Freshman for President

by Ally Condie

  The marquee sign in front of the high school said, “Presidential Rally TONIGHT!” It scrolled past, orange letters on a black background, on a continuous loop.

  Maura turned the car into the high school parking lot. Two Sage City police officers were waiting for Milo near the entrance of the school auditorium. In addition to Jack and Paige and Logan, for this event Milo had real security.

  “Well,” said Maura, pulling in front of the building, “this is it.”

  “This is it,” Milo agreed.

  “Is Eden going to meet you here?”

  “Yeah, she and Jack and Paige are going to be inside. Aren’t you coming too?”

  “I’m going to park this thing somewhere. Then I’ll come in.”

  “Okay.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “Getting there.” She smiled.

  “I found your letter. Thanks.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t know what else to say. So he said it again. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Thank you.” There were tears in her eyes. “This is getting mushy.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Go break a leg,” she told him. “Is that what they say to presidential candidates, or is that just for performances?”

  “I think it’s just for performances. I bet they say something different to presidential candidates.”

  “Okay, then. Go cause a scandal. Go flirt with an intern. Go squeal like a pig at the podium. Go make some shady real estate deals. Go dance like an idiot on stage. Go mispronounce a bunch of words.”

  Milo opened the door, grinning. “I think that about covers it.” Then he thought of something. “Remember how Mrs. Walsh wouldn’t ever wish anyone good luck because she’d say they were too good to need luck?”

  Maura smiled. “I’d forgotten that. What was it she said instead?”

  “She’d wish them success.”

  Maura yelled so loud that other people in the parking lot turned to look. “Success!”

  * * *

  Milo made his way backstage, escorted by the police officers. Jack, Paige, Eden, and her dad were already there. Eden looked a little nervous, and she was wearing makeup and lipstick.

  “Wow,” Jack said. “Nice makeup.”

  “Is it too much?” Eden asked. “I thought I’d put a little extra on so people could see it from the stage, but it feels like a ton.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Jack turned to Milo. “You’re not wearing makeup, are you?”

  “No.” Twice on national television had been enough for him. He didn’t know how girls did it. His pores had been screaming for air. He could have sworn he felt his skin plotting to make extra zits in revenge for what the makeup artist had put on his face.

  “You look good,” Paige told him.

  “Thanks,” Milo said. “So do you.” Paige was all dressed up. She was wearing black pants, black shirt, black jacket, and black heels. Her hair was back to its original black for the first time in months (she’d left it red, white, and blue since the Phoenix debate, and it had been dark purple before then).

  “I wish we could say the same for Jack,” Paige teased. “Did you see what he’s wearing?”

  “A suit jacket?” Milo asked, turning to look at Jack.

  “Under the suit jacket,” Paige said.

  Jack started unbuttoning his jacket to show them.

  “Oh, no. Is that what I think it is?” Eden asked.

  “That’s right.” Jack strutted in front of them. “I finally found a tuxedo T-shirt, baby.”

  * * *

  Milo couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the number of people crowding the Sage High auditorium. He’d never seen it so full, not even when the high school held its graduation there.

  Mr. Satteson opened the curtain a little wider, so Milo could see a bigger slice of the crowd. He looked back at Milo. “Don’t you feel important, with all these people waiting for you?”

  And for a minute, Milo did. People were waiting for him, calling his name. Red, white, and blue balloons were strung up all around. There was a podium, an actual podium, from which he and Eden would deliver their speeches. He was going to have to walk across the stage to get there, in front of a mass of people who knew who he was and who had come to see him speak.

  Then he remembered he was just a kid running for president who probably wasn’t going to win.

  Then he remembered Maura’s letter, and hoped.

  “Are you ready?” asked Mr. Satteson.

  Milo looked behind him at Eden, Paige, and Jack. He thought about the people waiting in the audience for him: his parents, Maura, the Purples and their families, Patrick Walsh, Dane and McCall and everyone who had helped with the campaign.

  “Oh, yeah,” Milo said. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 29

  November 4

  Concluding speech given by Mr. Satteson at the Election Day rally

  “Thank you all for coming here tonight to listen to our wonderful candidates.”

  [Waits for the riotous cheering to stop.]

  “As you can tell from the speeches they’ve given tonight, they are exceptional young people, and we are all lucky to know them. And they have expressed to me how lucky they feel to know all of you.

  “In that spirit, I have an announcement to make.”

  [Turns to Milo and Eden.]

  “Milo and Eden, this is going to come as a surprise to you. We—the citizens of Sage, led by the city council, and the volunteer committee, led by Paige Fontes and Jack Darling—have planned a victory party for you tomorrow morning, at seven a.m., here in this auditorium.”

  [The crowd starts cheering and Mr. Satteson waits for them to stop. A few yelps erupt, like the last kernels of popcorn popping, and then the auditorium is silent.]

  “It will be a victory party, no matter how the election results turn out, because you have been victorious.”

  [Mr. Satteson is so excited he’s starting to speak too fast. He stops and takes a deep breath.]

