Brittney, the Tapgirl Princess

Not surprisingly, when school started on Monday and "the new" Ms Wilms walked in to the building, even though she was being reasonably conservative, tapwise, wearing her baby blue flats with "only" #6 heel taps, all eyes were on her newly colored platinum blonde hair. She got more cat-calls in that first five minutes from eager and frisky male students than she'd had all year. And that might have continued all day long except for other things that went on that day. At any event, Brittney, John, and Barry all realized that they had to keep quiet about their Saturday socializing with "Susan," and they confirmed that with each other by whispered remarks as they encountered one another going into school that morning. So, at least for the moment, the lid was kept on that particular secret.



But no one—not the students, not Ms Wilms, not the other teachers—was prepared for the announcement that came over the public address system during the regular 2nd period messages. Although usually the announcements were read by a student from the student legislature, today it was Vice Principal Hedley Hawkins whose voice entered all the classrooms.



"All of us at Forest Glen are proud of our building and grounds and we are proud of you for the effort you all take in keeping our campus looking well," he intoned, attempting to be upbeat but speaking in that way that kids know is completely phony. Students groaned, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "But a fashion trend has been taken up by many students that is causing maintenance problems for our custodial staff." Quizzical looks abounded, at least among those who were still paying attention. "Many of you have started wearing boots and shoes with metal cleats to school [more groans]. Although your effort to economize on your parents' expenditures for shoe repair is laudable [lots of snickers from the students], it's clear that your cleats are making marks and even scratches in our school's floors. Our custodians are having to work extra hours every day cleaning and scrubbing the floors just to keep them shiny and smooth.



"So beginning next Monday, all students will be prohibited from wearing to school shoes, boots, and other footwear that have metal plates on the soles or heels. The only exception will be the cleats that members of the athletic teams wear, but those will only be allowed in the gymnasium locker rooms and halls, and on the athletic field of course. We have spoken with Sam DiMaggio, the owner of Sam's Shoe Repair on Main Street, and he has agreed to remove the cleats—he calls them taps—from any of your shoes and boots that you wish to continue wearing to school. Thank you all for your cooperation on this matter, and let's continue to work to make Forest Glen the best looking school in the county! Remember—no cleats by next Monday!"



Suddenly, the entire student body woke from their usual stupor. In Brittney's Algebra class, Mr. Wilson could not get the students' attention for the next 15 minutes. Everyone got up out of their seats and they all gathered around Brittney.



"That's so phony! Our taps don't scratch up the floors. They're tile, not wood!"



"Yeah, no way I'm going to take these horseshoes off."



"Hey, didn't Hawkeye (a common nickname for Vice Principal Hawkins) say that it was students who had to take their taps off? I'll bet they won't make Ms Wilms take her taps off!"



"Sam's a traitor! Why would he agree to take all our taps off? He'll be doing this all week long and won't be able to do any of his other business. I'll bet he'll even charge us!"



Some perceptive students noted that Mr. Hawkins was trying to make the students feel guilty by making the custodians out to be victims in this case, and that got some of them really annoyed.



Brittney listened to all these ideas. "Look guys," she said. "Let's be calm about this. First, we need to talk to the custodians. Let's see if they were the ones who were complaining or if it was Hawkeye's idea. Does anyone know any of the custodians personally?"



Megan spoke up. "Yeah, I know George, the guy with the bald head. He's a friend of my dad's."



"Good," replied Brittney. "Will you and Nicole go over and talk with him at lunch? Jessica, will you cut out of 3rd period with me and drive me over to see Sam? I want to see what he says. I can't believe he'd be happy about this either." "Sure," Jessica replied.



"From now on," shouted Robert. "Let's everybody make their shoes stomp up and down and make extra loud sounds with their taps in the halls. We'll have a tap parade every passing period!"



"Great idea! We won't let them do this to us!"



"Yeah!"



