Slacker

by Gordon Korman

  The game app chirped an alert. I ignored it. That didn’t really go with my lifestyle, but by this time, I was really interested to see where the water was coming from. I traced the trickle to the door of apartment 206. There, it was more than a trickle. It was burbling out over the door saddle.

  I knocked. “Hello? Uh—I think there’s a leak in your apartment.” I heard a faint voice, and a shuffling sound. Someone was definitely in there, but nobody came.

  The game chirped again, and I was sorely tempted to go back to it. After all, this was none of my business. And whoever was in 206 obviously didn’t need my help, or he would have answered the door.

  Maybe.

  I thought of another situation where a guy didn’t respond to the people who were trying to tell him something bad was happening to his house. That guy hadn’t answered the door, either—and now he didn’t have one, because the fire department had smashed it up. I seriously doubted that anyone in a senior citizens building was ignoring my knock because he was battling Evil McKillPeople. But it seemed like somebody in there was in trouble.

  I called Pavel, but he didn’t pick up. Chuck didn’t answer, either. It figured—the guy was so occupied with his fan club of old ladies that when he was needed for real helping, he was AWOL.

  Out of options, I ran back downstairs, my sneakers splashing in the growing stream. I burst out of the building, waving my arms and yelling. Everybody was going to know that I’d been goofing off, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

  “Come quick!” I bellowed. “There’s an emergency!”

  Mr. Fanatic shot me an angry look. “Cameron, what do you think you’re doing?”

  String must have been tired of showing off, because he dropped his shovel and started toward me. “Let’s go! Our president needs us!”

  I doubt anybody there cared that I was president, but by this time, the volunteers were anxious for a break. They all came running, even Xavier, who seemed relieved to abandon his obnoxious taskmaster.

  “Where’s everybody going?” our faculty adviser demanded.

  Scowling beside him, Audra Klincker was making notes again.

  My loving sister, Melody, came roaring up to me, Katrina hot on her heels. “What’s going on, Cam? What are you up to now?”

  “Why do you assume it’s a bad thing?” I demanded.

  “Because I know you!”

  There was no time to fight with her. I led the troops up the wet steps and down the hall to 206. We left a trail of mud behind us, earth from the garden mixing with the steady trickle from upstairs.

  “That’s where the water’s coming from!” I explained breathlessly. “There’s someone in there, but nobody answers!”

  “Stand back!” ordered Freeland McBean. “No door is a match for The String!” He hurled himself at 206, bounced off and landed in a heap on the floor.

  It was the first time I ever saw Xavier smile. The big guy pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and delivered a heavy blow to the doorknob. There was a crack and the door swung open.

  Mr. Fantasy pounded to the top of the stairs just in time to witness this. “Aw, Xavier!” he moaned. “You promised you’d stay out of trouble!”

  We burst into the apartment, and that’s where we saw the elderly woman who lived there. She had begun to fill the kitchen sink to do her dishes, tripped, and hit her head on the marble counter. She lay on the tiles, semiconscious, the overflowing water puddling around her and streaming past her, down the hall, and out the front door.

  We could hear Audra Klincker’s shrill voice all the way down the hall. “This isn’t a Positive Action Group; it’s a wrecking crew! I’m calling the police!” She burst to the front, her cell phone at her ear, and froze at the sight of Xavier helping the victim sit up and lean against him. Pavel rushed to turn off the tap.

  Xavier looked at the reporter. “An ambulance would be better.”

  It went without saying that my brother was an idiot. It was bad enough sharing a house with him when there was a working front door and you could make a quick getaway. But our house …

  Sigh.

  If I had to listen to one more lecture about Cam and his “lifestyle,” I was going to lose it. Cam’s so-called lifestyle was just an excuse to be a video-game-addicted couch potato.

  I longed for Mom and Dad to see through Cam’s smoke screen. I prayed for it. I thought it had finally come the day of the scorched ziti. I was so happy.

  But no. Suddenly, there was the P.A.G., and Cam was off the hook again.

  So imagine my reaction when I saw the front page of the Sycamore Gazette.

