Don't Care High

by Gordon Korman

  “Well,” said Paul on Friday after school, “I don’t know if all those Don’t Care students appreciate Mike Otis, but I can sure say that by this time they’ve all heard about him.”

  The two boys sat in Sheldon’s room listening to Flash Flood.

  “Welcome to Day Five of the Universal Deluge. This is Flash Flood reporting that there are flash floods in various underpasses, subways and basements. If you’re on the road right now, you’re not going to get home until midnight. Tonight’s forecast is wet. It’s four forty-five in the greatest city in the world, where nothing is dependable, and the only thing you can rely on is the fact that I will be here at Stereo 99 with all the music you’re ever going to need.”

  Sheldon yawned hugely. “It’s almost hard to believe — not only does Don’t Care High have a president, but everybody knows his name. And he’s doing things for the school.”

  “He isn’t doing things for the school,” Paul reminded him. “We’re telling everybody he is. Keep at least a loose grip on reality, please.”

  “Even Wayne-o knows about Mike,” marvelled Sheldon. “Wayne-o! I was hoping we’d make an impression, but — Wayne-o!”

  “When it trickles up to Daphne, I’ll let you know,” said Paul dryly. “I Just can’t help wondering what Mike thinks of all this.”

  Sheldon shrugged. “It probably hasn’t reached him yet. He doesn’t talk to anyone, you know. He may have seen one or two of the signs, but I’m sure he just ignored them. The big thing is what do we do next?”

  Paul got a cold feeling in his stomach as the spirit of Steve deserted him. “What do you mean ‘next’?”

  “Fame is fleeting. Mike could be here today and gone tomorrow, and Don’t Care High accelerates that process.”

  “Well, I don’t see what we can do about it,” said Paul. “Pretty soon we’re going to run out of repairs and accomplishments. And we can’t exactly take out an ad in the newspaper telling the world how wonderful Mike is.”

  Sheldon broke into a wide, toothy grin. “Ambition, you’re a genius. Mike should be proud to have a man like you in his camp.”

  “What? A newspaper ad? That costs money!”

  “Not in our own newspaper it wouldn’t. You see, Don’t Care High has a print shop — obviously out of use for some years now. That shop is there for student use, and what better use than a publication from Mike to his constituents?”

  “Aw, Shel, we’d better think about that first. Making up stories is one thing; writing them down is another. I mean, if we have to go to the office to ask for the key to this shop, they’re going to know the paper comes from us.”

  “It’s an open shop,” said Sheldon. “There’s no door. The only thing we have to worry about is being seen, and we’ll figure some way around that. We’ll arrange with Feldstein to get a few lockers nearby so it’ll be a close stash before distribution.”

  Paul groaned. Feldstein again.

  “We need a name,” Sheldon continued. “How about The Otis Report? What do you think?”

  “It’ll look snappy on our expulsion papers,” grumbled Paul.

  “Most important, we need a picture. Mike, his face radiating honesty, industry, goodwill and the ability to get things done. Something for the students to get behind and stay behind. Now they just have a name; they need a face to capture their trust.”

  “Just think for a minute of the particular face you’re talking about,” Paul interjected. “It looks like the face of someone who lives on the eleventh floor of a ten-storey building. He looks like he comes from a non-existent town, which he drove here from in a non-existent car. He looks like he’s completely out of it!”

  “All the more reason why he should really catch on. Everyone in the school is completely out of it, too. Now look, he’s in your photography class? Make him your next project.”

  Paul shook his head. “I’m really not sure about all this, Shel.”

  Sheldon grinned. “Of course you’re sure. You’re co-editor, aren’t you? And staff photographer to boot. That’s a lot of responsibility. Now let’s start writing copy.”

