At two p.m. we meet up with Alistair’s parents at the Multnomah County Courthouse. Mr. Kalman filed a motion to have Alistair’s case dismissed, but the district attorney, a blond-haired woman in a crisp blue dress, has something else in mind.

  “Your Honor, this twelve-year-old boy disrupted the supply chain in an industry vital to the state of Oregon. If we allow these so-called climate warriors to use terrorist tactics against the fossil fuel industry, the economic toll will be devastating. The loss could be as high as twenty-seven percent of the state’s corporate tax revenue. That’s money gone from schools, libraries, streets, first responders, and, of course, your salary. The DA’s office would like to see you make an example of the boy’s behavior.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Under Section 1951 of the U.S. Criminal Code, the maximum penalty for willful interference of commerce is twenty years. He’s a minor, so I think it would be appropriate to impose ten percent of the maximum penalty.”

  Alistair jumps up. “Two years? You’re going to make me go through puberty in prison?”

  The judge slams her gavel onto shiny wood. Alistair sits back down.

  “Defense?”

  Mr. Kalman rises.

  “Your Honor, my client was exercising his right under Oregon state law to use any means necessary to right a wrong. His actions, though illegal, were necessary to stop the dangerous and destructive practice of transporting raw oil shale through the city. Those train tracks pass within a thousand feet of people’s homes. Those people may be poor, but they have a right to breathe clean air.”

  “In order to persuade me with the necessity defense, you have to prove that your client exhausted all other avenues of protest.”

  “Our people tried picketing,” Alistair says. “They spoke at city hall. What did that get us? Bupkes—”

  The DA interrupts. “This boy is a child being used by adults to carry out their political agenda. If you don’t punish him, other minors will be exploited in the same way.”

  “Listen, lady,” Alistair says, rising again, “nobody’s manipulating me. I stood on that mound of soil because I wanted to. I stopped that train because I had to. I may be a prepu . . . prepubes . . . just a kid, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think for myself. Judge, if you believe I broke the law, then sentence me. But keep in mind, sometimes two wrongs do make a right. Sometimes, it’s the only way.”

  I wish we weren’t bound by the courtroom code of silence, because right now I’d like to jump up and shout Go, Alistair! and leap onto his shoulders. But I restrain myself and make a secret, triumphant fist in my seat.

  The judge looks at the DA.

  She looks at Mr. Kalman.

  Then she looks at Alistair, who looks right back.

  And doesn’t look away.

  It’s a staring contest between Alistair and the judge.

  “You want me to punish you?” she says.

  “If you believe what I did was wrong, yes.”

  She turns to Mr. Kalman. “You want me to dismiss the charges?”

  “Under Oregon’s necessity defense, yes.”

  She turns to the DA. “You want me to impose a sentence?”

  “It would send the right message, Your Honor.”

  There’s this long, terrifying pause. As clean and fresh as the air was under the magnolia tree, that’s how thick and heavy it feels in here.

  Finally, the judge speaks.

  “I’m going to give the kid what he wants,” she says. “In the matter of Multnomah County v. Alistair Martin, a minor charged with unlawful trespassing and interference with commerce, I pronounce you guilty as charged.”

  Alistair’s mom and dad hold hands. Jaesang, Catalina, and me all gasp. But Alistair holds it together, stays on his feet.

  “And I’m going to give the DA what she wants.”

  “What’s my sentence?” Alistair asks.

  “Time served.”

  The DA can hardly believe her ears. “But that’s just two days.”

  “And during those two days, according to his case officer, he was a model prisoner—both in and out of the kitchen. Keep fighting, Mr. Martin. In the words of a great man—whose first name matches your surname—‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”

  The gavel comes down.

  “Whew,” Alistair says. “For a second I thought I’d I have to be bar mitzvahed behind bars.”

  Outside the courthouse, we gather on the steps, and now I can give Alistair the bear hug I’ve been saving.

  But Jaesang is, well, a little bit somber.

