I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class

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I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class Page 11

by Josh Lieb


  Naturally, Verna was horrified when Randy told her that a boy was running unopposed for the eighth-grade class presidency. Boy, was she ever horrified. She tried to convince Randy to be horrified, too, but even the Most Pathetic Boy in School isn’t going to fall for that one.

  So she focused her powers of convinction on Scott Sparks, the Luckiest Man in Omaha, and he was instantly, thoroughly, completely convinced. He told his son he should run for class president. And I mean he really told him. Scott Sparks practically begged Randy to run for class president.

  Randy didn’t want to screw things up for his dad, so he promised he’d try. And, being the sort of person who keeps promises, he went to Mr. Pinckney, who said, “No, no. Absolutely not,” just like Randy knew he would. And that was that. And Randy was relieved. He’d done his best.

  What Randy didn’t know was that one minute after he left Mr. Pinckney’s office, The Motivator went into it. That was yesterday.

  Today is today, and Randy and I are sitting three desks away from each other in Earth sciences. Miss Broadway teaches it. She’s technically a math teacher, but because she’s new, she gets stuck with a lot of the classes no one else wants. “Dirt for Dummies” is one of those classes. Right now she’s talking about the big news in the science world—the burglary last night at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

  “Thank goodness they didn’t take more,84 but still. I mean, really. This is the home of some of our most valued national treasures. People shouldn’t be able to just stroll in and take whatever they want.”

  Broadway seems less concerned with what was stolen than she is with the whole decline-in-law-and-order aspect of the story. Most of her conversations turn in this direction. In geometry, she once made a compelling speech linking the sides of a scalene triangle to a recent outburst of gang violence.

  I can assure her (but I won’t) that the burglars didn’t “just stroll” into the museum. This was a precision military operation, conducted by top-flight Armenian mercenaries. They were in and out in under five minutes, and they didn’t leave a trace.85

  I glance at the wall clock, then over at Randy, who is picking wax out of his ear. If my instructions are being followed, just about now The Motivator is walking into Principal Pinckney’s office with a little brown box.

  Which means that just about now, Pinckney, who heard about the museum robbery with a combination of excitement and dread, is opening that little box with trembling fingers.

  And just about now, The Motivator is reminding the Principal of his side of the bargain.

  And just about now . . .

  “Your attention, please.” Pinckney’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker. “Attention. This is your principal. Pardon the interruption. This is . . . is highly unusual. . . .”

  He pauses, apparently unsure how to continue. Every eye in the room is on the little speaker mounted above the blackboard, except for mine. I’m looking at somebody sitting three desks away.

  “Um. Well . . .”

  Buried in the static hissing out of the loudspeaker, you can barely hear someone whisper, “Just say it.”

  “Um . . . Randy Sparks is now a candidate for the eighth-grade class presidency.”

  Then a horrible clank as the microphone is abruptly shut off.

  Surprise!

  Turns out Randy Sparks is the have-a-heart-attack type. Only he’s too young to have a heart attack, so he just turns purple and starts coughing. When he recovers, Broadway is standing over him, seemingly determined to draw the truth out of him with her immense gravity.

  “What are you up to, Andy?”

  “Randy.”

  Broadway rolls her eyes. She doesn’t like students who mouth off.

  Randy starts sputtering, trying to make sense of it for himself. “I don’t know! I asked him yesterday; he said I couldn’t . . . I didn’t think he’d—”

  “You just asked Mr. Pinckney to make you a candidate?” Broadway booms, horrified. “Don’t you know that there’s a procedure you have to follow?”

  “But my dad, he . . . My dad has a girlfriend!”

  That’s enough to start the orangutans on a laughing jag and Randy on another coughing fit. Broadway storms around the room, muttering, looking personally insulted. When the animals finally quiet down, she addresses us in fune real tones.

  “This is just what I was talking about before. Just exactly. There are rules we are supposed to follow. As a society. As a nation. As a school. When those rules aren’t followed—especially here, where you’re supposed to be learning to respect them—the wheels come off the cart. They just do!” She points a sizeable index finger at Randy. “You were supposed to be nominated by someone.” Her voice rises in pitch, speed, and passion. “That nomination was supposed to be seconded. Your homeroom teacher was supposed to witness it all! Where was he or she in this process? Who is your homeroom teacher ?”

  Randy shrinks down in his seat. “You are.”

  The animals are laughing too loud to hear the bell ending class.

  My sympathies are with Randy on this one. No one should be so anonymous that his homeroom teacher doesn’t know he exists.

  “Spray Broadway with solution X-9,” I whisper. Tomorrow, she is going to come down with a very, very bad cold.

