Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back!

by Michael Winerip

  He said he knew a simpler, faster alternative. “I know someone who’d love to do that Willows story.”

  “Who?” asked Adam.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Mr. Forrest. “Just e-mail me a copy of the story and Reverend Shorty’s phone number.”

  Adam kept thanking him. “You think this story will be out by next week?” Adam asked.

  “Oh no,” said Mr. Forrest. “Even though the Slash did it, the reporter will still have to go to the Willows and do all the stuff you guys did — interview the families and the minister, check out the boarded-up houses, get a comment from the Bolands. That takes time.”

  Adam once had overheard Marsha Tiffany Glickman, editor of Sketches, the Harris literary magazine, say it is a well-known poetic fact that April is the cruelest month. But that year, in the Tri-River Region, April was the warmest and sweetest Adam had ever seen. Spring was full upon them, and for days, Adam woke to bright sunshine and a balmy southerly breeze off the river. Big white clouds drifted by, lit up by the sun, and more than once, Adam thought how nice it would be to climb up on one and float away.

  It was a quieter time for the coeditors, though they were quiet-busy. Busy with their spring sports — Adam with baseball, Jennifer with tennis. Busy preparing for the spring concert — Adam had a jazz band concert, Jennifer a string recital. Busy readying music solos for the state competition; busy drilling at before-school/after-school classes for the state tests; busy prepping for the Quiz Bowl Gladiator regionals; busy with the Math Olympiad quarterfinals; busy with the Geography Challenge Countdown to Total Dominance.

  For these activities, their parents, their teachers, and their coaches told them where to stand, when to start, and when to go home.

  The Slash had been different: Adam and Jennifer had to think their own thoughts.

  There were, of course, still things to worry about. The court date in the snow-shoveling case was fast approaching, and Adam hadn’t written what he would tell the judge. A pink paper arrived, a subpoena, requiring him to appear in connection with Indictment No. SCI962 N-09, People of the County of Tremble versus Timothy Cox. There was a lengthy Victim’s Statement form and Victim’s Restitution form full of boxes to be checked. Adam was supposed to give his recommendation, ranging from a felony charge carrying four years in prison down to voluntary counseling. He sat at the computer, but each time, he got stalled and instant-messaged friends about stupid stuff.

  Adam and Jennifer knew nobody missed the Slash more than Phoebe. She wasn’t quite as overprogrammed as they were. She missed front-page glory. She missed talking with actual middle-school kids. She missed Jennifer, the world’s nicest coeditor. She even admitted to Adam that she missed him. “There were some days you weren’t that crabby,” she said.

  Phoebe feared she’d never be famous again.

  Recycling Club was fun, she told Jennifer, and being third-grade recycling captain was a huge honor. But winning a certificate for best recycling idea of the month — on recycled paper, of course — was not the same as front-page glory. Big kids didn’t give her high fives in the hallways because she won a recycling certificate.

  The coeditors had discovered that a few days a week after school, Phoebe still sneaked up to 306 to see, if by any chance, the door was open. Each time, she’d say, “Come on, baby,” and hold her breath five seconds for good luck, then turn the knob, feeling full of confidence.

  It was always locked.

  Sometimes, Phoebe leaned against the door on tiptoe, shielding her eyes and peering through the window. Just looking into 306 gave her a warm feeling. Everything had been left as it was — the posters, the iced-tea cans and chocolate-milk cartons. Phoebe could see old newspapers, drafts of stories, and photos scattered on desks. She could see her favorite couch for reporting icebergers.

  She’d stare at the picnic-bench conference table, where she had argued about the climbing tree story with two middle-school coeditors. That’s why she loved the Slash, she told Jennifer — ideas were more important here than what grade a person was in.

  Was it really over?

  Some days, she stood at the door on tiptoe so long, her legs got wobbly. Once, as she shifted her weight to steady herself, she bumped into someone and gasped.

  Turning, she was surprised to see Shadow.

  “What are you doing here?” Phoebe asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Shadow. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was — uh — making sure the door was locked,” said Phoebe. “So no one steals anything from the newsroom.”

