Adam Canfield of the Slash

by Michael Winerip

  The typist contributed, too, posting the Slash investigation on a do-it-yourself romance website.

  Within minutes, they emerged from their secret hideouts and were safe in bed.

  Not one was caught.

  The only thing the moms and dads noticed when they woke Tuesday morning was toilets that needed flushing. But that was business as usual and aroused absolutely no suspicion.

  Adam and Jennifer went straight to Mrs. Marris’s office. Not even Adam wanted to put this off. They walked in, and immediately Mrs. Rose’s head said, “She’s waiting for you.”

  Marris was sitting behind her desk. Her face was expressionless. Adam handed her the Slash proof.

  It was impossible to miss. On the top right half of the front page where the Miss Bloch story was supposed to go, there was white space.

  In the middle of the white space, in the smallest type font Adam could find on his computer, was a brief message:

  “The Harris principal, Mrs. Marris, has prohibited the Slash editors from printing the story planned for this space. Those interested in reading the banned article should go to . . .” and it gave the do-it-yourself romance website address.

  Marris looked up. She seemed calm, in control. “That will be all,” she said to them. “Expect to be called down this morning for your expulsion notices.”

  That was all. As they climbed the stairs toward daylight, each footstep sounded like a small explosion.

  Walking along the empty corridors to home base, they heard Miss Esther’s voice over the loudspeaker calling the technology aide to the principal’s office.

  All morning they waited to be summoned, but lunch came and went and they were still there. Every time they ran into a Slash person, there was a new tidbit. Someone had seen the superintendent walking into the building. Someone had spotted the board of education president in the main office.

  Adam wondered why they just didn’t call him and Jennifer down, expel them, and be done with it.

  By the end of the school day, there was still no word.

  Phoebe stopped by the Slash office after school. She’d left a book in 306 that she needed for a homework assignment, but the door was locked, which was odd. It never had been before. Phoebe found Jennifer at her locker, but Jennifer knew nothing about it either.

  So they went down to Eddie’s office. He had keys for everything. The girls called his name, but there was no answer. The boiler could be so noisy, Eddie might not be able to hear them, and they walked in.

  The room looked strangely bare. Then it dawned on them. All Eddie’s personal things — his family photos, his lunch pail, his black bubble winter coat, his red-and-black checked wool cap with the earflaps — all were gone.

  They tried to find Adam to let him know but couldn’t.

  The whole day Adam had moved from room to room like a man waiting for the Grim Reaper to tap him on the shoulder. He walked with his chin thrust forward, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

  His math teacher had asked if he had a stiff neck.

  Adam’s voluntary/mandatory teacher did a double take when he arrived early. Afterward, Adam went straight home.

  He was accustomed to both his parents working and normally liked having the run of the house after school.

  Today it would have been nice if there were someone at home to talk to.

  He dropped his coat and backpack by the front door and moped down to the family room. He planned to e-mail Jennifer. See if she knew anything.

  He logged on and checked his in-basket. There were seventy-eight new messages. His heart was pounding. He quickly scanned the subject fields. The e-mails had titles like “Way to Go,” “Need to Talk,” “Amazing Job,” “Great Story,” “Tip of the Iceberg.”

  Before opening a single one, Adam jumped out of his chair, twirled around, pumped his fist, took a running leap, stretched with all his might, and, for the first time in his life, touched his entire palm to the family-room ceiling.

  The Wednesday morning notices were read by Mrs. Rose. All day there was a spooky public silence at school. Officially, no one said a word. Unofficially, people gossiped endlessly. All kinds of wild rumors circulated among Harris students and beyond.

  One had Mrs. Marris barricaded in the Bunker with dynamite strapped to her waist, refusing to come out. Another reported that she had escaped through a secret tunnel and was now living in Argentina, where she had stockpiled massive amounts of gold plumbing fixtures.

  Miss Esther seemed to have disappeared, too, and someone said they’d heard she was actually Mrs. Marris’s aunt. Franky Cutty swore to Adam on his grandmother’s holy grave that Miss Esther had once been a Las Vegas showgirl married to a bigtime mobster. “At this moment,” Franky said, “I bet she and Marris are sitting in a comp suite for high rollers at the Desert Flamingo, drinking free brandy alexanders.”

