by Josh Lieb
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: - FEAR ME
Chapter 2: - CHILDREN ARE VERMIN
Chapter 3: - I AM INCONVENIENCED
Chapter 4: - BEHIND EVERY GREAT FORTUNE IS A CRIME
Chapter 5: - MY DOG LOLLIPOP
Chapter 6: - GIRLS CAN BE CRUEL
Chapter 7: - WHAT USE IS A NEWBORN BABY?
Chapter 8: - I ACCEPT A CHALLENGE
Chapter 9: - FAST AND BULBOUS
Chapter 10: - BOYS ARE IDIOTS
Chapter 11: - A BRIEF DISCOURSE ON EVIL
Chapter 12: - A PHONE CALL TO THE LUXURIA CORPORATION CUSTOMER SERVICE HELP LINE.
Chapter 13: - THWARTED
Chapter 14: - OLIVER WATSON’S THEATER OF THE MIND PRESENTS THREE PLAYS FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT
Chapter 15: - EVIL IS MADE, NOT BORN
Chapter 16: - I DRAW A HISTORICAL PARALLEL
Chapter 17: - I AM IN A FOUL MOOD
Chapter 18: - WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, BUTTHEAD?
Chapter 19: - NEWS FLASHES
Chapter 20: - “MEET CUTE”
Chapter 21: - LOVE IS IN THE AIR
Chapter 22: - I WILL STAND ATHWART THIS GLOBE LIKE A TERRIFYING COLOSSUS AND I ...
Chapter 23: - DADDY HAS OTHER THINGS ON HIS MIND
Chapter 24: - HOW TO RUN FOR CLASS PRESIDENT
Chapter 25: - TRANSCRIPT FROM A PLEDGE DRIVE
Chapter 26: - A VISIT TO STATELY SHELDRAKE MANOR
Chapter 27: - SUDDENLY, MY HOUSE SMELLS LIKE LIP GLOSS
Chapter 28: - CALL AND RESPONSE
Chapter 29: - EXTREME MAKEOVER—DORK EDITION
Chapter 30: - I WILL BE VERY HONEST. I DID NOT SEE THIS ONE COMING
Chapter 31: - EXTREME MAKEOVER—MEGA-DORK EDITION
Chapter 32: - JUST ANOTHER SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
Chapter 33: - AFTERMATH
Chapter 34: - I THINK MY FATHER HAS GONE INSANE
Chapter 35: - I FEEL LIKE I’VE BITTEN A LIGHTBULB
Chapter 36: - OH, THE HUMANITY
Chapter 37: - REVENGE OF AFTERMATH!
Chapter 38: - THE MOMENT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR
Chapter 39: - MADNESS
Chapter 40: - (SEE PLATE 18)
Chapter 43: - FINE
I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President
RAZORBILL
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
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Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
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Copyright © 2009 Josh Lieb
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lieb, Josh
I am a genius of unspeakable evil and I want to be your class president / by Josh Lieb.
p. cm.
Summary: Omaha, Nebraska, twelve-year-old Oliver Watson has everyone convinced that he is
extremely stupid and lazy, but he is actually a very wealthy, evil genius, and when he
decides to run for seventh-grade class president, nothing will stand in his way.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15093-1
1. Genius—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Politics, Practical—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.
5. Family life—Nebraska--Fiction. 6. Omaha (Neb.)—Fiction. 7. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.L61626 Im 2009
[Fic] 22
2008039692
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The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
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For B., the nicest genius I know
Chapter 1:
FEAR ME
Someday you will beg for the honor of licking my feet. You will get down on your stupid, worthless knees and beg, “Please, sir! Please! Let me lick the diseased dog dung from between your toes.” (I will be standing barefoot in the dung of diseased dogs—just to make it grosser for you.) And if I am in a good mood and am not too disgusted by your stupid, wormy tears or your stupid, scrunched-up face, I will allow you the signal honor of licking my feet clean. Even though you don’t deserve it.
But that’s all in the future. At the moment, I’m in the seventh grade.
In fact, at this precise moment, I am in Mr. Moorhead’s English class as he prattles on about Fahrenheit 451. Moorhead considers himself a “cool” teacher (see plate 1). That means he still wears the clothes he wore in college. Unfortunately for Moorhead, college was ten years and twenty pounds ago. His legs look like a pair of light-blue water balloons, stuffed as they are into too-tight jeans. He can’t get all the buttons on his crotch to stay fastened anymore (Way cool, Mr. M! ), and he wears plaid flannel shirts that gape open over his salmon-pink belly. He’s balding, but he thinks if he leaves his hair messy enough, we won’t notice. He also keeps a pack of cigarettes in the pocket over his heart. This is supposed to say, “I am a teacher, but I’m not a saint.” In reality, it just makes his saggy man-breasts look bigger. It also says, “I smell bad.”1
PLATE 1: Moorhead considers himself a “cool” teacher.
