When school got out, we all waited until the buses arrived until we packed up our signs. We used the opportunity of our presence amidst milling students, exiting from the building, to our advantage. That was the point where our chants grew loudest and our smiles grew largest. A lot of the other kids, from the other grades, were pretty unsure what exactly it was we were doing, but they had heard from the teachers that we had decided to stop going to school and, consequently, would be severely punished when the whole deal was over (that's what Ms. Goldman told us later, at least). So, due to this, not many kids talked to us. I guess they figured they were better safe than sorry. That was fine, though. We got our message across.
As soon as the other kids were on the bus, we all said our good-byes until the next day and piled onto our respective transit vehicles.
The reaction from our parents, thanks to the phone calls that they received from the school which explained our situation, when we arrived home wasn't pretty, but it was to be expected. My parents, in particular, weren't very happy. They thought I should go about the situation in a less controversial way. My mom said that if I had simply talked to Mr. Thompson in the first place, things would go much more productively. Ha.
I understood her point, of course. She just didn't know the man the way I did. I had only been in Jergens Middle School for about five months and I already knew that Mr. Thompson would take my life if he had the opportunity and the legal justification. Simply put, the man hated me. I didn't even know why. I guess he just hated kids.
Anyway, I shrugged the disapproval of my parents off. They meant well, after all, so I couldn't get mad at them. Besides, I had to do what I knew what was right, and I was growing more and more positive that I was, so I instead appreciated their concern but figured I could handle the situation on my own.
I called Waldo that night. Only, it turned out that he wasn't able to talk on the phone. His mom told me this and she sounded pretty pissed. Uh-oh. When I told her that it was okay and that I'd just see him tomorrow at school, she sort of chuckled and said "Oh, yes, yes--of course," and hung up the phone. Great.
Suffice to say, the kid wasn't there on the picket line the next morning. I was pretty sad to have my suspicion about him confirmed. Fortunately, most everyone else in Jergens Student Union, Local 5 was. A few weren't, though. Unfortunately, only an hour into the picket, most everyone's spirits were getting pretty low due to the missing strikers. I did my best to rally them with a couple of new songs I had written, and it worked until noon, a few minutes before lunch time. Incidentally, this was the point where our strike was in the most danger of becoming a mob of angry morons, due to an unfortunate incident.
It seems that the four or five missing strikers from the previous day had decided to go school. Someone from the picket line had spotted one of them attempting to enter the school under disguise at another entrance and then followed her into the building, similarly under disguise (so as not to draw the attention of any teacher to a "rogue"--a term Ms. Goldman later said was being commonly used to refer to our status--that entered the building).
If we were the "rouges" to our enemy, then our enemies were naturally dubbed "scabs," which I had learned was the traditional name of a traitor worker. It seemed fitting, when you thought about it. The way we saw it, we were the healthy, red blood cells. Our strike was a rupture in the smooth running of the body's systems. The scabs were the stupid, cowardly ones that attempted to fix the damage by flinging their bodies onto the melee, in a misguided effort to remedy the situation, while trying to regain their status with the body they had initially betrayed.
Needless to say, Jergens Student Union, Local 5 wasn't too keen on such individuals.
When informed of the scab's location, a group of five was formed. Their task was to enter the building and retrieve the scab for questioning. It was a simple enough job. Only, it turned ugly when the scab was followed into the lunch-room to eat. As soon as the squad had made the mistake of entering the room, a group of girls recognized them and began to scream. In response, a group of real macho seventh-grade boys seized the opportunity to fling their half-eaten sandwiches and open containers of yogurt at the strikers. Before the squad was able to make their escape, they had been assaulted with various flavors of pudding, gummy bears, juice boxes, as well as half-eaten and whole apples, bananas, pears, tangerines, and apricots. One class-mate had the misfortune of receiving an airborne piece of lunch meat in his eye. It lodged itself in there pretty well. The poor guy had to be carried out on the shoulders of a comrade because he couldn't see, due to the pain--they had to get out of there quick and it wouldn't do to leave a writhing class-mate making a vain attempt to exit when all he could effectively do was crash into nearby walls.
