by Ali Benjamin
FIFTEEN THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO THAN SET FOOT IN DEVLINSHIRE
A List by Diego Silva
1. Scrub my eyeballs with sand.
2. Get sealed into a giant vat of lime Jell-O for precisely three years.
3. Get bitten by a scorpion.
4. Get bitten by ten thousand scorpions each with the face of Ms. Glebus and the voice of Mickey Mouse.
5. Accidentally call Ms. Glebus “Mom.”
6. Walk barefoot on a path sprinkled with Legos.
7. Get tied to a chair and listen to Yumi play the same song on her ukulele for nine years straight.
8. Have arms that are made of spaghetti.
9. Have T. rex arms.
10. Have T. rex arms and a nose that never stops itching.
11. Lick a skunk.
12. Actually eat an entire jar of mayonnaise like I thought Paulie did that day.
13. Admit to Gabby that I’ve secretly watched every single season of Megastar. Twice.
14. Set fire to my eyeballs.
15. Literally anything, because Devlinshire is the actual worst.
Interview: Mr. Farabi
Listen, I’m not gonna lie. It’s tough having Devlinshire as a rival. Those Devlinshire kids show up to the game with the best of everything. Professional-quality cleats. Actual coaches, instead of well-intentioned science teachers. Those fancy dry-wick sweatpants with their school logo emblazoned on them. Here at Mitchell, we still don’t even have uniforms. We make do with any old green T-shirts.
We’ve got some decent players, and they’ve gotten better and better through the years. But something happens to Mitchell kids when they see Devlinshire. They get all psyched out, like they’re defeated even before the whistle blows.
And until now, we always had Paulie to deal with, too.
How to describe Paulie’s soccer skills, exactly? Paulie would go to kick the ball, and he wouldn’t just fail to make contact, he’d kick the air so hard his feet flew out from underneath him. Next thing you knew, he’d be lying on his back like Charlie Brown. Two years ago, I kid you not, Paulie picked up the soccer ball halfway through the game and started dribbling it like a basketball down the middle of the field. Do you know how hard it is to bounce a soccer ball across a grass field?
Sometimes I wondered if he was doing it on purpose, like some sort of performance artist. Like instead of actually playing, he was making some commentary about the whole game.
Either way, there were times Paulie seemed like an unlucky charm.
So if the Originals wanted to believe that their unlucky charm had been replaced by a lucky one? In the form of that statue they’d built for themselves? I wasn’t going to argue, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to make them take it down.
Who knows. Between Paulie being gone, and the kids believing in their own good-luck charm, maybe this year we finally had a shot at beating Devlinshire.
Glory and Renown
On the Monday of the final week of September, Mags pulls another index card from Paulie’s hat. She holds it up and reads: “The Search for the Next Great Megastar.” She thinks for a minute, then heads to the board and writes:
kleos
Then beneath that:
And beneath that:
Renown. Glory.
Being remembered.
She turns around. “Greeks believed that immortality was strictly for the gods. So their best hope for any sort of immortality was to accomplish something in this life that would keep people talking after they were gone. Kleos is a word that represented their hope that they might be remembered. It’s related to the word kluein, which means to hear. So kleos means, quite literally, what people say about you.”
She tells us that the opposite of kleos is the English word oblivion. “That’s what happened to most people. For every Plato whom we remember today, there are countless others who lived and died and were forgotten entirely.”
Forgotten entirely. The words give me a heavy sort of feeling. Almost like instead of a stone inside my chest, there’s one sitting on top of my chest, so massive it’s hard to catch my breath. I guess maybe that’s because I’ve texted Mira about a million times about her sleepover: I asked what time I should get to her house on the twenty-seventh, and if I should plan to eat dinner first since it’s a five-hour drive, and my mom needs to know if she has to cancel all her afternoon appointments. I offered to bring donuts from the Donut Lady and if so how many I should bring. I guess maybe my questions are annoying, because Mira didn’t reply to any of them.
I raise my hand. “Mags?”
She looks surprised, and I realize this is the first time I’ve raised my hand at Mitchell. Part of me wants to sit on my hands and shut up, but Mags flashes me the tiniest smile.
“Well, so let’s say you’re one of those lucky ones who happens to get remembered,” I say. “The thing is, it’s not even you that people are remembering. Not really.”
Mags looks like she’s trying hard to understand, but even I’m not entirely sure what I want to say. “Like that guy who talked about the cave,” I continue. “That Plato guy. I mean, you said he achieved—what do you call it—kleos, right?”
She nods. “He sure did.”
“And how much do we even know about him?”
“Well, considering that he lived two thousand years ago, I’d say we know quite a bit. But keep going.”
“I mean… do we know the stuff that made him real? Like, I don’t know, was he—”
I break off. Something’s been nagging at me ever since Henry told me about the kids in his old school, the ones who played keep away with his stuff. Those kids were jerks. I mean, that’s obvious. But if Anna Spang were to tell stories about me, I’d probably sound like a jerk, too.
The person she’d describe wouldn’t be me. Anna never even knew me. She knew only a few random moments out of my whole life. Yet for the rest of her life, she gets to tell whatever stories she wants about me? How is that fair?
