The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (19 page)

AN IGNOMINIOUS FALL

In the month of November, the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds experienced a surge in activity that surpassed anything they’d accomplished since 1968. All activities were masterminded by [email protected]. All ideas were attributed to Alpha, who maintained a mysterious silence as to his methods and spent increasing amounts of time with Elizabeth, almost to the point of avoiding his fellow Bassets—and avoiding Matthew in particular.

Many of what Headmaster Richmond would later term “mal-doings” were ideas lifted from
The Disreputable History
. Frankie searched “how to draw” and “basset hounds” on the Web and came up with an online tutorial on sketching the dog. She made all the members of the Order learn to draw a basset, after which they used copies of Artie’s keys to enter locked buildings at night and draw large-scale hounds on all the chalkboards.

She had those with unlimited credit cards purchase large quantities of stuffed bassets, which were then displayed, nose to tail, parading from the main building to a prominently located fire hydrant. (She had measured the distance carefully to ensure there were enough stuffed animals to reach all the way.)

On a larger scale, there was the Night of a Thousand Dogs, in which every member of the senior class was mailed a large rubber dog mask. There were no bassets in the bunch—it turned out that there wasn’t much market for masks of smaller canines. Instead there were rottweilers, bulldogs, Great Danes, and German shepherds. They were ordered from thirty different Internet sites by the boys. Instructions were subsequently mailed out, and the senior class wore their dog masks to the Harvest Concert one Friday evening (excepting only a few uptight members of student government and the members of the choir).

When the moment came for the all-school sing— “’Tis a Gift to be Simple,” followed by “This Land is Your Land”—the dogs tipped their noses to the ceiling and howled. One of them hoisted a sign that read:

We respectfully inform you that, In our collective opinion, Folk music sucks.

The concert ended prematurely.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

Hey there, psychopath, Some of the dogs are asking me why I’m hassling the administration. A line of stuffed animals is one thing, but when you start messing with the choir teachers, you’re going to end up with enemies.

I don’t want to take the flack for this.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

Relax. 96% of the senior class participated. The whole school is energized. Besides, I know you agree with me about folk music.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

I want you to stop—now.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

No.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

I can’t get in trouble over this. I can’t afford to get in real trouble over this.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

You won’t get in trouble unless you do something dumb. All trails are well covered.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

I’m not jumping when you say jump anymore.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

Are you going to tell the dogs you’re not the guy they think you are? Tell Richmond everything and implicate all the dogs who have done your bidding? Show Elizabeth you’re not the man she thinks she loves?

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

Fine. You got me. Obviously not. But I still want that book back, you power-hungry weenie.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

You’ll like the next mission, Alessandro. I promise you that.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

Why are you doing this? That’s what I can’t figure out.

(No reply.)

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

You want me to think about you all the time, is that it?

(No reply.)

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

But what good does it do to have me thinking about you if I don’t know who you are?

(No reply.)

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

Write me back! We’re having a conversation here!

(No reply.)

THE CANNED BEET REBELLION

The Canned Beet Rebellion originated when Headmaster Richmond announced at Chapel that Sylvia Kargman, a particularly generous alum, CEO of Viva (a large soft drink corporation) and mother to three boys, the middle of whom (Jeff) was currently an Alabaster junior, was coming to speak schoolwide on the subject of “Following Your Dreams: Essential Knowledge and Strategies for Success.” In his preparatory speech, Richmond noted that Ms. Kargman’s company had “sponsored” renovations of the caf. “You know that’s why all the drink machines are Viva,” muttered Matthew as they walked out of Chapel. “Are they?” Frankie hadn’t noticed.

“Sure. Two years ago they hauled out all the Coke and Snapple machines and replaced them.”

“What about the juice machine in the gym?”

“Read the fine print. Jumbo Juice is a product of the Viva Corporation. This whole campus is striped with ads for Jeff’s mom’s company.” (Jeff Kargman was neither a Basset nor a particular friend of any Bassets. He was, in fact, a member of the Geek Club Conglomerate, being active in both the Science Olympiad and the Horticulture Club.)

“What else do they own?” asked Frankie.

Matthew shrugged. “The paper did an article when the caf renovation happened. Viva owns not only Jumbo Juice, but Swell cheese products, NiceFood canned goods, and a company that makes preshaped frozen hamburgers. All things we use in the caf every day. We tried to get people riled up, but nothing happened. The building is air-conditioned now and has pretty skylights, but the caf food still sucks and the school is contracted to use all these processed foods for I don’t remember how long.”

“You wrote all that stuff and nobody cared?”

“I didn’t write it. One of the senior staff did. I was only a sophomore.”

“People didn’t complain or rebel?”

Matthew put his arm around her. “I’ve been an editor there almost two years now, and I’m seriously over fooling myself that anybody reads the paper.”

“I read it.”

“But did you read it before you met me?”

“No.”

“No one reads it. It’s the irony of my life that editing this thing will get me into college, but nobody actually cares about it at all.”

“Is that why there’s no salad?”

“In the caf? There’s salad.”

“Not really. There’s garbanzos and canned beets. And pimento olives. Zada says at Berkeley they have this huge salad bar with like, arugula and tomatoes and avocados and snow peas. And maybe ten different dressings.”

