When my sister saw Leona’s Say No To Diversity speech yesterday, she was pissed the hell off. Before Leona could even get “Bye” all the way out of her mouth, Regina had already fired off a text to me: Get me on the Knightly News for tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are twenty-eight ways to tell a sister ain’t fucking around, and they’re all exclamation points.
But there was only one problem: I don’t know anything about how to get somebody’s ass on Knight TV. All those Knight TV mofos are stuck-up as hell—like they’re on planet Too Cool For School and you’re on planet Waste Of Space Who Might As Well Just Die Right Now.
But I know how my sister gets when she really wants something so I went to the only person I knew who had a Knight TV connection.
“Sallie,” I said on the phone between classes, “a brother’s in a jam here. Regina wants me to get her on the Knightly News for tomorrow; how do I hook that up?”
She told me and it turned out not to be as hard as I thought. All I had to do was hit up Ms. Rothstein—she’s the one who directed that raggedy play Sallie and I were in—who then hit up Ms. Mitchell, who runs Knight TV. And before lunch, I had the whole thing hooked up, with Sallie’s help, of course.
And so this morning, the anchorgirl Coral Bleeker loaned the spotlight to my sister, who looked into the camera and said, “Good morning, everyone. As you know, yesterday Leona Walls told you about a text petition to shut down the diverse-seating plan that’s scheduled for next month. I know that some of you have already texted in your No. Those of you who haven’t: I urge you not to. And here’s why. When I first came to this school two years ago, I really didn’t know a lot of people. I was a freshman from Oakville and, as you know, kids from Oakville go to Oakville Middle School, not Collingswood Middle. So by the time the Oakville kids get here, all the Collingswood kids have gotten to know each other, but Oakville kids feel like they’re starting over in a new town. Probably ’cause they are. It can be really lonely. Very lonely. That’s how I felt that first year. My brother Uly hadn’t started here yet and the few friends I had from Oakville didn’t eat lunch during my half of the hour. So I spent a lot of lunches sitting alone, most of the time with nobody else at the table. I’m sure all of you have gone through that at least once—maybe it’s that crazy Tuesday when all your friends have lab during your half of the lunch hour and now you’re stuck in the caf, alone. Well, that Crazy Tuesday for you happens on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday for them. And I know it’s fun to hang with your friends during lunch, but what about the kids who don’t have friends? What about the kids who go from ninth to twelfth, always sitting by their self?—either ’cause they’re shy or gay or Indian or trans or bullied or abused at home? And yeah, I know we’re livin’ in a free society, but for some people, freedom always seems to cost about fifty dollars more than what they have in the bank. Shutting down diverse seating: that’s the first step toward an orange world. Sometimes the only way to get blue, brown, black, green, red, gray, yellow, and white to join orange in the box is tellin’ orange, ‘Yo, if you can’t move over and share your space, then maybe it’s time you move out and go to space.’ You feel me? So I’m here to tell you that there’s another text petition—one I started this morning. It’s that same number Leona gave you yesterday—69797, but this time you text ‘Yes.’ Yes to diversity-seating. Again, text ‘Yes’ to 69797. If one hundred of you do that, it can shut down what she’s trying to start up. Text ‘Yes’ to 69797. Thank you.”
The word “Yes” and the number “69797” appeared on the screen. And just like yesterday, it stayed there for the rest of Coral Bleeker’s news cruise.
My sister killed it again. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe it was more injury than kill.