President of Poplar Lane

by Margaret Mincks

  “Thank you, Dr. Dana,” I said. “And hello, Poplar Middle School!”

  I unzipped my gold glitter hoodie. Underneath was a T-shirt I’d made with a giant glitter-cat ear on it.

  “I think a president should be a good listener,” I said, pointing to my glitter ear. “And let’s be honest, I’m not the best. I get really bad earwax clogs, but it’s more than that. My dad says I don’t have a filter. I need to work on that, because I’ve messed up and hurt people.”

  I took off my ear shirt, my shout-out to Daisy. There was another shirt underneath that said: #LOUD.

  “Ms. O’Reilly, are we through with the disrobing?” Dr. Dana said.

  “Last one!” I said. “The weird thing about running for president is that you’re not supposed to talk about how you really feel. You’re supposed to hide your message. You’re supposed to say what gets votes.

  “Girls do that, too. Not always to get votes. But they think they have to act a certain way to get people to like them. People tell girls to smile even if they’re mad or sad or upset. That’s hiding a message. And we think we can’t disagree or have any bad feelings, because that’s mean. So we keep our real feelings hidden. And the weird thing is, if we’re honest about how we feel, we’re called mean again! But they’re just feelings. Boys have them, too. Am I rambling?”

  “Yes!” shouted someone in the audience.

  “Thank you for your honesty!” I said. “Girl power isn’t just a slogan. It’s an action. It’s saying what you mean, and meaning what you say, and having different opinions, and being okay with that. And seeing that you have more friends than enemies. You might have more in common with someone than you think.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “In summary, I don’t want to be mean, but I also don’t want to hide my message. So here it is: I don’t want to be president.”

  The audience gasped.

  “Is this is a joke?” asked Dr. Dana.

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m dropping out. Being loud can cause problems, but it’s also my strength. I’m not giving that up.”

  For a second no one said anything. Then a bunch of people started cheering. Thalia Jung even stood up, starting a standing ovation in her section.

  I’d never felt so proud in my whole life.

  I scanned the crowd. I knew Rachel was probably still kind of mad, but when I found her, she gave me a thumbs-up.

  Amelia stood in a corner by the EXIT sign. It was kind of hard to see with the stage lights in my face, but I’m pretty sure she was wearing the glitter-cat apology necklace I put in her locker this morning. And she was definitely smiling.

  FROM

  WARTY MORTY’S TREATISE ON MAGIC

  Copyright 1973

  V Is for “VANISHING”

  In 1849, a man named Henry “Box” Brown delivered himself from slavery to freedom in—you guessed it—a box. He lived the rest of his life a free man and a civil rights activist. In later years, Henry performed as a professional magician, using the same box that set him free in his act.

  A true escape artist.

  In magic parlance, vanishing is the opposite of production, when the magician produces something from nothing.

  Most magicians think vanishing is as easy as disappearing in a puff of smoke. To which I say, “Ha!” (or I might cough, as smoke doesn’t agree with my lungs). Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, most magicians aren’t roaming the earth with smoke bombs in their pockets.

  Most vanishings involve one simple trick: mirrors.

  There’s this gent—you may have heard of him—named Harry Houdini. He made an elephant disappear. Did he snap his fingers and send the monstrous beast into the ether?

  Nope. He used mirrors.

  It’s a matter of physics. Magicians have many tools in their bag of tricks to misdirect an audience: sleight of hand, a clever turn of phrase, distracting movements. But fooling the eye, the optical illusion, involves the simple principles of mirrors, angles, and light.

  My point? It’s rather sharp, thank you for asking. Oh, the other point? A magician never really vanishes.

  23

  MIKE

  I won.

  It was kind of a whirlwind after Clover’s speech. The crowd went wild. Then Dr. Dana blew a whistle and announced we wouldn’t need to vote, because I won by default. And I didn’t feel like I could drop out after Clover did, because then there wouldn’t be any president at all. So I took a bow. Everybody clapped.

  And now all I wanted was to disappear.

  That night, Dad ordered three extra-large pizzas with my favorite toppings: olives and onions. Mom even called us on SkyTime. She was eating pizza on the soccer field so she could feel like she was there.

  “Presidential pizza tastes good!” she said. She’d told all the players and coaches and everything. Her smile was so proud it made my heart hurt.

  Granberry made pecan pie. From scratch.

  “A Strange family recipe,” she said. “I haven’t made one in years, but I figured this was cause for a real celebration! You did good, Mike.”

  I took a bite. It was the best pie I’d ever had. I didn’t deserve it.

  “May I please be excused?” I asked.

  “That bad, huh?” Granberry said.

  “No, it’s great,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I went to my room, plopped down on my bed, and stared at the ceiling. Houdini could break locks, escape from underwater boxes, and wiggle his way out of straitjackets. But I’m not sure even he could get out of the mess I’d made.

