“It was Ren, Mr. Winston,” Scott said, his lower lip already growing fat. “He was bullying Jamie. And he’s been bullying Carmen online too.”
“We’ll sort that out later,” Winston said. “Right now, to the office. All three of you.”
I
sat in the mall food court at the same table where Jamie and I had spent many summers. He’d look for hot guys, and I’d look for hot girls, and we’d question each other’s taste. It usually ended with one of us in a headlock. I’d have given anything to do that with him again.
It was the middle of the second day of the three-day suspension I got for fighting. Mom and Dad weren’t exactly happy, but when I explained the whole story, they let me off with a warning. Said I wasn’t to fight anymore.
But I had a feeling that a different kind of fight was coming. I thought about what Cory said about the GSA and what Mr. Rosencranz said about people getting upset. We were going to make a lot of people angry.
“Is this seat taken?”
I looked up to find Carmen with a tray from Sbarro. I pulled a chair out for her, and she sat.
“Enjoying your vacation?” she asked.
I squinted at her with the eye that had nearly swollen shut. “Yeah. It’s been a blast.”
“A shiner works on you,” she said. “Very manly.”
I grunted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Hey, listen, thanks for, you know, tackling Ren. He’s gotta have at least thirty pounds on you.”
“We took him on together. But I think the first order of business for the GSA is to arrange a self-defense course. We’re not very good at it.”
She chuckled and gnawed on her pizza. We were quiet for a long time.
“Carmen?”
“Yeah?”
“You know before, when I said I couldn’t get people to sign because they were afraid of being labeled queer or they were homophobic? It was only part true. Most people wouldn’t sign because I was a jerk.”
“I kind of figured.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in.”
“No problem.”
I shook my head. “I gave people crap for a long time. I never saw it as bullying. I kept thinking, ‘I’m not beating anybody up. Bullying is when you beat people up.’ Guess I got it wrong.”
She offered me a breadstick. I grabbed one and dipped it in the marinara. “Some people can go their whole lives and not realize what a dirtbag they are. At least you figured it out.”
“No. Jamie figured it out. He told me what a knob I was being.”
“Right. And you listened, you changed, and now you’re trying to do the right thing. He’d be proud of you.”
I choked up, thinking about it. Looking back, I guess I always wanted Jamie to be proud of me. At least as proud as I was of him. He was the bravest guy I knew.
“Did you know Jamie?” I asked.
She nodded. “A little. We had chemistry together last year. His lab table was kitty-corner from mine. I remember he used to cackle like a mad scientist every time he poured one beaker into another: Bwah-hah-ha!”
I laughed. “Yep. That’s Jamie.”
Carmen slurped on her soda. “So, the other day, you told Winston that Ren had been harassing me online. How’d you know about that?”
I told her about reading Jamie’s Twitter stream and seeing how Ren had been bugging both Jamie and her. “He’s a complete psycho. That’s why I went looking for you in the cafeteria as soon as I found out. I think he really would have hurt you.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter now. He may have gotten the same three-day suspension that we got, but I think it’ll be a while before we see him back in school.”
“Why’s that?”
“He put a death threat in my locker, and I showed it to the police.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. I sat on it for a long time, thinking I’d deal with it myself. The last thing I wanted was to give some jerk the satisfaction of knowing he got under my skin. But when we were getting chewed out by Winston, I realized that the only way to stop the bullying is to expose it. If we hide it, we’re giving the bullies permission to keep on doing it.”
I swallowed hard. I knew just what she meant. That’s why I’d never let up on Maggie. I knew nobody knew, so I figured it was okay to keep going. I was such a jerk.
“Anyway,” she said, “Ren’s eighteen, so they’re pressing charges. He could get expelled.”
It would suck to get expelled senior year. But he had it coming. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt.”
“So,” she said quickly, like she was trying to change the subject. “We’ve got a major decision to make.”
“What’s that?”
“Who is going to be president, and who is going to be vice president of the GSA? I’ll arm wrestle you for it.”
I leaned away in mock fear. “I’ve seen you in a fight. You’d rip my arm off. I’m happy to be vice president.”
“Or,” she said with a smile, “we could be co-presidents. It’s a tough job. It’d be good to have somebody to help shoulder the load.”
I nodded. “Co-president? I could deal with that.”
She held out her hand, and we shook. “You know,” she said, “we had all those people sign the petition. It’s no guarantee they’re all gonna join the GSA.”
