How Not to Run for President

by Catherine Clark

  “Don’t worry about this crackpot,” said Stu, nodding at the screen. “He’s got conspiracy theories for everything, even dog breeds. He’ll attack us anywhere he can find a hole in our story.”

  “But it’s not—I didn’t have a hole,” I said. “It’s not like I was lying.”

  “Someone was,” the general grumbled.

  “They’re the ones who are lying!” I said. “How can they get away with that? They’re just making up stuff out of thin air!”

  “They’re good. That’s how.” The general asked—more like ordered—the clerk behind the counter to change channels.

  “Sassafras. Now the name, Sassafras,” someone on another news station was asking. “What kind of significance does that have?”

  He turned to someone named “James Hotchkins, dog name interpreter.” “Well, the root of the sassafras tree was used at one time to make root beer and other drinks, but was found to cause cancer and liver damage. So it’s a strange choice for a name. I’m not sure what we can infer, but perhaps Ivy would have been a better name. Ivy never killed anyone.”

  “No. That’s right,” agreed the host. “One would think that a small-town Ohio kid would name his dog something like Snickers or rover.”

  “This is ridiculous!” I yelled. “Who cares what she’s named? Anyway, it was my mom who named her.”

  “I’ve got an uneasy feeling,” Stu said to the governor, behind me. “This might be the start of something very bad.”

  “I bet it’s just a blip,” said the governor, sounding confident. “They couldn’t find anything bad about Aidan, so they decided to attack a defenseless animal.”

  “What was that?” asked Emma, walking over from the candy section. At the same time, Kristen was walking toward her, carrying a suitcase. “Who attacked an animal? Did the pigs die? Oh, please don’t tell me any of the pigs died!”

  “We haven’t had a hog update,” Kristen said. “Now, come on, let’s get you dressed in something more appropriate.”

  “But what about the animals? What were you saying?” Emma asked, before Kristen could pull her away.

  “It’s not about the pigs. Wilbur didn’t die,” I told her. “Yet.”

  “Yet? What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Emma.

  “Well, where do you think they were going after the state fair?” I said. “To a pig farm to happily live out the rest of their lives?”

  “Y-yes.” Emma’s eyes started to water, as if she was going to cry. “They’re … they’re not?” she asked.

  “Come on, Emma. It’s okay. Let’s go fix your outfit.” Kristen took her arm and gently pulled her away in the direction of the women’s restroom.

  “Listen, Aidan. I have to tell you something.” The general rolled up his sleeves. “We’ve got a problem. Something’s going on here. They are trying to drag you down.”

  “I’m just a kid,” I said. “Why would it matter if they drag me down? I’m not running for president.”

  The general looked at me. “You are so naive. It’s not cute anymore.”

  “What?” I asked a little nervously. I really didn’t get it.

  “The competition always tries to bring down the people close to a candidate,” the general explained. “Once that happens, a candidacy is dead in the water.”

  They clicked to another channel. I recognized the reporter; he was one of the guys from a Cleveland station that always covered news in our area. I’d seen him at Christopher’s football games. “We tried to find some friends of this so-called clarinet hero but were unable to locate any,” he was saying. “Why? Apparently, he’s not an easy person to be friends with.”

  My eyes widened as I saw the outside shots of my school, my house—and the FreezeStar Little League field. The camera zoomed in on my team, and on one teammate in particular.

  “He’s a disaster,” said T.J. “A walking, talking disaster. He’s the reason we lose our games. He can’t hit.”

  They had interviewed T.J., of all people.

  “They’re going to take the word of T.J.?” I asked.

  “Who’s T.J.?” asked Stu.

  “That jerk! remember that really obnoxious kid who—” I stopped, listening to the interview.

  “By the way, we’re glad he’s on the road,” T.J. said. “Makes winning a whole lot easier. Now we have a shortstop who can actually hit,” he went on.

  “I can hit,” I mumbled. Then I said it a little louder. “I can hit, you know.”

