Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back!

by Michael Winerip

  Adam was taking notes.

  “I don’t meet many great reporters, even at the best papers and magazines. I meet lots of pretty good ones, but very few men and women willing to dig all the way down until they hit truth. Most just want enough facts to fill the space. Your question’s a beaut, but it’s not just your question. The very greatest have asked it, too.” He stood up and walked along the bookshelf. “Stop me anywhere,” he said.

  “Now,” said Adam. They were in the Fs. Forrest pulled out two books by William Faulkner. “Nobel Prize–winning novelist,” said Forrest. “Can’t get any greater. Drank himself into a stupor trying to make easy money writing for movies.”

  Forrest was walking again.

  “Now,” Adam said.

  They were at the Ks and Forrest pulled out The Castle by Franz Kafka. “You said you weren’t sure about the science fair story? Kafka wasn’t either. When he died, you know what his orders were? ‘Burn all my books.’ He thought they were trash. Thank God they didn’t listen.” Forrest motioned to the wall of books. “Smart people,” he said. “And still, many got lost. What they thought was good was bad; what they thought was bad was good. But you can’t stop trying.”

  “A question,” said Adam. “You know that story about Kafka? Do you think when you die, you’ll have them burn Pancakes Are Exploding!?”

  Forrest leaned forward. “Between you and me? I’m going to burn it right after this interview.”

  “What I mean is, how could you?” asked Adam.

  “Well, the short answer,” said Forrest, “is I got lazy. The more famous I became, the less time I spent reporting and the more time I spent doing cable news shows — Erik Forrest, expert war correspondent.”

  “What’s the long answer?” asked Adam.

  “Ever been married, Adam?” asked Forrest.

  “Um, no.”

  “Didn’t think so,” said Forrest. “Like somebody?”

  “Not really,” said Adam. “Well, sort of. A little bit.”

  “Well, I’ve liked too many somebodies. One day I’m having a drink at a party, and I mention I’m worried my third marriage is going down the toilet, so I’m trying to travel less and help out more around the house. And a sharp young book editor says, ‘Erik Forrest’s next war will be fought on the home front. Erik Forrest is Mr. Mom.’ You know what that is, Adam?”

  Adam didn’t.

  “High concept,” said Forrest.

  “What’s that?” asked Adam.

  “It’s basically a book or movie where the only important part is the title,” said Forrest. “You ask why I wrote it? I figured this was going to be the easiest two hundred thousand dollars I ever made.”

  “You got two hundred thousand dollars for this?” said Adam, wiggling Pancakes Are Exploding! at Forrest.

  “Yes,” said Forrest. “That was the advance. You putting that in your story?”

  “Was it off the record?” asked Adam.

  “Nah, you can use it,” said Forrest. “Just do me a favor? Send me a copy of whatever you write? I’m dying to see what you make of all this.

  “To answer your original question,” Forrest continued, “my prescription for being a great reporter is: First, always keep reporting until you get to the bottom of the story. Dig, dig, dig. Second, never forget that the people you’re interviewing are the story, not you. Third, don’t do cable news shows. And fourth, drink lots of fluids — nonalcoholic are best.”

  Adam loved tips. He could see running a sidebar with the main story headlined “Erik Forrest’s Four Tips to Great Reporting.”

  The khaki-pantsers were ready to go, but Forrest gave them twenty dollars and told them to find a bar and have a few big pink drinks with fruit sticking out the top. “Just call the next mall and say, ‘This Erik Forrest is a hothead and we’re running late.’ The public loves hothead writers. I promise, when we get there, I’ll tell them all the stories they can stand — I’ll even throw in the one about almost getting arrested for leaving the kids alone, double-parked in the van outside the bank.”

  “That one was actually pretty good,” said Adam.

  “Oh, met your standards, did it?” said Forrest. “I’m relieved.”

  Forrest used the time to ask Adam about the Slash. It was fun for Adam; Forrest really was a great reporter, and he got every story that Adam described right away. Adam mentioned the investigation that got Marris fired as principal; he shared his plan for the science fair story; he told Forrest how they had stopped the basketball hoops from being torn down by the Tremble Zoning Board chairwoman, Mrs. Boland.

