While the class worked quietly at their desks, Esther passed Caitlin a note.
Hi Caitlin,
First Battle of the Books meeting will be next Thursday, after school, in the library. I want to introduce all the members to each other and give us a chance to get to know each other a little bit. Bring a favorite book along, if you’d like. It’s always fun to talk about books, right? My mom will be happy to give you a ride home after the meeting.
Esther
Caitlin stuffed the note into her backpack and went back to her notebook. She’d have to worry about the Battle of the Books later. She had a campaign to plan.
* * *
On Saturday, Jade came over to help Caitlin make posters. Mrs. Rogers had gone to the craft store and bought a bunch of poster board, markers, big smiley face stickers, and balloons. If her campaign was about fun, Caitlin had to make sure her posters looked fun.
The girls carried the supplies up to Caitlin’s room and shut the door.
“Pretty rose,” Jade said as she set the stuff on Caitlin’s bed. Jade went over and took a whiff. “Mmm. Smells so good. Maybe fresh flowers should be a part of your campaign.”
“What do you mean?” Caitlin asked, taking a poster board and placing it on the floor.
“Pass out flowers to everyone and ask them to vote for you.”
“That would get expensive,” Caitlin said.
“Not if we picked daisies from the field across from my house. Wouldn’t cost you anything.”
Caitlin bounced up. “Oh my gosh! That’s kind of a genius idea. Are there a lot of them? Daisies, I mean?”
“Oh yeah. I can help you pick some if you want me to.”
“So I just put them in a basket and walk around and ask people to vote for me?”
Jade shrugged. “Yeah. Why not? It’s better than stupid buttons, which you would have to pay for and hardly anyone would wear, right?”
“I think you’re right. Do you think daisies are fun?” Caitlin wanted to make sure everything tied in with her theme.
“I think so,” Jade said. “Kids make daisy chains out of the tiny daisies, right? That’s pretty fun, if you ask me.”
Caitlin gave her friend a hug. “Thank you. I can’t believe how everything is coming together so well. This is going to be the best campaign ever.”
Jade pointed to the pile of posters. “If we don’t pass out from making all these posters.”
“My mom made us cupcakes,” Caitlin said. “Does that help?”
Jade wiggled her eyebrows. “What flavor?”
“Only your favorite. Red velvet.”
Jade jumped off the bed, grabbed a poster and some markers, and threw herself on the floor. “Come on, girl. What are you doing, wasting time talking? We need to get these posters made. Snap to it, as my mother likes to say.”
Caitlin laughed. “Hey, maybe I should pass out cupcakes instead of daisies.”
“That’s crazy,” Jade said. “Too much work.”
“You just want all the cupcakes for yourself,” Caitlin said.
“Bwahahaha.” Jade gave an evil laugh. “You know me too well.”
On Monday morning, Mrs. Rogers drove Caitlin to school with all of her campaign stuff. They got there thirty minutes early, to give Caitlin plenty of time before school started. Once inside, she went to work hanging her posters in the hallway. Ten was the limit, and she and Jade had worked really hard to make them fun and colorful. They’d taped balloons on the two corners and put smiley face stickers all over them.
As Caitlin hung her posters, she noticed the ones made by her two opponents, Della and Kristopher.
Markers: Five Bucks
Posters: Ten Bucks
Della as Sixth-Grade Class President: Priceless.
Forget Obi-Wan Kenobi
Vote for Kristopher
for Sixth-Grade Class President
He’s our only hope!
Butterflies swarmed Caitlin’s stomach. They’d found some funny slogans. Creative and unique. Hers wasn’t anything special. It was almost boring compared to theirs.
Vote for Caitlin
for Sixth-Grade Class President,
because fun is the name of the game!
She told herself there wasn’t anything she could do now but hope for the best. Once all of her posters were hung, Caitlin picked up the basket of daisies and made her way toward the front of the school. She’d kept them in a vase of water overnight and then piled them into a cute basket her mom had found. It reminded her of the time she’d been the flower girl for her aunt’s wedding when she was five years old, except then, she’d carried a small basket of pale blue hydrangeas.