  “Me, too,” said Shadow.

  “OK, then,” said Phoebe.

  “OK, then,” said Shadow, and they hurried down the hallway in opposite directions.

  “What are you doing here?” Adam whispered.

  Shadow was sitting on the other side of the wooden gate, in the spectators’ section of the courtroom. He looked positively giddy, waving a pink subpoena at Adam. Adam turned and stared toward the front again. He propped his head up with his hands to steady himself; inside, he felt like Jell-O.

  He sat at a table in the front of the courtroom, alongside the two prosecutors, whose job it was to put bad guys in jail.

  At the other table, across the aisle, sat the defense attorney, whose job it was to keep people out of jail. Next to the defense attorney was the kid who had punched Adam, Timmy Cox, Shadow’s older brother. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit worn by jail inmates. Two tall court officers with white shirts, silver badges, and guns guarded him.

  “ALL RISE!” a court clerk called out. “The Honorable Judge Carol Stokinger presiding.” A woman in a black robe entered from a rear door and sat at the bench.

  The judge’s voice sounded nicer than Adam had expected. As she described the case, Adam glanced around. Sitting behind him in the spectator area was a whole rooting section for Adam. It included his parents, several of his parents’ friends, Danny, his grandma, an aunt and uncle, Jennifer’s mom, and Jennifer. Shadow was there with a woman — most likely his tenth or eleventh caseworker. Probably the judge wanted Shadow to talk about his brother, too.

  Adam was thinking how weird it was that all kinds of crazy stuff happened in the real world like people shooting each other and blowing up each other and then the same people came into a courtroom, sat close together, and said, “thank you” and “excuse me,” like life was civilized.

  The judge explained that the other four teenagers had pleaded guilty, as had this young man, Timmy Cox. But because he appeared to be the ringleader and faced a stiffer sentence, the judge said she wanted to hear from the affected party before deciding on a fair punishment.

  There was more talk that Adam didn’t listen to, and then, before he knew it, the judge asked him to speak.

  Adam stood and held the statement he’d written. He began reading, but the necktie his mom made him wear must have cut off the oxygen to his brain, because the words on the paper were blurry. So he stopped, put down the paper, and just talked.

  He said he hadn’t actually been too hurt by the robbery — hardly at all really — that it had passed in a blur and the worst part was afterward, when it was on TV and everyone at school knew, and every time he did something a little stupid, his parents were scared he was cracking up, when he was actually just doing something a little stupid.

  He told the judge about the bully survey the Slash had done and how they’d realized they’d made a mistake to single out the top ten bullies, but how he thought this shoveling case was different — it was more serious — and not just because it was Adam. These kids had broken the law, Adam said, for no good reason, pointing out they could have gotten a ton of shoveling jobs and made lots of money.

  Then Adam talked about how he’d become friends with Shadow and how he knew from Shadow that this older brother had given him fourteen stitches on the head and that, in Adam’s opinion, this made the whole case even less forgivable.

  The next thing Adam said surprised him, no
t having had a clue he was going to say it until the words came out. Adam told the judge how much his parents loved him, how they did everything in their power to get him to turn out half-decent and how, without them, he’d probably be some pathetic person in the dirt. And he said that he knew Shadow and his brother lived without their parents and how much a kid would want to get adopted by nice grown-ups and how having a brother like Shadow, if you were trying to get yourself adopted and put on a good show for strangers, might make you embarrassed and angry.

  “I don’t know which is the right box to check,” Adam said, “but I think probably he deserves to be punished pretty good. But I also think maybe if there was some way he and Shadow could get to be real brothers again, like some expert could show them — that would be great. I can’t imagine what it’s like growing up without family. My family saves me practically every second. Family and a few friends — that’s everything. I will admit, Shadow can drive you a little crazy sometimes, but he’s a great guy. He’s an unbelievable worker — you should see him sweep the puddles at the Rec courts. And I think he’s more proud of his Roger Clemens rookie card than Roger Clemens’s own mother. And he’s really important for our school paper. He’s like the best fact-checker we got. The last issue of the Slash — he caught a dozen mistakes that the so-called normal kids missed.”

