Freshman for President

by Ally Condie

  “It’s Spencer’s. His dad’s, anyway. His dad is a licensed pilot and sometimes fights fires with the forest service in the summers. He flew into town today so we could take a look at the plane. He’s still here somewhere, and so is Spencer.”

  Milo was beginning to regret they had ever met Spencer. He was a nice enough guy, but he sure knew how to complicate people’s lives. First the idea about the under-eighteen vote, then the crush on Maura, now this. “So I assume I’m supposed to take a ride in this? Why?”

  “It’s clever,” Eden recited from her list of Ways to Convince Milo to Do Stuff He Doesn’t Want to Do. “It’s a good photo op. It will generate attention. What else do you need me to tell you to convince you this is a good idea?”

  “More than that. Can Spencer’s dad really fly this thing? What are we going to do? Dust crops?”

  “You’re going to fly over the homecoming football game at halftime, with a banner telling people to vote for you streaming out behind.” She looked at Jack. “We’re going to use the slogan Jack came up with for the Fourth of July parade. ‘Take Flight with Wright.’ It’s perfect.”

  Jack grinned.

  “I bet you need a permit for that, anyway,” Milo said. “No way are they going to let me fly over the homecoming game.”

  “We’ve got one,” Eden told him. “I took care of everything. It wasn’t hard to do. Remember, you’re famous. This will give Sage yet another segment on the local news and maybe even the national news. Hopefully they won’t mention the football team’s record. They won’t appreciate us drawing attention to that.”

  “She has it all figured out,” Gary said proudly. “She’s been working on it for weeks. Everything’s in order.”

  “Oh, man. You really did think of everything. I’m going to have to do this, aren’t I?” Milo was joking, but Eden didn’t think it was funny. In fact, she got mad at him, which was rare.

  “Why does it always have to be this way? Why do I always have to talk you into everything? Can’t you show a little enthusiasm for a change?” Milo opened his mouth to say something, but she was off and running. “I just got you a ride in an airplane, Milo, and I worked kind of hard to make it a surprise. Some people might be excited about that. Most people would be. Are you turning into Maura?”

  “That was low, Eden.” Milo turned his back on her and on Air Force Fun. From the doorway of the hangar, he could see out to the parking lot where they’d left Maura reading in the car. She hadn’t wanted to come in with them. He clenched his fists. Then he turned around again. “I’ll do it, and I’m sorry I was dragging my feet. But that was low. Just leave Maura alone.” He started walking toward the car.

  Sometimes, when you walk off in a tiff, you lose your momentum. Milo never stayed mad for long, and halfway across the parking lot, he was already trying to figure out how to go back. They could work this out. He didn’t need to act like a kid having a temper tantrum. Still, he was mad about what Eden had said about Maura, so he kept walking toward the car. He wasn’t walking as fast or as angrily as before, but he didn’t turn back.

  When he got to the car, Maura was asleep in the front seat. He sighed. How could he be mad at Eden when what she had said was true? He did drag his feet too much, and Maura didn’t really get excited about anything these days.

  Eden was under a lot of stress. She’d been working too hard. And he knew from experience that when she got bossy, she always meant well.

  Without opening the car door, he turned around. Paige was walking toward him from the hangar. He walked back to meet her.

  “Where’s Eden?” he asked.

  “Back in the hangar. I think she’s crying,” Paige told him.

  Milo laughed, thinking Paige was exaggerating, until he realized she wasn’t joking. “You’re kidding me. She’s really crying? Eden?” He’d expected her to be mad, but he hadn’t expected her to cry. This was something that hadn’t happened since they were kids, and it hardly happened even then. It was like finding out one of your parents was crying.

  He felt terrible. “Should I go talk to her?”

  Paige considered. “Yeah. You both owe each other an apology. Let’s get this over with.”

  They found Eden and Jack still standing near the airplane. Milo saw with relief that Eden didn’t appear to be actually weeping right at that moment in time . . . but as he got closer, her eyes looked pretty red. Jack was pretending to text someone on his cell phone. Upset girls were not his area of expertise. And no one really knew what to do with a crying Eden since it hadn’t happened in recent memory.

  “Ede, I’m sorry. This is a great idea, and you did a lot of work. I’ll do it.”

  “It’s okay.” Eden tried to laugh. “I should have asked you first.” She rubbed her eyes briefly with the back of her wrist. “And I shouldn’t have said anything about Maura. That was low. I don’t even know why I said it. I like Maura.”

  “Thanks for the apology.” Milo tried to make a joke out of the whole mess. “It’s the stress of the campaign trail. We’re letting it get to us.”

  Eden didn’t laugh. “It’s true. We are.”

  “The campaign is getting to all of us,” Paige said. “When this whole thing is over, we’re going to give up campaigns forever, right?”

  “For the rest of high school, anyway,” Milo promised. “Sorry for being such a jerk.”

  “Me too,” said Eden.

  “Let’s take a look at the plane again.” Milo walked over to Air Force Fun and stood next to it. He could see that Eden must have done the lettering herself, getting it all ready for his big surprise.

