How Not to Run for President

by Catherine Clark

  And why did I care? What was happening to me? This campaign was trying to turn me into a dweeb!

  Kristen tried to fix the collar of my T-shirt, which was kind of ridiculous since it didn’t actually have one. “Maybe we’ll have to schedule a shopping trip,” she said. “right after this event.”

  “Yes, but Aidan has a good point. We don’t want anyone to think he’s gone all slick,” the governor said. “They’d never trust him or believe he was that everyday kid in Ohio.”

  “Why does he get to wear what he wants?” Emma complained.

  “Because he’s not the potential first daughter,” the governor said, “and you are.”

  “Lucky for me,” I said. “That would be awkward.”

  Emma laughed, but Kristen completely ignored my joke. “We’ll tackle your wardrobe issues later,” Kristen said. “right now we need to get out there and meet the crowd!”

  “You definitely have issues,” Emma said as she pushed past me to be second off the bus, behind her mother.

  I stuck out my tongue at her.

  “How childish,” she commented.

  “How rude-ish,” I replied.

  “That is not even a word,” Emma said.

  “I know that,” I said just as she continued, “Don’t you know anything?”

  “Kids. Kids! Knock it off. We need a unified front,” said the general. “We can’t show any weakness here. A weak front is a losing battle. Let’s go, everyone! Let’s go get those votes! Let’s attack from all sides, make sure no one forgets us!” He made it sound like we were landing in France and storming the Normandy coast, or whatever.

  As soon as the bus doors opened, a whoosh of hot air—and loud screams—came at me. “Bettina! Brandon! Bettina! Bran-don!” a giant group of fans was chanting. Fresh Idea Party signs were being waved, slogans shouted, pictures snapped.

  I felt ridiculous as I stepped off the bus behind everyone else. Who was I, anyway? Just some random kid they picked up along the way. Why was I even here? I could be home watching Baseball Tonight.

  Well, maybe not, since we no longer had cable.

  Maybe I’d somehow end up earning money on this tour, and we could get our cable back when I got home. That would make everyone happy.

  Yes. That was it. I’d stick around long enough to get paid. Not that anyone had said anything about paying. I might have to ask about that. There should be a union, just like at FreezeStar.

  In the parking lot, reporters were circling the governor within seconds. It was a mob scene, just like the day before, only worse.

  “People, people, stand back! Give her some room!” Stu was shouting while the agents and local police kept the crowd at arm’s length. The governor was shaking hands and kissing babies while the general urged her forward to the building’s entrance. Meanwhile, questions were coming at the governor from all directions:

  “What do you have to say about the latest trade deficit numbers?”

  “What plans do you have to save the economy?”

  “What will the latest immigration act ruling do for migrant farm workers in Ohio?”

  “Hot enough for ya?”

  I tried to hide in the background, behind Emma. She’s taller than I am, so she made a good human shield. I would have to remember that in case the crowd ever turned on us and started throwing tomatoes, cream pies, or worse.

  Speaking of which: where was my personal Secret Service agent?

  “Hey, aren’t you that kid?” a reporter came out of nowhere and held a microphone in front of me.

  “Which kid?” I asked.

  She laughed. “You know, the tackle-first, ask-questions-later kid.”

  “Um, yeah,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s him, all right,” Emma added.

  “I’d love to do an exclusive interview—” the reporter began.

  “Hey, look, it’s Aidan!” someone else yelled. “The clarinet hero!”

  All of a sudden, I had as big a group of reporters around me as the governor had around her, yelling questions.

  “How was the bus ride, Aidan?”

  “You got any songs for us?”

  “Play something, Aidan!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  I was about to say that I’d been kind of wondering the same thing myself when Stu came to my rescue. “He’s the latest Brandonite, of course. His issues are the governor’s issues. Now, everyone, if you’ll excuse us, we have a rally to attend!”

