Then another machine closed the lid and taped it shut.
For a second, I thought I was going to suffocate. I was buried under a kamillion bits of paper! Then I remembered I could put my mouth to the hole and breathe. I wondered if Lenny had had time to make a hole.
I squirmed around a little bit so I would have enough room to take a breath and then looked back through the hole.
I could see where the conveyor belt was about to go through the wall. Instead of a door, there were strips of thin plastic hanging down. The box pushed them aside, and suddenly I was in a totally different room.
I could hear people talking and shouting orders. Not like the mime or the brainwashed karate guys. I got a look at a couple of them, and they looked like regular factory workers.
“All right, Linda,” I heard a voice say from nearby. “There’s the last two boxes for this truck.”
Suddenly, I felt myself being picked up.
“Jiminy H. Cricket, this stuff is heavy!” said a woman’s voice.
It must be Linda, I realized.
“Yes, it’s heavy,” said the first voice. “But it’s an honor to carry it, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s an honor,” said Linda, “but it’s killing my cockamamy back!”
And then I got slammed down hard. And then another box got slammed down hard right next to me.
I could see a hole in that box! And an eyeball looking out! It was Lenny! He waved a goo-covered finger at me; it had little bits of red, white, and blue confetti stuck to it. I waved back with my own confetti-covered finger.
“All right,” someone shouted. “This load’s ready to go.”
Then a door slammed, and it got totally dark.
An engine rumbled. The box slid a little bit as we started moving.
We were stuck in boxes, covered in goo and confetti, in the dark, in the back of a truck, going to who knew where.
I had to wonder: Had I saved Lenny or just gotten us in worse trouble?
o there I am in the box in the truck trying to hide, and my cell phone goes off. The ringtone was the theme from my show, which was kind of embarrassing.
Anyway, I grabbed it as fast as I could and turned the ringer off. It said I had a text message.
SORRY I MISSD UR 2ND VISIT 2 FACTORY.
CAN I MKE IT UP 2 U W/ DINNR & A MOVIE?
MAYBE @ WHITE HOUSE ON WED? AM
ALMOST PRESIDENT U KNOW. U COULD B
THE 1ST GRLFRND! ROK THE VOTE! FAKO
re you OK, Lenny?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “Are you?”
“Yeah. I wonder where we’re going.”
“My guess is Hairsprinkle Municipal Stadium,” he said.
“What? How could you possibly know that.”
“When I was stuck in Fako’s office, I read through his plans. He’s going to have a big victory party at the stadium after he wins the election.”
“He must be pretty sure he’s going to win.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure he’ll win too. Not only has he brainwashed most of the country, but if people vote against him, he’s got the voting machines rigged anyway. He’s practically got it won already. The party is a sure thing.”
“Well, the party’s over when I get out of this truck,” I said. I wished Lenny could have seen the wild look of determination on my face.
That’s when the truck sort of lurched forward, stopped, and then started backing up. I could tell it was backing up because it was going beep, beep, beep.
“A little more!” we heard someone yelling. “A little more! Hold it! HOLD IT!”
Bump.
“Didn’t you hear me yell ‘Hold it,’ you stupid mime?”
“I’m not a mime, I’m a clown, jerk face! There’s a big difference. Now shut your mouth and unload my truck!”
I heard the doors open, and I peeked out of the little hole in the cardboard.
A couple of professional football players started unloading the boxes from our truck. I don’t watch football, because I don’t like contact sports—except for bull riding. But I recognized one of them from a toilet paper commercial and the other from the news.
Toilet paper guy picked up Lenny’s box!
“Gee, this box is heavy!” said toilet paper guy.
“Look,” said the other one. “I can pick up five of these boxes at once!”
Unfortunately, I was the fifth box, stacked way up on top. The guy was strong, but he wasn’t very good at balancing stuff. He dropped my box! Ding-dang, dude, could you be a little more careful?
My box hit the floor hard, but the confetti cushioned me. The top burst open.
I’m done for, I thought. I clenched my fists—that football player might be able to overpower me, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
But then somebody just closed the box back up and patted the tape back down.
I got picked up again, carried a little ways, and then put down. I heard footsteps walking away and coming back. More boxes being put down. And finally I heard a door closing.
ey, Jodie, are you in here? Everybody’s gone now.”
We both clambered out of our boxes and looked around.
Lenny looked absolutely awful—completely coated in confetti that had stuck to the goo. I looked down and saw that I was too. I held up my hand, and for the first time I saw that the confetti was stamped with teeny gold letters: CONGRATULATIONS, PRESIDENT FAKO! TODAY THE UNITED STATES, TOMORROW THE WORLD!
We were in a pretty huge room, heaped with messy piles of boxes. I guess brainwashed football players aren’t big on neatness.
“We’re locked in,” said Lenny, going over to the door and rattling the handle. “It’s a dead bolt. This must be where they store supplies and stuff during the football season. Maybe there are some nachos in here somewhere! I’m starving.”
“If not, I do have some Pop-Tarts for you,” I said, pointing to my crushed, mangled, goo-covered backpack.
“Uh, thanks, but let’s look around first,” he said.
