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shelters and U-NorCal lecture halls.
    “Or at least we could make some web graphics that people could put on their own sites,” Carey said, ever practical. “I’ll ask Miranda about it.”
    “And speaking of the website, we should put up a guest book so people can tell us what they think of the shirts.”
    “Now you’re talking,” Carey said. “Hang on, let me write this down.”
    That’s right—the tactician had had her moment of brilliance, but this was the idea-girl’s turn to shine.
    I grinned into the darkness of the car, the streetlights blurring past on either side as I accelerated down Bracken Street. Energy crackled through me like a live wire. By all rights I should have been exhausted, but for the first time, I had complete confidence we were going to pull this off after all.
    “I don’t know where she is,” I told my cousin Bridget as I paced back and forth outside the doors of the tall, concrete Livermore Building. The edifice was imposing compared to the peeling-paint-and-dingy-stucco one-story buildings on the University Park High School campus, a contrast which didn’t help my nervousness any. I took my cell phone out; no messages. “She said she’d probably come. I guess she didn’t exactly commit, though.” I looked at Bridget apologetically.
    “No big deal, like I said.” Bridget slung an arm around my shoulders. “Just give her a call and let her know we missed her, and meet me inside, okay? I’ll be talking to my friend Jed. Tall. Beard. Birkenstocks.” She gave me a bone-grinding one-armed hug and left, her tall, wiry frame disappearing through the glass doors.
    Bridget was only a freshman at U-NorCal, but she already seemed confident enough to rule whatever room she walked into. Whereas I was a little shaky inside at the mere thought of being probably the only high school plebe in a sea of worldly college students.
    I leaned against the cool concrete wall of the building and speed-dialed Carey’s number. It went straight to voicemail, her terse “This is Carey Wong, leave me a message” hardly giving me enough time to formulate what I wanted to say.
    “It’s me,” I said. “I’m here at U-NorCal. I, uh, guess you aren’t coming to the Students for Social Justice Meeting. I thought you wanted to go, but anyway …” I frowned up at the tall sycamore tree looming over the sidewalk, the bike rack full of locked-up cycles. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
    I was confused. This should have been right up Carey’s alley, what with her obsession with extracurricular activities and her quickness to point out when people were being racially insensitive—the pool-party incident was a case in point. But instead, she was nowhere to be found.
    I couldn’t keep waiting for her out here, though. Whether she was going to come or not, I needed this meeting. I’d dropped being a tutor at the end of last year and I was desperate for some kind of extra activity to pad out my college applications. When I called to ask Bridget for advice, she suggested … this, assuring me it wasn’t just for U-NorCal students.
    Could’ve fooled me. If there were any other high school students here, like from Seward High or something, they blended in a lot better than I did.
    I followed Bridget, easy to spot in her blue tie-dyed bandanna and paint-spattered jeans, as she strode confidently into the auditorium-sized classroom. While she stopped to talk to a dreadlocked guy in a worn-out Greenpeace T-shirt standing by the wooden lectern at the front, I stared uncomfortably at the floor and hoped I didn’t look too out of place in my dorky preppy ponytail and striped sweater.
    I doubted I’d be able to contribute much to the meeting. What did I know about social justice? I should have just joined the stupid Asian American Club, except that Roger Yee was President and he probably would have drummed me right back out again for being “barely Asian.”
    Stupid Roger. I tried to stand up straight and