Rachel Takes the Lead Read online

  If they asked me why, I could say I didn’t have time for this, that I was too busy with other things. And if they asked what I was doing that could make me so busy, what could I say? That I preferred playing with Fifi? That was ridiculous—Mr. Greene had said the committee meetings were held during school hours.

  But I was being silly. I was letting my imagination run wild. They weren’t going to waste time interrogating me. This wasn’t a trial. They’d tell me to go back to my homeroom, that’s all. And Paige would smirk, and David would look… I don’t know. Disappointed in me?

  In the office, Ms. Simpson directed us to a room across the hall, which turned out to be the faculty lounge. At a big table, Mr. Lowell sat at the head. Mr. Clark, the science teacher, was there too, and also Ms. Koster, the boring social studies teacher. And there was another teacher I didn’t recognize, plus two students, a boy and a girl I didn’t know. I figured they must be the representatives of the sixth and eighth grades.

  I realized there was no way I could speak privately to Mr. Lowell. The second we walked in, he told us to have a seat, and then he got down to business.

  “These are the candidates for seventh-grade representative,” he said, and he introduced us each by name. Then he introduced the teachers and the other students, Sun Li and Jacob Shea. I was so nervous, their grades didn’t even register at first.

  “Since this is a special election to fill a vacant seat, we don’t have time for a weeks-long campaign season, as we normally do every fall. The candidates will be presenting their platforms for the consideration of their fellow seventh graders at a classwide assembly this coming Monday,” Mr. Lowell continued, and then he turned to us. “Until then, you’re free to campaign during your lunch period, and to post or distribute campaign materials throughout the school within reason. That means posters, not balloons and confetti, and no handing out bribes.” Paige, who had been examining her hands while Mr. Lowell spoke, glanced up, looking slightly disappointed.

  “The assembly will take place during fifth period on Monday. As potential representatives of your peers and of this school, I’m sure it goes without saying that your presentations about how you intend to fulfill the duties of a class representative should be both thoughtful and appropriate. You will each have five minutes to speak. Kindly recall that you are asking your classmates to put their trust in you to attend our regular committee meetings and to effectively represent them. If you are elected, this committee will be relying on you to contribute your opinions and ideas, in addition to communicating the needs of your classmates.

  “But for today”—Mr. Lowell smiled—“you are here to simply observe a typical meeting of the committee, so you’ll have a firsthand idea of what to expect if elected.”

  So I won’t be called on to present ideas, I thought. That was a relief. And when the meeting was over, I would just quietly go up to Mr. Lowell and tell him I was out. Or, if he left in a hurry or was talking to someone, I could go back across the hall and tell Ms. Simpson. It occurred to me that I could have done that when we arrived, and I mentally kicked myself.

  “To begin,” Mr. Lowell said, “I want to remind everyone that what we’re interested in are honest concerns and practical suggestions. For example, we don’t want to hear complaints about homework. Or a recommendation that we hire a fast-food chain to operate our cafeteria. But creative, realistic ideas are always welcome. We will present your ideas to the faculty, and then, if the faculty approves and the ideas require additional funding or a major change in regulations, we’ll submit them to the county board of education.”

  Heads bobbed up and down, mine included. Mr. Lowell made it sound like this was actually an important committee. But then I remembered what Mr. Greene had told us about previous student recommendations and how ineffective they’d been.

  Mr. Lowell turned to the boy. “Jacob? Does the eighth grade have any interesting concerns you’d like to discuss?”

  “Yes,” Jacob said. “It’s about the spring dance. Instead of having it in the gym, can we hold it in someplace fancier? Like a hotel?”

  Mr. Lowell smiled pleasantly. “No.”

  “Why not? Lakeside High has its senior prom in a hotel.”

  “Lakeside High has a much bigger budget for social activities than we have, Jacob. Besides, what’s wrong with the gym?”

  “It’s boring,” Jacob replied. “It’s not special. We see it practically every day. It doesn’t feel like a party space.”

