disability,” Leo #59 answered.
“Most people would want to help if they knew the extent of our problems,” Leo #26 added. “It’s ignorance at work here, not malice.”
“How do you educate people?” Leo #82 asked.
“What we need is a rally,” the original Leo suggested. “We need to march onto the field. We need to make some noise and get people in the administration to take us seriously!” He tapped the shoulder of the gray blob to his right. “You, make up some flyers; just list bullet points of our grievances. Print it on something bright—neon yellow paper. A hundred will do.” He tapped the shoulder of the gray blob to his left. “You, see if you can find a megaphone in the gym. I’m pretty sure Coach Freeman has one.” He then addressed the gray blobs in front of him. “Ten of you guys go down to the art room. The teacher won’t be there, everyone’s at some kind of faculty meeting for the next hour. Look for poster board, long wooden dowels, paint, and pens. You’re going to make posters. Two or three each should be good. Come up with a few simple slogans, nothing too complicated.” Leo raised his voice so everyone could hear him. “Once everyone is done, meet the rest of us in the meadow by the cannon in half an hour.”
“What’ll the rest of us do?” Leo #2, also known as Lee O’Reese, asked.
“Come up with chants. While we chant, we’ll march, all around the school, through each building, on every floor! Everyone’s going to see us, and everyone’s going to know we mean business!”
Leo had no idea that he was having this inspiring dialogue with himself, and that this new activism had been within him all along, he’d just been suppressing it. It felt good to express his anger and frustration. For the first time in years, he felt powerful. He felt so invigorated it didn’t occur to him to question how so many boys suddenly appeared and how they now outnumbered the rest of the student body.
The various Leos left to carry out their assignments as the others stayed behind in Miss Schacher’s classroom to come up with chants. Lee came up with the best one, a repeating chant to a military cadence:
I DON’T KNOW BUT I’VE BEEN TOLD
I don’t know but I’ve been told
KABOOM ACADEMY’S REALLY COLD
Kaboom Academy’s really cold.
THEY DON’T CARE THAT I CAN’T SEE
They don’t care that I can’t see,
I JUST WANT INDEPENDENCY
I just want independency!
Shouting as loudly as they could, Lee led the group through the hall, down the stairs, along the second-floor hall, down another flight, and past the classrooms on the first floor. Doors opened as teachers and students stared at the strange parade of blond, spectacled boys all wearing the same outfit, which en masse looked like a sort of uniform. The parade continued through the administration building, around the courtyard, and to the field, where the Leos gathered around the cannon. Newly made picket signs were passed around and raised:
I MAY BE BLIND, BUT EVEN I CAN SEE WE NEED CHANGE!
WE ARE BLIND, NOT INVISIBLE!
YOU HAVE SIGHT,
NOW GAIN INSIGHT!
The cannon sounded, marking the end of the lunch period. It was the perfect beginning to the event. As the boys lifted Leo to the top of the cannon, he realized he was taking a risk; he was now cutting math class and causing a major disruption, and he would certainly have to suffer the consequences—probably detention and maybe even a call home to his parents. He didn’t waver, however. This was too important. Standing up there in front of all those people shouting for him to speak was an incredible rush, but he looked around for Lee, who he felt was much more articulate. Unable to pick him out of the crowd, Leo realized he couldn’t wait any longer. The energy was palpable. The time for action was now. Raising the megaphone, he began.
As Leo outlined the grievances of the legally blind students, the rest of the seventh graders watched from the window of Miss Schacher’s classroom, not sure what to make of the demonstration. There was Leo, leading a huge rally made up of what appeared to be a hundred copies of himself. He railed against the administration, accusing them of thoughtlessness and entreating them to make a few very simple adjustments that would ease the day-to-day lives of this significantly disabled group. Cheering after each point that he made, the crowd of Leos supported Leo 100 percent.
As the seventh graders watched, they were struck by Leo’s confidence and his leadership. Most of them had never given any thought to what it must be like to confront the challenges he faced. Most of them also felt a bit guilty, knowing they’d misjudged Leo, treating him like a lesser human being.
“Looks like Leo used the multiplication table,” commented Miss Schacher. “I just wish he weren’t missing class. He’s going to have to make up the work.” Of course, there was very little work being done in the school at that moment, because all the students and teachers were watching the rally from the windows, but she was only trying to make a point.
“Oooh, there’s something in this classroom that makes copies of people?” Aliya began.
