The Next Great Paulie Fink

by Ali Benjamin

  Believe it or not, at my new school we have goats, and we have to take care of them. They’re actually kind of cute—sort of like puppies. The baby goats are cute, anyway. We also have to take care of little kids. It’s not bad. I don’t know how long I’ll be going to school here after all, though. I wonder where I’ll go next.

  If you get this, say hello to everyone at school for me. Or don’t. It’s okay if you don’t. I guess I just wanted to say I hope you are having a good year.

  Caitlyn

  I fold up the letter, hold it in my hand for a while. Then I open up my desk drawer and shove it inside. It’s not even the things I want to say. Not really. And even still, I’m not brave enough to send this. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  But I do have an idea for something I can send.

  Not to Anna, but to someone else.

  You Are Invited

  SEASON FINALE

  THE SEARCH FOR THE

  NEXT GREAT PAULIE FINK

  The Mitchell School

  Friday, November 10

  4:00 PM

  PLEASE RSVP TO MS. GLEBUS

  Season Finale

  From Mags’s window, Fiona and I watch the car pull into the driveway.

  “He’s here,” whispers Fiona. She adjusts her tunic—really just a striped sheet, wrapped around her like she’s in ancient Greece—then smooths it. I glance down at my own tunic, white with little yellow flowers.

  The passenger door opens, and there he is: the First Great Paulie Fink. The Unoriginal original. The legend.

  He looks just the same as he did two weeks ago, when we saw him walking up the path in his blue uniform, except this time he’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

  “Go!” I tell Fiona. “Tell everyone to get into place!” Fiona dashes out of the classroom, toward the field.

  I walk down the stairs to that heavy front door—the one I opened from the other side just a couple of months ago, when I had no idea what lay ahead.

  Paulie’s standing there, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Uh, hi?” he says. He swallows, meets my eye, then looks away again.

  He’s nervous. That’s so weird.

  I remember Fiona kicking the Paulie statue and saying He’s embarrassed by us. He wasn’t, I realize. He just didn’t know how to act. I wonder if most people walk around feeling that way all the time.

  I take a deep breath. I do what Jadelicious would—what Paulie might have, if he were still a student here and he happened to be standing where I am now. I sweep my arms out to my sides, grandly.

  “Welcome”—I’m using my Speech Voice, the one I didn’t know I had until I got to Mitchell—“to the final episode of the Search for the Next Great Paulie Fink.”

  He flashes a confused half smile, like he has no idea what’s going on, but he’ll roll with it.

  This whole thing was my idea. I thought of it a few days after the news story ran, which was right around the time the town council decided to schedule the vote about funding the school for January 10, two months from now.

  I didn’t say anything when I first thought of it, but the next day it still seemed like a good idea, so I knocked on Glebus’s door. Standing in her office, I realized I couldn’t explain my plan without telling her about the whole competition. My voice shook a little as I told her why we’d been doing everything that had gotten us into so much trouble. She watched me, expressionless. When I got to the part about what I wanted to do next, she surprised me.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  She nods. “Goodness knows we could use a little bit of luck around here.”

  I wanted it to be special, so I decided to make handwritten invitations. Before Glebus mailed Paulie’s, everyone—kids, teachers, and Glebus—signed it. I signed it, too.

  Beneath all the signatures Fiona scribbled two sentences in her chicken-scratch handwriting: You better be there, Paulie Fink. YOU BETTER BE THERE.

  Now here he is.

  “So… what’s this all about, exactly?” he asks.

  I don’t answer. Instead I hand him a chain we made from vines, like a long necklace. “Will you please put this around your neck before the ceremony begins?”

  He eyes me quizzically, like he’s wondering how much he should ask. Then he shrugs, places the chain around his neck, and waits for his next instruction.

  “Now,” I say, “follow me.”

  Interview: Henry

  HENRY:

  You know something I only just learned, Caitlyn?

  CAITLYN:

  What’s that?