We found more boxes full of confetti. And some boxes with PRESIDENT FAKO! T-shirts and baseball caps and buttons and temporary tattoos and pom-poms. All of it had been made by the Heidelberg Novelty Company.
Thankfully, there was also some bottled water with Fako’s picture on the label. They said “H2FakO.” But no nachos or other food. That must be stored in the stadium’s snack bars, I guess.
We sat down next to each other on a box and drank some water and ate some smushed Pop-Tarts. Lenny pulled a bag of pork rinds out of the pocket of his wolfman sweater.
“I also have an edible eraser shaped like a chicken,” he said, “but let’s save that as a last resort.”
Then we both just sat there quietly for minute.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, and he turned to look at me and our shoulders touched and we were so close and he had a look on his confetti-speckled face like he wanted to kiss me.
But I really, really, really had to say what I had been thinking: “How are we going to go to the bathroom?”
“Oh,” said Lenny.
Well, I know it was bad timing, but who wants to have their first kiss at the same time their bladder is exploding?
“I guess we could take turns going behind some of those boxes over there,” said Lenny.
“OK,” I said. “I have GOT to go first. Don’t look and don’t listen.”
I went behind the biggest pile and looked for a good place to go.
“That wasn’t too bad,” I said when I got back. “I peed on a bunch of I ♥ FAKO sweatpants.”
“Oh, man! I needed some ungooey pants!”
“Sorry, too late now,” I said.
That about did it for the romance, I guess.
e found a dry box of Fako sweatpants and some T-shirts with a picture of Fako’s head on Mount Rushmore. We also found a box of Fako rally towels, so we were able to strip down and wipe the g
oo off ourselves (while hiding behind boxes, of course) before putting the new stuff on.
It felt great to get out of my slimy clothes, but I felt a little bit weird about Lenny seeing me without my cowgirl stuff on. Lenny had destroyed my hat back at the factory and now I had on an ugly T-shirt instead of my cool black cat jacket, and sweatpants instead of my real cowgirl riding clothes. Without all that stuff, I look just like a regular girl. I wasn’t sure if he’d still like me.
But then I had the surprise of seeing him without a cowgirl outfit or a werewolf costume for the first time. I had been right. He was really cute. A little nerdier than I had realized, but still cute.
We just looked at each other for a minute.
“I guess we better start figuring out how to get out of here and save the world, huh?” I said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.
After about thirty seconds of messing with the door, we realized we’d never get out that way.
“We’re locked in until someone opens the door in the morning,” I said.
“And then that person will see us and lock the door on us again.”
“We need a great plan!”
Half an hour later, when we gave up trying to think of a plan, we just started talking. I mean really talking. First it was just about our lives and our families, and then it was secret stuff. The kind of stuff you don’t tell anybody—except the right person.
At one point, I was telling Lenny some stuff about being in Hollywood, when I remembered The A-Team.
“Hey, you remember the guy on my show named Mr. Wallaby?”
“You mean the Australian ghost who use to say ‘Boooo, mate’?”
“Right. Anyway, a long time ago he was on this show called The A-Team. Not the movie, the TV show. And he told me once that in every episode they would get locked in a garage by the bad guys and they would use the stuff in the garage to make like a trash-can tank or an old dishwasher that shot out flaming pickles or something. And when the bad guys came back—kablammo!”
“Why were there pickles in a garage and how did they light them on fire?” asked Lenny.
“I have no idea. But the thing is, they used stuff that the bad guys didn’t realize would be dangerous. Maybe there’s something like that in here.”
We rooted around in the boxes some more looking for flammable pickles or whatever.
The best thing we came up with was putting the water bottles in with the confetti. Maybe when they dropped the confetti, one of the water bottles would hit Fako on the head.
“I’m so tired, I can’t tell if that’s a good idea or not,” Lenny said. “I’ve been up forever. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Earlier, I think we would have been bashful about the sleeping arrangements, but now we were both so tired that we just piled up some confetti into beds and went to sleep.
was having another one of my dreams where I’m back on the set in Hollywood. It’s weird because the other actors are never the real actors from the show and we never seem to get around to actually filming anything. And then just when we’re about to start, I wake up.
“Rise, shine, and save the world,” Lenny said. “I’ve heard some people going by outside. Nobody has tried the door yet, but somebody could open it at any second. We’d better get ready. And we’ve GOT to think of a plan. We’ve only got twenty-four hours until Election Day.”
“Don’t you think maybe somebody else has stopped him by now?” I said. “Maybe the CIA or something.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. I wish we knew what was going on out there.”
“Don’t you still have your cell phone?”
“Yeah, but there’s nobody to call.”
“I know, but can’t you check the news, weather, and horoscopes and stuff like that on it?”
When the first headline came up, we both gasped in horror:
ELECTION DAY CHANGED TO MONDAY
“Why wait till Tuesday?” said the frontrunner, Governor Fako Mustacho.
His top opponents have both agreed to the unprecedented change.
“I can’t wait to vote for Fako,” said Republican candidate Rhonda Horvath.
“Me neither, dude,” said Democratic candidate William G. Murray. “He rocks! I’m his biggest fan evah!”
