“I know that if you’ve spent your lives being told an identity is wrong, or sinful, or inappropriate, it’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that everything you’ve been told is bigotry. I grew up in this town. I know my parents loved me very much. But I also know that if this meeting had happened when I was a kid, my parents would have been among the people challenging this book. They would have done it out of fear. Not of the book, but of who I was then and who I was going to grow up to be. They would have been desperate to control it, to force my world into the shape they were told it was supposed to be. But they would have been wrong to do so, and ultimately they would have failed. Because even if they’d been able to control every single book I’d read as a child, I still would have grown up to be the gay, married, proud teacher who stands before you. In challenging a book, they would have been trying to turn off a tap, when who I am is actually an ocean.

  “I’m happy to see there are many younger and no doubt wiser people behind me waiting to speak. I am eager to give them the floor. But I want to end by saying this: I hope to keep teaching The Adventurers in my class, as well as other books with LGBTQIA+ characters. I hope you will do the right thing and allow me to do so. But even if you pull all the queer books from our class, even if you could manage to somehow pull all the queer books from this town, I guarantee you, you will not stop us from being who we are. The worst damage you can do is to make the more vulnerable of us feel bad about it. But you cannot hold back the ocean. The ocean will not be contained in such a way.”

  As soon as he was done, we all started clapping and cheering, and our section was so loud, it was hard to tell at first that so many other people in the audience were clapping and cheering too. People were standing, whooping. Even some of the members of the school board were standing and clapping. Mr. Howe came back to us and Bert gave him the biggest hug and kiss, and then Bright gave him the second-biggest hug, and I think if there hadn’t been seats in the way, our whole class would have given him the biggest group hug in town history.

  The students started chanting again:

  It’s okay to be gay.

  It’s okay to be gay.

  Finally, the auditorium quieted enough so the next speaker could begin. They said they were a nonbinary student at the high school, and wanted to share with the board what the books they had read as a kid meant to them. “These books didn’t make me who I am,” they said. “But they showed me I wasn’t alone, long before I met other kids like me. How dare you try to take away that belonging and security from other kids.”

  More teenagers and adults told their stories. Allison’s parents and other parents talked about the conversations The Adventurers had allowed them to have with their children, whether they were LGBTQIA+ or not.

  The line to speak was getting longer and longer. Then, as they did for Mr. Howe, people stepped aside to let someone go to the front. It wasn’t until he got there that I realized it was Curtis.

  As soon as he got near the mic, his parents jumped up and rushed into the aisle. I thought they were going to try to stop him, because saying you’re gay to your friends and saying you’re gay to the whole town are two very different things. But when he stepped up to the mic, they didn’t block him or pull him away. No, they stood behind him. His dad put a hand on his back for a second, just to let him know they were there.

  “Hello,” Curtis said softly. I could see a few people on the stage lean forward to hear him. “My name is Curtis. Mr. Howe is my teacher. I want to tell everyone here that I am gay. I think it’s important you know that. A lot of the people here have been talking like there aren’t any gay kids in Mr. Howe’s class. They say that kids like me aren’t ready to read about Rick and Oliver. But they have that wrong. There are plenty of fifth graders who are LGBTQIA+. Some of us are ready to talk about it. Some of us want to keep it to ourselves. Some of us still need to figure it out. Being ready is our choice, not yours. My parents say that telling someone who you really are is a gift you give to them, not something you owe them. My parents are right. You cannot completely ignore us. You cannot say there can’t be books about kids like us. You can’t say you’re protecting us when you’re trying to stop us from being ourselves. I just want to tell you that I loved The Adventurers and I love Mr. Howe’s class. I think if you want to know what kids really need, then you should talk to us. So now I’m telling you what we need: more books, not fewer books. More love, not less love. Thank you.”

  This time, nobody hesitated to get to their feet. As Curtis turned to his parents and they hugged him, the auditorium rocked with cheers and applause. I looked over and even my parents were standing and clapping. My voice was going hoarse from yelling so loud. When Curtis got back to us, there was so much hugging and high-fiving. A few of the adults were crying, too. When Curtis finally sat down in his seat, he looked exhausted…but also like the exhaustion was totally worth it.

  There was time for a few more speakers. When an old man got up to the microphone, I thought for a second that maybe someone from the other side had infiltrated our side. But instead of starting by saying that “homosexuality is a sin,” he introduced himself and said that he and his husband had been together for over forty years.

  “Just like Rick and Oliver, we have had many adventures and been to many places,” he told us. “We haven’t wrestled any alligators or escaped from any cages, but we have had to wrestle against a world that has told us our love doesn’t count and we have had to escape through the bars of other people’s prejudices. Especially after all the inspiring stories from so many people two generations below mine, I just wanted to say the story of love and happiness isn’t only to be found in novels. It’s our true story, and it’s one that I’ve lived for most of my life. I hope this school board will see the sense of that, and will reject the nonsense of this book challenge.”

  After he was done, the school board president said, “I would like to thank all the speakers we’ve just heard from. Now I would like to ask Principal Woodson for her committee’s recommendation.”

