“Listen,” I said gruffly. I was kind of hurt that Dodger had taught Lizzie more than he had taught me, but I didn’t want to tell her that. “Can we just get on with the story?”
“Sure, but you don’t have to be so snappish about it. I don’t see why you should get to do all the cool magical stuff while I just sit in my room and—”
I cleared my throat forcefully.
“Okay, okay. So after I mastered the Ollie maneuver, Dodger asked me to identify the worst weaknesses of your speech so he could fix them. We were doing some Immelman turns, which are just so dead easy, and—”
“Wait, can you back up a minute?”
“Immelman turns, Willie, don’t you remember? When you do half of a vertical loop in the air, then flip back right-side up?”
“No, I don’t care about the turns. What was the thing about the speech?”
“Oh, that. I told him I thought the biggest flaw was your atrociously simple vocabulary. It was weird. He said, ‘Right, vocabulary. That’s what I thought. Perfect!’ Then he took control of the carpet, swooped across half the town in one steep dive, practically crash-landed in my backyard, and said, ‘Wow, look, we’re at your house already! Gotta go! See you tomorrow—I’ve got to go see a guy about some fancy words!’ The next thing I knew, he was gone. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Uh, that my best friends think I’m a moron?”
“No, Willie, think for a minute. As far as I know, Dodger only knows one vocabulary expert. He told us that he’d been on the phone with a member of his family, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So you’ve met a member of Dodger’s family, right? A blue chimp who sounded like a walking thesaurus?”
Jeepers, I couldn’t believe it. For better or for worse, Lizzie was right about one thing: Dodger’s brother, Rodger, had to be back in town. Which was weird, because for a while there I had thought that Dodger and Rodger might be the same person. Chimp. Whatever. The bus finally pulled up to our stop, and the conversation ended. When we got to our seats, Lizzie wanted to put our heads close together and whisper some more about the situation, but I made a big show of busting out with my music player and popping in my earbuds. I knew I was being kind of obnoxious to her, but I just didn’t want to hear any more about what a great, smart flier she was.
It was the day before the big speech assembly, but nobody said anything to me all day about the election. James just sat at his desk smirking, like he was already planning his victory party, and Craig spent the day chewing his fingernails down to dirty, ragged stumps. Every time I looked at Lizzie, she was turning and tumbling her pencil through the air with a dreamy expression on her face. I suppose if my flying lesson hadn’t ended up with me hugging a tree, maybe I would have kept reliving it, too.
When I got home, I had to go through a whole debriefing with my parents. Amy had clued them in about the election, and they were all pumped up about it. Here’s what my mom had to say:
“Oh, William, we are so proud of you! You’re just blossoming before our eyes. Just a few weeks ago, you were so timid that we actually worried you were too shy. But now—WOW! Our baby boy is a baseball star, an amateur stuntman, and now a handsome, dashing politician. And so modest, too. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this. Why, if Amy hadn’t spilled the beans, we wouldn’t have even known there was an election coming up. Oh, don’t roll your eyes like that, Willie! Your sister is just so fascinated by the big-boy adventures of her older brother. She actually has a whole fantasy built up about a mysterious, deep-voiced campaign helper with BLUE HAIR, if you can believe that. It’s just so cute! Anyway, if you need any help, just ask. I’m great at making posters, and you know your father is always looking for an excuse to get involved with your activities. And Amy tells me you have a speech to rewrite. You know, your father does write for a living.”
Now, normally I refused to accept school help from my parents, because if I asked either of them the slightest question, my mom and dad each had a tendency to get totally obsessed with the assignment. I remember this one time I asked my dad to help me solve a math problem about time zones, and he spent the next several hours running around the house, bringing every watch, cell phone, and clock in the house to the dining room table, resetting them, and aligning them on a map of the world that he’d dug up from somewhere in the recesses of his huge rolltop desk. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there were, like, thousands of Web sites with detailed, live-action time-zone maps, or that I’d finished the homework before he even got all of the clocks downstairs.