  “And solution X-5.”

  And a rash.

  “And let the air out of her tires.”

  Now I’m just being nasty.

  Chapter 23:

  DADDY HAS OTHER THINGS ON HIS MIND

  Daddy stands at his closet, combing through his collection of bow ties. I have nothing against bow ties personally, except when Daddy wears them. He likes to wear fun items of clothing when he gets dressed up, as if to say, I don’t take things like this too seriously.

  “What do you think?” he says, holding up two ties. “The one with dancing babies on it, or the one with roller-skating Frankensteins?” I take a special joy in giving him the stupidest ties I can find every Christmas and Father’s Day. I would enjoy it even more if he didn’t like them so much.

  “They’re both nice,” says Mom, who sits on the bed. He nods, gives each tie another serious look, then puts them aside for further consideration. He’s picking out what he’ll wear on his station’s upcoming pledge drive, a monthlong extravaganza of whining for dollars.

  Daddy drops his favorite corduroy jacket on the pile, then puts a hand to his noble brow. “God, I hate this.” He looks even more world-weary than usual. “Wasting my time going on air. So many important things I could be doing in my office . . .”

  “Then don’t do it,” I say, sitting on the floor, playing tug-of-war with Lollipop.86

  Daddy looks a little too pained to respond. Mom fills the vacuum. “He has to do it, Sugarplum. He’s scheduled to be on TV three nights a week. For a month!”

  “Yeah,” I say, drawing it out, as if the idea is just dawning on me. “But he’s the boss of the whole station.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So isn’t he the one who makes the schedule? He could make it so other people have to go on TV, and then he can do all the important work in his office—”

  “Someday you’ll understand what it means to have responsibilities,” snaps Daddy. He turns back to his closet with a passion and starts pawing through his wardrobe with real energy.

  “Maybe when I beat Randy and become president,” I say.

  “Yeah, maybe then,” says Daddy, distracted. Pledge-drive season takes up an insane amount of my parents’ mental energy. He starts pawing through his sock drawer.

  I thought he’d be a little more interested when he heard I had an opponent. “It’s going to be a tough election,” I venture. “I’m scared Randy will get all the kids who have glasses to vote for him. Because he has glasses.”

  My parents haven’t heard a word of it. Daddy’s examining a pair of bright-orange socks. “I can’t wear these on TV—they’re stained.”

  “You should get a haircut,” say
s Mom.

  He looks in the mirror. “No,” he says, stroking the curls around his pointed ears. “Then it would look like I cared.”

  I shouldn’t be surprised by their lack of enthusiasm. As it turns out, Randy Sparks’s late entry in the race wasn’t even the biggest news at school today. After lunch, word leaked out that Tatiana had been suspended for two weeks. Someone’s been spray-painting graffiti in the parking lot since January. Typical juvenile stuff (see plate 15). This morning, Ms. Sokolov remembered that she’d seen paint on Tatiana’s fingers the other day. And that was that.

  Here’s the funny thing: The vandal uses blue paint.

  PLATE 15: Someone’s been spray-painting graffiti

  in the parking lot since January. Typical juvenile stuff.

  People are creatures of habit. If you picked your nose with your left pinkie finger yesterday, you’ll probably pick it with your left pinkie finger today, and with your left pinkie finger tomorrow, forever and ever for the rest of your ugly snot-covered life.

  Let’s talk about someone much less disgusting than you: Tatiana. As far as creatures of habit go, she is probably the most habitually pink creature in the world. Her sweaters are pink, her socks are pink, her sneakers are pink, her panties are pink.87

  Even if my surveillance cameras hadn’t taken photographs proving that the vandal is actually Jordie Moscowitz (he’s a real winner), I would have had a very hard time believing that someone so thoroughly pink as our Tati would choose to express herself in blue. It just doesn’t work that way.

  On the other hand, people can embrace new habits when they realize their old habits just aren’t working for them anymore. Take Moorhead, for example. He’s decided to let mystical messages typed on cigarettes guide him in the pursuit of his dream woman. You might call this behavior irrational, but it’s probably the most sensible thing he’s done in years. He knows he’s not making any progress with Sokolov on his own; if the cigarette messages offer a better path, he’d be a fool not to follow it.

  Even a middle-school middlebrow like Moorhead knows why his angels have advised him to “CARRY A COPY OF GRAVITY’S RAINBOW.” It’s to make him look smart. Sokolov is bound to be impressed by a man who reads something so thick.

  Which is why he looked so pleased with himself this afternoon. A copy of Gravity’s Rainbow loomed ominously on the corner of his desk, like a two-ton marble monument to his brain. He was leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his neck, beaming like a baby that’s used the potty for the first time.

