Jacob Wonderbar for President of the Universe

by Nathan Bransford

  Dexter’s eyes widened as if he were just realizing something. “Earth is in danger! There are these lunatics called Valkyrians…”

  “Yeah, I met some of them.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s who I rescued the space monkeys from. I think they meant to kidnap you.”

  “Wait,” Jacob said. Pieces were beginning to fit together. “So the Valkyrians sent the space monkeys to kidnap me, only they grabbed you instead. Then they tried to get me again just now. And Patrick Gravy—”

  “I hate that guy!” Dexter shouted.

  “Me too!” Jacob said. “He said something about Mick giving the Valkyrians what they wanted.”

  “They want to destroy Earth! The king said he nominated you because you were the only one who could save Earth!”

  Jacob couldn’t believe Mick had sent a bunch of Earth-hating goons to kidnap him, but he was still a bit proud to hear that the king wanted him to save Earth. “I knew Mick was the one who sent the Valky-rians to kidnap me! So he would win without a contest.”

  Dexter nodded. “That makes sense! Stupid Mick!”

  Jacob was incredibly relieved that Dexter was safe and wasn’t mad, and he was so glad he would have him along for the rest of the election. Together they had defeated every obstacle substitute teachers had thrown at them, and he knew they could conquer the universe when they rejoined forces.

  “So you’re really friends with the space monkeys?” Jacob asked.

  “Yes.” Dexter nodded. “I really am. I’m like their king.”

  Jacob started to laugh, thinking Dexter was joking, but when he saw that Dexter was serious he stopped himself.

  “Well, bring them along,” Jacob said. “I need some security guards.”

  We need a better slogan,” Mick said as he threw a ball against the wall and caught it. He stopped and then held up his hands like a magician. “The Truth Crusader. No, that’s not right. Hmm… Let’s see… Truth and Justice. Truth and… something. Definitely need to have truth in there somewhere.”

  Sarah wondered for the seven hundredth time what she was doing riding around on a Mick Cracken–designed spaceship campaigning to elect him president of the universe. The food was terrible (Mick considered an Astral version of Sloppy Joes one of the five food groups), the company was insufferable, and she had heard enough lounge music to last her several lifetimes. Given how poorly Jacob had run his campaign so far, she had no doubt she and Mick would win, but that didn’t make his constant antics any easier to deal with.

  They were headed for Planet Veritas, the place where Astrals had their court system and where it was strictly forbidden to tell a single lie, no matter how large or small. Sarah couldn’t begin to fathom why Mick Cracken of all people had agreed to debate Jacob on a planet where he was legally bound to tell the entire truth, but he’d insisted that it would be good for the campaign.

  She stared at Mick and wondered how many brain cells he really had left. “I thought you promised everyone you were going to lie all the time,” she said. “Why are we doing this?”

  Sarah knew that Mick would bestow on her a smug grin in response, his expression of choice whenever she questioned one of his devious schemes. Sure enough, he smiled exactly like she thought he would. Somehow the fact that she knew in advance that he would smile like that made her even angrier.

  “Oh Sarah, so much to learn, so much to learn,” Mick said. “Slogans aren’t about lying. Here’s what you do. You take one of your weaknesses and say the exact opposite, but in a way that’s not technically lying. Watch. If you were very short, you’d say, ‘Standing Tall for Astrals!’ You’re not saying you are tall, just that you’re standing as tall as you can even though you’re tiny. If you were the head of an Earther company that accidentally turned a river purple, you’d say, ‘Protecting the Environment One River at a Time!’ That line is genius because the one river you were protecting at that time wasn’t the one you turned purple.”

  “And what should my slogan be?”

  Mick caught the ball he had been bouncing and thought silently for a second. Sarah hoped his brain didn’t blow a fuse. Then he grinned and said, “Sarah Daisy: She’ll Grow on You if You Get to Know Her Better.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “Genius, sir,” Mick Jr. chimed in.

  “Oh, well of course you’d agree with him,” Sarah spat.