  This much they knew was true: the parking space reserved for the principal was empty. During recess Sammy had sneaked around to the teachers’ lot, and the red Porsche was gone.

  That week no teacher said a word about any of this to Adam. Then, the following Monday, Mr. Brooks asked him to stay after class. The world history teacher remarked that he had seen one story from the November Slash that he called “Pulitzer Prize material” but wondered whether there were more.

  “We had the whole issue ready to go,” said Adam, who proceeded to fill in Mr. Brooks on the final Bunker showdown with Marris, including her threats to expel them and blacken their permanent records.

  “You know,” said Mr. Brooks. “If you want to print the rest of the November issue, I’m sure you’d find a receptive audience.”

  Two days later all twenty-three Slash members stood out front of Harris, handing out the paper, the smallest among them shouting the loudest. “GET YOUR SLASH!” bellowed Phoebe. “ALL THE LATEST FRONT-PAGE NEWS!” Even parents wearing pajamas under their overcoats, who were just dropping off their kids, jumped out of their vans and SUVs to grab a copy.

  Second period, Adam was summoned to the principal’s office — but only because he’d forgotten his baritone mouthpiece and his dad had dropped it off. When he walked in, Mrs. Rose’s head said, “Good morning, Adam,” and there was an unmistakable softness in her eyes.

  Phoebe had been checking the boiler room daily, and finally that afternoon came racing up to 306 to report Eddie was back. The janitor’s union had gotten him a lawyer and he’d been rehired — with an apology. He was paid for the time he missed and told Phoebe it was just like a vacation except for the worry of it.

  Jennifer had no trouble convincing Adam to go with her to the December school board meeting. There was a line of grownups waiting to speak that snaked halfway around the auditorium. The leadoff question was about “the Harris principal situation.”

  The board chairwoman explained that because it was a personnel issue, she could not discuss the matter publicly. She said that as soon as everyone in line had a chance to ask questions on other subjects, the board would go into executive session to review the case.

  Everyone standing immediately sat.

  Three hours later, when the board members emerged, the auditorium was still packed. The chairwoman explained that all she could say at the moment was that the current Harris principal would be taking an indefinite leave to care for an elderly aunt who recently had suffered a major shock to her system.

  The search for a replacement was to begin immediately.

  They’d done it and, yet, the Slash reporters found they had no time to rest on their laurels. It was as if every story they wrote spawned a new story — and a whole new set of worries.

  They couldn’t wait to see the Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser. They figured finally that rag had to acknowledge what the Slash had done. But there was not a word in the next issue. There was a report labeled EXCLUSIVE on the front page about a new principal for Harris. The story said that “according to an unnamed telecommunications magnate,” the school board was “seriously considering”
an assistant senior vice president for marketing at Bolandvision Cable. The story pointed out that Bolandvision always put the people of Tremble first and was willing to grant any executive a leave of absence “to save the public schools.”

  No school official thanked Adam or Jennifer or anyone from the Slash. These adults had trusted Marris, felt honored when she had confided in them. One board member told Jennifer’s mother that the Slash had a lot of nerve tarnishing the school system’s stellar reputation and said such matters should have been handled discreetly “within our Tremble family.”

  Jennifer was planning to go to the zoning board meeting in mid-December to see if there was any hoop news. But then, one evening that week, her dad hollered for her to come into the den quickly.

  There on the giant TV screen was Peter Friendly, Cable News 12, saying that the zoning board’s December meeting had been canceled due to “pressing holiday demands on board members.” The board would meet again in January, he said. “Sources have told Cable News 12 that the accessory structure policy is going to be thoroughly reviewed by a blue ribbon commission,” he added. The camera then panned to a very tanned-looking zoning board chairwoman explaining that she was working overtime to straighten out a confused public. “Apparently two overzealous, low-level Code Enforcement boobs acted in a totally unauthorized manner,” Mrs. Boland told Cable 12. “Believe me, Peter, I have handled this with an iron fist.”

  Mrs. Boland explained that homeowners who had been red-tagged could now safely go about their business without fear of prosecution.

  “This is a minor blip,” Mrs. Boland bubbled on. “Our board will be undertaking several exciting new projects in the new year. We are committed to eliminating every last pocket of blight in Tremble. Big changes are coming.”

