by Alan Gratz
I shook my head. I was beginning to think like Rebecca.
“No, you don’t have it? Or no, you won’t let me check it out?” Trey asked. He’d taken my head shake for a no.
I didn’t know what to tell him. If I gave him the book and he took it to his mom, it was all over, and I was in big trouble. But what if Trey really just wanted to read the book? Didn’t all this start when he checked out Captain Underpants from the school library to read it? I’d gotten to know Trey working together on our First Amendment project, and I’d started to like him—despite him drawing me as a mouse in third grade. And it was Trey’s mom who banned the books, not Trey. Maybe he didn’t agree with her at all.
Maybe he just really wanted to read Captain Underpants.
And that’s why I had the Banned Books Locker Library to begin with, wasn’t it? So anybody who wanted to could read the books banned from the school library?
Trey looked disappointed in me, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “I do have one. And … you can borrow it.”
I was saying all kinds of crazy things out loud these days.
I spun the dial on my lock, yanked it open, and got out Captain Underpants.
Trey’s eyes lit up. “Do you have the fourth one? Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants?”
I did.
My Biggest Mistake
I knew I was in trouble from the moment I set foot in the building Monday morning.
It was in the way the other kids stared at me, then turned to their friends to whisper. The way everybody moved out of my way, like I was Hagrid parting crowds in Diagon Alley. The way my sneakers squeaked loud enough for me to hear them in the quiet hall.
A chill ran down my spine, and I got goosebumps. And not the R. L. Stine kind. My footsteps slowed and my heart pounded in my chest. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong.
And then I turned the corner and saw Principal Banazewski standing next to my locker. Mr. Crutchfield, the Shelbourne Elementary custodian, stood next to her with the long-handled metal cutters he used to cut off locks when kids forgot their combinations.
No, I thought. No, no, no, no, no.
“Miss Ollinger,” Principal Banazewski said. “I need you to open your locker, please.”
I started crying. I couldn’t help it, even with everybody watching. Tears streamed down my face, and I sobbed once. This couldn’t be happening. Mrs. Banazewski wasn’t really standing in front of my locker telling me to open it. I was still asleep. I was dreaming. I had to be. This was a nightmare. Because if Mrs. Banazewski was there, telling me to open my locker, that meant it was all over.
“Miss Ollinger, if you won’t open the lock, I’ll have to ask Mr. Crutchfield to cut it off.”
I wanted to say something. I wanted to do something. But all I did was stand there and cry. I was barely even aware of all the other kids who’d gathered around to gawk.
“All right, Mr. Crutchfield,” Principal Banazewski said.
Through watery eyes, I watched him slip the cutters around my lock and squeeze. The lock popped, and Mrs. Banazewski removed it.
The hallway was completely silent as Principal Banazewski opened my locker. The chik-chink of the handle on my locker echoed in the quiet. It sounded like handcuffs going on my wrists. I wanted to fall to my knees. Where was my quicksand? I wanted it now. I wanted to be swallowed up by the ground and disappear forever, but there I stood, watching through my tears as Principal Banazewski pulled books out of my locker library. The covers didn’t fool her for a second. She already knew. She opened one, then another, then another, until she was satisfied they were illegal books.
They all were. My locker was stacked full of them, from top to bottom. I let the backpack filled with my schoolbooks slide to the ground.
“Mr. Crutchfield, if you’ll collect all the books in this locker and bring them to my office?” Principal Banazewski said. “Miss Ollinger, you’ll come to the office with me, and we’ll call your parents.”
I followed along, numb. I saw Rebecca, her hand to her mouth and tears running down her face. I saw Danny, whose pained eyes stared out from under his perfect hair. I saw Javy, and Janna, and Parker, and Sophia, and Felisha, and T.J., and a bunch of other people who’d borrowed books from the B.B.L.L. They watched me get taken away like a criminal.
And there, at the end of the hall, was Trey. His mother stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, looking at me like I had just slapped her in the face.
Loaning that book to Trey had been the biggest mistake of my life.
Busted
My parents were called in. Mom had to get pulled out of a meeting. Dad still had on his work overalls, and his hands were covered in red brick dust. At first they thought I was hurt, or that someone had done something awful to me. They never guessed I was the one who had gotten into trouble. I was Amy Anne Ollinger. I was the girl who always did what her parents and teachers told her to. I was the girl who never complained, never spoke up, never said what she was really thinking.
Principal Banazewski showed them the books. Told my parents what I’d been doing. My parents looked at me like they’d never seen me before.
“Some of these are Shelbourne Elementary library books,” Principal Banazewski said. She had them separated out in a stack on her desk, next to the grinning banana in sunglasses. They were all the books we’d taken from Mrs. Jones’s office, minus the ones that were checked out. “Did Mrs. Jones give you these books?”
“No!” I said. I didn’t want Mrs. Jones to get into trouble over this. Just the thought of that made me even sicker than I was over getting caught.
“Are you saying you stole school property then?” Principal Banazewski said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Amy Anne, this is no time to protect anybody,” Mom said. “Mrs. Jones is an adult. She’s responsible for her own actions.”