When the rest of the Jergens Student Union, Local 5 saw the appearance of their fellow strikers--particularly, the one with the lunch meat in his eye--and had received the details of the incident, they grew furious.
Uh-oh. I didn't think that such an attitude was ideal for kids in our situation. I said so. I explained that if we were to retaliate in a similar manner--or if we were to retaliate at all--we would not accomplish the task we had sacrificed our comfort for. We would actually put the entire operation in jeopardy.
I was relieved to see that my words were able to calm down most of them. The kid with the meat in his eye was still pretty pissed, though. Fortunately, he calmed down when we were able to remove the foreign object.
Still, everyone was pretty bummed that we'd all been dumped by some of our former comrades. The next three hours were spent in attempt to get up pumped back up with our cause. It sort of worked. A couple kids cried, though. We did our best to comfort and convince them that we'd win in the end. They seemed all right after that.
When school ended, none of us saw any of the former strikers, but a lot of kids made rude gestures toward us as they walked past our picket line. That was pretty disheartening. We tried not to let it bother us, but we were just kids and it sucked to have peers treat you like an enemy when you were actually on their side.
I spent that night on the phone with several class-mates, attempting to figure out the next step in our plan. The picket line aspect was wearing on me and I felt that it was high time to make some progress. After all, I still had to get Mr. Thomas to treat his students with respect and teach his lessons with more enthusiasm. Now that I had the strike going, how the hell was I supposed to do that?
I called Waldo at one point, but his mom said he was pretty sick. I didn't really believe her but I sure didn't have much of a choice.
I started getting ready for bed after I hung up the phone. I was becoming pretty depressed, to be honest. I was slowly realizing that I didn't have the whole thing planned out as well as I thought I did.
That was when it hit me. I needed Lydia (to help me out with a plan, that is).
She was the most intelligent person I knew and we got along well enough for me to be able to call her on the phone every once in a while. It seemed that now was the time to use that privilege.
I was worried that I'd be unable to talk to her, since it was getting pretty late. Luckily, she answered. I blurted out an apology for the time, but I needed to talk to her about something really important. She said it was okay but was sort of scared with my urgent tone. She demanded to know what was the matter.
It only took me about a minute to explain. I ended my plea with a literal whimper. I told her I was getting pretty worried over the fact that I had the responsibility but not the solution.
Lydia paused for a moment. Then she articulated a miracle.
It was brilliant. It was beautiful. I couldn't stop thanking her for five minutes, but she was modest, as usual, and told me that it'd work and that I'd be better implement it as soon as possible. I told her I would and thanked her again. She said it was no problem and told me good-night and that she'd see me the next day.
Before she could hang up, I said, "Wait," and she said, "What?" and I said "I love you," and then I slammed the receiver down harder than I had ever slammed anything down before. Wow.
I went into my room and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was all sweaty. I was soaked. That was the craziest thing I had done in my entire ten-year-old life. I told myself so.
Of course, going on strike from school was pretty crazy, too. All in all, I figured I was a pretty crazy kid--and that plan that Lydia had made up off the top of her head was probably going to prove it.
As I had been the first morning of the strike, I was pretty nauseous. To my surprise, though, I had slept really well the night before, in contrast to the night before the first day of the strike. My parents were still wary of my endeavor and didn't say much to me as I ate my oatmeal or when I made my way to the bus stop. It was sort of strange, but I didn't let it get to me. I was going to succeed.
As soon as I arrived at the school, I ran up to my fellow fifth-grade picketers and informed them of Lydia's plan (I even gave her credit for it).
At first, many of them were pretty hesitant. They were certain that we'd be expelled if we went through with it. This left me slightly panicked for a second, but I recovered with a reminder to myself that it was now or never. It was now that the strike would succeed or it was never that we would achieve what we wanted.
It took a while, but I was able to convince them that it was only our chance--and it was a fairly good one with this plan. They finally agreed to lend their support.
It was at that point we entered the Jergens Middle School edifice--all fifty of us.
