by Nancy Krulik
“How can you tell?” Miriam asked her.
“He wore a suit,” Suzanne said.
“So? Does that matter?” Katie wondered.
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Katie, that’s why you will never be our mayor. A candidate’s clothes are very important. Mayor Fogelhymer looked much more professional in his suit.”
Katie looked down at her pink sweater and running pants. She didn’t look like a mayor. But Suzanne’s glittery shirt and jeans didn’t look like something a mayor would wear, either.
Katie decided she would have to say something important in her speech. Yes! Something that sounded very mayor-like. Something that would make all the kids want to vote for her.
Katie frowned. She had no idea what that could be.
Chapter 7
“Thanks for helping me with my speech, you guys,” Katie told Jeremy and Emma W. later that afternoon. “I’m glad some people are still behind me.”
“Lots of kids want you to win,” Emma W. assured Katie. She looked at the computer screen in front of her. “Your speech is going to be great.”
“I could never vote for Suzanne,” Jeremy told Katie. “She’s bossy enough as it is. She’ll be impossible if she’s mayor.”
“You’re not kidding,” Emma W. agreed. “You remember that time she got a bunch of us to garden with her?”
Katie giggled. “How could I forget?” she said. “She called gardening the War of the Roses. She named herself the general.”
“And we were all soldiers in her army,” Emma W. recalled. She made a face. “She even ordered us to put stinky rotten fish all around the rosebushes.”
Jeremy shook his head. “I’m glad you’re never mean like Suzanne is, Katie.”
“I try not to be,” Katie told him.
“That’s why people will vote for you,” Emma W. said. “They’re just helping Suzanne right now because she bribed them. But soon they’ll see through her.”
“I sure hope so,” Katie said. “I’ll bet Andy hopes so, too.”
“Who’s helping him with his speech?” Jeremy asked.
Katie shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He doesn’t talk about the election too much. He had a nice poster, though.”
“Let’s stop worrying about what Andy and Suzanne are going to say,” Emma W. said. “We’ve got a speech to write. We have to tell the kids why you’re better than Andy and Suzanne are.”
“Exactly,” Jeremy agreed. “Do you have any stories about Suzanne that could make her look bad?”
“Shouldn’t I be telling kids things that make me look good?” Katie asked him.
“Sure,” Jeremy said. “But it would help if we could make Suzanne look bad, too.”
Katie thought for a minute. She knew a lot of secrets about Suzanne. Things her friend would never want anyone else to know. Like the fact that she was scared of spiders and the dark. Or that she wasn’t very good at spelling. And that she wore a night brace on her teeth.
But Katie couldn’t say those things in her speech. Those were secrets between her and Suzanne. And no matter how mad Suzanne made her, Katie could never tell them to anyone.
“No, there aren’t any stories I could tell,” Katie told her friends.
“I’ll bet there are,” Jeremy said. “You’re just too nice.”
“That’s it!” Katie exclaimed suddenly. “I’ll be the nice candidate.”
“The what?” Emma W. and Jeremy asked at one time.
“The nice candidate,” Katie repeated. “I’ll talk about how nice I am. Being nice is important because a mayor has to be nice to get along with everyone. That will make people vote for me.”
Katie didn’t have to worry about Suzanne copying her. Suzanne didn’t want to be a nice candidate. Not at all!
The next morning, as Katie walked onto the playground, she overheard Suzanne talking to a group of kids. She was saying some pretty awful things.
“You can’t vote for Katie,” Suzanne told them. “She’s a big baby. Do you know once during a sleepover she peed in the bed? My mom had to get up in the middle of the night to change the sheets and give her a pair of my dry pajamas!”
Katie’s face turned beet red. That had been all the way back in first grade! Three whole years ago!
But Suzanne hadn’t told the kids that part. She’d made it sound like it happened just last week!
Katie thought about telling the kids the truth, but she was too embarrassed to even look at them. So instead, she ran into the cafeteria. She was hoping to be alone for a minute.
The first thing Katie spotted when she walked into the cafeteria was a new poster. It was Suzanne’s.
Katie hated to admit it, but the poster was really cool. Someone had used a computer to put Suzanne into pictures with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Underneath the pictures it said, GREAT AMERICAN LEADERS.
Katie sighed. There was only one person in the whole fourth grade who knew enough about computers to make a poster like that. Manny Gonzalez. No wonder Suzanne had wanted him to be on her team.
Still, Katie liked her own posters best. She looked over at the wall where they were hanging.
Oh, no! Someone had drawn a mustache and a beard on the one with Katie’s photo on it. The poster was ruined!
And so was the poster that said, IT’S KATIE TIME. Someone had changed it. Now it said, IT’S NOT KATIE TIME!
Grrr.
There was only one person in the world mean enough to do that!
Suddenly, Katie was mad.
Madder than she’d ever been.
So mad that she did something she never thought she would.
Katie spilled one of Suzanne’s secrets.
Quickly, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a black Magic Marker. Then she walked over to Suzanne’s poster and drew a big, ugly night brace across Suzanne’s smiling mouth!