“That has some very interesting possibilities,” Taliya said. The girls shared a knowing look.
“You two leave it alone,” barked Miss Schacher. “It already takes too long for you to finish a thought. I can’t imagine what would happen if there were more of you.”
“There are about a hundred kids down there,” Victoria remarked. “What happens tomorrow when they all get in the cafeteria line at lunchtime?”
“Oh, they’re all going to disappear in about twenty minutes,” Miss Schacher said, checking her watch. “Copies made by the multiplication table aren’t permanent. That’s to keep people from counterfeiting money. Or creating private armies, like that one,” Miss Schacher said, nodding in Leo’s direction.
“Who’s going to tell him he’s been talking to himself all afternoon?” Edie said. Everyone exchanged glances. Clearly, none of them wanted to burst Leo’s bubble.
“You know, he really doesn’t want to be treated like a baby,” Jory said finally. “I’ll tell him, but later. Let him enjoy it for a while.”
The Leo brigade lasted long enough for Leo to finish his speech, take a picture for the Daily Dynamite, and high-five several of the boys before they disappeared, dissolving into the atmosphere. Before Leo could rejoin the class, Mr. Gruber accosted him to discuss the rules regarding disruptive behavior and staging demonstrations. He didn’t give Leo detention, however. Instead, he told him that Dr. Kaboom had heard his message and wanted to assure Leo that any failure to address his blindness had been completely unintentional. He would do what he could to educate the teachers and modify the campus to alleviate Leo’s difficulties.
When Leo joined his classmates in journalism at the end of the day, they all congratulated him on his successful rally. Mr. Mister suggested that somebody write an article about it, and they all elected Leo to do so, since he had been present at the event’s inception. Leo did so happily, knowing that for perhaps the first time, his voice was being heard.
For the next few days Leo searched for his comrades, but he was unable to find them. He was particularly sorry that Lee O’Reese had disappeared; he’d thought they had really bonded at the rally. When Leo asked Mr. Gruber if he knew what had happened to the rallying students, Mr. Gruber made some vague reference to their mass expulsion, giving the excuse that during the demonstration they’d trampled the flowers. Even though he was the dean of discipline, Mr. Gruber was an old softy at heart and didn’t want to diminish Leo’s accomplishment by telling him the truth.
But Mr. Gruber needn’t have worried. A few days later Jory filled Leo in on what had really happened, and they laughed about it. The truth didn’t change anything; Leo still felt elated from the experience. After taking charge and speaking his mind, Leo realized that he more than anyone had been selling himself short. His blindness would make his life more difficult; that was a fact he needed to acknowledge, not avoid. But his condition was not insurmountable. There were things he could do, things he would do. Finally, Leo could see his way to a future.
LESSON 3: INTERVIEWS
“Those of you who have already turned in your stories should be looking at my notes and suggestions and rewriting them,” Mr. Mister said. “Now, who isn’t working on something? Margo?”
“I’ve got a pretty good lead,” Margo said slyly. “You know the cafeteria food? ‘Tastes-like-chicken nuggets’? ‘Chicken-y nuggets’? ‘Chicken-like nuggets’? I’m going to find out what those nuggets are really made of.”
“Great! That’s real investigative reporting! How about you, Sam?”
“Deedle-deedle-dee, I’ve constructed puzzles three!” said the garden gnome in Sam’s seat, stroking the fluffy white beard that reached down to his belt buckle. “I will deliver them on a cabbage leaf!”
“Sounds good … except for the cabbage leaf. Use the computer. Jory?”
“I thought I was just supposed to monitor everyone else.”
“You also have to write an editorial, to introduce our first issue.”
“Oh. Okay. What should it be about?”
“Anything you like, but it should be insightful, honest, clever, and probing … just make it the best thing you’ve ever written.”
“Uh, right,” Jory said. He was wishing he wasn’t the editor in chief. He’d thought he wouldn’t have to write anything. Now he was being asked to be brilliant. His mind started drifting to the open window, through which he could feel the cool breeze. How wonderful it would be to leave all this behind and just soar out into the wide-open sky.
Jory’s greatest wish was to fly. He thought about it constantly, to the point of distraction. His psychiatrist attributed his obsession to a desire to escape, mainly because Jory’s desire to fly started around the time his parents got a divorce. It had been an ugly period in his life, filled with yelling, accusations, his older brother getting in the middle of it to mediate, and his three-year-old brother crying for attention. In the end, his mother had thrown his father’s belongings into the front yard. Yes, he had definitely wanted to escape that. Around that time he’d started climbing onto his roof to get away from it all. But his parents’ divorce had happened years ago, and now they were cordial with one another, even friendly, joking around when his dad came to pick him and his brothers up for the weekend. So Jory didn’t think flying was about escape, at least not now.
