The Latte Rebellion (13 page)

The page that came up made my jaw drop, and I heard Carey gasp. Someone had set up a FriendSpot address for the Latte Rebellion, with our manifesto reprinted and a link to the website we’d originally set up; even one of Miranda’s comics was gracing the top of the page.

“Did
you
do this?” I frowned at Leonard. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to bask in our reflected glory.

“Hey, it wasn’t me,” he said. “I thought you guys set it up. I was just going to show you the comments page.” He clicked a link, and a page loaded. A really
long
page. There were over a hundred comments, 99% of which were from people we didn’t know.

“They just … took our stuff,” Carey said, sounding shell-shocked.

“They probably think they’re ‘promoting the cause,’ ” Bridget said, rolling her eyes.

“This is nuts,” I mumbled, feeling a little short of breath. I knew I wasn’t in control anymore, and I wasn’t sure if I was terrified … or excited.

“I think it’s kind of cool,” Darla said. “Flattering. Your T-shirt sales are going to go through the roof now. And this means more people will come to our rally.” She paused, looking serious. “
You guys
did this. You should be proud. Obviously there was a need there, an interest. Maybe it’s meant to happen this way.”

“Yeah,” Miranda said, holding up a celebratory can of soda in an impromptu toast. “If we make enough, Asha, you’ll make it to London no problem. I might even visit my sister in New York when the NYU semester lets out. Can you imagine?”

A small spontaneous cheer went around the room, though I couldn’t help noticing Carey was still put out about something—probably having her web copy swiped. But even that didn’t bother me. I was shocked, but I was
proud
. We hadn’t meant for this to happen, but we’d done it. And we
were
going to reap the rewards. All the way to the airport.

About a week later, I was sitting at the kitchen table under the watchful sidelong gaze of my dad, who was putting away clean dishes from the dishwasher. I had my English notes open in front of me, along with my copy of
The Stranger
and a library book on existentialism. I was putting a sincere effort into doing a good job on this paper even though English was always pretty easy for me. My only problem seemed to be … attention span. Senioritis. Major distraction. Whatever you wanted to call it.

To be truthful, the problem had a name, and that name was the Latte Rebellion. And the problem had a second name (kind of like Oscar Mayer). That second name was Thad, he of the hypnotic blue eyes and mesmerizing phone voice.

I shook my head and put pen to paper again.
Philosophical implications of the narrator’s killing the Arab stranger on a beach. Reflections of Sartre’s personal beliefs. How this work is still relevant today.
I was busy narrowing down the ideas I’d brainstormed when my cell phone bleeped from the counter, jarring me out of my concentration. I was halfway out of my seat when my dad said, “I’ll get it. You keep working.”

“It’s
my phone
,” I said loudly, but he ignored me. I heaved a martyred sigh and looked back down at my notes, bristling. If it was Thad, I was going to be so peeved. Not to mention mortified.

“Hello? … Oh, hello, Caren. How’s the studying coming along? … Good, good …” Normally my dad cracked me up when he was trying to be ultraserious, like when he called Carey by her full name, Caren, or when he’d tried to get me to write a business plan for my lemonade stand in fourth grade. It wasn’t so cute this time.

“Oh, Asha’s just working on her English paper. … Yes, that’s the one. … Oh … I guess it’s all right. She can take a little break … Bye now.”

I had to admit, I was surprised. I thought I’d be chained to the kitchen table for the rest of the night and then sent promptly to bed like a five-year-old. Instead, my dad handed me my phone and a chocolate-chip granola bar and said I could take a fifteen-minute break. Maybe he was trying to bribe me into being a better student.

I carried the phone into the home office, which was empty and private.

“Hey, Carey,” I said. “You called just in time. I was about to go crazy thinking about the futility and ennui of it all. I thought I might drive to the beach and maybe find somebody to take out my ennui on.”

“And do what—bore them to death?” Carey laughed, but then abruptly stopped and her voice got serious. “Hey, listen. I have to tell you something. But first you have to sit down. Are you sitting?”

“I’m sitting,” I said. “I’ve
been
sitting. All I do these days is sit and study.”

“That’s good,” she said, sounding surprised. “I’m glad, Ash. You know, you could still be a salutatorian if you—”

“I know, I know.” I sighed, doodling coffee cups on my mom’s phone message pad. “So what were you going to tell me that was so shocking and appalling?”