  7

  When the rain stopped, Mike Otis wasn’t the only big story at Don’t Care High. Feldstein, his authority being challenged for the first time this year, was on the warpath. Two freshman boys, unheeding of the locker baron’s supremacy, had dared to saw off Feldstein’s locks and replace them with their own, thereby taking unlawful possession of two lockers in the 800A’s. Feldstein served them with fair warning, and they had responded by stealing and hiding the locker baron’s chair.

  In a rage, Feldstein extended his influence to the maximum, calling for hostility and inconvenience to rain down on the heads of the two transgressors. They were no longer allowed in the cafeteria, and all drinking fountains were closed to them. They were late for all classes, as access to their ill-gotten lockers was barred around the clock. And they were shunned like lepers by virtually all of the twenty-six hundred students.

  Throughout this, Feldstein stood in his stairwell, arms crossed with grim determination.

  When Sheldon and Paul went to see Feldstein on Monday, his chair had rematerialized, and the two transgressors stood before him, shamefaced and repentant.

  “We were wrong, and we apologize,” said the one on the right.

  “We’ll give you back the lockers,” said his partner, “and we’re willing to make it up to you.”

  “We’ll do anything,” added the first boy.

  Feldstein’s expression was solemn. He paused as the boy’s words echoed in the upper stairwell, then reached into his pocket, produced a piece of paper and began to unfold it.

  “I have here a list of the Chinese food that I need right now. Make sure you get everything exactly the way it’s written down. And I want you to know that, as far as I’m concerned, absolutely nothing happened between us.”

  “Gee, thanks, Feldstein! We’ll get it right away!” The two boys sprinted out of the building.

  Sheldon and Paul approached the locker baron.

  “Hi, Feldstein,” said Sheldon. I see you’ve done it again. Congratulations.”

  Feldstein nodded sadly. “Business is business, but this —” he gestured in the direction in which the two freshmen had departed “— is just a couple of kids who don’t know what they’re getting into. The locker game sure has changed. Two years ago, the great insurrections of Slim Kroy and The Combo. The year before that, I was the young upstart, forcing Fitzpatrick completely out of the A’s and establishing my first stronghold. Those were the days.” He sighed. “You’ve got to do a lot of dirty things in this business. So what can I do for you today, man?”

  “We need two lockers as close to the print shop as possible.”

  Feldstein brightened. “No sooner said than done. 468 and 469D, right across. Why don’t you take 470, too? On me.”

  “You’re a prince, Feldstein,” said Sheldon, pleased.

  “Yeah, thanks, Feldstein,” added Paul.

  “Don’t mention it, man.”

  * * *

  Photography class continued to have its problems. Mr. Willis, who now had no office and no print dryer, continued valiantly to teach and refused to give up precious darkroom time. Replacing the dryer was an electric fan he had unabashedly swiped from Mr. Gamble’s office. He urged all students to bring electric hair dryers to class, but only he and Paul had remembered to do so. This inadequate resource was cut in half when Mr. Willis’ dryer was recalled by the manufacturer.

  That Wednesday, Paul was confronted with the problem of a portrait shot of Mike Otis. This, Sheldon was telling him, was holding up the first edition of The Otis Report, which was otherwise ready to go to press.

  As the class waited for Mr. Willis to arrive, Paul made an elaborate show of announcing that his camera was broken. Putting his eye to the viewer, he wheeled around, saying, “See what you can make of this.” Aiming the camera directly at Mike, he snapped a picture. “Hey, what do you know — it’s fixed. Thanks
, Mike.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He waited until school was over to develop the picture. He and Sheldon stood over the developing tray, watching with anticipation as the image grew more distinct.

  Sheldon crowed with delight. “Excellent, Ambition! You’ve got talent!”

  Paul smiled proudly. It was a head-and-shoulders shot of the student body president, and rather a good likeness. He had apparently caught Mike in a state of slight surprise, but this was a plus, as the usually heavy eyelids were almost completely open, and the beady eyes looked faintly alert. The sleek head was cocked slightly to one side, and the collar of the raincoat was up, looking like a vase out of which was growing Mike’s face.

