Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
My Homework Wakes the Neighborhood
I Stand on a Desk
Thinking It Through
How to Annoy a Big Sister
The Principal Calls Me a Moron
The Mailbox Wars
We Build a Team
We Raise a Small Fortune
We Go to Court
Going Viral
We Build Our Case
Sadie versus Mom
Back to Court
A New Face on the Sign
Sam Francisco
Best Sundae Ever
Coffee and Candlelight
One of Us Flies First Class
The March
The Homework Suite
Heaven Help Us
Warren v. Board of Education
What Happened to Mr. Kalman
The Supreme Court Rules
Epilogue
Glossary of Legal Terms
Appendix of Supreme Court Cases Mentioned in This Book
Gratitude
Sample Chapter from ARMSTRONG AND CHARLIE
Buy the Book
Middle Grade Mania!
About the Author
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Copyright © 2018 by Steven B. Frank
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhco.com
Map of the National Mall and Memorial Parks on pp. 160–61 courtesy of the National Parks Service.
Cover illustration © 2018 by Andy Smith
Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Frank, Steven, 1963–author.
Title: Class action / by Steven B. Frank.
Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2018] | Summary: With the help of his older sister, his three best friends, and his elderly neighbor, sixth grader Sam Warren brings a class action suit against the Los Angeles School Board, arguing that homework is unconstitutional, and his case goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017014151 | ISBN 9781328799203
Subjects: | CYAC: Legal stories. | Homework—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F746 Cl 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014151
eISBN 978-1-328-47691-3
v2.0318
FOR MY STUDENTS, WHOSE HOMES I MAY HAVE UNLAWFULLY ENTERED OVER THE YEARS.
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?
—Cat Stevens
1
My Homework Wakes the Neighborhood
“Cookies first.”
“Homework first.”
“Need my cookies upfront, Mom. Otherwise I can’t concentrate.”
“Okay, one cookie now. Then homework. Then one more cookie.”
“Two cookies now. Then homework. Then three more cookies.”
“Too many cookies.”
“Too much homework.”
This is how it usually goes between Mom and me. But today I’m bargaining extra-hard. Dad got off work early and is still in his construction clothes.
“Treehouse?” he says, holding up the plans we drew last summer.
“Homework,” I say.
Now while I’m sitting down to twenty-five math problems, an endangered species report, and a language arts packet—action verbs versus linking, can you feel the joy?—he’s taping our plans back on the fridge. I get to look at them every time I reach for a glass of milk to go with my cookies.
After dinner I help clean up, take a shower, and brush my teeth. I study the week’s spelling words, alphabetize my sources for the bibliography, finish writing chapter notes for World History, read twenty pages of Black Ships Before Troy, and go over the mistakes on my math quiz. That, I’m happy to say, takes only fifteen minutes. Thanks to my friend Catalina, I got most of them right.
Finally, I sit down at the piano, the one place besides our backyard I want to be. I’m working on a Herbie Hancock song called “Cantaloupe Island.” A weird thing happens to me when I play the piano. I’m not in our living room anymore but in my Sound Forest far away. The ground is soft and spongy and full of Dr. Seuss trees, their leaves changing color to the music. Wild birds keep beat on the branches. For Herbie Hancock, the trees turn Popsicle orange, the birds sky blue.
“Sam.” Mom’s voice breaks in like it’s being squeezed through a long tube. “Didn’t you have a worksheet on decimals?”
“Already did that,” I say, fingers flying across the keys.
She holds up the worksheet in front of my song sheet. She flips it over.
There was another side.
My head falls forward and thuds against G, F, C, and a bunch of sharps.
In the middle of the night, I wake up with an anxiety attack. It feels like someone’s pounding a drum kit inside my chest. I reach for my phone and tap the meditation app that Bernice recommended.
Bernice is my mom’s parenting teacher. Every other month, a group of moms and a few dads go to her house to learn how to be better parents. I don’t know what they talk about, but the next day these annoying quotes pop out at us from Mom’s mouth. Things like, You can’t prepare the path for the child; you have to prepare the child for the path. Or, Empty stomach, empty head. Or, Follow through and you won’t have to follow up.
Advice pills, we call them, when Mom’s out of range.
“You may be feeling stress from a real deadline,” the Guided Meditation Lady says to me in her soft, breathy voice, “or it may be brought on by a self-made pressure.”
“It’s a real deadline.”
“Be mindful of where in your body you’re feeling tense.”
“Well, I’ve got sweaty palms, for one. And my stomach feels like I swallowed a shoe.”
“Whatever you feel is a natural response to the stress of life. Just let yourself feel those feelings, and they’ll melt away.”
Easy for her to say. She hasn’t seen my homework planner.
I’m not allowed in my parents’ room after ten unless it’s an emergency, a.k.a. unexpected situation that demands immediate action. The dictionary just gave me permission to barge in.
Mom is on her back sound asleep, with her head tilted toward the door. Moms always sleep on the side closest to the door. They’re like firemen next to the pole. When a kid cries out in the middle of the night, who comes running?
Not dads. They’ll sleep through anything. Even an emergency.
I hover over Mom like a zombie, watching her breathe. She doesn’t even have to crack a lid to know I’m there.
“Sam,” she whispers, “what’s the matter?”
“Bibliography.”
“What about it?”
“Forgot.”
“You can do it for Wednesday.”
“He’ll take off points.”
She sighs. “A consequence
