The Campaign

by Leila Sales

I lay in bed, knotting my sheets around my fingers and wondering how I’d gotten into such an intense competition when I didn’t even like competition. I’d submitted a comic to Fishsticks last year, and that was competitive in a way, but the editors of Fishsticks could accept as many comics as they wanted. I’d once entered a drawing into an art contest, but I knew that if I didn’t win, there was still a chance I could get second place or an honorable mention or something.

  A political race wasn’t like that. There was one winner, and they got to be mayor for the next four years, and everyone else got nothing at all.

  For maybe the first time ever, I was downstairs and ready for school before my parents even got out of bed. I heard my mom’s watch alarm go off, her cue to come down to the kitchen and start the tea kettle.

  “Ah, yes, of course.” Mom sat down next to me and placed her hand on mine. “Sweetie, I’m so proud of all the work you’ve put into Janet’s campaign.”

  “Thank you,” I said, snuggling into her.

  “And I just want you to know that no matter what happens out there today, she’ll always be your babysitter.”

  I looked up at my mother. “You know that’s not true, right? Because if she gets elected, then she’ll be the mayor, not my babysitter. And also I’m practically old enough not to need a sitter at all.”

  “Right,” Mom agreed after a pause, and I got the sneaking suspicion that none of this had ever occurred to her before. “I just meant . . . in our hearts, she will always be your babysitter.”

  “Okay,” I said dubiously.

  “Okay,” Mom said.

  Dad drove me to school early, because I was too jumpy to stay at home and do nothing. I knew Janet was already out there, going from one polling place to the next to introduce herself to voters as they came through, and I felt like I needed to be out there, too.

  Lawrenceville Middle School’s gym was one of the city’s polling sites, so rather than just drop me off like usual, Dad parked and came in with me. There were signs all over the school building that said “Vote here” in various languages.

  We were among the first people there. The PTA was still setting up the bake sale, which made me wish we hadn’t gotten here quite so early. The banana chocolate chip muffins looked really good, but we couldn’t buy them yet. Dad gave his name and address to the poll worker, and she handed him a ballot.

  “The first time I ever voted, it was for President John F. Kennedy,” Dad told me. “He was a great man. One of the greatest. He died too young.”

  “He died before you were born,” I pointed out.

  Dad looked at me.

  “I learned that in social studies,” I said.

  “The first time I voted, it was for someone with just as much courage and character as JFK,” Dad said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “A great man. Great politician. I don’t remember his name.”

  “Did he win or lose?” I asked.

  “Oh, he won,” Dad said as we took the ballot into the voting booth. “He won in a landslide.”

  “Good for him,” I said. The voting booth wasn’t totally isolated, but it was private enough that nobody other than us could see who Dad marked on his ballot.

  “I think I already do,” I said. For the past ten weeks, I’d been following the news, learning about the issues, talking to other citizens about what they believed, and trying to turn my beliefs into reality. That was democracy. I was already living it.

  But there was also a part of me that felt sad and left out when I saw my dad choose Janet’s name in the mayor category. Because for all that I had done, I couldn’t do that one last thing. I could urge hundreds or thousands of people’s hands toward Janet’s name, and in that regard my influence was limitless. But I could not select her name myself—I couldn’t select anything directly—and in that regard I was powerless.

  I had done everything, and now that we were actually here at the polls, I could do nothing. Nothing but hope that what I’d done already would prove to be enough.

  The poll worker handed my dad a sticker that said “I Voted,” and he stuck it to his coat. “Do you want one too, honey?” the poll worker asked me.

  I knew she was being nice, but that made me feel left out, too. “No, thanks,” I said. “I didn’t vote.”

  We got a few steps away, and then I had an idea. “Actually—” I turned back toward her. “I’ll take one of those stickers after all.”

  And after applying a little bit of artistic flair to it, I wore it with pride.