  “It looks great,” Sheldon said. “Obviously, he’s every inch a leader. How did you get the eyes so open? I can’t see any toothpicks.”

  “Just lucky, I guess. How many of these do you need?”

  “A smaller one for the paper,” Sheldon replied. “But hang onto that negative. It’s beautiful.”

  * * *

  The next day, Sheldon and Paul arrived at school early and headed directly for the print shop. Sheldon brought along a huge bed sheet, which he hung in the entrance to the shop alcove. To this, Paul affixed a sign reading MEN AT WORK, which the boys had pillaged from an area of wet paint near the office. Paul tried out the new lockers to check that the combinations worked and that they were clean and clear and ready to receive material. Then he stood guard as Sheldon began production, trying to look nonchalant as the roar and screech of seldom-used machinery emanated from behind the bed sheet. There was virtually no one around, and Paul felt comfortable running the first bundles of the finished product over to the lockers for storage.

  Then unforeseen circumstances arose. At less than two hundred copies in print, Sheldon ran out of paper, and Paul was forced to raid a nearby storeroom, which was fortunately unlocked. His heart pounding in his ears, he grabbed paper packages of all sizes in the hope that one of them would fit the printer. Sheldon pronounced the operation saved, and Paul went outside to have a minor breakdown of sheer relief.

  As time progressed, the halls began to fill with students, but no one was interested in the activity behind the sheet or the nature of Paul’s numerous shipments from print shop to lockers. Paul lost count of the print run at eight hundred, but Sheldon was just getting started. Production went on right up until homeroom, when Sheldon and Paul locked up their fifteen hundred copies and headed for Mr. Morrison’s class, a quiet environment in which they could rest and contemplate distribution.

  Mr. Morrison was panicking about his raffle tickets, pleading with his disinterested students to get out there and sell, sell, sell. Sheldon and Paul took seats at the back of the class and settled down to listen to the tirade. Paul noticed that, while they were supposed to be discussing the distribution of The Otis Report, Sheldon was silently scanning one of the flyers, his expression growing increasingly solemn. By the end of the announcements, he was positively pale.

  “You know,” said Sheldon as the class was dismissed, “I don’t think it would be such a good idea if any of the teachers knew it was us handing out those papers. For example, I don’t think the staff is going to appreciate the part where we say that there hasn’t been a single improvement this year that wasn’t directly attributable to Mike.”

  Paul looked disgusted. “Well, I told you on Sunday when you wrote that drivel —”

  “And when we quote that school board member we made up,” Sheldon went on, “and Mike’s telephone call from the mayor — oh, man! Remember the part where we said that, if Mike had been around, they never would have built the 22nd Street ramp? I think we called the staff and school board ‘ineffectual.’”

  “You called them ineffectual! I tried to talk you out of it!”

  “Gee, maybe it was bending the truth too much to say that Mike was invited to be keynote speaker at the Student Government Conference in Dallas.”

  “I’d say so,” Paul agreed sarcastically, “especially since the only thing we can really verify is the fact that there is a place called Dallas. But that’s not the best part. The real crusher is when you talk about Mike’s future plans to ride roughshod over everyone to make Don’t Care High a student paradise. I believe the actual wording went something like ‘whipping butts into shape.’”

  Sheldon nodded. “If it’s taken the wrong way, the staff could get pretty upset about that. We’ll have to change our way of thinking a little.”

  “Change the paper?” asked Paul.

  “Change the mode of distribution,” Sheldon corrected. “It’s all a matter of superior speed and a degree of camouflage.”

  “Superior speed?” Paul repeated.

  The smile had returned to Sheldon’s face. “How are you on roller skates?”

  * * *

  Friday was a cool, crisp day, the first day of the school year when the atmosphere inside Don Carey High School was comfortable. As the homeroom ended, students poured out into the halls to begin the long loiter that preceded first period.

