A speech. Good Lord, have I completely lost my mind?

Probably.

I sit outside on the porch. Mrs. Mac lets Dad and me use the porch because she almost never goes outside. I feel wide open and conspicuous here.

Occasionally Mrs. Mac pa.s.ses by her living room window, which looks out on the porch. She shakes her head at me like I've done something wrong. I focus on my homework and then my speech.

The sun goes down and the streetlights come on. I turn on the porch light and keep working.

"How about that interview now?"

Yow! I was so focused, I didn't hear anyone walking up to me. I look up and there's Reporter Guy, his hands in his pockets, standing at the foot of the porch steps.

"Why would I talk to you after what you wrote in the Loco today?"

He shrugs. "Don't you want your side to get out there?"

h.e.l.l, I don't even know what my side is. "Like I trust you to report it."

He looks offended. "Come on, Ross. It helps both of us. It's win-win."

"I'm not helping you do anything."

"Fine. You want to play hardball? We'll play hardball. How'd you like me to do a story in tomorrow's paper all about your dad and what he did when he was in the army? Hmm? Would you like that?"

I freeze up. There's no way in the world I'm going to do an interview with this douchebag, but I can't just let him p.i.s.s all over Dad, either. Can I?

He grins. "Do you even know what your dad did? Do you?"

And of course, I don't. Taboo. Forbidden. Proscribed. "Just get out of here," I tell him.

"You don't, do you?" He laughs, and it's an ugly, ugly sound. "Well, maybe you should read tomorrow's paper."

My body starts vibrating all on its own. I want to tackle him to the ground, give him a little bit of what the Surgeon got.

But even I'm not that stupid.

"Get out of here." My voice shakes with anger. "This is private property." I say it loud enough that Mrs. Mac can hear me through the window.

Reporter Guy nods and starts to back away. "You had a chance, Ross." He throws me a weak, half-a.s.sed salute before disappearing.

Now I'm rattled. He got to me. With Dad. He hit me where I didn't know it would hurt. But I'm also determined. I have Leah to impress and Reporter Guy to p.i.s.s off. So I'd better be good.

Chapter 17.

Support

I wake up and get ready for school. Today is the big day. Today I'll make my stand. I never cared about ribbons or any of that before, but now it's like the biggest thing in my life. It's like my mission. I'll state my case in a way that people will understand. Once I point things out to them, once I show them how I'm thinking, they'll get it. They'll come around. They'll see what I see. It won't be a big deal anymore that I took those ribbons off my car, because people will understand my point of view.

Last night, Flip made it sound like I would need an alibi for whatever he and the Council had planned. And now, on the way to school, I see why.

About a jillion years ago, Brookdale started building a bridge on the outskirts of town. No one can tell me what the bridge was for, but it was never finished. There are still two giant iron supports out in the middle of a field, though, like tombstones for the idea of the bridge. You grow up in Brookdale and you hear "Don't you go playing around the bridge" (even though it's not a bridge) a million times, and then you go and do it anyway.

Today one of the supports is covered with magnetic ribbons.

I can see it from Route 54 on the way to school, and I actually have to pull over for a second. I'm not the only one-five or six other cars have pulled over, too.

The support is almost completely obscured by the ribbons. There must be hundreds of them, thousands maybe. It's become a patchwork thing of red, white, blue, and yellow.

All I can think is, Where did Flip get all those ribbons? He didn't have time to order them from somewhere, and that would be one h.e.l.l of an expensive prank anyway...

And then I see a car stopped ahead of me. The b.u.mper is dusty and dirty ... except for a clean ribbon-shaped s.p.a.ce.

Oh, man!

I hustle into my car before people realize a) who I am, and b) that their ribbons are missing, leading to c) the lynching of Kevin Ross.

The prank was too late in the night for it to make the morning newspaper, but apparently it's on TV and radio and all over the Web. Flip should be giddy when I see him at school, but he's depressed. Fam holds his hand and pets it like that'll soothe him.

"No one gets it," he complains. "They're talking about vandalism and theft, but no one gets it."

"Sorry. But you know what I noticed?"

He goes on, ignoring me. "I mean, there's no bridge! Right? A support with nothing on it. Empty, pointless support."

"No one even noticed that their ribbons were missing until they saw the bridge or heard about it," I tell him. "They don't even see the d.a.m.n things anymore."

He's totally oblivious to me. "No one gets it. Not a one! It's a brilliant commentary on-"

I give up trying to get through to him. "Flip, if you have to explain a joke, it's not funny."

"No, the audience is just too stupid. Cut it out." He jerks his hand away from Fam. "Subtlety is lost on these morons."

I get away from him as quickly as I can. I need to be in homeroom.

In homeroom, I bide my time, waiting until everyone is in the room and just getting settled. I still have a minute or two before the bell and then a minute or two after that before the TV comes on and the announcer of the day leads us in the Pledge.

I get up and walk to the front of the cla.s.s and say, "Excuse me! Could I have everyone's attention?"

Mrs. Sawyer looks like I just kicked her in the gut. Everyone stops what they're doing and gives me the same look you'd give a guy who not only just farted in church but also stood up to announce it loud and clear.

G.o.d, I hope I can pull this off.

"Before the announcements come on and the Pledge, I wanted to say something." I'm expecting a chorus of boos (or at least for Mrs. Sawyer to tell me to shut up), but I guess I've shocked everyone into paralysis.

I clear my throat and start to talk and I'm halfway through my speech before I realize I don't even need to look at my notes-I just know this stuff.