  “Mrs. Boland,” repeated Forrest. “Any relation to Boland Cable?”

  “The same,” said Adam.

  “Impressive,” said Forrest. “Be careful. You upset powerful people like the Bolands, they can squeeze you hard. They don’t forget.” Forrest took out his wallet and gave Adam his card. “If I can ever help, you call,” he said. “I mean it.” He got up.

  “Mr. Forrest,” said Adam, “this was great. I learned so much. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Thanks, Adam,” said Forrest. “Me, too.”

  When Adam got home, he went to the computer for the first time in days and wrote to Jennifer. He was afraid he’d get her away message, but she was online.

  I’M BACK! he wrote.

  How’d it go? she wrote.

  No, I mean I’M BACK!

  I know, she wrote. Was he good?

  You don’t get it, he wrote. I’M BACK! I feel like I’ve busted through a fog I’ve been stuck in ever since that stupid shoveling thing. I’M BACK!

  Ohhhhhhh. YOU’RE BACK! Thank heavens. I need you BACK!

  She wrote that she’d gotten Phoebe’s story on the three-hundred-year-old tree that the state wanted to cut down and it was awful. She said she’d e-mail him a copy.

  Great! he wrote. On the ride home, I figured out my science project. It’ll make a great Spotlight investigation, too. The Devil’s going down!

  What a day. He was ready for bed.

  But before he put on his away message, Jennifer wrote again: Sweet dreams. Am in my nighty saying nighty-nighty.

  Adam laughed out loud. Jennifer really could get a little fruity sometimes.

  Adam had never felt so energetic, so focused. At the Quiz Bowl Gladiator meet, he banged his buzzer so fast, the opposing team sat paralyzed. The plumes on their gray plastic helmets drooped miserably.

  At basketball practice, he was on fire. Coach had the first and second teams scrimmage. Adam was the point guard on the second team, and they usually lost to the starters. Today they demolished them. Adam hit twelve-footers, eighteen-footers, even a couple of threes. He crossed over the first team point guard, Tish Osborne, so bad that Tish fell, and Adam got to offer him a hand up — the ultimate insult.

  “Floor’s slippery,” Tish mumbled. “No way you crossed me.”

  “I know,” said Adam, smiling straight into his lying face.

  At dinner they had the Chinese salad his dad was so proud of — cabbage, scallions, soy chicken, noodles, toasted almonds, a vinegar-and-oil dressing. Normally, Adam’s response was, “Dad, can you heat up some frozen chicken nuggets? There’s too much going on in this salad.” Tonight he could have happily consumed another fifty ingredients.

  Sleep problems? Ha! His head hit the pillow and he was out. Fast at Quiz Bowl, fast at basketball, and fast asleep.

  Jennifer was surprised. Usually Adam sat alone at lunch or with a buddy. She liked that he wasn’t attached to any group. But today he was with the basketball team — not the easiest collection of human beings.

  The moment they saw her, they gave her a hard time. “Looking for your Slash bunny, honey?” one asked.

  “Your hoop dream?” said another.

  “No,” said Tish Osborne, the best player and mouthiest. “Basketball’s a little common for Jen. She’s a tennis girl — thirty-love, right, cookie?”

  “Shut up, Tish,” said Jennifer, “or next time I see you
on the court, I’ll cross you so bad, the entire team won’t be able to scrape you up.”

  Several boys went, “Ooooooooh,” and Tish stood.

  “Never been crossed and never will,” he said. “You hear any different?”

  “I do,” said Jennifer. “I hear you been crossing every day to walk home on Ashley Wheatley’s side of the street. I hear for some reason, Ashley Wheatley thinks you’re cute.”

  There were “Oooooooohs” again, but Tish liked them this time and a bad moment passed.

  Adam slid his leg over the bench seat and slipped away. “Got to go,” he said. “Duty calls.”

  The two found a table on the edge of the lunchroom. “Since when are you a jock?” Jennifer asked.

  “I play five sports,” said Adam.

  “Right,” said Jennifer. “But there’s a difference between playing sports and being a jock. You with the hot boys now?”