  “You’ve been victorious in running a good campaign, in putting Sage on the map, and in raising voter interest.

  “Through the written posts on your blog, you have called for education reform and outlined what teenagers want to see changed with the standardized testing system. You have outlined and begun to execute a recycling program, RecyclABLE, that involves and engages teenagers and helps others. You have drawn attention to Proms for a Cause, the brainchild of a fellow teenager, and one hundred and eighty-nine schools across the nation have pledged to take part this spring.

  “And finally, you’ve staged the largest and most comprehensive vote ever for people under the age of eighteen, in which six thousand six hundred and forty-eight schools have participated. Close to five million high school and junior high students voted today. You were responsible for that.”

  [The crowd bursts into applause and cheers. It is some time before Mr. Satteson can speak again.]

  “You have already won, whatever the results of the election may be.

  “And so has the city of Sage. This town has risen to the cause and supported their candidate. The people at the polls tell me that we have had a record turnout in our city tonight. This has been a victory for all of us, and we will celebrate tomorrow accordingly!”

  [The crowd goes wild.]

  * * *

  After the debate was over, and when the crowd had thinned, Maura came backstage. “Are you guys ready to go?”

  “I think so,” said Milo. “We’ve got votes to count.”

  “Jack, are you coming with us, or are you driving?” Maura asked.

  “We’re coming with you. For old times’ sake.”

  They started walking out to the car, stepping through
the squares of yellow that the parking lot lights cast on the ground. There were a few stragglers from the rally still wandering around. “Go Milo! Go Eden!” they yelled, and Milo and Eden waved back.

  “Where’s the car?” Milo asked. He couldn’t see the hulking black sedan anywhere.

  “Right over there, under that light,” Maura told him, pointing. He was expecting to see the giant, shining behemoth they’d been driving for the past week, its tinted windows staring blankly back at them. Instead, there was the ancient brown car, illuminated and glowing. It looked as though it had been beamed straight down from heaven. It was an Election Night Miracle.

  “How did this one get here?” Milo asked. “What did you do with the new one?”

  “I swapped them after I dropped you off,” Maura said. “This one is the one we should end the campaign with. This one has all the miles on it. The symbolism seemed appropriate.”

  They all climbed in, and Maura turned the key in the ignition. The car didn’t start.

  “Uh, oh,” Milo said. “Does this symbolism also seem appropriate?”

  “Shut up,” Maura said, trying again. This time, the engine caught and started.

  Jack gave a whoop. “Here we go!”

  * * *

  The scene inside Milo’s house was insane, as befitted a campaign headquarters on election night. When Milo walked in, everyone seemed to speak at once. Dane said, “Dude, where have you been?” and McCall said, “We’re getting the latest numbers from Spencer, and they look good,” and Milo’s mom said, “Where’s Maura?” and Maura said, “Right here,” and Mr. Satteson said, “I just got off the phone with the principal, and he agreed to excuse everyone who is working on the campaign tonight from school tomorrow, providing you make up your work, of course.”

  That got a big cheer from everyone. Milo cheered, too, and then everyone looked at him expectantly.

  “All right then. Let’s get down to business,” he said, and Eden nodded. Milo called Spencer to get the latest information. The guy had been working harder than all of them put together that day.

  While they had been giving speeches and shaking hands and doing interviews, Spencer had spent all day at his headquarters in Haventon entering the results of the election as each school submitted them online. He had a bunch of friends from his school helping him, and the campaign had hired a group of auditors to oversee Spencer’s work to make sure there weren’t any mistakes.

  Spencer and his team had started early. The first votes had come in from the east coast at about 6:00 a.m., and they had been ready and waiting well before that. But it was a giant job, and it was going to take all night (and probably all morning, too).

  No one wanted there to be any errors, so they were going through the votes submitted by each of the six thousand six hundred and forty-eight schools twice. In theory, it should be easy enough to plug in the totals that the department chairperson from each school had sent and add them up.

  In practice, it wasn’t. Some schools hadn’t added up their totals; some schools had sent in the votes as individual classes, instead of as schools. Spencer’s team had to correct all of the little mistakes that had been made when the votes were submitted. The server had also gone down briefly, and they had to contact some schools whose votes hadn’t come through correctly. Additionally, they had to verify that each of the people responding with their school’s votes was, in fact, legit.

  Milo was sure they couldn’t possibly be paying Spencer enough to deal with a headache of this magnitude.

  When Spencer answered the phone, he sounded exhausted. “We’re chipping away at it, but there’s a ton of stuff to go through. Do you have anyone over there you could spare to help us? It can’t be you or Eden, for obvious reasons.”

  “Sure,” said Milo. He called out, “Is anyone willing to go to Haventon to help count votes?”

  Maura looked up. “I’ll go. Does anyone want a ride?”

  “I’ll come too,” said McCall, and a few other people agreed as well. Maura waved to Milo on her way out the door.

  “Now we’ve got to field phone calls, watch returns, and talk to any press who give us a call,” Eden said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  “We’ll be here for a while—” Milo started to call out to the group.

