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

Table of Contents

 

 

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President

 

RAZORBILL
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2009 Josh Lieb

 

All rights reserved

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lieb, Josh
I am a genius of unspeakable evil and I want to be your class president / by Josh Lieb.
p. cm.

Summary: Omaha, Nebraska, twelve-year-old Oliver Watson has everyone convinced that he is
extremely stupid and lazy, but he is actually a very wealthy, evil genius, and when he
decides to run for seventh-grade class president, nothing will stand in his way.

eISBN : 978-1-101-15093-1

1. Genius—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Politics, Practical—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.
5. Family life—Nebraska--Fiction. 6. Omaha (Neb.)—Fiction. 7. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.L61626 Im 2009
[Fic] 22
2008039692

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not
participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
for author or third-party websites or their content.

For B., the nicest genius I know

Someday you will beg for the honor of licking my feet. You will get down on your stupid, worthless knees and beg, “Please, sir! Please! Let me lick the diseased dog dung from between your toes.” (I will be standing barefoot in the dung of diseased dogs—just to make it grosser for you.) And if I am in a good mood and am not too disgusted by your stupid, wormy tears or your stupid, scrunched-up face, I will allow you the signal honor of licking my feet clean. Even though you don’t deserve it.

 

But that’s all in the future. At the moment, I’m in the seventh grade.

 

In fact, at this
precise
moment, I am in Mr. Moorhead’s English class as he prattles on about
Fahrenheit 451
. Moorhead considers himself a “cool” teacher (
see plate 1
). That means he still wears the clothes he wore in college. Unfortunately for Moorhead, college was ten years and twenty pounds ago. His legs look like a pair of light-blue water balloons, stuffed as they are into too-tight jeans. He can’t get all the buttons on his crotch to stay fastened anymore (
Way cool, Mr. M!
), and he wears plaid flannel shirts that gape open over his salmon-pink belly. He’s balding, but he thinks if he leaves his hair messy enough, we won’t notice. He also keeps a pack of cigarettes in the pocket over his heart. This is supposed to say, “I am a teacher, but I’m not a saint.” In reality, it just makes his saggy man-breasts look bigger. It also says, “I smell bad.”
¹

 

Moorhead is one of those sad people who go into teaching so they can be worshipped by the only people sadder than they are—students. Prime example: Pammy Quattlebaum, so-called smart girl and insufferable butt-lick, who sits in the front row, nodding her massive head frequently to show Moorhead that not only has she done the reading, she understands
exactly
what he’s saying.

 

Meanwhile, I am in the back of the room, drawing pictures of bunny rabbits on my binder.

 

Moorhead is way too cool to lecture standing up or sitting down. Instead, he lounges sexily against his desk, elbow propped on the dictionary, as he lays his knowledge on us. “The book depicts a world turned upside down.” (Pammy nods.) “A world where firemen don’t put out fires—they set them.” (Pammy nods again, more emphatically.) “A world where the most dangerous weapon you can own”—here he holds up his copy of
Fahrenheit 451
—“is a book.” (Pammy nods so hard I can hear her tiny brain rattle, like a popcorn kernel in a jelly jar.)

 

Moorhead, simulating deep thought, runs his fingers through the pubic growth that decorates his scalp. “What do you think? Are books dangerous? Are they. . .
powerful
?”

 

Pammy surges out of her seat, arm straining for the sky. She will apparently pee herself if she’s not allowed to answer this question.

 

But Moorhead’s eyes slide over to me. “What do you think, Oliver?”

 

Pammy shoots me a dirty look. Some of my other classmates giggle and don’t bother trying to hide it. Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School, stops licking dried peanut butter off his glasses long enough to give me a sympathetic smile.

 

Moorhead grins like he’s made a great joke. I am fairly certain I was only assigned to this class—which is far beyond my tested reading level—so he’d have someone to make fun of (besides Randy, of course).

 

I make him say my name again before I answer, “I don’t know.”

 

Moorhead’s face crumples with disappointment, but his eyes shine with satisfaction. “Oliver. Didn’t you do the reading?”

 

I shake my head sadly. Moorhead sighs. He looks like he wants to cry for me. Or burst out laughing. It’s like his brain can’t decide.

 

Actually, I read the book when I was two. And even
then
I knew it was regurgitated bird pap, fit only for morons and seventh graders. In case you’re lucky enough to have escaped it,
Fahrenheit 451
is one of those books that is about how
amazing
books are and how
wonderful
the people who
write
books are. Writers love writing books like this, and for some reason, we let them get away with it. It’s like someone producing a TV show called
TV Shows Are the Best and the People Who Make Them Are Geniuses.
²

 

In
Fahrenheit 451
, books are illegal (because they’re so powerful) and a fireman’s job is to burn all the books he can find in big bonfires. This is supposed to blow your freaking mind.
³

 

Moorhead walks back to my lonely little desk and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s too bad you skipped it, big guy. Because it happens to be one of the best books written in the past century.”

 

His furry fingers rest on my shoulder like caterpillars. I decide not to bite them. One of the best books of the century?
Fahrenheit 451
doesn’t rank as one of the best birdcage liners of the century.

 

And besides—even if it were “
one
of the best books”. . . is that anything to brag about? Wouldn’t it look kind of drab and shabby when compared to the book that’s the actual best?

 

It doesn’t pay to be good at something unless you are the absolute best at it. Otherwise, you’ll eventually go up against someone who can beat you. That is why I do not try to play soccer, sing in the school chorus, or dance, even though I am moderately talented at all of these things. I concentrate on what I am good at: being a genius.

 

I am the greatest genius in the universe. I am the greatest genius in the history of the universe. Plus, I am unceasingly, unreservedly, unspeakably evil. Making me
the most powerful force for evil ever created
.