Houses in the West End were crowded in so close that, backyards were just narrow strips. Most houses did not have garages or driveways, so the streets and alleys were crammed with parked cars.
That’s what Adam loved: everything was more squeezed together than in River Path or River Bluffs, where he and Jennifer lived. Every block had restaurants and bars and delis and pizzerias. And real shops: a butcher, a florist, a tailor, along with ice-cream and hardware stores and even a baseball-card store. And people were always walking around, even late at night. Kids in the West End had no trouble getting up wiffle ball or touch-football games or finding other kids to kick around a Hacky Sack. To Adam, the West End seemed like one big sleepover.
All the West End streets and alleys were named for months or states. February Path. Minnesota Walk. The Ameche brothers’ e-mail said they lived on May Way West, in the middle of the block.
“That must be it,” Jennifer said. “The e-mail said to look for a basketball hoop painted in zebra stripes with a neon-orange backboard.”
Adam perked up. Zebra stripes? Neon-orange backboard?
Who were these Ameche brothers?
The house had stairs leading down to a basement and up to a front porch. “To the cave or the mountains?” asked Adam.
“Neither,” said Jennifer. “They said to follow the yellow wire along the side of the house to the back. They said their headquarters is out back.”
“Headquarters?” repeated Adam.
Who were these Ameche brothers?
The coeditors walked around the side, along a concrete path, to a high fence in back. Adam reached over the gate and undid the latch.
It was stunning to take in so much clutter at once: old motors, engine parts, used tires, gardening tools, a ripped hockey net, half a kayak paddle, several buckets of muddy golf balls, three broken fishing poles, a power mower with no wheels, a deflated blow-up raft, divers’ wet suits, assorted boots. The yard was mostly cement, and along the back fence were stacks of orange plastic storage containers that reached past the top.
Adam noticed that it smelled a little bad. The odor seemed to come from the garden, which was against the house, but it wasn’t like most gardens Adam had seen. There were three tiers of soil climbing upward like stairs, each bordered by long wooden beams. If Adam wasn’t mistaken, they were filled with tomato plants. Adam could see little bones sticking out of the soil. And there seemed to be — could it be? — lots of bird doo?
“Maybe this is a mistake,” said Jennifer. “I think we should go.”
“No,” said Adam. “This is great. How did you find these guys again?”
“I told you ten times — online,” Jennifer whispered. She’d been trying to think of some way they could raise money to put out the Slash all by themselves, now that the paper had been closed down by the school board for causing too much trouble. She’d found the Ameches’ ad on TremblesList, under “Business Start-Ups/Kids.” The listing said that they were kids themselves, experts at starting up businesses for fellow kids. They said that they’d started a bunch of businesses, including a computer-repair business, a motorbike-repair business, a motor-scooter repair business, a model-airplane repair business, a cookie sales business, a golf-ball sales business, a lemonade-stand franchise business, an iPod music-download business, a toy-repair business, a spaghetti-sauce business, a tomato-paste business, a ketchup business, a pickled-tomato business, a tomato-soup business, a diced-tomato business, a stewed-tomato business, and a fresh-tomato business.
When Jennifer wrote, they’d messaged back saying that they’d never started a newspaper but would be happy to try one.
“I thought it would be nicer,” Jennifer said. “More official-looking. We should go.”
“What do you mean?” said Adam. “This is nice. That has to be their headquarters over there.” He nodded toward a wooden storage shed that took up the entire width of the yard, maybe ten feet across. The yellow wire they’d been following went right inside it.
“What if they’re Internet predators like they tell us about in health and careers class?” Jennifer whispered. “Maybe they’re not even kids. Maybe they’re two fat old guys with bad teeth who lure kids into their junky backyard and then . . . Oh, my God, we should go.”
“Junky?” said Adam “What do you mean? No way. Two fat old guys with bad teeth wouldn’t paint their rim with zebra stripes. They’d never have a neon-orange backboard. My reporter’s instinct tells me we’re onto something big here.”
“I’m getting out,” said Jennifer.
“No you’re not,” said Adam. “You’re way too good a person to leave me at the mercy of two fat old guys with bad teeth. You could never live with yourself if something terrible happened to me while I was here alone.”
“But you can live with yourself if it turns out that you are leading me straight into a fat old perv trap?”
“I’m not as good a person as you,” said Adam.
“Deep down inside you are.”
“That’s a long way to go,” he said, and before she could say more, he knocked on the shed door.
There was no response so he knocked twice more. Adam and Jennifer could hear talking inside, then saw a curtain over the shed window move slightly, and heard someone say, “It’s not Ma.”
“Then open it.”
“Fans, our next two guests have arrived. Please say hello to . . .”
Two boys who were talking into their computer with microphone headsets, were now staring at Adam and Jennifer. One of them was pointing a webcam on the top of his screen at them.
“Welcome to the Ameche Brothers’ Talk Till You Drop, All-Live Except the Recorded Parts webcast, with Don and Alan Ameche serving your needs 24/7. Would you like to tell us your names, or are you fugitives from the law?”
Adam and Jennifer looked at each other.
www.candlewick.com
Michael Winerip is the author of Adam Canfield of the Slash and a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for the New York Times. He says, “After I finished writing the first Adam Canfield novel, I thought, Well, that’s that. But then Adam, Jennifer, and Phoebe were still staring at me, and I could see immediately that they were not done with their work. They were hungry to report more news stories, anxious to right more wrongs, desperate to tell the truth as they saw it, dying to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I knew they needed to get busy doing what they do best, putting out the Slash, the world’s greatest middle-school newspaper.” Michael Winerip lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife and children.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2007 by Michael Winerip
Cover photographs: copyright © 2007 by RubberBall/Veer (boy running); copyright © 2007 by Anderson Ross/Stone/Getty Images (basketball court)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Winerip, Michael, date.
Adam Canfield, watch your back! / Michael Winerip. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A much-welcomed snow day turns into an embarrassing nightmare for middle-grader Adam Canfield when, after being mugged by high-school bullies for his snow-shoveling money, he becomes the focus of major media attention just as fellow reporters at The Slash are launching a contest to out bullies at their school.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2341-8 (hardcover)
[1. Bullying — Fiction. 2. Newspapers — Fiction. 3. Journalists — Fiction. 4. Middle schools — Fiction. 5. Schools — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W72494Ade 2007
[Fic] — dc
22 2007025245
ISBN 978-0-7636-4412-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6216-5 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back! Page 20