As kids began coming into school, Caitlin started handing out the daisies.
“Hi, I’m Caitlin, and I’m running for class president.”
The first few girls took the daisies and said, “Thanks.”
When she tried to hand it to a boy, he said, “No way. What am I going to do with a stupid flower?”
“Uh …” Caitlin tried to think of a response, but the boy kept walking.
Caitlin turned around and tried to hand some to a group of boys. “Are you serious?” one of them asked her.
She took a deep breath and told herself not to let it bother her. All of the boys would probably vote for Kristopher anyway.
Stick to the girls, she told herself.
And that’s exactly what she did. It only took about ten minutes, and then her daisies were gone. She looked at the empty basket in satisfaction before she made her way toward the sixth-grade hallway and her locker.
When she turned the corner, the hallway was so crowded, she could hardly make her way through.
“What’s going on?” she asked someone.
“Look what Della is handing out,” a girl said, shoving a baggie of something in front of Caitlin. Caitlin reached out and moved the girl’s hand back so she could see what was inside. It was a sugar cookie, frosted with the words Vote for Della.
“Wow,” Caitlin said, kicking herself for not making cupcakes to pass out like she’d suggested to Jade.
“I know, right?” the girl said before she moved along.
Caitlin looked around to see if any of the girls were talking about the flowers she’d handed out. She looked and looked for any sign of a flower. The only one she could find was a poor trampled daisy on the ground.
Why didn’t she see more of them? she wondered.
And that’s when it hit her. She’d passed out flowers to people coming through the front door, not knowing if they were sixth, seventh, or eighth graders. She should have been passing them out here, in the sixth-grade hallway, like Della had done. These were the students who would be voting. These were the people who really mattered.
As Caitlin made her way toward her locker, she got caught in a mob of kids trying to get something that Kristopher was handing out. Caitlin stood on her tippy-toes, wanting to see what it was, but she couldn’t get a good look. Whatever it was, everyone seemed to want one, which meant it most definitely wasn’t a flower.
When Caitlin reached her locker, Esther was there, a baggie of cookies in one hand and a baggie of something else in the other.
“I guess they both decided the way to the voter’s heart is through the stomach,” Esther said.
“Can I see what Kristopher made?” Caitlin asked.
“Sure.”
Inside the baggie were what appeared to be five teensy-tiny red and blue lightsabers.
“What are they made out of?” Caitlin asked.
Esther pointed to a label attached to the baggie.
“ ‘Remember, Kristopher is your only hope. In the meantime, enjoy these lightsabers made out of pretzels and Fruit Roll-Ups. May the force to vote be with you.’ ”
Caitlin leaned her head against the locker and closed her eyes. “This is not good,” she groaned.
“Did you forget to bring something?” Esther asked her.
Caitlin turned around and looked
at Esther. “I brought daisies. I’d offer to give you one, but I already passed them out to a bunch of seventh and eighth graders.”
Esther gave her a funny look. “Why’d you do that?”
“I didn’t mean to. I thought passing them out by the front doors was the way to go. But after they were gone, and I came here, I realized this was the perfect place.” Caitlin shook her head. “What a waste.”
“You could try again tomorrow,” Esther said.
“We practically picked the field clean though,” Caitlin said.
“Oh,” Esther said. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to help you think of something else to do?”
Caitlin looked at the clever posters that hung across the hallway. And then she looked at the snacks Della and Kristopher had made that had impressed everyone.
“Thanks,” Caitlin said, turning to open her locker, “but it may be too late. I don’t want to look like I’m copying them, showing up with some kind of clever homemade treat.”
“Then don’t make something,” Esther said. “If your focus is on fun, what if you passed out fun-size candy bars?”
