Adam Selzer by How to Get Suspended;Influence People

Author:How to Get Suspended;Influence People
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Motion Pictures, Special Education, Humorous Stories, Middle Schools, Special Needs, Humorous, Juvenile Fiction, Gifted, Performing Arts, Motion Pictures - Production and Direction, General, Fiction, Social Issues, Production and Direction, Schools, Gifted Children, Education, School & Education, Film
ISBN: 0440421608
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Published: 2006-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Anna was the first person I knew who didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, a habit that spread pretty rapidly. Not that she made a big deal about it or anything. I just noticed one morning in seventh grade that when everyone else was putting their right hand on their heart and reciting the Pledge in homeroom, she just stood there, not saying a word. Then she gave the flag a little salute with two fingers when everyone else was saying “with liberty and justice for all.”

I never asked her why she didn’t say it; I guess it was simply because she didn’t feel like reciting a loyalty oath to start her day. After a while, I stopped saying it myself. Not that I had anything against America; the country had my allegiance, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to pledge to be loyal forever. What if the government just decided that the whole Bill of Rights business was passé and Mrs. Smollet became the president? I don’t think they’d have my allegiance anymore.

Pretty soon, everyone I knew in the gifted pool was standing there and just giving a little salute during the Pledge, though none of us meant anything malicious by it—except for Edie, of course. Whenever someone tried to drill us on why we weren’t saying the Pledge, she’d tell them how it was written by some socialist guy back in the eighteen hundreds. Why this didn’t make her want to say it remained unexplained.

After the gifted-pool meeting, Anna just walked out of the room with me, and we started heading for her house, which was maybe a mile away. We got a bit stalled at the edge of the parking lot when Anna looked over at the school cop, whose job was to hang out at the edge of the parking lot, watching for any drug dealers who might be hanging around, and said, “Ooh! It’s a new cop!” She ran right over to the car and peered in at the guy. I followed, wondering what she was up to.

“Hi!” said Anna. “Are you a good cop or a bad cop?”

The guy neither smiled nor frowned; he was like one of those guards in England who aren’t allowed to react. “We’re all good cops,” he said, as if we would believe him.

“Have you caught any troublemakers yet?” Anna asked.

“Are you one?” He eyed her suspiciously.

She nodded. “Most definitely.”

The cop stared at her for a second from behind his sunglasses—and so did I. I had always been told in no uncertain terms to respect police officers. But then again, she wasn’t being disrespectful, she was just making conversation. Even when she said she was “most definitely” a troublemaker, he didn’t pull out the handcuffs or anything.

“So,” she said. “If you could slap any celebrity, who would it be?”

“We don’t slap people,” he said.

“She means hypothetically,” I said. I wasn’t about to stand around idly while she bravely interviewed the cop. She’d think I was a wimp.

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