  “For the duration,” Milo’s mother called back to him, and he grinned.

  “So anyone who wants to leave, we totally understand. Everyone has been great so far, but if you get bored or tired or just want to do something else for a change, no problem.”

  “You’ll all want to stay, though, because they put me in charge of the food,” Jack announced, gesturing to the dining room table. “I like to call it the Smorgasbord O’ Sugar. And salt.”

  Every kind of unholy and unhealthy food imaginable was waiting there. Pizza, chips, soda, and what Jack referred to as the “Hostess dessert sampler.” Twinkies, chocolate cupcakes, apple pie turnovers, HoHos, SnoBalls . . .

  “And check this out.” Jack held up a carton of ice cream. “Milo, did you see this? Jones Dairy has named a new flavor after you because they know how much you like ice cream.”

  “Seriously?” Milo went over and took the carton. Jones Dairy made the best ice cream in the world. He started laughing when he saw the name written in red, white, and blue letters. “They named it Dark Horse Candydate,” he announced.

  People laughed, and a few of them cheered. “What does it taste like?” asked Mr. Satteson.

  Milo read the description aloud. “Dark chocolate ice cream mixed with pieces of caramel, chunks of fudge candy, and red, white, and blue sprinkles.”

  Jack handed him a spoon. “Give it a try.”

  Milo helped himself and took a bite.

  “Well?” Jack asked. Milo gave a thumbs-up sign and dug in for more without pausing to speak. Milo wondered if victory itself could taste so sweet.

  * * *

  As the night wore on, their numbers decreased. McCall, Maura, and the others came back from Haventon at midnight, saying Spencer had told them the worst was over and they should get some rest for the party the next day.

  “Spencer says Milo’s going to take the teenage vote,” Maura announced to everyone. “The auditors are agreeing. Milo and Eden are ahead by a decent margin, and there aren’t many schools left to count.”

  “You guys should all go home and get some rest,” Milo told his friends. “You’ve been awesome, and there’s not much we can do now but sit around and wait.”

  Soon, the only people left were Milo, his parents, Maura, Eden, Jack, and Paige. Even Mr. Satteson had gone home to catch a few hours of sleep.

  “How is Spencer?” Milo asked Maura. They both stood in the kitchen, filling their glasses with water to counteract the Smorgasbord O’ Sugar (and Salt).

  “Kind of stressed. But he seems to be doing pretty good.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  Maura dropped some ice cubes into her glass and took a drink. “Spencer and I were talking and we realized that we’re both going to have a lot more free time when the campaign is over. Like this Friday night. Neither of us had anything planned, so it seemed like it might be a good idea to go to dinner.”

  “He asked you out again?” Milo was smiling. Good for Spencer.

  “No.”

  “What?” For a second, Milo was confused.

  Maura gave him a mischievous smile. “I might have been the one who brought it up.”

  Chapter 30

  November 4

  Election Night

  Milo balanced a bowl of Dark Horse Candydate on his knees and watched the returns.

  Milo had waited for this night for five months. His opponents had been waiting even longer, though—since before he was born. If Milo wa
s honest with himself, he knew that they were much more likely to have their dreams realized when all was said and done, when the votes were in and counted. The other candidates were older, more experienced, and wealthier than he was. He was just a fifteen-year-old kid running for President of the United States of America with a staff of friends and family. The odds were against him in every single way.

  A few days ago, he hadn’t cared at all about how this night would end. He’d felt dark and low from everything that had happened and from everything that he’d learned in the past few months. But, lately, a little glimmer of hope had started up inside again, and hope is funny that way. It’s sneaky. Even if there is only a little of it, it makes a difference. It makes things matter again. Lost causes don’t seem so lost. Impossible dreams seem the slightest bit possible.

  Milo was sure that his opponents, Senator Ryan and Governor Hernandez, were waiting for the news in their elaborate campaign headquarters, places with all the trappings of political success. Well-connected advisors. Bright lights and conference rooms. Coffee cups littering the floor. Technology he couldn’t even imagine. They were probably surrounded by countless well-dressed staffers running around wearing headsets and official laminated badges clipped to their pockets and lapels.

  Milo’s campaign headquarters, where he awaited the news, consisted of one room. Well, maybe three, if you counted the kitchen and the bathroom, which his campaign also used. The main headquarters, though, was centered in the combined dining room/living room of Milo’s house. The room had been chosen mainly because it contained the only large table in the place (and also for its proximity to the previously mentioned kitchen and bathroom).

  He was surrounded by his inner circle, which was not made up of carefully selected politicians and seasoned campaign officials, but just his family and a few friends. They had some technology—computers, cell phones, an old TV with the volume turned way up—but not much. The floors weren’t covered with official memos and coffee cups and press passes, they were littered with Post-its and pop cans. And no one working on Milo’s campaign needed a name badge. Milo knew the name of every single individual working on his campaign, something he doubted either of the other candidates could say, no matter how personable and accessible they both were (or professed to be).