  “Then decorate it,” Mr. Lowell suggested. “I think we can come up with the money for some crepe paper and balloons. Anything else?”

  “Can we hire a professional DJ for the music?” the boy asked.

  “What does a professional DJ cost?”

  “Two hundred dollars an hour. And our dance is supposed to be three and a half hours. So that would be…” He hesitated. Clearly not a math wizard.

  “Seven hundred dollars,” Mr. Lowell said, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jacob, that’s just too expensive. Besides, can’t you all just make up a playlist on one of your phones? We can hook it up to a loudspeaker.”

  Jacob frowned, but he shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Anything else?”

  Jacob shook his head.

  I was surprised. It seemed to me that eighth graders would have more concerns than that. They’d be going to the high school in September. Wouldn’t they like to have guided tours of the much bigger school, or maybe invite a counselor to talk to them about the courses they’d be taking there? It seemed that Mr. Greene’s description of what went on at these meetings was pretty accurate.

  Mr. Lowell turned to the girl. “Sun, what do you have for us?”

  The sixth-grade girl opened a folder and began to speak.

  “I have two items to bring up. A lot of sixth graders, most of them in fact, have laptops at home. And it’s true that some students mainly use them for social media or games or streaming movies. But practically everyone also uses them for homework purposes, for research and writing reports. Only, there are students who come from families who don’t have personal computers, usually because they’re very expensive. So I would like to suggest that East Lakeside purchase a number of laptops that could be checked out by students to use at home.”

  The teacher whose name I hadn’t caught nodded. “I like this idea.”

  Ms. Koster, the boring social studies teacher, frowned. “How would we know they’re not just using them for playing games?”

  “I don’t know,” the girl said. “Maybe there’s a way to block games.”

  Mr. Clark shook his head. “I think that if we ask students to sign a guarantee that they will use the laptops for schoolwork, that will be sufficient. Sure, there are some who won’t honor this agreement, but I think the majority of students here are honest.”

  “I agree,” Mr. Lowell declared. “Would you please send me a copy of your proposal, Sun? I’m going to talk to the media specialist and see if we can use some of their budget for this idea.”

  Jacob broke in. “Hey, laptops are more expensive than a DJ!”

  Mr. Lowell looked at him through narrowed eyes. “They are also more important. Thank you, Sun. Anything else?”

  “Some of my classmates want to know if there’s any way we can have the media center open on weekends,” she said.

  “Hmm. Now, that’s a tough one,” Mr. Lowell said. “We’d have to hire media specialists to work there. And there’s the question of additional building insurance, which is very expensive. I’ll look into it, but to be honest, Sun, I don’t think it’s possible given the school budget. Still, it’s a good suggestion, and I could bring it up to the board of education as something they could consider for all the schools in the county.”

  “Thank you,” Sun said. “That’s all from the sixth grade.”

  This time, I was surprised and impressed. These were really good ideas. I gazed at Sun in awe. How could a sixth grader be so sure of herself, to speak l
ike that in front of people? I looked across the table at David. His eyes met mine, his eyebrows shot up, he glanced at the sixth grader, and he nodded at me. He was clearly impressed with her too.

  Paige was sitting next to me, and her head was down. Lowering my gaze, I saw that under the table, she was filing her fingernails.

  “Well, if that’s all for today, do the candidates have any questions about this process?” Mr. Lowell asked.

  Paige’s head came up, and so did one of her hands.

  “Yes, Paige?”

  “I’d like to make a suggestion,” she said.

  Oh, no, I thought. Pilates or T-shirts? But Paige didn’t get the opportunity to bring up either.

  Mr. Lowell smiled but shook his head. “I’m sorry, Paige, only elected representatives can make suggestions. Do you all understand the process?”

  We nodded and the meeting was adjourned. But when I got outside the faculty lounge, I wanted very much to compliment the sixth grader, Sun Li. And since the end of homeroom bell was ringing, it was okay to speak.