But Frankie could tell Matthew wasn’t listening to her. His eyes were on Steve, who was jogging across the quad toward them. “Dog!” Steve hollered.

“What?”

“Come here, I gotta talk to you about soccer. Sorry, Frankie.”

“All right. Baby, I gotta motor.” Matthew kissed Frankie on the lips and walked off.

Frankie opened her laptop as soon as she got to class and spent second period inventing the Society for Vegetable Awareness, Promotion, and Information Delegation. Within twenty-four hours, the members of the Loyal Order, following her directions, had ordered bumper stickers, buttons, and flyers for the afternoon of Sylvia Kargman’s lecture. The day of the visit was unofficially declared Vegetable Awareness Day. Every student mailbox received a button; bumper stickers were in every bathroom, and a note was clipped to every clipboard on every dorm room door. The buttons:

WHITHER ART THOU, CAULIFLOWER? KETCHUP IS NOT A VEGETABLE. I AM VEGETABLY AWARE.

“Welcome to the Canned Beet Rebellion,” read the clipboard note.

Today you will unwittingly and possibly
unwantingly participate in
The Canned Beet Rebellion,
under the auspices of
the Society for Vegetable Awareness,
Promotion, and Information Delegation,
in which,
to be quick about it,
we demand a salad bar at both lunch and
dinner in the caf.
Alabaster’s current vegetable offerings
are canned and/or anemic. In fact, they
are limp and grodie and not a proper
salad bar.
Viva not the Viva but the Veg!

The requested salad bar will include
(on a regular basis):
lettuce and spinach,
cauliflower or broccoli,
carrots or celery,
tomatoes,
cucumbers,
a vegetable of the day,
maybe some fruit,
at least five kinds of salad dressing,
and
those fun bacon-bitty things, which
may or may not be real bacon. We are
prepared to be flexible on this
nonvegetable element of the salad bar.

The Viva Soft Drink Company’s products monopolize the school’s food budget because Viva paid for the renovation of the caf. The caf is very nice, but it needs some salad. So: Even if you don’t give a $#%* about salad, wear your VAPID buttons to the Viva lecture this afternoon. If only to amuse us, as we have been amusing you.

(no signature, only the basset hound rubber-stamp, this time in jolly green ink)

The compliance level astonished even Frankie. Nearly every member of the Alabaster student body wore a button or displayed a bumper sticker plastered across a notebook. The Viva executive’s lecture was respectfully received, but at the end an envelope addressed to Ms. Kargman was passed through the chapel, hand over hand. No one knew from whom it originated. Kargman accepted the envelope graciously, opened it, and found a button: “Vegetable of the Day!”

Puzzled, she thanked the student body and wore the button proudly all afternoon.

Shortly before lunch, a Boston caterer arrived on campus to deliver an enormous platter to the central hallway of the main building. When unveiled, the item proved to be a three-foot-by-four-foot image of a basset hound, composed entirely of vegetables. Its droopy eyes were formed by grilled eggplants, its spots by overlapping roasted carrots and red peppers. Crispy jicama was used for the white fur, and the whole thing rested on a charming green background of cucumber, parsley, and broccoli. Underneath the hound was a small note: EAT ME.

Headmaster Richmond, whose office was on the adjoining hall, was seen consuming several pieces of the basset’s left foot, in a display of tense good humor.

The following day Ms. Kargman, realizing in retrospect that she had been mocked and criticized, decided upon damage control rather than complaint. She promptly mailed a check to Richmond with a short note saying that student nutrition was important to the Viva corporation—and to her, personally—and she was pleased to make a donation to fund the building of a larger salad bar in the caf, and committed to stocking it with fresh vegetables for the remainder of the school year.

Richmond gave a tedious speech at the next week’s Chapel meeting, explaining that there were appropriate and inappropriate ways to express a desire for change in one’s community, and there were appropriate and inappropriate ways to express artistic inclinations; and the two were different kinds of expression with different appropriate contexts. However, neither one should involve the infiltration of abandoned buildings, playing with electricity, the mockery of invited guest lecturers, or the delivery of perishable foods to public spaces at inopportune times.

Frankie felt an incredible sense of happiness as Richmond droned on. She was busy—absorbed for the first time, seriously, in what she was doing. Deep in research for her Cities class on the activities of the Suicide Club and the Cacophony Society, scouring the Internet for places to make the Bassets order note cards, bumper stickers, holiday decorations, extension cords, dogs made of vegetables, and the like, she felt a rush of excitement on a daily basis that made her old interests—ultimate Frisbee, modern dance, reading, and debate—seem catatonically dull by comparison. Now she was the commander in chief of a squad of older boys, sending them on adventures that shook Alabaster to its foundations.

That evening, Matthew blew her off for a Basset Hound meeting and Frankie didn’t even follow him— because she didn’t care.

He might think he had a secret from her, but he didn’t.

He was doing exactly what she told him to do.

From:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

To:
[email protected]

You were right. I did like that one. But you’re still a psychopath. What do you want?

From:
[email protected]

To:
Alessandro Tesorieri [[email protected]]

I am getting
exactly
what I want.

Happy Thanksgiving.