by James Howe
Jimmy reaches across the table to high-five DuShawn as Kevin gets to howling so hard he folds right over and mashes his forehead into what’s left of his pizza. Royal is laughing, too, but not Tondayala Cherise DuPré. She is sitting there stiff as a comb. I watch her eyeballs swell up and wonder what she’s going to say when Addie opens her mouth again. I glance down to see if she’s got any more feet left to put in it.
“That’s a riot, DuShawn,” Addie says. “Disrespecting your ancestors. Really. A laugh riot. I guess I made a mistake thinking anybody would take you seriously when you can’t even take yourself—or your own people—seriously. Come on, Bobby, let’s not waste any more time.”
We start to walk away.
But we don’t get far.
“Who you think you’re talkin’ to?” Tonni’s voice lands on our ears with the thwak of the morning paper hitting the front door. We stop and turn.
Tonni’s up on her feet, hands on her hips, chin thrust out like a dare. DuShawn is standing, too, but the way his baggy pants cascade from hip to floor he looks like a question mark next to Tonni’s exclamation point. Addie takes a step in their direction. I follow. The cafeteria goes dead quiet. There isn’t a slurp or a crinkle or a crunch anywhere—just our feet hitting the linoleum and Tonni’s hard stare, which I swear makes noise. If I could remember the theme song to Gunfight atthe O.K. Corral, it’d be playing in my head.
“Now you listen here,” Tonni spits out as soon as Addie and I are in range. “You got no right talkin’ to DuShawn like that, does she, DuShawn?” DuShawn opens his mouth, but all that comes out is nothing. “You hear what I’m telling you? You think you can speak for black people, you think you know what it is to be black when what are you but a lily-white girl living your whole life in a lily-white town with a lily-white name like Paintbrush Falls, and you want to start some sort of liberation movement or something and use DuShawn here like some kind of fool pawn or something, like he’s gonna make you black or something?”
“This isn’t about black or white,” Addie says.
“What?” Tonni squeals. “Don’t be tellin’ me this isn’t about black or white. It’s always about black or white, and if you don’t think so, it’s because you’re white.”
A couple of black eighth graders start clapping and shouting, “Right on!” and “You go, sister!” but the rest of us are standing there with our tongues glued to the bottoms of our mouths.
Except Addie.
“Look,” she says, “I’m sorry you’re angry, Tonni. I guess I’m a little naive about some things...”
Tonni snorts. “You guess! Huh!”
“But I really think DuShawn would be a good candidate. Everybody likes him and he’s funny and he’s—”
“Black,” says Tonni.
“Does that have to matter?” Addie gives back. “What matters is he’s a lot smarter than he lets on. And I just think it’s time to take DuShawn Carter seriously.”
“Excuse me? You know what you are, Addie? You’re one of those do-good liberals come pokin’ their white noses into black business, so full of themselves like they know what’s good for people they know nothin’ about. Well, I know a lot more about bein’ black than you do, and I know DuShawn a whole lot better than you do, and what DuShawn thinks is—”
“I’ll do it,” DuShawn puts in.
Addie and Tonni drop dead and stare at him. I can’t tell who is more shocked.
“No, it’s cool,” says DuShawn. “I’ll do it.”
“DuShawn, you gone outta your fool mind?!” Tonni hollers.
“Thank you,” Addie says. “You won’t regret it. Can you come to the meeting today after school? Ms. Wyman’s room?”
“I’ll be there,” says DuShawn. I notice he’s avoiding looking at Tonni, on account of her being about ready to commit murder with her eyeballs and all.
Addie and I start to walk away when we notice how quiet the cafeteria has gotten. It’s like the room itself is holding its breath. Addie steps into the moment.
Sweeping her left arm dramatically in DuShawn’s direction, she lets out with, “DuShawn Carter—the Freedom Party’s candidate for president of the student council!”
The place erupts in cheers.
Addie never ceases to amaze me.