  “Those were really great suggestions,” I told her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hope that first one gets approved in the next faculty meeting.”

  “I was wondering, though…,” I began, and then caught myself. I wasn’t a rep, and I wasn’t even going to be a candidate, so I shouldn’t say anything.

  But Sun looked interested. “What? Tell me!”

  I looked around furtively, but the others had moved on, so I told her. “For families who don’t have PCs, who can’t afford them, well, maybe they can’t afford an internet connection in their homes either.”

  Sun’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, I didn’t even think about that! You’re absolutely right. I’ll start doing some research on that tonight. I’m going to amend my proposal to suggest including funds for internet connections. Or more hotspots, at least. Or something.”

  “But I guess you’ll have to wait till the next meeting to share this.”

  She shook her head. “We have a committee email group. I can send out the idea today.”

  I was even more impressed. “Wow, you can really do this? Make something actually happen?”

  She nodded. “Of course, all the suggestions don’t come to pass. But there’s a good chance, if the idea is realistic and there’s the money to support it.” She looked up at the clock. “Hey, we’ve got to get to first period. Listen, I hope you win! I think you’d be a great addition to the committee.”

  I spent the rest of the morning thinking about what Sun had said.

  Later, when I saw my friends in the hall before English class, Ellie told us we couldn’t do a spyglass session that afternoon.

  “My father asked me to help him organize his law books in his office. And I’m still trying to be Little Miss Perfect. I’m hoping maybe they’ll release me from home for the weekend.”

  “I have more errands to do this afternoon, anyway,” Kiara said. “Our neighbor broke her leg last week and she’s on crutches. I told her I’d get groceries for her today. And Rachel, I assume you want to go to the office and drop out of the representative competition.”

  I didn’t address Kiara’s last comment, because I had a question of my own. “Will your family’s housekeeper go with you when you run errands?” I asked.

  “No, she’ll be making dinner.”

  “So… you’ll be running errands by yourself. On your own.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I have to babysit Ethan this afternoon,” Alyssa said. She looked at me as she added, “By myself. On my own.”

  They weren’t poking fun at me, just pointing out how most kids our age didn’t require adult supervision at all times. Once again, I couldn’t help being a little jealous of their freedom.

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” I said. “Well, I’ll be happy to go home and have more Fifi time.” Now they could be a little jealous.

  In English, it was Jim Berger’s turn to do an oral book report. He’d read a classic, Animal Farm by George Orwell. I’d read it last year, and I didn’t really care for it very much. Usually, I like books about animals, but most of the animals in this book were pretty awful. In Animal Farm, some pigs take over and run the farmer off the land. At first, it’s okay, with all the animals being equal and taking care of things, but then there’s a struggle for power and one pig, Napoleon, takes over and starts making all the decisions for the animals.

  “Napoleon changes the farm motto from ‘All animals are equal’ to ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,’” Jim explained. “He gets the other animals to pledge their loyalty to him and they do everything he tells them to do. And he ends up becoming this terrible tyrant.”

  A hand went up.

  “Yes, Alyssa?” Ms. Gonzalez said.

  “I don’t get it,” Alyssa said. “If he’s so mean, why do the animals follow Napoleon? How did he get to be so powerful?”

  “Do you have any thoughts about that, Jim?” Ms. Gonzalez asked him. “How did Napoleon take power?”

  “I think the other animals just gave him the power,” Jim said. “They wanted a leader and he was acting bossy. That was just his personality. Some of the animals wanted to be close to the power, I guess so they could feel safe. The others, well, they just followed.”

  Another kid spoke up. “I don’t think this sounds very realistic. Animals obviously don’t act like that.”

  “Well, I think it’s what they call a… a…” Jim turned to Ms. Gonzalez for help.

  “An allegory,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “It’s a symbolic narrative. Orwell’s story was his representation of what had happened in the Russian Revolution, how it began with certain ideals that became corrupt under a dictator.”

