by Ally Condie
“What do you think you’re doing?” one snapped.
“Do you have any credentials to get in? A press pass or a ticket?” asked the other guard. His tone was slightly more pleasant.
“No, I’m here as a member of the public,” Milo said. “I know I can’t debate. I just want to be in the audience and watch.”
“I’m sorry,” said the second guard. “We can’t do that. There’s been concern expressed about your being a disruption to the debates, and we have strict orders not to let you in. Not even to the general public seating area. Besides,” he said, with a small smile on his face, “as I’m sure you know, they don’t allow anyone under eighteen to attend these debates.”
The angry security guard folded his arms across his chest, and nodded once at Milo. Take that. Milo noticed these two security guys were just the tip of the iceberg. Now that he was so close to the building, he could see lots of men in suits who looked eerily efficient. There was no way he was getting into the debate.
Even though they’d known this would happen—that barring a miracle, they’d be turned away and would have to listen to the debate on radios in the parking lot instead—Milo felt a rush of disappointment and anger swell up. But he glanced at Mr. Satteson and remembered that Mr. Satteson had told him that under no circumstances was Milo to get himself thrown out of the place. The situation was still positive as long as they didn’t get thrown out of the convention center parking lot. They still had Plan B (which was to generate positive attention and talk to the media as much as possible).
Even though Milo knew what the next step was, it was still hard to do it. “Thank you, sir,” he said politely to the second guard. Then he and Mr. Satteson turned around and walked back toward the spot where the mass of Sage High students stood waiting.
“You could still go to the debate,” Milo said to Mr. Satteson as they made their way back through the line. “That would be cool. Then you could tell us what happened.”
“I’m going to see history being made out here instead.” Mr. Satteson smiled. “Besides, you kids are my responsibility.” They were nearing the rest of their group. Eden, Paige, Jack, and Maura came hurrying toward them. Someone else in the crowd caught sight of them and called out, “Milo! They didn’t let you in?” People groaned. But everyone behaved themselves. The only thing that happened was that the rest of the crowd picked up on the groans and started talking about it too.
“They didn’t let him in.”
“He had to know it was coming.”
Someone called out, “Too bad, Milo! We would have liked to see you in there!” It wasn’t a voice Milo recognized.
The noise reached the attention of some of the reporters. One of the reporters caught Milo’s eye, said something to her camera crew, and detached herself from the crowd.
“She’s making a beeline for you, Milo,” Eden murmured. “Get ready.”
“He was born ready,” said Jack. “And so was I.” He adjusted his sunglasses.
The woman marched up to Milo. “I’m Maggie Hillman from KUBP News. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Yes,” Milo said. Without any other introduction or preamble, she motioned for a cameraman to start rolling. She gave a short intro to the segment and stuck a microphone in Milo’s face.
Behind him, Milo heard the Sage High students gathering and murmuring. Someone moved to his side. It was Maura. She didn’t say anything, but she had taken off her sunglasses. The way she was looking at the reporter reminded Milo of a time at the park when he had been four and she had been eight. There had been a kid bullying Milo on the swings, and Maura had stared the bully down until he’d left.
“Milo is standing here outside the debate, where they won’t let him in,” said the reporter, turning from the camera to Milo. “How do you feel about that, Milo? Outraged? Disenfranchised?”
In spite of himself, whenever anyone talked about his being disenfranchised, Milo always got the worst craving for franchise food, especially from Dairy Queen. Or Taco Bell. His stomach rumbled; he hoped it wasn’t loud enough for the microphone to pick it up.
“I sort of understand,” Milo said. “They don’t want the debate to turn into a big mess; they want to keep things serious. And they don’t trust me when I say I’ll just sit there and be quiet and not ask any crazy questions or stand up and wave my arms around and yell stuff. Plus, I’m not old enough. But I still think the fact they won’t let anyone under the age of eighteen into the debate is ridiculous. Most of us will be voting next time, and whoever wins this election could be one of our choices. Do they think we don’t know how to act at something like this? We have questions we want to ask, too.”
He hoped fervently that no one in the background was acting juvenile and disproving his words the moment they were out of his mouth. He also hoped Logan wasn’t making obscene gestures behind him while he was talking. He was still pretty wary of Logan’s sudden change of heart.
“Have either of the candidates been in touch with you? I saw a quote the other day where they both mentioned that they knew you slightly. Is that true?”
“Yes, I’ve gotten letters from both of them.” Milo thought of the two letters that had arrived after his first TV interview. They’d both been polite, and said basically the same thing. And the candidates had really signed them. At least, the ink had smeared when Milo had checked to see if they were real.
“Pretty flattering stuff for a teenager, I’d imagine,” the reporter said, smiling in a patronizing way. “Not many kids your age get mail from candidates for President of the United States. So, which candidate do you endorse for president?”
