“So basically we’re screwed,” Michelle said.
“You know, Overbrook probably wants to sweep this under the rug, keep it hush-hush. Maybe that’s our secret weapon,” I said. “Publicity. We could call the ACLU. I heard in Alabama, a principal was sued for trying to ban interracial couples from attending the prom. Elise, isn’t your dad a lawyer?”
“Well, yeah, but he does mostly consulting now. And he works in corporate law. I doubt he’s had a lot of experience with this kind of thing.”
“But maybe he knows someone who does,” I said.
“Emma, my dad’s on the school board here,” Elise said. “It’s kind of a conflict of interest.”
I remembered that day in detention when Elise had said that Brewster hated her because she was a spoiled “daddy’s girl.” And from what she’d just said about other girls calling their parents to fight their battles for them, I knew she had a chip on her shoulder about asking her dad for help.
“You know, Amber and Chelsea don’t speak for everyone,” Jess said. “A lot of girls on campus have come up to me and told me they think Michelle and I are brave for doing this.”
“Yeah,” Michelle said. “I had one girl tell me she’s going to come out to her parents this summer. She was too scared to do it before.”
“Then maybe we should organize some kind of protest,” I said.
Jess was nodding. “I was reading online about this event called the National Day of Silence. You get students at your school to take a vow of silence for the day to protest bullying and harassment of gay teens. You don’t speak all day, not to each other and not even in classes, until six o’clock, when you break the silence publicly.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” I said.
“I don’t know how Elise would make it through the day without talking, though,” Michelle said, and Elise stuck her tongue out.
“Why don’t we see how many girls might be willing to participate?” I said.
“Yeah,” Michelle agreed. “There’s no sense getting all worked up about something if it’s only going to be the four of us.”
“But we better work quickly,” Jess said. “The event is next Monday. We only have a week to get organized.”
“I’ll start asking around,” I said. “If we get enough people, we could even send a press release to the local media.”
“The media?” Michelle said.
“Yeah, so when we break the silence, they can cover the story. It might get us the publicity we’re looking for.”
Michelle looked uneasy at the thought of going public. But I was energized by the prospect. It felt good to be a part of something larger than myself, to do something completely unrelated to my own petty troubles.
The four of us set out to get as many supporters as possible, and by the end of the week, we had amassed almost seventy signatures of girls willing to participate in the Day of Silence. Given the enthusiastic reaction, I called the local news station, who agreed to send a small news crew to interview us at the end of the day.
I was walking out of History feeling pretty proud of what we’d done when Overbrook asked me to come see him after school. Again. As soon as I entered his office, I knew that somehow he had gotten wind of our plans and that he saw me as the instigator of our rabble-rousing band.
“Ms. Townsend,” he said as I sat down across from him, “it seems you are creating quite the disturbance on our quiet little campus with your . . . silent protest.” He touched his finger to the base of his snow globe.
“I’d hardly call a silent protest a disturbance,” I said. “It’s just a form of civil disobedience. See, we read Thoreau in AP English class, and well, a few of us got to talking, and we think your decision to ban single-sex couples from attending prom is discriminatory.”
“A few of you?” he said, his eyes narrowing. “And how many would that be?”
“I have about seventy names,” I said, pulling out the sign-up sheet. “And we all—”
“Ms. Townsend,” he said, cutting me off. “Before you launch into a well-intentioned but misguided defense of your position, my decision to ban same-sex couples had nothing whatsoever to do with the girls in question being gay. It is simply a matter of wanting to keep the prom an event in which girls from an all-girls school can meet boys in a social scenario. If girls were able to bring other girls, then every girl who had trouble finding a date would do so. We want to encourage a coeducational experience and create an atmosphere in which boys from other schools feel welcome.”
“But you’re creating an atmosphere in which some of your own students feel unwelcome,” I said.