  Jim nodded. “I kind of got the idea he was also saying that this could happen whenever people give all the power to someone who doesn’t necessarily have the qualities to lead. This is why it’s better to have a democracy, where people who want to be leader have to tell us what they stand for—they present a platform. And the people can vote for the person they think will do the best job.”

  This was a lot to absorb. When I’d read Animal Farm, I thought it was just about some creepy animals. But what Jim had said made a lot of sense to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized what it really meant. And I wasn’t thinking about the Russian Revolution.

  I was still pondering this at lunch, so I spoke even less than usual. I could have talked about Animal Farm with the sisterhood, since they’d been in the class with me and heard Jim’s report. But for some reason, the thoughts I was having—I kind of wanted to keep them to myself. Besides, Alyssa held the others’ attention as she regaled them with tales of her latest battle with her mother. Apparently, Dr. Khatri hadn’t been a fan of the spiderweb hoodie that Alyssa had put on yesterday morning and had returned from work that evening after stopping to shop for an alternative.

  “She came home from the mall with a sweater for me. A pink sweater. Pink! Like I would ever in a million years be caught wearing pink! No offense, Rachel.”

  I wasn’t really listening until I heard my name. “What?”

  “About wearing pink. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  I realized I was wearing a pink hoodie. “No problem.”

  Just then, a Paige look-alike in high-waisted jeans and a headband that matched her sweater stopped at our table. She was carrying a basket and handing out candy bars. Tossing four wrapped bars on our table, she chirped, “A vote for Paige is a vote for chocolate!”

  Alyssa’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If Paige is elected, there will be something chocolate on our lunch trays every day!”

  Ellie was clearly skeptical. “Do you honestly think Paige can control what happens in the cafeteria?”

  The girl smiled smugly. “Paige can do anything she wants.”

  The girl drifted over to the next table, and Kiara turned to me.

>   “Too bad you’re dropping out of the competition. Because you could be handing out something. Not chocolate, of course. Something healthy. Whole-wheat bread?”

  “Mr. Lowell told us we couldn’t hand out bribes.”

  Ellie’s eyes widened. “Then why don’t you go and report Paige for breaking the rule?”

  “I’m not a tattletale,” I murmured.

  Ellie continued. “But maybe she’d get tossed out of competition and that David kid would win.” She grinned. “Hey, maybe you could win if you don’t drop out.”

  I didn’t say anything, and now all three were looking at me.

  “You’re still dropping out, aren’t you?” Alyssa asked.

  “Maybe she’s changed her mind,” Ellie said excitedly. “Hey, we could start making posters for you!”

  “No thanks,” I replied. “I have another idea.”

  I don’t know how I found the nerve. It wasn’t just David saying “Get over it.” But that helped. And what Sun had said…

  I’ve always accepted being shy, and I’ve never really thought about it much. It’s just the way I am, like having blue eyes and blond hair. Once, I tried to write a poem in my diary. It began “Why am I shy?” It sounded like a good line for a poem. But then I couldn’t think of another line. There was no explanation.

  I stood up and took a notebook and pen from my backpack.

  “Where are you going?” Ellie asked, but I didn’t answer her. I walked down the row of tables until I came to one where I saw seventh graders, people I recognized from classes but had never spoken to before.

  “Excuse me,” I began, but they kept talking to each other. Because they didn’t want to hear anything I had to say? Was that one of the reasons I was so shy—because I didn’t think I had anything to say that was worth hearing?

  And then I realized I’d spoken in a whisper, and they hadn’t even heard me.

  “Excuse me,” I said more loudly.

  They all turned to look at me. I could feel the usual freeze creeping up on me, but I fought it back.

  “I’m Rachel Levin-Lopez and I’m a candidate for seventh-grade representative. I want to ask you about extracurricular activities here at school. Would any of you be interested in more clubs? Like… like a chess club? Or bird-watching?”