Don't Care High (11 page)

The class dispersed, humming.

Paul went through his day as though in a coma, hardly understanding his own reaction. Classes were a blur. He felt great anger over Mike's dismissal, even though he was fully conscious of the fact that President Otis had sprung from the diabolical imagination of Sheldon Pryor. Yet when he saw a discarded and trampled copy of
The Otis Report
, he felt a rush of emotion and outrage that almost alarmed him. Mike's humble beginnings were unimportant now. He
was
the president. They couldn't impeach him. It was not fair.

When he arrived in photography class and saw Mike, it was all he could do to keep from running up and embracing the deposed leader. He did say, “Raw deal this morning, Mike, but the war's not over yet,” and received a confused stare in reply.

A murmur went up in the room, and Paul could make out a few “That's him” and “That's Mike Otis.”

Twenty minutes later, when the class was already under way and Wayne-o was making his entrance, the latecomer walked straight to Mike's desk, clapped a friendly hand onto his shoulder and announced, “Hang in there, Mike. We're with you all the way.”

Poor Mr. Willis just stood there, the progress of his chalk arrested halfway through the diagram of a camera. He stared in amazement as all his students turned to Mike Otis and offered murmured words of comfort and support.

After school, Paul went home and took possession of the phone. He was grateful that Cheryl and Lisa had been able to return home, but in his fervour, even this blessed event seemed unimportant. He called the Pryor house every fifteen minutes, finally reaching Sheldon on the fifth try.

“Shel, we have to meet. It's an emergency.”

“What's up?”

“Don't Care High threw Mike Otis out of office.”

There was a pause, then, “I'll be right over.”

So urgent was the situation that the boys passed up their customary snack and did not even consider the radio. Sitting in Paul's room with the door closed, Paul outlined the events of the day while Sheldon listened gravely.

“Well, obviously we have to do something,” said Sheldon. “But we
are
only two guys against the whole staff.”

“No we're not!” said Paul vehemently. “I watched an entire class stop right in the middle so the students — Don't Care Students — could give Mike a vote of confidence. Our whole homeroom came out in Mike's favour. Wayne-o said, and I quote, ‘I support him.'”

“That's incredible!” Sheldon marvelled.

“All that being true,” Paul went on, “they're still not the kind of people who get excited at the drop of a hat. They have to be told about Mike. They have to have a chance to think about it. It's not that they don't care; it's that they never think about it. Once they do, they're on our side.”

Sheldon looked at Paul almost proudly. “You're really worked up about this, aren't you?”

Paul grinned in embarrassment. “You had to be there, Shel. You had to hear Mr. What's-his-name say that Mike couldn't be president anymore. I know it sounds funny, but it was like a kick in the ribs.”

“If we can pull this off,” said Sheldon, “it'll be the most amazing thing in the history of the world! We'll build it up so that everybody thinks that kicking Mike out of office was not only an offence against Mike, but twenty-six hundred individual slaps in the face. We'll demand that he be reinstated. “But,” he added with a dazzling smile, “not before we have everybody's support. Because if we're singled out as the guys who started the whole thing, we're both instantly dead.”

* * *

Step One, according to Sheldon, was The Face.

“We have to familiarize all the kids with Mike's face. It will give them something human to relate to.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Willis's entire photography class, with the exception of Mike himself, stayed after school to do extra work in the darkroom. The result: one hundred gleaming eight-by-ten glossies of the beleaguered president, and an agreement for a repeat performance the next day and subsequent days if necessary.

“We won't stop,” Sheldon vowed, “until the teachers at this school are seeing Mike's face in their sleep!” His accomplices all nodded enthusiastically.

As the days went by, the word spread. Along with the appearance of countless photographs of Mike Otis peering off every wall, students were talking among themselves and finding, in an increasing groundswell of surprise, that they had an opinion on the subject. They were angry. No one could recall having voted for Mike Otis, but all assumed his position to be legitimate. Everyone sensed the growth of his support. The situation was simple. He had fought for the students, and for this he had been cast out.

