Lights Up

I Know A Guy

Surprise! Here's another chapter.

Dia's POV

"That's not fair!"

"How could he do that?"

I'm sitting in Jack's living room, surrounded by very angry friends. It's hard to believe that Pulitzer really suspended us, but here I am, one day into my week-long punishment. Then, Connor, who normally doesn't talk much, asked the question that we were all thinking but no one had the guts to say out loud.

"So what are we going to do about it?"

That's how I ended up sitting in a circle with my friends, eating out of a family-size pack of Oreos and planning a protest. As you do.

"We need more people, do we know of anyone who'd be willing to join us?"

Jack speaks up immediately, seeming kind of uncomfortable.

"Um, my ex-girlfriend is the editor of the school newspaper. I could get her and the rest of the staff?"

"You had a girlfriend, Jack?"

"Yeah, it didn't work out. She figured out that she was ace and I figured out I was gay. We split as friends."

"So you could call her?"

He nodded, then pulled out his phone.

"Hey, Kath? I've got a story for you."

After a few minutes of conversation, he hung up and turned back to us.

"Kath is on board, which is huge, and she'll get Darcy, Bill, and Davey."

That confused me a bit.

"Why is one person so important for this?"

Jack gave me a tight smile, then explained everything with a few words.

"Kath's so important for this cause Pulitzer's her dad."

Jeez. Talk about daddy issues. After we cleared that up, we tried to figure out who else we had in our contacts that could help us. Surprisingly, Evan was the next person to come up with something.
"Uh, um, I could text my friend Jared? He's pretty good with online stuff, if that helps?"

The only person who objected was Connor.

"Are you sure we HAVE to get Jared."

"He could really help us, Connor."

"Yeah, but he's SO ANNOYING."

Connor eventually relented, so Evan sent Jared a text. A few minutes later, he got a response.

"Jared, uh, Jared says he's in, and he's bringing Alana too."

"Great, two more. Anyone else?"

There was a few more minutes of silence as everyone searched through their phones. Finally, Phillip called out a name.

"Theo Burr."

Frances immediately agreed, but most of us were confused.

"Who?"

"Theodosia Burr. Her dad and my dad work together. She's a mathlete, and if we get her, she can get the rest of the mathletes."

He sent her a text, then gave us a thumbs up. I still couldn't look him in the eye, seeing as he'd kissed me a few days ago with almost no explanation. But that's not the priority right now.

"So we've got the ten of us, the school newspaper staff, the mathletes, Jared, Alana, Race,-"

"Race will drag Spot along, so we've got him too."

"Ok, Race, Spot, anyone else?"

"I could probably get Grace Novitski and Dylan Maitland from theatre."

"Alright, Damien, do that. Anyone else?"

Connor hesitantly raised his hand.

"I could probably get my sister Zoe?"

"What do you mean, probably? She's your sister!"

"We...haven't always gotten along. It's been better lately, but I'm not sure."

Damien seemed interested.

"Ooo, do tell."

"Nope. You must reach friendship level fifteen to unlock backstory."

"What level am I at?"

"Currently seven, though that may go down if you keep talking."

That made everyone laugh. Things got serious again as Connor pulled out his phone to text his sister. After a minute or two of texting back and forth, he looked back up at us with a smile.

"She's in."

Then we all started cheering obnoxiously.

"Ok. Tell everyone to spread the word as much as they can, but try to keep the teachers from finding out. They may try to stop us."

Everyone agreed, then we all went our separate ways. Later that night, once I was home, I got a text from Jack.

Cowboi: hey. Kath sent me the draft for something she wrote about the protest. Thought I'd send it to u since ur kind of unofficially leading this thing. She said she was going to put it on flyers and spread them around school. (attached pdf.)

DiaDiaDia: Thx Jack. I'll read it now. And tell Katherine thanks too.

I opened the document and read through it. It wasn't very long, but it didn't need to be. Katherine's writing summed up everything that my friends and I had been talking about all day. It was a perfect call to action. Now we just needed to act on it.

                       The Students' Crusade
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Words written by our founding fathers during the creation of our country. These men were far from perfect, but their words set the foundation for America today. We live in a country where people of all colors, religions, sexualities, and abilities can practice their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and happiness. Naturally, like our founding fathers, our country is not perfect. But the one place where an individual should be able to express themselves is at school. Isn't school all about the pursuit of knowledge and understanding? To understand the world around us, we need to understand each other first. Unfortunately, some people are ignorant, and believe that things should stay the way they have always been. One of which is Principal Pulitzer. He has a track record of prejudice against anyone who is not straight, not white, or anyone who does not fit the status quo. On multiple occasions, this prejudice has influenced his decisions regarding discipline to students. The metaphorical "straw that broke the camel's back" happened not too long ago. Earlier this week, four students were suspended. Two for "skipping class", though the bell had not rung yet, and two for PDA, though they were only holding hands. The catch? The two students who were "skipping" are Latinx. The two students who were punished for PDA are a gay couple, one of which is disabled. Security camera footage that I viewed with my own eyes showed Mr. Pulitzer verbally degrading the students. One particularly disgusting example; "your...people have a certain disregard for the rules, so I have valid reason to be concerned". How are we as students supposed to develop our own identities and thoughts about our reality if the people in authority are biased? Should certain groups of our peers be discriminated against for the "crime" of being different? The line in the sand has been drawn, so all of us as individuals must decide on which side we will fall. The choice is yours. We as young people must decide that it is our turn to right past wrongs. We all need to rise to the occasion and defend our right to be individuals. Friday morning, we ask that instead of walking to class, you stand in solidarity with us on the steps of the school as we demand our voices be heard. We must rise up. Rise. Up.- Katherine Pulitzer, editor-in-chief

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