  Principal Woodson walked up to one of the microphones and said, “Thank you, Ms. Scoppettone. Our committee, made up of administrators, parents, our school librarian, and two teachers from other schools in our system, has now read and discussed The Adventurers, taking into consideration its literary merit, its themes, the concerns of the challenge that was filed, and Mr. Howe’s reasons for teaching the book within his class. It is our unanimous recommendation that the school board reject the challenge and allow the book to continue to be taught in Mr. Howe’s class.”

  All the students and parents around me cheered as if someone had just hit a home run. Bright put his hand on Mr. Howe’s shoulder and squeezed. Bert wiped away some tears.

  “Thank you, Principal Woodson,” the school board president said. “With this recommendation and the comments made this evening in mind, the school board will now take its vote. Secretary Jenkins, will you call the roll? An aye will uphold the teacher’s use of the text; a nay will be a vote for the book’s removal from the classroom.”

  “Anderson?”

  “Aye.”

  “Block?”

  “Aye.”

  “Boonton?”

  “Nay.”

  Allison took my hand and squeezed. I closed my eyes and kept count.

  “Aye.”

  “Nay.”

  “Aye.”

  “Aye.”

  “Aye.”

  On that sixth aye, the crowd erupted. There were ten people on the board, so even if the last two votes were nay, we had won.

  The school board president called for order, but there was no getting order back. Allison’s parents hugged her. Curtis’s parents hugged him.

  My parents were on the other side of the room.

  “Hey,” I heard someone say. It was G. R. Bright, turning back to look at me. “Good work.” Then Allison stopped hugging her parents and started hugging me. The last votes (one aye and one nay) were tallied, and then the school board president adjourned the meeting.

  There was more cheering and a lot of beaming smiles.

  I tuned back in and Bright and Mr. Howe were talking in front of me.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Mr. Howe asked. “It wouldn’t hurt to let everyone know you were here.”

  “Nah,” Bright said. “I’ll drop by your class tomorrow.”

  Mr. Howe’s face lit up. “I’d love that.”

  They hugged again.

  “Thank you, Gideon,” Bright said.

  “Thank you, Roberto,” Mr. Howe replied.

  People were already crowding around to congratulate Mr. Howe. I watched as the author of The Adventurers walked down the aisle and out the door. When he lifted his legs, I could see he was wearing a pair of purple socks.

  Someone’s parent pointed out it was a school night, and suddenly everyone was being bundled back into their coats, readying to go. My parents had already left their seats; I assumed they would be waiting for me in the lobby.

  I said goodbye to Allison and Curtis and Kira and Mr. Howe and Bert. I knew I was making my parents wait, and probably shouldn’t. When I walked into the lobby, I saw a few people consoling my mom, but she just waved it off, thanked people for trying. When she saw me coming, she told them she had to leave. She and Dad walked over to me before I could walk over to them.

  “Let’s go,” Dad said.

  We headed quickly to the car. Mom thanked a few more people as we passed them, but she didn’t stay to talk.

  Once we got into the car, it was really quiet. I still had questions. Why hadn’t my mom spoken? Why had she been a part of Curtis’s standing ovation? But the questions weren’t fueled by any outrage, just curiosity. And my curiosity could wait for now.

  Finally, after we were out of the high school parking lot and halfway home, Dad spoke up.

  “It’s over now,” he said. “All over.”

  “Yes,” Mom said. “It is.”

  “Amen,” I added. And something about the relief in my voice made both of my parents laugh.

  “Who’s hungry?” Dad asked.

  “Me!” Mom and I both chimed.

  Dad smiled. “Okay…where should we go?”

  As I leaned back in my seat and let them figure out where we’d have dinner, I wished this whole story had been a book that had been handed to my mom, and that she’d been able to read the final pages first. Maybe then, things would have been different. Maybe then, she would have understood enough to change what she did.

  Later that night, when she came in to say good night, my mother would thank me…not so much for opening her eyes, but for turning her head a little so she could focus on the right thing. She’d tell me that at first she had been convinced that my classmates and I weren’t ready to read about two boys in love. But ultimately she realized that, no, she wasn’t thinking about me and my friends. She was thinking about her and her friends, when they’d been in fifth grade. And the world had changed a lot since then. For the better. What I’d said at the dinner table had turned her head to see that. And what she’d seen at the school board meeting had made it clearer.

  I would be happy to hear that. But for now, I was happy that we weren’t talking about it anymore, and that we were heading to dinner as a family. I gazed out the window until I heard my mom say, “Here.”

  I looked up and saw she was handing me a copy of The Adventurers. She must have had it in her bag the whole time.

  “Thank you,” I said, putting it in my lap. My father turned off the news and started to whistle along to some music.

  I smiled and began to reread the book from the beginning. I was looking forward to talking about it in class the next day.

  And after that…I wondered what Mr. Howe would assign us next.

  No matter how much Roberto protested and pouted and complained and lobbied, there wasn’t anything he could do to change the simple fact:

  His family was moving back to Miami.

