by Josh Lieb
She throws out a defiant chin, as if daring me to laugh again. “That’s right.”
The room shakes with the sound of a sudden thun derstorm. Verna looks a little rattled by it—which she should, since it isn’t actually storming outside. I control the thunder sounds with a button on my wheelchair. It helps set the mood I desire.
“You hardly know the man.”
She nods over emphatically and says, “I know. . . . I know. I sound like a fool. Maybe I’m being a fool. If I am, I’ll find out, and I’ll take my lumps like everybody else. I don’t care. I can’t help the way I feel.”
My tummy rumbles with annoyance. “Lucan,” I bark. “Bring me a plate of nachos. But use chocolate sauce instead of cheese.”
Verna continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “He’s sweet. He’s sincere. He’s everything I stopped believing a man could be. They’re not . . . they’re not like that in Washington. I just can’t do it to him. I can’t betray him by throwing the election. . . .”
“Why not?” I ask, with real exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, why not? Love Scott Sparks if you must. That doesn’t mean you have to back out of our agreement.”
“But it does,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not just in love with Scott. It’s Randy, too. And the election.
Everything. The late-night strategy sessions, making posters, eating bowls of popcorn while we work on his speech. This is why I got into politics in the first place. This is the stuff I forgot about. One brave kid, daring to step forward and say, ‘Hey, I count, too. . . .’”
Lucan enters with my piping-hot nachos (how does he make them so quickly? It’s like he can read my mind). Lolli bounds in after him and puts her paws in my lap.
“I’ve seen that dog before,” says Verna, with a thoughtful look on her face. “Hanging around Randy’s school . . .”
Damn it. She was supposed to stay in the kitchen. “Keep it up, Ms. Salisbury, and I’ll let you see her fangs.”
Verna smiles. That was stupid of me. I already know empty threats don’t work on her.
Maybe not-so-empty threats will be more effective. “You do realize, I can make you keep our agreement. By revealing the nature of our bargain to Mr. Sparks.”
Behind her, The Motivator smiles. Blackmail is a strategy he is very comfortable with. But Verna keeps smiling, too. All her grit and defiance are suddenly back. Clearly, I’ve just played the ball straight into her court. “Go ahead and try,” she says. “Do you really think he’d believe you? A mysterious billionaire tries to fix a middle-school election? It’s a laugh.”
Then she looks serious. Her eyes go flat, her mouth becomes a little line. She’s suddenly a parody of bull-headed determination. “But even if he did believe you . . . even if he did tell me to get lost . . . go ahead, tell him. Because I won’t do your dirty work anymore.”
My God. She really does love him.
“The Motivator will escort you out.”
She looks startled. “That’s it?”
“The Motivator will escort you out.”
“Okay, well I have a check here paying you back for—”
“Get out! Get out of my sight! Get out!”
Lolli opens her mouth so wide she positively erases her muzzle with the enormity of her teeth. She stalks toward Verna, who rushes out in a confused flurry, the check fluttering to the floor behind her.
Lucan stands there with my platinum platter of nachos as if nothing has happened.
Sheldrake drawls over the speakerphone, “That went well.”
I rip off my face in disgust. Damn these humans and their idiotic emotions. They’re the only things in this world I can’t control.
Chapter 36:
OH, THE HUMANITY
Important days don’t look like anything special when they start. Invariably, the sun rises and people wake up. Coffee is swilled and eggs are swallowed. Everybody goes about the business of acting like their lives matter and then, no matter how important the events of the day end up being, the sun invariably sets. The sun rose before the soldiers stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day, and the sun set after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed. Sunrises and sun-sets are real jerks about putting things in perspective.
Today doesn’t look like anything special. The sun hangs in the sky like a slice of faded lemon. The school bus grumbles at the corner like a dying yellow elephant. The NewsChannel 5 traffic copter, which always, strangely enough, follows my bus, hovers overhead like a tame black dragon twirling its tail in circles.
But today is special, and Mom has the sappy grin on her face to prove it. She is smothering me in kisses now, mothering me to the very extreme of my endurance. “I’m so proud of you,” she says. “You are my specialest, specialest, very best boy. And we are going to have an extra amazing dinner tonight to celebrate your victory . . . Mr. President.”
Then she gives me about a thousand more kisses. The school bus blows out a big blue fart to show its annoyance.
Today is the day I get elected president. Verna’s defection and Sheldrake’s aborted endorsement have thrown a few wrenches into my plans, but nothing fatal. I have a speech tucked into my pocket—two pages of pathetic garbage guaranteed to make everyone in the audience pity me enough to vote for me. And if they don’t . . . well, my speech is good enough that people will believe it when I beat Randy by two votes. After I rig the count. I’ve got every possibility covered.
