Freshman for President

by Ally Condie

  Milo: “I can’t think of anything.”

  Josh: “Let me know if you think of anything more by tonight. I can still fit it in. Paige gave me a copy of your and Eden’s school pictures to use if we have room.”

  Milo: “Thanks. Can’t wait to see it in print.”

  Paige: “Are you going to go home and shower now?”

  Milo: “Why?”

  Paige: “Because you smell like sweat and grass.”

  Milo: “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Paige: “I know, but you can’t conduct every interview smelling that way.”

  Milo: “Sure I can. Don’t you think, Josh?”

  Paige: “Are you still recording this?”

  * * *

  At 5:00 p.m., when most people were hiding from the heat and getting dinner ready in their air-conditioned homes or swimming in pools, Milo stood on the soccer field with his team, the Purple People Eaters.

  Milo was on the high school soccer team, which ran kids’ soccer camps in the summer as part of their fundraising for the year. Milo loved soccer. (Of course, in keeping with his sideline status, he rarely got to start.) He loved coaching soccer almost as much as he loved playing it. He, along with his teammates Dane and Greg, had been assigned to coach the five-year-old group, and Milo had discovered that coaching them was one of the best parts of the summer.

  There were ten Purple People Eaters, tiny and rabid and wearing shin guards and bright purple T-shirts. Milo, Dane, and Greg were supposed to teach the Purples the basics of soccer, teamwork, and setting and achieving goals. It was nothing short of impossible.

  It was also a vast improvement over the year before. Last year, before Milo had actually made the high school team, he had volunteered to help out the kids’ soccer teams in the hopes that the coach would see how dedicated he was to Sage High soccer. Milo had been assigned the job of Gatorade Boy and had spent most of his time delivering vast amounts of Gatorade to the different groups. It had been slightly humiliating, but he had gotten to drink a lot of free Gatorade.

  “Hey, Purples!” Milo called out to his team, hurrying toward them. As always, he was struck by how tiny the five year olds were. Their legs were so short that their purple soccer shorts were more like pants.

  “Hey, Milo,” a few of them called back. One of them was picking his nose.

  “Let’s get started.” Greg blew his whistle. The Purple People Eaters clustered enthusiastically around him.

  With kids this young, they usually only spent a few minutes in drills, a few minutes dribbling the balls to each other, and then Greg would split them into teams and let them run around and play. The kids loved that part the best. They loved the games. They loved running. Some of them were like satellites orbiting the small black-and-white planet of the soccer ball—always pulling near it, but never making contact with it. It was as though some force of physics kept most of them from kicking the ball. They were almost at the end of this session of summer camp, and there were still kids on the team who had never once had actual contact with the ball in an actual game.

  “Okay, guys,” Greg called out again. He would be a senior when school started again, as well as one of the captains of the soccer team. For now, he was also the head coach of the Purple People Eaters. Dane and Milo were there to assist and take orders. Still, being an assistant coach was way more fun than being Gatorade Boy. “Let’s have you split up into your teams,” Greg told the kids.

  The Purple People Eaters couldn’t remember their teams from the day before. They never could. Milo and Dane helped sort them out into teams. It took a long time because the kids would never hold still. They ricocheted off each other, wandered over to stand with their friends, and forgot which team they were on all over again.

  Finally, both teams were on the field with the soccer ball between them. “All right, guys!” Greg said, and then he blew the whistle to start the game.

  Nothing happened. It appeared that neither team remembered which side had the ball. Finally, one of the smaller boys looked around, then ran up and gave the ball a good solid kick. They were off.

  “Was that who was supposed to start?” Dane asked Milo. “I thought it was the other team.”

  “It was,” Greg said. He was laughing. “But hey, at least they’re playing.”

  They didn’t bother to correct the kids, but watched them scream and run down the field, laughing, running because they wanted to run and playing because they wanted to play. The Purples forgot the rules; they forgot who was on their team; they forgot that they were supposed to kick the ball; they forgot it all, almost every time, in the excitement of running and being in the game.

  When the time came to blow the whistle, the kids ran over to get their fill of Gatorade. They wrestled on the grass and got grass stains all over their uniforms. They talked to each other or stared off into space while Greg was giving them a last little pep talk. Then they ran into their parents’ waiting arms. Not one of the kids asked if their team had won.

  Milo thought he’d have to tell Eden about that later. It didn’t matter if they won, they could have the fun of running and being in the game. He felt pretty proud of himself. Maybe their campaign slogan could be: “There’s a lot you can learn from five year olds.”

  Chapter 5

  June

  Instant messaging between Milo and Eden

  Eden: hey, you there?

  Milo: no

  Eden: I know you’re there. How are the Purple People Eaters?

  Milo: great i think 1 of them actually scored a goal tonight

  Eden: That’s awesome! Way to go, coach! :)

  Milo: can’t take any credit

  Eden: So you’ll have more free time in the evenings to work on the campaign, right? Now that camp is over?

  Milo: um

  Eden: Spill it.