"OK! OK!" shouted out Mr. Wilson for the fourth or fifth time. "Let's everyone get down to work!" "We have homework to go over!" And finally, one by one the students turned and went back to their seats, muttering obscenities the whole time.



In almost every classroom, similar discussions were being held, and between classes the whole school was as noisy as it had ever been. Not only were kids scraping and sliding and stomping on the floors with their taps—the boys' horseshoe taps being particularly loud—but leaders among the students, including the senior girls who were actually among the more recent tap wearers, and the junior guys, who were generally the ones with the most outrageously noisy boots and loafers, were constantly being accosted by others about what they were going to do about this affront to their independence and their style. Even 9th graders like Brittney and John were drawn into these conversations, and with everybody acknowledging Brittney's and John's role in starting the tap-wearing fad, people paid attention to what they had to say.



The students decided that they would collect what ideas and information they could from other students during the rest of the morning, and they'd all meet at lunch in the smoking area behind the technology wing and then decide what to do. Several students wanted to accompany Brittney over to Sam's during 3rd period, and there was a group who wanted to talk to the Head Counselor, Mrs. Jackson. She'd always joked around with them about wearing taps (some of them wondering if maybe she even had taps on some of her shoes herself).



Brittney led a two-car caravan that set off for Sam's Shoe Repair. Into his store marched 9th graders Brittney (in her Bass Weejun loafers with size 8 and 5 taps) and Jessica (in rubber-soled black oxfords with #7's and #4's), three junior guys each sporting horseshoe taps and toe and side taps on their brown or black roper, cowboy, or biker boots, and two senior girls both in skimmer flats with #5 metal taps on their heels. They all crowded into the shop and Sam knew exactly why they'd come.



"Hello everyone," he called out. "Before you get all angry at me, let me just say that I'm totally on your side. I think you have the right to put whatever you want on your boots and shoes. But put yourself in my place. I have to deal with the Chamber of Commerce and the mayor and city councilmen who run this town. And your principal, Mr. Martin, and your vice-principal,… what's his name again?" ("Hawkeye," one of the boys yelled out, and the others all laughed.) "Well, whatever," continued Sam. "They've got a lot more clout with the mayor and those others than I do. If they want you to keep the taps off the shoes you wear at school and they want me to help them do that, I can't really say no. Mr. Martin called me and told me the school's floors are being scratched up by the taps and that I'm contributing to your…what did he say?…oh yeah 'delinquency'. I tried to tell him that I put the taps on in such a way that there aren't any sharp points coming from them and that you're not really going to be scratching his tile floors or the cement—not in any deep way, anyway. But he already had his mind made up. It wouldn't have done any good to try to argue with him."



"But Sam," Brittney screamed. "Why would you agree to take the taps off, then? Since they don't scratch the school floors, as you say, and if it's those assholes that want us to not wear them, then let them take our taps off!"



"Brittney, I'm sorry. That's just the way it has to be. I make my living here in town repairing shoes. I've got to at least try to stay on good terms with the principal of the biggest high school around. Still, if you students are united and if you argue your case strongly, you might win." He added, "I sure hope you can, because I don't want to waste my time taking 4,000 pairs of metal taps off of shoes. I'm guessing that's how many I've put on your classmates' shoes over the past few months."



"Really? Four thousand pairs of taps?" asked Francisco, one of the junior boys. "There aren't nearly that many kids in the whole school."



"Yeah," Sam agreed. "There are only about 1,000 students at Forest Glen. But if you figure that four out of five of them have taps on their shoes and three-quarters of those kids come in here for getting their taps put on, and on average there are both toe and heel taps—remember some of you have 4 or even more pair on a pair of boots." (Francisco looked down and realized he had 5 pairs of taps on his—double-horseshoes, side, and toe taps.) "And, then, I'd guess each of you have brought in about 5 pair on average to have taps put on. So that works out to, let's see…," as he took out his calculator. "So let's say six hundred kids times, o.k., let's be conservative, two pairs of taps per pair of shoes, times five pairs of shoes each, that's 6,000 taps! Wow, that's even more than I thought! No wonder the distributor is telling me he can't keep up with my orders!"