But this time, I really needed the help, and my father actually was an expert in this field. So I sat down with him, and we worked on my speech for an hour. By the end, I was pretty proud of the work. Now all I had to do was stop Dodger and Rodger from ruining everything.
I thanked my dad and went up to my room. I closed the door behind me, turned on some music as an anti-Amy precaution, and said, “Dodger?” There was no answer. I rubbed his lamp, and he appeared beside me, groaning and covering his eyes.
“Dude,” he said, “is it morning already? Man, we were up so late last night breaking into the—I mean, I was up so late, umm, reading comic books with—uh, myself. Yeah, reading. Alone. Because, well, that’s how I read. Alone, I mean.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying you didn’t go on any secret political missions last night? Missions that might have involved—oh, I don’t know—a family member of yours?”
Dodger shifted his weight from foot to foot, looked everywhere but at me, and said, “Well . . .” His eyes flickered over to the lamp.
A-ha! I rubbed the lamp, and suddenly Dodger’s brother, Rodger, was next to me, yawning. He was fully dressed in a pinstriped, dark blue suit, a very wrinkled white shirt, and a loosely knotted tie. His fur was sticking up in all directions. If you’ve never seen a chimpanzee with bed-head, it’s really quite a spectacle. Especially if he starts talking to you while another chimp is jumping up and down nearby, frantically gesturing for him not to say anything.
“Hello, greetings, felicitations, Willie. It’s good, satisfying, pleasurable to see you again. Honestly, when my brother, my sibling, my mother’s other child called up the Great Lasorda and asked for help getting you elected, I thought the whole thing sounded like a recipe for disaster, a Titanic in the making, if you will. But the Master’s plan was brilliant, sparkling, inventive. In fact, I think you will win the day, vanquish your foe, rise up to stunning new heights of—Willie, why are you staring at me in that strangely hostile manner? It’s not every day that I break into a school, cast a magic vocabulary spell upon a speaking platform, and then settle down to a richly deserved slumber, only to be rudely awakened, tumbled out of the sleeping chamber, rousted by an ungrateful young—”
“BE QUIET!” I shouted. “What do you mean, you broke into my school and cast a spell on the podium? What did you do?”
Dodger was still jumping up and down next to me, making throat-slitting motions at Rodger. Fortunately it takes more than a direct threat to keep Rodger quiet. “You know,” he said huffily, “you really shouldn’t tell me to be quiet and then ask me two questions in the next breath. It creates a paradox, an oxymoron, a conundrum. Am I meant to obey your first instruction or accede to the demands that follow? Honestly, I can see why Dodger felt you needed communicative assistance. Anyway, the operation was quite ingenious. The Great Lasorda gave me some enchanted dust that confers magical loquacity and instructed me to sprinkle it on the platform from which you are to speak, present, deliver your oration. In short, the next young person who gives a speech at that podium will sound exactly like me, myself, and I. All you have to do is speak first, and you will be just as splendidly well spoken as I am. Your classmates will love, adore, and admire you—and you will be sure to earn the coveted laurels of victory!”
Hoo boy.
CHAPTER TEN
The Old Switcheroo
AS I SAT ON STAGE i
n the school cafeteria-auditorium the next morning in my wear-to-your-cousin’s-wedding suit, my hands were sweating so much that the copy of my speech was all damp and soggy. Lizzie was next to me, whispering, “Calm down,” every five seconds, even though nobody in history has ever calmed down because someone told them to. We were on one side of the podium, and James sat with Craig on the other. The entire student body was in front of us, and Dodger had just appeared in back of the audience, holding a big dry-erase board and a marker, but that wasn’t what had me so worked up. I was tormented by the thought of using magic to cheat on the speech, plus I wasn’t so sure that sounding like Rodger would be an improvement. The Great Lasorda was a pretty shifty guy; maybe he wanted me to lose the election—in fact, the more I thought about it, the more sure I became that this whole magic-dust trick would backfire. And besides, now that my dad had gone over my speech with me, I thought it was pretty darn good.
