Chapter 6
Brittany paced back and forth in a fury, her hands clenched into fists and her cheeks puffed out, as she recited the litany of Kevin's crimes to the rest of the cheerleaders in the locker room.
"And sometimes," she fumed, "he forgets to put on deodorant! He's a football player, so he gets all sweaty and stuff, too!"
"Ew!" exclaimed the rest of the cheerleaders, trained to respond on cue to their queen's prompts.
"You deserve better than him, Britt," Angie said. "I can't believe he cheated on you. Again."
"Huh?" Brittany stopped pacing and turned to stare at Angie, her big blue eyes momentarily baffled. Then the realization set in, and she bared her teeth. "Oh yeah, he did! Ooh! No one better sign that stupid petition or whatever."
"We won't!" they promised.
Mack walked into the locker room a bit after the rest of the team, having been delayed by a strategy conference with Coach Gibson ("Run faster, hit harder", Gibson had said, like always). To his surprise, Kevin and the rest of the guys were huddled around a stack of papers.
"But if we all eat in the football field, won't that leave a big mess?" Jamie asked.
"Dude, the birds will probably eat all that junk," Jeffy countered.
"Yeah, it'll be great! Being on the field will let people know why they go to school, and stuff," Kevin said.
Mack sighed. His whole body begged for rest after that practice. Plus, he'd stayed up a little too late on Josh's chatroom last night and was still sleepy from that.
"What are you guys going on about?" he asked, stepping up to the rest.
"You know how Li made everyone eat in the cafeteria?" Kevin said. "Now, we're thinking what if everyone ate on the football field, instead? That'd be pretty cool, huh, Mack Daddy?"
"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Mack said, forgetting to censor himself. He took one of the petition papers and examined it.
The prompt at the top read: "Are you tried of being crammed into the cafeteria for lunch? So are we! Sign this petition to let Principal Li know that we want to spend lunch where we please, like we used to."
Except it had been scribbled over with red ink, with new text proclaiming:
"Petishun for everyone to spend lunch on the football field! Awesome!"
And beneath it were the signatures of everyone on the football team sans Mack and Jamie.
"You gonna sign it, bro?" Kevin asked.
"Do you have any petition papers that you didn't deface?" Mack asked.
"Uh… oh yeah, here's one," Kevin said, picking up one such paper, its original text unmarred. "But why do you want that?"
Mack grabbed it out of his hand and took it over to his locker.
"To sign it."
It was at the edge of campus that they gathered, where the school looked forlornly out onto the town's endless strip malls and suburban tracts. They, the unwanted children of greed and hypocrisy, at last taking a stand.
"All right, so listen up, this is important," Bob said, addressing the gathered punks and goths and other outcasts. "Each day, we give up more and more autonomy to the powers that be. Li forcing us to all eat in the cafeteria is the latest step—but it won't be the last. Unless we stand up and sign these petitions!"
Bob thrust the papers into the air.
"Enough of these signatures, and Li will have no choice but to acknowledge our demands. I hope all you sign these—but, of course, whether or not you sign them is entirely up to you. I respect your right to autonomy. If you think that signing is against your best interests, then please speak up. I value all voices."
"Petitions suck!" Spike jeered, from the front row. He took a swig from the beer can he'd smuggled in.
"Yeah!" Angel chimed in. "Petitions aren't punk!"
"I disagree!" Bob shouted. "They're punk as fuck, because they give people a means of—"
But the jeers had already started. Punks jostled each other, excited by the thought of an after-school rumble.
"You called us in for this?" Scarlett sneered.
"It's an opportunity to make the powers that be listen to us!" Bob protested.
Scarlett and the rest of her black-clad entourage turned around and walked away as chaos spread through the assembled punks. Bob swallowed his disappointment and signed the petition, his signature the only one from his clique.
No one ever said that it'd be easy to establish a non-coercive democratic society that respected individual rights while also maintaining communal orientation. But it had to start somewhere.
Rebecca swelled with joy as she met with her brethren by the flagpole. Even in an environment as relentlessly secular as Lawndale High, the faithful thrived.
She held out her arms as if to embrace her fellows. "Thank you all for coming here! Lunch has been kind of crazy the last few days what with all of us being packed together in the cafeteria. Heh, I feel like a sardine, sometimes.
"Anyway, I prayed on it, and I think people will be more receptive to the Good News if, well, they had a little more good news in their lives. There's been a petition going around to reverse the cafeteria rule, and I was thinking it might be good if we all signed it."
The people around her nodded and murmured assent. Nikki, still in her cheerleader uniform, stepped forward.
"I think that's a really good idea, Rebecca," she said. "But there's also a chance to bring more people to the Lord that I don't think we should pass up."
Rebecca smiled even wider at the thought. "Oh, that sounds awesome!"
"It's Priscilla and, uh, that nerdy kid who started this petition, right?"
"Victor."
"Right! Priscilla's cut herself off from fellowship," Nikki said, "and I think Victor's completely unchurched. He's not with you guys, is he, Nancy?" she asked, putting a mocking emphasis on the "you".