“It just seems like even when we do remember people, the things we remember aren’t enough,” I say. “They’re… incomplete.”
I see Mags watching me carefully, deciding what to say.
“Unless of course you’re Paulie Fink,” I add. I’m trying to make a joke, but it’s possible that something else, some hard edge, comes through. “Then, of course, people remember everything.”
Yumi nods. “Paulie did have kleos,” she says.
“Paulie had major kleos,” says Diego.
Mags smiles. “Actually, he did.”
“I wish we could just hire a new Paulie, you know?” says Diego. “Just get ourselves a new Paulie who can show up in a chicken suit now and then.”
“It could be like Shakespeare,” Yumi says. “Some of his plays were about real people, like Julius Caesar and those kings, Henry whatever and Richard whatever. Now those roles get played by different actors, over and over again. Everyone has their own interpretation of the role, but it’s always that character they’re playing.”
Mags starts to say that these characters are great examples of kleos, but Gabby interrupts.
“That’s what Megastar does, too!”
Yumi rolls her eyes. “That’s not exactly the same thing, Gabby.”
“It’s similar, though,” Gabby says. “It’s different people trying to capture the essence of a Megastar.”
“You know, that is sort of what we need,” says Fiona. “Like if we can’t have the real Paulie, then we’ll have to do the next best thing, which is find someone to play the role of Paulie. Someone whose official job it is to make school… memorable.”
“That was my idea,” Diego insists. “That’s literally what I just said.”
Mags tries to steer the conversation back to kleos, but she’s only a few words in when Gabby leaps out of her seat.
“OhmahgahIhavethebestideaintheworld! We should have a competition! Just like Megastar!”
Everyone looks at her, confused. Gabby fixes her eyes in th
e distance, moving her hands like she’s reading the words off a giant screen. “The Search for the Next Great Paulie Fink!”
Diego repeats after her, thinking it over. “The Next Great Paulie Fink.”
“Gabby,” says Sam. “That’s maybe the best idea anyone’s ever had.”
“It is.” Henry nods. “It’s actually a very, very good idea.”
“It was my idea,” Diego repeats.
“Actually, Diego, it was my idea,” says Fiona.
“Well, I’m the one who talked about actors playing Shakespeare roles,” argues Yumi, “so it was kind of my—”
“It was Gabby’s idea!” I yell.
Henry leans forward. He blinks hard. “But Gabby,” he says, “how would it work?”
Plot Twist
At recess, we sit beneath the Paulie statue. Gabby explains the basic premise behind all reality shows, as if we don’t already know: Regular people compete for some title by participating in challenges. After each challenge, one person gets eliminated. Eventually, there is only one person left, and that person is declared the winner.
“Gabby, we know how reality shows work,” says Diego. “The question is how is this one going to work? Like, what are we going to do for the challenges?”
“Okay, let me think for a minute,” says Gabby. “So, Megastar challenges test for the things that celebrities and performers have to do well. Singing. Dancing. Connecting with an audience. Getting people to talk about them.”
Next to her, Fiona scribbles notes on a scrap of paper. “Test for specific traits,” she murmurs as her pen flies across the page.
“But in this case,” Gabby continues, “we’d be testing for Paulie’s characteristics, so that means we need to…” She frowns.
I’d like to hear what she comes up with, actually. Even with all those stories they tell about him, Paulie still doesn’t seem like a real person to me. In my mind, he’s part scarecrow and part fictional superhero who fights the Gleeb while wearing a chicken suit, like in those stories I tell Fuzzy.
Besides, how would a competition like this even work? You can’t replace an entire human being.
“Well.” Gabby waves her hand. “We can figure out the challenges later. Let’s talk about prizes. There’s usually a big prize at the end, like a recording contract.”
Big prize, Fiona writes. Then she looks up. “Maybe we could get that old rock star from Devlinshire to hook up the winner with a recording contract?”
“No way,” says Diego. “We’re not asking anyone from Devlinshire for anything.”
“Besides,” says Yumi, “even if that weren’t absurd, we need a prize that fits Paulie.”
Everyone’s quiet for a few seconds.
“Kleos,” suggests Henry. “I mean, the winner will get kleos, right?”
“Not enough,” says Fiona. “If we’re going to pick a winner, we need to give them—”
“That’s it!” says Diego. He looks around at us. “Pick a winner? Get it?”
“The T-shirt!” shouts Timothy.
“Good,” says Fiona. She writes down: Winner gets the good-luck T-shirt. And also kleos.
“Also, there needs to be at least one judge,” Gabby says. “Someone who makes the final decision about who gets eliminated after every challenge. It’s usually best if the judge is strict. Maybe even a little mean.”
“Glebus!” exclaims Lydia, but Willow shakes her head.
“No way,” she says. “Glebus won’t do it.”
“Glebus will shut down the competition in a heartbeat if she finds out about it,” Sam agrees.
“Gabby, I still don’t get it,” Yumi says. “Why do you keep watching? Episode after episode, season after season? It’s all the same thing: challenges, elimination, ceremony, end. Repeat. How is it not totally boring?”
