Ezzy's Education: A story of politics invading a high school

Part 1: Ezzy's Options

“Mom, you can’t force me to put the pronouns ‘she/hers’ at the end of my emails,” said seventeen-year-old Esmeralda “Ezzy” Clemente Bello. “Everyone knows I’m a girl. You didn’t even care about pronouns until you started running for school board.” Ezzy looked downat the hickory-stained kitchen floor. I’m going to be late for school.

“Your father and I taught you to always do the right thing,” Ezzy’s mother, Echo Bello,said as she adjusted her black plastic glasses holding non-prescription lenses. “Signifying concern is so important.”

“Important for who?” asked Ezzy, now looking at her mother. “For you?” She stuffed a banana, a sandwich bag filled with peanuts, and the chicken sandwich she had just mashed together into her tan, suede backpack. She pulled its long drawstrings and fastened its nickel buckle.

“For all of you, honey.”

Ezzy slid the backpack off the laminate countertop that resembled Brunswick green granite swirled with dark cream and overlaid with flashy streaks of amber. “All of who?”she asked.

Her mother ran her fingers along her temples where, until the other day, her brown hair had been much more than a quarter inch long. “For all the underprivileged, the oppressed.”

“But I’m privileged. I have you and Dad. The only time I feel oppressed is when you try to make me do things like this.”

“Do you not care?”

“About your race to win a school board seat?” “Your father didn’t make your lunch?”

Ah, changing the subject. Classic. “I told him I’d make it myself so he could get out and start work early. We’re going up to camp right after school, remember?”

“I’m running for you, honey. And for all Latinxs.” “I’m not Latinx.”

“But you are.”

“That’s funny, I thought I was Ezzy.” “You don’t understand.”

“I’m going to be late for school. Do you understand that?” Ezzy’s knuckles on herbackpack were as white as her mother’s face.

“Well,” her mother said, shouldering her vegan, pea-soup-green crossbody bag.

“I’m not putting pronouns at the end of my emails. Dad and I will be gone for the weekend when you get home from your Justice Party political meeting. Adios. Love you.”

Ezzy grabbed the keys to her old Jeep Wrangler from the stand by the front door. On the wall above the stand hung a square of beige canvas with the outline of an eye painted on it in black. Where her mother had hung the eye, there had been a painting of a rainbow oversomeone fly fishing in a river. Ezzy had treasured that painting. She looked at the eye and squeezed the keys in her hand. As she opened the front door her mother said, “Interrupt some inequities today, Ezzy!” Ezzy closed the door behind her.

If I could give all my classmates good homes to live in, then we’d be talking inequity interruption. Ezzy drove faster than usual to school, listening to Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” twice and singing along with the mezzo-soprano voice she had recently been told shehad.

Awaiting Ezzy at her gray and navy locker inside Ebbing High School was Verica Navratil. A pleasant looking girl with short maple hair and believable hazel eyes, Verica’s incessant enthusiasm contrasted with her somewhat sickly appearance. She wore a black jumpsuit and a bronze, satin lipstick that appeared orange in certain lighting. What does she want now?

“Good morning, Ezzy!”

“Good morning, Verica, how are you?” Ezzy asked without enthusiasm. “I am very well,thanks! I love your earthy outfit today.”

“What can I do for you, Verica?” Might as well get this over with.

“Well, Lucinda would like to meet with you today.” “Why?”

“She would like to talk about how you will support her campaign for student body president!” The election was in eleven days.

Why would I help Lucinda? “What does Lucinda want me to do?”

“Well, Lucinda says since you’re one of the only Latinx students, you’d be a powerful voice for Justice.”

What is it with everyone calling me Latinx lately? “So Lucinda wants me to help her win by making it look like she cares about people like me?”

“Well, yes, but it’s more than that.” A group of three boys walked by and Verica licked her lipstick.

Ezzy looked at Verica and took a deep breath. Don’t laugh. Don’t show you’re annoyed.The race for student body president doesn’t matter. Fishing with Dad later. “How is it more than that?” she asked, remembering how in seventh grade Lucinda used to march around the classroom with her oversized ruler during art classes, making sure every student followed their teacher’s instructions for this or that project. Lucinda seemed to get such a thrill out of “helping” in this way.

“Well, it is about the cause of Justice. You know?”

“Do you think I support Lucinda?” Why does she always try to pronounce every. Single.

Syllable. Perfectly? Just talk, Verica!

“It is important to show the students and the school board—” Verica paused. “Lucinda is available right after school today.”

“I’m not,” Ezzy said. “Heading to camp with my father. We’re fishing all weekend.”

“Camp?” Verica asked. “Like, tenting out?”

I forgot she’s still kind of new to Maine. “It’s our family cabin but we call it ‘camp.’That’s what people call family cabins in Maine.” She better not ask if Lucinda can meet atcamp.

“I get it. What is a better time?”

“Today’s not going to work.” Ezzy looked at her phone. Phew. Almost start of home room.

“Your support is supremely important to Lucinda.” “That’s great.”

