The Campaign

by Leila Sales

  “So what do you do,” I said, “if an elected official is trying to pass a law that you don’t like? If you don’t vote, then how do you stop them?”

  “You can protest!” Dad replied with a flash of excitement. “March, give speeches, write them letters. Civil disobedience—that’s how you show them that they don’t have any power over you. Have I ever told you about the time I handcuffed myself to a tree near my college that developers were going to cut down?”

  “Wow,” I said. “Did that work?”

  “No.” Dad sighed. “They cut it down anyway. But I’m sure my protest made them feel guilty about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was a good tree,” Dad recalled, looking a little teary-eyed.

  “Do you still march or give speeches or whatever?” I asked.

  He stopped looked teary and shook his head. “Like I said, I don’t really follow politics.”

  He even sounded a little bit proud of it.

  It was time to face the facts: Not only did neither of my parents want to run for mayor, they’d also both be terrible at it. What I really needed was an adult who wasn’t crazy, who had a lot of time, and who actually cared.

  Now, where was I going to find one of those?

  CHAPTER 7

  “Do you want to run for mayor?” I asked Janet.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not joking,” I told her.

  “I know you’re not.”

  It was the next day, and Janet was fixing an after-school snack for me and My Friend Daniel. I’d been thinking all day about how I could ask her to run against Lucinda, and I’d come up with all sorts of arguments and counterarguments. It never occurred to me that she’d just say yes.

  “Because you need a job,” I explained, even though it sounded like Janet didn’t need much convincing. “And being mayor is a job. And you’re registered to vote here, and you’re over eighteen, so you meet all the requirements.”

  “I’d be happy to run for mayor,” Janet said, setting a plate of apple slices and peanut butter down on the table. “It’s not like I’m doing anything else with my life. But you know I won’t win, right?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I have absolutely zero experience in politics. I have no work experience at all, really, unless you count taking care of you, volunteering, and moderating the Weather or Not Weather News Board—which is, by the way, a huge job. But yeah. Nobody in Lawrenceville knows who I am.”

  “Some people know who you are,” I pointed out. “We do.”

  “Lucinda has been on the city council for years,” Janet said. “Everybody in town recognizes her name, and they trust her. She can point to her record of accomplishments, while I can point to, like . . . getting a sociology degree and living in my parents’ house.”

  I knew that everything Janet was saying was true. But I also knew she would be a better mayor than Lucinda.

  “Plus, Lucinda is an Olympian,” My Friend Daniel piped up, spreading peanut butter evenly over an apple slice, carefully making sure that no part of the apple was left bare.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just cool, that’s all. I wonder if we could see her medals.”

  “Lucinda doesn’t have any medals,” Janet said. She took a bite of apple. “I looked it up after she was bragging about it at the town hall. She came in second-to-last place in her event in 1988. Second-to-last at the Olympics is still better than not going to the Olympics at all, but . . .”

  “What was her event?” My Friend Daniel asked. “Was she a snowboarder?”

  “She did something called solo synchronized swimming,” Janet replied grimly.

  “I thought synchronized swimming meant that you had to swim in sync with somebody else,” I said.

  “It does,” Janet confirmed.

  “So what is solo synchronized swimming?”

  “Does that just mean you have to swim in sync with, like, yourself?” Daniel asked.

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Daniel, looking deeply disappointed that the first Olympian he’d ever met had turned out to be such a dud.

  “It was only an Olympic sport for a few years before they noticed that it didn’t make sense and got rid of it,” said Janet. “According to the internet.”

  “You see?” I exclaimed. “Janet, you would definitely make a better mayor than a solo synchronized swimmer, which is not a thing!”

  “I agree,” said Daniel. “I’d really wanted Lucinda to be a snowboarder.”

  I leaned over Janet’s shoulder as she pulled out her phone and typed in “how to run for mayor of Lawrenceville.” The board of elections website came up, and it had a bunch of information and deadlines.

  “We have to go to City Hall,” Janet read, “and fill out a form to declare my candidacy.”

  “Can we go now?” I asked.

  Janet checked the time. “It says they’re open until five, and it’s only four now. So we can go today if we hurry. Why not?”

  See, this is what I like about Janet. My parents never do anything “now.” My mom would be like, “Sounds like a great idea—let me put it on my calendar for next month.” And then she’d wind up cancelling anyway.

  We got to City Hall and went inside. There was a chandelier overhead in the rotunda and a few stained glass windows. We approached the security desk, and I asked the guy there, “Where do you register to run for political office?”

  I thought he might laugh at me or say, “Why do you need to know how to run for political office?” But he just smiled pleasantly and said, “City clerk’s office—just down that hallway, five doors down on the left.”

  When we got to the city clerk’s office, we were greeted by a man around my dad’s age seated at a computer at the reception desk. Behind him I could see a few other people working away at their computers, a couple of people on the phone, one making photocopies, and another sifting through a box of Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins that had been left on a table.