Dr. Overbrook drew his head back and studied me. “I cannot imagine why two girls would want to attend prom together anyway. It will only invite abuse and bullying. The prom is a Lockwood tradition going on one hundred years. It is always elegant, refined, respectable. I would hate for that tradition to be sullied by any kind of . . . ugliness.”
“But it’s the discrimination that’s ugly,” I said. “If you’re so worried about ugliness, why not ban the bullies instead of the same-sex couples?”
“Ms. Townsend, I have never been a fan of outspoken students. In your case, I had thought the Paris scholarship had been given to a worthy candidate, but I must say you surprise me with this defiant attitude. Perhaps you take your education for granted. Perhaps you fail to see that if this school does not maintain a certain reputation and standing in the community, then scholarships such as yours will cease to exist. Parents will remove their students from our school, and our endowment will dry up. I cannot risk the future of all my girls for the sake of one or two.”
“There are more who are afraid to speak up.”
He eyed me skeptically. “Lockwood has existed for a hundred and fifty years,” he said. “Your friends will survive this minor disappointment, but if Lockwood loses the support of its parents and stakeholders . . . I cannot say the same for it. I commend you on your desire to stand up for your friends, but this matter must be treated delicately. And I’m afraid my decision is final. No sort of protest is going to change that, so I urge you to drop this pointless exercise. Please don’t force my hand.”
I was so livid I wanted to smash his precious snow globe against the wall. I tried to think of what might convince him, but what could I say to a man like that? Like he’d told me, his decision was final. So I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the floor.
I was about to leave when Overbrook called me back in. “Ms. Townsend, I would like to have the list, if you please.” He held forth his hand, gesturing for me to pass the list of signatures to him. For some reason, I clung to it.
“Why? What difference does it make if you’ve already made up your mind?”
“A headmaster ought to know his students.”
“If it’s all the same, sir, I’d rather keep it.”
“Ms. Townsend, I did not take you for an insubordinate. As I’ve said before, my final recommendation is required if you want to go to Paris next year. I urge you to think carefully before refusing a direct request from me.”
My stomach dropped. Was he blackmailing me? And if I gave him the list of names, what would he do with it?
“I’m not trying to be insubordinate,” I said. “But these girls signed their names in good faith that nothing would happen to them as a result of their opinion.”
“And nothing will happen.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“I promise you.”
Reluctantly and with my heart in my throat, I handed him the list, feeling like I’d just sold my soul to the devil.
C
HAPTER
22
O
n Monday morning, the PA system announced an unscheduled assembly. Everyone else seemed excited because an assembly meant shortened class periods. But my stomach roiled as we walked to the Commons Building. Once we had all assembled in the auditorium, Overbrook approached the microphone and cleared his throat.
“It has come to my attention,” he said, “that several among you have conspired to hijack the educational process by refusing to speak in class today, I assume in protest of my recent decision about prom. I have consulted with my lawyer, and the right to freedom of speech includes a right
not
to speak. However, a school has the right to restrict a student’s freedom of speech when it deems that such speech, or in this case non-speech, would be detrimental to the learning environment. Therefore, I am going to insist that all students respond to any questions asked of them today in class and continue to participate meaningfully in the learning process. Anyone failing to comply with these instructions will face disciplinary action. Those on this list might want to think very carefully about how much a senseless act of civil disobedience will cost them.” He held up the list I’d given him and brandished it above the podium.
My heart sank. Overbrook had done it again. Somehow he had sabotaged our peaceful protest by using our silence against us. I didn’t care what his “disciplinary action” would be; I was going to keep quiet today regardless of the consequences. But I knew some of the younger, more impressionable girls would succumb to his scare tactics. And he knew it, too. He left the room with a smug smile on his face.
That morning as Brewster began her lesson, she could barely hide her gleeful smile as she directed questions at me, Michelle, Jess, and Elise, checking off our names on the list when we refused to answer. As expected, many of the other girls capitulated under the pressure, and our Day of Silence, which we’d intended to start a massive wave of protest on campus, made little more than a ripple.