  “So you’ll do it?” Eden asked, as they stood looking at the plane.

  “Of course. I’ll ask Maura if she can bring me to the airport that night.”

  “Do you think she’d mind picking up me and Paige from the game after you fly over?” Eden asked. “I want to see the full effect. We could meet you at the airport right after.”

  “I’ll probably miss the whole thing,” Jack grumbled. “I’ll be in the locker room, listening to Coach yell at us because we’ll be losing the game.” Sage High had one of the worst losing streaks in the history of the state: two solid years without a win. They were unlikely to break it at the homecoming game.

  “Think positive, Jack,” Paige said.

  “I am thinking positive,” Jack said. “I’m assuming that we’ll only be losing, not actually dead. Have you seen the size of the linebackers from Kingsgate?”

  “Spencer and his dad should be back any minute.” Eden looked out toward the airport. “Milo, will you find us when you’re done asking Maura? I think Spencer’s dad will want to go over some things with you.”

  “Sure.” He retraced his steps to the car.

  Maura was awake again and reading. He climbed into the passenger side and shut the door. “Hey, Maura, can you drive us somewhere Friday night?”

  “Isn’t that the night of the homecoming game?”

  “Yeah, were you planning to go?” He wouldn’t mind having to figure out another way to get to and from the airport if Maura were actually going to engage in some kind of social activity.

  “No, but I thought you guys would want to go.”

  “Not me. I’ll be flying over the stadium at halftime in an airplane with a banner.”

  “Eden must have planned this.” Maura sighed. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to drop me off at the airport that night. Then Eden’s going to call you to pick up Paige and her from the game and meet me here at the airport. Is that okay?”

  “Fine,” Maura said, with a little bit of amusement creeping into her tone. Milo was glad to hear it, even if it was at his expense. “What do Mom and Dad have to say about all this?”

  “They don’t know. And I don’t want them to k
now, either, so make sure you don’t tell them, okay? They would freak out.”

  “I won’t tell them. But I’ll need you to do something in return.”

  “Okay,” said Milo, surprised. She hadn’t asked him to do anything before, but it was only fair. She’d driven them around for four months.

  “Tell Spencer that I have a boyfriend.”

  “What?”

  “He’s asked me out a couple of times. The first time was when we went to the mall in Haventon. Then he was talking to me today and I felt like he might ask me again. I told him that I have a boyfriend and I need you to back me up.” She looked past Milo’s shoulder at the parking lot.

  “You want me to lie to Spencer? Can’t you just tell him you’re not interested?”

  “This is easier.” Maura sounded the slightest bit exasperated.

  Milo started to say that she took the easy way out of everything these days, but he didn’t. He did owe her for all those rides, after all. She’d never been late or turned them away.

  “All right,” he told her.

  She picked up her book again and flipped it open. An envelope slid out of the book onto the car floor. Milo bent down to pick it up and hand it to her. Before he did, he noticed it was addressed to him.

  “Hey, this is for me.”

  Maura reached to grab it from him. He held it away from her. “Maura, it’s my mail. Have you been taking my mail?”

  “Milo—”

  “I can’t believe you.” He turned his back on her and looked again at the envelope, angry that she had it, angry that she had kept it from him, angry that he was supposed to lie for her while she stole things from him.

  Maura was still trying to take it away from him, reaching for the envelope.

  “Stop it!” He shoved her arm away and she drew back.

  Milo was about to tear the envelope open, when he saw that the flap was already open. “You read it?” he asked angrily. He turned away from her and started reading.

  As the words settled in his mind, he turned back to her, stricken.

  It was his first hate letter.

  Maura wasn’t looking at him. She was still looking off in the distance, sitting upright with her arms folded.

  “Maura?”

  She turned his way.

  “Did you know what this was?” he asked her. “How? How much of my mail have you opened?”

  “Just the ones without return addresses,” she said quietly.

  “There’s been more than one?”

  “Three or four.” She took the letter from him, and he let her. He never wanted to see it or touch it again. “I always get the mail. A few days ago, after the interview, an envelope came that I thought was weird. It was bulky and didn’t have a return address and it freaked me out. It was addressed to Milo Wright, Traitor. That seemed creepy. So I took it to the police and they opened it. It turned out not to be really anything, just a letter like this one with some newspaper stuffed in to pad it. The police officers kept it, though, and they said to bring them any more anonymous letters that came your way, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I was going to try to take this over there later. If it keeps up, they’re going to talk to the guys at the post office and have them hold the letters there instead.”

  “Are they all from the same person?” He felt sick.

  “No. At least, the police don’t think so. They’re postmarked from different places, the handwriting is different, and so is the language used in the letters. The police are pretty sure they’re from several different people.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That just means there’s more than one person out there who hates me!”

  “According to the police, that’s actually a good thing. No one seems to feel strongly enough about it to stalk you or to write a second time. And there aren’t specific threats in any of the letters. They’re just saying that they don’t . . . like you.”

  “Don’t you think this is something I have a right to know about?” Milo asked, still angry at the deception.