“She didn’t know!” I said. “We took those books from the library. It’s not stealing if you borrow a library book. That’s what they’re for.”
“Who is ‘we’?” Mrs. Banazewski asked.
Stupid stupid stupid! I hadn’t meant to say that.
“Nobody. I did it all by myself,” I said.
Principal Banazewski frowned. “You’re not going to tell me who else was in on this with you?”
I hesitated, then shook my head and looked at the floor.
“Amy Anne!” Mom said.
I didn’t care how much more trouble I was going to get into. I wasn’t going to drag Rebecca and Danny down with me.
“We’ll find out,” Principal Banazewski said. “We’ll be able to get back all the books she’s loaned out to other students too. We have a list of all the students who checked out books from her little illegal library.” She lifted a stack of index cards. My date due cards! I closed my eyes, and the tears came again. I should have listened to Rebecca: never leave a paper trail.
“I’m going to have to write a letter home to the parents of each and every one of these children, Amy Anne, explaining how an inappropriate and potentially harmful book came into their possession at my school,” Principal Banazewski said. “There may even be lawsuits. You’ve hurt a lot of other people with this little stunt.”
Principal Banazewski waited for me to say something in my defense, but I was done speaking up. For good.
“As this is Amy Anne’s first major offense, she won’t be expelled,” Principal Banazewski said. “But for theft of school property and for willfully defying the Wake County School Board, Amy Anne is suspended for three days.”
Right and Wrong
I couldn’t very well stay with my dad at a construction site, so I spent the day in my mom’s office. I did the homework Mr. Vaughn had sent me home with, then hid in the corner reading Indian Captive, which I’d checked out from the real school library. When I finished it, I just read it again. Like Mary Jemison, I swore I would bear my pain quietly, and without compla
int. If I had been quiet before, I was going to be silent from now on. Speaking up just got you into trouble.
Mom didn’t have much to say to me all day anyway. I could tell she was still thinking about what to say, and how to punish me. Because getting suspended from school wasn’t going to be enough. Parents can’t ever let the bad stuff that happens when you make a mistake be all there is to it. They always have to add on some punishment of their own too, to remind you that they’re in charge.
That afternoon I went to my room without being told to and crawled under the blankets on my bed. Normally Alexis would have been using my bed for a ballet barre, but today she kept away. She snuck in once to get her tutu, then slipped out again without saying a word. That was fine with me.
I tried reading Indian Captive again, but I couldn’t focus on it. All I could think about was all the kids who had borrowed books from me. They were all going to get letters sent home from school, and a lot of them were going to get in trouble. And it was my fault. Everybody who’d started to like me was going to hate me now.
Dad brought me my dinner on a tray and told me I was to come and see him and Mom both in the kitchen when I was done.
No matter how slowly I ate, I knew I couldn’t put it off forever. Halfway through I couldn’t eat any more anyway. It was time to face my parents.
Dad was doing the dishes when I came in. I sat at the table, and he called Mom in and dried his hands. The air felt heavier in the kitchen, like someone had just died.
Angelina appeared in the doorway. “Is Amy Anne in trouble?” she asked.
“Yes, genius,” I thought. But I didn’t say it. I was done talking.
“Go back to the living room,” Mom said. “Alexis? Come get your sister, and keep her in the living room, please.”
There were to be no witnesses to my execution.
When Alexis and Angelina were gone, Mom and Dad shared another of those looks. This one I could read. It said, “We better get this over with.” I started to suck on my braids, but I knew that would just make Mom more frustrated, so I fought the temptation.
“Amy Anne, we don’t know where to begin,” Dad said. “We’re just so shocked that you would do this. It’s so unlike you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We’re very disappointed,” Mom said. “We expect better out of you. We expect you to set an example for your sisters.”
I didn’t think I had any more tears left in me, but I started crying again.
“On the other hand,” Dad said, “we’re proud of you for taking a stand.” Mom and Dad shared another of those looks between them. “Frankly, we were getting worried that you never stand up for yourself. Never speak up.”
I hiccupped a sob. “What good does it do to speak up when no one listens to what I’m saying?” I thought. But I didn’t say it.
“Keeping all that inside isn’t healthy,” Mom said. “And we agree, there are times you have to stand up for what you want.”
“Or what’s right,” Dad said. “We don’t necessarily agree with Principal Banazewski and the school board on this book banning business.”
I sniffed and rubbed my nose with my hand. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was I not going to get more punishment?
“But there’s a right way and a wrong way to voice your objections,” Mom said, “and this banned book library in your locker was the wrong way.”
Right. So I was getting more punishment after all.
“You broke the rules, kiddo,” Dad said.
“Right or wrong, the school board made a decision that those books weren’t appropriate for elementary school students, and you have to respect that decision,” Mom said. “You can’t just decide what an adult tells you is wrong and do whatever you want.”
But what if the adult was wrong? Mom and Dad just said they didn’t agree with the school board. And what if the adults didn’t play by their own rules? What was a kid supposed to do then? Just give up and do whatever they said? I wanted to argue with them, but I didn’t. I just sat and stared at the table.
