by Leila Sales
“Yeah,” I said, shading in one of my circles so it would look 3-D.
Janet glanced over at me, her forehead furrowed. “What did you think?” she asked me.
“You did great,” I replied honestly.
“Do you think we got new voters out of it?”
“Yup,” I said. “You got a ton of new supporters tonight.” And then I couldn’t help but add, “Especially Chris Prince.”
“Oh, yeah,” Janet agreed. “That was so cool. To have this big-deal political strategist compliment me and say he thinks I stand a chance! I just Googled him, and he’s been around in local and state politics for ages. He’s the real deal.”
“He sure is,” I agreed. I wished I didn’t feel so rotten and jealous and small inside.
Janet wanted to win. I wanted her to win. Our city would be better if she won. I needed to get over myself and be supportive of anyone and anything that could make that happen. “Where do you think he’ll move your campaign headquarters to?” I asked casually.
“What?”
“I just figured, he’s a campaign expert, so he’s probably not going to run yours out of a—what would you call Jordan’s?—a ‘children’s restaurant.’”
“Oh.” Janet stopped at a red light and looked at me. “He’s not moving my headquarters anywhere. He can’t. Because he’s not in charge of my campaign.”
“Not yet,” I corrected her.
She shook her head. “Chris offered to take over as campaign manager, and I told him I was honored, but I already had the best campaign manager I could want.”
“But Janet . . .” I said. “I can’t run a campaign. I’m no good at any of that stuff, and I don’t know anything about politics.”
Janet laughed. “What do you think you’ve been doing for the past six weeks? You collected signatures, you got me on the ballot, you recruited dozens of volunteers, you set up voter outreach efforts, you organized rallies, you talked to citizens to find out what they care about, you helped me figure out my platform, and you got me through this debate when I thought I was going to have a panic attack. You’re my campaign manager, and you’re a heck of a good one. No way am I letting you quit now.”
“Really?” I said, a big grin creeping across my face.
“Really.” Janet pulled into my driveway. I could see lights on in the kitchen and on the front porch, which meant that my dad must have figured out how to turn the electricity back on somehow. Our house looked bright and welcoming, and I felt bright, too.
“See you tomorrow, campaign manager?” Janet said as I got out of the car.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, and I gave her a big smile.
CHAPTER 21
THE LAWRENCEVILLE GAZETTE
MAYOR’S RACE GROWS CLOSER AS FINAL COUNTDOWN TO ELECTION DAY BEGINS
With eighteen days left before the election, the race for mayor has grown increasingly competitive. The most recent poll shows that if the election were to be held tomorrow, 40 percent of voters would support political newcomer Janet Teneman.
“I never saw this coming,” remarked Shaun Phillips, who served on the city council for two terms with Ms. Burghart. “If you’d asked me a couple of months ago, I would have said Lu was a shoo-in. But now I’m seeing Janet Teneman’s name everywhere. Every street I drive down, there’s a ‘Janet for Mayor’ sign in someone’s yard. Every time I bring in the mail, there’s a handwritten postcard from one of Janet’s supporters.”
“Lucinda’s campaign certainly has a lot working in its favor,” commented longtime political strategist Chris Prince, who is not affiliated with either campaign. “She has name recognition. She has wealthy corporate donors, which means she has a significant amount of money to spend on advertising. She has hired a professional staff of experienced campaign organizers.
“But what she lacks—and what Janet has in spades—is ground support. Lucinda has far, far fewer volunteers, and those she has are giving far less of their time and energy. And no amount of money can buy that kind of authentic, self-motivated support.”
Still, many voters remain undecided, while others have no plans to vote at all. “I don’t pay enough attention to politics to know who to vote for,” said Lena Fawkes, owner of Lena’s Sweet Treats Cafe. “I’m going to leave that decision to the people who really care about it.”
“The issue I’ll base my decision on is housing security,” said Steve Kopowski, who works in a call center. “I’ve been homeless on and off for many years. I’ve lived in shelters and low-income housing, I’ve crashed with family, and sometimes I’ve slept on the streets. I want to elect a mayor who’s actually going to fix the homelessness problem in Lawrenceville. Both candidates promise to do something about it, but which of them is really going to make it a priority? Which of them will actually make a positive difference?”
In the last election for mayor, 23 percent of registered voters cast ballots. Both Burghart and Teneman are working to increase turnout this year. And indeed, the more competitive this race becomes, the more voters say they intend to come out and vote. Whether those intentions become reality or not, we will find out on November 8.
________
We were supposed to spend all of Saturday block-walking, which meant knocking on strangers’ doors to ask who they were voting for and remind them about Janet. But a lot of kids didn’t even show up for the block-walk, and out of those of us who did, most bailed within an hour.
I could hardly blame them. It was properly fall now and starting to get chilly. Saturday was windy and drizzly—a type of weather that does not even crack Janet’s top ten. Most of the doors we knocked on never got answered, either because people weren’t home or because they wouldn’t open the door when they weren’t expecting guests. We managed to connect with a few people, and they were generally nice to us—one even brought us towels so we could dry off from the rain. But by the end of the day I had a blister on my heel and a nagging suspicion that I wouldn’t have achieved any less had I just stayed home under a blanket.
