The Last Reporter

by Michael Winerip

  “I’m starved,” said Adam. “Got anything else to eat?”

  She didn’t.

  “Mind if I take a couple of quick sucks?” He pulled out his jawbreaker. “I know it kind of grosses you out.”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “You can pretty much get used to anything.”

  From his pocket, he pulled out the plastic bag, which was getting really stretched from all the use, then popped in the jawbreaker.

  “Anyone ever suck one down to nothing?” Jennifer asked.

  Adam held up his hand to get in a few more slurps, then put it away. “Supposedly this kid in Australia got one down to marble size in nine days, then swallowed it. They claim it’s a world record, but I don’t know. I saw it on a blog — hard to know if you could trust it.”

  Jennifer nodded. “I guess if you worked on it sixteen hours a day for nine straight days — it’s possible, maybe.”

  They were watching the little kids. One boy was flying along the monkey bars, grabbing a bar with his right hand, the next with his left until he reached the end, vaulted off, ran back, and did it again.

  “That kid’s good,” said Jennifer. “I always had to hold on with both hands. . . .”

  “You know who was great?” said Adam. “In kindergarten — Stub Keenan. You think this little guy will grow up to rig an election?” Adam felt funny, like he was watching the actual former Stub. “People change,” he said softly.

  “Stub got a lot bigger,” said Jennifer.

  “He’s not that big,” said Adam.

  “He is,” said Jennifer. “He’s like the football team’s star linebacker. I bet he weighs forty pounds more than you.”

  “Great,” said Adam. One of the things Adam really didn’t like about Stub — he always called Adam Big Adam. Hilarious. Adam intended to be good and ready when they went to interview Stub about the election.

  “I’m packing a weapon,” said Adam.

  “No,” said Jennifer. “You have me.”

  “Right,” said Adam. “I’ll clobber him over the head with a coeditor.”

  “So here’s what I started to say,” said Jennifer.

  Adam opened his mouth to stop her, but Jennifer grabbed his lips with her fingertips and mooshed them together. “I’m not going to let go,” she said, “unless you promise to listen. . . . You promise? You have to.”

  “Eebyeebywooby,” said Adam. It was impossible to talk when someone had your lips mooshed together. For a second, Adam thought of jerking back. Even though Jennifer had surprisingly strong fingertips — it must be all the tennis and cello — he could’ve gotten out of it easy.

  The truth was, he didn’t mind.

  “I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “That didn’t sound like ‘I promise, dear wonderful Jennifer.’ Is that what you were saying?’”

  Adam gave her a thumbs-up and she let go.

  “Don Ameche is not my boyfriend,” she said.

  Holy cripes. For once, Adam was at a loss for words. He’d been so sure. It seemed like that Ameche brother knew all the right moves — take girls to movies, give them tomato sauce, and stuff. Don had so much going on — all those business projects, sneaking onto the golf course at midnight, putting the wheels back on power mowers, and making big bucks. He was a pretty exciting individual. He just seemed more action-packed than Adam. The Ameche brothers and Adam all went to middle school, yet when Adam was around them, he felt so — he hated to admit this — so young.

  “I mean, I thought we might be,” said Jennifer. “And there was a little . . . you know . . . nice personal stuff. . . . But I learned something. . . .” She looked at him.

  Was she waiting for him to talk? Adam didn’t know what to say. It couldn’t be his turn yet; she’d only said a couple of sentences. Having this talk was Jennifer’s big idea. He was just planning on saying a few words at the end and then they could get back to normal.

  “It’s nice when a boy takes you to a movie and asks you out for a Sunday afternoon and holds your hand . . .”

  Oh gross, gross, why was she telling him this? He did not want to hear it. He did not want that picture in his head.

  “But that doesn’t mean it’s going to work. You can take someone to a movie and give them nice little gifts and spend Sunday afternoon together, but it still might not add up to something special. I was wrong.”