  The doorbell rang. I waited. A few seconds later, someone knocked on my door.

  “It’s Amelia!” Dad called. “I asked her to come in for some pizza.”

  I jumped up. I hadn’t seen her since Dr. Dana said I was the winner. She probably wanted to talk about strategy. Now that I was president, I had to actually do presidential stuff. I needed her more than ever.

  But when I stepped out on the porch, Amelia wasn’t smiling. She didn’t wiggle or squeal or congratulate me. In fact, she looked ready to strangle me.

  “I’m going to ask you one question,” she said. “And I want you to be honest. For once.”

  For once? I got prickles on my arms.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Did you mess up your posters?”

  “What?”

  “Are you,” she said slowly, “the one. Who messed up. Your posters. Because I think you are.”

  “Yes,” I said. I felt totally exposed, like my tricks were spilling out of my pocket, an avalanche of secrets, all over the floor.

  “I thought so,” she said.

  “How did you know?”

  “I mean, I thought about it for hours. Hours! But I couldn’t imagine anyone who would actually take the time to do all of that. And then I remembered the Xs all over your posters. Like the Xs you drew on the posters at Clover’s party. So I knew you did it. But why did you do it?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “Could you try to think of an answer?” she asked.

  “It’s just . . . I never really wanted to be president,” I said. “I only ran so I could write an essay to get into magic camp. And to make my dad think I was cool.”

  “I want you to know something,” she said. “You wasted a whole lot of my time. I was trying to build your campaign while you were destroying it.”

  I never thought about it that way, that my actions to protect myself could hurt someone else.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re sorry,” she said. “Because I feel used. I was trying to make friends. And I thought we were becoming friends. And then I find out you betrayed me. And that really, really hurt. And normally I wouldn’t say anything. But because you’re my friend, or I thought you were, I want you to hea
r the truth.”

  Then I started to feel mad. “Hey, you say I’m your friend, but you wanted me to be a different person!” I said. “You didn’t want me to be myself.”

  She looked down. “Maybe you’re right. I was just trying to go with what worked. I was trying to help us both fit in.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said quietly.

  She was right. We both were. We were both wrong, too.

  The silence felt heavy.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. “Because I really don’t want to be president.”

  “You can resign.”

  “But then . . . it’s over,” I said. And it hit me. It would be over. As much as the election was making me miserable, it made me kind of special. I was afraid to go back to being myself.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Then it’s over. Isn’t that a relief? It is for me. I’m just done with trying so hard,” she said. “Trying to figure people out, thinking I have to be a certain way to make friends. And the truth is, it never worked anyway! So I’m going to . . . retire.” She said “retire” slowly, like she was pronouncing a new word in a different language. “At least for today. I love being a wonk. But I think people are more like art than science. They’re unpredictable. They’re not really categories or formulas, no matter what they look like on the outside. And that’s good.”

  “But I don’t know what to do,” I said. I didn’t want to beg, but I was pretty close to getting down on my knees.

  “I say this as your friend,” Amelia said. “And it’s my last piece of advice. For today, at least.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” she said. She grabbed me by my shoulders. “Figure it out.” She smiled.

  And then she walked away.

  24

  Clover

  I walked home after school. Even though I was super proud of myself, my whole body felt achy, like I’d just been through the non-delicate cycle of the washing machine.

  I needed waffles. With extra syrup.

  I wasn’t expecting to walk into a kitchen full of pink balloons.

  “Clover, we have big news!” Dad said.

  He shoved a black-and-white picture in my face. It was a blob with a sort-of baby face.

  “It’s a girl!” Mom said.

  “Wow,” I choked out. My throat was scratchy from yelling my speech.

  “Six girls,” Dad said, beaming. “Six! Isn’t that fun?”

  “Fun?” I said. “Can I tell you something not fun? I dropped out of the election.”

  Mom’s smile faded. “Oh, honey. Why?”

  “Because,” I said. It wasn’t like me to hide stuff, but I also didn’t feel like spilling my guts to my parents just then.

  Dad gave me a hug. “We have a whole weekend ahead of us,” he said. “And now that you have more free time, you can give us some design advice for the nursery.”

  “No!” I said, pulling away from him. “I want my own room, like you promised. You’re so glad it’s ‘out in the open’ that you’re having another kid. What about the kids you have now? Don’t you care about them?”

  Daisy started crying, and then Juniper.

  “I hate the baby!” Dahlia yelled.

  She ran out of the room in tears.

  “Dahlia!” Dad yelled after her. “Come back right now.”

  “You know what?” I said. “I kind of hate the baby, too. You just want to hum and have a new kid rather than deal with the kids you already have. What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with what you have?”

  I bolted from the room before Dad could say anything.

  * * *

  I didn’t hate the baby. Not really. I can’t say I loved the baby, because I didn’t know it—her—yet. Something was wrong. But the baby wasn’t the problem.