  “I thought it would be better if you didn’t know.” Maura’s voice was level.

  “You’re wrong. This is my life. These letters are for me. You should have told me, or let me get the mail.”

  “Really? How would you feel if I told you that one came for Eden too? Would you want her to see it?”

  “I—” Milo stopped. He wasn’t sure. He would hate for Eden to be scared. He would hate for her to feel as sick as he did now.

  “See?”

  “Did one come for Eden?”

  “One. I gave it to Mr. James and let him take care of it.”

  “Have you told Mom and Dad?”

  “The policemen did.”

  “So everyone has known about this but me?” Looking back, it made sense. His parents had been acting a little paranoid. They’d changed their phone number to an unlisted one. They’d been more diligent about knowing where he was during the day.

  “I’m sorry, Milo. You can keep yelling at me if you want. I didn’t really think when that first one came. I just—reacted.” She put her sunglasses on and slid down in her seat, picking up her book. The title, he saw, was The Climb. How appropriate.

  Their conversation was over—almost. “I’m sorry,” she said, one last time, and then she opened her book again.

  It had been their longest conversation in almost five months. Underneath his outrage and shock about the letters, Milo felt a strong feeling of surprise: He hadn’t known that so many strangers hated him, and he hadn’t known that his sister still cared about him.

  Chapter 20

  October

  Homecoming Night

  Radio broadcast of the Sage High Homecoming game

  Brad Hutchins, sportscaster: “Welcome back from the break. Sage High is still down 14–0, but things could look up for our Scorpions at any time. It looks like Coach has decided to go for it on fourth and inches. What do you think, Hank? Are they going to turn it around right here?”

  Hank Darling, color commentator: “They might, Brad. I have to say that Kingsgate is looking a little out-of-step tonight. They haven’t torn up the field the way they usually do.”

  Brad: “Here they go. There’s the snap . . . Olson steps back to pass, has time, Rudd cuts wide right, he’s open, it looks like he’s going to catch it, the crowd loves it, they love it. . . .”

  Hank: “They hate it.” [Booing from the crowd is audible.]

  Brad: “Incomplete. Who calls a pass play on fourth and inches? The Scorpions are back on defense. Sage High has called a time out, so we’ll go to a word from our sponsors, James Pharmacy . . .”

  Brad: “We’re back now, and Kingsgate has the ball. Oh! I don’t believe it! The pass intended for number 48 is incomplete! Now Kingsgate will have to punt.”

  Hank: “They’re getting sloppy.”

  Brad: “It looks like the Sage coach is bringing in someone new on offense. Number 17. And if I remember right, number 17 is a Darling.”

  Hank: “It’s the littlest Darling of all. The most darling Darling.” [Laughs.] “He’s going to kill me. They’ve put in my brother, Jack.”

  Brad: “And it looks like he’s going long for a pass . . .”

  * * *

  You ready?” Spencer’s dad asked, turning around to look at him. Milo gave him a thumbs-up. The banner sat on the ground behind them, waiting for the wind to give it life.

  Milo prayed fervently that his parents would not kill him for the airplane ride when the news got back to them. First the letters, now this. Running for president was turning out to be a dangerous proposition. Milo wasn’t sure what was happening to him. He’d been upset for a few days, and that afternoon a sharp, stabbing pain had started in his stomach. He couldn’t believe he was s
o freaked out about a simple plane ride.

  Milo tried to think of something else. He wondered how Jack was doing in the game. He had just caught a pass when Milo had had to leave the radio and get into the plane.

  Milo closed his eyes for takeoff, which was as bumpy as he could imagine. The sick feeling Milo had had before he climbed into the plane intensified as they picked up altitude and rumbled into the air.

  It will be over soon, he told himself. Ten minutes, tops. You can live through anything for ten minutes.

  He forced himself to open his eyes. Eden would be mad at him if she knew he had never even looked to see the view.

  If he hadn’t opened his eyes right at that moment, he would have missed it altogether. They sailed over the stadium, and Milo forgot the pain in his stomach as he looked at the lights and the stadium and the mass of people, all with faces upturned to look at him and the Take Flight with Wright banner streaming behind them. Over the rumbling and muttering of the plane, he thought he heard cheering below. He closed his eyes again, this time to soak it all in instead of to block it all out. The cheering was over all too soon.

  It was a short flight. In only two or three minutes, they were back at the airport and landing on the little runway, the wheels hitting the ground with a grinding, solid sound. The plane came to a stop and Milo convinced himself that he didn’t need to throw up right at that moment, that it could wait. The sick feeling had returned with a vengeance during the landing.

  Spencer’s dad turned around while they waited for the go-ahead to taxi in. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Milo lied. “Yeah,” he said weakly. Then, with more sincerity, he added, “Thanks. That was really cool.” It had been worth it. The moment of soaring high in the air among the lights and cheering had been worth all the nervousness and sickness. He hoped he could say the same about the campaign when it was over.

  “No problem. That was kind of fun. I’ve never flown over a stadium before. They don’t usually allow you to get anywhere near one these days.”