  It was heartbreaking for his mom. She knew how much Gideon meant to Roberto. But she was also so happy to be returning to their family, to the city she felt they never should have left.

  “You can call him,” she assured Roberto. “You can write letters. We’ll even get AOL so you can get one of those email addresses and write to him that way.”

  Roberto had told Gideon as soon as he’d found out the news, so for the rest of the school year, they’d existed with the cloud of Roberto’s departure over their heads. Joelle and Tucker could see the cloud, and they tried to break through it sometimes, asking Roberto and Gideon to go on double dates even though nobody called them double dates. Joelle and Tucker also understood when Gideon spent all his time with Roberto, and knew that once Roberto was gone, they’d have to step into the space Roberto would leave behind before it became large enough for Gideon to lose himself in.

  On the last night, Gideon slept over at Roberto’s house. Most of Roberto’s room was packed up, but the bed was still made, and the blankets were still welcoming. They talked and kissed for as long as they could stay awake, then Gideon fell asleep with his head on Roberto’s chest.

  Roberto stayed awake most of the rest of the night, just so he could stare at the ceiling and feel the closeness of Gideon’s breathing and the gentle sounds of his breath.

  * * *

  The movers came early in the morning, and Gideon knew it was time for him to leave. He couldn’t believe it was happening, but he also knew he couldn’t deny it was happening. They’d sworn to keep in touch, and he knew they would. But first there would be this big, temporary goodbye.

  Roberto’s mom came to the door of Roberto’s room and told them they had about ten more minutes.

  “Okay,” Roberto said. Then he opened an otherwise empty desk drawer and took out a box.

  “I got you something,” he said.

  Gideon smiled. “I got you something too.”

  Their boxes were the exact same size.

  Roberto’s box for Gideon contained what at first looked like a crystal turtle with a multicolored shell. But when Gideon looked closer, he saw what it really was: The shell acted as a kaleidoscope, refracting an image into bright fragments of color. When Gideon lifted the shell, he saw that underneath was a photo of Roberto leaning his head on Gideon’s shoulder as they watched a movie together. Roberto’s mother must have taken it when neither of them had been looking. It was such a sweet photo, and when Gideon closed the shell again, he saw how the turtle captured some of the music of the moment, taking the image and breaking it into something like feeling. The brightness of their togetherness, reflected in a shell.

  “I love it,” Gideon said. “Now open yours.”

  Inside Roberto’s box was a silver turtle, so much like Samson that Roberto could believe that Samson had posed for it. The only difference was the silver, and the fact that when he turned it over, there was an inscription.

  Roberto H. Garcia

  Great

  Rare

  Bright

  “I love it,” Roberto said. “I’ll keep it with me always.”

  And he would.

  Roberto’s lips touched Gideon’s lips.

  Gideon’s tears touched Roberto’s tears.

  Roberto’s arms wrapped around Gideon’s body.

  Gideon’s arms wrapped around Roberto’s body.

  Time stopped long enough to deepen into a memory, and then time moved quickly again.

  “Write something about me someday,” Gideon said.

  Roberto smiled and said, “I just might.” (*He did.)

  * * *

  For an adult, six months is nothing. You can go six months without seeing your best friend. You can stay in the same spot and do the same thing for six months and not even notice. It’s just a short stretch in a long life, and unless you’re in love or in the midst of a big change, you barely even notice it until one day six months are gone.

  But when you’re a kid, six months can mean everything. A boy can walk into your class that first day and he can change your life entirely by the time he leaves six months later. And if you’re the boy walking into that class, the same thing can happen. You can’t imagine who you were before he showed you who you were meant to be.

  Neither Roberto nor Gideon will actually use the word goodbye. To use it, they feel, would be to call it into being.

  And in that farewell moment, it won’t occur to either of them to say thank you, even though what they feel as much as love is gratitude. The thank you will come later, as the memory rises again. They will see what they were to each other, and they will be grateful, time after time after time.

  “Good luck on your adventure,” Gideon whispers to Roberto.

  “You too,” Roberto whispers back.

  One more kiss.

  One more hug.

  They will never leave one another’s lives.

  The trailer seemed strange without Melody around. Rick understood why she’d moved on—defeating McAllister wouldn’t do a lick of good if his second-in-command, the Snake Goddess, wasn’t captured too. The thing Rick didn’t really understand was why he hadn’t gone with her.

  He didn’t like the idea of adventures going on without him. But he also didn’t like the idea of leaving right now.

  Oliver’s alligator nightmares hadn’t gone away. If anything, they now felt more real, more detailed. Rick could hear him crying out as he woke up. If Rick asked what was wrong, Oliver would try to downplay it, saying it was just leftover nerves from what had gone down in Florida. He said it would go away over time. Rick wasn’t so sure.

  Rick wasn’t awake now because of Oliver making noise, but because of a silence so absolute there was no way Oliver was around. With the threat of attack temporarily lessened, they’d moved the trailer aboveground, so a muted light was coming through the windows.