  We headed into the convention center through the back doors. The Secret Service agents and local police escorted us to the backstage area of the convention hall, which reminded me of our school auditorium. The seats were filled, and people were standing in the aisles. Up onstage, a woman from the Ohio Grandmothers for Peace group announced that Governor Brandon was in the building, and the crowd went wild. People were waving Fresh Idea Party banners and American flags. Peeking out from backstage, I saw groups wearing T-shirts that said BRING ON BETTINA! and WE FLIP FOR FIP! There was even a set of twin babies wearing shirts that said, ¡NIÑAS PARA BETTINA!

  A group of women in the front row held signs that said, INDEPENDENT WOMEN FOR AN INDEPENDENT PRESIDENT. Onstage, a band started performing a rallying song, while backstage, the governor reviewed her notes one final time.

  Stu, the general, and Kristen hovered by the governor, waiting for instructions. Emma stood near me, but we didn’t say anything. Finally, a local politician introduced Governor Brandon.

  When she walked onstage and said, “Hello, Elyria!” it was like the reaction Christopher’s varsity football team gets when they take the field for a big game, only a lot louder. People were screaming, chanting, going a little berserk, if you asked me.

  Whoa, I was thinking. She really was growing in popularity. So this was what happened when you had a real campaign stop in a big city. This was why people got so keyed up over politics. It was like one big party—except for the signs and the weird, gigantic buttons pinned to people’s shirts. Fame. Attention. I loved it.

  Stu, the general, and Kristen, along with Emma, disappeared into the auditorium to take their reserved seats, leaving me standing there feeling like I’d missed the bus. Why didn’t they tell me they were going? I didn’t know how to sneak around and get past the stage without being seen.

  So I was standing backstage listening to the governor’s remarks when suddenly someone tugged at my elbow. “Aidan, listen—I know this is last minute, but Stu just told me he changed his mind. They want you onstage,” Emma said.

  “They do? Why?” I asked. “For what?”

  “They want you to stand there and hold this.” She gave me a big poster-board sign that said, OHIO LOVES FRESH IDEAS! “You appeal to the Ohio element,” she said.

  “What?” I struggled to hold on to the large sign.

  Emma shrugged. “It’s election-speak. That’s what Stu told me to tell you. Never mind that. Just go, now!” Emma shoved me hard, the way you’d push a shopping cart if you wanted to hop on and go for a ride in the parking lot. I went flailing and stumbling out of the wings and onto the stage, dropping the poster board.

  You know how you try to stop yourself from falling, but it’s like slow motion and you can’t do anything about it? Instead, you just wave your arms and keep falling. I went careening across the stage and slammed right into Governor Brandon at the podium.

  I fell, and I made her fall. It was a domino effect.

  I heard the audience gasp. Then nothing, just total, embarrassing silence.

  I tried to get up, but my foot slipped and I fell against the bass drum onstage with a giant thump. “Ba-dum!”

  The drummer peered at me over her drums. Her long beaded braids knocked against the cymbals, sounding like wind chimes. Either that, or I had a head injury that was making me hear tinkling bells.

  “You okay, little dude?” she asked.

  Man. Even a hippie drummer could insult me.

  Governor Brandon, meanwhile, had crashed int
o a speaker, high heels first.

  “Uh, drumroll, please?” I asked. Everyone laughed. When I stood up and shrugged, totally humiliated and wanting to hide, they cheered.

  The Secret Service agents just looked at me, shaking their heads as if they couldn’t believe I was pulling this stunt again. “Identify the threat,” one said to the other.

  And he pointed at me. “He is the threat.”

  The crowd was screaming.

  I hurried to help Governor Brandon to her feet. I apologized again for taking her out. She was looking a little flustered and not quite ready to say anything. I don’t know what came over me at that moment, bravery or stupidity, but I stepped up to the mike.

  Whoa. There had to be a few thousand people looking at me.

  “This wasn’t the planned opening for today’s speech. And I apologize for that,” I said, my voice getting a little louder and clearer with each word. “But when you leave here today, don’t remember this clumsy moment of mine. remember Governor Brandon. You can knock her down,” I said, “but you can’t count her out!”