“Oh! Right. You know how Leonard showed us that knock-off FriendSpot page?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well,” Carey continued breathlessly, “I went online a few minutes ago to check
our
website, and the guest book was full of comments like ‘Don’t stop now, guys!’ and ‘Fight the power’ and that kind of thing. And so I go to NetPress to check on our T-shirt orders, and listen to
this.
In the past week, our income has … well …” She swallowed, audibly. “We’ve made three thousand dollars.”

There was a long pause.

“Asha. I know you heard me.”

“I heard you.” I could hardly get my brain around it, though. My hand was busy scribbling down the calculations but my conscious mind was saying
does not compute
. “This is incredible! Where are these orders
coming
from?”

“That’s the crazy part,” Carey said. “Some of them are coming from Berkeley, and San Francisco, and Los Angeles … even from, like, Texas and New Jersey. Everywhere.”

I swallowed, hard. I didn’t know what to think. People must have been passing the word over email, and it must have spread like wildfire.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Carey said.

“I think so.” I was slowly coming to a realization. An absolutely amazing, mind-boggling realization that made me drop my pen and clutch the phone with both hands, that made me feel like hyperventilating. It wasn’t just that we’d hit the big time, that people at school and even at U-NorCal were buying our shirts and wanting to spread our ideas. It wasn’t really about the Rebellion at all. It was about something infinitely more important—Carey and me.

Almost in a whisper, I said, “We did it. We’re going to London.”

7

My excitement at selling five hundred shirts kept me floating all week. It was so much more than we’d expected to sell when we first started. Oh, we’d
hoped
we were going to sell all two hundred, but we figured that even if we didn’t quite make our monetary goal, we could at least spend a weekend at a hot springs or something. But in this new scenario, Carey and Miranda and I would be patting each other on the back and grinning all way to the bank. All the way to London, in fact, where we would proceed to party like rock stars with hot British guys while touring the Tower of London and Big Ben and so forth.

But it was only January. Graduation, and the end of June, was a long way away. Our college applications were in, but we still had midterms, physics labs, another English paper, and AP tests to go, and I had to “get back on track,” as my dad put it, so that I wouldn’t slip too far in the class rankings.

And so that I would be deserving of any potential vacation time next summer. Studying in the living room one night, I’d let slip the vague idea of going somewhere with Carey after we graduated. I hadn’t mentioned London, but still, Dad’s reaction was noticeably tepid.

Not that I expected anything else. He shrugged off my enthusiasm and said we’d talk about it after I got my act together.

“Honestly, Dad, I am not off track,” I insisted, glaring down at my AP History study guide. Sometimes I thought all he cared about was that stupid little numerical rank—which was still in single digits, by the way. That, and the number of A’s and whether there were pluses or minuses attached to them. “I don’t need another lecture,” I said under my breath.

“I’ll believe that when I see some improvement in your performance.” Dad turned briefly away from the TV and glowered at me. I sat on my hands, resisting the urge to slam my book shut and fling it across the living room. “Don’t think you can get lazy just because things have been easy for you up until now. If you think it’s going to be this easy in college, you’re in for a rude awakening.”

“I won’t have so many ‘distractions’ in college,” I muttered, parroting one of his favorite lines from a classic lecture about how higher education was going to be the greatest personal enrichment experience of my entire sad lifetime. Not that I didn’t believe him, but still. I’d heard this all before. It was a golden oldie on the
Dad’s Greatest Hits
album—one that he dragged out every time I got a substandard grade, like a B-plus.

He leaned forward to grab the remote control from the heavy oak coffee table and turned the volume down considerably. “You know, you’d probably get more studying done if you weren’t in the room with the TV.”

My mom should have been the one to be OCD about grades—Carey liked to call it “Asian Parent Syndrome.” Instead, for me, it was my good old Mexican-Irish-American dad. Much to his dismay, I wasn’t a workaholic like either of my parents. At least, not in ways that meant anything to either of them. He was always telling me about how “today’s teenagers have a sense of entitlement” and “you’d better work hard now if you want to get ahead later.” It was cliché city. Carey and I used to laugh about it, mimicking our dads getting all worked up; that is, until she lost her sense of humor at some point in the last few months. It was amazing how things could change so quickly.

