Don’t have a dog? Beg for one every day. And—this is hard, but it works—practice picking up other people’s dogs’ poo. Do this in front of your parents. Let them see how serious you are about pet chores.
When it comes to getting past your big sister’s door, you have to think outside the house. First, I make a sign that says GOSS V. LOPEZ? The period under the question mark is a frowny face to show how desperate I am. I go outside and, using double-sided tape, attach the sign to Dad’s telescoping pole (he uses it to change really high light bulbs). I hoist it to Sadie’s window and thud it against the glass.
Sadie pulls down her roller shade.
She finds another sign taped to her bathroom window.
While she’s in there, I race back inside and slip one more sign under her door. Like Hogwarts owls, my signs keep coming. The message is clear: I won’t leave you alone until you explain Goss v. Lopez.
Which she finally does. Through the closed door.
She starts by reading aloud. “The State is constrained to recognize a student’s legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause and which may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause.”
“Translation?”
Her door opens. “It means you have the right to an education just the same as if it were a piece of land you owned. And they can’t take it away from you without giving you a fair hearing. A chance to tell your side.”
She hands me back the printout of the case. “Mr. Kalman’s right. You should march in there tomorrow and talk to the principal.”
I’m fine talking to kids my age. I’m even fine standing on a desk and holding up a sign. But when it comes to talking, actually talking, to authority figures—the thought gives me an anxiety attack.
“The principal scares me.”
“Someone else can talk for you. Mom always takes your side.”
“Not about homework.”
“Ask Dad, then.”
“Mister Softy?”
And then, in a quiet voice, I say, “You could talk to the principal for me.”
“I’m not your guardian, Sam.”
“But you’re my sister. And captain of the debate team. And you know all those big words.”
I give her the sweetest look a little brother ever gave.
5
The Principal Calls Me a Moron
Next morning at breakfast, Mom knows something’s up. It’s way past eight, when Sadie and Dad should’ve left the house.
“What are you all doing still home?” she says.
“Going to the job site late today,” Dad says.
“I offered to walk Sam to school,” Sadie says.
“Sam’s not going to school. He’s suspended.”
“Illegally,” Sadie says. “They forgot to give him a hearing.”
“Who put that idea into your head?”
“Sam.”
“And who put it into yours?”
“Mr. Kalman.”
Mom marches across the street without looking both ways. I catch only part of what she tells the oldest living man in our neighborhood, but it isn’t pretty. Something about how she’d appreciate it if he wouldn’t interfere with how she’s raising her kids.
“The boy’s entitled to a hearing,” Mr. Kalman says.
And she says, “He needs to take responsibility for what he’s done.”
And he says, “Well, there he goes taking responsibility. He’s on his way to school.”
Coming to school when you’re supposed to be suspended is a bit like showing up at your own funeral. Basketballs stop dribbling. Arm wrestling hands let go. Girl chat drops to a whisper as heads turn my way.
Catalina waves. Jaesang gives me a thumbs-up. Alistair flips up his palms. They’re so full of notes, they look like bathroom stalls. He shrugs as if to ask, What gives? I shrug back because I’m not sure if anything’s going to.
Sadie tells Miss Lochman, the principal’s assistant, that we’ve come to demand a hearing. If it had been up to me, I would have said request a hearing, or beg for a hearing, or see if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for Mr. Hill, out of the kindness of his heart, to grant us a hearing. But like I said, I’m no good at talking to authority figures.
Mr. Hill keeps us waiting until after the second bell rings. I can’t tell if he’s really got important Principal Stuff to do, or if by making us wait he thinks we’ll go away. It gives Mom and Dad a chance to park and come inside, so that when he finally does open his door, we all go in together.
Miss Lochman comes in too. With a notebook and a pen.
Mr. Hill starts out all official. “For the record, Sam’s parents are here. My assistant, Miss Lochman, is here. Sam is here.”
He peers at Sadie in her black jeans, gray T-shirt, leather jacket, and purple-dyed hair. She looks like a truant officer’s worst nightmare. Part punk rocker, part vampire groupie, all bad girl.
You shouldn’t judge people by the way they look, though. Sadie hates vampire fiction.
“And you are?” Mr. Hill says.
“His advocate slash sister.”
Mr. Hill takes a cool look at Sadie. “And it’s your opinion, as your brother’s advocate, that I don’t have the right to suspend him?”
“Not without informing him of the charges and letting him respond.”
She drops the printout on his desk. Thwack!
“Goss v. Lopez,1975. The US Supreme Court held that a student’s right to property—in this case, his education—can’t be denied without due process.”
I’m not trading her, either.
“Sam,” Mr. Hill says, “do you know why you were suspended?”
“I didn’t want to do my homework?”
“You stood on your desk and urged your classmates to do the same. You were defiant of authority. Disruptive of class.”
“An act of civil disobedience,” Sadie says.
“Civil disobedience in a classroom is an oxymoron. There is nothing civil about a disobedient boy.”
Okay, did the principal just call me a moron? Now I feel really dumb.
“I was only trying to tell Mr. Powell how I feel,” I say.
“And how is that?”
I told you, I’m no good at