  “Who is this guy?” asked the general. “Kind of want to punch him in the gut.”

  “That’s usually what he’s doing to other kids,” I said. “He’s the stupidest, meanest—”

  “Don’t say stupid,” the governor told me.

  “Fine. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, then,” I corrected myself. “But he is the biggest.”

  “They’ll take anyone they can get on camera, bad-mouthing you. They’re not interested in T.J.’s report card. Just yours,” said the governor.

  “But that’s not fair,” I said. “Plus, none of it is true.”

  The governor looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, okay, so I’m not the best hitter on the team. But I’m improving,” I said. “Every year.”

  “I can’t believe they’re doing this to a kid. I mean, that’s low. really low,” said Stu.

  “That’s because he was getting incredible results for us,” said the general.

  “Sassafras is a she,” I said.

  “Not the dog, Aidan. You,” said the general. “They have to tear you down to get at us.”

  On each channel we turned to, the reporters had gone around and interviewed everyone I’d ever known. My teachers, my dentist (who blamed my seven cavities on Lime Brains), Mrs. Saint Mane, the lady who lives down the block and always used to get mad at me for cutting across her lawn on my way to Simon’s house.

  Then I heard, “That’s nothing compared to what we discovered when we spoke to his clarinet teacher. This self-proclaimed clarinet hero—”

  “I never said I was a clarinet hero!” I cried. “That’s what they said!”

  “Take it easy, kid. It’s going to be fine,” said the general.

  Here they were, in Mort’s apartment, filming Mort. He’d say good things, I told myself. No matter how they tried to put words in his mouth, he’d tell them what I was really like. The reporter was listing all of Mort’s qualifications and how many students he’d had over the years while Mort sipped his free McDonald’s coffee.

  “You’ve taught Aidan Schroeckenbauer. How does it make you feel when you hear people calling him the clarinet hero?”

  “That’s ridiculous. He didn’t even like the clarinet at first,” Mort said.

  “Given the rocky start you had, would you say he then became a good student of music?” the reporter asked.

  Mort shook his head. “No. He couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag. Also, he cheated on the duets.”

  “Did you really?” asked Stu.

  “No!” Mort, how could you? I wanted to yell at the TV. That wasn’t true. So why was he saying that?

  T.J. insulting me was one thing, but Mort was another. Did he really think those things about me? Then why did he keep insisting I was his favorite pupil and telling me I had real talent? Was that all a lie just to keep my parents paying for lessons?

  I felt like my entire town was ganging up on me. What did the world suddenly have against me? I was a nobody!

  Everyone’s smartphones started ringing. Stu and the general were answering multiple calls while other aides typed furiously on laptops. The governor was pacing and talking on the phone. Emergency meetings were being arranged: press conferences, interviews, and last-minute media blitzes.

  I stood there, stunned. Just like that, the entire campaign was falling apart.

  This definitely wasn’t the way to run for president—not if you wanted to win.

  I sank into a seat at the truck stop’s food court,
the soda machine on one side of me, Stu and the general at a table on the other. I was in a daze. Maybe if I splashed cold water in my face, I’d wake up from this bad dream.

  A minute later, Emma sat down beside me, changed into campaigning clothes again: dressy black pants, a purple shirt, and black sandals. Her hair was styled, too. No wonder it had taken her so long.

  She handed me a new box of Lime Brains. I didn’t know whether I was more stunned by the fact she was being nice to me or by the fact that I was being dragged through the mud on a half-dozen news shows. Why did all these people care about me? And did anyone care that none of it was true? Where were the people who would stick up for me?

  “Character assassination.” The general shook his head. “If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. You know what they say. The bigger the target, the harder they fall.”

  “If he’s a big target, I’d like to see a small one,” Emma joked.

  I frowned at her. “This isn’t the time to be funny,” I said. “Not that that was funny.”

  “Why not?” she said, cracking her gum.

