Adam Canfield of the Slash

by Michael Winerip

  But what if that person also had the power to decide what did or did not go into the newspaper? The moment they asked Marris about the gold plumbing, it was obvious to Adam that she would go ballistic and order them to kill the story.

  Adam felt maybe they didn’t need a comment from Marris. After all, she had already given them her version of the Miss Bloch story way back in September. That might be enough.

  Writing the first draft was not too bad. Adam found when he had done all the reporting for an article, the writing went quickly. The hard stories were the ones full of reporting holes that you tried to hide with fancy writing.

  Friday and Saturday the three typists e-mailed in stories. This time Adam and Jennifer agreed about the front page. For the top left of page 1 they chose the basketball piece. Jennifer wrote the headline: “Hoops Saved!” Underneath it, the subhead read: “Judge Halts Zoning Crackdown.”

  Beneath that story, stripped across the middle of the page, was the Spotlight Team report: “Cafeteria Food = Low Grade.” To accompany that piece and the two other Spotlight articles running inside, a girl in art workshop had designed a cartoon logo of a spotlight shining on a green hot dog.

  On the bottom of the page was Phoebe’s story on Eddie.

  That left only the Miss Bloch story, which was to go at the top right of page 1.

  Several times the coeditors argued over whether they needed to give Marris a second chance to explain herself. Jennifer said yes. She reminded Adam about a PBS Frontline documentary she’d watched on a reporter who had not given the subject a fair chance to reply and how it had turned into a multizillion-dollar lawsuit.

  Truth was, neither of them knew what to do. They needed help from a grownup but didn’t want to ask their parents. Adam was afraid his mom and dad either wouldn’t believe that Marris was a crook or would want him to kill the story because Adam would get into too much trouble. Jennifer’s parents were so involved in the PTA, and the PTA seemed to do whatever Marris wanted. Would a PTA person ever believe Marris stole seventy-five thousand dollars? Jennifer knew PTA members did lots of good, but when it came to Marris, they seemed to be the number-one principal-kiss-up organization.

  Jennifer had been amazed when her mom actually had believed that Marris was too sick to attend Eddie’s party.

  Finally, Adam said, “Danny. We could go see Danny.”

  Jennifer liked that. Danny did seem like one of those rare adults who still had some kid in him. Besides, it would be another chance to visit all those adorable dogs and cats. Jennifer was really in the mood to have some cute animal take one look at her and instantly fall in love.

  They agreed to meet at the shelter after Jennifer got back from church.

  By Saturday night they had the whole paper ready, except the lead story. They left that space blank.

  In the car on the way home from Adam’s house, Jennifer sat in the dark, not saying a word. Her mother asked if everything was all right. “Whatchya thinking about, sweetie?” her mother said.

  “Nothing,” said Jennifer, but it wasn’t true. At church on Sunday their minister always reserved time for a personal prayer. Jennifer wondered if it would be a misuse of the power of prayer to ask God for help on the Marris story.

  When Jennifer pulled up to the animal shelter on her bike, Adam was already there.

  Adam, she thought, getting places early. This Marris story was making them crazy. They hurried up the front steps and asked the receptionist to call Danny.

  After a few minutes, the phone at the desk rang. The woman motioned for Adam and, stretching the cord, handed him the receiver.

  “Hey, Adam,” Danny said. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s going to be awhile. I’m in the operating room, assisting our surgeon. We’ve got a six-year-old with heart failure. Doc’s pumping him full of Isopurel, gave him a shot of epinephrine to jolt the heart, but the EKG looks bleak. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

  It was nearly a half-hour before Danny appeared. Adam took one look and knew the news was bad. “Lost him,” said Danny. “Sweetheart of a dog, too. Lovely disposition. A big-hearted Lab. Too big, as a matter of fact. Enlarged. Leaky valve. Cardiac arrest, 12:58 P.M. I had to finish filling out the certificate.”

  They followed Danny through the door into the high-ceilinged room full of chainlink cages. But this time, instead of rushing on to the adoption arena, Danny paused and greeted the animals. Then he walked to a bench in a corner and slumped down. Adam and Jennifer joined him.