She couldn’t have set herself up more perfectly. “Myself, of course.” Milo turned his best and brightest smile at her.
She fumbled for a minute. Then another reporter, who’d just arrived, caught Milo’s eye and smiled at him. “Could I ask you a question?” she said.
“Sure.” The first reporter looked annoyed, but Milo figured her interview had been about as informal as possible, so who cared if someone else joined in?
The new reporter asked Milo the same question he’d answered a few minutes ago: “Milo, are you mad they wouldn’t let you into tonight’s debate?”
“No. I mean, I wish they’d let me in, but I can at least stand out here and answer questions from you guys.” He grinned, turned on the charm. “Maybe I should be grateful they didn’t let me in.” Laughter from the reporters. Keep it up, Milo.
The pushy reporter was back in Milo’s face. “So, do you really think you have what it takes to be president?” A few other camera crews, in the absence of any real news outside of the debate building, were converging on Milo’s impromptu press conference.
“I wouldn’t have entered if I didn’t think I could do a good job,” Milo told the gathering crowd of people.
“A better job than these other candidates, who’ve had years of experience?” The first reporter again.
“I could do a good job. I’m sure it might be different from what the other candidates would do, but I would do the best job I could do, and I would assemble the best cabinet possible. I’m not afraid to admit I have a lot to learn, but I think the other candidates would have to learn too.”
The reporter laughed. “And how do you propose to keep learning? Would you quit school, or would you have to fit the presidency in around your classes?” She looked around at the other reporters, still laughing.
Milo was tired of her treating the entire interview as a joke. He wanted to say something snotty to her, but he remembered Eden’s earlier advice—the best way to treat people who didn’t take him seriously was to simply answer the questions as seriously and professionally as he could.
“I’d probably get a tutor. Child stars do it all the time, right? And I’d have a great hands-on education in current events, history, and government
.”
“But we’re talking around the real issue,” she said, going for the jugular. “You could never actually take office, even assuming you miraculously won the popular and electoral votes. So, why are you running, when there’s no way you can be President?”
Some of the other reporters smiled at him, ready to let him off the hook. Most of them seemed to recognize that being mean to a fifteen-year-old kid, who was, after all, just a novelty in the election, was a stupid move. Milo didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.
“Because I believe I can make a difference in this campaign. I think the numbers from our website and the number of schools participating in the under-eighteen vote show we already have made a difference. We’ve gotten a lot of teenagers involved, and we’ve gotten people to listen to us.”
“Do you really think you can speak for all teenagers under the age of eighteen? Isn’t that too broad a statement?”
“Not really. The main point of our platform is that we want to be heard now, not in a few years when we’re ‘old enough.’ I think most teenagers agree with that. I know I can’t speak perfectly for all teenagers, but I can at least try to draw attention to their voices.” He peeked to see if Eden had been as impressed with that last line as he himself was. She looked pretty proud.
“But you still can’t win,” the reporter told him.
“Haven’t you ever gone for something you knew might not work out?” Milo asked.
“No,” she said.
“Winning isn’t the only reason to do something,” Milo pointed out.
“But it makes no sense to try to do something impossible,” she retorted.
“It’s too bad you feel that way. You’ve really missed out.”
“How are you polling on your website, Milo?” asked another correspondent, cutting into the conversation. “Are you winning the teenage vote?”
Milo was impressed. This person actually knew something about him and wasn’t just trying to make fun of him. “I’m polling slightly ahead of Governor Hernandez,” he told the reporter. “And she’s beating Senator Ryan by about five percent.”
“So it’s a close election on all fronts,” the reporter said. “Are you surprised that you’re not winning by a landslide in your poll?”
“A little bit,” Milo admitted. “I mean, I’d hoped to be solidly ahead at this point. But the real test for me is on Election Day, just like the other candidates. Our big thing is finding out the results of our under-eighteen vote. We know it’s extremely unlikely I’ll get any electoral votes, but I’ll keep my eye on the popular vote of course, just in case.”
“How many schools do you have signed up to participate in your online vote?” another reporter asked.
“One thousand and fifteen.” A little murmur ran through the crowd. “And counting,” Milo added.
“How many hits does your website average a day?”
“Almost a million.” The murmur got louder. “It’s really skyrocketed since my appearance on Good Morning USA. We’re getting more schools signing up to vote and more hits on the website every day.”
“You must have one heck of a webmaster.”
“I do. His name’s Spencer Grafton and he’s the best.”
“Tell us more about the website.”
“It’s pretty awesome. The address is www.writeinwright.com.” He spelled it out for them before he continued. “There’s a blog on there called Up and Running that’s written by teenage contributors, myself included. There’s an e-mail address where you can submit questions and then I try to answer them when I post. There’s information about our campaign platform and a forum where you can discuss it. And any school can order packets directly from the website.”
“How do you have the money for all this?”