Chapter 8
When lunchtime came, Katie took her tray and sat down beside Jeremy. When Suzanne got her food, she went to sit at the other end of the table, with Jessica. It felt kind of weird not to be sitting near Suzanne, but Katie wasn’t going to move. She knew Suzanne wouldn’t, either.
Just then, Miriam stormed over to Suzanne. “I didn’t know you wore a night brace,” she said.
Suzanne looked up at her, surprised.
“W-what?” she asked nervously.
“You made me feel so bad when I got my braces,” Miriam shouted at Suzanne. “You told me braces were ugly. And all that time, you’re sleeping in a night brace!”
Suzanne got all embarrassed. “How did you know about that?” she asked.
Miriam pointed to Suzanne’s poster. “It’s right there,” she said.
Suzanne’s eyes grew wide as she spotted what Katie had drawn on her Great Leaders poster.
Katie gulped. When Suzanne got angry, you never knew what could happen.
“Katie Carew, you are such a creep!” Suzanne exclaimed. “That was supposed to be a secret!”
Katie turned bright red.
“I’m glad Katie let everyone know about your night brace,” Miriam told Suzanne. “Now we all know what a faker you are! I wouldn’t vote for you if you were the only person running for mayor!”
By now, the whole fourth grade was staring at Miriam and Suzanne. Everyone had heard what Miriam had said. From the looks on their faces, Katie could tell lots of other kids had decided not to vote for Suzanne, either.
Suddenly, Katie felt sort of creepy. The night brace had been a secret. Katie shouldn’t have done what she did, even if Suzanne had blabbed about Katie wetting the bed. How many times had her parents said that two wrongs didn’t make a right?
“Miriam, think about it,” Suzanne urged. “You can’t vote for Katie. She’s scared of everything. And she gets carsick. Remember that field trip we took to the fire station? She threw up all over the bus!”
Katie frowned. “That was in kindergarten!” she shouted.
“It could happen again,” Suz
anne continued. “Who wants a mayor who will throw up in the car on the way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony or a big fancy ball?”
“Fourth-grade mayors don’t cut ribbons or go to fancy balls,” Jeremy reminded Suzanne.
Katie looked up and smiled gratefully. Jeremy smiled back at her.
Just then, Mr. G. raced over. “What’s all the commotion, dudes?” he asked. “I can hear you all the way at the teachers’ table.”
“Suzanne said I shouldn’t be mayor because I got carsick one time!” Katie complained.
“Yeah, well, you told everyone about my night brace,” Suzanne snapped back.
“Only because…” Katie began.
“Whoa, hold on,” Mr. G. told the girls. “This is no way to run a campaign. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s an election. You should be telling the people what you would do to make their lives better. Let them know why they should vote for you. Not why they should vote against the other person.”
“Oooh,” George moaned suddenly. He bent over.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“Are you okay?” Kevin asked him.
George shook his head. “I have a bad stomachache.”
“It’s all that candy you’ve been eating,” Mandy said. She pointed to George’s tray. There were candy bar wrappers all over it.
“Oooh,” George moaned again.
“You’d better go to the nurse,” Emma S. told him.
“I’ll take you, George,” Mr. G. said. He hurried over and helped George out of his seat.
“Poor George,” Katie said quietly. Then she turned to Suzanne. “It’s all your fault.”
“My fault?” Suzanne exclaimed.
“You gave him all of your Halloween candy,” Katie explained. “If you hadn’t bribed him to be on your side, he wouldn’t be sick now.”
“I don’t need to bribe anyone,” Suzanne told Katie. “People can just spot a winner.”
Katie frowned. She understood what Mr. G. had said. But her teacher didn’t know how mean Suzanne could be. And he didn’t realize how angry that made Katie feel.
“They sure can spot a winner,” Katie said. “And it’s not you!”
Suzanne stared at Katie with surprise.
Katie was surprised, too. She never said mean stuff like that. But somehow this whole election thing was changing her. For a minute, she thought about dropping out of the race before things got any worse between her and Suzanne.
But then Katie heard Suzanne say, “You guys can’t vote for Katie. We can’t have a copycat, secret-telling baby for our mayor. We have to have someone cool. We have to have me!”
“I’m not a baby! I’m three months older than you!” Katie shouted at Suzanne. “And if you think saying mean things is going to make me drop out of this race, you’re wrong! I’m going to keep on running. And I’m going to win!”
Chapter 9
Katie was really glad when lunch and recess were over. Mr. G. didn’t let the kids talk about the election inside their classroom. He said that their classroom was a campaign-free zone.
Katie was sick and tired of fighting over who would become mayor of the fourth grade. She was glad to just focus on her schoolwork.
Mr. G. told the class, “We’re going to be doing oral reports on the presidents of the United States. I want you each to choose a president. Then write your choice on a piece of paper and hand it in to me.”
Katie thought about that for a minute. She remembered her grandmother telling her about Harry Truman. He had been president back when her grandmother was born.
Katie thought it would be kind of cool to do her report about him. So she tore a piece of paper from her notebook and wrote: Katie Kazoo → Harry Truman.
Just as Katie was writing the letter n, George shouted out, “I want to do my report on John F. Kennedy.”