  There was a deafening roar of applause from the audience as Governor Brandon came up to the mike. She shook my hand as the band kicked off another campaign song. Before she could speak, everyone started chanting her name, and then people onstage began to dance and I backed away, wondering why politicians were such horrible, horrible dancers.

  Behind me in the wings, Kristen and Stu were high-fiving each other, only Stu wasn’t very coordinated and high-fived Kristen in the eye. So then she was screaming and jumping around, holding her hand over her eye.

  I tried to sneak off the stage and back into oblivion. No such luck. Stu and Kristen pushed me back onstage, where I had to sit in a folding chair and listen to Governor Brandon’s speech once all the noise died down. I felt like a complete idiot. Also, I was not all that interested in the speech, which was all about foreign policy and world peace. The Grandmothers for Peace were ecstatic. I was bored.

  Next, the governor was talking about human rights, and then about workers’ rights and how everyone was entitled to fair and equal treatment.

  I was thinking, this is all great, if you have a job, but not if you don’t and your family has to give up things like name-brand peanut butter, cable TV, and the Internet.

  I started thinking, What would I do if I were in Governor Brandon’s shoes (besides look ridiculous)? If I had an audience full of voters to talk to, what would I tell them? Or what would I ask them?

  I remembered something we’d learned in social studies, something that President John F. Kennedy (number thirty-five) once said: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

  I’d modify that slightly.

  Ask not what Aidan can do for you—ask what you can do for Aidan. Like, give him back ESPN. And establish a T.J.-free zone.

  But that wasn’t exactly what President Kennedy was getting at in that famous speech. I knew that it wasn’t about being selfish. He was asking people to volunteer, to get involved and help others.

  Just then I spotted Emma in the crowd, sitting next to the general. He might be able to control an army, but he had no control over Emma.

  I glared at her. She smiled and waved, as if she were a princess riding on a float in a parade. As if she were completely sweet and innocent and hadn’t just pushed me the way, well, the way T.J. would have.

  “I’m going to get you back,” I said, all the while smiling and posing for photos in the lobby of a downtown Cleveland hotel. Was this what being a lobbyist meant?

  I’d shaken more hands and smiled more in one afternoon than in the rest of my entire life combined. My face hurt. My mouth hurt. My eyes were so tired that they even hurt. After the event in Elyria, we’d been to every suburb of Cleveland that afternoon, or at least it felt that way. I didn’t even know Cleveland had that many suburbs—or that people in them would come out to see me. I was just a normal kid from a normal small town. Hadn’t they ever met one before? Now we were finishing up a dinner fundraiser that had been held in the enormous ballroom of the hotel where we’d be staying that night.

  “Get me back for what?” Emma sounded so sweet and innocent, no one would ever believe she was mean and devious. With T.J., you could tell by looking at him that he was up to something. He’d have this scowl on his upper lip, which was kind of like a smile at the same time, like he was really going to enjoy whatever he was about to say or do to you, and his eyes would narrow, homing in on the target. But Emma acted like she was strolling off to a Niceness Convention. Then she punched you in the gut.

  “You know what,” I said, gritting my teeth. “You pushed me across the stage, back in Elyria.” I hadn’t even had time to confront her about it because we’d been in public all day. The governor was busy signing autographs and meeting the local FIP leaders who wanted to map out her schedule for the next few days.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you have balance problems, that’s not my fault,” Emma said breezily.

  “I don’t know how or when, but I will get you back,” I said, keeping an eye out for Kristen, or anyone else who’d care how I was talking to Her royal Pain. “You made a fool out of me on national TV.”

  “How is that my fault?” She laughed.

  “You tricked me, then you shoved me! I wasn’t even supposed to be onstage,” I said. “You were the one who told me to go, and then you shoved me.”

