Love & Resistance, page 1
Dedication
For
my parents, who made me who I am
and
my husband, George, who showed me the world. You make everything possible.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
One: Welcome to Painstown
Two: Le Crap
Three: Isolationism, My Old Friend
Four: How to Hoist Yourself by Your Own Petard
Five: Hello, Pariahville
Six: The Nerd Net
Seven: Tearoom, Table for One
Eight: Bonjour, Tater Phone
Nine: A Parabola of Nerds
Ten: The Seeds of Dissent
Eleven: How to Overthrow a Hierarchy
Twelve: The Revolution Begins
Thirteen: Phase One: Operation Parking
Fourteen: NN
Fifteen: How to Brand a Revolution
Sixteen: Reconnaissance
Seventeen: Phase Two
Eighteen: Operation Flash Mob
Nineteen: Rou Zao Fan
Twenty: Operation Flash Mob, Part Two
Twenty-One: Phase Three
Twenty-Two: Resistance, One ClickComm at a Time
Twenty-Three: Operation Hallway
Twenty-Four: Winter Break, Broken
Twenty-Five: Castle
Twenty-Six: Partying with the Poets
Twenty-Seven: Happy Freaking Holidays
Twenty-Eight: When Selfies Have No Self
Twenty-Nine: One Hour with My Favorite Sport
Thirty: N/N
Thirty-One: Phase Four
Thirty-Two: Operation Cafeteria
Thirty-Three: How to Become a Bomb
Thirty-Four: The Empire Strikes Back
Thirty-Five: Trenton
Thirty-Six: H & D, Friends 4 Ever
Thirty-Seven: Meeting an Old Friend
Thirty-Eight: Reinforcements
Thirty-Nine: Waiting
Forty: Lighting Campfires
Forty-One: Phase Five: Operation Nerd Net
Forty-Two: ClickComm Stories
Forty-Three: The Final Battle
Forty-Four: Finishing the Revolution
Forty-Five: How You Disappear
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Books by Kara H.L. Chen
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
Welcome to Painstown
Surviving high school is all about strategy.
Your goal this day, as it is every day, is endurance. To do that, you must become invisible. Do not go to the cafeteria. Do not go to the science wing, where social media supernova Mitzi Clarke has a Monopoly-type reign over the real estate.
No.
If you are on the fringes, like me, you go to the bathroom first. You stay there until the pre-homeroom bell, and then you walk to your locker (briskly, but not running, as running will bring you attention, and attention is bad). Grab your books, then slide into your homeroom without making eye contact. The last is very important. Go from class to class, do not volunteer unless called on, and wait for the sweet final bell. Then you start all over again.
I know this because my mom’s in the military. I’ve gone to four different schools in four different states. Trust me: in order to avoid long days of torment, you’ve got to be tactical. I’ve never been popular, but I’ve never had food chucked at me, either. I’m good at being stealthy. At one of my schools, I’m not even sure anyone knew my name; I was just The New Girl. I consider that one of my biggest successes. (Sometimes they called me The Asian Girl, which was obviously horrible, but c’est la vie.)
School number four, the predictably named Plainstown High School of Plainstown, Ohio, was . . . well, you know. Plain. I was both new and a junior, which was a terrible combination. Even worse, Plainstown had a closed lunch period, which meant that I was basically trapped on a battlefield, armed with nothing but overly preserved meats and small containers of nearly expired milk.
Sigh.
Getting through lunch now would take savvy, sophistication, brains. It was not for the amateur, or the weak. Luckily, I was neither.
The first objective: examine the terrain. Plainstown’s lunchroom also doubled as its small assembly room, so it was filled with those long faux-wood lunch tables with the parallel fixed benches. Excellent.
The key to this sort of setup is the end seats. Never, ever sit in the center if you are trying to be invisible. First, you’ll have to do that awkward leg swing over the fixed bench and will inevitably trip and land on your face. Second, you will be surrounded by people, most likely popular people, who will immediately notice you. That’s no good. The most successful outsiders are those who can keep their exposed sides minimized and protected, kind of like countries in the middle of a land war.