  Adam had been on the verge of standing up and running home, but then he heard Jennifer say those three little words. He didn’t ever remember hearing those words from her.

  “I was wrong,” she repeated.

  “You don’t want to go to movies?” asked Adam.

  “Oh, I do,” said Jennifer. “But not Blood Zingers of the Purple Sage.”

  Adam had wanted to see that; he’d heard the special effects were really amazing. But he got Jennifer’s point. “Too many people getting their heads cut off?” he asked.

  “Pretty much the whole hour and forty-five minutes,” she said.

  “Sunday afternoons?” he asked.

  “Great in theory,” she said. “But Don wanted to go to Tooky Berry’s Billiards and Paintball Emporium. He had coupons for a semiautomatic rental gun, full goggle system, and safety orientation. A three-hundred-dollar value.”

  Adam nodded.

  “So,” said Jennifer, “I just wanted you to know . . . that me and Don . . . we’re still . . . but we’re not . . .”

  Adam nodded.

  “So, that’s about it,” she said. “I just felt I had to say . . .”

  Adam nodded.

  “Not really had to,” Jennifer said. “Wanted to say. I wanted you to know.”

  Adam nodded.

  “Is there anything you want to say?” asked Jennifer.

  She was looking at him really hard again. There was definitely something; he just wasn’t sure he could. It felt a little dangerous.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry?” she repeated. “Sorry? You’re sorry it didn’t work out with Don Ameche? Oh, God, Adam, you are sorry.”

  She stood and pulled on her backpack.

  The late buses were coming up the driveway.

  He ran to catch her.

  “I’m not sorry,” he said.

  She kept walking.

  “I’m not the least bit sorry,” he said. “I’m glad.”

  She stopped.

  “You are?” she said.

  “I am,” he said.

  He was smiling.

  “You are,” she said. “I can tell.”

  He was beaming; he couldn’t help it.

  “Come here,” she said, and she put one hand on each of his shoulders, leaned toward him, and pressing her lips against his right ear, whispered, “I’m glad you’re glad.” Then she yelled, “Yipes!”, bolted off, and looking back over her shoulder called, “Last one’s a rotten egg.”

  For once, he did not chase her. He did not want to lose the feel of her whisper.

  Money was pouring in — everything from hundred-dollar checks donated by grown-ups to quarters, dimes, and nickels from Phoebe’s daily cafeteria bead sales. Jennifer didn’t have an official count yet; there were still two days until the Friday deadline, and a lot of people hadn’t reported back. When she saw Adam before science class, she told him it looked like there was going to be enough to print the Slash, plus pay the Ameche brothers, and maybe even have a little left over.

  “We can start a bank account for the Slash for next year,” said Jennifer.

  “We’re having a party,” said Adam.

  “Adam Canfield,” said Jennifer, “these people gave this money because they believe in the Slash. Free speech. The First Amendment, all that Constitution stuff.”

  “Come on,” said Adam. “I remember for a fact — the unit we did on the Constitution — the right to have parties is guaranteed. Swear it is.”

  “Political parties,” said Jennifer. “Democrats. Republicans. Not birthday parties. Not surprise parties. Not Slash staff parties.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, my God, you are a killer,” said Adam. “Everyone works so hard — reporters have got to have a little fun. That’s in the Constitution.”

  “Sure,” said Jennifer. “Right beside birthday parties.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Adam. “How about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — fun, fun, fun!” He raised his hand in a V for victory sign, then dashed into class before Jennifer could appeal to the Supreme Court.

  Between studying for finals and goofing off when they should have been studying for finals, the Slash reporters finished their stories.

  The coeditors read them to make sure all the big questions had been answered and the right people had been interviewed. Then they passed them on to the copy editors, who looked for problems with grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, and sent them back to Jennifer and Adam for one more read.