  Adam smiled. “A few starters grabbed me and said, ‘You play like the first team, you got to eat with the first team.’”

  “Poor baby,” she said. “You had no choice.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You fixed that. Tish is going to wipe the floor with me at practice. How’d you know I crossed him?”

  Jennifer loved that about Adam. All the low-life gossip and chitchat whizzed right by him. “It’s all over school,” she said. “I believe the correct term is ‘broke his ankles’?”

  “You’re lucky to be a girl,” said Adam. “If I said that stuff to Tish, he’d break every bone I own. But he won’t go after you — I’ll pay.”

  He had a point, but all Jennifer said was, “Maybe.

  “That wasn’t about you anyway,” she went on. “I couldn’t let Tish get away with that cookie crap. You know what that is, right?”

  Adam nodded, though he didn’t have a clue. He found it impossible to keep up with all the inside stuff.

  “I just said what popped into my head,” she said.

  “Forget it,” said Adam. “He’d be looking to get even anyway. I didn’t realize — seems like you know him.”

  Jennifer nodded. “I’ve been in his class a lot,” she said. “He’s not mean like he seems sometimes. You should see him with his little brother, Tyrone. Calls him Ty-Ty. He can actually be very sweet.”

  Adam nodded. He just knew Tish from basketball and hadn’t personally witnessed a lot of Tish’s sweetness.

  “It’s hard to know people when everyone’s so busy sticking it to everyone,” said Jennifer. “You understand why they had you at their table? They were sticking it to Tish. They were using you to remind Tish that first string’s on the line. You don’t think they suddenly wanted to be your best friend?”

  “For a minute I did,” Adam said.

  Jennifer gave him her super fisheye.

  “Maybe not an entire minute.”

  “We’ve got problems,” she said, going into her backpack and pulling out Phoebe’s tree story. “What do I do with this?”

  Adam’s answer surprised her. He liked the story. He admitted it had a few weak spots, but he had gotten all excited when he realized that the three-hundred-year-old tree in question was the climbing tree. The state was talking about cutting down the climbing tree! He loved that tree, and it sure didn’t look like it was dying. The tree had a full crown of leaves in summer, and the trunk felt plenty hard last time Adam accidentally skidded his bike into it. After the big snow, he’d seen kids using it for cover in a snowball fight. A few had climbed into the lower branches and were dropping snow bombs.

  For Adam, it was a tree impossible not to climb. The branches spread upward, like a ladder. Most kids were too scared to go for the high ones, but ever since he was little, Adam had been a great climber and actually reached the top once. He could see for miles.

  At that moment, Jennifer had no patience for Adam’s fond childhood memories. She’d expected a little coeditor unity.

  “A few weak spots?” she said. “What about the lead-in describing Phoebe’s ‘emotion-laden’ visit during ‘what might be this magnificent specimen’s final, tragic winter’? And her thoughts on how this relates to her recent appointment as third-grade recycling captain? And her twelve-line quote from Dr. Seuss about ‘the Lorax, who speaks for the trees . . .’”

  “‘Who speaks for the birds, who speaks for the bees,’” recited Adam. It was his favorite Dr. Seuss.

  Jennifer was glaring at him.

  “Stay calm,” Adam said. “You’ve got a point. You could probably cut out the first twenty-three graphs without hurting the story.”

  “And there’s no one giving the state’s side,” said Jennifer. “The state must have some reason for wanting to cut it down. She makes it sound like tree murder.”

  “Right,” said Adam. “Got to get a comment from the state. But — bad pun intended — you’re missing the forest for the trees. This is a three-hundred-year-old tree, and though I can’t exactly tell from Phoebe’s story, here’s my guess. There’s one reason to cut it down and one reason not to and they’re practically the same.

  “On one hand, it’s lived three hundred years, and could fall over tomorrow, crushing innocent people. On the other hand, it’s lived for three hundred years and it hasn’t crushed a soul, so why are they suddenly hot to cut it down? My reporter’s instinct tells me something rotten’s going on.”

  Jennifer was holding her head to stop it from exploding. “If you love it so much, you edit it.”

  “No thanks,” said Adam. “Phoebe’s your specialty. She thinks I don’t like her, remember?”