The bell near Ezzy’s locker rang. Yes!

“Maybe you could skip a class?” Verica asked. “This is more important.” “I don’t skip classes.”

“Well. Then maybe Lucinda could meet you at your camp this weekend?”

Ezzy felt her body heating up. Calm down, Ezzy. Calm down. “I don’t think that would work. Look, I’ve got to go.” Ezzy walked away but before reaching home room, a storm of boys dressed in gray and navy rushed by her. One boy brushed her skin above the forest-green, off shoulder t-shirt she had just bought with money she made cleaning houses. The boys half chanted, half hollered:

Let Trunk be Trunk! Trunk’s gonna be Trunk! Trunk for President!

Make Ebbing High Great Again!

One of the boys, the tallest one with dirty-blond hair hovering over his head like alost cloud, looked down on Ezzy. His dark-blue eyes penetrated first her face, her shirt, paused at her trim waist, then continued through her chocolate, straight-leg jeans and caramel, high- top zipper sneakers. The boy was Trunk Langston, star quarterback and candidate for student body president. He wore his football jersey that read “Ebbing” and“1.”

Trunk’s head jutted toward Ezzy and stopped, as if stuck. The look on his face made Ezzy think he must need to use the boy’s room, and he smelled like OxiClean mixed withCalvin Klein Obsession for Men cologne. Ezzy felt a rush of nausea.

Was he chanting about himself?

Trunk had a following of boys with him, including his deputy, Trendon Bravissimo,who Ezzy thought was the most obnoxious loser at school. A few girls appeared to be amused by Trunk and his boys.

I don’t get it. How can people even stomach him, let alone think he’s a hero?

Ezzy said nothing to Trunk who, after staring at her for several seconds, walked away. While walking, he said, “Ezzy, your Hispanic hair looks excellent today. Excellent Latin hair. Maybe the best. Could be, could be, I don’t know. Hop on the Trunk train, Ezzy. Trunk will be very good for the good Latins.”

Ezzy stopped glaring at him to roll her eyes. He’s such a tool. He probably thinks he’s being profound with his fake regular guy touch. Pathetic. She’d gone to school with Trunk since third grade and monitored his ego growth over the years, as well as his recent conversion to Patriot politician.

She walked into homeroom, trying to erase her mind of her morning so far. First class today is AP Bio! Ezzy loved her biology teacher, Mr. Toven. He pushed her and all his students hard and he reminded Ezzy of her father. She was aware this was in part because her father was a biologist, a fisheries biologist studying cold water species for the State of Maine.

Focus on schoolwork, Ezzy. Don’t let politics distract you.

The bell rung again. Ezzy stood up and marched, head down, until she entered Biology class.

“Good morning, Mr. Toven!”

“Good morning, Ezzy.” Middle-aged Mr. Toven smiled.

“The homework assignment on system interactions was tough!” “I suspect you figured it out just fine.”

“I don’t know; guess I’ll find out soon.” Ezzy smiled as she sat down. So much better now. I wish all the classes were like this one. So fun, yet I work so hard at it. Her classmates made their way inside the classroom and most of them said hi to Ezzy or at least smiled at her from a distance. Some mouthed “hi.” Ezzy did a lot of smiling, waving, and saying “hi.” Much like when Ezzy was on a river fly fishing, in this classroom she was in her element: more sociable than in most environments she found herself.

Around 1:45 p.m., during study hall, Ezzy stopped doing schoolwork and began doodling on a notepad, drawing the flies she intended to use fishing for brook trout that weekend. We’ll fish tonight if we get there in time. When the final bell of the school day rung, she rushed to her locker, grabbed what she needed, and escaped to her Jeep unbothered by anyone invested in the campaign for student body president. Arriving at her house, she saw her father’s green F-150 parked in the driveway. He got out of work early! Of course he did. She grinned ear to ear and put on her sky-blue and tan Trout Unlimited ball cap that had been resting on the passenger seat.

Riding to camp with her father, Ezzy decided not to mention school politics or her dispute with her mother over being pressured to use pronouns in her emails. On the river that evening, they took turns fishing the same small stretch of river, managing to catch a few trout each on a fly that her father, Mateo Bello, had invented. It was a variation of a classic British wet fly pattern with more color than the original. They fished together again on Saturday, hooking trout all day long with that wet fly but remaining tight-lipped about their success whenever they encountered others on the river.

That evening at camp, Ezzy said, “My whole life I still haven’t caught a true trophy.” She pointed her palms at herself to look at her nails that were neither long nor short and she’d painted light-blue with dark-pink circles in the middle, imitating the dots on the sides of brook trout.

“Maybe tomorrow,” her father said.

“Let’s fish Leo’s Pool. I’m going to catch a monster there.” “If you say so.”

Ezzy tilted her head, squinted, smiled, and said, “Wait and see.”

Ezzy's Education, the first novel by recovering Washington, D.C. political professional Garrett C. Murch, can be purchased here as a paperback or an eBook.