Sean and Sadie like they’re ten years older.
Alistair finally comes running out. “Wait, what? We won?”
“We won,” I say. That’s Alistair for you. It takes him a little longer to catch up, but when he does, you’d better hold on tight.
He grabs me and we do a double Truffle Shuffle, then throw our arms around each other and spin.
Then we all change places. Sadie and Mom with Dad in the middle. Jaesang, Catalina, and me. Alistair and Sean.
We change places again. This time I end up in Sadie’s arms. We hug and spin and hug and spin, and neither one of us wants to let go.
“Thank you, Sadie. Thank you, Sadie. Thank you, Sadie,” I say.
I open my eyes and see Livingston Gulch hovering nearby, like a gentleman about to ask for the next dance.
He raises his hand. Sadie calls on him. “Yes, Mr. Gulch?”
“If you ever need a job,” he says, handing her his business card. And he walks off.
Dad comes up, and now he hugs Sadie.
“Somewhere in heaven,” he says, “there’s a proud mom.”
Sadie looks over his shoulder at Mom.
“Here too,” she says.
Soon we’re all tangled up in one last hug.
You’ve heard of a poker face? You wear one when you play cards, like a mask, so the other players can’t tell if you’re bluffing.
Sadie and I learned the poker face from our dad, who learned it from his dad, who learned it from his. So it’s kind of a Warren family tradition that whether you’re holding a full house, a lousy pair of threes, or a secret, you keep it hidden behind your poker face.
Right now we’re holding a royal flush.
Mr. Kalman is sitting in his wheelchair, eating a nice room service lunch in the Homework Suite, when we come to tell him the news. As soon as we step in, he pushes aside his sandwich and untucks the napkin from his shirt.
“I told the hotel staff no calls, no talk. I wanted to hear it straight from you.”
We sit on the little settee, Sadie on one side and me on the other.
Sadie sighs and shakes her head. “It was seven to two.”
“Who were the two?”
“Renfro and Rauch.”
“Not Williams?”
“Williams voted with the majority.”
“To . . . ?”
“To overturn the lower courts and declare homework unconstitutional!”
Mr. Kalman pumps the air with his fist. Sadie throws her arms around him and starts crying joyful tears.
Hey, that’s an oxymoron!
But there ought to be a different word for it. The “moron” part makes it sound dumb. And there’s nothing dumb about laughing and crying at the same time. She’s just been holding back the tears until there was some laughter to balance them out.
“Seven to two!” Mr. Kalman says. “And Williams on our side!”
He shakes his head, smiling. That’s a paradox—the yes and no of it, the I can’t believe it but I know it’s true.
And then, because he can’t contain his joy, the old man leaps out of the wheelchair, rips off his sling and tosses it into the air, and starts swinging me around and around, dancing and jumping and pumping his arm like, well, like someone who didn’t have a fall two days ago.
Mr. Kalman’s poker face is even better than ours.
This is one time I’m a step ahead of my big sister. Because while Sadie has this crinkly look on her face, I’m shaking my head and smiling. Clever Mr. Kalman . . . he tricked us.
Pretty soon Sadie’s crinkles turn to a frown, the frown to fire. Her eyes go wide and her upper lip starts to sweat.
Anger sweat, volcano style.
“I’m going to kill you!”
She takes a step toward Mr. Kalman like she’s about to take a swing. But he puts his hand on her arm and looks her straight in the eye.
“You were their last, best hope,” he says.
No oxymoron now. This time she’s all tears.
Epilogue
Before Warren v. Board of Education, a typical Sunday afternoon in the life of a kid would go something like this: homework. More homework. One-eighth of one-quarter of one game of NFL football on TV. Back to homework. Dinner but not much appetite because of a swirly feeling in the stomach from dread of more homework. More homework. Bath. Brush teeth. Bed. Anxiety dream that you forgot to do your homework.
After Warren v. Board of Education, a typical Sunday afternoon goes like this: swirly feeling in your stomach, only now it’s from soaring high on a swing set at the park.
There’s probably a soccer practice going on at the same park. The whole team shows up, including Sean. He’s a little out of shape, but not for long.
Nearby, under a tree, Catalina is jumping rope and practicing for the pi contest: “3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277.”
Those eighth-grade boys don’t have a prayer.
Across town, in a gym, Alistair is sweating so much that all his old reminders are being washed away. After our trip to Washington, he decided that, like the Chief, he wants to be a wrestling champ. He’s not giving up on MasterChef, though. “If all else fails,” he told me, “I can fall back on my red velvets.”
At Staples Center, Jaesang and his grandfather are cheering for the Lakers—in Korean.
In the teen zone, Sadie and Sean are enjoying their constitutional right to privacy. They’re talking. Or kissing. Or maybe both.
And in the big oak tree in our backyard, I’m building a treehouse with my dad.
On the weekends, I go over to Mr. Kalman’s house, where we answer the flood of mail we’ve been getting since the Supreme Court ruled.
One kid from North Dakota writes,
DEAR MR. KALMAN,
TODAY DAD AND I WENT HUNTING, AND I GOT MY VERY FIRST DEER. LAST SEASON I WASN’T ALLOWED TO GO.
