Freshman for President

by Ally Condie

  “Milo?” the receptionist said. “Follow me, please.”

  Milo felt as if he were going to a doctor’s appointment, following the receptionist down the hall to a place where something uncomfortable would probably happen to him. (Milo had had a fear of the doctor’s office ever since the time he’d sat on a cactus when he was three and had to have the spines removed from his posterior.)

  She opened the door, said, “Milo Wright is here,” and shut the door behind her.

  Milo was on his own.

  Mr. Walsh didn’t look unfriendly, but he didn’t look exactly welcoming, either. He was as tall and thick as his mother was small and thin. He was sitting behind a desk so big it looked like it came from a movie set. Where had he found a desk like that in Sage?

  Mr. Walsh reached across the desk to shake Milo’s hand briefly. He gestured to a chair near Milo. “Sit down, kid. I have ten minutes, so tell me what you need, all right?”

  Milo dropped like a rock into the chair. “I was just wondering, sir, if you would think about donating to—”

  “Your campaign?” Mr. Walsh chuckled. “Son, I’ve already donated plenty to the man who I want to be the president, and I’m sorry to say it isn’t you.” A beep on the computer heralded the arrival of an e-mail, and Mr. Walsh glanced over at the screen.

  “Actually, it’s not that. I mean, I am running for president, but me and my running mate, Eden James—”

  “Eden James?” Mr. Walsh interrupted again, looking back at Milo sharply. “Isn’t she the pharmacist’s kid? The girl who knocked a baseball through my front window years ago, back before I built the new house?”

  Milo grimaced. “Yeah, that’s her.”

  Mr. Walsh, surprisingly, smiled a little. “She was spunky. She came over and told me she’d pay for it and she did it in installments. Took her a year and a half, but she did it, leaving her little envelopes on the doorstep.” Then he laughed. “The thing that killed me was that her last payment included interest. What kid that age knows about interest? Smart girl.” He turned his chair a little more toward Milo. “So what are you two up to now, besides running for president and vice president?”

  “Well, we have this other project in mind that kind of goes along with the election. We thought it might be cool to see who would win the under-eighteen vote, if there was one.” He paused.

  “Go on. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to think that kids under eighteen should vote, but go on.”

  Milo took a deep breath. “What we want to do is send ballots to as many high schools in America as we can. We’ve put together an information packet.” He handed a copy to Mr. Walsh. “Each packet has the ballots, plus directions for scanning and submitting the results. We plan to send the packets to the head of the social sciences department at each high school. We ask them to be in charge of getting all the votes together for their school, counting them, and sending the totals to us via e-mail. We also arrange a phone conversation with them before Election Day to make sure they’re legit and that they understand the process. There’s some other security stuff they have to do to sign up; our computer guy is working out the details. Then they submit their votes on Election Day, and we put them all together and announce the results that night.” He smiled. “Teenagers under eighteen will be voting in America on Election Day, Mr. Walsh. They’re going to be part of the process.”

  Mr. Walsh flipped through the papers, looking them over quickly. “And the hope is that you’ll win, right?”

  “Yeah, exactly. Of course, the other two candidates, the Democrat and the Republican nominees, will be on the ballots too. So anything could happen. But we think it would be really cool to get kids interested in the election and in politics.”

  “So what do you need money for?”

  “For copying and mailing the packets, for running the website, for paying someone to put together the results on election night. Obviously I can’t do that, and neither can any of my friends, or it wouldn’t be objective. So we’ll need to hire someone, preferably someone with some experience with stuff like this.”

  Mr. Walsh grimaced. “You’re right—that’s all going to cost you. You’ll never pull it off with just your lawn mowing money.”

  “I know, sir. That’s why I came here.”

  “My mom’s always talking about you,” Mr. Walsh said. “She loves having a celebrity mowing her lawn. I suppose she was the one who put you up to this.”

  “Yeah,” Milo admitted. “She offered to ask you herself, but I couldn’t ask her to do that.”

