The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson Page B

egos.
    Only this time, every seat in the café was turned toward us.
    There had to be at least fifty people crammed into that small, brightly lit room. Fifty. My stomach flip-flopped a little. Carey was shifting nervously in the chair next to me and even Miranda seemed fidgety. She’d wrapped her long cornrow braids up into a bun so they wouldn’t show underneath her paper bag—we were all a little extra paranoid that someone at school would find out who we were, ever since Ms. Allison’s weird conversation with me. It seemed like every time somebody wore a Latte Rebellion shirt at school, the teachers would give them sidelong looks and have furtive, whispered conversations with each other at lunchtime or between classes.
    I wondered what would happen if someone recognized our voices and decided to say something. Or if word got back to Mr. Malone. Would we get a warning, a black mark? Something that would screw up our academic records? None of us needed that.
    I stood up and the room went eerily silent. I gulped my latte and set it down on the glass table with a decisive clunk, and then set my note cards aside. Miranda and Carey looked at me in surprise.
    “Due to the potential threat faced by Agent Alpha—myself—Captain Charlie, and Lieutenant Bravo, by outside forces hostile to our cause, who might fear us as instigators …” I cleared my throat and continued in a scratchier voice, in the hopes of disguising it a little. “In order to preserve our anonymity, today’s meeting will be conducted by Sergeant Echo and Field Officer Foxtrot.” I bowed, handed Darla my note cards, and took my seat. I would talk to the core crew of Sympathizers about this later so they didn’t think I was going rogue, but for now I felt some of the pressure ease. This was, after all, supposed to be a group effort.
    There was a pause, and then the room erupted in noise. Applause, some of it, but the surprising—and somewhat disturbing—part was the shouts of support: “Keep it real, sister!” “Fight the power!” “Right on, you do what you have to do!” “The Latte’s got your back!” I exchanged glances with Carey and Miranda, and I could see Bridget sitting in one corner looking mildly startled, which for her was the equivalent of utter amazement.
    Of course, the Tattooed Lamewad looked perfectly calm, even happy to lead the meeting. But he was the main reason Carey had even agreed to be here, so it was hard to be too much of a hater.
    “Okay, people.” Leonard stood up and leaned on the coffee counter. “Let’s get into what the Latte Rebellion should be doing to promote the cause in our manifesto. Think globally, act locally, right? Let’s take suggestions.” He waved a hand in the direction of his audience. Carey uncapped her pen, ready to take notes, looking raptly at Leonard—as raptly as you could look at someone when you had a paper bag over your head.
    The ideas started off pretty dull. Bake sales. Car washes. Candy grams during homeroom, with coffee-flavored candy. Then, one person suggested painting a mural of prominent mixed-race and just generally brown people, like Keanu Reeves and President Obama, on the wall of the University Student Union.
    It wasn’t a bad thought, but was it really feasible? It wasn’t like Carey, Miranda, or I had any time to actually do any of it. And what if we ended up doing something that would drain the vacation fund? I whispered this to Darla, who was sitting at our table, and she nodded vigorously like a little bobble-head.
    “Does anyone have ideas that won’t deplete our limited finances in five seconds?” Darla grinned impishly. The room went quiet, and you could practically hear all the mental gears grinding. Considering Darla’s obsession with action figures, I was floored by her skills with an unruly crowd.
    “We could bring in a guest speaker,” Ayesha Jones said suddenly. “Hold a public seminar.” She was in student government and debate club, so I