9
BY THE time I get to art class, which is last period of the day, I am the Freedom Party candidate for treasurer. I do not know how this happened. I suspect it went something like this:
Addie: So, Bobby, you’ll be treasurer, okay?
Me: Okay.
If you are wondering why it never occurs to me to say no to Addie, that is because you do not know Addie. Or me. Addie does not take no for an answer, and I do not know how to give it for one.
Another thing I have said yes to is asking Colin Briggs if he will run for secretary. I think Colin running for secretary makes even less sense than me running for treasurer, and I tell Addie so.
Me: Colin is a boy. He will not want to run for secretary.
Addie: You are a sexist pig. Colin won’t care. Besides, he likes to write.
Me: But shouldn’t we have another girl on the ticket?
(I ask this, thinking surely this will make sense to Addie, who is such a feminist she once wrote a letter to her church asking that “hymns” be called “hers.” She did not succeed.)
Addie: You have a point, but let’s ask Colin first. As much as I hate admitting it, I think it’s important that we have one other popular person on the ballot.
I find this logic distinctly un-Addie-like, considering that there are popular girls we could ask, but I do not at that moment possess the crucial nugget of information that will later explain her odd behavior.
What I do know is this: While Colin is one of the popular kids, he is different from most of them. He is nice, for one thing. Not that some of the other popular kids aren’t nice, but they have different ways of showing it, depending on who’s on the receiving end. When Brittney talks to you, for instance, you get the feeling she is being polite and showing that she knows how to behave around those less fortunate than herself. Sort of like she’s Mother Teresa and you’re a leper.
Colin isn’t like that. He acts the same with everybody, so that you end up feeling like an actual person around him.
He is also one of those people who are good at everything they do, but you do not hate him for this, because it does not swell his head to the size of a watermelon. For example, he is a natural athlete, but doesn’t go around talking sports all the time or thinking it is the end of the world if his team doesn’t win. In fact, he is quiet for a boy, and does not favor rude words or sounds such as those produced by sticking your hand in your armpit and giving it a squeeze.
When I walk into Mr. Minelli’s room, I am a few minutes late, on account of Mrs. DePaolo having stopped me in the hall and asking if I could help her pick up about a thousand flyers she had just dropped on the floor.
I hand my late pass to Mr. Minelli, then sit down in my seat across from Joe and get ready to dirty my hands with charcoal. Joe’s going at his drawing so hard he doesn’t even notice me come in, although I am suspecting the real reason he doesn’t look up has more to do with one of the two characters sitting on either side of him than his passion for drawing.
One of these characters is Kelsey Scoggins. She’s the new girl I told you about who is so shy you can hardly notice her breathing. Mr. Minelli is always looking over her shoulder and making mm-hmm noises because, like I say, he thinks Kelsey is a genius. Whenever he holds up her work to show the rest of the class, which he’s already done about three times and we’ve only had four classes, Kelsey puts her head down on her desk and dies. I’m guessing though that her talent as an artist is what keeps her going. I mean, shyness that bad isn’t just part of your personality, it’s like an illness, and I’ll bet on a stack of waffles that it hurts like one.
You probably thought I was going to say pancakes there, didn’t you?
Well, an
yhow, whilst I’m sitting there staring at her, without realizing that’s what I’m doing, she looks up and makes eye contact with me for about a nanosecond and that’s enough to turn her cheeks the color of a strawberry shake and get her ducking her head back down so that her hair falls in front of her eyes, but not before I make out what I’m almost positive is a smile.
Then I’m thinking, I never noticed that Kelsey Scoggins is pretty. This thought does not surprise me too much because, after all, hardly anybody notices Kelsey. But the following thought does surprise me, and it is this: I think maybe she likes me.
Then I think, Yeah, right. A pretty girl, even one who is socially handicapped like Kelsey Scoggins, does not like a boy like me.
And what is a boy like me? you may ask.