"I know this all started with some ribbons on my car... or, h.e.l.l, off my car. But yesterday I realized that there's something that came before the ribbons, for all of us. And we don't even think about it. Just like the ribbons.

"You know, every morning in school, ever since we were all little kids in kindergarten, we come in and we say the Pledge. And I guess that's fine, but you know, I got to thinking: What is the Pledge? What does it mean? Why do we say it? No one has ever told us that. They just tell us to say it and we do. And if we're supposed to be pledging allegiance, shouldn't we think about what that means? For most of us, the Pledge has always just been there. But do we ever really-"

"We're supposed to say it," John Riordon calls out from his seat in back. "You don't just sit there and do nothing. You say the Pledge." There's an agreeable undercurrent.

"OK, that's fine. But why?"

"Because you do," John says, again to murmured agreement. He's not just a football stud. He's also in a bunch of the college prep cla.s.ses. So people are taking him seriously. More seriously than the guy who takes the easy cla.s.ses and pulls straight Cs. (That would be me.) "It's how you show you love your country," he goes on. "If you do." He looks like he's about to get out of his chair and rearrange my face, but I keep going.

"So George Washington and Abe Lincoln didn't love this country?"

I get the moment of surprised silence I was hoping for. John grits his teeth and gets up.

"Sit down, John!" Mrs. Sawyer says. "You, too, Kevin."

"The Pledge didn't even exist until 1892," I go on. "The guy who wrote it was a socialist."

Some blank stares. Riordon starts walking down the aisle to me.

"Socialists are supposed to be, like, the bad guys," I say, speeding up. "He only wrote the thing because there was this big world's fair in Chicago and he thought it would be cool to have kids all across the country say something nice. I mean, that's it. Really. That's the only reason it exists.

"Anyway, it wasn't the same Pledge as the one we say now. So how did anyone before 1892 prove they loved their country if they didn't have a Pledge? Or, y'know, magnets to put on their, well, their horse and buggies, I guess."

My smart-a.s.sery is unappreciated, but I can tell that I've caused at least a bit of confusion in some skulls out there.

"Sit down now," says Mrs. Sawyer, and her voice has this note of panic in it, like she's about to pull a gun. John pauses, trying to figure out how serious she is.

"I'm not going to listen to this c.r.a.p," he says.

"You both have five seconds and then I'm writing hall pa.s.ses to the princ.i.p.al's office."

John goes back to his seat.

"You should know what you're saying and what you're doing and why," I say. I'm on a roll. I'm not stopping now. "Like, the word equality was originally going to be in the Pledge, but do you know why it isn't? Because the guy who wrote it knew that the people in charge of the schools back then didn't like women and African Americans. So he didn't put it in there."

Not much of a reaction there, but then again, there are only like ten black kids at South Brook, so I don't really know what I expected.

"And it originally said 'my flag,' not 'the flag of the United States of America.' A bunch of people changed that like twenty years later even though the guy who wrote it didn't want them to. And then in the 1950s, they added 'under G.o.d.'"

That gets a couple of people stirring-no one realized that G.o.d wasn't an original part of the Pledge.

"The guy who wrote it was a minister, but he never put G.o.d into it. It was a bunch of people sixty years later who did that. Your great-grandparents grew up reciting a Pledge that didn't mention G.o.d." I look pointedly at John Riordon. "They weren't saying the real Pledge, I guess. So, like, I guess they never loved their country, huh?"

Mrs. Sawyer says, "OK, Kevin, you've made your point. Thank you for the history lesson." She's a history teacher, but I guess she doesn't appreciate the irony.

"I have more to say."

"No, you don't." She's got her pad of pa.s.ses in her hand already.

"Yes, I do."

She sighs as the announcements start. Everybody jumps up and puts their hands over their heart and recites the Pledge, just like we have a million times before. I stand there at the front of the cla.s.s, doing nothing, not saying the Pledge even though every tissue and fiber in my body wants to do it. Because that's what I've been trained to do ever since I started school, and not doing it is killing me, especially with everyone watching.

But I resist. I don't say it.

As soon as the Pledge is over, I get right back into it: "Did you know people used to salute the flag while saying the Pledge? Like this." I demonstrate. "But during World War II, people realized it looked just like a n.a.z.i salute, so they stopped-"

"Kevin!" It's Mrs. Sawyer. "No one can hear the announcements."

"But, Mrs. Sawyer, this is important."

"So are the announcements. You're done."

"But-"

She rips a hall pa.s.s off her pad and hands it to me. "Princ.i.p.al's office."

"Why?"

"You know why."

John Riordon starts clapping as I walk out the door, and a few other people join in. Mrs. Sawyer tells them to stop, but they don't, at least not right away.

And so I get to visit the Doc, not to be confused with the Surgeon. Dr. Goethe is actually a fairly cool guy. Unlike the a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al, the Spermling, he's pretty calm and collected most of the time.

"Why are you doing this to me, Kevin?" he asks. He's pretty straightforward, too.

"I haven't done anything."

"For a few shining, perfect moments the whole country was looking at you with pride. Now I'm hearing that the wire services might pick up the paper's cover story from yesterday. Then your stunt last night with the bridge. And now this. What have I ever done to you to deserve this?"

"I didn't have anything to do with the bridge, Dr. Goethe. I swear."

He groans and leans back in his chair. "Are you going to sue over the Pledge? Is that it? A church and state thing because of 'under G.o.d'?"

"No. I just don't understand why we have to say it."

"Kevin, let's cut to the chase-why don't you want to say the Pledge?"