  The Klincker Kronicle

  POSITIVE ACTION TURNS TO HEROISM FOR MIDDLE SCHOOLERS

  By Audra Klincker, Gazette Staff Reporter

  It’s a scenario all parents are familiar with. Youngsters “helping.” We applaud their noble goals, but, intentionally or not, they often do as much harm as good.

  These thoughts were uppermost in my mind as I trekked out to the senior citizens’ garden project on Seventh Street to observe the first good deed of the Positive Action Group, a new community service club at Sycamore Middle School.

  What I saw there at first was exactly what I expected to see—well-meaning tweens and young teens, some of them working, some of them a little rowdy. If their hearts were in the right place, their gardening skills left something to be desired. Many didn’t know the difference between a weed and a vegetable. The kids might have shown a little more sensitivity toward their elderly hosts.

  Then true heroism emerged. A small trickle of water in the building next door caught the attention of Cameron Boxer, the P.A.G. president. His quick thinking led to the rescue of Mrs. Isadora Klebner, 78, after a household accident. Every single member of the P.A.G. contributed wholeheartedly to this errand of mercy. All citizens of Sycamore owe them a debt of gratitude and a hearty “well done.”

  Most impressive of all is Cameron Boxer himself, a modest young man who never toots his own horn and always steps back from the spotlight. “Please don’t write about this in the Gazette,” he begged me, after the ambulance had taken Mrs. Klebner away to a hospital. I honestly got the impression that he would have been happiest if I had forgotten the whole thing.

  Well, tough luck, Cameron Boxer. You and the boys and girls of the P.A.G. are heroes in Sycamore today.

  I honestly wanted to rip out the article with my teeth, chew it up, spit it out, and flush it down the toilet. Bad enough my brother conjured up a fake club to fool Mom and Dad into believing he’d changed his slacker ways. But now he was a hero for it?

  I’d always known that Audra Klincker was a crummy journalist, and here was the proof. Nobody bothered to ask what Cam was doing in that apartment building to begin with. I could have told them. It was because their “hero” couldn’t go more than forty-five minutes without video games. For sure he was playing on his phone when he noticed that trickle of water. The amazing thing was that he did something about it. Normally, Cam wouldn’t pause a video game if his house was on fire. Oh, yeah—it was. And he didn’t. And we had the “door” to show for it.

  Sigh.

  Don’t get me wrong. I liked video games, too. But Cam was such a console hog that I had to go over to Katrina’s if I wanted to play. I tried to get him to draw up a schedule so we could share the system. You know what he said? That I wasn’t a “serious gamer on an ill level” like him. And Mom and Dad were too preoccupied with the store to realize how unfair their darling son was being.

  Speaking of my parents, they were ecstatic over Audra Klincker’s article. Face it, she had painted a picture of the son they’d always wanted to have. Pretty soon the clipping held the place of honor on our refrigerator, right above the latest circular for Boxer’s Furniture Showroom.

  Well, I knew exactly why my flake brother had started the Positive Action Group. And it had nothing to do with helping senior citizens, or anybody else.

  My mother was annoyed with me. “You’re just jealo
us, and there’s no reason for it. You’re a P.A.G. member, too. This article is also about you.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed without enthusiasm. “I’m ‘every single member.’ I better hire a bodyguard to fight off the paparazzi.” I’d only joined the P.A.G. so I’d have a front-row seat when my brother’s creation blew up in his face. The last thing I expected was for Audra Klincker to turn him into a knight in shining armor.

  I added, “You know why Cam was in that apartment building in the first place? He was gaming while we were all working. Doesn’t that sound a little bit more like him than ‘hero’?”

  No matter what I said, what argument I made, my parents refused to see it. I was just the resentful little sister jealous of all the attention my brother was getting.

  Was I jealous? Why wouldn’t I be? If I pulled something like this, I’d be swatted down like a gnat. Just watching Cam getting away with it was giving me cramps.

  “You’re so lucky to be an only child,” I told Katrina as I slumped into the beanbag chair in her room, surrounded by her posters of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica. I needed to relax with some video games.