Look here—you can see some kids have already caught on. I recognized a red-haired guy from my English class, an overly passionate defender of poetry, eating by himself at one of the ends. A few tables over, a quiet guy from my French class also secured an edge.
And then: problem. The rest of the safe spaces were occupied, which meant I would have to ask someone to scoot over so I could sit down. Crap.
Lightning decision: Who to ask? I scanned the seats: Poet Guy, French Guy, giggling BFFs (no), lovey couple (no)—gah, this was taking too long. Poet Guy or French Guy? French Guy didn’t speak much, so he was less likely to tell me off.
Fine. Bonjour, mon nouveau ami.
I took my tray (school purchased lunch, perfectly average) and made my approach.
“Do you mind if I—?” I said.
French Guy was clearly startled that someone was speaking to him. He scooted to the left (no protest, good choice, Olivia!).
And then we proceeded to eat our lunch in silence, side by side.
By the end of the week, I no longer had to ask. French Guy (who I learned in class was named Monsieur Griffin, first name unknown) would silently scoot, we would silently eat our delicious school lunches, and then, at the bell, we would silently get up and go to our separate lockers.
I began to notice stuff about French Guy, since, well, I was smushed up against him for half an hour per day. One: he always wore a tiny pin on his backpack, a shiny red circle. I was dying to ask what it was for, but that would mean, you know, actually conversing, so no. Two: Monsieur Griffin was quiet, but he was expressive. Like when he saw Mitzi Clarke cut in line during lunch, he unleashed the most eloquent eye roll I had ever seen. He also had expressions for Seriously? (when the cafeteria posted a list of terrible cheese puns on Mac N’ Cheese Day; he gave me a little smile when he caught me making a face at “Have a gouda day!”). A subtle smirk when he was amused (when I got overly excited about my french fries two days ago), and a blank expression for when he was trying to be invisible.
The last I couldn’t quite get. Monsieur Griffin was handsome—not in a flashy kind of way, but he had a certain je ne sais quoi. He wasn’t tall, but he was far from the shortest in the class; he was smart, but not a show-off; he wasn’t exceptionally athletic, but he wasn’t completely uncoordinated, either. He liked to wear these dark red Chucks and indie band T-shirts, which was interesting, but not particularly unusual.
I didn’t understand what set him apart from everyone else, but it was clear he welcomed the distance. Some girls in class tried to speak to him, only to be politely, but firmly, rebuffed. In fact, the only person he seemed to converse with—and I use the term loosely, as scooting over on a cafeteria bench once a day was not really conversing—was me.
It kind of became my personal challenge, to make Monsieur Griffin communicate with me, even if it was non-verbal. It violated my rules against personal interaction, but I couldn’t help myself.
I should have stuck to the rules.
Two
Le Crap
Monsieur Griffin and I continued our little silent film relationship over the next week. On Tuesday, in French class, we were taught the vast and important difference between j’ai chaud (“I am hot”) and je suis chaud (“I am in heat”). I reflexively glanced at Monsieur Griffin, only to find him also suppressing a laugh. I stared down at my notebook.
Two days of silent cafeteria scooting later and it was french fry day again.
I had taken my usual spot next to Monsieur Griffin, looking at my delicious fried potatoes with something that closely resembled—but was not quite—happiness, when he laughed next to me. It was a quiet sound, a small exhale, but it was unmistakable.
I looked at him; I couldn’t help it. He shook his head, grinning openly now, then wordlessly passed me his paper tray of fries.
I told myself that a hot guy giving me extra taters was not the best thing that had happened to me in a long while, even though it sort of was.
The combination of cute boy and fried starches was too much. I immediately retreated like a hermit crab into my shell and did not talk to or look at him until the next week.