  Mick adopted a concerned expression, and Sarah braced herself for some flattery. “You know you’re an Earther, right? Astrals are a little suspicious of people from your planet, in case you haven’t noticed. But they’ll love you once they look past all that.”

  Sarah tried to decide if he was being sincere or was still making fun of her. “I guess I can see that.”

  “Trust me, I know what it feels like when people underestimate you.” He stared into the distance and Sarah thought she saw a hint of sadness in Mick’s face. “My own dad nominated someone else for president. How do you think that felt?”

  It had never even occurred to her that when the king threw his weight behind Jacob’s candidacy, he was undermining his own son’s dreams. It was Mick’s idea to have a president in the first place, and yet his own dad didn’t think he was capable of it. She felt a pang of sympathy. Sarah’s parents thought she was capable of anything.

  “Sir,” Mick Jr. said. “We’ve arrived on Planet Veritas.”

  “About time too,” Mick said, smiling again at Sarah. He gave her a wave as if what they had been talking about was nothing to worry about. “The perfect place for my new campaign slogan. ‘Striving for Truth, and a Running Mate Who Is Really Kind of Nice, No Really, You Should Go Bowling with Her Sometime.’”

  “You’re impossible,” Sarah said as she walked with Mick toward the rear of the ship.

  They were met by a very stern old man in bright red robes, along with a rotund space officer who fiddled with his handcuffs like he was itching to arrest someone. The man in red robes promptly held up his right hand and said, “Do you swear to tell the whole truth the entire time you are on Planet Veritas and agree that any lie will be met with immediate imprisonment?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, glancing in fear at the space officer.

  “Absolutely,” Mick said.

  “In order to enter our planet, your commitment to the sanctity of truth must be tested. What is the ugliest part of my face?” the man asked. He pointed at Sarah. “You first.”

  Sarah’s eyes went wide. Was she really supposed to tell this man a part of his face was ugly? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings or make him mad. But she didn’t want to go to prison for lying either. Her heart raced and she said very carefully, “Well, I mean, you’re a very, um…” She was about to say handsome, but she realized it wasn’t true. “Distinguished-looking person, and while I’d hate to say anything bad about your face… Which is true! Um, since I have to pick something out…” Sarah closed her eyes. “Your hairy mole. I’m so sorry!”

  She opened her eyes and the man nodded. He didn’t seem to be offended.

  He turned to Mick and said, “And what’s the most unpleasant part of being around—”

  “Bad breath,” Mick said immediately. “Like, really, insanely bad. You should get that checked out.”

  The man nodded again. “Quite right. You may enter our planet.” He bowed politely and walked away. Sarah wasn’t so sure she wanted to step off the ship.

  Mick, on the other hand, jumped in the air and pumped his fist. “I love it here!”

  The man in red robes, whose name was Mr. Simon, cleared a piece of phlegm from his throat and then reminded everyone that the candidates were under oath to tell the truth and the whole truth or else they would be locked up in a most unpleasant jail. Jacob stood smugly behind his lectern while Mick checked out his hair in a small mirror. There was no way Mick could beat him at a debate where honesty was a requirement.

  Jacob looked out into the crowd and saw Sarah Daisy, and he narrowed his eyes at her. She narrowed her
eyes back. He was even more motivated to win the debate.

  “Now then,” Mr. Simon said. “What do you feel are the most important issues in the campaign? Let’s start with Candidate Wonderbar.”

  Jacob turned to the audience and cameras and said, “Thank you, Mr. Simon. Let’s start with time, which is completely confusing. I don’t know how anyone can tell their zoomecs from their parcelticks from their starweeks. Different planets have different time systems, and that doesn’t make sense. When I’m president I’ll start an initiative to fix that. One Galaxy, One Time. It’s time”—Jacob smiled at his pun—“for a change.”

  The audience clapped politely. Mick yawned.

  “Candidate Cracken?” Mr. Simon prompted.

  “Wouldn’t some say that the biggest issue in the campaign is that my opponent is deranged and possibly a former mental patient?” Mick asked.

  Jacob smiled and stuck a finger out at Mick. “That’s a lie! Arrest him!”

