How Not to Run for President

by Catherine Clark

  I glared at her. I’d had more than enough of her bragging about Minnesota. I wasn’t going to talk to her any more, now that I knew that she’d only wanted me to come on the trip so she could make me ruin it for her mom. What kind of person did that?

  She’d set me up more than once. First she’d pushed me onstage. Then she’d let me sleep on the sofa. Then she’d stolen my sheet music. I had so many things to get her back for that I was losing count.

  I didn’t trust her. And when exactly was supposed to tell Governor Brandon that her daughter was dead set on smashing her successful campaign to pieces? And that she’d sort of hired me to do it?

  Should I just try to leave quietly and let them figure it out on their own?

  Or should I stick around and try to counteract every move Emma made, because her mother had been nothing but nice to me and didn’t deserve to be sabotaged?

  And why was I sleeping when I needed to figure this all out?

  “When are you going to tell your mom what you’re up to?” I asked.

  Rats. I’d already forgotten that I wasn’t talking to her.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Never. Why?”

  “Why don’t you just be honest with her and tell her how you feel, that you don’t want to go to Washington?” I asked.

  “Please. Like she’ll listen to that?” scoffed Emma. “She’s always saying how history compels her to run for president. What am I going to do, fight history?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If it were my mom …”

  “Would you tell her you didn’t want to move to the White House?” asked Emma.

  I had to think about it for a minute. First I had to imagine my mother as a presidential candidate. Before that I had to picture her as a governor. I couldn’t see her getting excited about either—but then again, she did make an excellent PTA secretary. Maybe she had dreams I didn’t know about.

  If she did, would I get in the way of them?

  “It’s hard to put myself in your shoes,” I admitted.

  All of a sudden, the bus jerked to a stop. Then it started. Then it slowed down and stopped again. We were stuck on the highway, in a traffic jam.

  “Aidan. Aidan! You’ve got to get up here. Hurry!” shouted the governor.

  Why would she need me? Clarinet emergency? I wondered as I hurried up the aisle toward the sofa area up front.

  “Look!” She pointed out the bus window at a car that was stopped just in front of us. On its bumper was a neon-yellow bumper sticker that said, BRANDON/SCHROECKENBAUER: A FRESH IDEA FOR AMERICA.

  Emma stood beside me and stared out the window. “That’s one long bumper sticker,” she said.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Stu grinned from ear to ear.

  “Who has even had time to make bumper stickers?” asked the general. “We just met this kid a few days ago.”

  “Politics move quickly, especially in an election year,” Stu said.

  “I know that, Haircut,” said the general. “I’ve been working in politics since you were in diapers.”

  “We only learned about it this morning,” said the governor. “And there are already bumper stickers? It’s kind of ridiculous, how far people want to take this Facebook idea,” Governor Brandon said.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” added Emma.

  “Obviously, it can’t be done,” said Governor Brandon. “But is there a way to make people think that it is being done?”

  Stu’s forehead creased in confusion. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, half of politics is perception, right? So maybe we should act like we’re considering it,” said the governor.

  “Bettina.” The general coughed. “With all due respect. That’s not only impossible; it’s insane. It will make you seem like you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re not doing that. Let’s get back to your VP list and make some calls.”

  “Right. Of course.” Governor Brandon shook her head and laughed at the same time. “I think I’ve been on the campaign trail too long. It’s starting to get to me.”

  “Maybe you need to take some time off,” Kristen said. “Take a break from campaigning for the day. Get a manicure, a massage—”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Governor Brandon replied with a sigh.

  “Hello? What are you talking about?” the general roared. “The pundits would accuse you of doing your nails while terrorists plotted, of putting personal happiness above the country’s needs—”

  “I get it, General,” said the governor. “I wasn’t saying I’d do it. It’s just nice to think about.”