  To end the report, Peter Friendly said, “Mrs. Boland, I understand you have a consumer tip for removing an unwanted red tag.”

  “That’s right, Peter.” Mrs. Boland smiled. “I suggest a bucket of soap and warm water mixed with two capfuls of ammonia.”

  “And a little elbow grease?” Peter Friendly winked. “This has been another exclusive Cable 12 Eyewitness report.”

  As Christmas approached, there were holiday concerts to rehearse for, holiday basketball tournaments to practice for, holiday shopping trips to plan for. Some days, Adam’s To Do list was three feet long. In room 306 unanswered questions kept piling up. Who would be the next principal? Where would Spring Boland strike next? Had they really heard the last of Marris?

  Adam and Jennifer found the better the Slash became, the more people expected. Big kids Phoebe didn’t even know spotted her in the hallway and shouted, “Yo, Front-Page, whatchya got cooking?”

  Every day Phoebe raced into 306 with another hot tip. By the week before Christmas, she had eight front-page stories working, none that she could finish in the next six months.

  Finally, Jennifer had to throw up her hands and scream, “Enough!” It was time, she told her staff, to stop and smell the roses. They’d all been so crazy with the Marris story, they were going to take a break and wait until after vacation to do a combined December/January issue. Jennifer said she had researched it, and there was no disgrace in a combined issue; even the New Yorker did it sometimes.

  The cheering was so loud, Eddie heard it in the boiler room.

  The Slash’s annual holiday party that week was the best in memory. Everyone was in a great mood; just three days of school left. They drank punch bowls full of jungle juice, danced on the couches, and wolfed down several cartons of Sugar Booger Dips and Brown Sugar Wallops.

  There were joke gifts for everyone. Adam and Jennifer got tiny toilet bowls spray-painted gold. The typist who had been so scared that night at the boathouse got a rubber mouse. Phoebe was presented with a CD they’d burned specially for her of Phyllis’s screaming voice turned into a rap song:

  I knew that girl was a moron dwarf.

  When I see Phoebe, I want to barf.

  It was dark by the time the party ended. Jennifer and Adam stayed after to clean up so Eddie wouldn’t have a fit. As they headed out, Adam nearly tripped against something that had been left leaning against the door to 306.

  He stepped back into the room and tore off the wrapping paper. It was a plaque. At the top it said Excelsior! And then:

  TO ADAM AND JENNIFER, COEDITORS EXTRAORDINAIRE, WHO DEMONSTRATED COURAGE OF MYTHIC PROPORTIONS, MARCHING BELOW THE EARTH’S SURFACE, ENGAGING IN MORTAL COMBAT, SLAYING THE BEAST, AND EMERGING FROM THE BUNKER INTO THE DAYLIGHT, THEIR PERMANENT RECORDS UNTARNISHED.

  WITH FONDEST ADMIRATION, PRESCOTT BROOKS

  Adam read it twice. He was so moved, he was afraid Jennifer might see, so he looked out the window. That’s when he noticed. The first snow of the winter was really coming down.

  The windows were steamy, and Jennifer used her hand to wipe clear a spot. “Perfect night for Adam Canfield’s one-hundred-percent-foolproof wake-up system,” she said softly. Her head was so close, Adam could smell fruity apricot shampoo. She leaned toward him — then punched him on the arm and raced out of the room, yelling, “Too fast to be last!”

  Adam shook his head in disgust and turned off the lights, but he was smiling in the dark.

  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 © 2005 by Michael Winerip

  Cover photograph copyright © 2007 by RubberBall/Veer

  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 2011

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Winerip, Michael (Michael C.), date.

  Adam Canfield of the Slash / Michael Winerip. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: While serving as coeditors of their school newspaper, middle-schoolers Adam and Jennifer uncover fraud and corruption in their school and in the city’s government.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-2340-1 (hardcover)

  [1. Newspapers — Fiction. 2. Journalists — Fiction.

  3. Fraud — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.W72494Ad 2005

  [Fic] — dc22 2004061843

  ISBN 978-0-7636-2794-2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5426-9 (electronic)

  Candlewick Press

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  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com