  Dad gave me a kiss and headed to work, and I headed upstairs to social studies. Dahlina, Adrianne, and Holly came in soon after, all of them staring at their phones. “There are no updates,” Dahlina was grumbling. “This website is supposed to give us minute-by-minute updates about voter turnout, but it’s been stuck at fifty-six for ages now. Only fifty-six people have voted? Where is everyone?”

  “There still aren’t any exit polls,” Adrianne complained.

  Holly gave a Holly Look, though it was directed at her phone, not at me.

  “You know the polls have just barely opened,” I reminded them. “We won’t know anything for a while.”

  “Oh!” Dahlina gasped.

  “What?” I leapt from my chair and ran around to see over her shoulder.

  “More voters turned out in the first hour of polling today than in the first hour of Election Day last year!”

  “That’s awesome!” My Friend Daniel said, arriving and tossing his backpack on the floor. “Better voter turnout favors us, because that means more first-time voters, and first-time voters are more likely to support someone who’s young and new, like them.”

  “Maybe,” Adrianne said, “but maybe it just means that Lucinda has done a really good job of energizing her base and this high voter turnout is all because of kid haters flocking to the polls.”

  “Why isn’t there more information?” Dahlina snapped, refreshing the web page once again. “How old are these first-time voters? Who are they? Why is no one telling us anything?”

  “Guys!” I said.

  They all looked at me.

  “Nobody knows anything yet,” I said. “Okay? Everyone’s just guessing. We don’t know anything because nobody knows anything, because there’s nothing to know yet.”

  “Okay,” Adrianne agreed, but she definitely wasn’t listening to me, because a minute later she added, “Hey, this reporter just tweeted that she thinks Janet’s chance of winning is almost equal to Lucinda’s!”

  The rest of the school day went the same way. None of us could pay any attention. Who could focus on algebra knowing that while we were stuck in here solving for x, vote after vote was being cast all over the city? I’d never seen so many cell phones get confiscated during class, as kids kept pulling them out to sneak just one look at the news. And in the hallways between classes? Forget it.

  “How are you feeling?” Mr. Xian asked when I showed up to art class.

  I shook my head and blew out a long breath. “Nervous,” I said. “Sad. Proud. Overwhelmed.” I shrugged. “Everything.”

  Mr. Xian nodded like that made sense, even though I myself couldn’t begin to make sense of my own tangle of emotions. “You know what I do when I feel everything?” he said.

  “You draw?” I guessed.

  He grinned. “Now, how did you know what I was going to say?”

  So I spent the next forty-five minutes with my headphones on, sitting quietly on the floor and drawing. It didn’t change anything in the world. But it did make me feel better.

  “Maddie,” Mr. Xian stopped me as I was on my way out of class. “Thank you for trying to save my job.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “I’m serious,” he told me. “There are so many people who cry and complain when something happens that they don’t like. And then after they’re done crying and complaining, they just go along with it. You saw something you didn’t like, and you took action to change it. And you ne
ver quit.”

  I thought about getting ice cream with Lucinda, and I blushed. “There were some times when I nearly quit,” I admitted.

  “But you didn’t,” Mr. Xian reminded me. “And you won’t. Even if Janet loses, you’ll find other ways to fight for the arts.”

  “It’ll be easier if she wins,” I pointed out.

  “Yup,” he agreed. “But if she doesn’t, then you’ll do it the hard way.”

  I gave him a smile. “Thanks, Mr. Xian.”

  “Now, go to class,” he said, “before Ms. Castro yells at me for making you late again. Whatever happens, I’ll see you back here tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” I repeated. Tomorrow everything would be different.

  CHAPTER 27

  After school, we divided up. We had kids stationed at every polling location around town, holding “Janet for Mayor” signs so people could find us and ask any last questions as they headed inside, and of course Janet was still trying to visit all the polls before they closed. You’re not allowed to campaign for a specific candidate within a hundred feet of a polling site, so we measured out the distance and then stood as close as possible.

