It’s been a while since my last posting, so I will recap a bit. The girls are in high school now, and Rachael and Lullana are both trying out for the basketball team. (Lullana is the African exchange student and lives with the Barrons). As well, Rachael was nominated for the class representative in the student council: Dawn

Chapter 71 – Speeches

Thursday, Sept 6, 2016

Rachael rose earlier than normal on Thursday, and considered what she would say in the speech for the class election tomorrow. She didn’t write anything out: she preferred an adlib speech to the ‘read it from a sheet of paper’ speech most Grade 9s would attempt. Instead she made a list of some of the things that she wanted to accomplish over the coming year. She would talk about the items on the list

She made breakfast for herself and Lulanna, and one set aside for Bobby, who now relied on an alarm clock to get up in time for school. In nice weather he rode his bike to school, and only took the bus in rainy weather.

The girls headed to the bakery to visit Maria and Geoff, and to get some sweets for their lunches. Rachael thought about bringing in treats for the class, but decided she wanted to with the election without bribery.

In homeroom Ms. Smith settled the students down quickly, so each girl would have a full three minutes for her speech. Since Sapphire had been nominated first, she would get the first speech slot. As Rachael had guessed, she read it from a sheet of paper.

Fellow students, I ask you for your vote tomorrow,” she started reading. “My name is Sapphire Jewison, and I attend Trudeau Middle School last year … the best school in town.” At this a few of the former Trudeau students cheered, but most of the students who had gone to Ainsborough Middle School frowned. “I was one of the most popular girls in school last year, and I intend to do that as well this year. The students at the other school called my opponent Pepe Lepew apparently. She doesn’t seem to smell too badly this year, but then it is still early in the year and we are all wearing our new school clothes; although it seems she gets her clothes at Goodwill instead of the better stores in the malls in London or Kitchener. Finally.

I want to point out that she and that other girl seem to be together at all times. I don’t think this class wants to elect a lesbian.”

Rachael was floored. Her opponent had not put forth one solid proposal for the class, but instead had attacked Rachael personally. She looked at Ms. Smith, who was also barely containing her temper as she glanced at Rachael to reply.

“I had a bit of a speech prepared,” Rachael started. “It listed some of the things I wanted to do to make this year fun and profitable for all of us. I had nothing negative in it about Sapphire. But instead I want to go a different route. First of all I am not going to deny or claim to be gay. I know gay people in this school, both staff and students.” Here it was hard not to glance at Ms. Smith, which might have outted her. “There is nothing wrong with being gay. If God made you that way, how could it be wrong? As for Lullana and I, we are not together more than other good friends. Sapphire and Kerrie hang out together all the time: does that make them gay? I don’t think so. It seems that gay is a bad word to middle school and high school students. One of the things on my list is to try to get a Gay-Straight Alliance started in the school. We need to support everyone in the school, and to make this a safe, caring place where we can all learn and grow into adults, without regard to our orientation. To conclude, I want to tell every student in this room that I will support him or her and help in any way I can. It is my life mission to be friends with everyone and help whenever I can.”

Rachael sat down, and was surprised when some of the students started to applaud. Eventually everyone was clapping when the bell rang for first class. No one had applauded Sapphire’s speech.

On the way out, Ms. Smith pulled Rachael aside until the others had left. “Congratulations on your speech, Rachael,” she said. “I was so mad when that girl finished her diatribe. You answered her eloquently and clearly. And I was so proud when the others applauded you. It make me think that I might reveal my orientation to the students.”

“Or better yet, you could volunteer to be the faculty advisor to the GSA when I get it started. I plan to do it, whether I win or not.”

Science was next, but there were several students missing at the start of the class, although most trickled in during the first few minutes. But it was almost 15 minutes later when the last five came in, led by Carly.

“Sorry sir,” she told the teacher. “There were six nominees in our class for class-rep, so our speeches took longer than other classes. It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not,” Mr. O’Malley said. “But I guess there is only one election day per year, and this year I just happened to get a Grade nine class in first period. The other grades all had their elections at the end of last term. Good luck to those who are running.”

Computers came next, and then it was shop class. Mr. Henderson wanted to know how many students could bring in lawn mowers to fix and only six students raised their hands. Rachael was one of those, having phoned Gary at the church the prior night to see if she could get one.