  “How can I help you?” the reception guy asked.

  “We want to sign up to run for mayor,” Daniel announced.

  “Not all of us,” I clarified. “Just her.” I pointed at Janet.

  “Hi,” said Janet.

  “Now?” the guy asked. He sounded surprised.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Unless you think there’s some reason why we should wait . . .?” Janet said, looking surprised by his surprise.

  “No, no,” he said. “The opposite of that, actually. It’s just—you know that the window to file petitions to run for mayor has been open for six weeks, right? It closes on Monday.”

  “Well, then it’s a good thing we didn’t wait until Monday!” Daniel said.

  “That’s true,” the receptionist acknowledged, “but it only gives you three days to gather your signatures.”

  “Signatures?”

  “Why?” Daniel asked.

  “Because it shows that you’re capable of running a real campaign,” the receptionist said. “If all you had to do was write down your name, hundreds or thousands of people might ‘run’ for mayor, and most of them wouldn’t actually do any work. You have to clear this bar—and it’s a pretty low bar—to show that you’re taking it seriously.”

  “It’s not that low of a bar,” Daniel said. “Where are we supposed to find three hundred and fifty people?”

  “There are way more than that many kids at school,” I pointed out.

  “All of them have to be registered voters in Lawrenceville, though,” the man reminded us. “That means eighteen or over.”

  That was so unfair!

  “And it has to be their in-person signatures?” Janet asked. “I can’t just ask everyone I went to high school with to email me?”

  “In-person,” he confirmed. “This is why we give candidates six weeks to collect their signatures.” He pointed at the calendar and shrugg
ed, like there was nothing to be done about it.

  Janet and I looked at each other in dismay.

  “Can it be done in three days?” Janet asked the man.

  “I have no idea,” he said, handing the forms to her. “But you can certainly try.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Three hundred and fifty signatures. Three days. We could do this, Janet and Daniel and I, if we divided and conquered.

  Personally I did not actually have a signature because I never actually 100 percent learned cursive. Unless you’re signing your name on a political petition, when are you ever going to use it? Most people’s signatures just look like scribbles and I suspect that’s because nobody ever really learned cursive.

  On Friday, I asked every grown-up I saw. I started with my parents as they were drinking their morning tea. “Can you sign this?” I put the form down on the table in front of them.

  Mom laughed. “Maddie, you crack me up. You honestly do.” She signed her name. “How many signatures are you trying to get?”

  “Three hundred and fifty.”

  “I can take a sheet to my office,” she offered, “and get some of my colleagues to sign. Bill?”

  “Sure,” Dad said, taking a page from me. “I’ll ask around.”

  “Is this for a school project?” Mom asked me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “For social studies or something? Your class is learning about how the democratic process works? I remember doing something like that when I was in middle school. We had a mock election and did everything just like it was real. We campaigned and debated and voted, the whole bit. It was terrific fun.”

  I can never be sure if my mom actually loved middle school as much as she says she did—which would be horrible, because that would mean she must have been one of the normal kids when she was my age—or whether she just can’t remember how bad it was and assumes she must have liked it. Or maybe she knows that it was miserable and is just lying to me about how awesome it can be because she hopes I’ll believe her and not my own life experiences.

  “Yes,” I said. “It is a very fun school project. But also, wouldn’t it be great if Janet did get elected?”

  Mom laughed again and kissed the top of my head. “It would be wonderful,” she said.

  When I got to school, instead of sitting in the corner and doodling while I waited for first period to begin, I started collecting signatures from every adult I could find.

  “How many do you have?” I asked My Friend Daniel when we met up before first period.

  “Ten.” He showed me his list.

  “I have twelve. But look, we got four of the same people from the front office. So we actually only have . . . eighteen.”

  We stared at each other in dismay.

  “We’ve just started,” I reminded him. “We never thought this was going to be easy.”

  “I kind of thought it would be easy,” Daniel volunteered.

  “Okay, well, you were deluding yourself. Let’s go.”

  In the afternoon, I got lucky: There was an all-school assembly. Usually I hate assembly because kids fight over the good seats, and they fight to sit next to their friends, and I don’t like fighting, so I always end up in some uncomfortable folding chair where I can’t see anything, next to boys who are purposely burping as loudly as possible while the assembly speaker lectures us on the power of positive thinking or whatever.

  But today, assembly was exactly what I needed, since it was forty-five minutes when basically everyone in the entire school was together.

  I ran around to every teacher I could get to before we had to sit down. On the opposite side of the room, I saw My Friend Daniel doing the same thing. I collected signatures from teachers for the other grades and teachers for classes I didn’t even take, like French and orchestra.

  Not everybody signed. Some of the teachers were so occupied with trying to keep their classes in order that they could barely give me any attention, let alone write down their information. A few said that even though they worked in Lawrenceville, they didn’t live there, so their signatures wouldn’t count. Mr. Xian fell into that category. But he loved that I was trying to get Janet on the ballot. “Go get ’em!” he told me.