“It's our responsibility to fight for Mike the way he fought for us!” Sheldon harangued an ardent cafeteria crowd.

“Yeah!” shouted a dozen voices.

“Yeah!” agreed still more.

“
Yeah!
” repeated everyone, until the single syllable grew into what would go down in history as the first cheer ever to come from a roomful of Don't Care students.

Paul produced a sheaf of photographs and jumped up onto the table that Sheldon was standing on. “If you're with Mike, show it! Display his picture!” He hurled the pictures out into the sea of eager hands.

Art classes became exclusively devoted to the manufacture of “We Want Mike Back” posters, which began to appear all over the school. All wood and metal shop projects were shelved in favour of the production of Mike Otis billboards and large ornamental M.O. initials. The school band set to work composing a Mike Otis anthem, which included a five-minute tuba solo played by one-time locker baron Slim Kroy. The anthem was never completed, but the tuba solo lived on. It sounded like a cross between “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” and “I Can't Get No Satisfaction,” oompahed out at double-speed by Slim who, at two hundred fifty pounds, had the wind for it. It was quite catchy, and many of the students took to humming it under their breath. The picture of the burly Slim holding his tuba went on to become synonymous with Mike's quest to regain power.

Strangest of all, the students of Don't Care High, renowned for their consummate lack of interest in everything, had almost overnight blossomed into an energetic gang of political zealots.

Phil Gonzalez, whose former greatest achievement was the eleven-and-a-half-foot scratch he had put on his father's Coupe de Ville last Christmas, suddenly commandeered his home economics class. Unbeknownst to the teacher, he was leading his fellow students in the sewing of an enormous Mike Otis flag. The background was a basic blue, which coincidentally matched the colour of some curtains missing from the teachers' lounge. On it was a huge white
O
, skewered by a giant silver safety pin. Sheldon had liked it so much that he had photocopied a hundred miniature versions of Phil's original design and put them into circulation with the already awesome amount of paper that was being passed around on behalf of the deposed president.

Cindy Schwartz, on the other hand, was participating on more of a creative level. Her big achievement was the coining of the phrase “I Like Mike.” It caught on like wildfire, and began to appear on posters, banners and blackboards throughout the school. Cindy invested the money to have a T-shirt made with her slogan, and also wrote it in brass studs on the back of her genuine vintage 1973 jean jacket.

Rosalie Gladstone was the maker of the campaign's largest poster, which consisted of no fewer than 208 pieces of construction paper. Naturally, there was no room for it on the already-cluttered walls inside the school, so she displayed it in the parking lot, protecting it from the wind by parking her Volkswagen on it.

Her effort inspired Dick Oliver to come up with the campaign's longest poster, which was eighteen inches high and 175 feet long, and used the word “Mike” thirty-five times. Dick strung this outside across the front of the building, where it would ultimately be shredded by the wind.

There was also a valiant attempt at the most voluminous poster, but the three-dimensional monstrosity collapsed to the floor while its creators were assembling it in the hall of the math wing.

One afternoon, Peter Eversleigh, while staring at a wall plastered with eight-by-ten glossies of Mike, became overwhelmed with the conceptuality of the situation, and began a rampage through the school halls, yelling at the top of his lungs to anyone who would listen, “
Mike Otis is our main dude!
” This finally ended on the fourth floor, where Peter collapsed with exhaustion, greatly in need of licorice.

A political science class burst into a violent shouting match after Dan Wilburforce suddenly blurted out, “How can you sit there and talk about democracy when Mike Otis was booted out of office even though all the students love him?”

Coincidentally, all the planned repairs to the school were over by that week. Sheldon pounced on this mercilessly.

“The minute Mike was gone, the school board stopped all its improvements to our school!” he howled at a cheering mob packed into a little-used fourth floor hall. “I think it's obvious that they got rid of Mike because he was
too effective
!”