  “Well, that was nice of you.” Mr. Walsh had an amused glint in his eye. “Since I can’t tell that mother of mine ‘No’ to save my life. I’m forty-five years old and she still sends me home with leftovers from Sunday dinners at her house.” He pushed his chair back. “Fine. I’ll give you some money. But I’m not a true philanthropist. You’re going to have to splash my name all over that website you set up, giving me lots of credit as your sponsor.”

  “No problem. We’re not above a little product placement. At first, we wanted a website run by teens and funded entirely by teens, but it turns out that most of them don’t have any more money than we do.”

  Mr. Walsh swiveled in his chair and started writing something. Milo wasn’t sure if he should leave. Was the conversation over? Just as he had gathered up enough courage to say something, Mr. Walsh turned around to face him again. He reached out his hand to give Milo a piece of paper. Milo stepped forward and took it, hoping that the paper was what it looked like and not some kind of cruel joke.

  It was a check, the amount of which left Milo speechless for a few long seconds. “Wow,” was all he could mange when he recovered. “Thank you, sir. This is—Wow.”

  “No offense, kid, but it’s not that much money to me.”

  “Do you want me to sign a contract or something, saying how I’ll spend the money?” Milo asked. “I can come back and we can do that.”

  “That won’t be necessary. If you don’t use it the way you said you would, my mother will hear about it.” Mr. Walsh grinned. “Let her be your conscience.”

  “Yes, sir.” Milo thought of something and handed Mr. Walsh the rest of the free lawn mowing coupons he had in the folder. “These are for you.” He figured he owed Mr. Walsh all of these and then some.

  Mr. Walsh looked at the coupons. “And I call you to redeem these?”

  “Yes, sir, anytime.”

  “All right,” Mr. Walsh said, turning back to his desk.

  “Thanks again, sir.” Milo could tell his ten minutes were up. He left the office and shut the door behind him carefully. He managed to walk all the way down the hall, through the reception area (where he gave the receptionist a huge smile), and out the front doors of the building before he started running, his hand gripped tightly around the check.

  He ran across the street to the drugstore, opened the door (which jingled loudly to announce his arrival), and slowed to a walk on his way back to the soda counter, where he could see his three friends sitting in a row on the barstools.

  Mr. James himself was making sodas for them instead of working behind the pharmacy counter. “Hey, Milo.”

  Jack, Eden, and Paige all swiveled on their stools to look at him.

  “Well? Well?” Eden asked.

  Milo didn’t say a thing, just held up the check. They had had their lucky break at last. Everyone started grinning, and Jack said, “Sweet.” Eden looked stunned.

  Mr. James smiled at him. “Good for you. Sit down and have a soda and then we’ll walk over to the bank and get that thing put away safe in the campaign account.” He started making a root beer float, Milo’s favorite.

  “Did he remember me?” Eden asked, nervously. “Did he recognize my name?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Milo said, giving her a meaningful look.

 
“Oh, no.” Eden covered her face with her hands. “What did he say?”

  Milo wanted to mess around with her mind a little more, but he couldn’t do it. He still remembered how Eden would run up to the doorstep, put the money down on the doormat, and sprint away. And they’d all wait, hiding behind a bunch of pampas grass, to make sure that Mr. Walsh (or his housekeeper) picked it up.

  “He actually seemed pretty impressed that you followed through with your promise to pay for the window,” Milo admitted. “In fact, I think that might have tipped the balance in our favor.”

  “Wow,” Eden said, relieved.

  Mr. James handed Milo his float, and caught Eden’s eye. “See, honey, aren’t you glad after all that you have a dad who made you go back and pay for the whole thing?”

  Eden made a face. “This is your finest hour, isn’t it? Don’t you dare say—”

  “I told you so.” Mr. James took off his apron. “I’ll be back at the pharmacy counter when you kids are ready to go to the bank.” He gave Milo a pat on the back as he walked past him.