We continued in our usual manner until:
the following Wednesday, when we both laughed at the absurd sight of our French teacher in a giant plush Eiffel Tower hat. Monsieur Griffin now sat next to me in French class, sliding gracefully into the seat to my left a few minutes before the bell.
two days after that, when we both grumbled after our teacher announced a pop quiz.
the next week, when I passed him a pen after his ran out of ink.<
br />
Two days later, our French teacher asked me to conjugate the verb “boire.”
“Je boire—” I had watched a TV special on the Battle of Kunyang last night instead of prepping for class. I now realized my night off was going to bite me in the derrière. Think, Olivia. Boire = to drink. Je = I. Je boire. I to drink? Wait, that can’t be right.
Tiny head shake from Monsieur Griffin.
“Je mean—um, I mean . . .” I said.
Cue cough from him. He discreetly tilted his textbook and pointed at the word.
“Je bois,” I said, and Mademoiselle Kowalczyk turned back to the board. I mouthed “Merci” to him.
Pas de probleme, he wrote, then turned the paper my way. Not a problem.
But it was. It was. Because then came mid-October.
Mademoiselle Kowalczyk announced a project: we were to pair up and present a report on a historical event in French history.
Group work. The bane of any wannabe invisible girl’s existence.
“This assignment,” Mademoiselle Kowalczyk said, “is to be done in pairs . . .”
Which will be assigned. Which will be assigned. Which will be assigned.
“Which you can choose! You have five minutes.”
Ohhhhh crap.
There was no good way to play this. Avoiding eye contact and waiting for someone to approach me risked not getting picked by anyone and being publicly assigned a partner by the teacher. This was equivalent to dropping my trousers and writing loser on my own bottom.
Which left two choices: a) picking people in my immediate vicinity, or b) choosing someone I had previously identified as also being on the fringes.
Options: beautiful blonde girl who always spoke perfect French, complete with perfect accent. I hadn’t seen her hanging around Mitzi, but her high ponytail marked her as a potentially aggressive popular type who could eat me for breakfast. No thanks. Second choice: a ghost groupie who followed Mitzi and her people. She was pale, she was silent, she looked like a hostage. No, thank you. Third: Monsieur Griffin.
I know. I hear you. Monsieur Griffin, Monsieur Griffin. Ask him! C’est simple, right? But I have to confess I was slightly off my game. Because asking him was . . . risky. Risky in the sense that I cared if his answer was oui or non.
In the middle of my mini existential crisis, I noticed Monsieur Griffin staring at me.
“Would you like to be partners?” It was one of the few times I’d heard him speak; his voice was quiet and amused.
I gave a small shrug, which was intended to be more of a light affirmation and less of a muscle spasm. Still casual, still salvageable. But then—as if I had a pollen-coated exclamation point wedged in my windpipe—a “sure!” flew out of my mouth.
Oh my God. Exclamation point.
But Monsieur Griffin just turned his desk towards mine.
It was odd to face him, since we were normally seated next to each other in the cafeteria and during class. He had a very subtle widow’s peak, and a small mole on the side of his neck. Dark hair, which stuck up a bit on the right. Small Band-Aid wrapped around his left index finger.
The front of our French textbook had the question Où allons-nous? floating around the front. Where are we going? Monsieur Griffin had scribbled Anywhere but here in English on a small green piece of paper and taped it to the corner.
“Um,” I said. “Any ideas about what we want to work on?”
“An exploration of the link between french fries and personal happiness?”
My laugh was a surprised blushing burst. I couldn’t quite tell if Monsieur Griffin was smiling, but he did look pleased with himself.
I said, “I think this project is supposed to be historical. And about something related to France.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Historical,” he said. “Something academic.” Now I was positive he was holding in a laugh.
“Yes.”
I felt a sharp bump to my chair. Mitzi Clarke was seated next to me and had pushed her chair into mine as she talked. She didn’t apologize; she didn’t even seem to notice.