  “I hate it when we lose one,” he said. “Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I just can’t go marching back out to the arena and fire off a bunch of brilliant matches like everything’s normal. I need to collect myself, sit here among the dogs and cats. Reminds me why we’re here.”

  “We need your help,” said Adam.

  “I doubt I can be much use. My specialty’s animals,” said Danny. “People never cease to confuse me.”

  “Remember last time we came, to ask about Miss Bloch?” said Adam. “Well, we solved the mystery.”

  “We solved lots of mysteries,” said Jennifer, and right there, amid the barking and meowing, they told Danny the long, sordid story of Marris’s scheme.

  Danny listened without interrupting. When they’d finished, his reaction stunned them. “Poor Ruth Ellen,” said Danny.

  “Poor Ruth Ellen!” Adam repeated. “Poor Ruth Ellen! What about poor us? She stole the children’s money, and she’s probably going to kill us for telling the truth about it. You don’t think it’s true?”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that,” Danny said. “It rings one hundred percent true to me. Sounds exactly like the Ruth Ellen Marris I knew.”

  “Then what?” said Adam. “I thought you told us even in third grade she was a liar and weasel.”

  “And a snitch and a suck-up and a phony and a bragger and an all-around nasty person,” said Danny. “I hated her.”

  “Then what?” said Adam.

  “I don’t know,” said Danny. “Maybe it’s because the dog died, but it just seems so sad sometimes that people can’t help being what they are. Ruth Ellen Marris didn’t come from one of the rich Tremble families, but she sure wanted to. Some kids, they don’t notice those differences, and some do but keep it to themselves until they’re grown. But Ruth Ellen, even as a girl, I remember her playing up to the rich la-la girls and bragging about how well-to-do her family was. Such sad, sad lies. You know how kids can be so mean to a girl like that, especially when she is so naked about wanting to be popular? It’s a hard thing to watch, naked ambition. It sears the eyeballs. And Ruth Ellen was the nakedest.”

  Adam was using all his powers to envision Mrs. Marris with lots and lots of clothes on. “You think we shouldn’t do the story?” Adam asked.

  “Oh no,” said Danny. “I didn’t say that. You have to do the story. I’d bet a million dollars this isn’t the first time she’s taken money. Just because it’s sad or understandable doesn’t excuse it. I guarantee there are five hundred prisoners at the county jail, with five hundred sob stories every bit as sad as Billboard magazine’s five hundred top country-and-western hits. You must do the story.”

  They asked Danny if he thought they needed to go back to Marris for her side of things. Adam explained that he and Jennifer disagreed.

  “I’m with the True Gladiator on this one,” said Danny. “This is very serious business, calling a principal a thief. Can’t take any shortcuts.”

  Jennifer asked what they should do when Marris told them they couldn’t print the story.

  “Don’t print it,” said Danny. “You certainly can’t disobey your principal.”

  Adam and Jennifer stared at him.

  “Oh, come on,” said Danny. “Think. I’ve got a True Gladiator and a four-pluser, and you’re looking at me like I’m speaking Croatian. I’ll tell you what. You go home right now and I’ll e-mail you the solution.”

  “E-mail the solution?” asked Adam.

  “E-mail the solution!” shoute
d Jennifer. She grabbed Adam’s hands and they twirled each other around in an impromptu e-mail-the-solution dance, serenaded by hundreds of excited dogs and cats.

  They had a backup plan, finally. “If I were you,” said Danny. “I’d get together all the kids from the Slash and have them create a list of every e-mail address they know, adults especially. Have them get into their parents’ mailboxes and get any names they can. You want this reaching as many important people as possible. Make calls, get e-mail addresses for school board members, politicians, businesspeople, the police, the district attorney’s office.”

  “We’ve got to get the whole staff together,” said Jennifer.

  “It’s got to be tonight,” said Adam. “We’re just about out of time. We’ll have to let everyone know this afternoon, as soon as we get home.”

  “We can meet at my house,” said Jennifer.

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t think we can afford to tell parents,” he said. “They might try to stop us.”

