Silenced!: The 1969 Journal of Malcolm Moorie by Bill Doyle

Author:Bill Doyle [DOYLE, BILL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316084550
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

THE LIST WAS POSTED!

October 8, 1969

12:35 pm

Today Conrad tacked a piece of paper to a post outside Dulson Hall. It was a list of the students who had earned enough points to go on the Condor Sanctuary field trip.

It was a cloudy fall day, but summer was hanging on, and the air was warm. I sat under a nearby tree and watched the parade of students from Ecology as they rushed to the list and searched for their names. Kim looked relieved that she hadn’t made the list.

I watched Kyle scan the list for his name. “I’m not on the list!” he hissed angrily. “We’ll see what my aunt says about that!” He stormed off.

Jackie arrived and checked the list. Spotting me, she walked over and plopped down on the grass. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just catching up on my journal.”

But she noticed that my pen lay unused in the grass. “Are you thinking about Teddy?”

I hesitated and then nodded. “I have never seen something so…” I couldn’t think of the right word.

“Heartbreaking?” she offered.

That was it. “So heartbreaking as that,” I said. “I’ll tell you this: I’m not going to stop until I find out what happened to Teddy’s mom and those birds.”

Jackie just stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m impressed, that’s all. The only other person I know with passion like that is my dad. He’s the reason I worked so hard to get into the school. I’m here on a scholarship. If I get into trouble or if my grades go below a B average, I lose my scholarship.”

I picked at some grass. “It isn’t always so terrible to get kicked out of school.”

“But I’d feel like I was letting my family down,” she said. “They worked so hard to get me here.” Suddenly, she started to laugh. “I’ve heard the rumors about why you’re here, and why you got kicked out of your old schools.”

“What have you heard?”

“That you rode a bear into class.”

I chuckled. “A bear?!” Then I told her about setting the frogs free at my last school. “And at the one before that, I went on a hunger strike because the principal wanted the boys to wear ties every day. My hunger strike only lasted a day and a half before my parents took me out of there. Now what?”

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