Sometimes Jory had dreams in which he was flying. The sensation of this dream flight was so indescribably glorious he eagerly went to bed every night with the hope that his subconscious would send him soaring. They didn’t happen often, but when they did, he zoomed over vast meadows, buzzing over trees and skimming tall grass. Or he lazily drifted over sparkling lakes, a warm breeze brushing his cheeks. Sometimes he poked through cool, misty clouds to glide through an achingly beautiful blue sky. Once Jory dreamt that he went so high, he found himself in outer space, flying among planets, moons, stars, and asteroids, heading toward the distant glow of rainbow-colored galaxies. That dream had been the best he’d ever had, but try as he might to replicate it, it had not repeated. Jory knew then that flight didn’t mean escape. It meant freedom.
But Jory was just as happy to keep his real flying exploits closer to Earth. His first attempt was to jump off the roof of his house holding an umbrella. It didn’t work very well. He sustained a fractured wrist and multiple scratches from a rosebush. But as he did more research, his parachutes and gliders increased in sophistication; the materials he used were more effective, the aerodynamic engineering more successful. But nothing worked as well as he’d hoped. The glider he’d created to jump off the school building at the end of last year had been a particularly painful flop. It started out well enough, but the roof of the school wasn’t sufficiently high for him to catch a good wind. The breeze carried him directly to the flagpole, where he hung for a full hour before anyone was able to get him down. It had been very humiliating.
After that stunt, Jory had started his sessions with Dr. Cornpepper. During their meetings they didn’t talk much about flying; instead, they chatted about Jory’s feelings about his family and friends. They discussed anger, fear, resentment, and depression. In Jory’s opinion, these meetings were pointless. Dr. Cornpepper seemed to be digging around for something that wasn’t there. Jory often found his mind drifting as he gazed out Dr. Cornpepper’s window, wishing he could just launch himself into the atmosphere.
• • •
“Edie, I don’t believe you’ve turned anything in yet,” Mr. Mister said, tapping the table.
“No, I haven’t come up with any good ideas,” Edie admitted. “I’ve been working really hard, but nothing has caught my interest.” That part was a lie. It was true she had been working hard, but many things had caught her interest, just not things that could be published in a school newspaper. Edie had been busily doing what she did best: digging up dirt on other students. She’d written her discoveries in her notebook:
1. Victoria Zacarias cries all the time. Major crybaby. Smart but emotionally weak. Must
try to make a recording!
2. Aliya and Taliya Naji used to be joined at the head for seven years. Must find picture of them stuck together. Try medical journal.
3. Jory sees a psychiatrist once a week to discuss his death-wish activities. It’s not working.
4. Ruben secretly takes ballet classes—not quite the tough guy he sets himself up to be. Get picture of him in tights! Nutcracker ballet coming up … buy tix!
5. Sam, Margo, and Leo—painfully pitiful, no need for investigation.
Edie was very pleased with what she had uncovered. It had taken a lot of diligence, spying on students between classes, tailing people after school, typing their names into search engines and seeing what popped up, eavesdropping on cell phone conversations during the bus ride back and forth to Kaboom Academy. But she had gotten so involved in studying her classmates that she’d forgotten to find a story for the Daily Dynamite.
“You know what we could use?” Mr. Mister tapped his fingertips on the steep slope of his chinless neck. “A good interview.”
“An interview?” Edie’s heart sank right to her shoes. An interview sounded exceptionally boring. Asking questions, jotting down the answers, then typing it up? Where was the excitement? Where was the drama?
“That’s a great idea,” chimed in Jory, trying to take his editor in chief job seriously. “You should interview Dr. Kaboom. After all, he created this place. He must have collected a lot of interesting statistics in developing this school.”
Edie seriously doubted that. “Interesting” and “statistics” did not belong in the same sentence. She did not want to conduct this interview, but now that the ball was rolling, there seemed to be no stopping it. “I’ve never interviewed anybody before,” Edie said, which was true. The idea of getting information about someone by directly asking him or her questions was hard to grasp. “I kind of feel weird about it. Maybe Sam can do it.”
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