I reminded myself that every vote mattered and every person we spoke to brought us one step closer to winning. But the number of registered voters was so huge that it was hard to imagine how knocking on thirty doors and talking to four people could make enough of a difference to matter. If only there were some way to personally go to all of their houses and make sure they all opened their doors.
On Sunday, the skies were clear, but I just couldn’t face any more block-walking. Instead, My Friend Daniel and I stood outside of Lions, Tigers, and Bears with clipboards, and we talked to customers as they went in and out of the store. We were still bothering people, but at least we didn’t have to bother them in their homes.
Lions, Tigers, and Bears was the big costume shop in town, so they did a brisk business every October. I liked to make my costumes from scratch so I’d look different from everybody else, but I usually got a wig or face paint or some other material from this store. Shopping there in the days immediately before Halloween was impossible; the line was always out the door. But Halloween was still a week and a half away, so today Lions, Tigers, and Bears was bustling but not too crowded.
“Do you know who you’re planning to support for mayor?” I asked a man who was walking out wearing a pig mask.
He glanced at our “Janet for Mayor” sign and said, “Not that girl. I’m definitely going with the other candidate.”
“Why?” My Friend Daniel started to whine, but I clapped a hand over his mouth, and the man took off his pig mask and walked away.
“Daniel,” I said, “there are a bazillion prospective voters to talk to. We can’t waste our time on people who already have their minds made up. You know this.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said, “but his mind was dumb.”
“Okay, well, I don’t think telling him that was going to help Janet win, do you?”
Daniel sulked until the next person came along. “Do you know who you’re supporting for mayor?” he asked the man pushing
a baby carriage toward us.
The guy shook his head and said, “Not yet.”
“Can I talk to him?” Daniel asked me.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”
“Sometimes I’m not allowed to talk to people,” Daniel told him snottily. “Anyway, here’s what I like about Janet Teneman and why you should like her, too . . .”
“Do you know who you’re supporting for mayor?” I asked the next woman who came my way.
“Myself,” she said icily.
I looked up at the woman.
It was Lucinda Burghart.
“Are you Halloween shopping?” I asked, trying to imagine what Lucinda might dress up as.
“No,” replied Lucinda. “I am not Halloween shopping.”
“Oh.”
“I’m here to talk to you,” Lucinda said.
“Me?” I literally looked behind me. There were eighteen days until the election. Lucinda should be talking to her campaign staff, her donors, the voters. There was no reason why she’d want to talk to me.
“Yes,” Lucinda said. “Come with me.” She started striding briskly away. I grabbed Daniel by the wrist and chased after her. We caught up with her at the end of the block. She turned around and said, “Who is this?”
“My Friend Daniel,” I said.
“I don’t need to talk to Daniel,” she said dismissively.
“Well, I’m not just going to follow you by myself,” I explained. “And I’m not leaving Daniel alone back at Lions, Tigers, and Bears.”
“I don’t see why not,” Lucinda said.
“You might be a kidnapper,” My Friend Daniel pointed out to her.
She sighed. “Fine. Daniel, you will come with us.”
“Are you going to kidnap us?” Daniel asked, rooted to the sidewalk.
Lucinda closed her eyes briefly. “No,” she said. “I am going to buy you ice cream.”
CHAPTER 22
Sprinkle ’n’ Scoop had all its Halloween decorations up. Disembodied plastic fingers and eyeballs decorated our table. It looked creepy, which was exactly how I felt about being here with Lucinda. My Friend Daniel was clearly immune to the ambient horror. “You’re actually really nice,” he informed Lucinda as he dug into his ice cream.
Lucinda gave him a thin-lipped smile. “As are you, Daniel.”
I rolled my eyes. Just because Lucinda had bought us ice cream, that didn’t mean she was suddenly a good guy. I’d ordered a single scoop of Dutch chocolate. And I hadn’t taken a bite yet.
“This is quite enjoyable, isn’t it,” Lucinda remarked. But I don’t think she meant it, because she said it in the same tone of voice as Grandma when she once described my collage of hair trimmings as “interesting.”
“Now, what grade are you children in?” Lucinda asked.
“Seventh,” Daniel told her, his mouth full of ice cream.
“And what’s your favorite thing to do at school?” Lucinda asked.
“Social studies is my best subject,” Daniel said. “And I’m on the soccer team now.”
“An athlete!” Lucinda beamed at him. “Just like me. Keep your head in the game, and someday you could make it to the Olympics. It really is possible—and I should know.” She paused, waiting for one of us to be like, Oh, really? How do you know that? What is your Olympic-related experience? Do tell!
“Daniel’s on the Yellow Team,” I told her. “He’s not going to the Olympics.”
“What do you like about school?” Lucinda asked me.
“Art,” I answered, looking her in the eye.
“Well, then, you’re in luck,” Lucinda said, “because I have a proposition for you. I’d like to keep arts education funding for Lawrenceville schools. In fact, I’d like to double the budget. How does that sound?”
“So you just . . . changed your mind?” I asked, hardly daring to believe it.
