Mom knows something’s up. It’s way past eight, when Sadie and Dad should’ve left the house.
“What are you all doing still home?” she says.
“Going to the job site late today,” Dad says.
“I offered to walk Sam to school,” Sadie says.
“Sam’s not going to school. He’s suspended.”
“Illegally,” Sadie says. “They forgot to give him a hearing.”
“Who put that idea into your head?”
“Sam.”
“And who put it into yours?”
“Mr. Kalman.”
Mom marches across the street without looking both ways. I catch only part of what she tells the oldest living man in our neighborhood, but it isn’t pretty. Something about how she’d appreciate it if he wouldn’t interfere with how she’s raising her kids.
“The boy’s entitled to a hearing,” Mr. Kalman says.
And she says, “He needs to take responsibility for what he’s done.”
And he says, “Well, there he goes taking responsibility. He’s on his way to school.”
Coming to school when you’re supposed to be suspended is a bit like showing up at your own funeral. Basketballs stop dribbling. Arm wrestling hands let go. Girl chat drops to a whisper as heads turn my way.
Catalina waves. Jaesang gives me a thumbs-up. Alistair flips up his palms. They’re so full of notes, they look like bathroom stalls. He shrugs as if to ask, What gives? I shrug back because I’m not sure if anything’s going to.
Sadie tells Miss Lochman, the principal’s assistant, that we’ve come to demand a hearing. If it had been up to me, I would have said request a hearing, or beg for a hearing, or see if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for Mr. Hill, out of the kindness of his heart, to grant us a hearing. But like I said, I’m no good at talking to authority figures.
Mr. Hill keeps us waiting until after the second bell rings. I can’t tell if he’s really got important Principal Stuff to do, or if by making us wait he thinks we’ll go away. It gives Mom and Dad a chance to park and come inside, so that when he finally does open his door, we all go in together.
Miss Lochman comes in too. With a notebook and a pen.
Mr. Hill starts out all official. “For the record, Sam’s parents are here. My assistant, Miss Lochman, is here. Sam is here.”
He peers at Sadie in her black jeans, gray T-shirt, leather jacket, and purple-dyed hair. She looks like a truant officer’s worst nightmare. Part punk rocker, part vampire groupie, all bad girl.
You shouldn’t judge people by the way they look, though. Sadie hates vampire fiction.
“And you are?” Mr. Hill says.
“His advocate slash sister.”
Mr. Hill takes a cool look at Sadie. “And it’s your opinion, as your brother’s advocate, that I don’t have the right to suspend him?”
“Not without informing him of the charges and letting him respond.”
She drops the printout on his desk. Thwack!
“Goss v. Lopez,1975. The US Supreme Court held that a student’s right to property—in this case, his education—can’t be denied without due process.”
I’m not trading her, either.
“Sam,” Mr. Hill says, “do you know why you were suspended?”
“I didn’t want to do my homework?”
“You stood on your desk and urged your classmates to do the same. You were defiant of authority. Disruptive of class.”
“An act of civil disobedience,” Sadie says.
“Civil disobedience in a classroom is an oxymoron. There is nothing civil about a disobedient boy.”
Okay, did the principal just call me a moron? Now I feel really dumb.
“I was only trying to tell Mr. Powell how I feel,” I say.
“And how is that?”
I told you, I’m no good at talking to authority figures. But right then Sadie nudges me hard in the ribs. Is that any way to treat a brother?
It works, though. I start to talk.
“It feels like I’ve done something wrong,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re admitting it.”
“Not that. I mean—”
“You don’t think you’ve done something wrong?”
“No. Well, kind of. But all of us, we feel—”
“You’re the one who defied the teacher.”
“I know, but—”
“You’re the one who disrupted the class.”
“Mr. Hill,” Sadie says, “it’s a hearing. How can Sam be heard if you won’t listen?”
He sighs and rolls back in his rolling chair. He folds his arms.
This time all Sadie has to do is nod.
“It feels like we’re being punished,” I say, “but we don’t know why. Did we do something to upset grownups, and that’s why we get so much homework? I mean, we come to school, we work all day, we go home, we work all night. Then we wake up and do it all over again. There’s no time to just be a kid.”
He’s quiet for a second, and I start to feel better because I think I’ve gotten through to him. Maybe now he’ll see things from our side of the desk. Maybe he’ll let me back in school. Back in the winter program, too.
“Sam,” he says, “you’re the only sixth-grader in my office right now. Maybe the problem isn’t with the homework. Maybe it’s with you.” Then he says something about how Reed is a great middle school with high standards and high test scores.