“School charter says any club has to have a minimum of three members. We got you, me, and your friend Ricky. The important thing is that Winston doesn’t have any excuse not to sign off on the club.”
Carmen hmphed and rattled the ice around in her cup. “I’ll believe it when I see it…”
F
irst day back from our suspension, before classes started, Scott and I went to Mr. Winston with our petition.
“As you can see,” I said, trying hard not to sound as smug as Winston usually looked, “we got one hundred student signatures. We could have gotten more, but we ran out of room. Maybe the petitions need to be bigger.”
“And after three teachers signed, I got verbal promises from six others that they support the creation of a GSA at Southside as well,” Scott said. “And Mr. Rosencranz offered to be the co-advisor with Mrs. Carney.”
“There’s a lot of support for this, Mr. Winston,” I said. “All we need is for you to sign at the bottom to make it official.”
Winston eyed the petition. “So, who will be running this … alliance?”
Scott and I looked at each other. “Well, we want to do it together,” I said. “A straight boy, a queer girl …That’s what the GSA is all about.”
Winston sighed, then rifled through his desk, looking for a pen. “If you read the charters, you know that all new organizations go through a ninety-day probation period. At the end of that time, you need to turn in a list of elected officers, minutes for your first three meetings, and detailed plans on how to use the money you’ll be allotted as a school-sanctioned club.”
I shot a look at Scott. This was really happening!
We heard a knock behind us and turned to find Principal Rice standing in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Winston,” she said. “Could I have a word?”
Winston nodded, and the pair went into the hallway. We watched as she spoke quickly to Winston, who scowled and nodded. They both kept sneaking looks our way.
“This can’t be good,” Scott said.
I shook my head. “We followed the rules. We did everything by the book. They can’t stop us now.”
Rice gave Winston a pat on the back, waved at us, and left. Winston trudged back into his office, closing the door so the three of us could have privacy.
“Something’s come up,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was happy or upset. I think he was trying hard not to be either. “The GSA is on hold. Indefinitely.”
Scott was the first out of his seat. “Why?”
“The school board had an emergency meeting last night. A concerned parent group got wind of plans for the alliance and prompted t
he board to put a stop to it.”
“They can’t do that!” My hands were shaking I was so mad. All I could think about was calling my parents and having them go all legal on the school board.
Winston, for just a second, looked somewhat sympathetic. “They have done that. They feel homosexuality is a hot-button issue right now. They’ve implemented a ‘neutrality’ policy. Teachers are not to discuss it. The school is to take no side on the issue. And because starting a Gay–Straight Alliance could be seen as endorsing the ‘hot-button issue,’ we’re not allowed to start one. I’m sorry.”
I stood there, hardly able to believe any of this. Scott was stonefaced, but I got the idea he was holding a lot in. He couldn’t take his eyes off the petition. We’d worked so hard on it. Now it was all for nothing.
“Mr. Winston,” Scott said quietly, “could you keep that on file? Just in case the school board changes its mind.”
Winston grimaced. “I can do that, Mr. King. But these things don’t resolve themselves overnight. I’m sure it won’t be long before lawyers are involved…” He snuck a furtive glance my way. “And once this becomes a legal matter, it might not get decided until long after the two of you have graduated. What I’m saying is: don’t get your hopes up.”
But, like he said he’d do, he opened a drawer and slid the petition into a file.
We thanked him and left the office. The warning bell rang, telling everyone it was time to get to first period.
“Cory…” Scott muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Cory Walton. I bet her mama’s behind this. She pretty much told me this would happen. I didn’t believe her.”
“You couldn’t have known she’d take it this far.”
Scott’s shoulders slumped. “We were so close …”
“Hey,” I said, nudging him. “You’re talking like it’s over. Sweetie, this was just the first battle. I’m not about to quit the war. And neither are you. Right?”
For a second, I thought he was gonna throw in the towel. His eyes got all dark, and he couldn’t stop staring at the floor. Then, somewhere down the hall, we heard somebody say, “Hey, watch it, Jones! You faggot!” People laughed. To them, it was just another insult.
But it wasn’t. Suddenly, it was like somebody lit a fire under him. Scott lifted his head and stuck out his jaw.
“For Jamie?” he asked, holding out his arm.
I hooked my elbow with his and looked him square in the eye.
“For everyone.”
Gabriel Goodman is a writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Alliance Page 5