  The audience stirred and chattered, and Mr. Simon called for order.

  Mick raised his hands in innocence. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that my opponent is a deranged psychopath. I believe Candidate Wonderbar is an upstanding citizen who knows how to tie his shoes. I’m just asking a question, and a question isn’t a lie. Should people be worried that Jacob Wonderbar could be completely crazy and mentally imbalanced? Should they be terrified of his secret agenda? Those are just questions, understand.”

  Jacob felt his ears burning. Mick had found a loophole.

  “Should people be worried that my opponent is a liar who can’t tell the truth?” Jacob asked.

  “No, they shouldn’t,” Mick said. “Because we’re on a planet where I am legally bound to tell the truth. If I lied, I would be imprisoned.”

  Jacob fumed. He had thought that Mick would be slowed down on Planet Veritas, but he realized Mick was just using the planet against him. Still, he knew the worst thing he could do would be to fall into Mick’s plot. He needed to stick to his game plan.

  “Let’s get back to the issues,” Jacob said. “There is not nearly enough pizza in outer space, and if I were president—”

  “Did you see how Candidate Wonderbar just interrupted me?” Mick asked.

  “But…” Jacob sputtered. “You just interrupted me! I was trying to—”

  “Sad, isn’t it?” Mick asked. “Makes you wonder…”

  Jacob turned back to Mr. Simon in exasperation and waited for him to ask another question.

  “Why do you want to be president?” Mr. Simon asked. “Candidate Cracken, you first.”

  Mick rested his chin on a fist, appearing deep in thought, and then said, “This election was my idea. I convinced the king, my father, that the people deserved to choose their own leader. That is why you now have the right to vote. I think having a monarchy is lazy”—he looked up as he said this, and Jacob knew he was making a point of looking at Catalina—“and I think this election is the best thing to ever happen to the Astral people. We can decide our future together. I know I’m the right person to lead us into this new era.”

  As the audience applauded, Jacob waited a moment for police to swoop in to arrest Mick, but he realized he must not have been lying.

  “Candidate Wonderbar?” Mr. Simon asked. “Why do you want to be president?”

  Jacob wanted to come up with something just as eloquent as Mick’s response, to give the people the answer they wanted to hear, something that sounded even more impressive. But he knew he couldn’t so much as stretch the truth, or else he’d land in jail. And the truth wasn’t impressive at all.

  He looked down at the lectern and said, “I think I’d do a good job. And… well, the king asked me to.”

  And with that, Jacob knew that the truth had just cost him the debate.

  Jacob tried to get some rest as they blasted off from Planet Veritas, but all he could do was stare at his Telly. He had successfully survived a Valkyrian kidnapping attempt, his debate was a disaster, and he was very, very tired. He thought about ending it all and just heading back to the tunnel through the space kapow and back home to the street where all the houses looked the same. Maybe being king of the seventh grade was really all he was cut out for.

  Even still, he couldn’t quite give up on his dream. He wasn’t sure if his Telly would work back on Earth, and there was someone he needed to summon the courage to call before he decided to go home. He could find out once and for all if his dad really was in outer space and talk to him and—

  There was a loud banging on his door. Jacob sat up quickly.

  “Who is it?”

  “Can I come in?” Catalina shouted from outside.

  Jacob slumped back onto his pillow. “Fine.”

  Catalina skipped into the room and thrust her Telly in his face. “Good news! Your poll numbers have finally moved. We’re at twenty percent! The debate didn’t hurt us too much, and people loved our escape on Planet Hermit.”

  “Really?”

  Catalina smiled with pride. “They thought you conducted yourself like a true Astral.”

  Jacob wondered how running for your life and being saved by a spaceship constituted acting like an Astral. “I conducted myself like a human being,” he mumbled.

  “Well, they didn’t know you could be so… exciting. This is exactly where we want to be heading into the Battles Supreme! Everyone loves a comeback, and if we could just get your poll numbers peaking at the right time, we’ll—”

  “Wait. The Battles what?”