  “Because! Everyone back home just dragged my name through the mud!” I said.

  “You’ve heard that politics can be rough,” Stu said. “Well, it just got a lot rougher. Here, kid.” Stu handed me his BlackBerry. “Make some calls, send some texts, do what you can. We’re going on all-out damage control, and you should, too.”

  First I called my mom, but it went straight to her voice mail. Next I called Dad. Same thing. Why couldn’t I reach anyone? I took a deep breath and called Mort. I had to know if that was how he really felt about me.

  “All right, I’ve had just about enough of this,” he said when he answered the phone. “If you can’t leave me alone, I’ll have the police—”

  “Mort! Mort, it’s me, Aidan,” I said.

  “Aidan!” he cried. “Oh, I’m so glad you called.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, after what I’d heard him say. I wasn’t sure I could even really talk to him, I was so hurt.

  “I’ve been trying to get through to you, to your parents,” Mort said. “I can’t get them, and I saw that interview—”

  “You mean the one where you said I was a faker and couldn’t even hold a clarinet?” I reminded him.

  “No, no. What I said was that you were so little when you started coming to me for lessons that you could hardly hold the clarinet,” Mort said. “That’s different.”

  “Okay, but then how come you said I always cheated during the duets?” I asked.

  “No, no, no … I did not say that!” Mort cried. “I said other pupils sometimes tried to get away with not playing along with me when we did duets, but you never did! I didn’t say those things! Aidan, I wouldn’t, I promise.”

  “But you did! I heard it with my own ears. The same ears that don’t recognize pitch or notes or tunes or—”

  “No! They edited everything. They took my words and edited them to make it sound bad. You’ve heard of splicing, right?” Mort asked. “When they showed up at my apartment, I knew they were shady. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “You—you said I couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag!” I reminded him.

  “No, no. I said when we first started I used a paper bag to work on your breathing, to teach you proper technique and test your lung strength,” Mort said. “Also, you might have hyperventilated one

  time. I made you blow into a paper bag.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve been calling that station in Cleveland all day to try to get them to retract the interview, but they won’t listen to me. They won’t take my calls,” Mort complained. “They only want to talk to me if I have more dirt on you.”

  “More dirt?” I asked. “You didn’t have any dirt, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t mean—look, Aidan. It’s what I told you about politics. A shady business,” Mort said.

  “Yeah, I’m kind of figuring that out,” I said. “Thanks for trying to clear things up. Keep trying, okay?”

  “I’ll walk to Cleveland if I have to,” said Mort. “Fools. By the way, I caught you on Wake Up, America! Nice job, kid. And you know what? Anyone who actually talks to you for two seconds will know you’re a good kid. Don’t let them spin it.”

  But it was too late, I thought as we said goodbye and I gave the phone back to Stu. I was already getting spun. It reminded me of part of this awesome show Vortex!, where contestants get tossed into this spinning, turning wheel thing, and they have to climb their way out through foam. They keep slipping and sliding until the spin cycle slows down and they can leap out.

  That was kind of what was going on here.

  Except it wasn’t stopping yet.

  I stared at the TV. My stomach was starting to hurt. Maybe I was just hungry, I thought, so I popped open the box of Lime Brains Emma had given me.

  I saw a reporter standing outside Fairstone Elementary, saying, “It was at this school that his socialist, big-government ideas took root.”

  “That’s weird,” said Emma. “I don’t think you’re that social.”

  “Some of his radical ideas were expressed in his most recent science project: converting corn husks to bicycle tires,” the reporter said. “In this project, he claimed that, quote, ‘replacing as many cars as possible with bikes instead would solve America’s energy crisis.’ Not just lessen. Solve. This reporter has to ask: Why is Governor Brandon associating herself with radicals?”

  “That’s—that’s not radical,” Emma stammered. “That’s true!”

