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And if the trustees approve a longer lunch period, they’ll have to shorten classes, which are already only fifty minutes.
And where does Lana think she’s going to get the money for bigger mirrors in the ladies’ room? And has she considered the facts that:
less homework will leave us less prepared for the college courses some of us might want to take later on?
more sports will result in less money for enrichment programs in the arts?
no one can be guaranteed admission to an Ivy League school, not even people whose parents went there?
our choices in the candy and soda machines are limited to what the vendors are able to offer?
Obviously not.
But I guess that didn’t matter to her. Or to her constituents, since by the time she finished, they were screaming their heads off, and pounding their feet on the bleachers to show their approval. I saw Ramon Riveras stand up and whip his school blazer around his head a few times to pump the crowd up even more.
Principal Gupta looked a little tight-lipped as she stepped up to the microphone and said, “Er, um, thank you, Lana. Mia, would you like to respond?”
I thought I was going to barf. I really did. Although, I don’t know what I possibly could have thrown up, since I hadn’t been able to eat breakfast this morning, and only had five Starbursts Lilly had given me, half a Bit-O-Honey mooched off Boris, three Tic Tacs from Lars, and a Coke in my system.
But as I started walking toward that podium—my knees shaking so badly, I’m surprised they even managed to hold me up—something happened. I don’t know what, exactly. Or why.
Maybe it was the intermittent booing.
Maybe it was the way Trisha Hayes pointed at my combat boots and snickered.
Maybe it was the way Ramon Riveras cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “PIT! PIT!” in a manner that could hardly be called flattering.
But as I looked out at the sea of humanity before me, and saw bobbing amidst it Perin’s bright and shining face, as she clapped her guts out for me, it was like the ghost of my ancestress, Rosagunde, the first princess of Genovia, took over my body.
Either that, or my patron saint Amelia did some swooping down from the clouds to lend me some of her axe-wielding ’tude.
In any case, even though I still wanted to barf, and all, when I got to the podium, and remembered the way Grandmère had harangued me about leaning my elbows on it, I did something totally unheard of in the history of student council presidential debates at Albert Einstein High School:
I ripped the microphone off its stand, and, holding it in my hand, went to stand in FRONT of the podium.
Yeah. In front. So there was nothing for me to shield my body behind.
Nowhere for me to hide.
Nothing separating me from my audience.
And then, when they fell into stunned silence because of this unusual move, I said—not having the slightest idea where the sudden tide of words flowing from me was coming from—“‘Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ That’s what it says on the Statue of Liberty. That’s the first thing millions of immigrants to this country saw when they stepped onto its shores. A statement assuring them that
into this great melting pot of a nation, all would be welcome, regardless of socioeconomic status, what color hair she has, who she might be dating, whether she waxes, shaves, or goes au naturel, or whether or not she chooses to play a sport.
“And isn’t a school a melting pot unto itself? Aren’t we a group of people thrown together for eight hours a day, left to fend as best we can?
“But, despite the fact that we here at Albert Einstein are a nation unto ourselves, I don’t exactly see us acting like one. All I see are a bunch of people who’ve split off into cliques for their own protection, and who are totally afraid to let anybody new—any of the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free—into their precious, selective little group.
“Which totally sucks.”
I let this sink in for a minute, as before me, I saw a ripple of disbelief pass over my audience. Larry King murmured something into Grandmère’s ear.
But it was like I didn’t even care. I mean, I still felt like projectile vomiting all over the jocks, who were sitting directly in front of me.
But I didn’t. I just kept going. Like…
Well, like St. Amelie.