Even if you did not, I will tell you: A boy like me is fat.
There, I said it.
I am relieved to be pulled away from these thoughts by the sound of the person on the other side of joe. He is all of a sudden talking to Joe in a low voice, pointing at Joe’s drawing, and Joe is saying things back like, “Really? You really think it’s good?”
Joe is acting like a Joe when he says these things, not a JoDan or a Scorpio, and it is funny at first to see him acting this way, almost what I would call normal, but then I think it isn’t all that funny because the person he is talking to is Colin.
After class, I go over to Colin, who is at the sink washing charcoal off his hands. I am only slightly nervous about approaching him because, like I say, he is not too hard to talk to, and so I need only a handful of fake conversation-starters before getting down to business.
“Addie and I were wondering—well, you heard about the Freedom Party, right?—well, we were wondering if you would like to be on our ticket.”
I do not let on yet that we’re talking about secretary here.
“Oh, gee, I’m really sorry, Bobby,” he says, like he honestly means it, “but I’m already running on another ticket.”
“For secretary?” I ask. I cannot seem to keep this to myself.
Colin smiles. “No, vice president.”
“With Brittney?”
He shakes his head. “Drew,” he says. “I’m a Democrat.”
“Oh,” I say. I have run out of dialogue. Sometimes I wish I were a character in a book and there was a writer out there giving me things to say. This is one of those times. I just stand there, feeling stupid.
“It’s too bad I didn’t know before the nominating convention,” Colin says, wiping his hands on a paper towel and making way for me at the sink. “I mean, I don’t know if I would have said yes or not. Drew’s my friend and all, but... well, I think Addie’s really smart. I have a lot of respect for her. Good luck,” he says and walks away.
I turn and see that he slows down when he passes Joe and Kelsey, who are standing a few people behind me in line, talking to each other. I watch carefully to make out if Kelsey’s lips are actually moving, but it is mostly Joe doing the talking, and I notice his lips speed up just when Colin slows down.
Fifteen minutes later—if you believe the clock in the hall, and twenty-one minutes later if you believe the clock in Ms. Wyman’s room—I tell Addie Colin said no. Her face practically falls off she is so disappointed, but then she pulls it right back on.
“No sense dwelling on it,” she says. Addie, as you have no doubt surmised by now, is a mover and a shaker. She rarely dwells.
So we are huddled at the back of Ms. Wyman’s room—Addie, DuShawn, and me—when Addie goes, “Okay, we have to plan our strategy quickly. The Democrats and Republicans held their conventions during seventh period and they’ve put together their slates and their platforms. We’re still short a candidate and we don’t have our platform.”
“I thought it was Tree the Slaves,’” DuShawn quips and Addie gives him a look that needs no interpretation. “Anyway,” he goes on, returning the look, “what makes you think Ms. Wyman is going to allow the Freedom Party to exist?”
“Simple—because she has to.” Addie raises her voice to accommodate the growing din of middle-school politicians filling the room. “I went to the office after lunch and asked to see the student council bylaws.” She pulls out a piece of paper on which she’s written, “More than two parties shall be allowed if the additional parties can prove they serve a purpose not served by the existing parties.”
“I’m tellin’ you—’Free the Slaves,’” DuShawn says again. “No way the other two parties are gonna have that as their platform.”
“Is it genetic coding or something that boys can’t be serious?” Addie goes.
DuShawn rolls his eyes. I get the feeling he’s as serious about this whole political party thing as I am. Which is to say: not. I know that I’m involved because Addie is my friend and I don’t know how to say no. I have not yet figured DuShawn’s angle.
All of a sudden, Addie gets all excited. “Look around the room,” she says. “What do you see? More to the point, what don’t you see?”
We look around the room.
“I do not see any fish,” DuShawn gives.
“And,” I put in, “I note a discernible absence of lawn ornaments.”