  “Everyone knows we need to end our dependence on foreign oil,” said the governor. “Every candidate agrees on that! We just have different solutions for how to get it done.”

  The general leaned closer to me. “You’re sure you don’t want to get your hair cut?” he asked. “That could take care of a lot of this radical nonsense.”

  “My hair’s not that long,” I said.

  “The Secret Service agents thought you were a girl,” Emma said. “remember?” She laughed.

  “I was wearing a marching-band uniform. It has these girl spat things on the shoes, plus a furry helmet,” I said.

  Emma just stood there looking at me, smiling, arms crossed in front of her. “You don’t look much like a girl—it’s true. But you do have floppy hair. You have to admit. You’re like a little California surfer dude stuck in Ohio.”

  “Just a little trim, not a military cut,” said the general. “Although that could be arranged. Only take a couple minutes. Shave it right off.”

  “Would everyone stop using the word little? Please?” I said. As if being attacked on TV wasn’t enough, now I was being mocked by the people who were supposed to be working with me?

  “General, what are you talking about? Cut his hair? We can’t change a thing about him!” said the governor.

  The general looked at her as if she were suddenly speaking a foreign language. “Why on earth not?”

  “That would be wrong. We can’t go around changing people just because it suits the campaign.”

  Emma looked like she was about to burst. I could have sworn I saw steam coming out of her ears. “Really, Mom? really?”

  “Hold on a second.” Stu pointed at the TV. “What’s rex Moron talking about now?”

  “This is Rex Morgan, reporting live from the Fairstone town hall, where I’ve attempted to locate the birth record for one Aidan Schroeckenbauer, with no success. The town clerk insists that only blood relatives and legal guardians are allowed access to this information, but this reporter can’t help but wonder: What is this town hiding about their clarinet hero, and why?” He leaned in to the camera and whispered dramatically, “Could it be that he is in fact much older than he claims, and therefore ineligible to play in Little League?”

  “Have they ever looked at a picture of you?” asked Emma.

  “No kidding. If he were older than he claims, wouldn’t he be that much taller? Idiot!” Stu screamed at the televi
sion. “You’re an idiot, sir!”

  That was followed by a report questioning whether my parents paid their income taxes, and why my grandmother had had a knee replacement and whether the government had paid for it, and last, did I even have asthma, or was that just for show?

  “What I’ve observed, certainly, on the campaign trail, is that he has no trouble whatsoever breathing,” rex Morgan went on. “I’ve never even seen him take out his inhaler. Now, we can’t get to his medical records, because that, too, is privileged information, but—this suggests that Governor Brandon’s top aides did not really check out this alleged twelve-year-old before they invited him to speak for the campaign. Is that the kind of judgment we want in the White House?”

  Suddenly, everyone at the truck stop was staring at me as if I was a terrible, horrible person. As if I should be in jail.

  “Turn it off,” said the general with a sigh. “I hate rex Moron.”

  “Actually, I think we’ll keep watching it,” the clerk behind the counter said to him in a not-all-that-friendly tone.

  “The man is certifiable. You realize that,” the general said with a frown.

  “Oh, my goodness—look at the time, everybody!” said the governor. “We’ve got to move on down the road. I certainly enjoyed meeting with each of you.” She tried to shake hands with a few people, but they edged away, looking uninterested. “You don’t really believe all that stuff, do you?” she asked nervously. “Aidan’s a good kid. This is just made-up stuff to try to hurt me. Obviously, my competitors have decided to step up their games and play dirty. I mean, is that how scared they are of change? That they attack a twelve-year-old?”

  “You are twelve, right?” Stu whispered to me as we headed for the exit.

  I didn’t bother responding. I had a feeling I was living on borrowed time here. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. As we made our way back onto the bus, I turned to confront Emma. “I think I know what’s going on here.”

  “What?” She cracked her gum, right in my face.

  “I can’t believe you did this to me. Just because I pushed you into some pig poop,” I said. “Are you really that determined to see your mom lose?”