  Milo: actually, I agreed to help with the next session of soccer camp too. ya know community service and all that.

  Milo: youre not mad, right?

  Eden: No. It will look good on your resume when you’re running for president.

  Milo: thats not why im doing it

  Eden: I know.

  Milo: i had an idea for the campaign

  Eden: Yeah?

  Milo: we should put a float in the 4 of july parade

  Eden: I was thinking that too.

  Milo: were not

  Milo: quit acting like youre always a step ahead

  Eden: I am always a step ahead.

  Milo: haha. :) are you at home or at work?

  Eden: At home. We brought some ice cream home with us tonight, though. Peanut butter cup.

  Milo: ill be right over!!

  Eden: See you in a minute.

  Milo: later

  * * *

  Two days later, at 6:00 in the morning, Milo woke up to the sound of tapping at his window. He decided that any sound at 6:00 in the morning had nothing to do with him and buried himself deeper into his blankets. His room was on the ground floor, at the lowest point in the house, and it was cool and perfect for sleeping, if only that tapping would stop.

  It didn’t. He stood up and stumbled to the window where he looked outside, bleary-eyed. There was Eden, pressing the Sage Gazette against the glass and saying something he couldn’t hear. He squinted through his window at the newspaper and discovered, with a little jolt of shock, that they had made the front page. Or their pictures had, anyway. The caption underneath their pictures read: “Could these two teenagers be the next President and Vice President of the United States? Details on A3.”

  Milo slid the window open.

  “Meet me on the front porch,” Eden said, grinning.

  Milo took a couple of minutes to change out of his pajamas and brush his teeth. He looked at his hair, w
hich was spiking up wildly all over his head, and decided that nothing short of a shower would fix it. He hurried outside. “How early did you get up?” he asked Eden, who was sitting on his steps. She didn’t look tired at all.

  “Five-thirty. Paige called me late last night and told me to keep an eye out for the paper today, so I snagged this the second our paper boy threw it into our bushes.” She spread the paper out on the step between them. “Isn’t it great?”

  They looked pretty good in print, despite the school pictures; Eden basically looked like herself, while Milo looked about ten years old. He made a face at the sight of it. “Check out my hair.”

  “It looks even better right now.” Eden didn’t lift her eyes from the page. “Josh did a great job. He was a little heavy on the sports metaphors, but it’s still good. We really owe him.”

  “And we kind of made the front page. People will see our pictures, anyway, even if they don’t read the article.” Milo felt a little nervous. At least everyone his age had already seen that dumb picture in the yearbook. It wouldn’t be anything new to them.

  “I hope the Phoenix paper picks this up. If it’s a slow news day, they might publish it as a human interest story or something.”

  “Does Paige have any cousins who work there?”

  “No, but she might soon, if Josh keeps up with this caliber of writing.” Eden handed Milo the paper. She leaned back on the stoop and closed her eyes, waiting for him to finish reading.

  “Not bad at all,” he said when he’d finished.

  “So let’s talk about our next move.” Eden refolded the paper and placed it between them, their photos facing up. Milo flipped it over. “We’ve gotten an article in the paper, that’s a start. But if we want to stay in the news, we have to keep doing things. That’s why I think we should have a Milo for President Tour. Get the message not just to the people in Sage—although we have to do that—but also take it everywhere else we can.”

  “We have one major problem already, you know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The same problem it always is.”

  “Money?”

  “No, the other one. The problem we’ve had for the past fifteen and a half years of our sad little lives.”

  Eden sighed. “Transportation.” It was the bane of their existence. The first of the group to turn sixteen would be Jack, at the end of October, but Milo wouldn’t be sixteen until December. Eden’s birthday was in February, and Paige’s wasn’t until April. Jack had his learner’s permit, but he couldn’t drive with anyone except a licensed driver. They were stuck.

  “I know where we should go—once we figure out the transportation issue, I mean,” Eden said. “You know how Haventon has that big celebration for Flag Day?”

  “Of course.” Haventon was sixty miles away and almost twice the size of Sage. Years ago, the town had decided to declare itself the “Flag Day Capital of the World” and now every June 14th—on Flag Day—they had an enormous parade, and booths in the park afterwards with games, food, and, in election years, local politicians schmoozing the crowd. “Let me guess. You want us to set up a booth?”

  “Yeah. I think that would be a great way to start. We can print up some fliers and think of something to give away. I’ve got all kinds of ideas for that part of it. But you’re right. We always come right back to the usual problem of actually getting there.”

  “I don’t know if my parents would be willing to drive all that way on a Saturday. That’s the day they usually go golfing together.”

  “And my dad always works on Saturday.” Eden’s father owned a small pharmacy in town and rarely gave himself a day off, except for Sunday, when the pharmacy was closed.

  Milo didn’t know how they were going to get around this one. They couldn’t exactly ride their bikes in a caravan along the freeway or the interstates to Haventon, although when he mentioned it, Eden toyed with the idea briefly as a great attention-getter.

  “What about Maura?” Eden asked.

