Dave had never seen Mrs. Hiatt this mad before. And no one had ever yelled at him with a bullhorn. It seemed unfair. To be yelled at with that giant voice. So he decided he wasn’t going to be afraid. Or angry. No matter what.
Dave shrugged and said, “Nothing to say.” Which was perfectly true. Before Mrs. Hiatt had started yelling, he had been very happy to just sit and eat and think.
“STAND UP!”
Dave stood up. Every kid in the room was watching him. And so was Mrs. Marlow. And the custodian. And the cafeteria workers.
Mrs. Hiatt said, “TALK. I WANT YOU TO TALK RIGHT NOW. I WANT TO HEAR YOU TELL TODD EVERYTHING YOU LEARNED IN ALL YOUR CLASSES THIS MORNING. START TALKING TO TODD. NOW.”
Dave wasn’t an angry sort of kid. Not usually.
In fact, there was only one thing that nudged him over the edge: being bullied. The only time he’d ever gotten into a fight at school was back in second grade when a fifth grader had started picking on him. That’s when Dave had learned that you can’t just go along with a bully. Because then you get bullied more and more.
And that’s how Dave felt. Right now. He was getting mad. It felt like Mrs. Hiatt was being a bully—a bully with a bullhorn.
Again the principal yelled, “TALK!”
And that did it. It was Dave’s turn for a trip to the red zone.
He glared at Mrs. Hiatt, and he shouted, “I do not have to talk now if I don’t want to. This is our lunch time. None of us have to talk!”
And a sentence flashed into Dave’s mind, something he had heard dozens of times on TV shows. This sentence was usually being said to criminals wearing handcuffs, but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment.
Dave looked around the cafeteria at his classmates, and he shouted, “You have the right to remain silent!”
And with that, Dave pressed his lips together, folded his arms across his chest, and sat down.
Lynsey was the first to pick up on Dave’s body language. She looked at Mrs. Hiatt and slowly folded her arms. All the girls at her lunch table did the same.
And the gesture spread through the room like ripples on a pond. Every kid stared at the principal, arms folded and stone silent.
Mrs. Hiatt looked around slowly, drew herself up to her full height, and then walked briskly out of the room. She walked down the hall to the school office. She nodded at Mrs. Chaplin, the school secretary, and said, “Hold my calls.” Then she went into her own office and closed the door.
Back in the cafeteria, it was dead calm. Every kid sat motionless, arms still folded, not sure what to do next.
Todd started it.
He unfolded his arms and nodded at Dave, and then he clapped his hands. In three seconds every fifth-grade boy was clapping like mad.
Dave looked around at his friends and smiled and nodded.
And a second later, guess who joined in? That’s right: all the girls.
And five seconds later, the hooting and the whooping began.
It was loud in that cafeteria. It was incredibly loud. The clapping and cheering was so loud that the sound went right through the cafeteria doors and walls and thundered down the hall—all the way to the school office, and right through the closed door of Mrs. Abigail Hiatt, principal.
The phone on Mrs. Chaplin’s desk buzzed—an intercom call.
“Yes?” she answered. The secretary listened, nodded, and said, “Right away.”
She got up and walked out of the office and down the hall and into the cafeteria, where it had gotten quiet again.
Mrs. Marlow was standing near the doorway, and Mrs. Chaplin whispered something to her.
Mrs. Marlow nodded and quickly walked halfway across the room.
She bent down close to Dave Packer’s ear and said, “To the office.”
Dave swallowed his third bite of macaroni and cheese and looked up into the science teacher’s face. “I have to?”
She nodded, “Principal’s orders.”
Dave looked around the table at his friends. No one needed to speak a word—their faces said it all. And the message?