The Latte Rebellion (26 page)

“Who decided we needed the riot squad?” Miranda whispered to me.

I shook my head.

When we walked into the office, it was like fighting a crowd at a concert. There were all sorts of unfamiliar adults in suits conferring with school administrators; there were a few more of the people in riot gear; and there were at least ten other students in varying states of disarray and injury, a couple with Latte Rebellion T-shirts. There was even a kid sitting outside the nurse’s office, cradling an obviously broken arm and wincing while the nurse prodded at him gingerly.

And then there were parents.

“My daughter called me and told me there was a
riot at school
, and you’re telling me I can’t pull her out of
class
?” one tiny woman was shrieking. “This is outrageous!”

“Can’t I at least talk to him? You have to admit these are extreme circumstances. I just want to know my son is safe,” said a tall dark-skinned man in a gray suit holding a cell phone, who looked like he’d just come from work.

“Please,” the receptionist said loudly over the din, his voice harried. “Everyone stay calm and I’ll take care of you one at a time.
Please.
”

There was also someone who looked like a newspaper reporter, followed by a cameraman, trying to get the receptionist to give him permission to interview students and go into classrooms. It was complete chaos, and Mr. Malone had to politely move a few people aside as he escorted us into his office, signaling to one of the secretaries to join us. On the way in, I saw David Castro sitting mutely in a chair just outside. He had a black eye and a cut lip, his dark hair was disheveled, and his expression was murderous. But when he looked up at us, he grinned wolfishly.

Mr. Malone closed the door and the uproar in the outer office was abruptly cut to a dull roar. Slowly and deliberately, he walked around his large wooden desk to his chair and sat down. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and steepled his fingers together, looking from one of us to another. The secretary sat in a folding chair to one side, pen poised over a notepad. By now I’d just about convinced myself I was going to hurl. Carey looked equally nauseated, and even Miranda looked worried.

“Well, girls,” Mr. Malone said in a sigh of a voice. “I’m very disappointed to see you in here like this. All three of you are model students; you all have excellent grades.” He paused, then cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Ms. Levin, Ms. Jamison; after I spoke with you before, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to see you in here again. You assured me that your account of the smoke bomb incident was true, that it was a fluke and you had nothing to do with it. I had no reason at all to disbelieve you.

“Now, I’m going to ask what the three of you were doing on the quad today, and I want you to be truthful. I need to assess your involvement in today’s incidents, and whether we will need to take any further disciplinary action. Ms. Dominguez will take notes.”

“Further disciplinary action?” I blurted out, horrified. I knew he’d have to call my parents, but … I didn’t have even a single detention on my record.

“Yes,” Mr. Malone said, calmly. “Everyone involved in the fights, and everyone who we know was involved in the ‘sit-in’ that precipitated the violence, has been suspended for the remainder of the school day. Essentially, this is a precaution that will enable us to determine what happened.”

“Suspended? I can’t be suspended!” Carey cried. “My parents will kill me!”

Miranda inhaled sharply. I knew she’d had detention a couple of times, but I also knew her parents were strict; they wouldn’t be very happy about this. Carey’s parents would, of course, completely flip. Carey was the perfect daughter; they’d never understand how this happened.

Which was why I said what I did, despite everything that had happened between Carey and me.

“Mr. Malone,” I said. “This had nothing to do with Carey. I think you should let her go back to class. She was just there because I asked her to come see my speech. The same with Miranda.”

“Ms. Jamison, I was there. I know Miranda gave her own speech, and it was just as provocative as yours, if not more so. I don’t want you to cover for your friends. I want you to tell me exactly what happened. This Latte Rebellion … we’ve always thought it had the potential to cause trouble. I
will
find out the truth, whether from the three of you or from somebody else, and a full report will be made to the district as well as the police.” Mr. Malone said this quietly, stroking his mustache, but it struck fear into my heart. I was even more determined to make sure Carey did not take the fall for this.

“Mr. Malone, I promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” I began. He flashed me a dangerous look. “The Latte Rebellion … it’s just a club. One that talked about issues that were really important to me. Even if school administrators thought it was a gang, it’s not! We—I went to meetings at U-NorCal and everything. Lots of people at school went, too. Carey never had anything to do with it; it was me. I asked her to come today. I promise.” Tears started to fall from my eyes, involuntarily. I wasn’t even sure what I was crying about; I wasn’t sure if I was nervous, or angry, or both.

“I only wanted to be part of something important. I finally felt like this was a club that really
meant
something to me. And the Inter-Club Council didn’t deem it worthy of existing, so we did what we thought we had to. I’m sorry.” I looked down at my lap. If I hadn’t been half-sobbing, I’d have held my breath, wondering what Mr. Malone would say now. If he even believed me. Was he enough of a callous jerkface to accuse me of lying?

I heard him exhale, a long breath. When I looked up, he fixed me with a piercing stare. I bit the inside of my lip and willed myself not to look away. Without breaking his gaze, he said, “Miranda, I’d like to hear your version of the events, if you don’t mind. Again, this is no time to cover for your friends.” His frown, somehow, got even frownier, as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. As if he was determined that someone was going to take the fall.

“Well, we got involved in the club,” Miranda began. She looked at me for a half second, her face unreadable. “Asha and I.” I held in a sigh of relief. Carey just kept staring down at the desk disconsolately.

“After our proposal for a club charter was unfairly dismissed, we went to a couple of meetings with the U-NorCal chapter, and so did some other people from school. We all thought it was a good idea to continue meeting here at school, despite not being an official club,” Miranda said defiantly. “There’s a Black Student Union and an Asian Student Association and the Chicano Club, but there isn’t anything, Mr. Malone, for kids of mixed race.” She stared at him, her chin held high, as if daring him to dispute that fact.