“We’ll deal with whatever else comes of this,” Dad said. “I think Mrs. Banazewski’s threat about lawsuits was a bit much. But I do think there are going to be some pretty angry parents. That little woman who spoke at the school board meeting isn’t going to be very happy.”
I didn’t really care how Mrs. Spencer felt. Or her stupid son, for that matter.
“There’s something else we need to talk about, Amy Anne,” Mom said. “Something even more disturbing to us. In talking with Principal Banazewski, we’ve also discovered that you haven’t been attending any of the after-school activities you told us you’ve been doing.”
I reeled. This, on top of the B.B.L.L. suspension? I was totally blindsided.
“Why have you been staying late after school if you’re not in any of these clubs?” Dad asked.
“Because I need some time by myself! Because I don’t have a quiet place of my own where I can just curl up in the corner with a book and read!” I wanted to tell them.
But I didn’t say anything.
“More than anything, I think it’s the lying that hurts me most, Amy Anne,” my mother said.
I started to cry again. I couldn’t look either of them in the face. I felt sick for lying to them.
“Your father and I have decided to ground you for a week,” Mom said. “We know that doesn’t mean much though, since all you’d do is sit in your room and read books. So we’re not allowing you to read anything that isn’t for a school assignment either.”
I felt dizzy. Not read for an entire week? What was I going to do? How was I going to survive? I was suspended, everyone at school hated me, and I had nowhere to hide. My books were all I had left. My sobs overtook me.
The phone rang, and Dad got up to answer it.
“Hello? Yes … Oh. No, I don’t think that would be a good idea … No. Thank you, but no.” He hung up. “That was the local news,” Dad said. He sighed. “The story’s out. They were calling to see if they could interview Amy Anne about the locker library.”
“Great,” Mom said. “That’s just what we need. All right, Amy Anne. Go on to your room. Tomorrow you’ll have to come in to the office with me again. Bring your schoolbooks. But no other books. Understand?”
I nodded and hurried away.
Alexis wasn’t in our room when I got there. I ran inside and threw myself on the bed, burying my face in my pillow to cry. I had ruined everything. Everything. My friends were never going to talk to me again. My parents were never going to trust me again. Nobody was ever going to think of me as the good girl who did what she was told ever again.
The dogs hopped up on my bed and stuck their wet noses in my neck, trying to make me feel better.
“Amy Anne?”
It was Angelina. She was standing in the door to my room. The dogs must have come with her. She and Alexis must have been loving this.
“Go away,” I told her, my face still buried in my pillow.
The dogs laid down with me and the room got quiet, and I guessed Angelina had gone. Then I felt something nudge my arm, something soft and furry that wasn’t one of the dogs. I opened my eyes.
Angelina was gone, but she had left me her favorite stuffed pony to make me feel better.
The Latest Casualty
I was in my room that night planning my escape to the Cameron Village library, From the Mixed-up Files–style, when I heard something about Shelbourne Elementary on the television in the living room. It was late—the new glow-in-the-dark alarm clock I’d gotten for my birthday said it was 11:10 P.M.—and Alexis was already asleep across the room. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the hall to peek in at the TV. They were showing pictures of my school while a woman explained all about the Banned Books Locker Library. They even showed a picture of me from last year’s yearbook! I squeaked, but covered my mouth enough that Mom and Dad didn’t hear me. On the couch, I saw my mom put her hand to her forehead, like she
had a headache.
Mrs. Spencer came on then. “Fourth graders aren’t old enough to make decisions like this for themselves,” she said. “That’s why they have parents. That’s why we have a school board. The school board agreed that these books were inappropriate for elementary school students—in many cases harmful. The books were removed from the library for their protection.”
The reporter talked about how this all began, with the school board meeting where Mrs. Spencer got them to remove the books, and then a picture of Mrs. Jones came up on the screen.
“At the center of the controversy is Shelbourne Elementary librarian Dr. Opal Jones, who all along has maintained that the books should remain available to all students.”
Mrs. Jones, decked out in a blue dress with white polka dots, appeared in a recorded interview. “Every parent has the right to decide what their child can and can’t read. What they cannot do is make that decision for everyone else,” she said. It was the same thing she’d said at the school board meeting.
“Tonight, Mrs. Jones became the latest casualty in what observers are calling ‘The Battle of the Books,’” the reporter said.
The report cut to a man in a suit. Under his name, it said he was a member of the school board.
“Whether deliberately or through negligence, Dr. Jones let those books circulate, against the express orders of the school board. As such, her contract has been terminated.”
Her contract has been terminated. That meant fired.
Mrs. Jones had been fired, and it was all because of me.
My Glorious Return
Dad drove me to school my first day back from suspension so I wouldn’t have to ride the bus. I didn’t want to have to sit there while Rebecca and Danny pretended to not know me. They probably still liked me, but now I was the girl who got everybody in trouble. They couldn’t hang out with me anymore, or everybody would hate them too. I didn’t blame them, but I just couldn’t bear it. Not on my first day back.