  This particular Friday, however, the normal hum of conversation and clang of lockers on the second floor was interrupted when the heavy doors at the far end of the hall were flung open dramatically to reveal two masked men.

  With a cry of “Now!” the two figures, wearing ski masks and roller skates, and each carrying a huge bundle of newspapers, began to roll through the corridor, bestowing papers left and right.

  “Otis Report! Get your Otis Report!”

  “News from our president! Free!”

  Paul sped down the hall, strewing papers wherever he saw people. Luckily, he was the former Kilgour High School roller skating champion, and this operation was a breeze for him. He was stepping deftly around students, weaving his way down the long hall. “Words from Mike! Words from the president!” Expertly, he spun around, knocked open the stairwell doors with a heavy hip-check, and ran lightly up to the third level to start the process all over again.

  Sheldon, however, was having a harder time. He had grossly overestimated his own roller skating ability, and was careening around the hall at breakneck speed, slamming into lockers and students. He allowed his distribution to be governed by his own inability to hang onto his whole batch of papers and stay upright. Hurtling toward the end of the hall, only a last minute stiff-arm saved him from opening the heavy fire door with his nose, and he part-skated, part-hopped and part-fell down the stairs. He landed only inches from Feldstein, who was digging into a stack of pancakes and syrup.

  “Vermont maple syrup,” the locker baron said, shaking his head. “I asked for Quebec.”

  Sheldon tossed a paper at Feldstein’s feet and scrambled out onto the first floor.

  Paul, meanwhile, was enjoying himself no end. Just delivering the papers was not enough for him anymore, and he was executing spins, dips and pirouettes, earning such comments as, “So what?” from the students. But the papers were going. He and Sheldon had talked up Mike Otis so much that the blasé Don’t Care students were receiving The Otis Report with something approaching interest. It was the picture, Paul decided, that was striking chords of recognition. He could hear remarks such as, “Hey, I know that guy,” and “That’s the guy with the safety pins in his pants,” as he danced gracefully along the corridor.

  On the fourth floor, he found himself handing a copy into the hands of the student body president himself, and decided to try a little speed-skating, omitting his usual pitch. He did risk a backward glance, however, impressing on his mind — possibly for life — the image of that face, staring at that face, which was undoubtedly staring back, and so on.

  It was a feeling of freedom Paul hadn’t experienced for years, rocketing through the drabness that was Don’t Care High, yet removed from it all by a few thousand stitches of wool and eight wheels that gave him the ability to fly. Like this he could go where he pleased, even by the office if he so chose, for the power was his.

  He tossed his
remaining few papers into the crowded stairwell, shouted a final, “Get your Otis Report!” and worked up a head of steam for his grand finale into the bathroom that was serving as home base.

  Paul could have avoided any stationary or smoothly moving target, but an erratically-flailing, high-speed, out-of-control Sheldon was beyond his expertise. They met head-on with a resounding crunch, and crumpled together through the bathroom door.

  When the stars cleared from Paul’s vision, he saw the battered Sheldon lying beside him, exhausted, on the tiles. Sheldon ripped off the ski mask, grinned awkwardly through partly swollen lips and gasped, “A success!” before collapsing completely on the floor.

  * * *

  At the beginning of fifth period, Mike Otis was called to see Mr. Gamble. Sheldon and Paul, feeling responsible, cut class and went to hang around the outer office. When they found themselves on the receiving end of too many stares from the secretaries, they dropped in to the nearby guidance room, to the great shock and even greater joy of Mr. Morrison. To kill time, they allowed themselves to be coaxed into filling out career interest questionnaires, while keeping a sharp eye on the door in case Mike passed by. Apparently, though, Mike was either out of the building at the time of the call, or simply not receptive to paging.

  “Maybe he thinks they’re talking about another Mike Otis,” suggested Sheldon as the two were walking to sixth period class.

  The call went out again in sixth, but was apparently unanswered because, in photography, Mr. Gamble himself appeared at the door.