The Last Reporter

by Michael Winerip

  Sammy nodded. “You got to do what you got to do,” he said.

  Adam was leaving with Sammy, but Jennifer asked him to hang around for a minute.

  After the door closed, Jennifer said, “I’ve got something big. I didn’t want to say it with everybody around.”

  “Do we have to do this now?” said Adam. “I’ve got to memorize this speech for Mr. Brooks.”

  “This will just take a second,” said Jennifer. “It’s big.”

  “Something on the Bolands?” asked Adam.

  “Nope,” she said. “It’s about the student government election coming up.”

  Adam had no interest in student government. All smoke and mirrors and nothing to it, as far as he was concerned. Every spring they’d elect new officers for the next school year. All the grown-ups at school would make such a big fuss. Kids would get so worked up — making special buttons and posters and leaflets to hand out. And the promises they’d make. Soda machines. Candy machines. An ice cream parlor in the cafeteria. A shooting range on the roof. McDonald’s for lunch. A new skateboard park. Right. Never happened. The advisers wouldn’t let them do anything fun. They’d wind up having a car wash and bake sale and raise money for a new fax machine for the main office. As far as Adam was concerned, student government was just grown-up dictators behind the scenes pushing around powerless kids.

  “They’re buying the election,” said Jennifer.

  “Who?” said Adam. What he was thinking was, Who’d want it?

  “Stub Keenan,” said Jennifer. “People are saying it’s the dirtiest student council election ever.”

  “Stub Keenan?” said Adam. “He’s, like, one of the most popular kids at Harris. Why would he have to do anything dirty? He’d win easy.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “But I’m sure they’re right.”

  “Who?” said Adam. “Who’s saying?”

  Jennifer said she had a secret source. She’d promised not to tell anyone who it was.

  Including Adam.

  “Jennifer, we’re coeditors,” he said. “We tell each other everything.”

  “I know,” she said, “but that was the only way I could get the information.”

  Adam was mad. First Jennifer agreed to that ridiculous Ask Phoebe mess, now this. He’d always shared his sources with Jennifer. Hadn’t he given her Mrs. Willard for the Willows story? Hadn’t he gone along with her to the Pine Street church and figured out Reverend Shorty’s riddle? Hadn’t he given her a tour of the climbing tree? Hadn’t he rescued her from Mrs. Boland?

  “Geez, Jennifer,” he said. “Sometimes you need to push these sources back; you don’t just go along with what they say. No offense, but you’re just too nice. You’ve got to show them who’s boss. I mean, what do we have to go on? People saying it’s a dirty election. They say that about every election.” Adam shook his head in disgust.

  Jennifer unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on a desk in front of Adam. It was a list of names. Then she said, “These kids got two hundred and fifty songs downloaded on their iPods free by promising to vote for Stub Keenan.”

  Adam had a middle-school baseball game, but it didn’t start until five, so he decided to bike home, eat something, chill out a little, then bike back for the game. His parents wouldn’t be home from work yet, and he liked having the house to himself.

  Being the most overprogrammed kid in America, he wasn’t used to getting out of school when so many kids were walking home. He loved whizzing by them, especially the girls, and rode with no hands in the middle of the street so everyone could see what a well-balanced individual he was. A few kids called his name, and he waved without looking back. He was surprised at how many kids he didn’t know. To remind himself how fast he was, he started counting all the kids he was passing. There were two girls, two boys and a girl, and just as he turned onto his street, on his corner, two tall boys, making a grand total of thirty-seven, the biggest margin of victory since Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France by seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds in 1999!

  And Adam wasn’t even taking steroids. He rode right up onto his front lawn, jumped off the bike before it had totally stopped, and bounded into the house.

  “Canfield wins again!” he shouted as he burst into the living room to thunderous applause. He had to admit, he was pretty funny. He dropped his backpack by the front door, then went downstairs to the back of the house to the family room to check the computer for messages.