Sam thought a little more, "Hey, one thing you can tell your principal. Tell him there's no way I can take that many taps off of shoes in a week. Well, I'll call him and tell him that; you don't need to."



"Hey, Sam," said Francisco. "Are you gonna charge us for taking the taps off?"



"No, son," Sam replied. "Actually the principal offered to pay me to do it—a dollar for every pair of shoes or boots—but I told him, no, I couldn't take his money for doing that. Then you, my good customers, would think that I was doing that just to make money. You know—and please don't tell your principal—I love it that you have all that steel on your heels and soles. This is hurting me as much as it's hurting you!"



"OK, then Mr. DiMaggio," said Kathleen, one of the senior girls in the group. "So how can we argue our case with those dummy administrators?"



"You'll have to figure that one out, Kathleen," he replied. "I can't help you there, or Mr. Martin could claim that I put you up to challenging their new rule. Anyway, you kids are bright. Just go back and talk about it with your friends; you'll come up with something that will work. I'm sure you will. I'll give you just a little suggestion, though. Don't try to threaten the school administration—you won't win that way. But if you can come up with a way out for them--so they won't look foolish--you might be able to keep your taps on. I sure hope so!"



So the group left the shop, clicking away in all their various tapped-up footwear, talking about what they might do. Then they got in their cars and sped back to school, in time for 4th period—for Brittney, her English class with Ms Wilms.



Just like in her first three classes that day, Ms Wilms' 4th period 9th grade English class couldn't get over how cute their teacher looked with her new platinum blonde hair. She seemed more like an older sister now than a teacher. John and Barry weren't the only guys to have the hots for her! But instead of distracting the students from her lesson, she had the students' attention better than she usually did. As she clicked around the room, all heads followed her and the students actually appeared to be listening! So the English lesson on the concluding chapter of Gatsby went very well, especially given the fact that most students' thoughts up until then had been focused on the impending new rule about "no metal cleats on shoes." As the period wore on, though, the students' interest waned in Ms Wilms' lesson, and there was an increasing buzz around Brittney, who had started to whisper to her friends about the visit she and others had had with shoe repairman Sam DiMaggio just before 4th period.



"Ms Wilms?" Brittney called out. "Can we ask you a question that's, like, off topic?"



"Brittney," replied Ms Wilms. "Can it wait until the end of the period?"



"Honestly, Ms Wilms, a lot of us would really appreciate it if I could ask my question now." Others nodded, knowing what was on Brittney's mind.



"OK, then. Let's have it."



"Well, remember this morning's announcement from Hawkeye,…I mean Mr. Hawkins, about how we have to take all the taps off of our shoes? What do you think we should do about it…after all, it's going to affect you too, isn't it?"



"Yes, Brittney, I suppose I'll have to remove the taps from my shoes too."



"Well, what can we do to stop this rule from going into effect?"



"To tell you the truth, I haven't thought about it that much. Remember, I actually have to focus my thoughts on how to get you kids to learn things during the day! But, one thing is true is that the administration listens to whoever gets their attention the loudest—and I don't mean with noise from your shoes! [laughter] I mean maybe it was the custodians or maybe it was some teachers complaining, I don't know, but if you all stand together and present a united front, I think they might listen, especially if you can back up your position with some good ideas, like how to make sure the school floors stay shiny and free of scratches."



"So you think we can stop this?"



"Well, you have my support," smiled Ms Wilms. And she scraped her metal taps across the floor a couple of times to make her point.