Nancy, who'd tightened her white sweater around her small frame to ward off the cold, shook her head. "No, he's not Catholic," she said, giving Nikki a hard look.
Rebecca gritted her teeth behind her smile. She thought they'd mostly buried that Catholic versus Protestant hatchet in the Peace of Mrs. West's Classroom, which had ended the Thirty Days' Argument last year.
Nikki crossed her arms and smirked. "I didn't think so. I say we should sign but only in exchange for Priscilla and Victor joining us in fellowship."
Rebecca's smile faded, slightly. "That's a really good point, Nikki. But I don't want to push them—"
"It's just making a deal, Rebecca," Nikki said, an edge creeping into her voice. "All I want to do is save them from hellfire. If anything, we're doing them a favor."
More murmuring, people nodding along.
"I'm with Nikki," Ken said.
"Me too," said some others.
And who was Rebecca to disagree?
[19:13:44] ChatMasterJ hey guys. posting this to let everyone know there's a petition to let us eat wherever we want again. sign it so lunch doesn't suck anymore
[19:13:48] DarkQueenHecuba lunch always sucks lol
[19:13:53] ChatMasterJ lol
[19:13:58] ChatMasterJ sign it so lunch only moderately sucks
[19:14:02] TheHead007 AGREED
[19:14:09] ChatMasterJ agreed that it sucks or that youll sign? or both?
[19:14:14] TheHead007 DUNNO LOL
[19:14:20] SurakOfLawndale Oh, right. Victor brought the petition to us the other day. I think there's merit in the concept, but he left before we could sign. Regrettably, there was some… interference.
[19:14:28] DarkQueenHecuba bob was trying to get us to sign today. we got bored and left lol
[19:14:35] LordMilk SurakOfLawndale: What you call "interference" was a reasonable precaution against a noted Toyhammer 40K fan
[19:14:47] SurakOfLawndale I don't think it's reasonable to dislike someone solely on the basis of their hobby preference. I don't detest you on the basis of you enjoying Gundam Wing, for instance, even though I don't personally care for the franchise.
[19:14:59] DarkQueenHecuba LordMilk: go to hell loser
[19:15:10] TheHead007 LOL
[19:15:15] LordMilk DarkQueenHecuba: Ah, I was not aware that you also indulged in Toyhammer.
[19:15:19] LordMilk SurakOfLawndale: Gundam is objectively superior to Toyhammer 40K as an examination of warfare on an astrogeographic scale!
[19:15:27] TheHead007 THE HEAD ALL ANIME LOL
[19:15:29] TheHead007 THE HEAD = l77t
[19:15:30] SurakOfLawndale LordMilk: I don't think "astrogeographic" is a word.
[19:15:33] LordMilk It's a fine self-coined neologism that follows English construction conventions!
[19:15:40] ChatMasterJ so y'all gonna sign it? kinda sick of being stuck in the cafeteria…
[19:15:43] * TrapezoidGlasses has joined
[19:15:48] DarkQueenHecuba TheHead007: the head sux. anime's great. watch evangelion and stop being a loser
[19:15:52] TrapezoidGlasses gross, are we talking about evangelion AGAIN?
[19:15:58] ChatMasterJ we are talking about that petition. think we should all sign it
[19:16:01] TrapezoidGlasses oh yeah, rebecca was going on about the petition
[19:16:09] TrapezoidGlasses just tired of coming on here and seeing everyone talk about that anime. it creeps me out
[19:16:13] TheHead007 THE HEAD NGE
[19:16:20] SurakOfLawndale I think that NGE is a good anime, albeit a flawed one.
[19:16:27] DarkQueenHecuba TrapezoidGlasses: you say that cuz you suck
[19:16:33] LordMilk NGE is a cavalcade of angst and teenage melodrama. Gundam is by far the superior 'mecha anime.
[19:16:38] SurakOfLawndale Gundam's not exactly sparing when it comes to angst…
[19:16:40] TrapezoidGlasses go back to hot topic u freak!
[19:16:48] DarkQueenHecuba go back to church u loser!
[19:16:50] *TrapezoidGlasses has quit
[19:16:59] ChatMasterJ DarkQueenHecuba: jeez, did you have to go do that?
[19:17:12] LordMilk She's an NGE fan. What did you expect?
[19:17:15] TheHead007 FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
[19:17:22] DarkQueenHecuba snobby asshats!
[19:17:23] *DarkQueenHecuba has quit
[19:17:28] LordMilk I have better things to do than deal with the thin-skinned cretins who see merit in self-indulgent melodramas like NGE. Or like Toyhammer 40k.
[19:17:29] * LordMilk has quit
[19:17:33] TheHead007 THIS PLACE SUX
[19:17:34] * TheHead007 has quit
[19:17:36] ChatMasterJ wait guys, i want to talk about the petition
[19:17:40] SurakOfLawndale Looks like almost everyone's left. If I'm able to get to school early enough tomorrow, I'll sign it then.
[19:17:41] * SurakOfLawndale has quit
Josh closed his eyes and massaged them through the lids.
That had actually gone better than he'd expected.