  There was something good. A note from Erik Forrest. Mr. Forrest was the world-famous reporter Adam had written about for the last issue of the Slash. When the Slash was shut down for doing the great story about the schemy Bolands, Mr. Forrest had helped them out. He’d done a front page story in the New York Times that described the Bolands trying to bulldoze the Willows. He had even mentioned the Slash investigation. The New York Times! Adam had been sure that everyone would know forever what a great paper the Slash was.

  Unfortunately, no one in Tremble except their relatives seemed to care.

  The subject field in Forrest’s e-mail said: State Investigation!

  Adam raced through the message, hoping to find something in the e-mail that said, “The Slash will be saved!” Not a word of that. So he returned to the top and read the whole e-mail. It said there was some good news; after the story in the Times, the state office of fair housing had opened an investigation into the Bolands.

  Adam let out a hoot. The Bolands were being investigated! Thanks to the Slash — and of course, the New York Times! What if they went to prison? What a story!

  Mr. Forrest said the Times would probably run a news brief.

  Adam reread the e-mail to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. A news brief? He was amazed — in the next Slash it would be on the front page. Adam could already see the headlines:

  It was a good lesson. One newspaper’s front-page scoop is another newspaper’s news brief.

  Adam forwarded the e-mail to Jennifer, then headed upstairs to get a snack. As he passed the front door, he slowed, then stopped.

  That was weird. Where was it? He went out front. It wasn’t on the lawn. Hadn’t he left it there? He checked the garage, then the side yard. He stepped out into the street and walked a couple of houses in each direction.

  He came back and circled his house one more time.

  It was gone.

  His bike was gone.

  Adam rode his mom’s bike to his baseball game. He was dreading what would happen when his parents found out. He knew they’d scream. They’d want to know why he hadn’t locked his bike or put it in the garage.

  How could it be his fault? The bike was out there for one second, at most. It was in the front yard — an automatic safety zone. Was he supposed to know that some creep would steal it even before Adam could eat his snack?

  It had to be one of the kids he’d passed coming home from school. It had to be someone close behind him, since the bike had disappeared so fast. Those two tall boys on the corner?

  That night, when he told his parents, they were angry, but it was a quiet angry. “I paid a lot of money for that bike,” his dad said, and pounded his fist on the table, though he didn’t seem to be pounding at Adam; it seemed more like general pounding.

  They called the police, and a detective came over to take down the information. It wasn’t anywhere near as big a deal as the time Adam had been mugged for his snow-shoveling money. He was surprised; the police officers who had come to the house after he was mugged wore uniforms, carried guns, and had seemed huge — real muscle guys. This detective wore a suit coat and tie, had a big belly, and was old, like somebody’s grandfather.

  After the Canfields described the bike — a black-and-white Electra cruiser — the detective asked for the serial number. Adam’s dad didn’t have it, but the detective said the people at the bike shop record all the numbers, and they could get it from them.

  “You have much luck getting bikes back?” asked Adam’s dad.

&n
bsp; “Not much,” the detective said. “I’m on the job twenty-five years, seen just about everything. Getting one back — maybe once in a blue moon.”

  Adam’s dad said they were going to drive around and see if they could spot it. “Any suggestions?” he asked.

  “Check the alleys behind the restaurants in town,” the officer said. “Sometimes the kids working at the restaurants steal them.”

  Adam and his dad spent about an hour driving around. They rode through several neighborhoods, going up and down streets slowly, looking into side yards, and checking out any kids riding by. Adam felt like they were about to find it any minute, and every time someone rode by, he tensed, but they didn’t see it.

  “Keep your eyes open at school,” his dad said.

  Adam checked the bike racks in the morning and right after school but saw no sign of it. He was using his mom’s bike now and never left it unlocked.

  One morning, as he straightened up after locking the bike, he found himself staring up at Stub Keenan. They knew each other by sight, but that was about it. They did different sports — Stub played football, wrestling, and lacrosse; Adam soccer, basketball, and baseball. They’d been in the same class just once, back in kindergarten. Adam believed you couldn’t form too many life-or-death opinions about people based on kindergarten. Stub wasn’t even Stub then — he was Roderick. Adam didn’t know where the nickname came from, but he could guess why a person named Roderick might need one. The big thing Adam remembered was that Stub had been real good on the monkey bars; he could zip back and forth and hang forever. He wasn’t sure whether that would make Stub a good school president.

