The Wave (11 page)

“I know, I know. And that’s because they just don’t understand what I’m trying to do,” Ben answered.

“Are you serious, Ben?” his wife asked. “Did you know that the school counselors have begun questioning students in your class?” his wife asked. “Are you sure
you
know what you’re doing? Because frankly, no one else in school thinks you do.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Ben replied. “I know what they’re saying about me. That I’m crazy with power … that I’m on an ego trip.”

“Have you thought that they may be right?” Christy asked. “I mean, think of your original goals. Are they still the same ones you have now?”

Ben ran his hands through his hair. He already had enough problems with The Wave. “Christy, I thought you were on my side.” But inside, he knew that she was right.

“I am on your side, Ben,” his wife answered. “But I’ve seen you these last few days and it’s like I don’t even know you. You’ve become so involved in playing this role at school that you’re starting to slip into it at home. I’ve seen you go overboard like this before, Ben. Now you’ve got to turn it off, honey.”

“I know. It must look to you like I’ve gone too far. But I can’t stop now.” He shook his head wearily. “Not yet.”

“Then when?” Christy asked angrily. “After you
or some of these kids do something you’ll all regret?”

“Do you think I’m not aware of that?” Ben asked. “Do you think it doesn’t worry me? But I created this experiment, and they went along. If I stop now they’ll all be left hanging. They’d be confused, and they wouldn’t have learned anything.”

“Well, let them be confused,” Christy said.

Ben suddenly jumped to his feet in frustrated anger. “No, I won’t do that. I can’t do that!” he shouted at his wife. “I’m their teacher. I was responsible for getting them into this. I admit that maybe I did let this go too long. But they’ve come too far to just drop it now. I have to push them until they get the point. I might be teaching these kids the most important lesson of their lives!”

Christy was not impressed. “Well, I just hope Principal Owens agrees with you, Ben,” she told him. “Because he caught me as I was leaving today and said he’d been looking for you all day. He wants to see you first thing tomorrow morning.”

The Grapevine
staff stayed late after school that day to celebrate their victory. The issue on The Wave had been so successful that it was almost impossible to find an extra copy anywhere. Not only that, but teachers and administrators and even some students had been stopping them all day and thanking them for revealing “the other side” of The Wave. Already they had heard stories that some students were resigning from The Wave.

The staff had realized that a single issue of the paper was not enough to stop a movement that had
gained as much momentum as The Wave had that past week. But at least they had struck it a serious blow. Carl said he doubted there would be any more incidents of threats against non-Wave members—or any more beatings.

As usual, Laurie was the last one to leave the publications office. One thing about
The Grapevine
staff—they were great partiers, but when it came time to clean up somehow they all disappeared. It had come as a shock to Laurie earlier that year when she realized what having the top position on the paper, editor-in-chief, really meant: having to do every little stupid job no one else wanted to do. And tonight that meant cleaning up after the rest of the staff went home.

By the time she finished, Laurie realized that it had already grown dark out, and she was practically alone in the school building. As she closed the door of
The Grapevine
office and turned off the light, that nervousness she’d felt all week began to return again. The Wave was undoubtedly smarting from the wounds
The Grapevine
had inflicted, but it was still strong in Gordon High, and Laurie was aware that as the head of the paper, she … no, she told herself, you’re just being silly and paranoid. The Wave was nothing serious, just a classroom experiment that had gotten slightly out of hand. There was nothing to be afraid of.

The corridors were darkened now as Laurie headed to her locker to drop off a book she would not need that evening. The silence of the empty school was eerie. For the first time she heard sounds she’d never heard before: the hums and
buzzes of electrical current running to and from alarms and smoke detectors. A bubbling, splashing sound coming from the science room where some overnight experiment must have been left brewing. Even the unusually loud, hollow echo of her own shoes as they rapped the hard corridor floors.

A few feet from her locker, Laurie froze. There on her locker door, the word “enemy” was painted in red letters. Suddenly the loudest noise in the corridor was the quick, insistent beating of her own heart. Calm down, she told herself. Someone is just trying to scare you. She tried to get control of herself and started to do the combination of her lock. But she stopped in midturn. Had she heard something? Footsteps?