  Lucinda had people holding signs for her at each polling place, too. I tried to ignore them.

  “Thanks for voting!” the woman with the Lucinda sign called to everyone as they left. “Let me know if you have any questions!” she greeted everyone who approached. “Do you want any gum?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. No way was I taking poison-laced gum from the enemy.

  She smiled at me and popped a square of gum into her own mouth. Okay, maybe it wasn’t poisonous. Still, I didn’t want anything from her.

  “What grade are you in?” she asked me.

  “Seventh,” I said. I wished she would quit acting so friendly.

  “Oh, seventh grade was the worst,” she said. I looked at her. “Sorry,” she said. “If you love seventh grade, that’s great! I wasn’t trying to ruin it for you. I just recall that it was hard for me, that’s all.”

  “Why?” I asked, interested despite myself.

  She made a face. “English isn’t my first language, so I didn’t talk much, because I was terrified that the other kids would make fun of the way I spoke. One of my teachers was really horrible, and he did make fun of my accent.”

  “No!” I said. “A teacher?”

  “Not a good one,” she said. She handed a “Lucinda for Mayor” flyer to an arriving voter and brightly said, “Vote for Lucinda!”

  I studied her. She seemed kind. Honest. If she weren’t out here campaigning for Lucinda, she seemed like someone I could even like.

  “Why are you supporting Lucinda?” I asked. You don’t seem like a jerk, I added silently.

  “She has a good plan for bringing more businesses into Lawrenceville,” the woman answered. “I think everyone can agree that there’s a serious unemployment problem here. There are far more people who want to work than there are jobs, and I believe that Lucinda is the most likely to fix that.”

  “Janet wants to bring more jobs here, too,” I pointed out.

  “I know that,” she acknowledged. “And Janet seems great. I can see why you support her. It just seems to me that Lucinda’s plan is more likely to succeed.”

  “Yeah, but she’s . . .” I didn’t want to say it, but it sort of had to be said. “Not very nice.”

  The woman said, “The thing about politics is that it’s not good guys versus bad guys. Everyone pretty much wants the same things: a safe and affordable lifestyle, growth opportunities for our kids, justice, and freedom. We just don’t all agree on what the best way is to get those things.” A new family walked by, and the woman smiled at them and called out, “Thanks for voting!”

  I didn’t know what to say to any of that. I’d always thought of politics as kind of like this:

  Which meant that everybody who didn’t support Janet was selfish or stupid or evil. But this woman didn’t seem to be any of those things. She was just . . . different.

  When Deke came to relieve me, I didn’t exactly know how to say goodbye to Lucinda’s sign-holder. I felt like I should wish her good luck, but I didn’t actually want her to have good luck, because that would mean bad luck for me. She must have seen my confusion, because she smiled at me and said, “Thanks for participating in democracy. I hope we get a government that we can both feel good about.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I hope that, too.”

  I passed my sign to Deke and was about to leave, and then guess who showed up?

  Lucinda.

  Of course it made sense that she was spending Election Day visiting all the polling sites, just like Janet. So I guess I wasn’t surprised to see her. But I wasn’t happy about it, either.

  “Maddie Polansky,” she said coolly.

  “Lucinda Burghart,” I said back.

  She narrowed her eyes, studying me like this was her first time truly seeing me. “Who are you?” she asked at last.

  I almost felt bad for her. Obviously she had some made-up idea in her head about who twelve-year-olds were and what we could do. But the truth was, she didn’t know anything.

  “I,” I told her, “am the campaign manager.” And I walked away.

  By the time I got to Jordan’s, there were only two hours left until the polls closed. As soon as I walked in the door, Michaela handed me a list of names and phone numbers. “These are all Janet supporters,” she told me. “They’re all people who we coded as ones and twos when we were doing voter identification. Once you get through these names, come to me, and I’ll give you more.”

  I found some space at a table and started making my phone calls.

  “I still need to get to the polls,” said the first guy I spoke with. “I got stuck at work.”