  “Maybe we could get into the Slash office,” said Jennifer. “Phoebe could call Eddie. He’d have the key.”

  “No way,” said Adam. “If just one adult driving by saw the light, we’d be found out and Eddie would get fired.”

  Danny said they could use his apartment, but he lived too far away. They’d need rides, and that would involve parents, too.

  Suddenly Adam shouted, “I know where no one will ever find us. All we’ll need is flashlights.”

  They began arriving at the boathouse at Long Bluff a little before 7:30. When Adam rode up, he could make out a half-dozen bikes already there, parked in the dark along the boardwalk fence. It was cold — the wind was whipping off the river, bending trees, and making branches creak. Kids were huddled by the front door, bouncing up and down for warmth, waiting for Adam to let them in.

  Getting a key had been no problem. Adam’s dad was on the civic association board, and Jennifer’s mom was one of the garden club women who planted the boathouse flower boxes. Adam had simply sneaked his father’s key off the hook in the kitchen.

  He hid his bike in the bluff grass in case anyone came along the path at that hour, and passed the word that they should all do the same. It was a moonless night. He could see the house lights on the bank on the far side of the river; he could see the flashing green light of a buoy bobbing on the river. But he had trouble seeing anything right around him. As he moved across the bluff toward the boathouse, he stumbled frequently, scratching his hand on a thornbush. Little drops of blood beaded on his palm.

  The lock was so rusted, he kept jiggling the key but it wouldn’t catch. “Come on, come on,” he kept urging, and finally there was a click. It was pitch-black inside. The windows were boarded up, the electricity was switched off, and there was no heat. They stationed a boy by the door to guide latecomers to the meeting.

  Holding their flashlights, they walked down the hallway toward the big room overlooking the river. They moved in one large group, pressing together for reassurance. When one slipped, several of them bumped, startling everyone. The floorboards creaked with every step, and the wind whooshed through the gaps in the walls. Below they could hear the water lapping and crashing against the boathouse pillars. Once in a while a big swell would dash against the rocks on the shore’s edge, and then as it withdrew, there’d be a loud sucking noise that sounded like some awful river beast howling in pain.

  The hallway walls were lined with black-and-white photos of past boathouse commodores. Danny had once joked to Adam that a civic association commodore was one rank below an army private, but Adam wasn’t laughing tonight. In every photo the commodores wore the same white sailing caps with anchors on the brims and navy blue coats with bunting on the shoulders. Under each portrait was the year they had been commodore. A lot were from the 1930s and 1940s. Staring out of the dark in the wobbly glow of flashlights, all of them smiling and yet so long-ago dead — it gave Adam the creeps.

  The door to the big room was slightly ajar, and when Adam opened it all the way, something living tumbled down on them.

  Whatever it was fell right past Adam’s face, brushing his coat. More kept falling. One bounced off a girl’s head. “I’m being attacked,” she shrieked. “Claws!”

  They were screaming now, Adam’s heart was in his throat, and one of the typists yelled, “I want my mommy!”

  But then the calmest, most matter-of-fact voice Adam had ever heard said, “Relax. Just a bunch of mice. Must have been eight or ten of them piled together for warmth on top of the door ledge. Nice safe place for a mouse. We startled them. Nothing to fear, folks.”

  Adam’s jaw dropped. Phoebe! She went on to explain that one of her older brothers had trained mice to run through a maze for a science project, and she had learned to pick them up, discovering the truth about mice — they were fraidy cats.

  “Now rats,” continued Phoebe, “that’s another matter. If anyone sees a rat tonight, I would immediately —”

  “Phoebe, thanks for your help,” said Adam. “You were a calm voice in the storm. We’ve got to get down to business now. We don’t have much time. If we’re gone too long, our parents will know something’s up.”

  “Adam,” said Phoebe, “you and Jennifer are our fearless leaders. We are with you one hundred percent. If you order us to jump, we will say, ‘How high, sir?’ If you tell us to ‘Charge!’ we’ll hand over our parents’ credit cards. If you say, ‘Duck!’ we’ll quack. The only thing I thought might be worth mentioning, sir — when I heard this afternoon that this was going to be the secret meeting place, I looked up river rats and rat bites — they can be quite serious, sir. If anyone —”

  “PHOEBE!” yelled Adam. “STOP TALKING!”

