Free The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away by Frances O'Roark Dowell Page A

about.
    “Probably not, but people like what’s new and different. You might also add a ‘stick it to the man’ element. Kids your age are starting to look for ways to rebel.”
    “Salad as rebellion,” Kate mused. “I like it. You should have gone into advertising.”
    “I thought about it,” Mr. Faber said. “I like messing around with language.”
    “Me too,” Kate said. “I don’t know why, I just do.”
    Kate’s dad pushed himself away from the table. “Well, let me know if you need any more help. In the meantime, I might just sneak anextra slice of raspberry pie. Do you think your mom would mind?”
    “I think if you put your dishes in the dishwasher, you can get away with murder around here,” Kate told him.
    After her dad left the kitchen, Kate stretched in her chair. She felt relieved all of a sudden, but she wasn’t sure why. Because her dad had given her some good ideas for her proposal? She didn’t think it was that. Maybe it was because they’d had a conversation where Kate didn’t feel guilty or angry by the end of it. They’d had a conversation that had ended on a funny note instead of Kate’s dad walking out of the room with a disappointed look on his face.
    Disappointed over soggy broccoli? Kate wrote in her notebook. Tired of depressed lima beans?
    She wrote as fast as she could, the ideas coming at her a mile a minute. It wasn’t even that she was so excited about the idea of a school garden. It was more that she was excited about messing around with language. About making words mean what she wanted them tosay. There was a trick to it, Kate knew, and she also knew that sometimes she was magic.

    The next morning Kate couldn’t wait to see Marylin on the bus. She thought Marylin was the perfect audience for her proposal—someone who was smart, big on school spirit, and okay with lettuce.
    But before she got a chance to bring it up, Marylin was handing her a manila folder. “So I need you to tell me what you think about my proposal for the What’s Your Big Idea contest. Do you think it’s the sort of thing an average kid would vote for?”
    Kate opened the folder and read Marylin’s title: Why New Cheerleading Uniforms Affect Everyone!
    She turned to Marylin. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “I’m not kidding at all,” Marylin insisted. “Cheerleading uniforms matter. To everyone.” She began ticking off the reasons. “They’re important for school spirit. They’re important for school pride. Studies show that when thecheerleaders are exceptionally cute, the teams perform better.”
    “You’re making that up,” Kate said. “That’s totally bogus.”
    “I’m not making anything up,” Marylin argued. “I might be paraphrasing a little bit, but that’s different from making things up.”
    Kate handed back the folder. “This is so selfish! Nobody cares about your uniforms. And there’s nothing wrong with the uniforms you guys already have. They’re perfectly nice.”
    “ ‘Perfectly nice’ isn’t good enough. Perfectly nice won’t win us the district cheering championship, will it?”
    Kate stared at her. Even Marylin wasn’t this nuts, was she? “You’re doing this so Mazie won’t be mad at you, aren’t you? For not going with her to the mall Friday night?”
    Marylin flinched, and Kate knew she’d hit a nerve. “So what’s she doing? Writing mean stuff on the bathroom walls?”
    “She’s not doing anything,” Marylin said, examining her nails as though Mazie being mad at her wasn’t a big deal. “Well, she’s nottalking to me, that’s true. And some of the other girls aren’t either, but that’s just how they are. They’ll get over it.”
    “Just as soon as you get them new uniforms, right?”
    Marylin didn’t say anything, but Kate could tell the answer was yes. She had two simultaneous, totally opposite feelings. She wanted to give Marylin a pat on the shoulder, like, There, there, everything will be all right, but she also wanted