  Milo sat down next to Eden and took a long drink of his float through the red-and-white striped straw. Little carbonated bubbles fizzled into his throat and back behind his nose. “Ahhh.”

  “Let’s see the check,” Eden said, reaching for it. Milo handed it to her.

  “Oh.” She paused. “I’ve never seen a check for that much money before.” She seemed surprised all over again.

  “Gimme that.” Jack reached for the check. “Wow, Milo. This is more money than we’ve made combined, both summers, mowing lawns.”

  “It’s even more than that,” Milo said.

  Paige took the check from Jack and raised her eyebrows. “Nice, Milo.”

  Jack took a big drink of his soda. “And don’t worry, buddy. Eden didn’t let us sit around after she fed you to the lion. While you were in there, we got the Book Nook and the office supply store to sponsor us too. I think this is actually going to work.” He looked over at Eden, who had just pulled out her cell phone. “Who are you calling?”

  “Spencer. This just became a lot more serious.” Eden looked almost stricken. “We are going to be running a national campaign and staging a national vote on Election Day. Have you all realized that?”

  Chapter 10

  Fourth of July

  From Maura Wright’s journal

  I wish

  Maybe writing will help

  I don’t know where to start

  There is nothing to say.

  * * *

  Milo was having one of those moments when you take a good look around and wonder how, exactly, you ended up where you were. He was standing next to a giant tinfoil-covered rocket ship. He (and the tinfoil rocket ship) were being borne through town on a float in the Fourth of July parade. In front of him marched the Sage City Children’s Kazoo Band. Behind him was a group of clowns riding tandem bikes and unicycles. The kids with kazoos were cute, but clowns had always made Milo a little uneasy. They were just one step away from being mimes, and mimes were just plain freaky.

  As homemade floats go, at least theirs was fairly impressive. The rocket ship, which was made of chicken wire and papier-mâché, towered over the truck bed. “Take Flight with Wright” was written on two huge banners hanging on either side of the float, and red, white, and blue helium balloons were tethered to every possible surface. Maura and Spencer were towing the float with Milo’s dad’s pickup truck, which was fire-engine red and which had been washed that morning and looked quite presidential, in a pickup truck kind of way.

  The only problem with the float was that the rocket was a little crooked. (If you were facing it, the rocket listed a little to the right, which Eden worried people would interpret as being symbolic of Milo’s political views. Milo and Jack kept reassuring her that no one would notice. Plus, as Paige pointed out, if you weren’t facing it, it listed slightly to the left, so it was a non-partisan rocket, just like their campaign.)

  When he’d first climbed onto the platform next to the rocket, Milo had kept an eye out for any stealthy old men hiding in the crowd, waiting to pelt him with beanbags or worse. It would be easy to lose your balance up there and fall off of the float, only to be trampled by giant clown feet. Milo shuddered, and kept his eyes on the crowd.

  But no one threw anything at him, or at Eden, who stood next to him as they waved to the crowd. The worst that happened was that the parade moved at a snail’s pace, and the sun got higher and higher in the sky. Milo tried to think of the last time he’d been so uncomfortable. He smiled and waved to the crowd. A few people waved back.

  They had folded their fliers into paper airplanes beforehand, so they could toss them to the crowd. Milo threw one out, hoping it would soar, but instead it plummeted nose first to the ground. “Pathetic,” he muttered. There wasn’t even the slightest breeze to give the airplane a little lift and let it fly.

  “I’m burning alive,” Milo told Eden through gritted teeth. “The aluminum from the rocket is reflecting right into my face. I’m going to have a third-degree burn. Or a first-degree burn. Which one is worse?”

  Eden wasn’t listening. She was off on a track of her own. “This is an environmentalist’s nightmare,” she lamented, not even bothering to smile while she waved. “Look at all the paper airplanes that people aren’t catching. They’re just leaving them sitting on the side of the road.”