“No way, stoopid! I am his biggest fan evaaaah,” responded Horvath. “Check out the ‘Vote Fako’ temporary tattoo on my forehead.”
“That’s nothing,” replied Murray, pointing to his own forehead. “My tattoo’s permanent!”
Polls open at 7 A.M. Massive voter turnout is expected.
“What time is it now?” Lenny asked.
I pointed to the time display on his cell phone: 7:12 A.M.
“So much for our twenty-four hours,” he said. “We’re already twelve minutes late.”
“True,” I said, “but now I’ve got a plan.”
ut on one of every Fako thing you can find,” I said. “WE are going to be his biggest fans ‘evah.’ When someone opens this door, we start cheering and yelling ‘Hooray Fako!’ and we’ll just tell them we wanted to get here early to get good seats.”
“Wow, Jodie, you are one amazing cowgirl!” said Lenny, and I blushed like crazy.
We started piling the stuff on, especially stuff that would help hide our faces, like Fako hoodies and sunglasses. Then we covered ourselves with buttons and stickers and stuff. We picked up some red, white, and blue Fako pom-poms and waited by the door, ready to start cheering when it opened.
It didn’t open.
We sat down but stayed ready. It still didn’t open.
We started to get really hungry. We had eaten all the Pop-Tarts and pork rinds the night before, so we shared the edible chicken-shaped eraser. It was delicious!
Absolutely amazing. Lenny said that after this was all over, he was going to see if he could buy some more at Sven’s Fair Price Store.
Finally, we heard footsteps. They stopped at the door. The lock clicked. The door opened, and there were the two football players who had unloaded us the day before.
“Who the heck are you?” said the box-dropper.
“I’m Fako’s biggest fan!” I yelled, jumping up and shaking the pom-poms, being careful to keep them in front of my face.
“No!” yelled Lenny. “I’m his biggest fan! Whoo!”
“No, me! Squeee!” we hollered, dancing around the men.
“Yay!” yelled Lenny. “We’re excited about politics and the democratic process!”
“I hate cheerleaders,” said the box-dropper. “They never pay any attention to the game, they just shout and giggle.”
“Really?” said toilet paper guy. “I’ve always found their positive energy to be positively contagious!”
“Thanks!” I said. “Do you know where we can get in line? We want front-row seats!”
“Yeah,” said Lenny. “And we want to get our picture taken with Fako. Do you know where he is?”
“I heard he’s using our locker rooms down on the lower level. Try there,” said toilet paper guy. “But he’s going to be giving his victory speech soon, so you’d better hurry.”
“Victory speech?” Lenny said, sounding a lot less like a fan. “It’s only ten thirty in the morning.”
“Well, that’s what the TV says,” said toilet paper guy, pointing to a screen mounted on the wall nearby.
“Great, we’ll go take a look! Yay, Fako!”
“Yippee,” said Lenny, sounding like a very depressed cheerleader.
We squeezed past the football players and were out of the storeroom at last. But we weren’t free yet, and we still had no way of stopping Fako. A crowd was standing around the TV, watching Good Morning Hairsprinkle.
“Let’s take a look at our 3-D, holographic, artificially intelligent electoral map, Jim.”
“Do we have to, Nancy? The 3-D holographs give me a headache.”
“Yes, Jim, we must. It shows that Fako Mustacho has received
one hundred percent of the vote in all the states that have reported in so far. Thanks to another brilliant idea of Fako Mustacho’s, the polls will be closing in about half an hour. After that we’ll be able to officially call the race in Fako Mustacho’s favor and then go have lunch.”
“Truly an amazing story, Nancy. Just a few weeks ago no one had even heard of Fako Mustacho, and we all thought that a Republican or a Democrat would win.”
“Yes, Jim, we were fools back then. We, the people, have seen the light. Our polls report that one hundred percent of voters say that the minute they saw Mustacho for the first time, they knew that he and his mustache were right for our country.”
“It really seems like a shame that we’ll have to wait until Inauguration Day for Fako to become our supreme leader, Nancy.”
“Jim, sources close to Capitol Hill tell me that Congress may make an emergency amendment to the Constitution so that Fako Mustacho could become president as early as next week.”
“And not a moment too soon!”
“Hooray,” said the crowd in unison. “Let’s start selling some souvenirs!”
They all rushed into our storeroom, grabbed boxes, and ran down the hall to a souvenir stand, where hundreds of people were lined up to buy Fako stuff.
“Man, look at all those people,” I said.
“If we go out there, we’ll never get near him,” said Lenny.
“Let’s try another door.”
K, I’m not going to bore you by telling you about every lousy hallway and storeroom that we ran through and every stairway we went up and down. There were a lot. If they make this into a movie, they can just have a music montage of us running around really fast. We had one of those on just about every episode of my show.
Then we saw a sign that said LOCKER ROOM.
There were a bunch of guys in black suits standing around the door. Secret Service agents!
“This must be it!” I whispered.
“Let’s go for it!”
“Please! Please let us see Fako! We just want a picture, please, dude! Let us in! Just for a second? Please .. .”
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