  HENRY:

  All those stories about the Greek gods and goddesses, they’re all just sort of cobbled together, like patchwork. Back in ancient Greece, there wasn’t a single source that told the whole story of any one god, or anything else, for that matter.

  So all those mythology books on the shelves today? They’re pieced together from scraps of information that showed up in lots of different places over many centuries.

  CAITLYN:

  Wow. Sort of makes you wonder what got lost, doesn’t it?

  HENRY:

  That’s the thing. Almost everything you know will disappear. Just like it did for the Greeks. Just like it does for everyone.

  And when it does, maybe you’ll wish you’d written it down.

  That’s what I thought as I watched you and Paulie walk toward us at the ceremony. I noticed the vines around his neck, the way he squinted toward us and scratched his temple. The air was cold, and I blew on my fingertips for warmth, and even as it was happening I felt the moment slipping away.

  And an idea started forming inside my head, an idea for the humanities project. And it involved all of us.

  The Final Countdown

  I explain the basics as the real Paulie and I walk toward the place where the Paulie statue used to stand.

  “A competition,” Paulie repeats. He’s squinting at the Originals, standing statue-like in the distance.

  “Yup.”

  “For a new…”

  “Paulie Fink. Yup.”

  “Because…” He turns to look at me, and he scratches his temple. “Why exactly?”

  “Because you’re a megastar. Totally legendary, you know?”

  There’s no hilarious comeback. No joke or anything. So far, the most surprising thing about Paulie Fink is there’s nothing surprising about him.

  The whole class is waiting for us near the goat pen, wrapped in sheets. They’re standing in two neat rows. Beside them stand Ms. Glebus, Mr. Farabi, and Mags. Everyone is silent and very still.

  Everyone except the goats, of course. Those goats are doing what they always do: charging back and forth in the pen, bleating at everyone. Are you going to feed us or what? they seem to be saying.

  “The First Great Paulie Fink has arrived!” I declare. “Let us begin the final elimination ceremony. Let us crown, at last, the Next Great Paulie Fink.”

  Ms. Glebus and the teachers all look like they’re trying to stifle smiles, but the kids stare straight ahead, completely serious.

  “Fiona and Diego, will you please step forward?” I command. They look at each other, nod seriously, and then step forward together.

  “For as long as I’ve known you two, which admittedly has been only about two months, you have been fierce competitors. And as we searched for the Next Great Paulie Fink, you fought… valiantly. You fought with honor. I will be honest: Kleos rightfully belongs to you both.”

  I take a deep breath. “This has not been an easy decision,” I say. “But the moment of reckoning has arrived at last.”

  Final Interview: Diego and Fiona

  CAITLYN:

  Okay, you two. This is the last interview. Tell me what you were thinking during the final elimination.

  DIEGO:

  You know what I was thinking? I was thinking how accidental it all is. Where you happen to be born. Who you wind up with in school. Whether you have stuff in common or not. It’s just dumb luck, and y
et for your whole life, you share the same memories with this tiny handful of people…

  FIONA:

  Oh, puh-lease! You were thinking that you wanted to win. Just the same as I was.

  DIEGO:

  Well, of course I was thinking that. But I was thinking other things, too. Weren’t you?

  FIONA:

  Well. I guess I was also thinking that I missed Paulie. He was standing there with us, just like he used to, but everything was different. I wished he’d never left, you know?

  DIEGO:

  Yeah. That. Big-time, that.

  FIONA:

  I knew that whichever one of us won, I was going to have to keep missing the real Paulie. I hated that. I hated that there’d never actually be a new Paulie, not really. We weren’t going to be able to go back.

  DIEGO:

  That’s sort of what I was trying to say. For the rest of our lives, we’ll meet other people. And we’ll tell them our stories, but none of them will ever really get it. You only understand how things were if you were there.

  [Twelve seconds of silence]

  FIONA:

  Darn it, Diego. Why’d you have to give me the feels?

  DIEGO:

  Yeah, sorry. I kinda have a case of them myself.

