Jordan turned to Logan. “Get your camera ready. Come on.”
The line dissolved as the commotion got bigger. Jordan was already pulling her notebook and a pen out of her bag. She quickly jotted down quotes. CJ followed right behind her. Ava would have preferred to stay out of it, but Martha grabbed her arm. “Come on. Let’s see what’s up.”
They reached the table where a mob of their classmates surrounded the woman with the sign-in sheet. “I’m sorry,” she said. She was older and had the distinct look of someone who watched a lot of public television. “But only constituents can speak at these meetings.”
Ava didn’t know what a constituent was. She thought about discreetly googling it, but Logan Diffenderfer asked the question for her. “What’s a constituent?”
“It’s a voter in this district,” answered Kaia with annoyance. “None of us are registered. So they won’t let us speak.”
“Well, we would register,” CJ said to the PBS woman. “But we can’t. We’re not eighteen.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding that sorry at all. “These are the rules.”
“But we’re the ones most directly impacted by the park closure. We should get to talk about it,” Martha said.
The woman looked frustrated and tired and completely unmoved. “You’re welcome to sit and listen.”
“But we don’t want to sit and listen,” Logan said. “We want to stand and be heard.”
There were cheers from their classmates, and Ava had to admit it was a pretty good line. She saw Jordan jot it down in her notebook. The public television woman put up her hands as if she were staring down an unruly mob. “If you insist on making a scene, I’m going to have to ask you all to leave. This is not appropriate behavior.”
Martha scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Not appropriate? Are you kidding me? We’re just asking for two minutes.”
It was starting to dawn on Ava that she was getting her wish. She wouldn’t have to get up in front of the crowd while her voice quavered and her cheeks turned bright red. The relief didn’t feel as wonderful as she’d thought it would.
“Hey,” CJ said, pointing to someone at the door. “Isn’t that the councilman?”
Ava, Jordan, and Martha followed her gaze to an older man in a tailored suit. He walked with a level stride of self-importance and was trailed by a younger man, who was also wearing a suit, though not nearly as expensive-looking.
“That’s definitely him,” Martha said. “I recognize his picture from the district website.”
Councilman Kenneth Lonner looked like the kind of guy whose voting record favored large developments. Which it did. They’d learned that from the district website too.
“Well,” Jordan said, straightening the skirt of her dress and tugging at the top to make sure everything that should be covered was covered, “everyone back up. If they’re not going to let us speak, then I guess it’s up to the press to solve this.” She turned quickly to Logan. “Get as many shots as you can.” Then she broke into a fast walk. “Councilman! A minute of your time, please.”
Ava watched with awe as Jordan walked right up to him and got in his face. “I’m with the McKinley Blaze and wanted to ask you about your decision to ignore the input of students at tonight’s meeting.”
The councilman looked up from the file that he’d been thumbing through as he walked. He closed it and handed it to the young man next to him. The young man was very young. Probably close to their age. An intern or something.
“I’m sorry,” the councilman said. “Which paper did you say you work for?”
“The McKinley High School Blaze. I’m the editor. Jordan Schafer.”
She put out her hand, and the councilman took it and flashed a charming grin. “I love it when kids get involved in our civic process, Jordan. I really do. But I’m afraid I’m a bit overscheduled tonight. If you call my office, we’d love to give you a tour. My associate here can set it up for you. Best of luck to you, Jordan.”
He reached into his pocket and handed her something that she awkwardly took. Then he continued toward the front of the room, where a seat was waiting for him. Ava, CJ, and Martha scrambled to get to their friend. Logan hung back and took a couple of pictures.
“What was that?” CJ asked. “What did he give you?”
Jordan looked stunned. She finally opened her hand. It was a campaign sticker. “I asked for a hard-hitting interview,” she said. “And he gave me a sticker.”
Jordan went to bed angry that night, and she woke up angry the next morning. After they’d learned that they weren’t allowed to speak, a lot of their classmates had left. Not Ava, CJ, Jordan, and Martha, though. They’d sat right in the front row and tried to look intimidating. Jordan was pretty proud of her epic scowl, but it’s not like a rude facial expression was going to solve anything. The meeting had not gone well for them. The developer was convincing, and even though several people spoke out in favor of the park, their remarks were rambling and all over the place. They hadn’t practiced and prepared like the girls had. The night ended with Councilman Lonner saying he would support the development. It still needed to be approved by the city, but with the councilman’s support it was considered a done deal. If they were going to save the park, they needed a real plan and they needed it now.
Jordan opened her laptop so she could search for “successful protest ideas.” Maybe a letter-writing campaign coupled with a demonstration. They could have sign-making parties and then descend on City Hall en masse. She wondered if one of her classmates would suggest that they chain themselves to the park fence. Ordinarily, Jordan didn’t agree with extremist measures. But that was before the councilman had called her a kid and handed her a sticker.
She saw that she had an e-mail from Logan and opened it. He’d sent her the pictures from the city meeting. She clicked through them and stopped when she got to one of her. Logan had managed to capture the exact moment when the councilman handed her the sticker. Her head was cocked slightly to the side and frozen in an expression of bewilderment.
She’d felt so good going into that night too. She’d been wearing her vintage-style swing dress in a bright-red apple print that her little brother said made her look like a wicked queen. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but she took it that way. The dress usually made her feel powerful. Now, looking at it in the pictures, it seemed like a childish thing to wear to an important event. Jordan was used to people not taking her seriously when they first met her. Not just because of her clothes. People loved to say that they didn’t see color, but she could read the lowered expectations in their faces. That usually shifted as soon as she opened her mouth. They would tell her that she was “well-spoken” and express awe at how smart she was. She hated that she had to be smarter, better, and more eloquent than her white classmates, and yet she loved that she was.
Councilman Lonner had misjudged her. He’d looked at her and dismissed her as just a kid. Which, okay, technically and legally speaking, she was. What he didn’t know was that she was a kid with a stack of newspaper awards. She was the reason that the school had been forced to switch cafeteria food vendors after she’d published an article taking the vendor to task for their unethical business practices. She’d won national recognition for her story about mismanaged funds within the music program. She wanted the councilman to know all that. She wanted him to look at her and acknowledge that he’d been wrong.