The Misfits

by James Howe

  “It is?” I go, surprised. I don’t even see it. “But the rules—”

  “We’re the third party. We’ve already broken rules. Or maybe what we’re doing is remaking them. Wait, I have this brilliant idea!”

  “Brilliant” is Addie’s newest favorite word.

  She then tells me her brilliant idea and I have to admit it is good. “All you have to do is make a few changes at the beginning of your speech, and it will work brilliantly,” she assures me.

  I look down at the paper and try to imagine myself saying these words out loud, not just to Addie, but to all the kids and all the teachers at Paintbrush Falls Middle School. I break into a sweat and my stomach starts to hurt.

  “We’ll all be there,” Addie says, seeing my hesitation. “Skeezie and Joe and me, we’ll be up there with you and we’ll be part of it. But the words, Bobby, they’ve got to come from you.”

  “Do you really think I can do it?”

  “Absolutely. You’ll be brilliant.”

  I look at Addie and see that she is being serious. “Okay,” I tell her. “Okay.”

  She smiles and says, “Great, let’s get to work.”

  25

  HERE ARE some of the things that could have happened on Wednesday and I would not have noticed:

  * The school could have burned down.

  * Ms. Wyman could have smiled a real smile.

  * The school could have been buried in a mud slide.

  * Skeezie could have used a napkin.

  * The school could have been overtaken by giant flying ants.

  * Kelsey could have told me she likes me.

  Well, okay, I would have noticed that last one, but you know how it is when you have to do something really scary, like go to the dentist to have all your teeth painfully and slowly extracted one by one (which of course is never going to happen, but you always think there’s the outside chance it might) or, as in my case, get up in front of the entire school and give a speech. Not just a speech, mind you, but a speech that when translated into basic middle-schoolese, boils down to: “Ready, aim, laugh!”

  If you know what I am talking about, then you will know that it is impossible to think about anything else until you are on the other side of whatever your particular brand of doom is.

  From the time I leave Addie’s house Tuesday night until eleven in the A.M. on Thursday, all that occupies my mind is the mess I have gotten myself into by agreeing to give this speech. Fine, the No-Name Party is my idea, along with just about everything that goes with it, but does that mean I have to submit myself to ridicule and, worse, the loss of my one true love? Not that Kelsey knows yet that she is my one true love, but after I speak, she will undoubtedly shudder at the mere thought that it might ever have happened.

  When I get home Tuesday night, I tell my dad what transpired at Addie’s house, expecting him to say, “I’m not letting you get caught up in any left-wing, radical, nutcase politics. I’m calling Addie’s parents right now and putting a stop to this nonsense!” But he does not say this. He says, “Good for you, Skip.” And, hold on to your seat belts: “I’m taking off work Thursday morning so I can come hear you.”

  I go, “But, Daaad.”

  He goes, “And I’ve been thinking about it and I will chaperon that dance Friday night, son. Who should I call?”

  Wonderful. My father will now be on hand to witness my two greatest moments of humiliation in a life that has been just building up to them.

  You may wonder why I think the dance will also be humiliating. Picture this: I will be trying to get Kelsey to dance with me, but she will only want to dance with joe. Joe will want to dance with Colin, which is not going to happen for a multitude of reasons, including the fact that Colin will be dancing with Addie, unless Skeezie’s theory is right, in which case, Addie will be dancing with nobody. So Kelsey will ask Joe to dance and he will say yes, on account of Joe being a dancing fool.

  So there I will be standing on the sidelines with my shirt tucked in and a Styrofoam cup of punch in my hand, with Skeezie on one side of me, muttering how stupid all of this is and why don’t they play some good music (meaning Elvis) and Addie, maybe, on the other side of me, slumping because she doesn’t feel good about herself.

  And now on top of everything else, my dad will be there, handing out cookies and coming over every fifteen minutes to say, “Come on, Skip, ask somebody to dance. Why don’t you and Addie get out there and show them how to do it, what do you say?”

  What I say is: Help!

  Of course, what I say to my dad when he tells me all this on Tuesday night is, “Great, Dad!” because, do not forget, I was the one who asked him to chaperon in the first place and, as far as the speech goes, I cannot even remember the last time I gave him a reason to want to come to school and see me do anything. So how can I say no?

  So that is Tuesday night. As for Wednesday:

  One big blur.

  (Proof that Kelsey does not come up and tell me she likes me.)

  Thursday morning I wake before my alarm goes off. I feel sick. I reach for my speech, which I have read over so many times I know I can do it by heart, but I read it over again anyway and I think for the one-thousandth time, I am going to get up and say these words in front of the whole. . . and that is when I groan so loud my dad comes in and asks what’s wrong and I tell him I am dying.

  He does not tell me he will call an ambulance or a funeral director, but instead asks me what I want for breakfast. I tell him Pepto-Bismol.

  I carefully select my wardrobe. I finally choose a white polo shirt (tucked in) and khaki pants. I check myself out in the mirror. I am somewhere between preppy and invisible. A good choice.