  [Pause]

  Anyway. I wish there was more to say, but I actually can’t think of anything else.

  FIONA:

  Me neither. I know, that’s shocking, right? Anyway, I guess you can stop recording now, Caitlyn. But… thanks for all of this, okay? It was pretty cool. The whole thing.

  [Recording off]

  We Have a Winner

  “Fiona Fawnstock?” I begin. Fiona takes a deep breath, stands a little taller. “Fiona, you are an original in every sense of the word. You don’t always follow the rules, but maybe this world doesn’t need more rule-followers. Maybe it needs more people who aren’t afraid to just jump in and try things. That’s what you do, Fiona: You jump in. Every time.”

  By this point, she’s beaming. Which is why it’s so hard to say the next part.

  “The thing is,” I start, “I think the world needs the original Fiona Fawnstock more than it needs Fiona to become someone else. So I’m sorry, Fiona. You are not the Next Great Paulie Fink.”

  Fiona lets that sink in. Then she turns to Diego, extends her hand as if to congratulate him.

  “But wait,” I say. “I’m not done. Diego? You are a fierce competitor who also manages to celebrate others’ victories. I’m pretty sure that means you have real arete. But I’m afraid that you, too, are too much of an original to lose. Diego, you are also not the Next Great Paulie Fink.”

  Diego does a quick double take as Gabby, behind him, murmurs, “Oooh, plot twist!”

  Only Mr. Farabi, Mags, and Glebus don’t look surprised. They know exactly what’s coming.

  “Thanks to Fiona, we no longer have a Paulie statue as a good-luck charm,” I continue. “Instead, here in front of us, we have a real-life Paulie. The original. Diego and Fiona, please give to the real Paulie Fink whatever sacrifice you’ve brought.”

  Fiona hands Paulie a brown paper bag. Diego gives him a small box. Paulie glances at me. “Should I open these now?” he asks.

  “Later,” I say.

  “So after this whole competition…” begins Yumi.

  “There’s no Next Great—” Thomas follows up, but I raise my hand to stop him.

  “I said that neither Fiona nor Diego is the Next Great Paulie Fink. But there is a Next Great Paulie Fink, and this individual stands among us now. It is someone who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to disrupt us, to surprise us, to make us laugh, and—most important—to unite us.”

  I glance at the original Paulie Fink quickly—just long enough to see him staring at his sneakers, listening intently. For the life of me, I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

  Then I nod at Mr. Farabi. It’s time.

  Mr. Farabi goes into the goat pen. He wades through the bleating goats until he reaches the one he wants: the big goat. The stinker. My archenemy. Mr. Farabi ties a rope around his neck and leads him out of the pen.

  As he does, the old goat lets forth a giant belch, which cracks everyone up. Even I smile. Here I am, doing my best to look like a solemn, serious leader, and that dumb goat is showing me that I’m not.

  The old beast really is a Shakespearean Fool.

  I sweep my hand toward the animal. “Citizens of Mitchell, I give you: the Next… Great… Paulie Fink!”

  As everyone breaks into applause, Gabby shouts, “Ohmahgah! The scapegoat wins! But it’s perfect!”

  Paulie looks around, confused. “Hang on,” he says. “Did you just name a goat after me?”

  Katharsis

  I tell Paulie to place the vines around the old goat’s neck. When he does, the Originals go wild. There’s no more seriousness. Fiona starts running around and hugging everyone, and the class is basically just a cluster of high fives and hugs.

  But the ceremony’s not over yet. I hold up my hand until everyone is quiet.

  “We all know this community can use a little luck these days,” I say. “And Mags, how did the ancients try to improve their luck?”

  “Pharmakos.” She smiles. We’ve already talked about this part.

  “And what did pharmakos bring them?”

  “Katharsis.”

  “Thank you, Mags,” I say. “Pharmakos brings katharsis, which is a way of chasing away bad luck. Now, I like to think that this would be obvious, but just in case: There will be no beating anyone with branches. Instead, we’ll just all take a moment to touch this goat, our Next Great Paulie Fink. As you do, please imagine yourself transferring whatever bad luck you’d like to cast out.”