Moorhead is one of those sad people who go into teaching so they can be worshipped by the only people sadder than they are—students. Prime example: Pammy Quattlebaum, so-called smart girl and insufferable butt-lick, who sits in the front row, nodding her massive head frequently to show Moorhead that not only has she done the reading, she understands exactly what he’s saying.
Meanwhile, I am in the back of the room, drawing pictures of bunny rabbits on my binder.
Moorhead is way too cool to lecture standing up or sitting down. Instead, he lounges sexily against his desk, elbow propped on the dictionary, as he lays his knowledge on us. “The book depicts a world turned upside down.” (Pammy nods.) “A world where firemen don’t put out fires—they set them.” (Pammy nods again, more emphatically.) “A world where the most dangerous weapon you can own”—here he holds up his copy of Fahrenheit 451—“is a book.” (Pammy nods so hard I can hear her tiny brain rattle, like a popcorn kernel in a jelly jar.)
Moorhead, simulating deep thought, runs his fingers through the pubic growth that decorates his scalp. “What do you think? Are books dangerous? Are they. . . powerful ?”
Pammy surges out of her seat, arm straining for the sky. She will apparentl
y pee herself if she’s not allowed to answer this question.
But Moorhead’s eyes slide over to me. “What do you think, Oliver?”
Pammy shoots me a dirty look. Some of my other classmates giggle and don’t bother trying to hide it. Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School, stops licking dried peanut butter off his glasses long enough to give me a sympathetic smile.
Moorhead grins like he’s made a great joke. I am fairly certain I was only assigned to this class—which is far beyond my tested reading level—so he’d have someone to make fun of (besides Randy, of course).
I make him say my name again before I answer, “I don’t know.”
Moorhead’s face crumples with disappointment, but his eyes shine with satisfaction. “Oliver. Didn’t you do the reading?”
I shake my head sadly. Moorhead sighs. He looks like he wants to cry for me. Or burst out laughing. It’s like his brain can’t decide.
Actually, I read the book when I was two. And even then I knew it was regurgitated bird pap, fit only for morons and seventh graders. In case you’re lucky enough to have escaped it, Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that is about how amazing books are and how wonderful the people who write books are. Writers love writing books like this, and for some reason, we let them get away with it. It’s like someone producing a TV show called TV Shows Are the Best and the People Who Make Them Are Geniuses.2
In Fahrenheit 451, books are illegal (because they’re so powerful) and a fireman’s job is to burn all the books he can find in big bonfires. This is supposed to blow your freaking mind.3
Moorhead walks back to my lonely little desk and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s too bad you skipped it, big guy. Because it happens to be one of the best books written in the past century.”
His furry fingers rest on my shoulder like caterpillars. I decide not to bite them. One of the best books of the century? Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t rank as one of the best birdcage liners of the century.
And besides—even if it were “one of the best books”. . . is that anything to brag about? Wouldn’t it look kind of drab and shabby when compared to the book that’s the actual best?
It doesn’t pay to be good at something unless you are the absolute best at it. Otherwise, you’ll eventually go up against someone who can beat you. That is why I do not try to play soccer, sing in the school chorus, or dance, even though I am moderately talented at all of these things. I concentrate on what I am good at: being a genius.
I am the greatest genius in the universe. I am the greatest genius in the history of the universe. Plus, I am unceasingly, unreservedly, unspeakably evil. Making me the most powerful force for evil ever created.
And poor Mr. Moorhead thinks I’m the dumbest boy in his English class.
The bell rings. Moorhead gives me one last pitying glance, then strolls back to the board. “Read the next chapter for tomorrow, people. And remember—nominations for student council have to be submitted at your next homeroom.” He smiles at Jack Chapman, who lowers his handsome head modestly and runs a bashful hand through his soft and kinky hair. Jack exits with the throng, enduring much backslap ping and people yelling, “You got my vote, Jack.” I pretend to fumble with my books so I can see what happens next.
It’s lunchtime. As always, Moorhead reaches into his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes and shakes one out. He does this right after class, even though he can’t smoke in the classroom, even though he can’t smoke in the school. He must walk a legally mandated ten yards off school property before he can smoke his death stick. But he always pulls it out right after class.
He looks at the cigarette with longing . . . then with surprise. He holds it close to his weak, middle-aged eyes. There’s a message typed neatly on the little tube: YOUR DIET ISN’T WORKING.