  My dad is smart enough to know that I need to go easy on breakfast. I eat a bowl of cereal and a banana. Every bite sticks in my throat.

  While my dad finishes packing my lunch, I say, all nonchalant as if I haven’t practiced saying it twenty-five times already, “You know, Dad, if it’s busy at work today, you really don’t have to come. I won’t feel bad, honest. It’s not such a big deal.”

  “If it’s not such a big deal,” he says back, holding up a fruit leather and a PowerBar for me to choose between and, seeing as I can’t, tossing them both in my lunch bag, “then how come most of your clothes are all over your bed? Nice try, Skip, but I’m going to be there. I don’t want to make you more nervous than you already are, but—”

  “But you are,” I go, right away regretting the words.

  “I know that,” he says. “I was in seventh grade once, too, believe it or not, and I had a father. So I know how you feel. But here’s the thing. Your granddad cheered the loudest of anybody at my Little League games—and he came to every single one—and I just about died, okay? At the time, I would have given anything for him to just shut up. I even asked him to stop coming. Which he told me to forget about, by the way. It took becoming a father myself to finally get it. You can’t help wanting to cheer your children on, kiddo. That’s what being a dad is about. So. I will be there today and I will be cheering for you. Silently. I will not embarrass you, and that’s a promise. But I will be there. Now, here’s your lunch and there’s the door.”

  I take my lunch bag from him. “It’s not you embarrassing me I’m worried about,” I tell him. “It’s me embarrassing you.”

  “Ah.”

  “Did you ever feel that way with Granddad?”

  “Every single Little League game. That was the real reason I didn’t want him there. But I’ll tell you what he told me: You can’t embarrass me. Not ever. It’s just not part of the deal.”

  “Honest?” I say, actually daring to look at him when I ask this.

  “Honest,” he says. “Now get out of here, or we’ll both be late.”

  Walking to school, I am feeling better, like I just may be able to pull this thing off. Then the doors open and the halls are full of kids hollering at each other and Mrs. DePaolo is walking by hugging her sweater to her shoulders and one of th
e No-Name posters picks that moment to come loose from its masking tape and fall right on top of Brittney Hobson’s head and she looks surprised and then, seeing what it is, laughs her high-pitched cheerleader laugh, like, I can’t believe I let this silly thing scare me! and I want to turn around and go to the dentist and have all my teeth extracted. Because even that would be better than what I have to do this morning.

  Addie does not help matters. She is like a cross between the chief executive officer of the world’s largest corporation and the chief executive officer of the world’s second largest corporation. She is so take-charge I want to tell her to just do the whole thing herself, but then I think, This is just how Addie gets.

  As for my morning classes:

  One big blur.

  At ten-thirty, Mr. Kiley’s voice says over the loudspeaker, “Will the candidates for the student council please report to the auditorium?”

  For the next half hour, I joke nervously with my fellow candidates about fear of collapsing folding chairs and throwing up. I think, This is democracy in action. I am actually talking to Colin and Drew Geller, and even Brittney Hobson (who of course does not admit to any fears and probably doesn’t have any) and all these other kids who most times wouldn’t even give me the time of day. I notice that Colin and Joe are talking and laughing together when all of a sudden Ms. Wyman claps her hands and says, “Please take your assigned seats and let’s have a quick run-through. You will not actually give your speeches now, but we want to be sure that everyone is clear about the order and how things will go.”

  Addie leans past Joe to hiss at me, “Act like I’m the one giving the speech. I don’t want any last-minute hitches.”

  “But that’s not honest,” I whisper back.

  Joe says, “This is politics.”

  To which Addie says, “It’s not about politics. It’s about Ms. Wyman. If we let her know we’re challenging one of her precious rules—”

  “Ms. Carle,” Ms. Wyman goes in a threatening voice.

  “Okay, okay,” I say. And we snap back to attention.

  The run-through goes quickly and as it happens we don’t even get to the No-Name Party, which is presenting last, because classes are starting to file into the auditorium and Ms. Wyman brings the proceedings to a halt, wishing us luck. She goes to each party in turn to do this, and when she gets to us, we are all surprised that she seems so sincere.

  “We have our differences, Ms. Carle,” she says to Addie, “but I admire your spirit.”

  Addie’s jaw drops about to her knees, but she thinks fast and says, “Thank you, Ms. Wyman.”

  And then we are left to sit there, and wait, and pray that nothing unnatural occurs.

  Because of the lights I cannot tell if my father is out there, but I am pretty sure he is. It’s funny, but all of a sudden I wish I could see him.

  Ms. Wyman is making her opening speech now, parts of which have to do with democracy in action and the electoral process and parts of which have to do with, “If this behavior doesn’t stop right now, we will just cancel this morning’s assembly and there will be no elections.” When this gets no results, she adds, “And no dance.” And the place gets as quiet as I’m guessing it does in her dreams.

  The Democrats go first and then the Republicans. I do not hear a word that Drew or Brittney says. I do hear laughter and applause and cheers, which are loud for Drew and louder for Brittney.

  Suddenly, it is our turn and I think I have never had to pee so bad in my entire life.