  The last kid to see stories was Shadow, who was fond of explaining, “I find any mistakes that no one else found because these mistakes were so tricky or sometimes not so tricky.” Shadow loved describing the mistakes he found to Adam. It was Shadow who noticed that Sammy had spelled Nesquik wrong. “N-e-s-q-u-i-k is chocolate milk,” said Shadow. “N-e-s-q-u-i-c-k is chocolate milk in a hurry.”

  “Good job,” said Adam.

  “I know,” said Shadow. “I found nine mistakes so far. The boys’ lacrosse team was seven wins and six losses, not eight wins and six losses. You can’t count scrimmages as wins. Scrimmages are practice games. Practice games aren’t real games. Scrimmage wins aren’t real wins.”

  “Are scrimmage losses real losses?” asked Adam.

  “Good question,” said Shadow. “No.”

  “Good job,” said Adam.

  “I know,” said Shadow. “That’s nine so far and we don’t even have your story on the student-council election yet. Probably a lot of mistakes in that, too.”

  “Thanks,” said Adam. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  “I know,” said Shadow. “Probably I’ll find eleven mistakes or even twelve by the time I finish.”

  “Good job,” said Adam.

  “Maybe thirteen or maybe fourteen mistakes,” said Shadow. “That’s just maybe but it could be probably.”

  After all the stories were edited and the pages laid out, the paper would go to the printer, who would make up one copy — the proof. They planned to show that to Mrs. Quigley to be sure there were no big problems they’d missed. They didn’t have to — the Slash was a true, independent, kid-financed paper now — but Jennifer felt they should pick one grown-up they trusted to see the paper before it went off into the world. “I don’t want the Bolands suing us for a billion dollars,” said Jennifer.

  “How long do you think it would take Phoebe to make a billion dollars’ worth of ankle bracelets?” asked Adam.

  “Under a week,” said Jennifer.

  “She is pretty high-energy,” Adam agreed.

  And then, hopefully, they’d roll the presses, five hundred copies of the Slash, plus the new Slash website designed by the Ameche brothers.

  From Mrs. Quigley, Jennifer got the e-mail address for Mrs. Boland’s assistant. The principal did not look overjoyed. “You’re investigating the Bolands again?” she asked. “Another Boland story? I’m going to have to buy us all bulletproof vests. I may have to reopen Mrs. Marris’s old bomb-shelter bunker downstairs.”

  But she seemed calmer when Jennifer explained there was no new investigation; they were just following up on the last story.

  Jennifer shot off an e-mail to the Bolands with a few questions, basically asking if they had any comment on the state investigation into buying up the Willows.

  To take a little of the sting out of it, Jennifer mentioned that they knew the state’s investigation had already been reported in the New York Times and they were just following the Times story. She asked them to please let her know when they had received her e-mail.

  The coeditors didn’t want the Bolands complaining that the Slash hadn’t given them a fair chance to comment.

  Jennifer was surprised.

  That same afternoon, Mrs. Boland’s assistant, Clarence, responded, verifying that he had her questions and would get back to her. Jennifer told Adam it was a pretty normal e-mail — nothing too mean-spirited.

  Adam wasn’t nervous about his finals. He was a good test-taker and could usually bluff his way through any black holes in his memory.

  He was nervous about the meeting they had coming up with Stub Keenan. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain that Stub was going to pound him out.

  He and Jennifer had talked about going to Mrs. Quigley first and telling her what their reporting had turned up. That way Mrs. Quigley might stop the election and the Slash editors wouldn’t have to break the news to Stub.

  Let Mrs. Quigley do the dirty.

  Stub probably wouldn’t hit Mrs. Quigley.

  If he did, that really wasn’t Adam’s problem.

  But the coeditors decided that would not be fair. What if Stub had some reasonable explanation? What if he said he was only giving the iPod downloads to kids who were his closest friends and would have voted for him anyway?

  Maybe Stub did have 143 closest friends. Who knew?

  They felt that going to the principal before seeing Stub would be like finding him guilty before he could give his side.

  So they were going to meet with him — right after school.

  Adam intended to be prepared.