  “You only have two hours left,” I told him.

  “This is the third time you people have called me today,” complained the next person I reached.

  “Well, we’re going to keep calling you until you vote,” I replied. “So you should go do it, and then we can stop bothering you.”

  I hung up. I called the next voter. I hung up. I called the next voter.

  “Come on, people!” Michaela yelled. “Pick up the pace!”

  More kids arrived, and Michaela handed out more contacts.

  “I really hate talking on the phone,” Adrianne whined. “It makes me nervous.”

  “None of us like it, Adrianne,” Dahlina said. “That’s not why we’re doing it.”

  “I already voted,” said the next person I spoke with.

  “I’m just leaving the polls now,” said the one after that.

  “Everyone in this household voted for Janet!” said someone else.

  “Thank you,” I told each of them. “Remind all your friends and neighbors. Make sure everyone you know votes before it’s too late!”

  All the phone conversations started to bleed into one. My ear started to ache, and my fingers grew stiff from dialing. I wanted to stop, but I didn’t. Because this was it. This was the final push. And then Michaela said:

  “Okay, that’s it. The polls are closed.”

  We all set down our phones, and for a moment, the room, which had been vibrating with conversation for hours, fell silent. We had turned out every voter we could. And now it was too late to do anything more. Now it was out of our hands. All we could do was wait.

  CHAPTER 28

  Janet arrived at Jordan’s soon after the polls closed. She’d spent the day meeting as many voters in person as she could. And now she was here with us, her campaign staff, to watch the results come in.

  Dahlina put the news on the big-screen TV, and we all filled up bowls from the candy machines and settled in to watch the results.

  “Lawrenceville is divided into thirty-two precincts,” the news reporter was saying. “We’ll report results from each precinct as they come in, but remember that it takes some longer to report than others. Our first precinct reporting this evening is
the twenty-fourth.”

  The TV showed a map of the town with the twenty-fourth precinct highlighted, and Isabelle proudly announced, “That’s where I live.”

  “The twenty-fourth precinct reports five hundred and eighty-five ballots cast for Lucinda Burghart and one hundred and thirty-one for Janet Teneman,” said the newscaster.

  The mood in the room sank immediately. Janet’s face drooped, and a few kids let out outraged gasps.

  “No offense,” Dahlina said to Isabelle, “but your neighborhood stinks.”

  But the next precinct they announced was Dahlina’s, and that one went for Lucinda, too—437 to 294.

  “Your neighborhood stinks,” Isabelle told Dahlina.

  “This whole town stinks,” said Lucas.

  “We’re still at only 6 percent reporting,” I reminded everyone. “Anything could happen. The next 94 percent of votes could all be for Janet.”

  But that wasn’t what happened. The next precinct came in, and it was 514 to 291 in favor of Lucinda. So far, Janet had picked up more than 700 votes, which wasn’t bad. Given that ten weeks ago nobody knew who she was and eight weeks ago she was just “that girl who cheated in high school,” it was impressive that more than 700 people trusted her enough to go out and vote for her.

  But Lucinda already had more than double that many votes, and they just kept coming in. Every time Janet edged up, Lucinda did, too.

  “She’s cheating!” My Friend Daniel squawked.

  “How is she cheating?” I asked.

  “Because . . . she’s winning!” Daniel said.

  “Winning is not the same as cheating,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we worked a lot harder than she did! And Janet’s a better candidate! It’s not fair!”

  I shoved away my bowl of candy. I wasn’t hungry.

  When Lucinda passed 2,000 votes and Janet was still at 1,200, Janet stood up to address the room. “I know that this evening isn’t going the way we hoped,” she said. “And it’s okay to feel upset about that. We all worked really, really hard. I am so proud of every one of you.

  “When we started this race, I knew we were fighting an uphill battle. I didn’t know if we could win, but I knew that we could call attention to the issues that mattered, fight strong, and fight fair, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.