The Wave

"Because it means that nobody is better than anyone else for once," Amy said. "Because ever since we became friends all I've ever done is try to compete with you and keep up with you. But now I don't feel like I have to have a boyfriend on the football team like you. And if I don't want to, I don't have to get the same grades you get, Laurie. For the first time in three years I feel like I don't have to keep up with Laurie Saunders and people will still like me."

Laurie felt chills run down her arms. "I, I, uh, always knew you felt that way," she stammered. "I always wanted to talk to you about it."

"Don't you know that half the parents in school say to their kids, "Why can't you be like Laurie Saunders?" Amy asked. "Come on, Laurie, the only reason you're against The Wave is because it means you're not a princess any more."

Laurie was stunned. Even her best friend, someone as smart as Amy, was turning against her because of The Wave. It made her angry. "Well, I'm publishing this," she said.

Amy only looked up at her and said, "Don't, Laurie."

But Laurie shook her head. "I already have," she said. "And I know what I have to do."

Suddenly it was as if she was a stranger. Amy looked at her watch. "I gotta go," she said, and walked away, leaving Laurie standing alone in the library.

Copies of The Grapevine had never been scooped up faster than they were that day. The school was abuzz with the news. Very few kids had heard about the sophomore who was beaten up, and of course no one had heard the story by the anonymous junior before. But as soon as those stories appeared in the paper, other stories began to circu­late. Stories of threats and abuse directed at kids who, for one reason or another, had resisted The Wave.

There were other rumours going around too, that teachers and parents had been to Principal Owens's office all morning complaining, and that the school counsellors had begun interviewing students. There was an air of unease in the halls and classrooms.

In the faculty lounge, Ben Ross put down his copy of The Grapevine and rubbed his temples with his fingers. Suddenly he'd got a terrible headache. Something had gone wrong and somewhere in his mind Ross suspected that he was to blame for it. The roughing up of this boy was terrible, unbelievable. How could he justify an experi­ment that had such effects?

He was also surprised to find himself disturbed by the football team's embarrassing defeat by Clarkstown. It seemed odd to him that although he didn't care the least about high school athletics, this defeat would bother him so. Was it because of The Wave? During the last week he had begun to believe that if the football team fared well it would be a strong argument for the success of The Wave.

But since when did he want The Wave to succeed? The success or failure of The Wave was not the point of the experiment. He was supposed to be interested in what his students learned from The Wave, not in The Wave itself.

There was a medicine chest in the faculty lounge, stocked with just about every brand of aspirin and non- aspirin headache remedy that had ever been invented. A friend of his had once remarked that while doctors as a group suffered from the highest incidence of suicide, teachers had to have the highest incidence of headaches. Ben shook three tablets from a bottle and headed for the door to get some water.

But just as he reached the faculty room door, Ben stopped. Outside in the hall he could hear voices — Norm Schiller's and another male voice he didn't recognize. Someone must have stopped Norm just as he was going into the faculty lounge and now he stood outside the door talking. Ben listened from inside.

"No, it wasn't worth a damn," Schiller was saying. "Sure it got them psyched up, made "em think they could win. But out on the field they couldn't execute. All the waves in the world don't mean a thing next to a well-executed quarterback option. There s no substitute for learning the damn game."

"Ross really has these kids brainwashed if you ask me," the unidentified man said. "I don't know what the hell he thinks he's up to, but I don't like it. And none of the other teachers I've talked to do either. Where does he get the right?"

"Don't ask me," Schiller said.

The faculty room door began to open and Ben quickly backed away, pushing through a door into the small faculty bathroom that adjoined the lounge. His heart was pounding rapidly and his head hurt even more. He swallowed the three aspirins and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. Was he afraid of who he might see? A high school history teacher who had accidentally slipped into the role of a dictator?