At the word fun-size, Caitlin spun around and looked at Esther again, her eyes big and round. “Oh my gosh. That is a fantastic idea!” She remembered watching the fun girls eat the fun-size candy bars one of them had brought along at lunchtime to share. “Who doesn’t like candy, right?”
Esther smiled. Caitlin noticed she had braces on her top teeth. How come she hadn’t noticed that before?
Caitlin got her books out of their locker and stepped aside. “Thanks, Esther. I feel so much better. I can still do something that will make people remember me. Tonight I’ll go to the store and buy a bunch of bags of candy bars …”
And then she stopped. Because if she wanted to pass out the candy bars, she’d have to come up with the money to buy them. And she didn’t have any money.
All day, Caitlin thought about what she might do to get her mom to agree to buy bags of candy for her campaign. Her mom had made it pretty clear to Caitlin after shopping at the craft store for the poster supplies that she didn’t want to spend any more money on the project. She’d told Caitlin that part of being a good leader was coming up with creative solutions to problems, and sometimes that meant creative solutions to money problems.
“But people who run for President of the United States spend a lot of money on their campaigns, Mom,” Caitlin had told her. “We talked about that in Social Studies.”
“Yes, but you’re not running for President of the United States,” her mom had replied. She’d patted Caitlin on her back and said, “Now if you decide to do that in about twenty-five years, by all means, come and see me. I’ll give you a big, fat donation, okay?”
Now, as the final bell rang, Caitlin had one last thing to do before she got to go home after a long, disappointing day: audition for the school play.
She made her way toward the auditorium, wondering if something might finally go her way. She really wanted the part of Charlotte. At home, Caitlin and her mom had watched videos online of performances of the play at other schools. One performance she’d watched featured Charlotte in this amazing costume so that every time the girl playing the spider moved her arms, all of the spider’s legs moved, alongside the girl’s body. Her mom had said they must have been attached with thread or wire or something.
Caitlin took a seat toward the back of the auditorium and sunk down, trying to be invisible for now. Each student had been assigned a time to try out. Caitlin’s turn was in about ten minutes. She felt butterflies in her stomach again, though this time, they felt more like angry bees.
Just as Caitlin had settled down into her seat, the fun girls walked into the auditorium. One of the girls went all the way toward the front and stood there, waiting. The other three girls took a seat in the row in front of Caitlin.
“She’s going to do great,” Caitlin overheard Brie say. “As long as she doesn’t get too nervous, the part of Charlotte will be hers.”
“And hopefully the part of Wilbur is yours, right, Brie?” one of the other girls asked.
“Yeah. Hopefully! We’ll be so cute up there, the two of us, right?” Caitlin watched as Brie leaned down. “Hey, what’s that?”
“A daisy,” one of the girls said. “A very sad, wilted daisy. Didn’t you get one? That girl you sit next to in homeroom was passing them out this morning. I guess she’s running for class president?”
“Oh yeah,” Brie said. “She told me about that. Did you guys see her poster? It was so lame compared to the others. And get this, you guys. She wants to start a friendship club. Can you believe that?”
The other girls laughed. One of them said, “What is this, second grade?”
Tears pricked Caitlin’s eyes, but she blinked them back. And here she’d thought that Brie had liked her idea of a friendship club.
How could she have been so stupid to think it was a good idea?
“Shhh,” Brie said. “Quiet. Look, Lavinia’s going up. Cross your fingers for her.”
The teacher, Mrs. Sears, handed Lavinia a piece of paper and asked her to read some lines from the play’s script. Caitlin thought Lavinia did an amazing job. She put a lot of emotion into the part, and it didn’t sound like she was reading at all.
When she was finished, the teacher asked Lavinia what song she’d like to sing for the musical portion of the tryout.
A wave of panic hit Caitlin. She grabbed her backpack and pulled out the now crumpled piece of paper she’d gotten about her audition time. When she’d received the envelope in homeroom, she’d opened it and quickly glanced at it, noting the time, and then threw it in her backpack to look at later. Except, she’d forgotten to look at it later. The campaign had kept her busier than she’d thought it would.