  “To be exact, it was thirteen mistakes,” said a voice from the spectator section. “Six spelling mistakes, three wrong addresses, two math mistakes, and two missing words. Six plus three plus two plus two is definitely not twelve or a dozen, same thing. Six plus three plus two plus two is definitely thirteen.”

  Outside the courtroom, in the black-and-white marble lobby, the grown-ups took turns hugging Adam and telling him how proud they were. To go with her hug, Jennifer gave him a little kiss on the cheek and whispered something in his ear. Shadow gave Adam one of his life-skills handshakes.

  “It’s your day, kid,” said Danny, handing Adam a copy of the New York Times national edition he’d picked up at the courthouse newsstand.

  Adam looked at the headlines but didn’t know what Danny was talking about.

  “Flip it over,” said Danny. There on the bottom left of the front page, below the fold, was their story. The headline read “Rich Family Gobbles Up Suburb’s Last Affordable Housing.”

  The byline was Erik Forrest.

  Adam skimmed it, his eyes popping out when he saw the word Slash. In the last graph before the story jumped to page sixteen was a sentence saying “Details of the Bolands’ efforts to buy up the Willows were first reported last month in the Slash, the student newspaper of Harris Elementary/Middle School.”

  “Geez,” said Adam. “That’s us. This might help, huh?”

  “Could,” said Danny.

  Jennifer wanted to go right back to Harris to show Mrs. Quigley, get a meeting with that Bleepin idiot, and make a plan to save the Slash.

  Not Adam. “Hey, Danny,” Adam said. “You feeling well enough to go for a skip?”

  “You know,” said Danny, “I think I am.”

  “OK to invite a few friends?” Adam asked.

  “That would be fine,” said Danny, watching as the three raced out the courthouse revolving door, down the granite steps, and across the sidewalk. They were careful not to step on any lines or cracks — Jennifer had called it. As they reached the parking lot, Shadow was in the lead, Jennifer a close second, and Adam was lagging behind. But he didn’t care. The sky had never looked bluer or the grass greener, and besides, he was the only one who knew which car was Danny’s.

  www.candlewick.com

  “Adam, are you there?” Jennifer banged on the van. “I know you are!” she shouted. She cupped her hands around her eyes and stood on tiptoe to see through the tinted windows. He was in there, his legs stretched out on the floor by the backseat, motionless.

  Her legs had goose bumps. The wind was blowing off the river, and it seemed more like early March than May. “Come on, Adam. . . . You can’t do this. You knew I was coming over!” She banged with her fist several times. “We’ve been planning this for a week . . . Adam!” She peered in again. Not a twitch.

  Jennifer was standing in Adam’s driveway, screaming at his locked van. “Adam Canfield, you birdbrain, you know we have to see the Ameche brothers! Wake up! . . . Aaaaaaaaaa-dam!”

  “Jennifer, sweetie. Stop.” It was Adam’s mother, standing at the front-porch door. “You’re dealing with an Olympic-class sleeper. You’ve got to pull out the big guns.” She stretched her arm toward the van and pressed her key, unlocking the doors. “Go hard,” she called.

  Jennifer slid the side door open. She grabbed Adam’s ankle and shook it. Nothing. She did it again.

  “Come on,” she said. “I know you’re awake.”

  “I’m not. Go away.”

  “How come you’re talking if you’re not awake?” she said.

  There was a long pause.

  “Only my lips are awake.”

  Jennifer climbed up onto the middle seat of the van. She was on her knees, facing the back, elbows resting on the seat top, staring down at Adam on the floor. She made a hocking sound.

  “Adam Canfield, if you don’t wake up right now — and I mean all of you, not just your lips — I will spit this loogie right on your head.”

  “One. . . . .”

  She made a hocking sound again. He was sure she was bluffing. Jennifer’s manners were way too good to spit on her coeditor.

