All the candidates did have to give three-minute speeches during a class assembly in the gym. Kyla, again, instructed me to ignore the issues and just make the speech funny.
“Use a lot of popular expressions and gestures, repeat the slogans, get the crowd chanting, then get off the stage,” she told me.
In the end, she wrote my speech for me. It was pretty funny. I wondered why she didn’t just run for president herself. But I guess, secretly, I knew. She must not have had anything magical, like my cap. And she wasn’t cute enough, either.
I did have to punch up the speech a bit. It was too girly in places. Then I rehearsed it in front of the bathroom mirror at home. Sometimes the Sisterhood would bang on the door and yell things like, “There are other people in this house besides you, Mr. President!” and “I bet Abe Lincoln never spent this much time in the bathroom!” But I ignored them. My speech was important. I had to get it right.
I got pretty jittery the next day during the class assembly, waiting for my turn. We had to sit on folding chairs in the middle of the gym floor, facing the audience, who sat on the bleachers. I didn’t even bother listening to the two candidates’ speeches before mine. I knew who I was voting for. Plus I wanted to stay focused. I’d never prepared so hard for anything this school related in my life, and I wasn’t even going to get graded on it. What was I doing? I thought about Evan, and how I was going against his advice about never running for office. I thought about bolting.
But I didn’t. I stayed. I understood that my reputation depended on not quitting, and if I’d learned anything yet about middle school, it was that your rep was everything.
Finally, they called my name.
My fellow sixth graders started clapping. Some whooped and cheered. Kyla’s crew, probably. One kid was doing one of those loud, fingers-in-your-mouth whistles. And I heard one hiss. Lance, probably. Or Kai?
I was wearing my best Kap gear, including the cap, of course. I wasn’t sure if that was okay. I didn’t see anybody in the audience wearing one. But I was onstage. Wasn’t a person allowed to wear anything he wanted onstage? Under the circumstances, wasn’t the cap part of my costume?
I decided right then my first act as president would be to repeal the no-caps-worn-in-school rule.
As I neared the microphone stand, I scanned the crowd. They were mostly smiling and clapping. I loved it. I suddenly understood my sister Desi in a whole new way. Being liked by so many people—being popular—felt amazing.
“No… thank you… thank you… please,” I said, motioning for quiet. “No… that’s too much… that’s too much… thank you.”
They got louder. I heard laughter, which gave me a real charge.
Kyla and her gang jumped to their feet and started chanting, “EN-ZO! EN-ZO! EN-ZO!”
I did the quiet gesture again: raising my palms and pumping them against the air, as if I were actually trying to push back their cheering.
“You’re too kind… really… thank you… thank you…”
They got even louder. I could see our principal, Ms. Kish, out of the corner of my eye, getting ready to come over and silence everyone. I didn’t want that. This was my crowd. My moment. I would silence them.
I lifted the mic from its stand and wandered closer to the audience. My audience. Like magic, they quieted down. I think it really was magic. The magic of the prototype. The magic of the cap.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
This wasn’t the opening I’d rehearsed. It wasn’t in the speech Kyla had written and I’d punched up. It had just come to me. Magically. And it got laughs. I decided then that I didn’t need a script. I would put my trust in the cap. It would give me the words to say.
“Let’s face it,” I went on. “We’re sixth graders. Which makes us, basically… well… punching bags. When an eighth grader has a bad day, he just picks on one of us, and then he feels a whole lot better.”
I lowered the mic and made an exaggerated What’re-ya-gonna-do? gesture. “So here I am, running for president of the sixth-grade class. In other words, I’m running for top punching bag. Why would a guy want to do such a thing?”
I shook my head.
“You wouldn’t do such a thing. You’re not doing such a thing. You’re smart. Smarter than me. Only me and these guys”—I gestured at the other candidates behind me—“are dumb enough to run for top punching bag.”