  “My pleasure, my pleasure,” Emma said. “Love your shirts!” She smiled and waved to a group of young supporters wearing pink ballerinas for bettina T-shirts, who couldn’t get close enough to shake her hand. Lucky for them, because who knew what she might do next?

  “Are you jealous or something?” I asked. “Because I’m getting so much attention and you’re not?”

  “Please,” she said. “Jealous of you?” Then she turned nice again, telling a woman how much she was enjoying her visits in Ohio. What a phony!

  As soon as that group moved on, Kristen pulled us away from the crowd, and we followed her and a couple of Secret Service agents to the elevators.

  “I can’t wait to get out of these stupid shoes,” Emma said, punching the elevator button. “They’re killing me. I want to go home.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “You know what? You’re so phony. You’re going to be a terrible first daughter.”

  “Not if I can help it,” she muttered as we stepped into the elevator. She stood on one side of it, and I stood on the other.

  “What?” I asked. That didn’t make sense.

  “Okay, kids, here’s the deal,” Kristen said as the door closed. “We’ve got a little time to unwind before bed. Let’s all chill out, put our feet up, have some downtime. No arguing, no fighting, no nonsense.”

  When the elevator doors opened—with a special key—it turned out that we had the whole top floor to ourselves in one gigantic suite. It was the kind of hotel room you see on TV that only exists in Las Vegas or someplace fancy like that. Only this was Cleveland. And this wasn’t on TV, it was real.

  “Are we actually staying here?” I asked.

  “It’s going to be crowded,” said Emma. “Can’t I have my own room, just once?”

  “You always do have your own bedroom.” Kristen gave her a stern look. “What’s more, I think we can all easily fit here with room to spare.”

  “Actually, I think we could fit most of Fairstone in here,” I said as I followed the two of them around, checking out the spacious suite.

  There were several bedrooms branching off a central living room area and a large dining room. A collection of board games was stacked on the coffee table, and a video game console sat next to the large-screen TV and a tower of video games and DVDs. Each bedroom had a private bathroom, and there was a kitchen stocked full of goodies.

  “I still say this place is a dump,” said Emma as she tossed her shoes onto the floor.

  “Yeah, right!” I laughed. It was the nicest
hotel I’d ever seen, by a long shot. The only other time I’d stayed in a motel, it was the Lake Erie Lodgette. Christopher and I were there on a guys’ fishing trip with my dad, and the only entertainment was a TV with three working channels.

  “It is,” Emma insisted. She picked up one of the video games and frowned. “This version of MLB is two years old.”

  Our suitcases and other bags had been already delivered to the suite—two giant luggage carts stood just outside the largest bedroom. Kristen got busy unpacking the governor’s luggage and started ironing some of her clothes. For every suitcase the governor had, Emma had one, too. Maybe they were going for the best-dressed vote.

  I saw my one, medium-size duffel bag with the FreezeStar logo on the luggage cart. It looked like a lunch bag compared to what they’d brought.

  Of course, I was a last-minute addition. I wasn’t planning on being with these people for weeks on end. You know the whole three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy?

  I’d knocked down the governor twice now. One more time, and maybe I’d be sent home. I opened the box of Lime Brains that Simon had given me and dropped a couple into my mouth. Would that be so terrible?

  “Maybe if you didn’t eat so much of that horrible candy, you wouldn’t need an inhaler,” Emma said from her perch on the desk.

  She wasn’t nearly as smart as she pretended to be. “You don’t know much about asthma, do you?” I asked.

  She sniffed and dabbed her nose with a Kleenex. “I have allergies, you know. Serious ones.”

  “To fun?” I asked.

  She glared at me. “I travel with an EpiPen, okay?”

  “A what?”

  “EpiPen,” she said.

  “Fascinating. I like pencils, myself,” I said.

  She sighed. “You’re hopeless. It’s not a pen pen, stupid. It’s an injection thing, a syringe. It’s just shaped like a pen. If I eat peanut butter or something made with peanuts, I could die,” she said dramatically, as if she were going to fall off the desk just thinking about it.