After the bell for lunch rang, as they had talked about doing during the passing periods, about 50 students assembled in the smoking area of the school courtyard. But most of the students there that day weren't smoking—not even Brittney. Their attention was focused on what they were going to do. One of the junior girls, Felicity, took the lead in the organizing the discussion. Felicity was a tall girl with long, straight, dark hair. As she typically did, Felicity was wearing a knee-length skirt—fairly conservative dress for the girls at Forest Glen—and her shoes that day were 2-inch heel Mary Jane strappy pumps that she'd outfitted with full-heel and full-sole Capezio dance taps. She really was a tap dancer, but she liked the sound her dance taps made so much that she often wore tap-dance type shoes to school—that is, when she wasn't wearing loafers or boots with steel taps on them.



Felicity first asked students in each of the classes in turn—seniors down to freshmen—to speak about how badly the students wanted to fight the no-cleats ruling. Every single person who spoke said that everyone they'd talked to was really angry about it and were ready to do anything that had to be done to stop that rule from going into effect.



Then she asked for a report from Brittney about what Sam DiMaggio had suggested. Brittney said that both Sam and Ms Wilms thought that the students could get the administration to change its mind, but that they would have to prove to the administration that the taps wouldn't mess up the floors. She added that Sam had also said they couldn't make the adults look like they were caving in.



Then Megan reported on her meeting with the custodian—actually with two custodians—who said that while it was true that the taps sometimes made marks on the floor, they actually didn't mind the extra work because they liked it that kids had taps on their shoes. One of them said girls "looked sexier with taps on," and both custodians thought the boys' horseshoe plates were cool. They didn't know why Mr. Hawkins had said it was the custodians who'd objected to the taps, except that "maybe Mr. Hawkins was jealous of us kids 'cause we could wear taps and be cool and he would just look silly doing that!" A mixture of laughter and shouts of agreement followed Megan's last statement.



Every comment made the students more and more convinced that they should fight the new rule. After a few more students had spoken, some who were listening started yelling "Strike, Strike, Strike!" and that call was picked up by more and more kids in the group. Within a few seconds, Felicity lost control of her audience as most of them proceeded to form a line and march out of the smoking area back into the general outdoor lunch area. They were stomping down loudly with their shoes and boots and chanting in unison things like "Strike for Taps!" and "Taps Forever!" and "Save Our Taps!" Pretty soon the impromptu demonstrators just merged back into the larger group eating lunch. But a few of the leaders—Brittney, Felicity, Francisco, and Kathleen—sat down together to eat lunch and plan what to do next.



The kids' cell phones were extra busy that afternoon and evening, and by the time they got to sleep that night, they had it all planned out. About 20 kids had spent the afternoon at Downtown Burger City making old-fashioned protest signs that read things like "Keep Forest Glen Clicking!", "A Tappy School is a Happy School!", "Freedom is the Right to Wear Taps!" and "Custodians Support Taps in the Halls!" But the student leaders were prepared to do more than demonstrate. Meeting at Felicity Grant's home late that evening, they talked through a number of ideas and came up with a plan to present to the school administration the next day.



On Tuesday morning, 500 students had already assembled outside the school 15 minutes before the final bell. And they weren't the only ones there! Felicity and Kathleen had gone over to KFGC, the local TV station, after school on Monday, and they had told the news manager that there'd be a demonstration at school the next morning and what it was about. So a KFGC camera crew had arrived along with the station's leading features reporter, Kelly Clark, a popular 20-something woman who herself had been a Forest Glen Cheerleader a decade earlier.



The students gathered in groups outside of the school, both in the front where the camera crew was and also around the east side where the buses dropped kids off and where the students who drove to school parked. At each location, about 100 students were marching in line shouting slogans while other students gathered around them cheering them on and urging other students to stay outside and not go in the building. The TV reporter, Kelly Clark, was going from one interview to the next. She'd ask each student the same question: "Why are you demonstrating in front of the school this morning?" And each student would do the same thing. They'd lift one of their feet behind them, or slip off one of their shoes, point the bottom of the shoe towards the camera, so the cameraman could get a good close-up shot of the several crescent-shaped or horseshoe-shaped plates underneath, and angrily announce that the school was trying to take away their rights to dress the way they wanted. Kelly would ask them, "Well what about the damage those taps are doing to the school floors?" and the students would all reply that that was a phony excuse the administrators were using, that the taps didn't mess up the tile floors and that the custodians supported their cause.



