“Yeah, well, count your blessings,” said Paul feelingly. “I’m her new strategy consultant. She’s having this big confidence crisis, and every day in chemistry I get to hear about it. She’s modelling for me, saying, ‘Do you think this’ll get his attention?’ Shel, if this keeps up, I’m going to be the first person in history ever to die of someone else’s broken heart!”
Nor did Paul’s high blood pressure have a chance to subside outside of school hours. Before he knew it, the weekend was upon him and his father had scheduled his first driving lesson.
They started out bright and early Saturday with Mr. Abrams behind the wheel and Paul watching attentively. This was demonstration time, after which the drivers would switch. Mr. Abrams soon found out that demonstrations were difficult in New York City, especially if they were executed slowly and carefully for teaching purposes. His left turn was marred when two taxis sped past him through the yellow light; his right turn lost its finesse when two men wheeled an eleven-foot clothing rack out in front of the car. The freeway lesson landed them in a traffic jam where the maximum speed attained was eight miles per hour. And parking was left out altogether because they could not find a spot. Mr. Abrams was becoming visibly upset. His commentary was much more colourful than was his habit, and he categorized all other drivers as “idiots,” “maniacs” and “grannies.” Finally, they found a street that Mr. Abrams deemed suitable, and Paul took over the wheel.
Never before had Paul heard so many car horns honk at once. Never before had he seen such a blur of yellow as taxis passed him on all sides. And never before had he seen his father so serene.
“Don’t worry about him, son. He’s just an idiot. You’re doing fine. Just concentrate on what you’re doing. Remember your lane. That’s it. Watch that maniac. Good. Don’t worry. If he had time to honk, he had time to get out of the way. Don’t worry.”
Paul drove for the better part of an hour. Then they switched again, and Mr. Abrams scratched the car.
“What a stupid place to put a mailbox!” he seethed, his serenity gone. “It’s practically in the middle of the road! You’d think the government would have better things to do than to create hazards for ordinary citizens!”
It was Paul’s turn to be serene. “Don’t worry, Dad.” Nothing could spoil his exhilaration. He had operated a motor vehicle in New York City, and he was still alive. Even Steve could make no greater claim.
12
New York’s garbage strike raged on. A mountain of refuse sprouted up in front of Paul’s building, the accumulated cast-offs of forty storeys of people. Pedestrian traffic, cramped at best, was now even more difficult as people had to thread their way among walls of overstuffed bags. True to Flash Flood’s prediction, the weather stayed unseasonably warm, and a smell hung in the air which Sheldon took to calling “the funk of forty thousand years.”
Don’t Care High was relatively calm, which Paul interpreted as good. But Sheldon was becoming restless.
“I’m telling you, Ambition, no good can come of this,” he declared one morning before homeroom. “There’s absolutely nothing happening. These people need a cause, or pretty soon the whole ‘don’t care’ thing will be back again. We can’t let this go on too long. We’re playing with fire here.”
“We’re not playing with fire,” Paul explained patiently. “You see, this is called peace. It’s that funny thing that fills in the holes between catastrophes. I like it.”
Sheldon shook his head vehemently. “Too much of this and the whole school will be out to lunch again. It’s time to get everybody all riled up.”
Paul groaned. “About what?”
Sheldon shook his head. “It’s so obvious — Mike is our true leader. He’s led us through the science fair. He’s led us through the basketball game. But he’s still not reinstated as student body president. Don’t you see? We’ve been so happy with our achievements that we’ve overlooked the real issue. There is a great wrong that we still haven’t righted.”
“Shel, you’re getting that look on your face again,” said Paul unhappily.
Sheldon ignored him. “Yes! We were off the track for a while, but now it’s time to get Mike back into office. We settled things on the outside; now we’re going to settle them on the inside. We owe it to Mike.”
“We don’t owe Mike anything except a lot of peace and quiet! This has nothing to do with Mike! You’re just looking to stir things up! So whatever you’re planning, forget it!”