Now, she read over the note and saw that Mrs. Sears had given a choice of five songs to choose from and indicated where they could find online music and samples of the songs being sung.
She didn’t know any of the songs. Of course, she’d heard of them, but she wouldn’t be able to get up there and sing them. The angry bees stung Caitlin’s stomach as she tried to figure out what she was going to say when the teacher asked her what song she’d like to sing.
“Old MacDonald Had a Farm”?
“London Bridge Is Falling Down”?
“You Are My Sunshine”?
They were songs Caitlin knew by heart and could sing easily, but talk about second grade.
Mrs. Sears sat down at the piano and began to play. When Lavinia started singing her song, she sounded polished and professional. Like she’d been practicing for months, not days. Like she was born to play the part of Charlotte. Like no matter what Caitlin did, there was no way she could compete.
Caitlin started to get up to leave, but she didn’t have a tight grip on her backpack and dropped it, causing Brie and her two friends to turn around.
“Sorry,” Caitlin whispered.
“You’re trying out?” Brie whispered.
Caitlin knew she had to say yes. Otherwise, they’d ask her what she was doing there, and what would she say? Auditions weren’t open for just anyone to watch. It was hard enough without a bunch of random people in the audience.
Caitlin simply nodded and sat back down. There was no way out. She had to go through with it. She could only hope that the girls would be finished first and leave, so they wouldn’t see her terrible performance.
When Lavinia finished singing, her three friends whistled and yelled and gave her a standing ovation. Lavinia took a little bow and then hopped down off the stage and ran to her friends, who greeted her with hugs and high fives.
“Next we have Caitlin,” Mrs. Sears called out. “Caitlin, are you here?”
Oh no. Already?
Caitlin knew there was nothing to do now but go up and get it over with.
“Yeah,” she called out. “I’m here.”
As Caitlin walked toward the stage, she ran her fingers along the charm bracelet and wi
shed for it to finally bring her some good luck. She needed it now more than ever.
Onstage, Mrs. Sears handed her the page to read, just like she’d done with Lavinia. Caitlin did her best to read the lines loudly, with confidence and with emotion. When it was over, she felt pretty good about it. But of course, that had been the easy part.
“What song would you like to sing?” Mrs. Sears asked. “You read over the list of choices, right?”
“Um, I’m really sorry, but I lost the sheet you sent to me. While I was sitting there, waiting, I was trying to think of songs I know by heart, that you would know too. The only one I can think of is ‘Frosty the Snowman.’ Could we maybe do that one?”
Snickers erupted throughout the auditorium.
“Quiet, ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Sears said. “There will be none of that during auditions or I’ll make you all wait for your turn in the hallway.” She turned and smiled at Caitlin. “That will be fine. I like that song.”
Mrs. Sears sat down at the piano and began to play. And as Caitlin sang about a snowman, in September, with his corncob pipe and his button nose, she wondered if maybe she could just move to the North Pole and go to the school there.
“Do you have any money?” Caitlin asked her brother. This time she found him on his bed, reading a graphic novel.
“Are you trying to be funny?” Isaac asked. “If you are, that’s not funny at all.”
Caitlin sat down on Isaac’s bed. “I assume that’s a no?”
“I don’t have any money to give you, but do you need any more jokes?” he asked.
Caitlin shrugged. “I could use a good laugh right about now. Sure. Give it to me.”
“Where do snowmen keep their money?” Isaac asked.
“Oh no,” Caitlin said. “Not a snowman joke. Anything but a snowman joke.”
Isaac continued on, oblivious. “A snowbank.” He slapped her on the knee. “Isn’t that funny? Come on, laugh, would ya?”
Caitlin smiled. Barely. “Sorry. I can’t. Today was the worst day ever.”
“People didn’t like your posters?” he asked.
“I don’t even think they noticed my posters,” Caitlin said.
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