Just as Mrs. Starsky gestured for me and James to approach the podium, I had an idea: I would leave things up to James. Mrs. Starsky had explained to me that he would choose who got to go first in this round of speeches, and I would decide the order in our second round. So when she made us shake hands, I whispered, “Hey, James, do you think maybe I could, um, go first? I mean, since you have the advantage and everything, being so well loved by everybody and all. Could you please just consider it?”
Lizzie looked over at me, and I could read her lips saying, What are you doing? I winked at her.
James pushed my hand away in disgust and said, “Help you? Why would I help a dork like you?” Then he turned to Mrs. Starsky and put on a phony sweet-kid voice as he told her, “Ma’am, I think I’d like to go first today, all right?”
Lizzie’s face suddenly lit up. I could tell she understood what had just happened. But Dodger wasn’t going to be happy.
Mrs. Starsky nodded at James, wished us both luck, and stepped up to the podium. She leaned toward the microphone that was mounted on it, quieted everybody down, and gave James a big introduction. Way off in the distance, Dodger scribbled on the sign, “YU WER SUPPOSTA GO FURST!” A lot of the kids cheered when Mrs. Starsky said James’s name, but a few sat with their arms crossed, looking unhappy. Maybe James didn’t have quite as many friends as he thought.
James walked calmly to the platform, put his speech on the podium, and began. I could have sworn I saw some flashing sparkles in the air around his head as he spoke the first words, but maybe that was just my imagination. However, the disaster that followed was 100 percent real. Here, for the sake of historical accuracy, is a complete transcription of James Beeks’s first presidential campaign speech:
Dear classmates, fellow students, comrades, peers, contemporaries,
I am here today to tell you the reasons, the whys and wherefores, the rationale to explain why I am the best, the greatest, the most deserving candidate in this election.
James paused at this point, squinted at his speech, picked up the pages, and shook them before continuing. Meanwhile, Dodger wrote: “O NO! HEEZ GONNA WINNN!”
You know I have always served in the student government of this school, this educational institution, this center of learning, to the best of my ability. And I think I have always done a good, great, exemplary, swell, fabulous, funky fresh, super-bad, righteous job.
James paused again, shaking his head as though he had water in his ear. Meanwhile, kids in the audience were starting to murmur, and a few giggles were breaking out around the room. Dodger erased frantically, then wrote: “SEE? WEER DED!”
So you have to ask yourself, wonder, ponder the issue of, decide whether you would rather have the most experienced man in office, or throw away, toss, waste your vote on [James pointed at me] this geek, this nerd, this dork, this loser, this pathetic, sniveling, chinless weakling.
Dodger jumped up and down, and pointed to his newest message: “NO CHIN? DUDE!” Meanwhile, Mrs. Starsky got up at this point and approached James. She did not look pleased. Mrs. Starsky whispered something in James’s ear, and his whole face got pale.
Ahem, hrrm, hock-hock, gargle.
Wow, this was a powerful spell—it even made you clear your throat four different ways! Dodger stopped writing, looked puzzled for a moment, and then started to laugh.
Sorry, I just had something stuck in my throat, a bit of gooey phlegm, a wad of partially thickened mucus, a hocker, a loogie, a—
Students were openly turning away from James in disgust now, and there were definitely pockets of laughter around the room. Mrs. Starsky went up to James again, with what must have been a second warning. Dodger wrote: “HAY! THIS MITE BEE OK!”
Okay then, back to my speech, my monologue, my oration. I was saying that I should be president, leader, commander in chief of the armed forces, big kahuna, head honcho, silverback male of the school because of my experience. Also, I would like to thank Mrs. Starsky, this lady here, the massively boring woman to my left, she of the rancid coffee breath, and—”
“ENOUGH!” Mrs. Starsky roared, ripping the cord out of the microphone. Then, in front of the whole school, she screamed and yelled at James until he stormed off the stage. As he passed me, he hissed, “I don’t know how you did this, but you are dead, deceased, extinct, six feet under, pushing up daisies! This isn’t over!”