The teachers and other adult staff had several different types of reactions. A lot of the teachers had frowns on their faces and tried to ignore the kids and brushed past them in order to enter the school. Other teachers smiled broadly at the kids, some of them motioning their support by waving at the kids or pretending to make noise by shuffling their tapless shoes. Two or three of the teachers stayed outside with the students, either hanging around the camera crew or chatting with the students they knew from their classes.



When the 8:30 final bell rang, people listened and watched to see what everyone else would do. The remaining teachers went into the building accompanied by maybe 25 to 50 students, most of them from the band class that was having an important rehearsal that morning. To urge on their friends to remain true to the cause, a number of kids shouted out, "Strike, Strike!" "Stay Outside!" "No taps, no school!" and some other phrases that weren't appropriate for the evening news. Most everyone remained outside.



Inside the principal's office, Mr. Martin, Mr. Hawkins, and several other administrators looked out at the students, and talked about what they should do. They talked about the announcement that morning, which had blamed the rule on the custodians having to do more cleaning of the floors. Mr. Martin admitted to Mrs. Jackson, the head counselor, who had asked him about that, that although it might be true that the taps caused problems to the floors, the issue was really brought on by complaints from some of the teachers—he mentioned Mr. Wilson, the math teacher. "What is Wilson's problem?" Mrs. Jackson cried out.



Just as Mr. Martin was about to answer her, the registrar, Mr. Hooke, came into the room to report on his quick walk throughout the school building. Somewhat out of breath, he paused for a moment. Then he said, "I've gone all around the building, and looked in most of the classrooms. I'd estimate that maybe 200 kids are inside. That leaves at least 700, probably closer to 800, outside." Mrs. Jackson added that from looking out at the gatherings of students outside, that Mr. Hooke's estimate seems to be about right. Mr. Hooke said that some of the "churchy" kids like 10th graders Cherie and Kelly told him that the only reason they were inside was that their parents, whom they'd called on their cell phones, had made them go to class. Kelly had showed Mr. Hooke the taps on her shoes and said "Really, Mr. Hooke, I think we ought to be able to keep wearing these."



"Charles,…Hedley,…Doris," said Mr. Hooke to Principal Martin, Vice Principal Hawkins, and head counselor Jackson. "I wonder if we went to far to try to control our kids. After all, they don't mean any harm to the school. Maybe we should at least talk to them about this. That reporter, Kelly Clark, is outside, talking to all the kids, and that is not helping us any; it won't look so good on the evening news. I don't think the parents really care one way or the other, and as for some of the teachers who complained, you have to admit some of them are living back in the stone age," and he glared a little at Vice Principal Hawkins as he said that.



After discussing Mr. Hooke's idea for awhile, Mr. Martin told him to go outside and find five of the students who appeared to be leading the group and invite them to come in to talk about their concerns. Mr. Hooke went outside, started talking with a few students who he knew, asking them who the leaders of the demonstration were. Once he convinced his listeners that the students they named weren't going to get into trouble, several students volunteered Brittney's name and Felicity's. Mr. Hooke found the two girls and asked them to select three others to join them in a meeting with the principal. So, led by Mr. Hooke, Brittney and Felicity and the three others they suggested—John Baker, Francisco Cordero, and Kathleen Anderson—all paraded into the building, taps clicking loudly and proudly, to the cheers and applause from their fellow demonstrators.