I glanced at Ms. Kish. She had her head tilted and was shaking it tightly at me, telling me to knock it off. I looked at Kyla. She was squinting at me, probably because I was straying from her precious script, but she was also smiling. I judged from the reactions of these two females that I was doing all right. So I went on.
“These other candidates have high hopes for us this year. They have big plans. They will make this the brightest, shiningest, most amazingest year ever… for every punching bag at Stan.”
I was moving up and down the length of the bleachers, nodding and swaggering. I had these guys in the palms of my hands.
“What do I have?” I asked.
I scanned the crowd, as if I was hoping for an answer. I wasn’t hoping for anything. I’d already decided what the answer to my question would be. I’d decided before I’d asked it. And it wasn’t in the script.
“Do I have high hopes?” I asked. “Do I have big plans? What do I have?”
The audience got quiet and leaned in, waiting for my answer. I felt it. I felt them come to me. It was delicious.
“I have,” I said, and pointed up, “a cap on my head.”
There was an explosion then, a BOOM! of screaming, hooting, foot stomping, fist pumping, whistling, cheering—the works.
“I have a cap on my head…,” I added, “… in school!”
The crowd went nuts. Especially the guys. They started slamming into each other, making ape noises, slapping their hands together like seals.
I soaked it up for a while, then I raised my hands for silence. The crowd obeyed this time. They were mine. I glanced at Ms. Kish. She was not happy. Kyla was. I spotted Lance, his arms crossed, sulking. I was having a blast.
I lowered my hands. I cleared my throat. Then I spoke, slowly, solemnly:
“My first order of business as president of the proud… brave… sixth-grade class of Stanislaus Middle School”—I paused to hear the echo of my words. I heard a pen drop, ricochet around the supports under the bleachers, then hit the floor—“will be to repeal the no-caps-worn-in-school rule!”
The audience (mostly the guys) jumped to their feet. Someone (probably Kyla) started the chant up again: “EN-ZO! EN-ZO! EN-ZO! EN-ZO!”
I smiled and waved and bowed till Ms. Kish came over and made me sit down. It took her a while to get the crowd quiet.
After that, the presidency was a slam dunk.
9. Pep
Yes, I was elected president. Some cap, huh?
I knew Mom and Dad would be proud, but Desi—she just flipped. She couldn’t believe I had gotten so popular so fast. I guess she must have thought I had been a major loser. It worked out pretty sweet, actually, not only because she stopped bossing me around so much, but also because whatever Desi did, Susana did. So I had two nice-ish sisters for a change.
Lupe was too busy being jealous to be happy for me. She got nominated for eighth-grade class president—as she had been in sixth and seventh—but, like in those years, she’d gotten weeded out in the general elections. With the other weeds. She didn’t have the maturity, however, to see past her own failures and to congratulate her brother on his triumph. She was small that way. It was probably one of the reasons she’d never won the presidency. Which I did on my first try.
And Nadine? I didn’t bother telling her I’d been elected. I figured she would have a problem with it somehow, like she did with most things that had to do with normal people doing normal things.
My campaign manager, Kyla, acted as if my election made us, like, boyfriend-girlfriend. Which was crazy. When she started telling people we were goi
ng out, I had to set her straight. I caught her one day at her locker. She was yakking with a couple of girls from my campaign crew.
“You been telling people we’re going out?” I asked her. “Because we’re not.”
Her mouth fell open, and then her eyes got all wet. Her friends hooked her arms, as if she was going to collapse or something.
“I never said we were going out,” I said. “You’re the one who nominated me. I didn’t ask you to. I didn’t ask you to make posters or write a speech, either. You wanted to.”
Her chin started quivering. One of her friends whispered comforting words in her ear, all the while glaring at me like I was a criminal.
“I didn’t—” Kyla started to say, but the words stuck in her throat. She swallowed and started again in a shaky voice. “I didn’t t-tell anyone that.”
Her glaring friend added, “She knows you don’t like her that way. She knows you just used her to get elected.”
“Used her? Ha!” I said, though that was pretty much true. It wasn’t personal, though. It was political. And it sure didn’t give her the right to pretend we were going out.