“I listened,” Lucinda explained. “That’s part of my job as a representative: to listen to what the people want. At the debate, I heard the voters say that they value arts education and they want to continue to fund it. My job is to give the people I represent what they want.”
“Really?” I asked. I finally took a bite of my ice cream. It was delicious.
“See? I told you she was nice,” Daniel said.
“Whatever you may think of me, I’m not out to get you,” Lucinda told me. “I’m not motivated by a desire to make life worse for anyone.”
“Then why threaten to get rid of arts education in the first place?” I asked, confused. This all seemed too good to be true. Was this a trick? Or had we . . . won?
“Every politician’s goal should be to make his or her city better for its citizens and taxpayers,” Lucinda explained. “I am confident that the way to do that here is to lower taxes and to keep the government out of things that shouldn’t be its job in the first place. I thought that eliminating arts education would be a good way to help accomplish that. But your advocacy has convinced me otherwise.”
“Wow,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. Our campaign had actually made a difference! We’d changed people’s minds, and we were going to change people’s lives.
“Would you like that?” Lucinda asked. “If I am elected mayor, would you like me to leave your art classes alone?”
“Yes, please!” I said.
“Wonderful,” Lucinda said. “Consider it done.” She took a last sip of her raspberry lime rickey, dabbed at her lips with her napkin, and then said, “There’s just one small thing you can do for me in exchange for my generosity.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stop working on Janet’s campaign.”
My eyes widened. “What? Why?”
“Because,” Lucinda said patiently, “we are making a political compromise. An alliance, if you will. I’m offering you something that you want, and in exchange, you can give me something that I want.
“You—all your little friends, those hordes of children I see everywhere with ‘Janet for Mayor’ signs and flyers and whatnot—you will all cease involvement with Janet’s campaign. Go back to focusing on your schoolwork and test preparation, as you should have been doing all along. Go back to your art projects, since you feel like they are so important. Leave the election to the grown-ups.”
Daniel nodded, like this made sense. “I would like more time for soccer practice,” he agreed. “And then you would just take care of the art thing?” Lucinda gave her assent, and Daniel grinned at me and said, “Perfect!”
I stared at Lucinda, my brain whirring. “Hey,” I said, suddenly realizing why she’d brought us to Sprinkle ’n’ Scoop. “You’re scared of us.”
“Excuse me?” Lucinda laughed.
“You actually think we might win.”
“No,” Lucinda said. “I’m confident that I will win. But I also believe in being prepared, and I do not leave things up to chance. Now, what do you say to my offer?”
“We say yes,” My Friend Daniel said, licking his spoon.
“Daniel!”
“What? It’s the solution to everything. We get to keep art class, and we get to stop working so hard. Win-win.”
It sort of seemed like he had a point when he put it like that. “But what about Janet?” I asked.
“You won’t need Janet,” Lucinda replied. “You’ll have me.”
They both looked at me. I felt sick. I pushed away the remains of my melted ice cream and said, “I need to think about it.”
Lucinda pursed her lips together and nodded. “What a focused young woman you are,” she said, making it sound like a criticism. She handed me a business card.
“Here’s my email address. If I don’t hear from you within forty-eight hours, then this deal is no longer on the table.” She stood up, pushed in her chair, then looked at me.
“Just know this,” she said. “I will win no matter what you do. And if you choose to continue this absurd, selfish little campaign against me, then when I win, I will destroy every last scrap of arts pr
ogramming that your school has. It will all be gone. Poof! And you will have only yourself to blame.”
“Why are you so mean?” I asked, staring up at her.
“Mean?” Lucinda laughed. “I’m not mean. I’m presenting you with a choice. You wanted responsibility? Well, I’m giving it to you. Your future and the fate of all your friends rests in your hands. Now it’s up to you to choose wisely.”
CHAPTER 23
There weren’t that many people working at Jordan’s the next day. Maybe the ineffective block-walking had scared them off. Michaela was at a computer, entering contact information for new Janet supporters. Deke was calling voters whom we still hadn’t managed to reach, but mostly he was getting sent straight to voicemail. My Friend Daniel was playing a video game. Otherwise it was calm. Depressingly calm. And I couldn’t figure out what to do about Lucinda’s offer.
Molly and Polly and Holly were there, too, but they weren’t doing anything useful. They were singing along with the soundtrack from Grease and making poodle skirts for their Halloween costumes.
“We should start at my house,” Molly was saying. “My neighborhood has the best candy.”
“But my house is the best for getting ready,” Polly disagreed. “My bathroom has a huge mirror. Plus, I don’t need your sister bugging us the entire time we’re there.”
“How long could it possibly take you to get ready?” I spoke up. “You’re all doing the exact same costume. Just do it once and then copy it.” They all ignored me, but I was too worried to be ignored. “The election is coming up right after Halloween,” I reminded them.
“So what?” said Molly.
Holly gave me a Holly Look.
“So, do you really think we have time for trick-or-treating?” I said. “Shouldn’t we be working on the campaign? You know Lucinda won’t be taking a break for Halloween.”
“No way am I giving up Halloween for another night of making phone calls and holding signs,” Molly said. “You’re crazy.”