May I have your attention, please. There is only one announcement. The staff is once again accepting nominations for the office of student body president. Isn’t it odd how this seems to happen so often? That’s all. Have a good day.
In the groundswell of confusion, Paul Abrams leaped to his feet, his face flaming. “What?”
Mr. Morrison looked uncomfortable. “Well, you see —”
“They’re trying to replace Mike!” cried Paul.
As those words sunk in, a murmur of hostility ran around the room.
“But they can’t do that!”
“That’s not possible!”
Wayne-o burst in the door. “Hold it! Hold everything! Something weird’s going on! Mr. Morrison, what’s all this about a new president?”
“Well, Wayne, it’s like this —”
“How can we let this happen after all Mike did for us?” shouted Paul, as Sheldon sat passively by, marvelling at how his planned rekindling of interest had started so effortlessly. “We’ve been so happy with our victories that we’ve forgotten Mike’s still out of office!”
“Not for long!” shouted Dan Wilburforce.
“Uh, kids,” said Mr. Morrison, “could I just say something —”
“We want Mike back!” screamed a LaPaz, possibly Rose.
“Just a minute, everybody,” said Mr. Morrison, wishing he could find a way to join the protest without having Gamble murder him. “I sympathize with your problems. I was there at the science fair and the basketball game, so I know exactly how you feel about Mike. But just remember one thing: The administration of this school has just had to give money for damages to the Midtown Community Center and Laguna High, so everyone in the office is in a very bad mood concerning Mike Otis. I believe you should be able to voice your opinions, but I’m not in charge. Be very, very careful. I don’t want to see any of you suspended or expelled.”
After homeroom, it became apparent that the discontent was general. Students were once again upset that Mike was out of office. Paul, who had lashed out at Sheldon not a half-hour earlier for precisely the same thoughts, was thinking revolution. Rebellious voices rang in the halls.
Now Sheldon was preaching moderation. “Morrison’s right. Gamble must be ready to hang anybody who steps out of line on Mike’s behalf. We’re going to have to stay within the rules.”
“How are we going to do that?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know,” said Sheldon. “We have to figure out some way to remind all the teachers that we still support Mike, but we can’t get too pushy or Gamble will be all over us like a blanket. We can’t risk a poster campaign — not after the last one. We have to stay completely within the rules and, at the same time, let the staff know that when they take a breath in this school, they’re breathing Otis air.” The two entered English class.
As they took their seats, Paul pondered the problem at hand: how to remind the teachers that the issue was still alive. He watched as Miss Vlorque entered the room, shuffled some papers and looked as though she were about to begin the lesson. And suddenly the answer seemed so simple.
He leaped to his feet and announced, “Excuse me, Miss Vlorque. Before we start, I’d like to say something on behalf of the class. We want you to know that we all support Mike Otis, and we think that it’s terribly unjust that he isn’t student body president right now.”
Sheldon began to clap, not madly, but steadily, and the class joined in. There was no hooting or hollering, just an earnest round of polite applause indicating approva
l of Paul’s words. When the sedate ovation ended, Paul said, “Thank you for listening,” and sat back down.
A confused Miss Vlorque glanced at Paul strangely and then began her lesson.
“Ambition, you may not be a genius like me,” Sheldon said once the class was dismissed, “but every now and then you have a way of cutting right to the heart of the matter. That little ceremony was perfect. Perfect! What do you want to bet it catches on?”
“I think it could catch on with a little help,” agreed Paul with a grin.
“Good,” said Sheldon. “I’ll give it a whirl in my next class, and you try again. After a couple of weeks of this, the teachers will be begging Mike to return to office just to shut us up. And the beautiful thing is it’s all so polite!”
Paul did it again in second period, with similar results. A nice short speech, peaceful and restrained applause, and a thoroughly bewildered Mr. Schmidt.