  I reached for the controller and froze. “Wait a minute. What’s that doing there?”

  Taped to the wall, obscuring Jabba the Hutt, was today’s Klincker Kronicle.

  “Didn’t you see it?” Katrina asked.

  “See it? My parents bought twenty copies! Why do you have it?”

  She looked surprised. “Didn’t you have fun on Saturday?”

  I made a face. “I’m still trying to get the mud out from under my fingernails.”

  “It was amazing!” she exclaimed. “Sixth graders are total nobodies in middle school. But in the P.A.G., you hang out with upperclassmen. You know String McBean actually smiled at me? And my best friend’s brother is the head of the whole thing!”

  I just stared at her. How could two people live through the same experience and see it so differently?

  “And the part where we saved that lady’s life, obviously,” she added. “That was pretty cool, too. Cam was awesome! Does he have a girlfriend?”

  Sigh.

  First my parents, now Katrina. Was there no escaping my stupid brother?

  Things were changing, and I didn’t like change.

  When I walked down the hall, people I didn’t know said hi to me. Some of them wanted to stop and talk about the Positive Action Group and the heroic thing I did last Saturday when that lady almost drowned herself in her own kitchen. Worse, they all wanted to join the P.A.G. And even if they didn’t, their parents wanted them to. The sign-up sheets were full of names, and Mr. Fanbelt said we had to have another meeting to decide on our next project. And this time we couldn’t use the music room because we had too many members. We had to find a place that could fit everybody.

  I got called to the office to be congratulated by the principal, and the assistant principal, and the other assistant principal, and the other other assistant principal.

  Dr. LaPierre wondered how it could be that he’d never met me before, and I was tempted to say: That was no accident. That was part of a very careful plan.

  Well, that plan was falling apart with every passing hour, thanks to the Positive Action Group. Everybody knew me now—students, teachers, administrators. Even the lunch ladies were loading up my tray with extra broccoli and mashed potatoes. I’d worked so hard to create a bubble around myself, letting in only the people and things that really mattered. That bubble was totally gone.

  “We should have seen it coming,” Pavel told me as we stopped at my secret locker—the one I used so the teachers wouldn’t know where to find me. “Technically, there was always a chance that the P.A.G. would catch on.”

  “It’s Mrs. Klebner’s fault,” I complained. “Why couldn’t she have been more careful?”

  “What’s so bad about the Positive Action Group?” asked Chuck. “It turned out to be a lot of fun.”

  I opened the locker, and the smell nearly knocked the three of us over. Perfume—strong, sickly sweet, and floral.

  “Dude!” Pavel exclaimed. “Don’t you ever air out your gym shoes?”

  “That’s not it,” Chuck said breathlessly. “Look.” There, atop the pile of sweaty socks and old T-shirts, sat a folded piece of pink stationery. “Someone must have slipped it in through the vent in the door.”

  I picked it up delicately, between thumb and forefinger. That’s where the stink was coming from, all right. I headed for the trash can.

  “Don’t you want to see what it says?” asked Chuck.

  I shook my head. “It reeks. That’s all I need to know.”

  “You have to find out who it’s from,” Pavel reasoned. “Whoever it is knows about your secret locker.”

  The instant I unfolded the page, the smell tripled.

  “Ooooh!” trilled Chuck. “Cam has a girlfriend!”

  “Romance is in the air!” added Pavel, his nose wrinkled.

  My gaze skipped down the page. All the i’s were dotted with little hearts, and there was a red lipstick impression of a kiss in the bottom corner. It finished:

  I felt my ears burning. Bad enough to have a secret admirer, but why did it have to be my sixth-grade kid sister’s sixth-grade kid friend?

  No wonder she’d found this locker. Melody must have told her about it.

  Chuck read over my shoulder. “What’s a pagger?”

  “I think she means P.A.G.-er,” Pavel mused. “It’s kind of catchy, actually.”

  “It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” I said sourly.