* * *

Mike Otis was noticing changes in his life. His photograph was appearing all over the school along with posters and banners that screamed his name. A lesser man would have wondered why; Mike simply accepted it all as one of the things at this school that he didn't understand.

When he walked through the halls, students would come up to him, pat him on the back and ask to shake his hand, saying things like, “You're the greatest, Mike,” and “Hang in there, guy.” Cafeteria lines would melt away so he wouldn't have to wait, and there were always students offering to carry his tray to a vacant table.

Once he happened upon one of Sheldon's rallies, and a few people at the rear recognized him. In an instant, he was swamped by a well-wishing mob, and forced to scribble his name on their countless photos.

Wayne-o had taken to trying to introduce Mike to all his friends. Mike was finding himself on the receiving end of almost incredible amounts of praise and gratitude.

“Mike, your courage is an inspiration to us all!” said Shirley LaPaz without reservation.

“I didn't do anything,” said Mike in his usual dull tone, since a reply seemed to be called for. “I didn't do anything” was also Mike's reply to the group of well-wishers who mobbed his car on several mornings. “I didn't do anything,” he told Wayne-o honestly on the subject of his fixing of the Don't Care bathrooms.

“He didn't do anything!” shouted Sheldon in a booming voice from his now-customary stage in the cafeteria. “Never before has someone who ‘hasn't done anything' done so much!”

“He's too modest to talk about his achievements!” hollered Paul to a wildly agreeing crowd.

“We don't have to talk about his achievements!” Sheldon added. “We know them! All we have to do is continue our support and triple efforts!”

“Hooray!” cheered the LaPazes, who were good at triple efforts.

Peter Eversleigh did his bit by repeatedly offering Mike licorice.

“No thanks,” Mike would say.

“Okay, dude. But should you experience the desire for this confection of which we are speaking, my stockpile of sticks is yours.”

While this new treatment was unusual, it was not particularly uncomfortable, and Mike had no trouble pursuing his daily life. His admirers were enormously considerate of his desire to be alone, seeing him as a man with many burdens who needed time for contemplation. He was also regarded with a certain amount of awe, as many could not begin to imagine the thoughts of this quiet person who had accomplished so much.

“Give the dude his space,” Peter Eversleigh advised. “A dude such as Mike needs to be given space in which to conceptualize.”

Mike came to the conclusion that the only explanation for all this was that he was very, very famous. It was just another one of the things at this school that he didn't understand.

* * *

At first, Mr. Gamble decided to ignore the rumblings of discontent about the Mike Otis dismissal. After all, how long could they last? These
were
Don't Care students.

There was great interest among the staff, especially Mr. Morrison, to observe the students in a state in which they were never found before — motivated and united. In fact, the art and shop teachers did not even try to discourage the activities in support of Mike Otis, since the quality of that work showed more life and fire than ever before. The occasional rally in the cafeteria and hall was tolerated so long as general peace was maintained. The original staff consensus was to observe.

By the end of Mike's first week out of office, however, the litter problem was becoming critical. All walls and lockers were covered with posters and photographs, including some bizarre creations both inside and outside the school that impeded free movement. Not only was the school an eyesore, but there was even a staff casualty. Mr. Willis slipped on an eight-by-ten glossy and sprained his ankle. Mr. Gamble demanded action, but the staff and Mr. Morrison persuaded him to hold off.

The next week, Mr. Gamble knew right off the bat that he had made the wrong decision. The litter problem was raging out of control, and paper supplies were dwindling at an astounding rate. Wall space was virtually impossible to find, and signs and photos were beginning to overlap each other. On Wednesday after school, Mr. Gamble cleared the building of all students, and assembled the entire janitorial staff for what Sheldon would later call “the administration flexing its muscles.”

Sheldon and Paul stood outside the school and, when the dense black smoke started pouring out of the chimney, they knew that the trash burners were working to capacity.

They met after dinner to plan strategy. At ten o'clock, they took a walk past the school, where the burners were still going. The massive Otis campaign was almost gone by this time, including no fewer than three hundred eight-by-ten glossies of the student body ex-president.