  “Don’t know why you’re celebrating. Now he’s got a record.”

  “It’ll be expunged when he turns eighteen,” Mr. Kalman says.

  “Besides, he’s in good company,” Catalina says. “Rosa Parks. Gandhi. Martin Luther King. Cesar Chavez. Lots of famous activists have been arrested.”

  A reporter from a local news channel puts a fuzzy microphone in front of Alistair. A cameraman points a fat lens at him. Alistair soaks up the attention like someone who’s been on TV before.

  That’s because he’s been on TV before.

  He starts praising his defense attorney—

  “Come here, Mr. Kalman, get in the shot.”

  He starts praising his support team—

  “You guys, too.”

  And he says he has a warning for the fossil fuel industry. “This isn’t over, polluters!”

  A big crowd has gathered, and a woman steps forward and asks if she can speak to Alistair. Kids trail her—from really short kindergartners to hairy-faced high school students. She introduces herself as Julia Olson, the chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust.

  “We’re an organization out of Eugene,” she says. “We brought a class action lawsuit against the United States government for its policies that are contributing to climate change.”

  “I heard about you guys,” I say. “Juliana v. United States. You lost at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

  “We did, yes.” She looks at me. “You’re Sam, aren’t you? Sam Warren?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We followed your case against homework. You’re a hero to a lot of kids.”

  I look at all the kids standing with her. I look at Alistair and think, a lot of kids are heroes to me.

  “You know, Ms. Olson,” I say. “The judge inside, she told Alistair to keep fighting. Same goes for you. Don’t you have one last appeal—to the U.S. Supreme Court?”

  “We filed an appeal six months ago, Sam. Their silence means they probably won’t hear our case.”

  I look at Alistair, who nods. We look at Jaesang and Catalina, who nod. We all look at Mr. Kalman, who shrugs.

  “We can help,” I say.

  I pull out my cell phone and make a call. She answers right away. That’s the thing about my big sister. She always answers right away.

  “Sadie,” I say, “how would you like to take a little time off from college?”

  5

  The Lounge War

  Last year, when we sued to stop homework, Mr. Kalman was our coach, but Sadie was the captain of our team. Sadie knew how to turn anger into action. Sadie had the guts to argue in front of the scary justices of the Supreme Court.

  She was also my personal champion. All my life, when I’d feel anxious, Sadie would help me feel calm. When I’d feel small, she’d lower the world for me.

  She’d also lower the Nerf hoop so I could dunk. Basically, she’s the best big sister you could ask for. So, when I tell her we need her help to convince the Supreme Court that they have to take Juliana on appeal, I’m feeling really strong, really tall.

  And the last thing I’m expecting her to say is “Sorry, Sam, I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “I have two papers due next week and a debate tournament next month. If we win, we qualify for nationals. And I just got an internship doing outreach with homeless women in Providence.”

  “But you already proved you’re the best debater in the world. You got homework kicked out of school.”

  “Middle school. And high school. College is different.”

  “How so?”

  “This is work I want to do, Sam.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. The silence swallows us both.

  “Sam? You okay?”

  “This fight—against the government, to save the planet—it’s so much bigger than the last one. We can’t do it without you.”

  “Yes, you can, Sam. I have faith in you. Listen, I gotta go. I’m late for a study session.”

  And just like that, my big sister ditches me.

  On the Saturday after we sprung—sprang?—Alistair from juvy, we meet up in the lounge of the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. Mr. Kalman said that his 643-square-foot apartment was suitable for one man in his ninth decade, but not for the whole team. The lounge, on the other hand, has a pool table, a flat-screen TV, a sectional couch, and a small communal kitchen with a microwave and a mini-fridge.

  We turn the pool table into our conference table, and we all sit around and plan our strategy to get the Supreme Court to take the climate change lawsuit on appeal.

