In a Flash (6 page)

what did she publish?
I asked.

she let him have it...she hates him!

I felt a tingle go up my spine. What exactly had she written? I had to look.

gtg...see u
l8r
, I typed, and then I clicked off the page.

I minimized my MSN and logged onto Facebook. There was an invite to Julia's boycott. I clicked on her profile. There was a picture of her smirking, with her two cats on her lap. It was a really nice picture, and I couldn't help but smile to myself as I looked at her.

I started to scroll down to look for something about...I didn't have to go far.

There it was under “Notes.”

You don't have to go to some foreign country to find out about dictators. Just visit our school. This man—this principal without principles—is dangerous, mostly because he is a chest-thumping ape too stupid to even realize how stupid he is. I've had enough of his tirades, of him playing
macho-man, telling us what to do. It was bad enough when he took away cell phones and iPods and hats, but now he's taking away our right to free assembly, our dance. You've probably all heard that he canceled the school dance. Maybe he did it because he can't dance or because nobody would dance with him when he was in high school. Who can blame them?

We don't have to take it any more. We don't have to take his evil ways. I'm not going to be told what to do by some mouth-breathing jerk. I'm going to stand up to fight him, and you can too. How?

Next Friday, the day when the dance is supposed to be held, I'm not going to school. If I can't go to the school dance, then I'm not going to school! NONE of us should go to school!

Go to a friend's house, the mall, play football in the park, play video games, watch TV, sleep in. And you'll not just be having fun but striking a blow against tyrants. We'll be teaching this evil man more of a lesson than he'll ever teach us.

And don't worry about getting in trouble. If we all do it—everybody in the whole school— then nobody can get in trouble...well, just one person can...that twerp of a principal. With any luck we can drive him out of the school and back under the rock he climbed out from.

Tell your friends, tell everybody. Together we can defeat him!

Oh, this was not good.

I grabbed the phone and dialed Julia's number. She picked up on the first ring.

“Hey, Ian,” she said, before I could even say hello. I hated Caller ID.

“Julia, are you insane?” I snapped.

“I prefer the term eccentric, but what are you talking about specifically?”

“Facebook. Are you crazy? You can't write stuff like that about the principal.”

“Sure I can. There's a little thing called freedom of speech. Ever hear of it?” she said sarcastically.

“Yeah, I know about freedom of speech. Do you know anything about slander, libel and lawsuits? Have you ever heard of any of those?”

“Lawsuits don't scare me,” she said.

“They should.”

“Did it scare you when Frankie's threatened to sue you?”

“Of course it scared me,” I admitted. “And as I recall it scared you too.”

“But they didn't actually do it,” she said.

“No, but that was only because I didn't write anything that wasn't true.”

“Neither did
I
,” she said.

“You called him a stupid mouth-breathing dictator.”

“Like I said, I didn't write anything that wasn't true.”

“Julia, you have to take that note off your page. You have to cancel the event or you'll get in trouble, big trouble.”

“I'm not taking it down. Matter of fact, I've sent out invitations to everybody I could think of to join my page. I've already added over seventy new friends since I posted it. Soon everybody in the whole school will know about it.”

“Great, just great. So more and more people will see it.”

“Isn't that the idea?” she questioned. “The more people who see it, the more people who can get involved. Sort of like those stupid flash mobs of yours, except mine has a purpose.”

“And is that purpose to get you suspended?”

“If everybody joins the boycott, he can't suspend us all.”

“No, but he could suspend the person who
started
it.”

“How is he going to find out I started it?”

“Julia, that
w-w-w
does stand for World Wide Web, as in anybody in the whole world can see it. You know that, right?” I asked sarcastically.

“I also know that the only people who can see my Facebook page are friends I allow in, and there's no way he's a friend of mine. Not like some people I know.”

I understood that shot was aimed at me, but I wasn't going to get caught by it.

“You really don't understand,” I said. “It's not as simple as that. There are
people who are friends of your friends who—”

“Are you planning to show it to him?” she asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah, he's such a good friend of yours that I figured you'd call him up at home and tell him.”

“I'm not going to tell him anything, but believe me, he'll find out soon enough.”

“I don't care if he finds out,” she said. “I actually hope he does.” She paused. “So, are you going to walk out? Are you going to join the boycott?”

“I've never even been to a school dance,” I said. “I don't think it's really that big a—”

“I guess you've answered my question,” she snapped.

“I haven't answered anything yet—”

There was a dial tone. She'd hung up on me! She'd cut me off before I could tell her that even though I didn't believe in it, I'd still walk out because she
was
my friend and not some stupid Facebook friend.

I put down the phone and picked it up to call her back and tell her. I held onto the phone for a few seconds, and then I put the receiver down. I picked it up again and put it down once more. Forget it.

There was a buzz around the school when I arrived in the morning. Less than twelve hours had passed and everybody seemed to know. That was the power and the danger of the Internet.

I heard that Julia had added over two hundred new friends to her Facebook. At least that's what Oswald told me. I didn't speak to Julia all morning. I saw her down at the end of the hall and waved, but she was surrounded by people and didn't wave
back. I wasn't sure if she was blowing me off or if she simply didn't see me because she was so busy being the center of things. She'd like that.

I waded through the cafeteria and joined Oswald at our table in the corner. Julia was probably still doing her star turn.