  The bus driver got out of his seat and stood in the aisle, facing us. “Well, looks like we’re going to be stopped here for a while,” he said. “A truck overturned—sounds like it was headed to Elkhart County Fair, too. Apparently, there are pigs wandering on the road up ahead. We can’t move till they’re all corralled.”

  The general got to his feet, looking excited. “Pigs on the loose? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked Stu.

  “Photo op!” Stu cried. “Let’s run, before they all get caught!”

  “Come on, Kristen. You can fix my hair while we run. Emma, Aidan, stay on the bus!” the governor ordered us. “Don’t get off under any circumstances! It’s not safe!”

  And just like that, Governor Brandon, her campaign workers, and a team of Secret Service agents got off the bus and were hustling down the side of the road, meeting and greeting voters in every car and mingling with lost pigs.

  “Why is it not safe for us but okay for them?” I asked as we gazed out the front window at all the activity.

  “Because we’re kids. And kids can’t do anything,” said Emma. “Especially me.” She sighed. “I could be swimming right now. I could be playing basketball, or hanging out with my friends. I’d even take homework over this.”

  “Wow. That’s extreme,” I said.

  She drummed her nails against the top of the head rest. “Not really. I love school.”

  “Yeah. Me, too,” I admitted. I knew the cool thing was to pretend that I didn’t, but what point was there in studying hard and not owning up to it? It’d be like batting .400 and keeping that a secret. Nobody would do that.

  “Did you ever read Charlotte’s Web?” Emma asked.

  “Of course. What do you take me for, a total imbecile?” I said. “Wait. Don’t answer that.”

  “Remember when they went to the fair, and you were afraid Wilbur was going to die, but Charlotte died instead?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah. Kind of.” I’d cried the night I finished the book. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  We were totally alone except for the driver. There were no campaign workers in sight; they were all with the governor. Because of the quickly moving situation, all the Secret Service had gone with the governor, too. If Emma wanted to run away, or do something while everyone’s attention was on her mother and not her, this was her chance.

  “You want to play catch, or what?” she asked.

  “Sure. But you don’t have a glove,” I said.

  “Mom finally got someone to go buy me a new one yesterday,” she said. “She couldn’t argue because baseball is exercise and that’s part of her stupid kids’ plan.”

  “She has a plan for stupid kids?” I asked.

  She ignored me and tiptoed down the aisle. We looked around outside for the driver and spotted him standing beside the bus, on the driver’s side. We quietly stepped off the bus and went down the grassy bank.

  We started to toss the ball back and forth. I wasn’t trying to throw it my hardest, but after being cooped up for the past few days, my arm was itching to do something. I heard a snap as the ball hit Emma’s glove.

  She tossed it back with equal force, the ball zinging into my glove. She could throw almost as hard as T.J. That was a compliment, but I wasn’t sure she’d take it as one.

  I thought about T.J. and threw the ball back even harder. I saw her wince as she caught it. Then she tossed i
t back to me, a line drive that smacked into my glove with a crack.

  She wasn’t bad at all. I’d only seen her throw and catch so far, but I had a feeling that if she lived in Fairstone, she’d be one of the better players on the girls’ Little League team. I was about to tell her that when I remembered how she had set me up to ruin the campaign.

  Instead, I hurled the baseball back to her. Then she flung it back to me. Then back and forth, each time throwing harder, as if we were trying to turn double plays right there beside the bus.

  Suddenly, she said, “Ouch!” and I saw her rubbing her palm. She walked closer to me. “Look, let’s not kill each other with the baseball.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “What should we use?”

  “Light sabers?” she suggested.

  “Light sabers?” I said.

  “Well, they’d be less painful. Until the saber pierced your gut. Then blood, intestines, stomach parts, oozing out.”

  Maybe I could see what she meant about not exactly fitting the first daughter’s profile.

  “See, this is another thing I’d have to give up,” she said. She tossed the ball to me. “People don’t play baseball when they’re in the White House.”

  What was she talking about? “They don’t?” I asked.