  “Not really,” Pavel reasoned. “She has a crush on you, so she’s calling attention to the things you have in common. You’re a couple of paggers.”

  “What could be sweeter than two young paggers in love?” Chuck chimed in.

  I tore the note into confetti and threw it in the trash. “If you morons want to not be my partner for Rule the World, then keep up the good work. I’m leaving.”

  I slung my backpack over my shoulder and stormed out on them.

  I calmed down a little on the walk home. It was the first time all day that I’d taken three steps without hearing my name coming from some unfamiliar mouth.

  That was when I noticed a bright red Dodge Charger driving very slowly, matching my pace. The passenger window rolled down and the driver leaned across the empty seat. “Cameron Boxer?”

  It was a question, which was a good sign. It meant he didn’t know for sure. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and kept going, eyes straight ahead.

  With a squeal of tires, the Charger lurched past me, then bumped up onto the curb to cut me off. The back door was thrown open.

  “Get in the car!” barked a girl’s voice.

  I backed away and peered inside. There sat the most drop-dead-gorgeous girl I’d ever seen. She had long dark hair and green cat’s eyes that glowed like the emeralds in Bejeweled. She wore a cheerleader’s outfit: short skirt, tight top, black boots with silver tassels. Two massive pom-poms lay on the seat.

  I knew her. Everybody did. She was Jennifer Del Rio, a senior at Sycamore High—head cheerleader, homecoming queen, and this year’s Grand Pal of the Friends of Fuzzy.

  “Get in!” she insisted. And when I took the seat beside her, she reached around me and slammed the door shut. “Drive, Tony.”

  We peeled away, thumping off the curb. The car’s locks ominously snapped shut.

  She fixed me with her Bejeweled stare and slammed a newspaper clipping between us. “Explain this.”

  It was Audra Klincker’s article.

  “Well,” I explained, “we were helping with the senior citizens’ garden project, and I noticed something in the apartment building next door—”

  “Do you think I waste one sleepless second stressing over what some middle schooler noticed in an apartment building?” she demanded.

  “It was a trickle of water,” I supplied.

  “I don’t care if it was dragon’s bl
ood! What is this Positive Action Group, and where do you get off doing community service on my turf?”

  “Your turf?” I echoed.

  “The good deeds around here are done by the Friends of Fuzzy. You know that. Everyone knows that.”

  “That’s the way it is,” added Tony, scowling at me in the rearview mirror.

  I was bewildered. “Can’t we all do good deeds? They’re—you know—good.”

  Jennifer Del Rio wasn’t nearly as attractive when her face twisted in fury, her full lips disappearing into a thin line. “Pretty soon my college application is going in to Harvard, and I’m going to throw the kitchen sink at them. Every piece of civic service, or charity, or good citizenship that could possibly happen in a one-horse town like Sycamore is going to be on there. I’d love to put that I helped the senior citizens clean up their garden. But I can’t—because a bunch of snot-nosed middle schoolers beat me to it !”

  Tony turned around, peering over the seat and completely ignoring the road ahead. “That wasn’t very nice of you,” he admonished.

  “I’m on your side,” I told Jennifer. And it was the truth. “The P.A.G. is a pain in my butt.”

  “So what’s the problem?” she demanded.

  “Mr. Fan—uh—the guidance counselor,” I explained. “He loves the P.A.G. If it was up to me, I’d drop it in a heartbeat.”

  Jennifer refolded her long legs, the tassels on her boots sparkling. “See to it that it is up to you.” She peered out the window. “This is your stop.”

  I followed her gaze. We were in the middle of nowhere, outside the town limits, driving along a two-lane rural road. “No, it isn’t.”

  Tony pulled over to the shoulder. “Jennifer says this is your stop. So this is your stop.” The locks clicked open.

  “But my house is really far from here.”

  The head cheerleader opened the door for me. “I like a nice walk. It’s a great chance to think about what’s really important in life.”

  It took me forty-five minutes to get home.

  When Audra Klincker telephoned to ask about the Positive Action Group’s next move, I was excited to talk it over with the P.A.G. president.