  “The Battles Supreme,” Catalina said.

  “Oh, right. What are those?”

  “Oh… wow. Darling, do you even have news on Earth? The Battles Supreme. Three tests of intelligence and strength so everyone can make up their minds before voting day. The battles are judged by the Election Council, except for the third one, which is judged by my daddy. The first one involves corndogs.”

  “Corndogs? Really?” Jacob had imagined himself swinging from ropes and jumping over logs like he had seen in military training scenes. He wasn’t sure how leaping across a muddy pond would make him qualified to be president, but he had stopped being surprised about anything Astral-related.

  Jacob suddenly remembered that Catalina had been upset with him for being so rude about her hugging him and for lumping her in with the Valkyrians even though she wasn’t like them. And yet there she was standing before him looking rested and happy as if she didn’t have a care in the world. He admired that she never seemed to let anything get her down for long, and she appeared genuinely excited that they had made some progress on their campaign. But that didn’t change the fact that he had been rude.

  “Hey,” Jacob said. “Catalina. Sorry about calling Astrals maniacs, I—”

  “Shush!” Catalina said. She shook her head and beamed. “You don’t ever have to apologize to me.”

  Jacob frowned. Whenever he crossed Sarah Daisy, things were never better until he had groveled out apologies until he couldn’t grovel any more and had thoroughly exhausted every drop of pride and patience he possessed, at which time she maybe, possibly found it in her better self to forgive him. It didn’t seem right that Catalina wouldn’t let him apologize, let alone expect him to try to make amends. “But that’s… I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

  Catalina waved her finger at him. “Shush, shush, shush. You just worry about winning this election.”

  “But—”

  “Ta, darling!”

  Catalina skipped out of his room and closed the door behind her. Jacob wondered if he would someday come to understand the workings of the female mind.

  “Oh my!” Praiseworthy shouted. “We have trouble.”

  Jacob heard a noise at the rear of the ship. He jumped out of bed and ran toward the hold. He heard a galloping sound and suddenly a large gray-haired chimpanzee ran past him, slipped on the smooth floor, and crashed into a wall.

  “No! Boris! Inside running, please!” Dexter shouted.

  Jacob
reached the hold and found Dexter surrounded by monkeys and a small one clinging to his back.

  “We made it!” Dexter said.

  Jacob walked over and high-fived Dexter. He was so glad they were finally back together.

  “What did I miss?” Dexter asked.

  Jacob felt many different emotions all at once when he thought back to the last week and all the things Dexter had missed. He tried to figure out what he should tell Dexter first. When he had last seen Dexter, Jacob thought he was a shoo-in and had assumed since the king nominated him that the election would just be a formality. But instead he had given poorly received speeches and had nearly been chased to his death and lost to Mick in a debate. “I don’t know, Dexter,” he said finally. “This has been hard.”

  “Harder than surviving Numonia?”

  Jacob thought back to eating space dust, and it made him smile a little. “Yeah. Even harder than that.”

  Dexter peered at Jacob as if he had been replaced by a robot, and Jacob realized that he couldn’t remember a time when he was scared and Dexter was the confident one. He felt like the ground was shifting beneath him.

  Dexter slapped Jacob on the back. “Cheer up, Wonderbar. If I can escape a bunch of crazy soldiers and rescue a clan of space monkeys, I’m pretty sure it means you can do anything. The king nominated you to save Earth. You have to win.”

  Jacob felt some blood returning to his face. Dexter was right. Failure wasn’t an option.

  “But don’t do it for me,” Dexter said. “Do it for the monkeys.”

  Sarah watched as Mr. Simon prepared for his post-debate interview with Mick, who looked serene and content and right at home. Sarah just wanted him to get it over with so they could leave. She was quite fed up with the matter-of-fact honesty of the Veritasians. She had already been told that she was overly intense, that her clothes were horribly out of style, and Mr. Simon had proclaimed that he didn’t particularly like children. There was a reason normal people don’t tell every truth, Sarah reasoned, and it was because having all of your flaws pointed out all the time was not a recipe for healthy self-esteem.