  Adam noticed an iPod wire hanging from Stub’s ear; it felt funny knowing a major secret about someone he barely knew — if Jennifer was right.

  “Big Adam — a girl’s bike?” said Stub. “Kinda gay.”

  “Looking for the kid who stole mine,” said Adam.

  “Whoa,” said Stub.

  “My mom’s,” Adam said, pointing to the bike.

  “Hey, we should set up a student patrol to protect kids’ bikes. That’s a great idea,” said Stub. “Maybe we could deputize kids, like crossing guards. Give ’em special badges. I’m running for president, Big Adam — that’s something I’d do. If you want to be chief of the patrol, I could get you in on that.”

  Adam thought, Right, and a parachute jump on the school roof. But he didn’t say it. He wondered if Stub was going to offer him a free download.

  “Heard the baseball team got scraped,” said Stub.

  Adam nodded. They’d lost 12–0. He hoped Stub wouldn’t ask how he’d done — Adam had struck out twice.

  “How’d you do?” Stub asked.

  “Nothing great,” said Adam.

  “GTG,” said Stub. “Take one?” He handed Adam a campaign button that said PREZ STUB. “You know Billy Cutty?” asked Stub.

  Adam didn’t. “Any relation to Franky?”

  “Cousins, I think,” said Stub.

  Franky was a few grades ahead of Adam, in high school now. But Adam knew him when Franky was still at Harris Middle and liked him a lot. He was that rare big kid who actually was nice to younger kids. Franky loved the Slash and said how great it was. Normally big kids wouldn’t admit anything like that. Adam hadn’t seen Franky for months and wondered what he was up to.

  “Billy Cutty’s my campaign manager,” said Stub. “If you can’t find me, Billy’s the one. You need anything, or if there’s any way we can help — Billy’s my guy. You can’t miss him — he’s usually got a million buttons all over his shirt, and he sits at our campaign table at lunch. Hey, good luck finding your bike, Big Adam. That’s a bad deal. Makes you feel like you can’t trust anybody. What’s it look like?”

  Adam described his cruiser, and Stub said, “I’ll watch for it.”

  “Thanks, Stub,” said Adam. “Appreciate it.”

  Mrs. Stanky was Adam’s Language Arts teacher. She wasn’t his favorite adult, but she was bearable. The last few days she’d been incredibly nice to him, and Adam suspected it was because they’d gotten their scores back on the state test and once again, he’d received a perfect 4+. Second year in a row. Teachers liked kids with high scores; it made them feel like smart teachers.

  She was describing their last big writing project of the year. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said. “Now that the state tests are over, we don’t have to worry about the five-paragraph essay anymore. We don’t have to follow the writing formula from the state high commission on standards. We’re going to do some real writing, like actual grown-up writers. My kids always say it’s their favorite thing all year. You’re about to see how much fun writing can be.”

  A girl raised her hand. “Mrs. Stanky, after all we did on the five-paragraph essay — you’re saying it’s not real writing? No offense, Mrs. Stanky, but how bogus is that?”

  Boy, Adam agreed. Mrs. Stanky had spent months drilling the five-paragraph essay formula into their brains for the state test. Topic sentence. Then three examples to back it up: one from literature, one from history, one from popular culture. Then concluding sentence. Repeat for paragaphs two through five. Try not to explode from boredom.

  And if ever you tried something different — like writing a paragraph that was one sentence long with dashes in the middle — they’d take off points and send your name to the state high commission.