The five students really didn't know what to expect, never having done this kind of thing before, and so the first few minutes they were quite nervous, Brittney wishing she'd taken a quick smoke before coming in. But after Mr. Martin made sure the students were comfortable and understood that at this point there was no threat of punishment—after all, it was only 30 minutes after school was supposed to start—he asked them to talk about why they thought the school should not prohibit the wearing of metal cleats—he kept calling the taps 'cleats.'



Felicity took the lead. "Principal Martin, Vice Principal Hawkins, Mr. Hooke, Mrs. Jackson. We all really like Forest Glen, and most kids try to stay within the rules, but we don't see why we can't have taps on our shoes. We can understand why you would want some rules about what we can wear—like not wearing thong underwear or short shorts or going topless of course. But having taps on our shoes doesn't seem anything like those things. We just like having them on our shoes. We're not disrupting class or anything with them." (At those words, Brittney looked at John and unsuccessfully tried to hide her big grin.) "We just like making noise with our shoes during the passing periods."



Principal Martin spoke next. "Well, Felicity, I'm sure you know how much we all appreciate the positive attitudes that most Forest Glen students have towards the school. The new rule regarding cleats—er, I guess you call them 'taps'—anyway, the rule came about, not because we think they show a bad attitude by the students, but because the custodians are having to spend so much more time cleaning and polishing the floors this year than in previous years. The only thing that's different this year is that all of you kids are wearing those steel cleats on your shoes."



"Actually, Mr. Martin," Felicity interrupted. "The taps on my shoes are aluminum ones—they're dance taps—but yes, mostly our taps are steel ones."



Then Francisco piped up. "Mr. Martin, some of the kids talked to the custodians and they don't mind that we have taps on our shoes. In fact, they said they kind of liked it! So you can't just blame this new rule on them!"



"Well, regardless of what the custodians told you," continued Mr. Martin, becoming somewhat annoyed, but still under control. "We can't keep hiring more of them to clean up after you kids just because you want to make noise with your shoes!" He decided not to bring up the objections of the teachers because he'd just told the students the new rule wasn't because of their bad attitudes, and he figured he'd better stick to his first story.



"Felicity," interrupted Brittney. "Let me explain the idea we came up with yesterday, ok?"



"Mr. Martin," said Felicity. "Brittney has a good idea that I think will solve your problem and still let us keep the taps on our shoes. Go ahead, Brit."



"Well, Mr. Martin, I talked with Sam—er, Mr. DiMaggio—at the shoe repair and he says that the main reason why taps would mark or scratch up the floors is if there's a sharp edge on them—like from a nail not going in all the way or not being filed down to the level of the tap. I can see that maybe some shoes or boots might be like that—although Sam told us he is very careful about that and files the nails down on his machine before he gives the shoes back to us to wear. But I suppose some nails might slip by or some other shoe repair person might not be so careful. So this is what we propose. We propose that we set up a committee of students and adults—maybe you'd want teachers on it or some administrators—whichever you'd like. Anyway, the committee's job would be to monitor kids' shoes and boots as they walked in to school and check their taps to be sure there weren't any sharp edges, from the nails or anything else."



"Wait, Brittney," interrupted Mr. Hawkins, the Vice-Principal. "There's no way you could check everyone's shoes, every day!"



"Sure, we know that!" said John Baker, who'd been very quiet up to that point. "But we've worked that all out. Tell him, Brittney."



"Well, we propose keeping a record on everyone's shoes and boots and what taps they have on them. We would do a spot check every day—maybe check 100 kids every day, 50 before school and 50 at lunch—and within a few weeks we would have probably checked pretty much all the shoes that kids wear to school, at least on a regular basis. If we found a pair of shoes that looked like it might scratch the floors then we'd write the student up! We'd tell him…or her…that they'd have to have the taps on those shoes fixed before they could wear them to school again, and we'd keep checking that student to see that the problem had been fixed."