Laurie backed slowly away from her locker, gradually losing her battle to suppress her own growing fright. She turned and started walking down the hallway toward the exit. The sound of footsteps seemed to be growing louder, and Laurie quickened her pace. The footsteps grew even louder, and all at once the lights at the far end of the hall went out. Terrified, Laurie turned and peered back down into the dark hallway. Was that someone? Was there someone down there?

The next thing Laurie knew she was running down the hallway toward the exit doors at the end. It seemed to take forever to get there, and when she finally reached the double metal doors and banged her hip against the opening bar, they were locked!

In a panic, Laurie threw herself against the next set of doors. Miraculously they opened, and she
flew out into the cool evening air, running and running.

It seemed as if she ran for a long time, and finally she lost her breath and had to slow down, clutching her books to her breast and breathing hard. She felt safer now.

David sat waiting in the passenger seat of Brian’s van. They were parked near the all-night tennis courts because David knew that when Laurie came home from school after dark she always took this route, where the bright lights from the courts made her feel safe. For almost an hour now they had been sitting in the van. Brian was in the driver’s seat, keeping his eye on the sideview mirror watching for Laurie, and whistling some song so out of tune that David had no idea what it was. David watched the tennis players and listened to the monotonous plunk-ka-plunk of tennis balls being hit back and forth.

“Brian, can I ask you a question?” David said after a long while.

“What?”

“What are you whistling?”

Brian seemed surprised. “ ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ ” he said. Then he whistled a few more bars. Coming from his lips, the song seemed completely unrecognizable. “There, now can you tell?”

David nodded. “Sure, Brian, sure.” He went back to watching the tennis players.

A moment later, Brian sat up in his seat. “Hey, here she comes.”

David turned and looked down the block. Laurie
was coming down the sidewalk, walking quickly. He reached for the door handle. “Okay, now just let me take care of this alone,” he said, pulling the handle.

“Just as long as she understands,” Brian said. “We’re not playing around anymore.”

“Sure, Brian,” David said and got out of the van. Now Brian was starting to sound like Robert too.

He had to jog to catch up with her, all the while uncertain of how he should handle this. All he knew was that it was better that he do it than Brian. He reached her, but Laurie did not stop, and he had to walk quickly to keep up with her.

“Hey, Laurie, can’t you wait up?” he asked. “I’ve got to talk to you. It’s real important.”

Laurie slowed down and glanced behind him.

“It’s okay, nobody else is coming,” David said.

Laurie stopped. David noticed she was breathing hard and clutching her books tightly.

“Well, David,” she said. “I’m not used to seeing you alone. Where are your troops?”

David knew he had to ignore her antagonistic remarks and try to reason with her. “Look, Laurie, will you just listen to me for a minute, please?”

But Laurie didn’t seem interested. “David, we said everything we had to say to each other the other day. I don’t want to rehash it now, so just leave me alone.”

Against his will, David felt himself getting mad. She wouldn’t even listen. “Laurie, you’ve got to stop writing stuff against The Wave. You’re causing all kinds of problems.”

“The Wave is causing the problems, David.”

“It is not,” David insisted. “Look, Laurie, we want you with us, not against us.”

Laurie shook her head. “Well, count me out. I told you, I quit. This is not a game anymore. People have been hurt.”

She started to walk away, but David followed her. “That was an accident,” he insisted. “Some guys just used The Wave as an excuse for beating that kid up. Don’t you see? The Wave is still for the good of the whole. Why can’t you see that, Laurie? It could be a whole new system. We could make it work.”

“Not with me, you can’t.”

David knew if he didn’t stop her she’d get away. It just wasn’t fair that one person could ruin it for everyone else. He had to convince her. He had to! The next thing he knew, he had grabbed her arm.

“Let go of me!” Laurie struggled to get free, but David held her arm tightly.

“Laurie, you’ve got to stop,” he said. It just wasn’t fair.

“David, let go of my arm!”