Moorhead stares at the cigarette a moment, then looks up with suspicion and fury. But the only people he sees are me and Pammy, who is also dawdling, but for very different reasons.4
Pammy gives him a simpering smile, which he ignores. I, near-retard that I am, am singing a song to myself as I look for my pencil under the desk. The only words to the song are “Three, please. Can I see threeeee pretty pictures. . . .” Moorhead gives me a scornful glance before hurrying out of the room.
But the look of terror on his face in that single, unguarded moment of surprise is truly a beautiful, beautiful thing.
There will be three full-color photographs of that moment waiting for me by the time I get to my locker.
Chapter 2:
CHILDREN ARE VERMIN
Let me explain children to you.
First off, I call them “children,” not “kids.” I am a child, and I am not ashamed to be one; time will cure this unfortunate condition. “Kid” is the cutesy name adults call children because they think “child” sounds too scientific and clinical. I refuse to call myself by their idiotic pet name. Your grandmother might call you “Snugglepants Lovebottom,” but that’s not how you introduce yourself to strangers.5
I also refuse to use terms like “teen,” tween,” and etc. I find them patronizing and putrid. They are fake words, used to disguise the truth—that anyone under the age of eighteen is legally (and that’s the only thing that matters) a child.
As long as a person is a child, he cannot own property, conduct business, have a real job, or do anything of actual importance. There’s a good reason for this: Children are loud, stupid, lazy, and ugly (see plate 2).
When they are not laughing (too loud and for no reason), they are screaming (too loud and for no reason). And when they’re not doing either of those things, they’re whining (too loud and for no reason). I would say they’re like monkeys, but monkeys are cute.
I am reminded of a winter afternoon several years ago. Setting: a shadow-filled living room, illuminated by warm lamplight and the flickering of the television set. I was sitting on the floor, playing gin rummy with my mother (and letting her win, naturally). My dog Lollipop was curled up behind me, acting as a natural backrest. My favorite movie, The Third Man, was on TV. The Ferris wheel scene was playing, and Orson Welles was giving his lovely speech in which he compares all the useless people on the ground to “dots”—and wonders if anyone would really care if one of those dots stopped moving.
All was perfect . . . except, of course, for my father. “Daddy”6 was sitting in his armchair, impatiently rattling the magazine he was reading, crossing and uncrossing his legs, breathing heavily. This is the way weak men signal that they are unhappy. He wanted to watch a political debate or a folk-music concert or a news show—something stupid—but I shrieked when he tried to change the channel.
PLATE 2: Children are loud, stupid, lazy, and ugly.
My mother said, “Little Sugarplum likes this movie.”
Daddy made a particularly ugly face: “Little Sugarplum doesn’t understand this movie.” I thought his tone of voice was uncalled for.
After a while, Daddy started staring out the window. His face softened. A little smile played on his lips. “That’s really beautiful, man.”7
When my mother asked him what was so beautiful (man), he pointed to a group of neighborhood children playing in the snow outside. They were engaged in all the traditional winter sports: shoving snow down each others’ shirts; shoving snow down each others’ pants; making each other eat snow.
Daddy was overcome by the charm of this scene. “They’re just so amazing at that age. So innocent. So . . . pure. As pure as the snow they play in.” He apparently hadn’t noticed the places where the snow was distinctly yellow.
Then he remembered I was in the room. He turned and gave me a searching look. “Oliver . . . don’t you want to go out and play with them? Make some new friends?”
Hmmm. Inside toasty and warm, with a pot of hot cocoa in easy reach? Or outside, wet and cold, catching diseases from a drippy-nosed scrum of screeching urchins?
“No, Daddy,” I said. “All the friends I want are right here.” And I gave hi
s leg a great big hug. He winced.
But that was two years ago. Children are a problem that continues to plague us, even today.
We can all agree that children are ugly. Their heads are too big, their legs are too thin, their fingers too fat and grasping—they are a complete mess. But what’s most shocking about them is that their greatest ugliness is on the inside. I speak, of course, of their bigotry. I shouldn’t even have to mention this, because it is a natural extension of their stupidity. Stupid people are bigoted because they don’t know any better. I am amused when goody-goodies proclaim, from the safety of their armchairs, that children are naturally prejudice-free, that they only learn to “hate” from listening to bigoted adults. Nonsense. Tolerance is a learned trait, like riding a bike or playing the piano. Those of us who actually live among children, who see them in their natural environment, know the truth: Left to their own devices, children will gang up on and abuse anyone who is even slightly different from the norm.