“No fair!” Kadeem exclaimed. “That’s who I wanted.”
“I said it first,” George told Kadeem.
“You’re not supposed to say it,” Kadeem replied. “You’re supposed to write it down on a piece of paper.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still going to do my report on John F. Kennedy,” George insisted.
“Wanna bet?” Kadeem shouted.
Katie gulped. Oh, no. More fighting.
Mr. G. jumped in. “Dudes, you don’t have to argue about this,” he told the boys.
“Yes, we do,” Kadeem insisted. “Because I’m not going to let him steal my president.”
“Your president?” George growled. “Since when is John F. Kennedy your president?”
“Dudes, relax,” Mr. G. said. “You can both do your reports on John F. Kennedy.”
“But we’re doing oral reports. That means we’re supposed to talk about our presidents,” George pointed out. “Kadeem’s report will seem pretty boring after mine.”
“My report will not be boring!” Kadeem insisted. “And who says you’re going first?”
“You don’t have to do the same report,” Mr. G. told the boys. “You can compromise.”
“How?” George asked.
“You’ll do your report about John F. Kennedy’s childhood,” Mr. G. told George. “And Kadeem, you can talk about what he was like as an adult.”
George and Kadeem looked at each other.
“I guess it’s okay,” Kadeem mumbled.
“Yeah, sure,” George agreed.
“Good.” Mr. G. smiled. “I’m glad you agreed to compromise. Now, if the rest of you will hand in your slips of paper, we can go down to the library and get started on our research.”
Katie loved working in the library. It was fun to sit at a big table with lots of books around her, taking notes about an interesting subject. Right now, reading about President Truman playing the piano made Katie forget all the things Suzanne had said about her.
But once the bell rang and the school day was over, Katie’s good mood vanished. She took her time packing up her things. What if the other kids made fun of her for throwing up on the bus in kindergarten or wetting the bed in first grade?
Slowly, Katie walked out of the school building.
A bunch of fourth-graders were gathered on the street. They were talking to Mandy’s mom. They all looked too upset to think about the school election.
What was going on?
“I can’t believe Mayor Fogelhymer said okay to a parking garage on that big empty lot,” Mandy groaned.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” her mom told the kids. “I just heard it on the car radio. And this time it’s definite. The mayor is meeting with the garage builders tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s that.” Kevin groaned. “No new playground.”
“Not necessarily,” Andy piped up. “We can still do something about it.”
“What?” Mandy asked. “We’re just kids.”
“When I was doing research on President Wilson,” Andy explained, “I saw all these pictures of women protesting in front of the White House.”
“You mean, like, with signs and stuff?” George asked. “What were they doing that for?”
“It was a real long time ago,” Andy explained. “Back then, women weren’t allowed to vote. That made them really mad. So they started carrying signs and protesting about how mean it was that they weren’t part of an election. And the protests worked. In 1920, women got the right to vote.”
“We could make protest signs and march around City Hall!” Katie exclaimed excitedly.
“What a wonderful idea!” Mrs. Banks exclaimed. “You kids should really stand up for what you believe in.”
“We could go to City Hall tomorrow,” Jeremy suggested. “It’s Saturday, so we don’t have school.”
“I’m going to go home and start making signs right now,” Andy said.
“I’ll help you,” Zoe told him.
Suzanne turned and smiled triumphantly at Mandy. “See? I told you it wasn’t over. We still might get our playground. And when we do, I will have been right and you will have been wron
g.”
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “I don’t care, as long as we get our playground.”
“We will,” Suzanne told Mandy. Then she turned and stared right at Katie. “I always get what I want.”
Katie didn’t answer. She was too focused on Saturday to fight with Suzanne. It was exciting to protest.
Mayor Fogelhymer had better watch out. The fourth grade was coming to City Hall!
Chapter 10
By nine-thirty Saturday morning, there was a big crowd of kids outside City Hall. And not just fourth-graders, either. There were kids of all ages and grown-ups, too. Just about everyone at Cherrydale Elementary School had heard about the protest and wanted the mayor to know how they felt about the new playground!
Katie and Jeremy were in the crowd, carrying their signs.
Katie’s said, PLAYGROUNDS ARE HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN!
Jeremy’s sign said, SWINGS YES! CARS NO!
“I don’t see any news cameras or reporters,” Jeremy pointed out. He sounded worried.
“They’ll be here as soon as Mayor Fogelhymer arrives,” Katie assured him.
“What if the mayor doesn’t work on Saturday?”
“He’ll be here,” Katie told him. “On the radio, they said he was meeting with some people from the garage company at ten o’clock.”
“Jeremy, over here!” Becky Stern called out from the other side of the steps.
Jeremy sighed. “Oh, man,” he groaned.
Katie felt bad for Jeremy. Becky was always flirting with him. She had a big crush on him. Jeremy, however, did not have a crush on Becky.
“We can’t leave,” Katie told Jeremy. “We have to fight for the playground.”
Jeremy nodded. “You’re right.”
Katie scanned the crowd. Over toward the left, closest to the City Hall steps, she spotted Suzanne. Ordinarily, Katie would have shouted and waved to her. But not today.