“Only six in a class of 24?” Mr. Henderson complained. “I guess it is a sign of the times, with people throwing broken things out rather than fixing them. But I can’t have four students per mower. Two is ideal, three in a pinch.”

Rachael waved her hand, and the teacher finally called on her.

“My church has a storage shed and I called the caretaker last night. He said there are five mowers in there that his guys haven’t gotten fixed up. So that is four more we can get. He just needs to know when to deliver them.”

“Great. That makes 10. We can work with that. Can he deliver them tomorrow at the start of last period? And any others who have machines can bring them in then as well.”

“Well, if any of those guys need help I’m sure Gary will pick them up at your house and put them on his truck,” Rachael said. “Just let me know before the end of class.”

The bulk of the class was about tools and machine safety which both Rachael and Lullana found interesting. The African girl had little exposure to tools, since there were only a few hammers, saws, and axes in her entire village.

Following shop was lunch, and Rachael wanted to eat quickly so she could talk to students in her class: campaigning. But a few minutes after she sat down next to Lullana, Steve came by. “It’s all over the school that you two are lesbians,” Steve said.

“Seriously?” Rachael said. “It was just a smear from our campaign speeches this morning. I can’t believe that anyone believes that.”

“Stuff like that spreads like wildfire in a town like this,” Steve said. “There is only one way to end it.” With that he picked up Lullana, who made a small squeal. Then he kissed her deeply. “Not a lesbian,” he announced at the end, and the whole school started to applaud.

Robert was next, and was more polite, offering Rachael his hand. “My turn,” he said, and started kissing her deeply. Rachael’s knees went weak, but Robert held her up as he gave her the longest kiss they had ever had. This time the clapping started as the kiss was underway, and built until a teacher came over to break them up.

“Also not a Lesbian,” Robert said loudly as Rachael sagged back into her seat.

The result was that when Rachael went to the various tables to campaign, there was a ready start to the conversation. Students in her old class were mostly at her table, and she expected most would vote for her. But when she went the three tables that had students from Trudeau Middle School, she was able to tell the students about some of the events that she hadn’t been able to mention in the morning: movie night dates, a charity starve-athon, and raising money selling baked goods at the basketball games.

The third table she went to had Sapphire at it. Kerrie was the only other one from her class at it, although there were several others there from the a-list last year that were in other homerooms.

“I guess you’ve pretty much shot down my Lesbian thing,” Sapphire said. “Good idea.”

“Actually the boys came up with that on their own,” Rachael said. “Although I guess I have you to thank for the best kiss of my life.”

“Yeah, it looked like you two were about the spontaneously combust for a moment there,” Kerrie said. Rachael then went into her spiel about the things she wanted to do. After she finished explaining movie night and starve-athon, Kerrie asked “But what about the GSA, that Gay Straight Alliance? That sounds interesting.”

“I’m going to do that whether I get elected or not. Any student can form a club if they meet the requirements, which mainly seems to be getting two staff advisors,” Rachael said.

“That’s boring,” Sapphire pronounced. Rachael wasn’t sure: Kerrie had a look of interest in her eye. Perhaps she actually was gay. At any rate Rachael smiled at all the girls, and shook hands with Sapphire before she left, wishing her good luck.

The afternoon was light, with Phys. Ed. and then English. Only about half the class went to Phys. Ed., since it was still optional until the basketball team was selected. Rachael wanted a chance to use the gym to practice her free throws, and of course Lullana went with her.

After English classes were over they would have basketball tryouts. They hadn’t worked up much of a sweat in the gym, so they didn’t change out of their gym suits for English. This allowed them to get out to the gym before any of the boys were there and the two girls snagged eight good basketballs, knowing that the boys’ coach would have left them with the underinflated old ones.

Ms. Smith was out next, with the first few of the girls. “Ms. Smith,” she asked, “Do you think we could only run one lap this time? That’s all a lot of the girls were able to do Tuesday, and a single lap will allow us to work on technique more. And we won’t be too wasted to practice our shots.”

“All right, since you seemed to have snagged us some of the good basketballs,” Ms. Smith said. “Only one lap, so make it count.”