  “There’s never been a case like Juliana v. United States,” Mr. Kalman begins. “Like our case against the school board, theirs is a class action lawsuit brought by kids, but they’re suing the whole U.S. government. Their claim? The government looks the other way while oil and gas companies wreck the environment. And kids suffer the most because you’re facing a future of rising sea levels, raging forest fires, mass migration, and mass extinction.”

  “Where’s the constitutional violation?” Catalina asks. For a case to win at the Supreme Court, it has to have a reason to be there.

  “The Fifth Amendment says the government can’t take away your life, liberty, or property without due process,” Jaesang says. “By failing to protect the environment, they’re violating the Fifth. Should be a slam dunk case.”

  “Well, Jaesang,” Mr. Kalman says, “the problem with Juliana, according to a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is that they’re asking courts to take a priori action to stop a coming threat. To prove standing in a lawsuit, you have to show a posteriori damages.”

  This is when I need my big sister to translate into Little Brother English.

  “I don’t get it,” I say.

  From across the room a voice calls out, “He said you can’t sue someone until after they’ve hurt you.”

  It’s Skateboard Girl. She must visit her grandma every Saturday. She rolls up to us and says, “He used the Latin legal terms for before and after.”

  “What grade are you even in?” Jaesang asks.

  “Seventh.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Zoe.”

  “Where do you go to school, Zoe?”

  “Right here.”

  We look around. I don’t know many classrooms with a pool table, a flat-screen TV, and a mini-fridge.

  “In a senior living complex? I thought you had to be, like, over seventy-five to live here.”

  “Sixty-two. But in my case, the board made an exception. Can I turn on the TV? It’s relevant to your cause.”

  Zoe steps to the TV, grabs the remote, and turns on Netflix. She keeps the volume low, but soon I hear this British man talking about our planet. I look over and see that first-ever photograph of Earth taken from space. It was in 1968, when the Apollo astronauts looked back at a blue marble floating in a sea of black. Our planet, suspended in space.

  The British guy narrates: “Our home was not limitless. There was an edge to our existence. It was a rediscovery of a fundamental truth. We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world . . .”

  And then, in a quiet voice, Catalina says, “It isn’t a priori.”

  We all look at her.

  “My sister was traumatized by the jet fuel they dumped on her,” she says. “And kids in my neighborhood, they have high rates of asthma because the air is so bad. My abuelita suffers too.”

  “Since the California wildfires,” Jaesang adds, “hardly any birds come to our backyard feeder anymore. Me and my grandfather are keeping track.”

  Jaesang’s other obsession, besides the weather, is birds. He and his grandpa take pictures of them with his grandpa’s Pentax. And every year they join in the Great Backyard Bird Count. He says you can track climate change by paying attention to birds.

  “James gets all lethargic when it’s over ninety degrees,” Alistair says. “He stays in his rosemary burrow. He won’t even eat escarole. We’ve had seventeen days over ninety degrees so far this year.”

  Alistair loves James, his tortoise. He named him after another of his favorite chefs, James Beard.

  On-screen, the British man tells us that over the last hundred years, more than five hundred species have gone extinct. Without humans, that number would be under twenty.

  “Three things we have to know more about,” Mr. Kalman says. “Legal precedents. Damages to the environment. Damages to living things. Now partner up and get to work.”

  We don’t get far before Zoe’s grandma comes into the lounge, along with five other residents. The sight of Mr. Kalman and a bunch of kids spread out around the pool table makes them all hit the brakes on their walkers.

  “The lounge is reserved for Memoir Writing Group from ten to eleven on Saturday mornings,” Grandma Betty says.

  “There was no mention of that in my lease,” Mr. Kalman says.

  “It’s posted outside the door.”

  Betty nods toward the hall, where a sign says, LOUNGE RESERVED SATURDAYS 10–11 A.M. FOR MEMOIR GROUP.

  Mr. Kalman shrugs, takes a Sharpie from his pencil case, and starts writing on his yellow legal pad. He tears off the paper and turns to Catalina.

  “Anybody got tape?”

  Catalina hands him some.