  Oh yes, he was thinking. This makes me look smart.

  At one point he saw Pammy Quattlebaum eyeing the book in admiration, and he flashed her an arrogant smile, like a rock star grinning at a fan.

  Meanwhile, a pack of hastily prepared cigarettes, all screaming HIDE THAT THING IN A DRAWER, were being rush-delivered to him.

  It was a brand-new copy of the book. You’d think even a middle-school middlebrow would know better than that. How’s he supposed to impress Sokolov if she thinks he’s reading Gravity’s Rainbow for the first time?88

  “The next message will read GET A USED COPY,” I dictate, though there’s no one but Lollipop, Sheldrake, and me in the blimp. Somewhere, far beneath us, someone hears me and someone obeys.

  “You’re too cruel to that man,” says Sheldrake.

  “He doesn’t think so.” I scan some tax returns for errors.

  Nothing pops up, but I can’t say I’m all that interested. I push the stack of paperwork aside. “By the way, Lionel, I’m arranging a few public appearances for you.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “One of them, you’ll actually enjoy. It’s on my father’s station. The other . . . well, that’s going to be at my school. A speech about the value of democratic elections in the public-school arena.”

  Sheldrake breathes heavily and fidgets in his seat. I glare at him. “Spit it out.”

  “You’re certainly making a big deal out of this election.”

  “I want it to be a very big deal,” I say. “I want people to recognize that this is important.”

  “You mean you want one person in particular to think it’s important.” I stiffen, and Lollipop shows Sheldrake all five thousand of her little white needles.

  Sheldrake barrels forward, heedless. “Look, you know I never give you advice—but why do you care what he thinks? You’re twice the man he is, and you haven’t even hit puberty yet.”

  I grab the speaking trumpet. “Captain Malthus, open the bay doors. We’re going to be dumping something over the river.” The floor behind Sheldrake’s chair collapses downward, like a horizontal pair of saloon doors in a cowboy movie, and the white lights of the Omaha skyline bathe us in their glow. Tax forms flap around the cabin like bats. “Hil,” I command, and Lollipop inches toward Sheldrake, teeth bared, back arched.

  Sheldrake pales. “There’s no need to threaten me, Oliver. I’ll shut up. But I don’t see why you don’t just fix the damned election and be done with it.” He’s being very brave. “Just rig the vote and stop worrying about it.”

  Lollipop’s growl rises an octave. It becomes scarier as it becomes more shrill. She’s less than a foot from him now. The slobber that hangs from her mouth glistens in the reflected light like a silver knife.

  “Damn it, Oliver. Stop that dog.”

  I respect him for not saying “Please.”

  “Maita,” I order. Lollipop stops, just a few inches short of him. All the hostility instantly drains from her body. She cranes forward and licks the sweat from Sheldrake’s cheeks.

  “Captain Malthus, close the bay.” We cease to glow in the city lights, and the wind in the cabin dies. I pour Sheldrake a cup of tea. “I’m sorry, Lionel. I lost my temper.”

  “No, it’s . . . I was out of line.” The teacup shakes in his hand. “It’s not my place to say. . . . But I do care. And I worry. I feel like you’re letting important business slide.”

  “I’ll decide what’s important,” I tell him. “And as for rigging the votes—I will if I have to. But why bother when it’s so easy for me to win?”

  Chapter 24:

  HOW TO RUN FOR CLASS PRESIDENT

  Make posters to put up at school.

  That’s it.

  There are no issues to debate in a student-council election. There are no tax rates to be cut, no bond measures to be passed, no perverted practices to be outlawed. Student councils don’t do anything. Maybe if you go to a school that has a radio in the cafeteria, the student council will decide what station is played on the radio.

  My school does not have a radio in the cafeteria.

  Since there’s nothing important to talk about, student-council campaigns are massively simple operations. Just poster board after poster board reading VOTE FOR ME! taped up wherever the principal lets you. Our ancestors fought the Revolutionary War so we’d have the right to do this. They must be so proud.

  The first posters of the eighth-grade presidential campaign have popped up outside Ms. Sokolov’s room. One is made of three strips of red, white, and blue:

  I wonder if that might not be too intellectual for my classmates.

  My mother’s contribution is taped up right next to it. It’s a piece of cardboard so heavy with paste and glitter and plastic flowers that it’s nearly falling off the wall. It’s message: Vote for Watson! He will make the best President!

  Or that’s what it’s supposed to read. Someone has crossed out PRESIDENT and written DOODY in red Magic Marker.89

 

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