  I fidgeted all through assembly, eager to get back to collecting signatures. Since this was the first assembly of the school year, we didn’t have an outside speaker. Instead, the theme was “Get Involved!” which meant that every extracurricular group had ninety seconds to introduce themselves and try to convince people to join.

  Of course the drama club just put Polly up onstage and let her belt out her solo from the school musical last spring. It was annoying.

  I mean, Polly is actually a very good performer, and I saw her in the musical twice last year and almost cried both times.

  But it was still annoying.

  When the school day ended, I quickly rounded up a few last signatures from some of the after-school sports coaches, and then I ran out to the front, where Janet was already parked and waiting for me outside her car. “How many did you get?” she asked me.

  “Seventy-three,” I said, coming to a panting halt beside her.

  “Maddie, that’s a ton! Nice work! I got fifty-six.”

  “And I got thirty,” My Friend Daniel said, running up to us. “I would have gotten more, but Maddie asked a lot of my people first.”

  “So all together we’re at”—I did the math—“one hundred and fifty-nine.”

  We looked at one another.

  “So we’re not even halfway there?” Daniel made a face. “I don’t think there’s a single adult at school we haven’t asked already!”

  “We’re only a few hours into it,” Janet reassured him. “We still have all weekend.”

  “I know,” he said, “but tomorrow I have to go up to my grandmother’s, so I might not talk to anybody who lives in Lawrenceville at all.”

  “Can you go door-to-door tonight and ask your neighbors?” I suggested.

  Daniel gave a long sigh, like he was doing us a huge favor. “I guess so. But I don’t know two hundred neighbors.”

  “Let’s all go to the farmers market on Sunday,” Janet said. “I’m predicting a sunny day in the high seventies, not too much wind. Perfect weather for people to be outdoors, so the market should be packed. We can ask everybody there to sign.”

  I widened my eyes at her. “You don’t take care of me on weekends, though.”

  “I know, but don’t you think your parents will let you come with me anyway?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But they won’t pay you for it, because they don’t need you this weekend.”

  “What do I care?” asked Janet. “I need you this weekend.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling surprised and pleased. “Okay, then.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Sunday was a beautiful late-summer day, as Janet had predicted, but there was a sense of unease in the air, because if we didn’t finish getting our 350 signatures that day, we would be out of the race before it even started.

  Maybe I was the only one sensing unease in the air, though. Everybody else at the farmers market seemed to be having a low-stress day of tasting Mutsu apples and watching composting demonstrations.

  People at the farmers market were less willing to stop and talk to me than the teachers at school had been. I guess because they didn’t know who I was, and maybe they weren’t used to interacting with kids.

  I got a couple around Janet’s age to sign the petition, but after they walked off, I saw that they’d both put down their names as “Poopy McPoopster” and their addresses as “1 Poop Lane.” I didn’t need to look at a map to figure out that I couldn’t count them toward our 350.

  Most people weren’t mean about saying no. A lot of them said they were sorry. But they were all in a rush to be somewhere, or at least they acted like they were in a rush as soon as they saw me coming toward them with my clipboard. And it was hard to keep going up to people when they just kept on rejectin
g me. Every time I approached a stranger I had to psych myself up a little, and the more people said no or just ignored me, the less psyching-up energy I had left inside me.

  “You’ve got to lead with what you’re petitioning for,” said a guy with a thick beard and a head full of dreadlocks, coming up beside me. He was carrying a clipboard of his own. “You only get someone’s attention for one second before they move on to the next thing. So think hard about what you’re going to say in that first second to convince them to give you another second, and then another. Like this.” He turned to an older guy who was walking past, carrying a basil plant in his arms, and said, “Hey, man, how do you feel about climate change?”

  The basil plant guy smiled at him and kept walking.

  “Like that?” I said dryly.

  “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” the clipboard guy said with a shrug. He didn’t seem that bothered. “I’ve been out here protesting fossil fuels every weekend since before you were born, kid. Some weeks are better than others, but I always get enough signatures to make it worth my while.”

  “We’ve made some progress,” he said. “But until this entire country lowers its carbon footprint, I’ll be out here.”

  “But don’t you ever feel, like . . .” I paused, because I didn’t want to say anything that would make him feel bad. “Discouraged?” I finished at last. “Like you’ve put in all this effort, and it hasn’t really gotten any better?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Because if I hadn’t put in that effort, then it would have gotten so much worse.”

  I supposed that could be true.

  “Furthermore,” he said, “if you want something, you’ve got to go after it. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re never going to get there, because you for sure won’t get there if you don’t even try. Proceed boldly toward your dreams! Even if you never arrive at the destination, at least you’ll be headed in the right direction.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So will you sign my petition?”

  “Sure.” He uncapped his pen. “What’s it for?”

  “It’s to get Janet Teneman on the ballot for mayor.”