“We give a lot of homework because that’s what it takes to be number one. And we expect all of our students to be team players. It’s not for everyone. There are alternative schools in the district you could go to. Not as rigorous as ours.”
“You want to send me away from my friends?”
“You might be happier someplace else.”
Everything suddenly looks blurry through my eyes.
“Mr. Hill,” Mom says, “I’m sure Sam is willing to make it up to you. He’ll write an apology. Won’t you, Sam?”
It’s the last thing in the world I want to do, but I nod and say I will.
Mr. Hill stands up. In case you’re ever in a meeting with a principal, when he stands up, the meeting’s over.
“And now that you’ve had your hearing,” he says, “the suspension stands.”
A hand grabs my arm. Sadie drags me outside.
I’ve never seen my big sister this mad at anyone before, not even me. Her face is red, with anger sweat on her upper lip. She’s so mad, she’s not talking. So we just walk for a while, side by side, toward home.
“It wasn’t very nice of him to call me a moron,” I say.
“He didn’t call you a moron, Sam. He used the word oxymoron.”
“Is that a zit cream?”
“It’s a phrase that contains a paradox, or apparently contradictory ideas that are nonetheless true. Like jumbo shrimp or working vacation.”
“How can you have jumbo shrimp? That’s like saying tall midget. It doesn’t make sense.”
“According to him, neither does student protester. But that’s what you are. And you should be proud of it.”
Oxymorons must be a high school thing.
We trudge on together, Sadie with her head down, me kicking a rock as I go. Mom and Dad pull up alongside us in the car.
“You gave it your best shot, kids,” Dad says, leaning out the window. “Nothing more to be done.”
That’s my dad for you, real quick to let things go.
“Mr. Hill is right,” I say. “Other kids keep up. Why can’t I?”
Sadie stops. She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me toward her. She looks at me like I’m the only other person in the world.
“They don’t keep up, Sam. They give up. You’re different. You had the guts to say no. I wish I’d had that kind of courage when I was your age.”
“But you get straight As.”
“So? In fourth grade I stopped drawing. In fifth I quit karate. The last book I read for fun was The Hunger Games the summer before sixth grade. The only things I’ve kept up are mock trial and speech and debate because Mom says they’ll look good on my college applications. Everything else, everything I love, I’ve let go.”
She looks up the road and then back at me.
“They stole my childhood, Sam. I’m not going to let them steal yours.”
She marches on ahead of me. Only she doesn’t go home. She goes across the street.
To Mr. Kalman’s house.
She pounds on his front door. By the time it opens, I’ve caught up to her. Now there are two kids standing on his porch.
“I want to sue the school board,” Sadie says.
“On what grounds?” Mr. Kalman asks.
“On the grounds that homework is unconstitutional.”
Mr. Kalman looks at her, wondering if she means this.
She means it.
“Where’s the violation?”
“Child labor laws. Cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t know yet. But I’ll find one.”
“You’ll need a lawyer.”
She looks straight at him.
“With a current license,” he adds.
We stand there. How’s he going to say no to two adorable kids? Okay, one adorable kid and one fierce teenager.
“At my age?” he says. “Are you crazy? I fall asleep in the chair most afternoons. And don’t stray very far from the bathroom.”
We don’t budge.
“They’d laugh us out of court, kids. You under the legal age of relevance and me long past it.”
We stand and stare. Sadie’s taking the day off from school and I’m basically forced to. So it’s not like we’ll be going anywhere soon.
But Mr. Kalman looks tired to me. He really is old, and his wife has been gone a long time. Maybe he wants to be left alone.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to see it through.”
He shuts the door.
Sadie jams her finger into Mr. Kalman’s doorbell, which always sticks. The ringer buzzes. And buzzes. And keeps on buzzing until he opens the door and gives the ringer a flick.
“We’re not leaving until you say yes.”
“There’s a law against trespassing. I could have you arrested.”
“Your front yard is in violation of the fire code,” Sadie shoots back. “We could have you cited.”
“Go away. Let an old man live out what’s left of his life in peace.”
“Oh, please. You’re not dying any sooner than we are. Well, maybe a little sooner. But all the more reason you should want to help. It’ll give new meaning to your old age.”
She’s not captain of the debate team for nothing.
Mr. Kalman’s eyes narrow and his nostrils flare. “You are an insolent sixteen-year-old who belongs in a house of corrections!”
“Seventeen. And there’s no such thing anymore, Mr. Kalman. It’s the twenty-first century. Why don’t you step outside and live in it?”
Anger sweat glows on his upper lip.
“If I were your grandfather, I’d take my cane to your backside.”
“If you were my grandfather, you’d be using that cane to march into court to defend the rights of children.”
This time, when his door closes, the deadbolt slides shut too.