“You’re free to join any club you want, Ms. Levin. I don’t see why you couldn’t have just participated in whichever club was the most … relevant.” He scratched his mustache, glowering. “If you’re mostly Hispanic, for example, you could go to the Chicano Club.”

All three of us looked up in outrage at that, even Carey.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Miranda said icily. “I don’t subscribe to the one-drop rule.”

“You are being unfair and out of line, young lady.” There was a long,
very
painful silence, during which Miranda and Mr. Malone had a staring contest and Carey and I tried to pretend we weren’t there. For a minute, all we could hear was the scratching of Ms. Dominguez’s pen. Finally, after Miranda showed no sign of crumpling under his Stare of Death, Mr. Malone looked away.

“Well, since you seem to know so much, perhaps instead you can tell me about how this …
sit-in
… got so out of hand.” Mr. Malone’s voice was just as icy as Miranda’s had been a moment before.

“I don’t know how it got out of hand. I know there are troublemakers here who don’t like what we’re doing, for some reason. All I can tell you is, the sit-in wasn’t our idea. It was a nationwide event at schools and colleges all around the country. Our chapter decided to participate.”

“And I presume you thought that was a good idea, too,” Mr. Malone said, sarcastically.

“Yes, I did,” Miranda said. She sounded calm, but she was clenching her hands in her lap. I couldn’t take it anymore; my mouth opened, ready to defend her.

“Miranda, you don’t have to—”

“I
do
have to,” she interrupted, staring at me hard. I knew what she was trying to do, and I hated it. At the same time, I loved her for it.

“Ms. Levin, I’m going to have to ask you to please go to the secretary and someone will escort you to on-campus suspension,” Mr. Malone said, impatient now. “I don’t have time to debate philosophy with you.”

“Fine,” she said, getting up gracefully, letting all of her five feet ten inches tower over the vice principal’s desk for a moment before she glided out of the room.

Unfortunately, the moment she left, the room felt heavy, stifling. I could feel my impending doom echoing in my brain like the heavy breathing of a phone pervert about to say something disgusting.

“Ms. Jamison, you might think I have no idea what goes on here, but I assure you I’m not clueless.” Mr. Malone leaned back into his chair and folded his hands behind his head with false casualness. “I know that other students look to your leadership and creativity, and I’m very disappointed to see a promising student such as yourself involved in this kind of rabble-rousing.

“Next year, when you’re in college, you’ll have plenty of chances to go to rallies and parades and what-have-you, but this is a high school. There just isn’t room for this kind of behavior, and the less mature students clearly can’t handle it. I have to be able to rely on more mature students, such as yourself, to be a model for good citizenship. And people have to see that discipline is carried out fairly.” Was that a pleading note I detected in his voice? I hoped that meant I wasn’t completely screwed. He hadn’t seemed to even want to deal with Miranda; maybe I’d get lucky, too.

Or maybe Miranda would be facing a harsher penalty later, after today was over. I fidgeted in my seat.

“This is why I’m sorry to tell you that we’re going to have to call your parents. I’d like them to take you home for the rest of the afternoon, and I do not look forward to having to explain all this to them.” He rubbed his temples for a moment and closed his eyes. I really didn’t envy him; he was going to be deluged with parental freak-outs for the foreseeable future. However, I was much more concerned with my own future.

“When you say discipline will be carried out fairly,” I said, my voice trembling, “what’s going to happen to Roger and the people who set off the firecrackers? If we’re getting suspended just for wearing T-shirts?”

“Well, they’ll be dealt with appropriately, no question about that,” he said matter-of-factly, opening his eyes and pinning me with a curious stare. “Bringing explosives onto campus is a violation of rules, and a crime.”

“What about me?” Carey asked in a tiny, sulky voice. “I wasn’t even part of the event.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Ms. Wong.” He sighed. “It doesn’t appear that you had any central role in today’s incident. Given your outstanding academic and disciplinary record, I’m inclined to believe your friends. You’re free to go back to class, or if you prefer you may call your parents to pick you up.”

We both looked at Mr. Malone in surprise.

“Contrary to popular belief, I do not enjoy sending students to OCS,” he said dryly. “Frankly, it gives me a headache.”

Carey giggled obligingly and scampered for the door, patting me sympathetically on the shoulder on her way out. I was relieved for her, sure, but I felt a little gross about the whole thing. Maybe she
had
been the smart one, trying to stay uninvolved, but I still couldn’t think about that without feeling disappointed. Crushed, even. And now it was time for me to face the music. Alone.

Mr. Malone looked back at me and his eyes narrowed. “Now that your friends aren’t here to distract you, why don’t you tell me one more time what happened.”

I bit my lip, and my heart sank. There was no way I could repeat what I’d just told him and be absolutely positive my story was consistent. As we stared at each other, I knew he was fully aware of that. But I had to try. I opened my mouth to start, but before I got so much as a word out Mr. Malone looked at his watch and said, “On second thought, why don’t we wait until your parents get here. I’m sure they’ll want to hear your explanation just as much as I do.”

I blanched. How bad was this going to get?

“Ms. Dominguez,” he said. “You may go until Ms. Jamison’s parents arrive. Should be about fifteen minutes.” His secretary scuttled out and I was alone in the room with Mr. Malone, the old clock with its yellowing plastic face ticking away loudly above his desk, my butt starting to go numb from sitting in the hard, uncomfortable chair. And then I knew things could, and probably would, get much, much worse.