Despite London seeming so far away, the next couple of weeks went by in a blur. I spent most school nights studying at home, except for a few trips out of the house with Carey and Miranda. Saturdays I went to an AP prep course and Sunday was reserved for “family time.” This meant lunch of takeout Chinese food followed by a walk around the neighborhood, a DVD on the living-room couch with low-fat popcorn, and some kind of sit-down Sunday dinner. If my mom was cooking, that meant chicken korma, mildly spicy on its bed of basmati rice, or some sort of vegetable curry with a salad. If my dad was cooking, it meant turkey burgers or spaghetti.

It might not sound too bad, but after three weeks of this schedule, I was going stir-crazy. I could barely pay attention in class, and I yawned through every lunchtime club meeting—the sporadic, unofficial Latte Rebellion school meetings that Maria McNally had started leading after the rally idea caught on. I was about to throw in the towel, forget about the Rebellion and everything else, drop out of school, and work at McDonald’s for the rest of my life. At least then I’d have financial independence.

When the time came for the next Rebellion rally planning meeting at Mocha Loco, I called Bridget. I really wanted her to come with me, because Carey had soccer practice and Miranda was sick with the flu.

“Bridget, the services of Commander Delta are urgently needed,” I said as soon as she picked up the phone.

“Now? I have an essay in Poli Sci due next Friday. Ten pages. And an art history paper due the Monday after that. Commander Delta is officially on administrative leave.”

“Seriously, Bridge. Someone has to go to this meeting with me. I’m too nervous to do it by myself.” And I was. I wouldn’t be there in my official Agent Alpha capacity, but I couldn’t picture being there without
someone
to back me up.

“I’m sorry, but I have to tell you, this semester is really killing me.”

“It’s just for a couple of hours,” I said, a little desperately.

“Asha, it isn’t really the time commitment, it’s …” There was a strange hesitation in Bridget’s voice that I wasn’t used to hearing. “Okay, listen. Wednesday I wore a Latte Rebellion shirt to my Poli Sci class, and as I was walking out at the end of the lecture, this guy actually
grabbed
my shirt and said something stupid like ‘Hey, I thought that Latte thing was all full of race radicals.’ And then this other guy got in his face about it and they started yelling about who has the right to say what, or whatever, and I just … I couldn’t deal with it. I got the hell out of there.”

I was completely dumbstruck. When I’d first worn the shirt around town, nobody seemed to have any idea what the Latte Rebellion was. And now this?

“I know it has nothing to do with
your
project. It’s just all these other wanna-bes and … zealots who are taking it a little too far. It gives me a bad feeling, you know?”

“But nothing’s going to
happen
,” I said. “It’s just people who don’t know anything about the Rebellion who are overreacting.”

“I don’t know,” Bridget said. “There are tons of news stories where even peaceful protesters get pepper-sprayed by the cops. Or worse. It’s easy for things to get out of hand, is all I’m saying. It’s great that so many people are interested, and I’m glad your idea was successful, but … don’t you think it’s gotten enough of a life of its own that you can, I don’t know, let it go a little?”

This was one of the longest speeches I’d ever heard Bridget make, and it left me feeling hopeless and desperate. We couldn’t be losing one of our core Sympathizers.

“You have to come, Bridget,” I tried again. “I told my parents I’d be out with you. I promise you won’t have to commit to anything.”

“I’m serious,” Bridget said. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it. It was fun while it lasted, but I have my classes to worry about, and believe me, they are
something
to worry about this semester. I thought last semester was hard.”

“Aaargh! I can’t believe this,” I screeched, panicking. I hung up the phone. Sure, we had the money for our summer vacation, but we also had a rally to oversee, a high school student body just prickling with gossip about the mysterious origins of the Latte Rebellion and its exciting upcoming events, and a whole lot of random people throughout the country apparently sympathetic to the cause.

Maybe Bridget was right. This was out of control.

I was depressed for about a week after Bridget told me she had to abdicate her duties as Commander Delta. But I went to the meeting anyway, just to keep tabs on the planning process for the Latte Rebellion Rally and Poetry Slam. It was only two weeks away. Miranda and I were in the process of making and distributing propaganda materials, and, along with Carey, the three of us had final say over the program of events for the evening. The other people on the planning committee could not stop bickering, but since I was at the meeting alone and incognito, I couldn’t voice a strong opinion. On top of all that, I was still barely pulling a B in calculus, and I got docked half a letter grade on my English essay for turning it in a day late. That meant I had to spend more time studying than ever, thanks to my parents’ Homework Boot Camp. I was completely and utterly swamped.