It was weird to see how ballistic those working in the front office went as we all crammed into the tiny space. One of the receptionists let out a sort of yelp and dropped the files she had been carrying. Another snorted coffee through her nose, which must have hurt pretty badly. One of the student aides actually crashed into a filing cabinet, he was so shocked at seeing all of the evil picketers entering the building all at once, and knocked off a couple potted plants, which shattered noisily onto the floor. We didn't let any of that faze us.
"Excuse me," I said to the yelping receptionist, "I'd like to speak with Mr. Thompson if he's not too busy."
The woman raised an eyebrow.
"Er, yes, of course," she said, "he'll be with you in a moment."
She left to see Mr. Thompson, glancing back once or twice, as if to make sure that she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. It was weird.
I thought it funny how quiet the front office was, even though it contained fifty-two normally chattery people. The plan, however, mandated silence. The plan mandated gravity.
Mr. Thompson didn't seem to notice this detail of the plan. His brow was so furrowed that it was probably preventing his brain from recognizing it. I wasn't too surprised.
"You," he said, pointing to me, "come with me." "Yes sir," I replied. His brow unfurrowed for a moment at my response. He looked a little stunned. He quickly regained its composure, however, and we were on our way to his office. I issued a thumbs-up to my fellow fifth-graders and they all smiled back, albeit uneasily.
I had been to his dark, musty office several times throughout the year, but each occasion yielded a different feeling. Of course, there was always fear of some variation--but, fear aside, I was typically greeted with a unique sentiment. I found it pretty difficult to definitively grasp the particular one I was experiencing this time, though, and it wasn't until Mr. Thompson first made eye contact with me that I realized what it was.
I was confident.
The man was glaring at me with his gleaming eyes, and snarling at me with his colorless lips, and I wasn't even close to as scared as I usually was. In fact, I was pretty sure I could convince the bastard that the Jergens Student Union, Local 5 was going to get what it wanted, or there wouldn't be any fifth-graders passing and moving on to the sixth grade that year. That chilling fact ought to sober him up a bit. If he hadn't realized it yet, himself.
Which he did. He even told me so. That took me by surprise, but I didn't quite realize what it implied.
Instead, before he could continue, I went into the rest of the details that Lydia's crazy plan had addressed.
I told him that the fifth-graders (most of them, anyway) were willing to risk our futures in order to have Mr. Thomas--who, I said, with emphasis, was perhaps the most evil person I had ever encountered in all of my ten years (I thoughtfully failed to mention the man whom I felt was the second most evil)--lighten up on his students. We were all quite sick and tired of his short temper.
In addition, we felt his instruction could use a bit more vigor. It was by no accident that nearly the entire fifth-grade was failing his class (with the exception of Lydia, of course), mainly due to conditions resembling narcolepsy (Lydia had told me to say that--I had no idea what the word meant).
The result of non-compliance with our demands that the man be convinced of an attitude adjustment--or, at least some counseling--and purveyor of positive energy? We would, indeed, collectively fail as the fifth-grade and create quite a headache for the administration, not to mention the fifth-grade teachers with twice as many students as they usually had.
It was at that point when Mr. Thompson informed me that Mr. Thomas was resigning the following week. I almost stopped breathing. I was pretty surprised.
Apparently, it had been difficult to return to Jergens Middle this school year because of the recent death of his younger brother--an insight to which I had no knowledge of. Shoot.
The administration had struggled with the change in attitude of Mr. Thomas--which it had been equally exposed to, although Mr. Thompson claimed it personally hurt the faculty more than it did anyone else (I almost winced at that)--and, ironically, the counseling I had suggested had actually been sought by Mr. Thomas. It wasn't working very well with his schedule, though.
"Now," Mr. Thompson snarled, "there's suddenly this ridiculous strike. That's only succeeded in pushing him deeper into trouble."