Mom leans down and whispers in my ear, “And don’t forget . . . you’ve got a special surprise coming your way.”
Oh, that. “But what is it, Mom? Tell me!”
But for the first time in my entire life, Mom stops hugging me before I stop hugging her. She smiles impishly and skips away into the garage. I give Lolli a kiss on the snout and climb on the bus. Tippy the bus driver doesn’t even seem to notice I’ve gotten on, but he closes the door behind me just the same. I make my way back to my seat, enduring the taunts and jeers of my peers, and prepare to meet my destiny.
Let’s be honest, I’m nervous. I’ve undertaken far greater, far riskier endeavors in the past, but nothing I was ever this personally invested in. This isn’t about getting a monopoly on pomegranate production in California. This is about me getting elected president. And it’s been a lot harder than I’ve liked. But it will be worth it, tonight, when I’m eating that special victory dinner. When my father, who doesn’t even have the guts to come see my speech, is forced to propose a toast in my honor. When he has to shake my hand and say, “Congratulations.” When he has to acknowledge me as an equal.
That will be sweet.
I settle back in my seat and let the soothing rhythms of Tippy’s growling and my schoolmates’ screaming and the thwack-thwack-thwack of the helicopter lull me into a state of semi-calm. I should try to appreciate this moment. This is an important day, a historic day.
But my calm is broken by a persistent, annoying beep-beep-beep coming from a car that’s following us. I try to ignore it, but Stephen Turnipseed says, “Hey, Lardo! Your mommy wants you.” I try to ignore that, too, but he says it again and points out the bus’s back window. I turn around and look. Sure enough, Mom is following the bus in her Buick, leaning on the horn for all she’s worth and waving. Liz and Tati are squeezed into the front seat next to her, with Logan poking her head through from the back.
PINK PYTHONS is scrawled in bright paint across the hood of the car, next to a drawing of the ugliest, most genetically defective, cross-eyed, drooling111 snake you’ve ever seen.
TEAM TUBBY is written in shaving cream on the windshield. Dozens of balloons and streamers and tin cans are tied to the bumper and the roof rack. They drag like dead kites behind the car.
All of them—Bomb Squad, Silent But Deadly, Moggsy, even Queen Python herself—are smiling the biggest, craziest, toothiest smiles possible. Any psychiatrist who saw them at this moment would quickly throw them into a dark basement for the good of society.
This is their surprise? This is going to win me the election
? Four hyperactive females in a vandalized midsize sedan? That’s not going to win me a game of checkers.
Frankly, I’m disappointed. Not in Liz or even Mom—this is just the sort of affectionate but futile gesture they specialize in. But Tatiana’s better than this. She thinks bigger than this.
Or so I thought. Ah, well. It was nice of them to try, anyway. I wave back at them weakly and return to my seat.
I decide to distract myself from worrying about my speech112 by playing with Moorhead a little. He’s made steady progress worming his way into Sokolov’s affections, following my directives to TELL HER YOU LIKE ITALIAN OPERA and TELL HER YOU LIKE BUSTER KEATON MOVIES. My Research Department tells me Sokolov doesn’t know anything about Italian opera or silent movies, so Moorhead can talk his fool head off about them without fear of embarrassing himself. The man is blissful with his success so far. The arrogant smirk on his face these days is probably the same one a male black widow spider wears when he steps onto his girlfriend’s web.
It’s time to take his courtship up a notch. I will increase the strength of the verb he uses, plus I’ll make the remark more personal. Today he will TELL HER YOU LOVE HER TASTE IN MODERN LITERATURE. This is both complimentary and condescending; it’s sure to intrigue her. Which means that tomorrow, he’ll finally be able to ASK HER OUT TO DINNER.
“Cigarette message for Moorhead,” I mumble, to whatever minion is listening. “TELL HER YOU LOVEHER—”
That’s when the riot starts.113 There is screaming, and jumping up and down on seats, and foot stomping, and window slapping. What’s worse, all of it is gleeful. My busmates are positively beside themselves with joy. Perry Wengrow and Stephen Turnipseed push in next to me to get a better view out the window.
A flatbed truck, with TWOMBLEY AMUSEMENTS painted on it, is approaching us from around the corner as we reach Harney Street. But the truck itself is not what’s riot-worthy. It’s what the truck is towing.
An enormous, inflated, hot-air balloon. Maybe forty feet tall. Fully worthy of being floated down Broadway during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, alongside Snoopy and Mighty Mouse and all the other cartoon dirigibles.
