The BSC Legacy - Book 3: When Numbers Really Count
By: CNJ
PG-13
7: Operation Today's Good Youth
Abby:
It was Caitlin Giotti who approached me the following Thursday and suggested that a bunch of us gather at her house on Friday night to devise a strategy for organizing our letter campaign.
"I've got to hand it to you, Abby," she told me. "You were great. You and your friends got almost everyone talking."
I told her that I'd invite the BSC and talk to the kids who seemed interested in this movement.
Friday night, it was the BSC and about eighty or so kids, mostly juniors, but a smattering of sophomores and seniors too.
Mona Vaughn was there also, standing near Mary Anne and Dawn and talking. Anna and I waved at them and joined.
Caitlin lives near Kristy and me, just around the corner and three blocks over from McLelland Court. Her house is pretty big, so there was plenty of room. I remembered freshman year when she threw that huge Christmas-Hanukkah bash and there had been close to two hundred kids there.
"Isn't it great that so many kids turned out?" Claudia asked, grabbing some chocolate cookies.
"It's wonderful," Mary Anne whispered.
"I didn't think that many kids were behind us on this one," Kristy put in.
After we'd been eating and having sodas for a while, Caitlin leaped onto the coffee table and called for attention.
"All riiight, is everyone here serious about writing to several different newspapers here?" she asked.
"YEEAAAAH!" Everyone nodded.
"Hey..." Susan Perry stood. "What about..." she looked around as if making sure of something, then went on. "We'd better not let the In crowd get wind of this, you know the snobby kids who've been running things."
"They might try to sabotage us," Stacey added. She and I exchanged worried looks.
"We need to devise some kind of plan, maybe using signals," Kristy suggested.
"What we could do..." I stood up too and took a swig of soda. Everyone became quiet again and my heart started to pound. "Is pretend to be passing notes when they're letters. Act casual, don't show excitement and try not to get nervous. We need to make a list of the kids who'll collect them and mail them out. Kids we can trust."
"How about the Baby-Sitters?" Kim Baxter asked. "Since you all are spearheading this movement."
"Good idea," Stacey told her.
"Let's write down all of your names, since not everyone knows you by name," Caitlin suggested, stepping off the table and grabbing up a pen and paper.
I thought that was another good idea, in light of the fact that there were so many new kids at SHS this year.
"The next task is getting the kids from the other schools," Mona put in once Caitlin had dashed off to make copies on her mom's computer.
A few minutes later, Caitlin came back and handed out the lists with our homerooms on them so kids would know where to find us early in the day.
"And I have a suggestion for that," Mona went on. "We'll have to get permission from the mall people, but once we do, we could go over to Aster and Dusker's and hand out flyers."
"What we should do once we get these letters written is to mail them in different mailboxes," Claudia suggested. "We're going to have to check them to make sure no one writes anything obscene or stupid."
"And we need to make sure they're legible," Dawn added. We were off and talking on, exchanging ideas, bouncing around suggestions.
"Where're the letters going to be looked over?" Cindy Zimmerman asked. "I don't think it's a good idea to look over them right in the school cafeteria where the In clique could see us and try to ruin this."
"What about my house, where we have our BSC meetings?" Claudia suggested.
"Good idea..." "Sounds safe..." Kids nodded.
"You have your meetings in the late afternoons, right?" Caitlin asked.
"From five-thirty to six," Mary Anne told her. "You can call us there."
"I'm going to gather as many kids as I can and call you when we get more letters, okay?"
"Sounds good," Kristy nodded.
"Need a sitter?" I quipped. "Need to be all that you can be and join Operation Today's Good Youth? Call us today at this number!" Everyone laughed.
"Heeeey, what a good name for this campaign!" Diana Zwerdling shouted. Operation Today's Good Youth!"
"Hey, it is," Kristy put in. I nodded. It did sound like a good name.
"We could call it OTGY for short," I told everyone.
"OTGY has begun!" The BSC crowed at the same time and most kids grabbed sodas and clunked cans, bottles, and glasses together.
"To Operation Today's Good Youth..." kids around the room said.
I looked around, feeling good about this whole OTGY and hoped we really could make our voices heard. Now, if it really did result in a change in the way today's youth are depicted, we'll REALLY have accomplished something big.