I suddenly felt slightly embarrassed--which wasn't supposed to happen. After all, this plan may have been crazy--I mean, who would have expected our union to deal directly with the management?--but becoming ashamed of our cause wasn't an aspect I had expected. Or wanted. So, now what? "I am prepared to dismiss this entire, childish power struggle," Mr. Thompson said, leaning forward in his leather chair, clearing his throat, and even going so far as to lessen the gleam in his eye and snarl on his lips, "if you all agree to go back to your classes and forget the incident ever happened."
With that, he folded his hands and leaned back into the seat that was covered with the chemically-treated epidermis of a once-living, once-breathing animal.
The man suddenly looked very smug, as if he had offered me a brand new car for absolutely free or something. I knew I had a pretty important decision to make right then, when I saw the snarl metamorphose into a grin. All of a sudden, I felt nauseous--only, it wasn't an excited sick feeling. It was a sick sick feeling.
"Can I have some time to think it over?" I asked, with perhaps a bit more uneasiness in my tone than I intended to exhibit.
Mr. Thompson shook his head, slowly and meticulously, the grin widening and his nostrils flaring in time with his tapping foot. The man was starting to annoy me.
I hadn't noticed the quiet ticking of the clock above Mr. Thompson's head before, but it sure began to notice me. With each passing second, it seemed to develop a voice that evoked a surreal beckoning plea, which seemed to be directed toward me. I did my best not to look at it, but each time I succumbed and afforded a glance, I swear I saw a face. It was a cartoonish, lumpy face of an old man, staring in anticipation of my decision, and making its typical ticking sound, as if to sound its disapproval of the situation I had put myself in. I tried to shake the strange hallucination out of my head, but I didn't make much progress. It dawned on me that the only way to rid myself of the daunting image was to quickly issue my resolution. So, I did.
"All right, Mr. Thompson," I said, through gritted teeth, "since Mr. Thomas won't be around much longer, I don't see the point of carrying on the strike."
Mr. Thompson's grin increased its breadth, which was pretty hard to believe (and I was even seeing it with my own eyes). He stood up and put his hands behind his back.
"I'm so glad to hear that, son," he smirked. He opened the door for me and gestured toward the hallway, indicating his desire for my immediate departure. I conceded his request and scampered from the cramped office.
Before my eyes had even set on the beautiful sight of fifty fellow fifth-graders in the cramped front office, all with their own eyes on me, I had resolved to keep the details of the conversation I had with Mr. Thompson between the man and myself.
As I announced the results of the meeting between myself, the union leader, and Mr. Thompson, the management, the deafening, long-awaited sound of jubilation burst forth from Jergens Student Union, Local 5. In an instant, kids were jumping all over the place. Most everyone piled through the doors and out into the cold, winter morning air. A few stayed behind to congratulate me before following suit.
It was strange. I was glad that I had been able to tell my class-mates what they needed to hear. At the same time, though, I was pretty bummed. I mean, the plan didn't go the way it should have. In fact, the whole union-thing didn't work out the way it should have.
"Congratulations," I heard a voice say. I turned around and saw to whom the voice belonged to. It was Lydia.
"Thanks, I guess," I replied.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I don't know. It's just all so weird," I said. I explained how I didn't feel as if we had really succeeded in accomplishing what we set out to do, not the way I had envisioned it, at least.
"I know what you mean," she said and smiled, her bespectacled eyes twinkling in the bright, fluorescent light of the front office at Jergens Middle School, "but sometimes things just don't work out the way you think they will. Sometimes that's actually best, though. That's just life. It's not always fair, but it all seems to work out in the end."
She smiled again and walked up close to me. I wasn't sure what she was doing until she had done it. I realized, as she removed her lips from mine, what exactly it was. Gosh. I must have turned pretty red.
Lydia then said that she had to go, but we'd talk later. I replied with a raspy, weak "Okay, cool." She said good-bye and walked away.
I stood there, stunned for a minute. When I had regained the feeling in my body, I turned my focus to the front of the school, where I could see, through the window, my class-mates jumping around, dancing, and chanting the familiar chants. Some of them gave each other hugs. Almost everyone continually gave each other high-fives. It was a pretty beautiful sight.
As I look back on that whole thing, I guess I really grew up in the fifth grade.
Sometime in February, I think.