Listen, I knew exactly who Mitzi Clarke was. My first order of business at any school was to find out about their social dynamics. Plainstown was super small, with only about fifty students per year. Mitzi and her top lieutenant, Adeline Jackson, formed a tight concentration of power at the top, with Mitzi at the pinnacle.
She bumped my chair again. She didn’t notice, again. Irritation, spiky and hot, flared.
“So,” Mitzi said to Adeline, “I think my mom has some old French souvenirs, from when she used to travel a lot. We can look after school.”
“Your house?”
Mitzi shook her head. “No way. Mom’s selling off more of our stuff. Everything’s a mess. I’ll bring the box to your place.”
Mitzi scooted closer to Adeline and scraped against my chair. Again.
“Anyways,” she said. “I’m working all weekend on the biology internship application. I don’t care what Mr. Wagner says. I’m going to use my TikTok as an example of relevant work experience. I have a lot of responsibilities on there. Tons of multitasking, you know?”
Really. I had seen her website and social media sites. They were all about designer clothes, super-sparkly shoes, and the like. I wasn’t exactly sure what that had to do with biology.
As I was thinking this, there may have been a small, tiny—remote—chance that my face did not remain as still as it should have. It wasn’t a smirk, or the tossed grenade of a whatever. It was more like a very, very slight twitch.
But it was enough.
Mitzi turned towards me. She had perfectly highlighted brown hair and flat, reptilian blue eyes. As her gaze flitted over, then focused on me, I pictured a swinging bull’s-eye over a fighter plane navigation system, the green light turning to red. The high-pitched whine of a target lock.
Oh no.
No no no no no.
“Did you make a face?” she said.
Options: Deny? Pretend I had accidentally swallowed some gum?
“No,” I said.
“I think you did.”
I shook my head.
“Do you think there’s something funny about me trying to study bio?”
That seemed oddly aggressive. But then I remembered how our bio teacher, Mr. Wagner, once condescendingly dismissed one of Mitzi’s answers in front of the whole class. Then, when Gilbert Paddack repeated the same thing, Mr. Wagner said it was great. Was it because she was a girl? Or an influencer?
Mitzi might have some well-justified reasons for her attitude, but that wasn’t something I had time to think about. Mitzi was still staring at me, and I was trapped in the death zone.
“No.” I quickly stuffed my papers into my backpack. The bell was supposed to ring. Why wasn’t it ringing?
“I see” was what she said, but what I, and everyone else, clearly heard was: Watch out.
My carefully constructed life of invisibility was about to end.
Three
Isolationism, My Old Friend
I might have survived. I may have spent the remainder of my days under the uncomfortable glare of Mitzi’s impressively ferocious stink-eye, but I would have lived. I would have had to add a couple of U-turns to my class routes, taken a few more minutes in the bathroom, made a quicker exit here and there.
It should have been okay. At any other school, or with any other person, it would have been okay. But Mitzi Clarke was a supernova of influence and her power could not be denied. And that made all the difference.
A word about Mitzi.
You know the story: every school has a popular group, and every popular group has a ringleader. Sometimes it’s the academics. Sometimes it’s the athletes. Here, it was Mitzi Clarke and her BFF, Adeline Jackson.
Mitzi’s mom was a former television and movie star actress, and Mitzi had leveraged her mom’s fame by starting her own hugely popular TikTok account, where she posted about fancy outfits and the latest fashion and makeup advice. She also posted videos of herself having cheerful lunches at school, waving to people in the halls, decorating for school dances with her friends. She had made her status as a popular high school student into an empire.
In addition to Adeline at the top of the hierarchy, there was a small knot of Mitzi’s close followers—an outer ring of VIPs—who followed all her accounts and defended her against negative online comments. Those people sat at the popular table in the cafeteria, the one in the back that didn’t get bothered by the foot traffic and food smells from the lunch lines. They parked in the closest parking lot to the school. Basically, they were the high school equivalent of countries with the Most Favored Nation status in the United Nations.