Boy, even if they get to go first, some people are just never satisfied.
After James stalked off, Mrs. Starsky plugged the microphone back in and introduced me. As I stood to approach the microphone, Lizzie whispered, “Good luck!” Dodger grabbed his marker again and wrote, “SK8ER WALK!” I gave it my best shot. At the podium, I looked out over the audience and tried to look serious and important. Dodger wrote, “SMILE!” So I did. Then he wrote, “NOT TWO MUCHHH!” I worked on smiling without smiling too much, took a deep breath, and gave my improved, polished speech. I don’t know how much of it anyone actually heard, though, because the whole room was pretty much in an uproar. But at least I didn’t make a fool out of myself. And if James had looked like a massive idiot—well, it had been kind of his choice. I mean, I almost could have felt a tiny bit sorry for him, but it wasn’t like I had told him to go first or anything.
When we walked out of the auditorium, the last thing I saw was Dodger’s hands, reaching up over the crowd in a double V-for-victory sign.
For the rest of the day, people were talking about James’s speech all over the school. Mrs. Starsky was flustered and grumpy; every time our class settled down, we could hear other teachers yelling at their classes to be quiet, and I kept hearing whispers and murmurs in the halls: loogie . . . coffee breath . . .silverback male . . .hock . . .gargle . . . I’m happy to say I didn’t run into James or Craig all day, but then, on the way out to the bus lines, Lizzie and I saw them huddled together under the slides at the playground.
“Willie, come on!” Lizzie said, pulling on my arm. “We have to go listen to what they’re saying.”
I was horrified. “What do you mean? We can’t just walk over there—Beeks will kill me! And it’s not nice to sneak up and eavesdrop.”
Lizzie looked a little embarrassed. She leaned against the school wall, pulled a dropper out of her coat, and used it to drip three drops of a brown, smelly liquid on the sole of each of her shoes. “I never got to finish telling you this the other day,” she said, “but Dodger made me promise that the next time I saw Craig and James talking, I should use this. It’s called Tincture of Distraction, and while you’re wearing it, nobody can concentrate on you unless they’re in physical contact with you. It only works once on a pair of shoes, but it will let us sneak up on them without being noticed.”
“And why do we want to do that?”
“Dodger told me that Craig needs help, and we’re the only ones who can give it. The Great Lasorda told him so.”
“But we don’t trust the Great Lasorda. Plus, if he wants to help Craig so badly, why doesn’t he just give the kid three wishes himself?”
“He can’t,” Lizzie sai
d. “Craig is Irish.”
“So what? I’m Irish, too,” I replied.
“You’re only half-Irish. Dodger said that, according to the Inter-Magical Cooperation Accords of 1817, only fully licensed leprechauns may help full-blooded Irish children with domestic problems. The Great Lasorda could get fined seventeen doubloons, a pint of pixie dust, and an ounce of myrrh if he interferes directly with Craig’s family trouble.”
“Myrrh? What the heck is myrrh?”
Lizzie gave me a pained look as she bent down to grab my right sneaker. “Does it matter, Willie? Craig needs our help, and I promised.”
Sometimes it stinks being the good guys.
Lizzie started anointing my sneakers with the stinky stuff. The first one went fine, but she slipped a bit with the second one. “Oops,” she said. “Oh, well—three drops, five drops, what’s the difference?” I think maybe she’s been hanging out with Dodger too much lately, if you want to know the truth. Anyway, then we tiptoed around the back of the playground and up the tube slide. From in there, we could hear every word Craig and James said, amplified by the plastic walls around us.
“James, I still don’t understand what happened with the speech today.”
“Craig, I already told you, I couldn’t help myself. It was like I was a puppet or something. Somebody was making me say that stuff.”
Craig didn’t sound convinced. “You mean, like, they changed the words on your paper?”
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