“Laurie, stop writing those articles! Keep your mouth shut about The Wave! You’re ruining it for everyone else!”

But Laurie kept resisting. “I will write and I will say anything that I want to, and you can’t stop me!” she yelled at him.

Overcome with anger, David grabbed her other arm. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Why
couldn’t she see how good The Wave could be? “We can stop you, and we will!” he shouted at her.

But Laurie only struggled harder to get out of his grasp. “I hate you!” she cried. “I hate The Wave! I hate all of you!”

The words struck David like a hard slap in the face. Almost out of control, he screamed “Shut up!” and threw her down on the grass. Her books went flying as she fell roughly to the ground.

David instantly recoiled in shock at what he had done. Laurie lay still on the ground and he was filled with fear as he dropped to his knees and put his arms around her. “Jeez, Laurie, are you all right?”

Laurie nodded, but seemed unable to talk as sobs filled her throat.

David held her tightly. “God, I’m sorry,” he whispered. He could feel her tremble and he wondered how on earth he could have done something so stupid. What could have made him want to hurt the girl, the one he really still loved. Laurie pushed herself up slightly and sat sobbing and gasping for breath. David could not believe it. He felt almost as if he were coming out of a trance. What had possessed him these last days that could cause him to do something so stupid? There he’d been, denying that The Wave could hurt anyone, and at the same time he’d hurt Laurie, his own girlfriend, in the name of The Wave!

It was crazy—but David knew that he’d been wrong. Anything that could make him do what he’d just done was wrong. It had to be.

Meanwhile, moving slowly down the street,
Brian’s van passed them and disappeared into the darkness.

Later that night, Christy Ross went into the study where her husband was working. “Ben,” she said firmly, “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’ve been thinking, and I have something important to say.”

Ben leaned back in his chair and looked at his wife uneasily.

“Ben, you’ve got to end The Wave tomorrow,” Christy told him. “I know how much this means to you and how important you think it is for your students. But I’m telling you it must end.”

“How can you say that?” Ben asked.

“Because, Ben, if you don’t end it I am convinced Principal Owens will,” she told him. “And if he has to end it, I promise you your experiment will be a failure. I’ve been thinking all evening about what you’ve been trying to accomplish, Ben, and I think I’m beginning to understand. But did you ever consider, back when you began this experiment, what might happen if it didn’t work? Did it ever occur to you that you’re risking your reputation as a teacher? If this goes wrong, do you think parents are going to let their kids into your classroom again?”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?” Ben asked.

“No,” Christy replied. “Did it ever occur to you that you’ve not only put yourself into jeopardy but me as well? Some people think that just because I’m your wife that somehow I’m involved in this
Wave idiocy too. Does that seem fair, Ben? It breaks my heart that after two years at Gordon High you’re in danger of ruining your job. You’re going to end it tomorrow, Ben. You’re going to go into Principal Owens and tell him that it’s over.”

“Christy, how can you tell me what to do?” Ben asked. “How can I possibly end it in one day and still do the students justice?”

“You have to think of something, Ben,” Christy insisted. “You just have to.”

Ben rubbed his forehead and thought about the next morning’s meeting with Principal Owens. Owens was a good man, and open to new ideas and experiments, but now he had immense pressures on him. On one side parents and teachers were in arms over The Wave, and pressure was growing on the principal to step in and put a halt to it. On the other side there was only Ben Ross, pleading with him not to interfere, trying to explain that to stop The Wave abruptly could be a disaster for the students. So much effort had gone into it. To end The Wave without explanation would be like reading the first half of a novel and not finishing it. But Christy was right. Ben knew The Wave had to end. The important thing wasn’t when it ended, but how. The students had to end it themselves, and they had to understand why. Otherwise the lesson, the pain, all that had gone into it, was for nothing.

“Christy,” Ben said, “I know it should end, but I just don’t see how.”

His wife sighed wearily. “Are you saying that you’re going to go into Principal Owens’s office tomorrow morning and tell
him
that? That you know
it should end but you don’t know how? Ben, you’re supposed to be The Wave’s leader. You’re the one they’re supposed to follow blindly.”