DuShawn cracks up and flashes his palm for a high five, which I give him—or almost, anyway; I’m off-center so it’s more like a high three—and I’m well on my way to totally betraying my lifelong friendship with Addie for the buzz I’m feeling from having actually made a certifiable popular person laugh with me and not at me when Ms. Wyman marches into the room with so much authority I pop up out of my seat ready to sing “God Save the Queen.”
“Yes, Mr. Goodspeed?” Ms. Wyman asks, noting that I am the only one standing.
“May I be excused?” I ask. I cannot think what else to say.
Addie looks at me as if I have completely lost my mind, which I venture to say I have. When Ms. Wyman gives me permission to leave, I shrug at Addie and mouth, “I’ll be right back.” She mouths back, “You are made of gorgonzola.”
That probably isn’t what she says, but that’s what it looks like.
Anyway, while counting to a hundred outside Ms. Wyman’s room, I suddenly spot Skeezie Tookis lurking down the hall. I would like to think there is another word to describe his behavior, but “lurking” is a perfect fit. Ordinarily, Skeezie is not a lurker. Even those of an adult persuasion who have called him a young hooligan have never combined the accusation with the word “lurk” or any of its derivatives. Yet, there he is. Lurking.
“Skeeze!” I call out in a hushed sort of way, not wanting Ms. Wyman to hear me and suddenly appear in the hall to ask why I needed to be excused in order to count to a hundred.
The Skeeze looks over his shoulder, but not like he has heard me and not so far that he sees me. He’s got this whole furtive way about him, which makes sense, considering that he is lurking and all. I wonder what he is up to, but I do not call out to him again. Instead, I pull myself back behind a fire extinguisher, so that if he happens to look down the hall in my direction he will not see me. Although he will see a fire extinguisher with legs. I pop my head out just in time to catch him in the act of shoving something through the slots of a locker. I make out which locker it is and wait for Skeezie to cease his lurking and scurry away. Actually, he does not scurry. He cops an attitude and moves down the hall bobbing his head and snapping his fingers, like he’s John Travolta in that movie Grease. It’s a relief seeing him act like himself, and the thought occurs to me that in the space of a couple of hours all my friends have been acting strange. The theme to Invasion of the Body Snatchers starts playing inside my head. I have got to stop watching all these old movies.
Why in the world, I am thinking, would Skeezie be putting something in Colin Briggs’s locker?
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” I say. I turn around and bump smack into Addie.
“Is your mental health break over?” she asks. “Because if it is, you are desperately needed inside. Ms. Wyman is threatening to disallow th
e Freedom Party. You’ve got to help us convince her that we serve a purpose not served by the other parties.”
“Do we have a purpose?” I ask.
“Of course,” Addie says. “DuShawn and I worked it all out. We are the party who speaks on behalf of the minority students of Paintbrush Falls Middle School.”
“Who am I supposed to speak on behalf of?” I give back. “The overweight and undervocal?”
Addie does not find this funny or even seem to hear me. She is staring at something past my right shoulder. I turn and look but nothing is there.
“Let’s go,” she says. And we do.
10
DuShawn:
What are you doing?
Addie:
Writing down what you say.
DuShawn:
That is so gay.
Addie:
Excuse me?
DuShawn:
That’s so gay, y’know, weird.
Addie:
I hate that expression. Gay does not equal weird.
DuShawn:
Whatever. So why are you writing everything down?
Addie:
Because that’s what we do when we have a Forum.
DuShawn:
Say what?
Addie:
I told you. Skeezie, Joe, Bobby, and I get together and talk about important issues.
Bobby:
Over ice cream.
Addie:
Over ice cream.
Skeezie:
Or sodas.
Addie:
The point is we talk about important issues and we call it the Forum. These are the minutes.
Bobby:
You should run for secretary.
Addie:
No, thanks. Oh, but stroke of genius. I’m going to ask Heather O’Malley if she’ll run.
JoDan:
Heather O’Malley?