After that, Kyla stopped talking to me, or acknowledging me in any way, which didn’t bother me one bit. Then word got out that she was trash-talking me, and that did bother me. I didn’t confront her about it, though. I just sucked it up. A president can’t expect to be loved by everyone. Or—let’s be frank here—to love everyone.
The student council met every other Thursday. Misa, the blonde with the pink streaks who Chase said crushed on me, was vice president, Iris was elected treasurer, and another girl, Cassie (she and Misa were both cheerleaders), was secretary. Me and three girls. Sound familiar?
The meetings were a total drag. It wasn’t in my power to make any important decisions, even though I was president. I had a vote and all, but it counted exactly the same as the others. I thought it would count at least triple. And I couldn’t veto the principal’s or the school board’s decisions. I couldn’t make changes to school policies or the schedule or the budget. I couldn’t fire teachers. I couldn’t even repeal the no-caps-worn-in-school rule. I didn’t have any real power at all. The whole election turned out to be a total joke, one of those stunts adults pull to get kids thinking they have power in their lives. The school gods wanted us to believe that school was like real life, when they knew the elections were a fake.
The council’s only actual job was to raise money for our class, which meant devising and organizing events like car washes, raffles, bake sales, and boring carnivals with no rides. I thought I was going to die of boredom. Evan had been right. I should have never run for elected office. Lesson learned the hard way.
The only good part about being president was getting to be president. Having the title. President Enzo Harpold. ¡Enzo Prezidenzo! From then on, I got introduced at most class assemblies, and some school body assemblies. The sixth-graders would rabbit-punch the air like boxers, because of the punching bag bit in my speech, and the crowd would go berserk. Ms. Kish would always quiet everyone down with a threat of some kind, then glare at me. It was in those moments that I enjoyed being president.
Word had begun to spread about my trip, all my cool gear, and all the famous people I’d met. Plus I’d made the basketball team. All this had transformed me into an overnight sensation, a middle-school superstar.
To my surprise, I loved it. Even the attention from girls. I let them love me; I just didn’t let them near me. (Well, none of them except Analisa, who I’ll talk about in a minute.) I actually looked forward to going to school each day. I had school spirit. I had pep. Strange but true.
I had to keep my grades up to stay on the team, so I listened a bit more carefully during class. This was not easy with all the notes girls kept sending to me. I studied some at night in my room, after basketball practice and dinner. Sometimes Dad helped me. Sometimes Mom did. Sometimes Desi did. All this help did the trick: I kept my grades up.
The team practiced throughout September and October, gearing up for our first game in November. Coach Keller said we were in a tough division, very competitive, so he pushed us hard. Even though I knew I was a lock for the starting five, I gave 110 percent during practice. I was getting used to getting most of the things I wanted then and was willing to do whatever was necessary to get the rest. I owed it to myself, and to the cap.
The cheerleading squad practiced in the gym at the same time the team did, wearing their short, pleated, red-and-white skirts and red-and-white sweaters, chanting and clapping and flipping. Sometimes, they would chant my name—“E! E-N-Z-O! He! He’s our man, O! On! On offenzo!”—and I would feel… I don’t know… sort of electrified. Energized. It helped my game.
There were four cheerleaders in all. Besides Misa and Cassie, there was Mackenzie, who was in my science class and was always mean and sarcastic, and a girl I didn’t have in any classes, Analisa.
Rumor had it that Analisa crushed on me, too, but I didn’t believe it. Of the girls on the squad, she was the one least interested in boys, and the most interested in sports. She was the only one I’d ever had a normal conversation with.
Kap was her favorite brand, so, after hearing about my trip, she came up to me and gushed about how lucky I was that my dad worked there. She wanted to hear every detail about the trip, and, though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t, I told her everything. I think it was because she was so totally awestruck by every word I said, more awestruck than anybody else I’d talked to. She kept saying “No way!” in this breathless way that I liked. And she knew all about Kap, and was so jealous of all the sports I got to try, and the sports stars I got to meet, and when I showed her where LeBron James signed my cap, I swear she almost fainted.