  When I walked into my room, Violet was coloring with Dahlia. Adrenaline swished through my veins.

  “Don’t you have your own room?” I asked Violet.

  Violet looked up at me. Her three different colors of eyeliner were wet and all smudged together. It was kind of beautiful and kind of sad at the same time.

  “The crayons are in here,” she said. “And Dahlia wants to color.”

  I wanted to say more mean things to Violet, like ask her why she only wanted to see us when it was convenient for her.

  But Dahlia wasn’t crying anymore. She was drawing hearts and making a card that said, “I’m sorry” at the top. And I didn’t want to make her sad again.

  “I’m sorry,” Dahlia told me. “I’m sorry for hurting the baby.”

  “You didn’t hurt the baby,” I said.

  “Do you think Mom and Dad will forget us?” Dahlia said.

  I felt a pit expanding in my stomach. Dahlia and I were in the middle-child netherworld, that confusing zone where you wonder how much you really matter.

  Violet helped Dahlia cut out a heart.

  “Nope,” Violet told her. “And even if they do, we have each other. The Sister Alliance.”

  Then Violet smiled at me. She actually smiled. She wasn’t in the middle like Dahlia and me, but we were all sisters. Together.

  * * *

  Later Mom walked in. She looked like she’d been crying.

  “I don’t hate the baby,” I told her.

  “Me neither,” said Dahlia.

  “I’m dropping out of the election,” Mom said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I can handle the politics part,” Mom said. “It’s just a game, and I know the rules. What I can’t handle is seeing you guys hurting. You need me.”

  I wanted to tell Mom we didn’t need her, but that wasn’t true.

  “And the new baby needs me, too,” Mom said.

  “Then why do you want another kid?” I asked. “I know that wasn’t a filter question. But why?”

  She looked at me. “Because of the love we have for you. It’s infinite. And we wanted to create more of it.”

  “But you can’t create time,” Violet said. “Or money. Or bedrooms. Those are finite resources. And the truth is, you take all that away from us when you have another kid.”

  Violet sounded really smart. Maybe she was doing extra studying now that she had her own room.

  “Yeah!” I said, even though I wasn’t totally sure what Violet meant. “Why didn’t you ask us first?”

  “This might be hard to hear,” Mom said. “But a family is not a democracy. The parents are in charge. We make the rules.”

  “But are we nothing?” I asked.

  “You’re not nothing,” Dad said in the doorway.

  “Then you should have asked us first.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Mom said. “But there’s a baby coming. And we have to figure out how to welcome her into our lives. Can you do that?”

  “As long as you don’t forget us,” I said.

  Mom smiled. “I could never forget you,” she said.

  * * *

  The next morning I had a great idea.

  “I have a great idea,” I told Mom.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You haven’t dropped out of the election yet, right?”

  “Not yet. I will on Monday.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  “Clover, I—”

  “Do you want to be on the school board?”

  “Part of me does, yes. Very much so. But I don’t want our family under attack. All these negative ads and rumors and how it’s affecting you girls—it’s not worth it.”

  “What if your family fights with you?” I asked. “Strength in numbers! I mean, our family is pretty huge.”

  She smiled a little.

  “Okay,” I said. “I get that a family is not a democracy all the
time. I don’t like it, but I kind of get it. We didn’t get to vote on you having a baby. But maybe we, our family, can vote on you staying in the election.”

  Mom’s smile got bigger. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But be prepared for anything. Elections are always surprising.”

  * * *

  That night we held our family election. The question at the top of the ballot was “Should Mom run for school board?”

  We even had 100 percent voter turnout. Everyone showed up, even baby Juniper (she kind of had to because she was attached to Dad’s hip). Mom voted, too. Violet even set up an election day face-painting station.

  I built a voting booth by hanging baby blackout curtains around Daisy’s coloring desk. One at a time, each member of the O’Reilly household went into the booth to cast their votes.

  “How do we know what Juniper wants to vote for?” Dahlia asked.

  I thought hard. “She copies everything Daisy does. Daisy, will you cast Juniper’s vote?”

  Daisy nodded.

  After dinner, I counted the votes.

  “We have the results of the election,” I said dramatically. “In a unanimous decision, the O’Reilly family has decided that Mom will keep running for school board!”

  “Beat the Rocket Ship!” said Dahlia.

  “Thank you,” Mom said, her voice shaking just a little.

  “And we know you can’t do it alone,” I said. “So Violet and I are prepared to swap older-sister babysitting duties.”

  “And I’ll help do cooking,” Daisy said.

  “No!” said Dahlia. “I don’t want fart casserole.”

  Dad bent over laughing. When he stood up, he had tears streaming down his face.

  “Dad, I didn’t know you had tears!” Dahlia said. She handed Mom and Dad a card with six hearts on it. One for each kid, including the new baby.

  FROM

  WARTY MORTY’S TREATISE ON MAGIC

  Copyright 1973