  “I can’t,” said Phoebe. “My mother says it’s a nervous reaction. When I get scared, I just talk and talk and —”

  “Front-Page,” said Jennifer in a soothing voice, “come over here beside me. Come on.” The older girl put her arm around the younger girl, who immediately stopped babbling. It was like Jennifer had pulled out Phoebe’s plug. Adam could not believe how Jennifer figured out this kind of stuff.

  They moved a bunch of the canvas chairs and wicker sofas into a circle. It was amazing. The entire Slash staff — all twenty-three — had made it. They were a hardy bunch, all right. Jennifer and Adam explained the Marris story as quickly as they could. They didn’t give all the details — just enough so everyone would understand why Marris would want to kill them and why they might not be able to print the Slash the usual way.

  “This will all come out in the next few days,” said Jennifer. “If we do this right, everybody in Tremble will know. But until it happens, this has to be top secret. If Marris finds out, who knows what she’d do to us.”

  “Top secret,” repeated Phoebe, “Tippity-top secret. The tippity-toppest. Very tippity . . .” Jennifer put her arm around her, rubbed her back a little, and Phoebe stopped.

  Adam explained that they each had to put together a list of as many e-mail addresses of adults as they could. He assigned several to make calls Monday and get addresses for crucial grownups like school board members and elected officials.

  A girl on the Spotlight Team suggested they could also get the story out by posting it at a website.

  “There’s no time,” someone said.

  “Yes, there is. That’s a great idea,” said Jennifer. “We don’t have to make a special Slash web page with all the bells and whistles. We can just take one of those ready-made web page forms that kids use to make sites for boyfriends and girlfriends.”

  It was a terrific idea, but Adam didn’t feel terrific. How did Jennifer know about those lovey-dovey sites? Did she have some boyfriend she was making websites for? He had been so sure Jennifer wasn’t like that. Had she turned into that kind of girl when he wasn’t paying attention? It was frustrating; there was so much to keep track of. A heavy feeling filled his chest.

  “I’ve never done it myself,” Jennifer continued, glancing toward
Adam, who suddenly was beaming like a thousand flashlights. “It would be great if a typist . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” said the girl who just minutes before had been calling for her mommy. That’s how things were going — the longer the meeting went on, the braver they felt.

  Of course, there would be nothing for the Slash staff to e-mail to all those important grownups and nothing to post at a romance website until Adam finished writing the story. And Adam couldn’t finish until he and Jennifer interviewed Marris on Monday morning. He began calculating. Assuming they survived the interview — assuming Marris didn’t have them locked up in the county juvenile detention hall — Adam still had to work her comments into the story. Then he would have to type the article into the computer himself, and he was a painfully slow keyboarder. Then he would have to e-mail Jennifer the final draft so she could look it over, make changes, and e-mail it back to him.

  It was going to be Monday night, maybe midnight, maybe later, by the time he was done and ready to forward the Marris story to everyone.

  “OK, listen up,” he said. “Obviously if Marris has a reasonable explanation for what she did with the seventy-five thousand dollars, we’ll just write up a regular article and send an e-mail telling you to forget it. But if this goes like we think, by the time Jennifer and I finish writing and editing, it will be really late. And that’s going to be a problem.”

  Everyone started talking at once. Several said they’d love to stay up all Monday night, and people began announcing their record for the latest they’d been awake at sleepovers.

  “We think it would be a big mistake to do anything that would give your parents the idea that something’s up,” said Jennifer. “Even my mom — I love her a ton, but she’s in the PTA and they’re so tight with Marris. We don’t want to give Marris a clue how we’re getting this story out until it’s too late.”

  Some said they had alarm clocks in their rooms or on their watches that they could set, and others suggested forwarding the story in the morning before they went to school, but Adam thought that was too risky. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but when I set my alarm clock — the one who wakes up is my father.