the hall, trying to look simultaneously affronted and superior.
Juan Carlos looked relieved. “Thanks,” he said.
“No problem,” answered Fiona, expressing what all three felt.
Alcides laughed. “It’s just like the movies! But they really can’t do anything to us, can they? Besides making themselves a bother,… a (what is it?)… oh, yeah! A nuisance.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” said Fiona.
“They can be malicious and vindictive,” added Angela. “They have been to me.”
“I wish I could punch them one,” Benjie commented.
“Like that would really help,” retorted Fiona.
“What I like about here,” Alcides interposed, “is that you don’t have to go around with your papers all the time. In Argentina, everyone has to have a national ID card and other documents and you can get stopped at any time by police and required to show them. They don’t do that as much as they used to. My parents say that when they were little, police and soldiers asked you to show papers often, probably when they were looking for particular individuals.”
Fiona replied, “It may be a coming thing here. In Arizona there is a law that requires police to stop people if they look like they might be undocumented and require them to show papers. If they can’t prove they have a valid visa, they are stuck in jail, often with Americans who look Mexican and who weren’t carrying a passport, birth certificate, or other proof of citizenship. So they might stop Juan Carlos, who is American, but not Alcides, who is not, but who looks like he fits right in with the ‘white’ majority. Plurality, I should say. We are the biggest group, but less than half of the population of the state. So it’s all inconsistent, unjust, and unworthy of the U.S.”
“Good speech Banbury, but now it’s time all of you should be in home room.” It was Romano, who was about to enter his own room as the bell rang. They all headed obediently to where they were supposed to be. Coach Ferguson was on the point of calling the roll, but when Angela, Fiona, and the rest had sat down, he picked up a note and announced:
“Bam-berry, Furry-near, Cooper, report to the principal’s office.”
The three looked at each other with understanding of what that was likely to mean. Reluctantly, they stood up and eased their way out of the room.
“She’s gonna blame us for bothering the KittyKats,” Benjie declared.
“Surely she could pick on someone else, for once?” inquired Angela.
“Alright, guys, focus!” suggested Fiona. “We need to go on the offensive. Let me lead off.”
“Are you sure it won’t cause us more trouble?” asked Angela.
“Gotta try.”
They were at the door of the office. The secretary motioned them in.
“Ms. Petty, we have a problem,” Fiona opened.
“I’d say you do,” replied Ms. Petty, the principal, preparing to enjoy a good dressing-down of the students. Fiona, however, had other ideas.
“Yes, we do. I’m glad you agree. You see, it’s Kitty Johnson and her friends. They were being insulting to Juan Carlos and Alcides, who are new students, giving them grief because they or their parents are immigrants.”
Ms. Petty was caught off balance for a moment, then she tried to recover by taking another angle. “We can’t have students disciplining other students, so…”
“Absolutely right, Ms. Petty, and that is exactly what Kitty and her retinue were trying to do. That’s why we’re asking you to do something about them.”
Petty stared at Fiona. Then she put on her famous fake smile and became dangerous. “I don’t appreciate your attitude. I called in the three of you to warn you not to cause trouble or there will be consequences.”
Angela, Fiona, and Benjie looked at her with wide eyes.
Again, Fiona went on the attack. “You’re absolutely right, Ms. Petty. We will be very careful. Thank you for your time so we could talk this over.”
Petty was clearly unprepared for Fiona’s tactic and stood for a moment, silent and shaking. Then she said:
“Get out of here, all of you! And watch your step. One little bit out of line and you will regret it.”
The three hurried out of the office. Angela said: “Fiona, that was brilliant, but now she’s going to be really angry.”
“Yeah, well…”
“She won’t call us in together again. But she may lean on me,” Angela persisted.
Fiona stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Angela, I didn’t mean to make any trouble for you. I tell you what, if you get called to the office for anything, I will follow you and step in if you need it.”
Angela smiled, feeling intense affection for her friends. “That will be nice. I will try to stay out of the office.” Locked arm in arm, they and Benjie headed directly to pre-calculus.
***
Pre-calculus convinced Angela that she would soon be needing to call a study session to get Fiona to help her understand the gap between concepts and calculations, which always seemed to escape the textbook writers’ ability to explain. In Romano’s ideologies class, the events of the morning kept coming to her mind. Why were some people so prejudiced against foreigners? How can you distinguish between people born here who don’t look Anglo, immigrants with visas, and people without legal documentation? What did they call them before the push to stop calling people illegal? Illegal immigrants and… oh yeah! Illegal aliens. By association, Angela thought of science fiction aliens and then something else that she couldn’t remember. What was it? It seems to have been in American history… but it refused to come to her.
“… Angela Fournier, are you with us?” It was the teacher’s voice bringing her to attention.
“Sorry, Mr. Romano. I was thinking of a bunch of things having to do with immigrants and how people treat them.”
“Well now, Angela, that’s an important issue, though it’s not what we are discussing at the moment.”
“Sorry, Mr. Romano. I’m listening now.”
Spanish class, counterintuitive as it may seem, distracted Angela from immigration policy and from how her new friends were being treated, but she brought it up at lunch, when by now the large, diverse group was eating together.
“You know, they used to call people who were in the country without visas ‘illegal aliens,’ though now the media are calling them ‘undocumented immigrants.’ But what was it about ‘aliens’ and history class?”
Fiona, as usual, supplied the answer. “You mean the Alien and Sedition Acts?”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Angela. “They are now considered bad, right?”
“Yes, they were eventually repealed and we were always taught that they were anti-democratic, not worthy of us. Repealing them was a triumph of the American way.”
“Hmm!” was Angela’s reaction. She decided she would look into them as soon as she had the chance.
***
The afternoon classes went by quickly and before she knew it, she was on the dance floor, learning choreography and lost in the ineffable beauty of art, sound, and motion. Before the end of dance period, Ms. Amberg went over fund raising plans for the class trip. As she left the greenroom where the dancers changed clothes after class, rehearsals, and performances, Angela had her mind full of plans for making brownies with dates and raw chocolate for the bake sale (although these brownies did not require baking but were nonetheless amazingly delicious), when she saw the familiar tall shape of Miles, who was waiting for her.