  “Have you ever seen a baseball game in the rose Garden?” she asked.

  “Well, no. But it’s a garden. With roses. Not that I know much about it—”

  “Obviously. It’s where they have press conferences,” she said. “And egg rolls.”

  “Why would they have egg rolls?” I asked. “Is it a Chinese garden?”

  “Because of Easter, you idiot. No, wait, the Easter egg roll event is on the lawn. Lawn, garden, whatever,” she said, lightly tossing the ball back to me.

  “If they have so much space, they might have private baseball diamonds you don’t even know about,” I said.

  “They don’t,” she said. “I checked.”

  “When did you check?” Toss.

  “We went there for a governors’ reception two years ago,” she said. Toss. “I hated it.”

  “Why? What happened?” I asked.

  “The kids from the Eastern states were mean to me,” she explained. “They put hot sauce in my punch.”

  I burst out laughing, and she glared at me. “Look at this as your revenge,” I said. “They’re not going to live there, are they? You have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to live at the White House. Do you know how much other kids would give to be in your place?”

  She looked at me. “Do you enjoy being followed all over and quoted and yelled at all the time to smile for a picture?” she asked.

  “Hm.” I had to think about that for a minute. Come to think of it, this was the first time in a few days that I’d been outside without anyone recognizing me. It was really relaxing. Maybe Emma was right. I didn’t think I could take being followed and quoted everywhere I went. Maybe she wasn’t crazy not to want all the attention that came with being a successful politician’s kid.

  All of a sudden, I saw several of the missing pigs running along the side of the highway, toward us. A farmer was chasing them, calling out, “Soo-ee! Sooee!” and holding a bucket of slop.

  They mostly ignored him and kept running, but a few pigs stopped to check out the bucket. A few other pigs stopped right behind Emma to do their business, as my dad calls it when we take Sassafras for a walk.

  All I can say about what happened next is that I couldn’t help myself.

  “Look!” I cried. “That one looks just like Wilbur! Doesn’t it?”

  “Which one?” Emma asked.

  “That one!” I pointed behind her.

  She turned around to look, and, well, one good push deserves another, right? I pushed her, she lost her balance, and, waving her arms wildly, landed right in, uh, something that had been left by one of the pigs.

  The look on her face was totally priceless. “Ewwwwwww!” she yelled.

  If only I’d had a smartphone. That video would have been on YouTube instantly.

  She jumped to her feet, gasping in horror. “Mom!

  Hellllp!” Emma yelled at the top of her lungs. “Help meeeee!”

  “Way to not draw attention to yourself,” I said as the governor, her handlers, campaign workers, and a cluster of reporters and fans came running down the highway toward us.

  Emma glowered in my direction. “You did this to me!”

  I smiled, enjoying how uncomfortable she looked. “Well, I told you I’d get you back, didn’t I? And if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I never go back on my word.”

  “I hate you!” she screamed. “Mom!”

  “I can’t believe you made me take a shower at a rest area.” Emma walked out of the ladies’ lounge at a truck stop outside Goshen, Indiana, with a towel wrapped around her head.

  “It’s not a rest area. It’s a truck stop,” her mother corrected her.

  Emma tossed her wet towel at her mother. “Whatever.”

  Governor Brandon caught the towel. “We have a very tight schedule today, so we don’t have much choice. Is that what you’re going to wear?” She stared at the torn jeans, faded Twins T-shirt, and old, well-worn Converse sneakers Emma was wearing. “Do you even have socks on?”

  “Scandal, I know.” Emma rolled her eyes.

  The governor stepped back. “I didn’t even know Kristen packed those ripped jeans.”

  “She didn’t,” said Emma. “I did. By the way, I threw out that flower dress,” she said. “It was too disgusting. I didn’t like that dress, anyway. Who even plays baseball in a dress? This isn’t the nineteen seventies.”

  “Forties,” her mother said.

  “Whatever.”