And it’s in the shape of Oliver Watson Jr. (see plate 17).
Two thoughts immediately rush through my head:• That balloon makes me look fat.
• My God, what have they done?
A quick glance back at my mother’s car confirms my fears. Liz and Logan and Mom are bouncing in their seats like Mexican jumping beans with severe attention deficit disorder. This is their big surprise. Liz has gotten her father, the inflatable-gorilla king, to make a giant balloon of me. One that is much fatter than I have ever been. And now this monstrosity—this abomination , this embarrassment—is going to follow my bus all the way to school.
PLATE 17: An enormous, inflated, hot-air balloon.
Maybe forty feet tall. Fully worthy of being floated down
Broadway during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Tatiana, my sweet. Forgive me. I underestimated you.
She sits in the center of the Buick’s front seat, the only one in the car not screaming like a spasmodic banshee. She is calm. Placid. The eye of the storm. Her face is wreathed in a smile so sinister and satisfied that she looks like she just swallowed Big Bird.
She winks at me.
And that’s when the really bad news hits me.
My network is in a state of High Alert. Code Red. Triple Security. All my operatives are under strict orders to react with extreme prejudice. Any anomaly is to be treated as a threat until it’s proved otherwise.
The balloon is only fifty yards away now, coming closer. . . .
And the whole world goes into slow motion.
Forty-five . . .
“No,” I whisper.
Around me, my classmates wave and scream and hop like savages dancing to please their god of destruction.
It’s forty yards from the bus now . . . thirty-five. . . .
“No . . .”
Its enormous left foot bounces against the side of a truck, then snags on a small tree and rips it from the ground.
“No,” I order. “Don’t fire. Stand down.”
Thirty . . . twenty-five . . .
Stephen Turnipseed is pounding me on the back and laughing. Big drops of spittle spray from his mouth and splatter across my cheeks, my nose, my eyes.
“Don’t fire. . . . Please . . .”
It runs into an overhead power line and snaps it.
Twenty . . .
The broken power cables writhe like snakes with rabies, sending electrical sparks arcing high into the air.
“Listen to me!”
Fifteen . . .
“No!” I scream, not caring who hears me. “No! Don’t fire! Stand down! Stand down!”
Maybe the pilot can’t hear me over the din of the shrieking animals around me. Maybe he can’t understand what I’m saying. Maybe he can hear me, but he’s too freaked out by the approaching floating colossus to pay any attention to my words.
Ten . . .
All I know is I’m still screaming, “Stand down! Stand down!” when the NewsChannel 5 traffic copter fires an AIM-92 stinger missile right at the heart of the Oliver Watson balloon.
Chapter 37:
REVENGE OF AFTERMATH!
Mom is crying in the school parking lot. Liz and Logan are next to her, hugging each other and whimpering. They’d be crying, too, but I think they’re all out of tears by now.
Again, only Tati is calm. She sits serenely on the hood of Mom’s car, snickering to herself. She catches me watching her and winks at me again.
No one on the bus can believe they actually saw a lightning bolt strike the balloon out of a clear blue sky. Especially because no one actually saw that. But that’s the story I’m having my operatives spread, and since it’s the only plausible explanation, the police are buying it.
“Just a giant lightning flash, right out of nowhere,” says the pilot of the NewsChannel 5 traffic copter.
“Big flash of electricity,” says Tippy the bus driver, who I suddenly realize looks a lot like that nephew The Motivator asked me to give a job to two years ago.
“It was scary! A huge, jagged thunderbolt! I saw the whole thing,” says Pammy Quattlebaum, who was five miles away when it happened.
Such is the power of persuasion that even the people who saw the missile—who know they saw a missile—are starting to believe they saw lightning strike.
“Biggest bolt of lightning I ever saw,” says Stephen Turnipseed. And he gets into a fight with Cory Carter when Cory says he saw a rocket.114
Everyone is being very sympathetic toward me. Especially Agents Jablon and Silveri, who were at the airport about to head back to Washington when news of the balloon downing broke. They appear to believe the cover story, but with such a strange incident coming right on the heels of the Sheldrake assault, they decide to stay in town for a few more days.
“A ginormous spaghetti of light came out of the sky!” I tell the agents.
“You already said that,” says Agent Jablon.
“Shut up, Joe,” says Agent Silveri.
Principal Pinckney nearly fainted when he saw them drive up. Which is probably why he decided to hold today’s student council elections as planned, in the interest of saying, “Nothing to look at here. Just business as usual. No reason for the FBI to hang around this school.”
I would tell him how suspicious that looks, but I don’t want him to have a stroke.