  “We can come back and pick them up later,” Milo said out of the corner of his mouth, waving to the crowd.

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “It could be worse. We could be throwing out Styrofoam cups. Or those plastic loops that six-packs come in, or even just cans of oil . . .”

  “That’s not funny.” Eden plastered a smile on her face and started waving, too.

  “I know. We really can come back and pick them up later.” Milo could imagine how happy Jack would be about that. Maybe he and Eden should do it alone.

  “That would be good.”

  Milo shifted again. Their dark blue Write in Wright T-shirts were soaking up the sun, and his back was blistering. “I feel like that guy we read about in mythology last year, the one who flew too close to the sun and burnt up his wings. What was his name again?”

  Before Eden could answer, the float lurched to a stop. Milo almost lost his balance. “What’s going on?”

  “Dance routine,” Eden said, pointing in front of them. “We’ll be here for a while.” Up beyond the kazoo band, a dancing group had stopped marching and started a short performance.

  “How did we end up here?” he muttered to Eden, who had to be as uncomfortable as he was. He heartily wished they were down with Paige and Jack and the rest of their friends, handing out fliers and balloons as they walked next to the float.

  Eden didn’t answer. She just pointed down at Jack.

  “Oh, yeah,” Milo remembered.

  * * *

  The theme for their Fourth of July float had been Jack’s idea.

  “We need to do something different for the Fourth,” he told them all. “Write in Wright is a good campaign slogan and everything, but by now, everyone’s heard it before. We need something new and catchy just for the parade.”

  “What do you suggest?” Eden asked.

  “I don’t know. Something to do with cars, or heavy machinery, or something cool.”

  Eden put her head in her hands.

  “I wish we had a riding lawn mower,” Jack told Milo. “We could mow lawns with it and use it in parades. But no—you have to use all of your money on your stupid campaign.” He grinned to let Milo know he was joking. “Next summer we’re buying one, though. No excuses.”

  “That would have been great,” Milo said, picturing himself riding down Sage’s Main Street in a shiny green riding lawn mower. He could stick two little fla
gs on the front, just like the Presidential limo.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Jack said suddenly. “What about an airplane instead? That’s heavy machinery, right?”

  “An airplane?” Milo asked. “How would we get an airplane?”

  “Not a real one. We’ll build one on the float and you can pretend to fly it. The slogan for the parade can be Take Flight with Wright and we can fold all the fliers into paper airplanes. Get it? Fliers? Flyers? I’m a freaking genius.”

  “Jack, I’m actually kind of impressed,” said Paige. “That’s perfect.”

  “It really is!” Eden exclaimed enthusiastically. “The whole point is to get the fliers out so people can find out about the website and the under-eighteen vote. They’re much more likely to pick up the flyers if they’re airplanes.” Then her eyes widened. “Wait. I’ve got another idea. You know how the Wright brothers invented the airplane? We could do something with that too! We could find some vintage clothes, and have you and Jack dress up like the Wright brothers, and make our plane look like the first one they flew at Kitty Hawk . . .”

  Jack looked at Milo. It was time to stage an intervention for Eden before they ended up in vintage pilot gear from 1903.

  “No,” Jack said. “That’s too much. We need to keep it simple. We’ll use chicken wire and put together some kind of super basic airplane.” He paused. “Or maybe a rocket. That might be easier.”

  “A rocket sounds good,” Eden said, thoughtfully. “We could—”

  “No astronaut costumes,” Milo warned her.

  * * *

  And so that was how Milo came to be standing next to a giant tinfoil-covered rocket while the parade moved incrementally through the heat and the listless crowd. For a moment, Milo thought he’d spontaneously combusted, it was so hot.

  The kids in the kazoo band kept popping away from their formation. The parade had stopped again for another dance routine and the kids were getting impatient and restless. Milo wondered where they found the energy.

  He turned to say something to Eden, but she wasn’t there. She was climbing down off the platform.