“Well…” Gabby thinks for a minute. “It’s about the people, you know? The participants are all different, and they’re together all the time, so they start getting on each other’s nerves. After a while, they start fighting with each other, and—”
“Then this place is already a reality show,” I joke.
Fiona leaps up. “You!” She points at me. At first I think she’s yelling at me, the way she did on Zucchini Day. But instead of looking angry, she’s smiling. “You have to do it!”
Wait. What?
“You have to be the judge!” she insists.
I stare at her. She’s standing there in a red pantsuit, her too-long pants caked with mud. Her nostrils are flaring and her face is flushed. She looks like some tiny-but-fierce colorful bird, ready to move in for a kill.
“Yeah!” Diego nods. “You should be in charge, Caitlyn.”
No. No way.
“It’s perfect!” Fiona says again. “You’re always cranky, and you keep talking about how we don’t know some stupid rules. Now you can write rules for us. Like, officially.”
“Actually, this makes a lot of sense,” Gabby says.
“But I never met Paulie,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter!” says Fiona, at the same time that Diego says, “Who cares?”
Henry’s watching me carefully. “It’s true you haven’t met him,” he says. “But that means you can be impartial. You should do it.”
So then I turn to Yumi, but she’s nodding, too. “I think you have to,” she says.
I try to protest. I do. But then everyone starts chanting my name, and well… I guess you already know how that turns out.
Interview: Henry
CAITLYN:
I was surprised that you wanted to do the competition, Henry. It seemed like a silly thing, and you’re always so serious. Like all those fact books you’re so obsessed with.
HENRY:
When we first moved here, I was obsessed with this one book: The Facts You Need to Survive in the Wild. It was filled with information like Don’t go into the woods in hunting season without wearing orange. If you meet a black bear in the woods, never run; bears run faster than you can. Raccoons are nocturnal, so if you see one during daylight hours, stay away; chances are good it’s rabid. Most of this stuff you wind up learning just by living here for a while.
But there was one fact this book didn’t mention: Never stand too close to a river after a storm. Turns out, soggy riverbanks sometimes give way. I learned that the hard way. About six months after I got here, I was standing at the side of Miller’s Creek after it rained, and the ground beneath my feet just… gave way. I slipped into the water, washed up about a hundred yards downstream. I had nightmares for the next year, but even so, I was lucky. Some people don’t make it out of the river at all.
CAITLYN:
Yikes!
HENRY:
Yeah. Well, that’s how it felt to me when Paulie didn’t come back. Like he’d slipped away without us even realizing it… and maybe all of us were on shakier ground than we’d realized. This competition felt like a chance to, I don’t know, pull Paulie back to us. And even if it couldn’t do that, at least we’d all be together if we fell in after him.
THE SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GREAT PAULIE FINK
Boxed into a Corner
I tell my classmates that I need a little time to think about the competition. I don’t really have any idea who Paulie is, let alone how to create challenges that will test for his traits. I ask if he ever had an online account where he would have posted photos.
They just look at one another and laugh. Yumi explains that the only profile they ever saw him create was for something called BoxMan. They try to describe it to me, but they keep bursting into hysterics.
“You had to be there, I guess,” Fiona says.
At home that night, I search online for BoxMan. I find it, but… I don’t get it. It’s just a bunch of pictures of a kid with a cardboard box on his head. I click on a photo of BoxMan holding up some matches. The caption: Boxing match.
I click on the next one. BoxMan sitting under a tree, resting his box-chin against his human hands. The caption: Thinking
outside the box.
I click again. There’s BoxMan leaning against a brick wall, exactly at the point where it meets another brick wall: Boxed into a corner.
There’s even one of him sitting in Glebus’s office. He must have snuck in to take it, because she’s nowhere to be seen. But he’s standing next to her desk, box-head hanging low like he’s getting scolded. Penalty box, it says.
Seriously? This is what made them laugh so hard?
No, I definitely don’t get it: Why they’re chanting In the name of Paulie Fink, or why they built a statue in his honor, or why they feel they need another Paulie. I mean, if I’d met this kid at my old school, we’d probably all have treated him the way we treated Anna Spang.
How am I supposed to run this thing? I kind of feel like BoxMan myself: I’ve boxed myself into a corner.
Then I ask them to tell me all the stories they remember.
Interview: Diego
I’ll tell you something I’ll bet you didn’t know about Paulie: The dude was amazing with Minis. He had, like, a cult following with little kids.
Like, there was this one time, last spring, when Mr. Farabi announced that the sixth grade was going to be leading a game of team tag, which is basically a giant game of hide-and-seek, with kindergarten, first, and second grades. Now, let’s face it: Minis are terrible at team tag. They’re so short they can barely run, which makes them ridiculously easy to tag.
But Paulie raised his hand and said, “I’ll be on a team with the Minis.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Mr. Farabi said. “You all will. Each of you will take two or three Minis, and—”
And Paulie was like, “No, Mr. Farabi. I’ll take them all.”
We were like, Wha—? Because Paulie was lousy when it came to sports. This wasn’t even going to be a contest.