The technique was easily passed along. Politeness was the only watchword. Students who had witnessed one of Paul’s two opening performances began to try it on their own, and the three lunch periods brought about a vast pooling of information. During those three hours, the word spread like wildfire, and in the last periods of the day, classes all over the school were started off by a student spontaneously pledging support to Mike Otis.
“Don’t even bother to mention this new president thing,” Sheldon advised a group who had come to him for advice. “We don’t recognize that. Just remember — be polite.”
In photography, Paul was reluctant to go through the exercise with Mike present, not to mention Mr. Willis, who had sprained his ankle over an eight-by-ten glossy of that same Mike. But Trudy Helfield stood up.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Willis, but before we start, I think it should be said that everyone in this room supports Mike Otis and feels it’s unfair that he’s not allowed to be president.” During the applause, Trudy shot Mike a dazzling smile. Mike gazed out the window with great concentration.
Mr. Willis leaned on his crutches, a disgusted expression on his face.
“So, Mr. Otis, whatever did you do to earn such loyalty from these fine fellow students of yours?”
“I didn’t do anything,” said Mike blandly.
“No,” said Mr. Willis. “Of course you didn’t. And now, if no one minds, we can begin —”
Wayne-o came bursting in the door. “Am I late?”
“Not as much as usual,” sighed Mr. Willis. “Take a seat, Wayne.”
“Okay, but before I do, I’d like to say something on behalf of the class. You see, we all support —”
“We’ve been through all that, Wayne, including the applause.”
Wayne-o looked hurt. “Darn,” he said mildly, and took his chair.
By the middle of the next week, the preclass pledge of support to Mike Otis had become a full-blown custom. Not a single hour would begin without the traditional benediction and applause, and any student at all could be expected to do the honours. There was no predicting who would be the one in any given class, as the duty was passed around freely and assumed by spontaneous inspiration.
Paul could see that the ritual was more than grating on his teachers’ nerves. Miss Vlorque in particular faced each morning with the dread usually reserved for a mugging: She knew what would happen, but she didn’t know when and from whom. Mr. Schmidt had taken to lurking outside the classroom in the hope of missing the exercise. This did not work. His students always waited for him. Once he even stayed away so long that Wayne-o was already in class when he arrived. Wayne-o suggested that the teacher be marked absent. The irritable Mr. Schmidt was not amused. Mr. Willis had taken to reciting the pledge along with the current speaker, usually adding “Yeah, yeah, yeah! We know already!” at appropriate intervals. The students were unperturbed; Mr. Willis, on the other hand, was operating on an increasingly short fuse.
Sheldon was delighted. “If you live long enough, Ambition, you learn something new every day,” he said philosophically. “Who would have believed that simple courtesy could be such a powerful weapon? It’s driving them nuts! I’ve got a history teacher whose whole face contorts every time we do our thing. Yesterday Mr. Hennessey lost control for a minute and shouted ‘If one more person thanks me for listening —’ before he caught himself. So we thanked him for listening. It was inspirational.”
“I’m getting a little worried about poor Mr. Willis, though,” said Paul. “It’s starting to look as though he’s going to freak out one day and never freak back in again. Maybe we should skip doing it in his class.”
“No compromises. This thing is really working. It’s like when you keep putting spoonfuls of sugar into a cup of coffee. Eventually it comes out tasting like diesel fuel.”
* * *
Throughout all these goings-on, Feldstein sat in his stairwell, tight-lipped and unforgiving, waiting for the end. His ill humour had stimulated his appetite, and he was using up his stockpile of favours at an alarming rate. If there was one thing that characterized this phase of Don’t Care history besides the Mike Otis speeches, it was the scores of students called temporarily away from their normal lives to carry trays of food into the locker baron’s stairwell.
The situation was becoming so alarming that even Sheldon paused from his speech campaign to take notice. He tried to talk to Feldstein, but the locker baron was implacable.