  “Two. . . . .” A double hocking sound. No way she could hold all that loogie in without gagging. She was definitely bluffing. He wished he could take a peek to be sure, but then it would be hard to argue that he was asleep.

  “Three.”

  He felt something wet.

  “Gross!” he screamed, sitting bolt upright and using his sleeve to wipe the side of his face.

  She held up a water bottle and let a few drops fall. “Faked you out.”

  “You are a terrible person,” Adam said. “I wasn’t hurting a fly, taking a little Sunday afternoon nap. . . .”

  “A nap?” Jennifer said. “You take naps in your van?”

  “Lots of people sleep in the car,” said Adam.

  “Not when it’s parked in the driveway.”

  Did he have to explain himself every second? On a chilly afternoon with lots of sun, the van was the coziest place he knew. He’d been minding his own business, playing Bubble Struggle on the computer for maybe two hours at most, when his parents started making a big thing about how he was wasting his life on “stupid” computer games and then staying up past midnight to finish his homework. Somehow that calm discussion had turned into a yelling match. So he’d stomped out of the family room to prove his point, ducked out the back door by the boiler room, and circled toward the front of the house, trying to think of a plan. There was the van, looking warm and friendly. He’d climbed in for a minute.

  “Close the door,” he said to Jennifer. “It’s freezing out.”

  “Your mom says you’ve been conked out for more than two hours.”

  His mom knew he was in the van? What was she, the FBI? Just for one second, couldn’t she be like other moms and feel terrible because he’d run away?

  “I had the strangest dream,” Adam said. “I dreamed that we had no school tomorrow because they came out with a new flavor of Brown-Sugar Wallops.”

  Jennifer just stared at him.

  “Your hair’s different,” he said.

  She smiled. She’d put it in braids, and she wiggled her head back and forth to bounce them.

  “They look like the flying swings at Tri-River Adventure Park,” he said. “I love that ride.”

  “I guess that’s a compliment,” she said. “We’ve got to go. I told the Ameche brothers we’d be there by now. I need you to take this seriously, Adam. I really think they’re our best chance to save the Slash.”

  “Right,” said Adam. He was thinking of the long list of people who had tried to save the Slash — their s
chool newspaper at Harris Elementary/Middle School — and how all of them had failed.

  Mrs. Quigley, the acting principal, hadn’t been able to save the Slash, and she loved Adam and Jennifer.

  Mr. Brooks, his favorite teacher, hadn’t been able to save the Slash.

  A letter from the National Scholastic Press Association on official stationery defending freedom of the press hadn’t been able to save the Slash.

  A story in the New York Times that praised the Slash hadn’t saved the Slash.

  How were the Ameche brothers going to save the Slash? They were just kids. Adam had said all of this to Jennifer more than once, but the girl would not quit.

  “You’re the one who’s dreaming,” he said.

  “Got to live your dreams,” said Jennifer, jumping out of the van. Adam did not move; he seemed to be struggling with a large lump in his pocket. He finally pulled out a plastic grocery bag with a smooth, rock-hard white sphere inside, almost as big as a tennis ball.

  “My God, what is that?” asked Jennifer. “It looks like a giant eyeball.”

  Adam took it from the bag and stuffed it into his mouth. His eyes bulged from opening his jaw so wide. After a lot of loud slurping, he popped the ball back into the bag with his tongue.

  “Want a suck of my jawbreaker?” he said. “It’s delicious.”

  Adam and Jennifer biked together, racing much of the way.

  “Passing on the left!” he yelled, streaking by her.

  “Au revoir, mon cheri,” she called when she overtook him.

  The e-mail from the Ameche brothers had said they lived in the West End, which was on the other side of the downtown area. It was a pretty long ride, twenty minutes even biking hard, but Adam loved this time of year, when he could bike everywhere. His bike was his freedom. He loved riding to the West End and often wished he lived there. It was a beachy neighborhood by the river that had once been a summer community of little cottages. Over the years, city people had moved out to live there full-time, winterizing the cottages, adding porches and decks and second and third floors.