  Ms. Wyman is saying, “This year we have a third party from which to choose. The No-Name Party is a grassroots organization that sprang up in response to a single issue. The candidates are Addie Carle for president, Joe Bunch for vice president, Bobby Good-speed for treasurer, and Schuyler Tookis for secretary. I will now turn the microphone over to the candidate for president, Addie Carle.”

  I try to ignore the difference in decibel level between the applause that has greeted the previous candidates and that which greets Addie. There isn’t time to think about such things, anyway. It is time to put our plan into action. Reaching down under our seats, we each take out a poster board rectangle, which we hold to our chests as we stand up. Each rectangle has our name on it:

  ADDIE

  JOE

  BOBBY

  SKEEZIE

  We stand there in silence for a moment, then Addie steps up to the mike.

  “I am Addie Carle. As you know, I am running for president of the student council on the No-Name Party ticket. Traditionally, it is the presidential candidate who speaks on behalf of the party. But we are a non-traditional party and so it is another of our candidates who will be speaking to you this morning. Our candidate for treasurer: Bobby Goodspeed.”

  She steps back. There is a smattering of applause. Out of the corner of my eye I see the surprised faces of Ms. Wyman and the others onstage. Colin smiles at me in an encouraging way and I take a step toward the microphone.

  Knees, don’t fail me now, I think. Still holding my name card, I step up before the microphone. I wait until the applause quiets down and then, without even thinking I’m going to do it, I say, “I’m nervous. I think I need to take a yoga breath.” Everybody cracks up at this, Ms. Wyman most of all, and I enjoy the laughter as I take my yoga breath (most of the audience joins in because Ms. Wyman starts out her math classes this way, too, so we’re all trained) and then, without needing to look at my notes at all, I begin to speak.

  26

  These are our names. Bobby.

  Addie.

  Joe.

  Skeezie.

  These are our names. But they are only names. They don’t tell you who we are. We have other names, too. Names we have been called, names we have been given. We figured it out. Between us, we have a total of seventy-two names, other than the names you see here. These are names we have been called since kindergarten. The ones we remember, anyway.

  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

  Anybody who believes that has never been called a name.

  This is what I think about names. I think that names are a very small way of looking at a person. When I was in third grade, I got the name Fluff because I ate peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches every day for lunch and also, I guess, because I started putting on weight. But nobody knew why I was eating those sandwiches. I didn’t even know myself until this year, when I figured it out. It was because my dad made one for me for lunch one day and he told me, “These were your mom’s favorite kind of sandwich.” My mom had died the summer before and I missed her. And so from then on I wouldn’t eat anything but peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches for lunch. But every time I did, somebody was bound to call out, “Hey, Fluff!” and that hurt.

  Another thing I think about names is that they do hurt. They hurt because we believe them. We think they are telling us something true about ourselves, something other people can see even if we don’t.

  Lardo fluff fatso faggot fairy dweeb mutant freak ree-tard loser greaser know-it-all beanpole geek dork . . .

  Is that me? we think. Is that who I am?

  If you haven’t been called any of those names, think about the ones you have been called. Is that who you are?

  The No-Name Party wants to put an end to name-calling in school. We want to start with a No-Name Day, in which we all think about the names we call each other and stop using them—just for a day. Maybe we’ll think about more than names and stop talking to each other like some of us are less than others of us. But, hey, I don’t want to get too ambitious here. Let’s just start with names. No name-calling. For one day. Then we can see where it goes.

  Of course, the No-Name Party will do more than this. We want to represent everybody in the school and will work hard to make all voices heard on the student council. We will work with the teachers and the administration to see that the issues affecting all of us in middle school are dealt with fairly and honestly.

  So pl
ease vote for the No-Name Party.

  Wait, there’s one more thing I want to say. I didn’t plan on saying it, it’s just . . . I’m just thinking this as I’m standing up here and . . .

  The No-Name Party got started because my friend Addie really believes in the idea of liberty and justice for all. She stands up for what she believes in and doesn’t care what other people think. She started the Freedom Party and, well, I won’t go into what happened there, but. . .

  What I want to say is that Addie has been my friend my whole life, and Skeezie and Joe, for a long time . . . and, well, I think they are the bravest people I know. They are strong enough to be who they are, no matter what names they get called. Even if we don’t win this election, I think they are winners . . . I know they are and . . . well, that’s all I have to say.

  27

  I GO to return to my seat. The back of my shirt is so soaked it’s on me like a second skin. I see Addie and Joe smiling up at me, and the Skeeze gives me a thumbs-up, and I am thinking, I did it, it’s over. I’m so relieved, I don’t even hear the clapping and cheering at first. It’s Ms. Wyman’s hand on my shoulder and her voice in my ear saying, “Well done, Bobby,” that wakes me up to the fact that the place is going nuts. I turn back and what I see are all these kids I go to school with—a lot of whom have called me the names I’ve just been talking about—slapping their hands together and cheering, making woo-woo noises and circling their fists in the air like I just made the winning touchdown. I think I must be dreaming.