  “Boys and girls, I misspoke,” said Mrs. Stanky. “The five-paragraph essay is real writing. It is important. You need it for the state test. When you get to high school, you’ll need it for the SAT writing sample. It’s just, it has nothing to do with real-life writing. To the best of my knowledge, you’ll never do a five-paragraph essay in college, or in business or in newspapers or magazines, or blogs or short stories or novels or poetry or corporate memos or advertising. I’ve read that some big researchers have studied it and have never been able to find an actual example of a five-paragaph essay ever being published anywhere. But you never know. I’m sure someday, some great researcher like Jane Goodall or Louis Leakey will find that maybe in a fishing village in Madagascar . . .”

  The girl raised her hand again.

  “Enough,” said Mrs. Stanky. “Let’s accentuate the positive.”

  She told them that they were going to do a profile of some student in the school who was really different from them. And it couldn’t be someone in their English class. And they had to interview that kid a lot, so that they really understood the differences. And they should follow that person around and go to his or her home if they could, and meet his or her parents if that were possible.

  And they had to do some real, primary research, she said. They were supposed to go to the library and find a copy of a newspaper for the day that kid was born so that they could see what was going on in Tremble and around the nation and world on that day.

  “I’m not talking about Googling that date,” said Mrs. Stanky. “No Googling. I will know if that’s how you do it. I will take off points if I catch you Googling. That goes for Yahooing, too. You must read the actual newspaper. I’ve arranged with the librarian at the main branch. There will be a research sheet that you all must sign so I know you’ve been there.”

  “One more thing,” she said. “Be careful. Say someone is born on December 2nd, 1984 —”

  “Is that your birthday, Mrs. Stanky?” said a boy.

  “I said someone, not me,” she said. “So, if you want to find out what happened on December 2nd, 1984, what day’s paper do you want?”

  “Duh,” said a girl. “December 2nd, 1984.”

  “You sure?” said Mrs. Stanky.

  Adam knew what she meant. To find out what happened on December 2nd, they’d have to read the December 3rd newspaper. It took a few minutes for someone to finally say it.

  Adam was excited. It did sound fun. He knew who he was going to do, too: Shadow. You couldn’t get much more different than Shadow. Plus Adam already knew a lot about Shadow. He’d visited Sha
dow’s after-school job. He knew his boss was Mr. Johnny Stack, who looked out for Shadow; Adam would love the chance to finally meet him. He also knew Shadow lived in foster care and took special ed classes in 107A. He’d never been in 107A. It would be neat to see what went on inside there. Plus he liked spending time with Shadow. Shadow definitely was different.

  At lunch, Adam found Jennifer. He pulled the speech he had to memorize for Mr. Brooks out of his backpack and handed it to her. “Test me,” he said. “I think I know it.”

  When he’d finished, Jennifer said, “Not bad. You did good on the stuff about battling Hitler and moving the world forward to the ‘broad, sunlit uplands,’ I love that. You just forgot the part about the free world sinking into the abyss of a new Dark Age. You want to try one more time?”

  “Nah,” said Adam. “It’s close enough. Guess who I ran into today at the bike rack? Stub Keenan.”

  “Was he stealing your bike?” she asked.

  “No,” said Adam. “Actually I was hoping he was giving out free bikes to kids who’d vote for him.”

  “You’d do it,” said Jennifer.

  “I might,” said Adam.

  “Did he offer you a free download?” asked Jennifer.

  “He didn’t,” said Adam. “He was campaigning.”

  “So how are we going to get that story?” she asked.

  Adam didn’t know. He didn’t think they could just print the list of names unless they had someone telling them on the record — being quoted by name — that these were kids who got the iPod downloads. “I don’t suppose your source — who’s so secret you can’t tell your coeditor — would be quoted saying these are the kids who got downloads?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “No way.”

  “Is there anyone who knows Stub real well, who Stub pissed off so bad he might tell us?”

  Jennifer was quiet, then finally said, “Not who’d be named. At least I can’t think of anyone.”

  “You know what’s funny,” said Adam. “Stub told me his campaign manager is this kid Billy Cutty. The campaign manager must know about the downloads. Well, the thing is — I know his cousin, Franky Cutty — he’s this really neat big kid.”