So I really wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

I was sitting at the computer in my parents’ home office, taking a much-needed study break to check email. I had my hair wound into a bun with a pencil sticking out of it and was wearing sweat pants and a baggy T-shirt. Sipping from a cup of hot chocolate, I logged into my account, hoping for something besides spam about penis problems. And boy, did I get it.

In my inbox, forwarded from our Latte Rebellion website, was a new message. An advertisement, to be specific—for Latte Rebellion T-shirts.

I blinked. I was getting a really weird feeling about this.

I sucked in a breath and looked closer. The message was from somebody calling themselves [email protected]. And the shirts! They looked exactly like the ones we were selling on NetPress, only you could buy them in different colors—ugly ones—and they were charging five bucks more apiece. Not only that, these people were advertising something called a Propaganda Kit—which I
knew
for a fact had nothing to do with either Miranda or Darla, as the two official Ministers of Propaganda—with copies of all our posters, comics, and flyers. When I went to the official Latte Rebellion site, I saw the same ad in our guest book, and on the social networking page, too.

I went to the FearTheLatte website. It was virtually identical to ours.

At first, I was furious. We’d worked so hard coming up with our ideas, our shirts, designing our website, everything, and here was someone copying them … to make a buck? To look cool? I didn’t know. I felt sick to my stomach and pushed my hot chocolate to one side. I guess the page was supposed to be an homage, but it was just weird
.
They were still referring to Agent Alpha and Captain Charlie and Lieutenant Bravo as these great initiators of the Latte Rebellion, but obviously they had no idea who we were. I wasn’t even sure they knew we were real
people
, let alone high school students who set it all up on a lark. We had attained some kind of mythical status. At least our alter egos had.

I sent emails to Carey, Miranda, Darla, and Leonard, entitled
Emergency Rebellion Meeting! R.S.V.P. A.S.A.P.!
Obviously, something had to be done. Didn’t it?

A couple of evenings later, we were all sitting around Miranda’s kitchen table, the scuffed Formica surface covered in textbooks, notebooks, and a spilled stack of extra Latte Rebellion flyers. Ostensibly I’d gone there to review for our physics test the next day. The excuse had gotten me out of the house on condition that I come home with evidence I’d actually accomplished something, so I had a physics worksheet on the table in front of me that I resolved to tackle the minute we finished discussing this new dilemma.

“Guys. We all know this was not exactly what we set out to do when we started the Latte Rebellion.” I spoke in a hushed, serious tone, calmly reciting what I’d been planning to say, but I couldn’t help raising my voice slightly as I continued.

“But people came on board and really supported us, so we thought we’d try to see it through, even after we accomplished our original mission and sold enough T-shirts. It was a setback when Bridget said she couldn’t do this anymore, but we weathered it.

“It’s been a wild ride, and I’m glad you were all here with me. But … I just don’t have a clue what to do about
this
. Do you?” I drummed my fingers on the table, feeling fidgety and anxious.

“Not even an inkling,” Miranda said, smiling. I knew she was enjoying watching things unfold, no matter how crazy they were getting. I loved her for it, but I was envious of how calm she was. Darla sat back in her chair with an enigmatic smile, blinking at us owlishly through her red-framed glasses. Carey, meanwhile, looked nervous as hell. Leonard put an arm around her and I felt the familiar twinge of irritation.

“You know,” he said, in his infuriatingly calm way, “this is the kind of thing that happens when you come up with an idea that’s … bigger than you are. Clearly there were tons of people looking for something just like this. Don’t think of it as a
bad
thing.” He smiled down at Carey, who still looked like she was about to throw up.

“Well, I did a little research online,” Darla said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “and I found out that this copycat website is registered to someone named Eric Segal in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Maybe we should try to get in touch with him. Ask him to take it down.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why would he want to take it down? There’s obviously a demand for shirts, and with the amount he’s charging, he’s not going to want to stop selling.”

“Or he could be sincere,” Darla added hopefully.

Carey rolled her eyes. “Who cares if he’s sincere? The point is, he flat-out stole practically our entire site. But personally, I don’t have time to worry about it.” She sounded pretty mad, like she didn’t want to be here, even with Leonard playing with her hair and making me want to vomit.