  Mr. Kalman gets up, crosses the lounge, and posts a new sign next to the old: LOUNGE RESERVED SATURDAYS 10–11 A.M. FOR LEGAL CONFERENCE.

  “There,” he says, “now we’ve both got signs.”

  “You can’t just add a sign,” Betty says.

  “It’s a First Amendment right.”

  “I’ll be taking this up with the board,” she says.

  At the mention of the word board, I start to worry. Ever since he was a kid, Mr. Kalman has been . . . what’s the word . . . pugilistic? Pugnacious? Defiant? Well, I learned a lot of synonyms for what Mr. Kalman has been. At eleven he took on Big Joe Mancuso, the Brooklyn bully who pinned him to the ground. Mr. Kalman never said uncle, and he got Big Joe Mancuso to cry. At ninety, he took on the Los Angeles Unified School District. And in between, he took on just about anyone who tried to pick on kids.

  But I’m not sure this is a good fight for him. He just moved in, after all. He deserves a little peace in his old age.

  That’s when the idea hits me. The perfect way to get Mr. Kalman and Betty to get along.

  “Hey, Zoe,” I say. “Want to help us save the planet?”

  6

  We Build a Case

  When we break into teams, it’s a little awkward because Zoe says, “I’ll work with Sam.”

  And Catalina says, “I thought I was working with Sam.”

  “I thought you were working with Jaesang,” I say.

  “Jaesang is working with Alistair,” Catalina says, “on animals. Me and Sam are working on precedents.”

  “Who’re you working with, Mr. Kalman?”

  “I like to work alone.”

  “Me too,” I say, even though I really don’t. “I’ll work on case histories.”

  “But that’s the same thing as precedents,” Catalina says.

  “Why don’t you both work with Sam?” Mr. Kalman says. And he winks at me. Really, Mr. Kalman.

  So now I’m working with two girls on case studies and precedents, which is two different ways of saying the same thing.

  But I’m not distracted, even though Zoe has this maze of freckles on her nose and I imagine playing Dot to Dot with them. I draw them one way and get the constellation Orion. Draw them another and I get the bear. Backwards and I see a boat. At the same time, I’m paying attention to what Catalina is reading off her laptop, about a guy whose pigs stank and his neighbor sued him. And I’m paying attention to Catalina’s eyes bouncing between her laptop screen and my face, and her long strand of hair that’s not in a braid anymore but falling down her shoulder like a stream.

  Wait, what’s the matter with me? I used to be good at concentrating.

  We work for a while, snack for a while, work some more. I notice Jaesang and Alistair wincing at some photos on the internet. “No way, we can’t show them that,” Jaesang says. And Alistair says, “We have to, Jae. We have to show the truth.”

  For lunch, Alistair makes Mr. Kalman’s tuna salad sandwiches on toasted egg bread, and when he delivers a round to the Memoir Writing Group over by the big-screen TV, I see Zoe’s grandma take a bite and smile.

  “You made these?” she says to Alistair.

  “Mr. Kalman’s recipe,” he says.

  She looks across the lounge at Mr. Kalman. Her eyebrows go up like they’re on tippy-toes.

  After lunch we group up around the pool table/conference table. Alistair and Jaesang go first.

  I know I should keep my eyes shut. I don’t need to look to know that humans have done terrible things to our animal friends. If I look, I’ll have nightmares and lose a ton of sleep. Like my mom always says, Sleep or weep.

  But maybe we should weep. If we look away, nothing will change.

  I open my eyes.

  There’s a picture of the cutest little sea lion—whiskers wide around his snout, eyes glossy black, wet nose all shiny.

  His head is wrapped in white gauze. Thin plastic tubes stick out from his neck.

  “This little guy had epilepsy caused by brain cancer,” Alistair explains. “He ate toxins from a chemical dumpsite in the Pacific Ocean. Divers found him twitching in the water. They got him up to the surface, took him to a vet who did brain surgery on him. They saved his life, but there were many more like him they couldn’t save.”

 

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