“The same as the other candidates—donations. We had one great donor—Patrick Walsh—who got us started. And now we’re getting more and more help.”
“Anything else you’d like to tell us?” The reporter was wrapping it up. Milo could see movement out of the corner of his eye. It looked like the real candidates might be arriving on the scene, or at least their handlers and security people, anyway. Several big black SUVs with tinted windows were pulling up close to the main entrance of the debate building.
“I’d just like to thank my friends and my sister for helping me, and my classmates for being here, too. Go Sage High!” Everyone behind him started cheering and hamming it up for the cameras. He looked back to see Logan and the rest of the football team right behind him, pumping their fists in the air. It was a great shot. He was sure it would make the evening news. All the red and white and blue and orange and black, all the teenagers excited about the election, all the positive energy coursing through the air.
He decided again this was the best day of his life.
* * *
Later that night, the students climbed into the buses and the Wright family climbed into their car.
One by one, the students and chaperones stopped talking and laughing and reliving the evening, and they all dozed off, even Eden, who fell asleep in the middle of compiling some statistics on how many television stations had picked up their story that night.
Paige fell asleep on Jack’s shoulder.
Milo and Maura, who was driving the family home, were the only ones who stayed awake. Together they watched the dark through the last of the night and into the next morning. When they finally reached home, the sky was turning from black to deep blue, the stars were harder to find, and a slice of light lay on the horizon where the sky met the desert.
Chapter 23
October
Milo’s to-do list
• Write paper for English
• Math homework
• Talk to Eden about sending packets to middle schools as well as high schools? (Mr. Satteson’s idea)
• Write blog post for website
• 314 e-mails in inbox that need to be answered immediately; 4,765 (and counting) that need to be answered eventually
• Call Josie to discuss publicity for Proms for a Cause. Also, a school called and asked if they could do Homecoming for a Cause and get the alumni involved. Seems great to me?
• Get new tie
• Get a copy of The Climb and read it
• Write editorial for Haventon newspaper
• Call Paige and ask her to update Facebook and MySpace pages with latest info from website
• Call McCall to see how RecyclABLE is going. How should we use the big donation from the soil toxicology professor from Cornell?
• Write a thank-you note to Cornell professor
• Dad’s and Jack’s birthdays are coming up—get stuff for them
• Run at least three times this week
• Go to kindergarten Fall Program at Sage Elementary (a lot of the Purple People Eaters are in it)
• Oil and store lawn-mowing equipment for the winter
• Return 32 phone calls (saved messages)
• Clean up Mrs. Walsh’s yard for fall
* * *
The day after the debate in Phoenix, Milo woke up late in the afternoon. At first, he couldn’t remember what day it was or where he was supposed to be. Was he supposed to go to school? Go campaigning? Clean his room? Mow someone’s lawn? Who was he supposed to be with? Where on earth were his shoes?
Luckily, his phone rang at that exact moment. “Hey,” said Jack, sounding groggy and grumpy.
“Hey,” said Milo. “Did you just wake up too?”
“Yeah, and it’s a good thing I did. Do you remember what we’re supposed to do this afternoon?”
“I honestly have no clue,” Milo told him.
“We promised Mrs. Walsh we’d do a fall clean-up on her yard. Rake the leaves, trim the bu
shes, all that stuff. You can do the easy stuff, you know, because of your gall bladder dying.”
“My appendix.”
“Whatever.”
“What are we doing after that?” Milo asked.
“We have to meet Spencer in Haventon and get a ton of packets ready and other campaign stuff. Mr. Satteson is bringing over a van load of volunteers to help us. Are you okay? Did the debate fry your brain?”
“Probably.” Milo’s mind felt slippery. Nothing was sticking right now. He was totally fatigued.
He picked up the to-do list next to his bed, the list of all the things he was supposed to get done once the debate was over. Not one of them was checked off yet.
The day before had been great, definitely one of the best ever. But it was over now, and back to work. Everything was building up to Election Day, November 4th, less than a month away.
* * *
Mrs. Walsh was thrilled when they knocked on her door. She was on the phone, but she smiled brightly and covered the mouthpiece with her hand so she could talk to them.
“We’re here to do your fall clean-up, if that’s still all right.”
“Oh, this is wonderful,” Mrs. Walsh said, beaming at them. “Yes, of course today would be fine. I thought you might have been too busy with the campaign, and Patrick has been out of town so much this month that I didn’t want to bother him.”
“We’re sorry it’s taken so long,” Milo said.
“Don’t you worry one minute about that. Here, let me show you where the rakes are . . .”
“That’s okay, we remember from last year,” Jack told her. “Out in the shed, right?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Come knock on the door when you’re done, won’t you?”
“Of course.” They started walking toward the shed. They could still hear her talking on the phone as she closed the door behind them.
“It was Milo and Jack!” Mrs. Walsh said into the phone. “Such good boys . . .”