This time Lullana led the way, outpacing the teacher, who seemed to become more and more irate at being bested. Rachael was keeping pace with the teacher, so she commented: “You know, Lullana ran all the time in Africa. It is easier than walking for her.”

“Yes. And I know the Ethiopians and Kenyas are great runners too,” the teacher panted. “But I really hate losing.”

When Rachael crossed the finish line, she again turned around and started back up the track, encouraging the other girls to finish. She ran in with the last four girls again who had started to walk in. She let them walk a bit, and then got them to run. They didn’t notice that she was making the walking bits shorter and shorter.

The other girls were back at the nets arranged around the parking lot. To Rachael’s dismay, the girls were shooting underinflated balls. Apparently the boys had come out and swapped out the good ones with the duds.

“You, you, and you four,” Rachael said, pointed out several girls as she strode into the gym. She walked up to a boy, grabbed the ball he had, tested it, and decided it was a good one. She tossed it to Lullana, who bounced back the old ball. It only bounced twice before dying in the middle of the court.

She then went to a second boy and repeated the process. The third boy had an older ball, but better than the ones the girls had, but she handed it back to the boy. Another boy was robbed of his ball when the boys’ teacher came out. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Just getting back our balls,” she shouted back. Talk to the principal if you want. Now the boys were trying to keep the balls, and the last two were difficult to get, with the boys holding them firmly from her. So Rachael decided to play dirty. She pulled out the shorts of one boy and looked down. “Pretty sad,” she muttered as the boy dropped the ball and tried to pull his shorts back. Of course the ball dropped, and Rachael fired it to another girl.

She just started at the last boy, and he just handed her the ball, not wanting to be embarrassed like the prior boy had been.

Rachael carried it out to the parking lot, where Ms. Smith was running the girls through layups and free throws on the six baskets around the lot. With eight good balls the girls were able to get in a good workout over the next hour.

Midway through Rachael noticed that the four girls who had walked in were still lying on the grass, ‘recovering’. She walked over to them. “And it was Rachael who talked the teacher into only one lap. I’m voting for her tomorrow for sure,” one was saying as she approached.

“Don’t you guys want to take some shots?” Rachael asked.

“Not really. We aren’t going to make the team, anyway,” one chubby girl said. “We just want to get out of Phys. Ed. by getting on the house league teams.”

“Yeah, but if you practice a bit you will be better when you start house league,” Rachael said. “And playing basketball is a good way to lose weight. I’ve lost about 20 pounds in a half year.”

“And got a hot boyfriend,” another of the girls mentioned. “Can you lose weight from playing?” That idea seemed to have perked up their interest.

“Well you won’t gain any,” Rachael said, pulling the girls to their feet. “You need to eat smart. We started eating salads at my house, and that made it easier to not eat so much. Even my little brother lost weight.”

Rachael then started tossing the ball back and forth with the girls, getting them used to it, and then they spent the last 10 minutes taking shots, badly. The result was a lot of running after the ball: better exercise than lying on the grass.

Ms. Smith glanced over at Rachael more than once as she worked with the girls. The little blonde was a natural teacher, she realized.

After showers Rachael got a ride to the bakery with Steve, Lullana and Robert. The boys had set up a double date for Saturday night: just a cheap trip to McDonalds. Rachael only agreed to go if the girls could treat the guys. She felt a need to reward the boys for their plan to convince the school that they were ‘Not Lesbian.’

At the bakery both girls worked for an hour cleaning pans. Geoff would pay them minimum wage for the time they worked, to allow them money to pay for their date.

To get a full hour in, they worked past six, and Maria said she would look after making dinner.

After dinner, the family enjoyed an hour together, with Rachel helping first Bobby and then Lullana with their homework. Bobby wanted to read before bed, and Rachael and Lullana lay on either side of his bed, all taking turns reading Book Three of Harry Potter. Lullana was getting better at reading, and had even checked out book one of the series at the library, which she was reading on her own to catch up.

That night Rachael kneeled beside her bed:

Dear Lord

I hope that I did well today. It seems there is some prejudice against gays in our school, and I hope the GSA can fight that. Basketball was fun. I wonder if I will make the team? I probably should have spent more time showing off for coach, but those girls really needed motivating. And I suspect you planted the idea in Steve’s head, so thank you. I really, really like kissing boys. Especially Robert.

Amen