“Hey, Oz,” I said, sitting down beside him.

“Nice to have a little company. Probably just the two of us.”

“Who knows, Julia may join us,” I said.

“She might join me, but I doubt she'll even sit down if you're here.”

My eyes opened in shock, and I turned to face him. “Come on, she's not that angry.”

“Have you seen her Facebook event?”

“Of course. That's why she's so mad because I told her she shouldn't be saying those things about Roberts.”

“I don't mean the comments about him. I meant the comments about
you
.”

“Me? She's written a note about me?”

“She doesn't really say it's you. She doesn't mention you by name,” he said.

I was confused. “I don't get it. If she doesn't mention me, how do you know she's writing about me?”

“Just a guess.”

“What did she write?” I demanded angrily.

He held up his hands. “Remember, it wasn't me who wrote it.”

“What did she write?” I repeated.

“That some people are just too sucky, too much like little babies to join the boycott.”

“What makes you think she's writing about me?”

“Well, she also wrote that one of her friends was like Roberts' little puppy dog and that he was afraid of cutting school that day.”

“She wrote that?” I demanded.

“That's sort of the
Reader's Digest
version. I doubt people even know it's you she's talking about.”

“Maybe it's not me.”

“Julia only has two close friends, and I'm going to join the boycott.”

“Do you really care about the school dance?” I asked.

He laughed. “I'm willing to walk out of school for almost
any
reason.” He paused. “I'm just not sure why you don't want to walk out.”

“I didn't say I wasn't going to.”

“So you
are
going to join the boycott?” he asked.

“I didn't say that either.”

“The problem is that if you join it now, it'll look like Julia has you whipped.”

I knew what he was saying. I'd been thinking the same thing.

“I just don't know why this is such a big deal for her. He's taken away other things more important than a dance,” I said.

Oswald shook his head. “She's upset because she was going to the dance with somebody.”

“What?”

“She had a date.”

“With you?” I gasped.

“Do you think I'm crazy...crazier... crazy
again
?”

“Sorry, I just thought that maybe—”

“That maybe I'd lost my mind again?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Dating Julia
once
was more than enough. She's going with Trevor.”

“Trevor who?”

“Trevor Maclean. He asked her to the dance.”

I knew him. He was older, in grade twelve, and on the football team.

“So, if there's no dance, there's no Trevor,” Oswald said. “That's why she's upset. Losing the dance would mean losing the chance to go out with him.”

“I didn't even know she liked him,” I said.

“She wouldn't tell you,” he said. “She tells
me
things like that. And do you know why she tells me these things and not you?”

“Because you're the
bestest
girl
friend she ever had,” I answered sarcastically.

“She tells
me
because I'm her old boyfriend and she likes to rub it in. She
doesn't tell
you
because she still hopes that someday you
will
be her boyfriend.”

I tried to hide the surprise. “Yeah right, like that's going to happen.”

“You have to admit that you've thought about it,” he said.

For a fleeting second I considered telling him about our half-date, but thought better.

“I've thought about never talking to her again, but that isn't going to happen either,” I said.

“I can tell you from experience, if you do date her, you
really
will think about that.”

There was a loud buzzing sound as the PA came to life.

“Attention, please.” It was Mr. Roberts. I'd never heard him on the PA before. I didn't have a good feeling about it.

The noise in the cafeteria faded, but not everybody was paying attention.

“Everybody stop!” he yelled. “All talking, all walking, all teaching, everything stop!”

The cafeteria became eerily quiet.

“It has come to my attention that there is a planned boycott of school.”

It had taken less than a day for him to become aware of it. I wasn't surprised.

“I want to advise students against taking part in this protest. There are consequences for any action in life, and I want you all to be aware that the consequence for this will be a three-day suspension.”

“He can't give the whole school a three-day suspension,” Oswald said as the cafeteria buzzed with conversation.

“And,” Mr. Roberts continued, “you have my word that
all
students taking part will receive that punishment. If there are one hundred students, then one hundred students will be suspended. If there are four hundred, it will be very quiet around here as four hundred students will be gone for three days. I hope it will not be necessary for me to suspend anybody else.”

Oswald and I looked at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing—
anybody else
. We now knew why Julia wasn't here.

I sat at the computer, and both of my parents looked over my shoulder—at Julia's Facebook.

“She didn't pull any punches,” my father said.

“That girl certainly has spirit,” my mother added.

“And guts,” my father agreed.

“What she
has
is a five-day suspension,” I said.

“She was lucky to get off that lightly,” my father said.

“You think five days is light?” I questioned.

“First off, she publicly insulted and attacked your principal.”

“And she tried to get everybody to cut school,” my mother added. “That's not just breaking the rules but asking others to break rules. I must admit that I'm a little disappointed.”

“I guess her parents must be really disappointed,” I said.

“I meant in
you
,” my mother said.

“Me?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, you should have talked her out of this.”

“I tried to talk her out of it! She wouldn't listen!”

“Then you should have tried harder, been more convincing,” my mother continued.

“You don't understand,” I protested. “Here, let me show you.”

I scrolled down to the spot where she insulted me.

“Oh, my dear,” my mother said. “She was
really, really angry with you,” she commented as she read down the page.

“Is she still angry?” my father asked.

“I don't know. She's not allowed to take phone calls or go on the computer.”

“So you don't even know how she's doing,” my father said.