"Whoa, Brittney," cried Mr. Martin. "That is an awful lot of work—all that checking and record-keeping. Would you have enough students willing to participate on that committee, taking time from their lunch and having to get here early and keep track of all that stuff? Also, how could you keep track of who'd been tested by which committee member and for which pairs of shoes or boots? And how do you know the students would go along? What if someone objected to having their shoes checked?"



"Mr. Martin." This was Kathleen stepping in now. "We already know we have enough students to be on this committee. We've already had 20 students volunteer and we've only asked our best friends so far. We kids like looking to see what taps people have put on their shoes and boots, so a lot of us think this would be fun! Even if you didn't get any teachers or administrators who would be willing to do it, we could do all the work and you could have the adults just check on us to be sure we weren't letting anyone get past us."



"About how we would do it," answered Francisco. "We've already figured that out. We're going to use the Filemaker database program, a digital camera, and laptops that are connected to the school's file server. Our ID cards are already scanable, so a kid comes in, we scan his ID, that brings up the file that has pictures and descriptions of his shoes and boots. We take a quick look at his shoes and the taps on them. We check the file to see if he's wearing a pair that's not yet in the database. If that's so, then we take some pics of his shoes, including the taps on them, type in a quick description as a check when we later upload the pics, and then we test the taps for sharp edges. If they pass, we mark that in the file. If not, we tell him he's got to get that fixed before the next time he comes to school with those shoes. If someone didn't agree to be tested, we'd write them up and they'd have to go to the office before their next teacher would let them in. That's one of the nice things about our new computer-based attendance system."



"Well," said Mr. Hooke. "It does look like you've done a lot of work preparing this idea, haven't you?"



"And as for whether the students are in favor of this in general," added Felicity. "We think they are, but if you want, you could put the whole idea to a vote—ask them which they'd rather do: have the check-up system we're proposing or prohibit taps altogether. We're pretty sure most kids would rather be tested. After all, we're already spot-tested for drugs and weapons. Testing for scratchy taps is just no big deal!"



The principal had been listening very carefully to all of this. When the students had finished their presentation, he asked them to wait in the hall for a few minutes while the four administrators conferred with each other.



Several minutes later, the Principal ushered the students back into his office.



"All right," said Mr. Martin. "We have agreed to try out your system. We thought about having the students vote on it first, but since so many students went along with you this morning and were willing to strike for the right to wear taps, we're happy to let you just try it out. Do you think you can get your committee organized and the programming you need to do done by next Monday?" The students all nodded affirmatively. "Good, then I will ask Brittney to come in and announce the plan to the whole school during the 2nd period announcements, and we will proceed from there. Now will you all go outside and ask everyone to come in to the building and go to their 2nd period class? The passing period is just about ready to begin."



The five students jumped in the air, and let out a yell, before they realized they were still in the principal's office, and they'd better be more subdued. They turned to the four adults and shook hands all around, and then they ran out to the front of the building and yelled out to the students who crowded around. "We won, we won!" shouted Brittney and the others. "We can keep our taps!"



As word rapidly spread, cheers were yelled out from all over the front and side of the school grounds. The students all started filing back into the building, and followed the loudspeaker announcement to go directly to their 2nd period class where they would be filled in on the details of the agreement.



The TV reporter, Kelly Clark, asked Brittney for a few quick words. At first, Brittney was so

pumped up by the students' victory that all she could say was "Taps Forever! We can wear our taps forever!" But then she forced herself to calm down quickly, and, like a pro, talked into the camera about the students' plan to check all their shoes to be sure their taps wouldn't scratch the floors. Then she turned to the reporter, "You know, Kelly, metal taps aren't just for high school kids. One of our teachers has them on her shoes too! You should try them yourself!"



Taken by surprise by Brittney's suggestion, Kelly Clark quickly recovered. She smiled into the camera and said, "Maybe this reporter will take you up on your suggestion. You never know! Reporting from Forest Glen High School, Kelly Clark, KFGC Channel 3 News."