  “Could you at least come when I talk to her?”

  Adam could. Basketball practice was late today.

  Jennifer asked if he’d phoned the lady from the Willows, Mrs. Willard, about renaming that street for Dr. King.

  “No,” he said. “But I heard something at lunch.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Wait,” he said. “Weren’t you the one making fun of me for having lunch with those guys? It’s good for reporters to mix with different groups. You should try it.”

  “You are hilarious,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “It wasn’t so much what they were saying,” Adam said. “More the attitude. Like naming the street for Dr. King was a joke. The other thing I couldn’t follow exactly, but they were saying stuff about the Bolands.”

  “Who said?” asked Jennifer.

  “Tish. Some of his friends.”

  “Tish lives in the Willows,” said Jennifer.

  Adam pulled out his To-Do list and circled Mrs. Willard’s name for emphasis. His list was an all-time record, three feet eight inches long. When it hit forty-eight inches, it would be tall enough to ride the Giant Chute at Splosh-Splosh Water & Adventure Park on Route 119.

  He had to finish his abstract for his new science fair project. He had a practice DBQ — data-based question — due for before-school/after-school voluntary/mandatory class for the state test. He had to call Outraged Single Mother.

  He had to go to basketball and get wiped by Tish.

  By the time they got to Room 306, Phoebe was waiting, fiddling with a camera. “Want to see the tree?” she asked. She’d gotten a digital camera for Christmas and used the screen to show them. Most photos were Phoebe standing in front of the tree. Phoebe had apparently taken the pictures herself, using the self-timing device, because in a few frames there was a blur that appeared to be Phoebe racing to get in the picture. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The tree trunk was so wide — eight feet, according to the story — and the photos were shot so close up, the pictures looked like Phoebe standing in front of a wall.

  “You can’t tell it’s a tree,” said Jennifer.

  “I know,” said Phoebe. “If I stood far enough back to get most of the tree in, I was just a dot. So I compromised. I figured people would be able to tell from the headline that it was a tree.

  “So you liked the story?” asked Phoebe.

  Jennifer said, “There�
��s a lot of good stuff in there.”

  For a moment, Phoebe’s eyes got huge, then, while still sitting straight in her chair, she flopped her head back until she was staring at the ceiling. “You hated it,” she moaned.

  “No,” said Jennifer.

  “Yes,” said Phoebe, still staring at the ceiling. “Everyone knows that if editors say something’s perfect, then you have to change maybe a third of it. And if they say it’s a couple of small things, that’s about half. And if they say there’s a lot of good stuff in there — well, you might as well just throw the whole story away and shoot yourself.”

  “You’re overreacting,” said Jennifer. “It’s going to be great. But the story’s like the photos — too much you. Not enough tree.”

  “You don’t like the start?” said Phoebe, lifting her head to look at Jennifer, then flopping it back. “That’s where all the feeling is.”

  Jennifer said feeling was good, but twenty-three paragraphs was too much.

  “Too much?” said Phoebe. “I already cut it way back. It used to be forty-two graphs.”

  Jennifer said they needed to talk to state officials and that might give them an idea about how to redo the story. “We’ll figure this out,” said Jennifer. “Just stop looking at the ceiling.”

  “I did bad,” said Phoebe.

  “All reporters, no matter how great, have stories that give them trouble,” said Jennifer. “Adam came totally unglued during his science fair investigation.”

  “Really?” said Phoebe, looking over at Adam. “You?”

  “Not totally,” said Adam. “I was still able to walk and take nourishment.”

  Phoebe cheered up. Her head was still flopped back, but at least she was making sideways eye contact.

  “Sometimes, when it comes to writing, less can be more,” said Jennifer. She told Phoebe about Night, a book on the middle-school summer reading list. It was about the concentration camps in Germany during World War II. Practically every Harris middle-schooler chooses it because Night is the shortest book on the list at one hundred and twenty pages. “Adam read the whole thing the last day of vacation,” said Jennifer. “But then it turns out to be this moving story about a Jewish boy living in a death camp.” Their English teacher said that the author, Elie Wiesel, was himself a death-camp survivor. And people always asked how after going through so much, did Wiesel write such a skinny book?