“I can’t believe this is happening!” Sheldon told Paul as the two walked through the halls after Sheldon’s meeting with Feldstein. “I can’t believe that Feldstein has come to this! Do you realize that last week he called in ninety favours? He just sits there like a big blob of nothing, sucking back food like a vacuum cleaner. He’s already gained weight — they say that’s how it happened to Slim Kroy.”
“You never see him now without food,” Paul agreed. “And a lot of the kids are getting hit for old favours — Wayne-o, Phil, Rosalie, Samuel. He hit the LaPazes three times.”
Sheldon sighed. “When a great man comes along, the old order changeth. Feldstein came into a school that was in locker anarchy, and he brought the whole ball of wax under one roof and wiped out the competition. But no one stays on top forever.”
As they continued to walk, they came upon Peter Eversleigh sitting by his locker, looking somehow naked without his customary stick of licorice.
Paul nudged Sheldon. “Look at his collar.”
Attached to the collar of Peter’s shirt was a large safety pin.
“Hey, Peter,” Sheldon called, “is that holding your head on?”
“Symbolism,” said Peter humourlessly, snapping his gum in the Rosalie Gladstone style. “This pin of which we speak is a reflection of the pins worn by our main dude, Mike Otis, on the cuffs of his pants. With this pin I am making my own statement on the bogus concept of the exile of our leader. It shows that I support the dude.”
Sheldon’s and Paul’s eyes met. Simultaneously, calculating grins spread over their faces.
“I’d say that’s conceptual, wouldn’t you say so, Ambition?”
“Very conceptual,” Paul agreed. “Good concept.”
Peter was gratified. “Thank you, dudes.”
Sheldon slapped Paul on the arm. “Come on. Let’s go shopping.”
Within forty-eight hours, seventy-five percent of the population of Don’t Care High was wearing safety pins on all shirts and blouses. There were small ones and large ones, and all sizes in between, ranging right up to kilt pin size. And the trend was still growing. Pinned students would come across unpinned friends in the halls and rush them out to nearby stores lest they give the impression that they were not in support of Mike. Others still kept extras on hand for the less enlightened.
By the following week, virtually all the students wore pins religiously every day. Peter Eversleigh, on the grounds that he was the creator of the whole thing, wore two pins. So did Wayne-o, on grounds he would not explain. The LaPazes wore three each, and that they didn’t have to explain. No one would wear the
large, plastic-tipped diaper kind, as that was reserved for Mike himself.
Sheldon picked a sporty model, large and shiny silver, while Paul stuck with a sedate but tasteful one-inch pin.
The pins showed exactly how popular Mike really was. A bare collar was a great rarity among the students, and this visual representation of the incredible support for Mike inspired people all the more.
And as the days flew by, Feldstein continued to burn up favours at unbelievable speed. He now spent all his time — from nine until three-thirty — sitting in his stairwell, eating. He had moved in a few desks as waiting buffets for incoming snacks, and these were constantly laden with a wide variety of goodies. His attitude had gone from anger to depression. Down to his final thirty favours, he acted as though he knew the end was near, and he intended to go out in a wild blaze of overindulgence. The eating action was intense, and as the safety pins and speeches ruled Don’t Care High, many students avoided Feldstein’s stairwell, for the sight there was not pretty.
* * *
Mike Otis himself might have overlooked the entire safety pin affair had it not been for the fact that students were constantly approaching him to show off their pins. Many times Paul had seen the ex-president accosted by a student proudly displaying a gleaming new pin. There would be an awkward pause as Mike decided whether or not a comment was called for. Then he would say, “Very nice,” and move on. Mike was now coming into contact with more students than ever before, and might have been moved to wonder what these safety pins had to do with him had he not been positive that it all had its place in the now-complex network of things at this school that he didn’t understand. On a couple of occasions, Paul himself tried to speak with Mike. He could see the questions bubbling just below the surface of Mike’s strange calm. But they were never asked, and the conversations were always brief and uncomfortable, with Mike responding to direct questions only and giving answers where brevity was exceeded only by vagueness.