Overbrook added insult to injury by having an unannounced oral exam in AP History. He told us that during the course of class, each student would be asked five questions about the Nixon administration, and every correct answer would garner ten points. The bastard was hitting us where it hurt. The few staunch participants who hadn’t caved under pressure thus far now did so with the threat of a failed exam grade looming over them. By six o’clock, only ten of us had maintained silence for the entire day.
We beleaguered few met in front of Easty Hall, where we had told the news crew to meet us. But Overbrook seemed to have anticipated this as well. It was pretty clear that Amber was his secret weapon, spying on us and reporting back what she’d learned. Before the reporter could even make her way over to us, Overbrook and two Lockwood security guards began turning them away, telling them they had no right to trespass on private property. The reporter was stubborn, asking Overbrook why he was opposed to letting her interview us. What was he trying to hide? But Overbrook’s security guards did an effective job of steering the cameraman back toward the van.
Once the news crew had left, Overbrook stood on the steps of Easty Hall and announced that we were all to go immediately back to our rooms and that he would decide how to deal with our insubordination tomorrow. Some of the girls apologized to Overbrook and begged him to be lenient. Others glared at me for selling them out. I felt like I’d let them down. Betrayed them. How could we simply walk back to our dorm rooms and go quietly about business as usual?
“I’d like to take a scalpel to his middle-aged gut and watch his intestines spill out,” Elise said.
“I just wish there was something we could do that would hurt him like he’s hurting you,” I said, gesturing to Michelle and Jess.
“We have to let it go,” Michelle said. “Overbrook wins; we lose. It’s not like it’s the first time.”
“How can we just give up after all the work we’ve done?” I said, turning to face Michelle.
But Jess agreed with Michelle, saying, “We’re always going to have to deal with the Overbrooks and Ambers of the world. We might as well get used to it.”
However, not everyone was satisfied with all this acceptance and resignation.
After our demoralizing defeat, Elise finally agreed to contact her father, and he was only too anxious to help. Elise told him it would win him points during custody proceedings, but I think he would have helped us anyway. Mr. Fairchild seemed like one of the good guys.
And when Michelle called Darlene to tell her what had happened, Darlene insisted on coming down to the school to try and talk some sense into Overbrook. Against Michelle’s wishes, she closed the bakery for the day and took the train to Waverly, where I picked her up and drove her to campus. Michelle warned her it was pointless to argue with Overbrook, but Darlene wouldn’t hear of backing down. We waited for her in our room while she met in Overbrook’s office for over an hour.
When she came back to the dorm, even Darlene—ever cool and ever wise—looked frazzled and beaten down. “Oh, that man,” she said. “That condescending weasel of a man! I’m so angry right now I could spit.” Fortunately she didn’t.
“What happened?” Michelle asked.
“He told me it was your fault for making this such a public spectacle and then he had the gall to tell me I wasn’t a very good guardian if I couldn’t control my niece’s
impulses
.”
“Ugh!” I said, getting angrier by the minute. “What did you say?”
“I told him he was an intolerant, rigid man, and I threatened him with a voodoo hex.”
“You didn’t!” Michelle said.
“I did!”
I officially loved this woman.
“What did he do?” Michelle asked.
“He kicked me out of his office.”
“Oh, Darlene.” Michelle was shaking her head, mortified.
“Well, I wasn’t serious about the hex,” she said. “I was only trying to make him hear reason. Of course, I did swipe a picture of him from off his desk.” She pulled a framed photo of Overbrook out from under her coat.
“Darlene!” Michelle said.
“Stop saying my name like that,” she said.
“What’s a voodoo hex?’ I asked.
“Emma, don’t encourage her,” Michelle said.
“It’s a spell I sometimes use to get rid of someone.”
“Get rid of someone?” I said, my eyes flaring.
“Oh, not in that way. We’re not talking murder here. It’s just a spell that takes a person who’s standing in your way and ever so gently . . . nudges them out of it.”
“It’s black magic,” Michelle said.