  “Stop saying whatever all the time,” her mother said. “And go pick out some new clothes to wear. We have appearances scheduled for the rest of the day.”

  “Fine. But first I’m going to get some gum.” Emma started wandering through the candy aisles.

  “Don’t get bubble gum, and if you do, don’t crack it! Where is Kristen, anyway?” Governor Brandon asked me, looking around.

  “She was making some phone calls outside and told me to wait here,” I said. “Stu and the general are over there.” I pointed to the large-screen TV above the small food court. “Where else would they be? They might miss a poll result or something.”

  The governor put her hand to her mouth. “I just had a horrible thought. Don’t tell me someone got a picture of Emma like that.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “In jeans?”

  “No. You know. In pig poop,” she said in a low tone, wrinkling her nose.

  Something about hearing someone who might be president one day say the word poop just made me laugh. I couldn’t stop laughing, actually.

  “Oh, well,” said the governor with a shrug. “You can’t control the news, only your reaction to it. right, Aidan?” She walked beside me, closer to the food court. “I’m really glad we stopped here. While Emma was inside cleaning up, I visited with some truck drivers. It gave me a good chance to meet some hardworking men and women and listen to what they think isn’t working in America. There’s so much we need to do. And I feel like I’m formulating a plan that might get to the heart of the problem—”

  “Governor, look at this. Absolutely insane,” Stu said.

  I looked at the TV. There was a photo of a golden retriever on a large screen behind a panel of guests sitting in a cable news studio at a semicircular desk. A large sign on the wall said THE REX MORGAN SHOW—YOUR TRUSTED SOURCE.

  “So, what you’re saying is that this dog has been misrepresented,” said the show’s host. I recognized him from a story about crazed killer bees hitting the Midwest, earlier in the summer.

  For the record, we hadn’t seen any killer bees in Fairmont. Ever.

  “Yes, definitely,” a woman agreed. Her name, printed on the screen, was Muffy Van Der Hooven, assistant vice president of the All-American Canine Club
. “We can see in the face, the eyes, the way the fur descends from the belly. That is most definitely not a mutt.”

  Stu looked over at me. “You said your dog was a mutt.”

  I nodded. “She is.”

  “Nope. She’s a purebred Labrador retriever,” Stu said.

  “She’s a mutt. She’s like four different breeds of dog,” I said. “We got her from the pound when I was little.”

  “Wrong. Your parents got her from a puppy farm.” Stu took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Now PETA hates us and the ASPCA hates us. We probably already have people lined up to protest at our next appearance.”

  “We didn’t buy her from a puppy farm! We adopted her from the pound,” I said. “If the people there said she was a mutt, then that’s what she is.” All this talk about Sassafras made me miss her.

  Back on TV, after a commercial break, the conversation was continuing. “Interesting, interesting. It makes a person wonder: What else has he said that isn’t exactly true?” Rex asked. “A while back, Governor Brandon said she’s relying on this boy to be her moral barometer for this campaign, her truth speaker—”

  “You said that?” I asked.

  The governor shook her head. “I never said that.”

  “If he would lie about a dog, what does that say about her?” Rex asked.

  “Nothing. It says that you’re a moron,” the general said, glaring at the TV. “They should call this the Rex Moron Show.”

  On screen, Muffy cleared her throat. “That’s not all. This dog is obviously overfed. I’d say we’re talking about a case of animal neglect.”

  “How can you neglect someone by overfeeding them?” I wondered out loud. This person was making me feel very, very bad.

  “Were this poor dog to somehow make it to my kennels, the first thing I would do is put her on a diet of love and good food,” Muffy continued. “Then I’d seek to establish her lineage. Who knows? In a matter of months she might be showing at competitions, not languishing in small-town Ohio.”

  She said Ohio with her nose turned up, her mouth pursed, as if she were saying “So Bor-ing.”

  “She’s not a horse. She’s just our dog,” I said. “A family dog. We love her. Who cares if she’s a mutt or not?” I asked.