Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,7
in pink yarn, more like earmuffs. I take my seat. Ms. Pallas shoots me a warning look and I do something squishy with my features that I hope translates into the nonverbal-communication form of—No problemo. I have everything under control. You can definitely count on me.
I think that satisfies Ms. Pallas. I sure hope so. She’s very strict. Even the way she wears her hair—an old-fashioned wheat-colored braid that crisscrosses her head like a rope—is tight and intimidating. She has this way of demanding everyone’s complete attention. Even the usual class goof-offs keep it under control. I don’t want to get on her bad side any more than I already have. She writes something in a notebook, and when she pivots around to face the class, the blue scarf draped around her collar makes her deep-set eyes pop with color.
“Continuing with oral presentations,” she says. “Is there a volunteer?”
To my left, there’s already a hand waving in the air. I watch a short girl with dreadlocks named Stephanie take large, confident steps to the front of the room. I settle in. This should be good. Despite how lots of people make fun of a white girl with dreads, I respect Stephanie. She puts a lot of passion into her work. I’m a big fan of her editorials in the school paper, and she even has her own blog, Green from Tenth Grade to Death—One Student’s Commitment to Save Mother Earth.
From her hemp shoulder bag she removes a binder with her presentation, and begins reading in a voice that sounds like she’s presenting a proclamation to the United Nations. “Topic: Is contemporary society more—quote—civilized—unquote—and less violent than the ancient cultures that we have been studying? To those who argue that modern mankind has evolved in any meaningful way, I offer indisputable evidence to the contrary: Number one…”
Behind me, Pox Small clears his throat. Danger ahead. I immediately go into emotional duck-and-cover response because I figure he has just come up with another so-called hilarious comment aimed at me. But when he whispers, “If it’s yellow, it’s mellow,” I’m relieved. This is mean of me, but I’m happy that the bull’s-eye has shifted to Stephanie. He’s latched onto her reference to number one. Stephanie recently posted IF IT’S YELLOW, IT’S MELLOW hand-made signs in all the student bathrooms, her one-person campaign to cut back on flushing and trim the school’s water consumption by half.
If that were me in front of the class, I’d be praying for an earthquake to hit, but not Stephanie. She folds her arms across her chest and stares down Pox without blinking. I admire how she stands up for herself and what she believes in. I also admire her blouse, which is gauzy and embroidered white on white; I saw it on sale at Global Mama, the fair-trade import store downtown.
“Number one,” she repeats with extra-hard emphasis. “At this very moment, innocent animals are suffering barbaric torture under the guise of improving civilization. In corporate labs across this so-called enlightened land, you’ll find poor, helpless monkeys being injected with chemicals so toxic that these innocent creatures—who possess nerve endings the same as yours and mine—develop humungous cancerous tumors.”
Stephanie’s voice quivers at the word tumors. She reopens her binder, and with a dramatic flourish she whips out a picture of a big-eyed, helpless monkey tied down on a gurney.
Pox now starts making sarcastic little monkey eeking sounds. He’s got the rectangular jaw and underbite for it. I can’t believe he’s pulling this stunt in Ms. Pallas’s class, and neither can she. She gives him the look she’s known for, a flash of her cold blue eyes that usually makes anyone shut up. But Pox is on too much of a roll. He keeps eeking, and the laughter builds up around him. Stephanie keeps going on with her rant. The worse he gets, the louder and more outraged she gets. I swear that they are fueling each other.
“What is the justification for abusing this animal?” She pounds a fist on a nearby desk. “I’ll tell you! Money!” A stamp of her foot. “So that greedy corporations can sell their overpriced products to consumers who have been brainwashed from birth to believe that they can’t possibly live without softer hair, redder lips, and armpits that don’t smell like armpits were designed to smell!”
As much as I admire Stephanie, she is asking for it with that last line. She practically handed Pox a script to start sniffing his own pits, and most