  Mr. Farabi walks the goat past the line of Originals. Each kid reaches out to touch the goat. Even Mags and Glebus do it.

  I’m the last to touch the goat. I close my eyes, feel my fingers running through the hair on the back of his neck. When I finish, Mr. Farabi begins to lead the animal across the field. We follow. And we chant.

  Of course we chant.

  At first we chant “Pharm-a-kos, pharm-a-kos, pharm-a-kos!” Then we change it to “Ka-thar-sis! Ka-thar-sis! Ka-thar-sis!” By the time we’re rounding the front of the school, we’re all chanting “Paul-ie Fink! Paul-ie Fink! Pau-lie Fink!”

  Paulie—the human Paulie, that is—shakes his head. “I am so totally confused,” he says. But he’s grinning, and I see what Fiona was talking about. I see the disco ball.

  There’s a truck waiting in front of the school. The side says LEAPIN’ GOATS FARM. There’s a woman leaning against it. She’s got long gray braids and loose overalls and a blue baseball cap that says I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL IN VERMONT.

  Mr. Farabi hands her the rope.

  “Back to the farm for you, troublemaker,” she says, giving the old goat a scratch on the head. She leads the Next Great Paulie Fink up the ramp and into the truck. She gives us all a wave as she pulls away, rolling past the Good Day Bell and down the driveway in a cloud of dust. Then the class begins cheering again.

  “Cait-lyn! Cait-lyn! Cait-lyn!”

  It’s the same thing they chanted back when this whole competition began. When they were trying to convince me to be in charge, and I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Maybe it was ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t matter.

  Now it’s over, and everyone looks at me.

  “That’s, uh, kind of as far as I planned,” I say. So they all turn to Paulie Fink.

  “Don’t ask me,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on here.”

  We stand there for a few awkward moments. I guess we could all just go home now, but I realize I’m not ready. Not yet. So I turn to Mr. Farabi.

  “Do you have another kickball around here?” I ask.

  FROM THE DESK OF PAULIE FINK

  Well. You probably figured I’d poke my head into this story eventually. Took me a while, but I guess it’s about time I said hi.<
br />
  Hi there. If we haven’t met before, it’s nice to meet you.

  I’m Paulie Fink. The real one, that is. Not the goat.

  I’m writing to you from Devlinshire Hills—where, for the record, not everyone has a pool or a fortune waiting for them when they turn eighteen (or even twenty-one). Not by a long shot.

  But a few of us are very lucky.

  If you’ve gotten this far, you probably don’t need me to spend too much time on small talk. You already know way more about me than you ever wanted to know. Instead, I thought I’d take a cue from the Greeks. Tell a couple of stories, see what becomes of them.

  Here’s one:

  A kid shows up to a new school at the start of fourth grade. Kind of a loser. Drives his teachers and classmates bonkers. Gets in trouble nearly every day, and sometimes the whole class is punished for his actions. Also, he can’t kick a soccer ball to save his life. Never even has anyone over to his house. He figures lots of people will be relieved when he finally just disappears.

  Here’s another story:

  A confident god of chaos dominates a school. He’s brave and witty. He outsmarts foes, hosts banquets, leads an unlikely army to a stunning victory using the element of surprise. After he’s gone, people build statues in his honor. People compete to see who will fill his shoes, but of course no human ever can.

  And, just for the heck of it, here’s a third:

  There once was a spoiled rich kid. Has everything he ever needs, plus his mom makes big donations to whatever school he happens to be attending. So how much trouble can he ever get in, really? He never fits in anywhere, though. His mom ships him from school to school in California, and then decides to move back east to send him to a school operating out of his family’s old estate. Eventually, his mom grows tired of getting letters and calls from the principal. She moves him to a different school district. A better one, she says. He assumes everyone will be glad to see him go. In other words, he might be legendary, but he’s hardly a hero.