“That’s the most amazingest cap ever,” she said.
Yeah, we kind of spoke the same language.
But there was no crushing going on. I want to make that perfectly clear. She didn’t have a crush on me, and I certainly did not crush on her. I don’t crush on anyone. I don’t crush. In fact, I hate crushing.
In fact, just because Misa crushed on me and Chase crushed on her, Chase got all sore at me. Like I did anything! It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask to be cute. I hated being cute. So it was totally stupid for Chase to get mad at me for what stupid Misa felt. I never encouraged her. Once I found out, in fact, I started acting really rude and obnoxious to her on purpose, but it didn’t cool her off one bit.
Chase also got bent out of shape when Coach announced I would be starting and Chase wouldn’t be. I tell you what, it’s tough being cute and excellent at sports. I started understanding what guys like David Beckham and A-Rod went through. Getting adored by people you don’t know can be cool, but it can make things uncomfortable with people you do know. Chase, for example. And Kai and Lance, and Misa and Kyla. Some people just can’t deal with other people’s success.
Chase acted like a big baby the day of our first game. We had to dress nice and wear a tie to school on game days, and, right in front of Chase, Misa said I looked handsome. Ugh. But you know what Chase did? After she walked away, he punched me. What did I do?
When Coach introduced us at the pep rally, the cheerleaders ran out and did cartwheels and flips. Then Coach introduced us, one at a time, starters first. I got the biggest response. Kids hooted and whooped and yelled and did the rabbit-punching thing. Misa did about a million handsprings down the court, ending with this amazing aerial thing, but, for Chase’s sake, I didn’t so much as clap.
When the rally was over, we hit the locker room. Chase ignored me. I ignored him back. I changed back into my street clothes, including my tie—which, by the way, does not go with Kap wear. I grabbed my backpack and slipped it over my shoulder. Then I reached up for my cap.
It wasn’t there.
I dug my hand deeper into the top shelf of my locker.
Nope.
I got up on my toes and stuck my face in. No cap.
I felt needle pricks of panic dow
n my spine.
I pulled off my backpack, unzipped it, and groped around inside. I turned it upside down and dumped everything out. No cap.
“What’s up?” asked River, our center, whose locker was next to mine.
I didn’t answer. My tongue was frozen in fear.
I dropped my empty backpack and started searching the room.
“What you looking for, Enz?” guys kept asking me, but I shrugged them off.
After I’d scoured the locker room, I ran out into the gym. Everyone was already gone. I ran around, frantic, looking, looking. On the bleachers. Under the bleachers. I retraced my steps. I went back to my social studies room, and looked under my desk, under all the desks. People kept asking me what was wrong, if I’d lost something. I didn’t answer.
Back in the hall, I tried to remember where I took it off, where I set it down. I remembered carrying it into the locker room, putting it on the shelf of my locker, shutting the door…
Someone must have swiped it. Yeah. Someone in the locker room. One of the guys, probably.
Chase, probably. He was sore at me.
I speed-walked back to the gym in a cold sweat. If someone stole it, I would have to catch him before he got away. I probably had already let him get away. I walked faster.
The locker room was empty. Everyone was gone.
I opened Chase’s locker. No cap. I opened a couple of others. It was no use. I broke down. I fell to my knees. Tears squirted out of my eyes. My tongue unfroze.
“NOOOOOO!” I wailed, like a girl.
10. UnKapped
Coach appeared from somewhere. Had he been in his office this whole time? Had he seen me looking in other guys’ lockers? Had he heard me bawling like a baby girl?
“Something wrong, Enzo?” he asked in his deep, manly voice. Coach had this way of talking that made a guy snap to attention and want to salute.
I shot to my feet. I didn’t salute, though I did raise my hand to my face—to wipe away my girlish tears.
“No, sir,” I said, my spine stiff. “My ca—I—I lost something.”
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