  In case things got violent.

  He wasn’t going to get caught off-guard and smacked like the time he’d been mugged for his shoveling money without fighting back.

  If Stub came at him, Adam would be armed and dangerous.

  He wasn’t kidding.

  Writing the profile on Shadow for Mrs. Stanky was turning into a nightmare. The research paper counted for half their fourth-quarter grade.

  Partly he was stalled because he had too much info — he knew Shadow too well. Shadow seemed so complicated, Adam was afraid he couldn’t fit everything in, didn’t know what to leave out, and feared he wouldn’t get it right when he put it down on paper.

  Even worse: Could he do the paper without knowing the answer to what might be the biggest question in Shadow’s life?

  Was Shadow the baby in the diner trash?

  Is that why Shadow was the way he was?

  Had Mr. Johnny Stack told Adam the truth?

  Adam didn’t think so.

  But he didn’t know.

  Adam kept trying to get started. He’d gone over his notes and used colored marker to underline the most important ideas and quotes. The problem was, practically every word out of Shadow’s mouth was a great quote; Shadow didn’t say anything the regular way. Picking the best was hard.

  In big letters, at the top of the screen he’d written: THEODORE ROBERT “SHADOW” COX.

  So far, that was it.

  Adam would sit in front of the computer, mull, go upstairs, see what was in the refrigerator, come back down, and stare at the screen. Fifteen minutes later, he’d do it again, looking a little harder in the fridge to see if he’d missed anything.

  By the fifth visit, the leftover tuna fish didn’t look that bad.

  His problem was not Mrs. Stanky. He was almost sure that Mrs. Stanky would never know if he left out the story of the baby in the trash. No way she had time to check every front page her students looked up at the library.

  This was about writing truth. It was what Erik Forrest, the world-famous war correspondent had told Adam: don’t stop until you get to the bottom of things.

  Adam was sure he hadn’t hit bottom yet.

  How do you write a profile when you can’t answer the most important question in a person’s life?

  He thought about going back to the fridge, but he really couldn’t bear looking at that bowl of tuna again.

  He slipped into the garage and took out his new bike. His dad had surprised him — it wasn’t his birthday or Christmas or anything. />
  His dad said they’d waited long enough.

  He said Adam wouldn’t be a boy forever.

  It was a brand-new, creamy turquoise, Kelly Byrne cruiser with thick whitewall tires and a big, tan-brown seat. Adam loved just looking at it. He loved running his hands over the wide fenders. The curve of the handlebars was perfect. He liked feeling the thickness of the leather seat; no matter how far he rode, his butt never got sore.

  When he pedaled hard, the cruiser made a soft whirring noise and he knew no one would ever catch him.

  He rode to the back path, turning and heading east along the river, racing past the civic association boathouse where the Slash staff had held their secret late-night meeting last fall.

  He passed the dock where Jennifer had kicked him really hard for no good reason and the sand dune where the two of them had lain side by side looking at the stars.

  That was nice.

  As he biked by people, he glanced away. He didn’t want anyone saying hi to him, and pulled his baseball cap low. He wished he could ride forever across this great nation. He wished that everywhere he went, people would know about him, but not know who he was.

  The world’s most famous unknown biker.

  He kept riding, past where the houses stopped, past the docks and beaches, to where the riverbanks changed from sand dunes and dune grass that rattled in the wind to bright green swampy marsh where seagulls and terns and egrets lived. He could see the tall poles and wooden platforms that the conservation center had built to give the ospreys a place to nest so they’d lay their eggs and wouldn’t become extinct.

  He stopped to pick a cattail, ripping apart the fat pod on top and blowing the wispy filaments into the wind.

  Then he picked another cattail and, holding it upside down by the fat pod, turned it into a sword.

  Biking on, he was unafraid, whipping the cattail through the air and slaying every type of foul beast known to man, including Stub Keenan, demonstrating martial arts moves that Jennifer never even knew existed.

  He loved his bike.