  They looked at each other. Enlisting Milo’s older sister in their cause was one of those ideas so out in left field, they couldn’t tell if it was a really great idea or a really bad one.

  “We can always ask,” Milo said. “The worst that could happen is she could tell me ‘No,’ and that would be the most she’s said to me in the past month.”

  Maura was nineteen and had just finished her freshman year of college at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In between spring break, when she’d last visited, and when she’d arrived home for the summer, something had happened to Maura, and no one quite knew what. She seemed ready to take up residence on the couch and never leave, which was very different from the bubbly, outgoing person she’d been before.

  And there had been a huge fight the night she came home from school, when it became apparent that she had failed her classes and wasn’t going back in the fall.

  “But you had straight As the first semester!” Milo’s mother said, bewildered. “How did you go from that to failing every single class? How did we not know about this?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you,” Maura answered, and Milo had wanted to laugh at the obviousness of her response. But laughing was clearly not the right thing to do, and he was worried by the strange way she was acting. She didn’t go swimming every morning the way she had before, and she started getting thinner. Her hair, which was the exact brownish-gold color as Milo’s, had always been long, halfway down her back, and Maura asked their mom to cut it.

  “How short?” Mom had asked, holding the scissors next to Maura’s hair, a few inches up from the ends. Maura’s glance had flickered up into the mirror, and met her mother’s for only a second.

  “Here,” Maura said, gesturing to her chin. Milo had not realized how heavy hair was. When his mother finally made the first cut, after trying in vain to talk Maura out of it, the chunk of hair actually made a soft but audible plop when it hit the floor.

  Maura didn’t get a summer job, even though her parents kept bothering her about it. She didn’t see her old friends much either. It seemed to Milo like his sister had come home and just given up.

  It definitely looked like Maura’s schedule was wide open. But Milo still wasn’t sure if she would go for it. “I’ll try,” he told Eden. “I’ll run it by my mom first and see what she says.” He thought he needed an ally in his corner before he asked Maura herself.

  “Okay. If we could work this out, it’d be huge. You can’t do a tour if you can’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ll ask them later. No one normal is awake at this hour.”

  “Speaking of abnormal,” Eden said, getting to her feet, “do you think it’s too early to wake up Jack?”

  “Do you value your life?”

  Chapter 6

  June

  Text messages on Maura Wright’s phone

  Zoey: Hey, i’m back in town. we haven’t talked forever! Whats new?

  Nate: Hey beautiful . . . Im back from school . . . what’s up? When are we going to hang out?

  Katie: my house—tonight . . . at 9 . . . come over.

  Zoey: Um . . . i keep leaving you messages . . . where are you?

  Rachel: wanna go to the pool sometime? Call me, mmmk?

  Katie: maura! I saw you at the store. how come you didn’t say hi?!

  Zoey: Hey, I came over last night but no one answered. Katie said youre in town but wont talk to anyone. Whats wrong?

  Nate: Are you getting my messages? Where are you wright?

  Zoey: Hey . . . I’m worried. Are you mad at me or something? you OK?

  Rachel: Are you in town?

  Nate: None of us has seen you since Christmas wright. Call z or me sometime soon or the summer will be gone.

  * * *

  After another full day of lawn mowing, Milo dragged hims
elf home for dinner. He hadn’t forgotten his task: Operation Transportation. Eden kept reminding him that everything—everything—hinged on it. They couldn’t get more donations if they didn’t get the word out. Getting the word out required that they actually go somewhere and do something, especially right now, since the Gazette article was fresh on people’s minds. Going and doing something required transportation.

  He went into the kitchen and found his mom cutting up basil. “Hey, there, Mr. President,” she said.

  “Hi, First Mom.”

  “How is everything going? Any more interviews?”

  “Nope.” He smiled at her. “Maybe that one will be the only one.”

  “I don’t think so. Not with you and Eden running this show.” She dumped the basil into the spaghetti sauce. “Can you stir this?”

  Of course he could. There was nothing else he’d rather do, especially not when he wanted something. He took the wooden spoon from her and started stirring in long slow circles.

  “Mom, I need some help,” Milo said. “I need to campaign in some other towns, and you know none of us can drive yet.”

  “I can’t drive you around, honey. I have to be at work all day. So does Dad. But maybe we could now and then on a Saturday . . .”

  “I thought maybe we could ask Maura to help.”

  “Oh.” His mother looked surprised, as though the thought would never have occurred to her on her own. “Oh.” She stopped chopping for a moment. Milo could see her mind working, could almost see her leaning one way, then the other. In the background, they could hear the sound of the television, which Maura had been watching all day. The canned laugh track seemed to convince his mom. “Actually, that’s a great idea, Milo. She certainly isn’t in any hurry to get a summer job, and I’m tired of her sitting around the house watching TV.” His mom looked sad. “It would be good for her to do something.”

  “Maybe I’ll ask Maura at dinner,” Milo said. If he had an audience supportive of the cause, maybe she’d be more likely to say yes.

  Milo’s mom squeezed his shoulder. “If she doesn’t agree, I’ll try to talk her into it.”