Smek for President

by Adam Rex

  I didn’t like that. But I remembered my talks with the Chief and decided not to do the idiot thing.

  “It’s going to get worse,” Mom said, “’cause that’s how it is. And you’re gonna hate me a little in your teens. Like, legitimately hate me.”

  “Wha...no,” I said. “You know I love you—”

  “Oh, and you think you can’t do both at the same time? Love and hate? You can totally do both, Gratuity! Get ready! And when you go off to college, you’ll say mean things about me to your new friends—unfair things, because you’ll all hate your parents. You and your friends will have invented hating your parents. And...you’ll learn so much and go so many places, places I never could go. So you’ll think you’re better than me.” She took my face in her hands, smiling suddenly. “And you’ll be better than me—you’ll be so much better than me.”

  Her eyes were wet; her cheeks were stained. I knew my face looked like her face.

  “Later, you’ll call more,” she said. “And visit. You’ll be, like...amazed when you realize I’m right about a few things. I’ll be like a horse who can do math. Maybe later still you’ll have a daughter and realize how...just...screwed up and hopeless we all are.”

  She let go of me and leaned back.

  “And eventually you and me’ll get to be friends again, kind of. Like school friends who were always seated together because we have the same last name. You never would have chosen me, but now...why not, you know?”

  We were quiet. I heard only the birds, and the tick-tick-tick of the car engine cooling.

  “Well. That...sounds awful,” I said, and we both laughed.

  “Yeah,” Mom agreed. “Pretty awful.”

  She smiled.

  “You wanna do it anyway?” She extended a hand.

  I took it.

  And she was wrong, you know. I didn’t tell her then, so I would have to remember to tell her again and again, for the rest of our lives: I would’ve chosen her. I was choosing her now.

  Anyway.

  After a longish hug, J.Lo cleared his throat and waved from the driveway.

  “I also am here,” he said.

  * * *

  I’m making all this sound easier than it was. She was mad for a long time.

  But we survived.

  But I’m still grounded.

  We hear Funsize is doing well—after a long vacation with an old friend, he was put in charge of overhauling the whole New Boovworld sanitation system. It’s a big job, but he’s going to have a lot of help. In particular, he has a Boov and a human who’ve been sentenced to work as garbagemen, so they pretty much have to do whatever he says. They both used to be in politics.

  But that’s not even the biggest news.

  A few days after we got home, the election was held on New Boovworld. J.Lo won.

  The Boov decided that the second-place winner should act as president if the fairly elected president of New Boovworld is away. And by an almost unanimous write-in vote, the second-place winner ended up being Ponch Sandhandler.

  And the fairly elected president of New Boovworld is away, is eight hundred million miles away, and currently in my kitchen spreading rubber cement on a doughnut.

  “Hey, Mr. President!” I called.

  J.Lo leaned into the door frame. “Ohyes, hello?”

  Lincoln lay at my feet. Pig chased Bill across the living room.

  “You wanna go down to the lake and throw rocks, Mr. President?” I asked.

  J.Lo nodded solemnly, or tried to.

  “I...command that it be so,” he declared, then burst out laughing.

  Stickyfish (from the Old Boovish, ztikifitch) is, in modern times, the most widely played Boovish sport. It is based on a four-thousand-year-old historical conflict between the two great nations of Boovworld (before all Boov were united under the HighBoov). The conflict arose over which nation was the rightful owner of the mythical stickyfish. Each wanted the other to have it. It smelled.

  You’ll need a supply of fish. Balloonafish will do. If no balloonafish, water balloons or a plain ball or Koosh may be substituted.

  Players form two teams, or nations.

  The object, as in American football, is to move the “stickyfish” into your opponent’s end zone (or nation). Moving the stickyfish into your opponent’s nation scores one “haboobi.”

  The team with the most haboobis after a set time has elapsed wins the match. Under the variant Bigfield Rules there is no time limit, and the first team to score a predetermined number of haboobis wins the match.

  Team captains play fat-flat-bitey to determine first possession of the stickyfish (fat beats bitey; bitey beats flat; flat beats fat). Each team then lines up on its own national border. Play begins with a signal from the referee.

  The fish carrier and her team advance down the field. The fish may be thrown any number of times to other members of the offense.

  Members of the defense may NOT touch the stickyfish, even when it is being thrown. There are no “pass interceptions.” They may not touch any member of the offense who is not, at that moment, carrying the stickyfish. Unless that person is singing (see below).

  They may distract an offensive member and cause her to fail to catch a pass, however, as long as they touch neither the player nor the fish.

  If the fish carrier is two-hand touched by a member of the defense, or if the stickyfish is allowed by the offense to touch the ground, then play ends and the fish is left on that spot.

  The defense now takes possession and becomes the offense, and the opposing team lines up on its national border. Play resumes at the referee’s signal.

  If the teams are playing with an actual fish or with a water balloon, and the fish or balloon bursts, play is halted while a replacement is prepared. Then the defense takes possession at the spot on which the fish/balloon burst, as above.

  The referee will place three large bubbles on the field as shown in the previous diagrams. If bubbles are not available, these spots may be marked however you wish, but they should be no larger than three feet square. These places are safetybubbles, and a fish carrier who enters a safetybubble cannot be touched by the defense until she leaves it. The fish carrier may throw to other members of the offense from the safety of the safetybubble.

  The fish carrier may stay within the safetybubble indefinitely. However—if she is still inside and a member of the defense enters a DIFFERENT safetybubble and shouts “Safetybubbletrouble!” then play ends and possession switches, as above.

  At any point during play a member of the offense who does not have possession of the stickyfish may run into the opposing team’s end zone and sing the following song:

  The singer must remain in the end zone for the full duration of the song.

  Members of the defense may attempt to two-hand touch the singer—if they do so before the end of the song, then the stickyfish declines the invitation and play continues normally. If the singer makes a mistake (as judged by the referee) while singing, the stickyfish declines the invitation and play continues normally. In either case, no member of that team may sing again until that team’s next possession.

  Regardless, play continues normally while the song is being sung, so if the player in possession of the stickyfish is two-hand touched before the end of the song, play ends and the defense takes possession.

  But! If the offensive player successfully sings the entire song before she or the fish carrier is two-hand touched, then play ends and the stickyfish accepts the invitation, thereby scoring one haboobi for the offense. The defense becomes the offense and takes possession on its own national border.

  ADAM REX

  is the New York Times best-selling author and illustrator of Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. His other books include Pssst!, Moonday, The True Meaning of Smekday, Fat Vampire, and Cold Cereal. He also illustrated the Brixton Brothers series, Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, and Chloe and the Lion, all by Mac Barnett, and Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman. He lives in Tucson,
Arizona. Visit him at adamrex.com or follow him on Twitter @MrAdamRex.