She’s right. Now that she’s called his bluff, The Motivator stops in place and sways on his feet, looking confused. He glances at me for instructions.
She notices. “What are you looking at Grampa for?”
Ah, well. I suppose it’s time for me to handle this myself. I push the toggle on the arm of my electric wheelchair and roll myself to the center of the room.
“I’ll take over from here, Lionel,” I say.
“He speaks!” says Verna, in mock amazement.
“Shut up, Ms. Salisbury. I’ll deal with you momentarily.”
Sheldrake’s voice sizzles through the speaker, “Are you sure . . . Grandfather?”
“Positive.” Sheldrake’s good, but there’s only so much he can do circling five hundred feet above us in a blimp. I turn my chair to face Verna. “How much do you want, Ms. Salisbury?”
“This isn’t about money—”
I laugh. “Forgive me. You look funny when you’re pretending to be noble.”
She gives me a piercing look. “You’re not Sheldrake’s grandfather. That’s makeup. Who are you?”
“You may call me the great and mighty Oz.”
She nods. She gets it. “The man behind the man. I see. Well, the story is I quit. I don’t want any part of your dirty election. You can have all your money back.”
“Would you mind telling me why?”
“Did I ask you why you wanted to fix a middle-school election?”
I feel my mouth contorting into an appreciative leer. “Touché, Ms. Salisbury. But you were paid very well for your lack of curiosity. Now you want to break our agreement. That is bad business. I demand an explanation.”
She holds her breath for a moment, then swallows. “Okay, that’s fair.” Her mask of confidence cracks for the first time. She tangles her fingers up on the coffee table in front of her, stares down at them. “The thing is . . . I’m in love.”
“With Scott Sparks?”
She throws out a defiant chin, as if daring me to laugh again. “That’s right.”
The room shakes with the sound of a sudden thun derstorm. Verna looks a little rattled by it—which she should, since it isn’t actually storming outside. I control the thunder sounds with a button on my wheelchair. It helps set the mood I desire.
“You hardly know the man.”
She nods over emphatically and says, “I know. . . . I know. I sound like a fool. Maybe I’m
being
a fool. If I am, I’ll find out, and I’ll take my lumps like everybody else. I don’t care. I can’t help the way I feel.”
My tummy rumbles with annoyance. “Lucan,” I bark. “Bring me a plate of nachos. But use chocolate sauce instead of cheese.”
Verna continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “He’s sweet. He’s sincere. He’s everything I stopped believing a man could be. They’re not . . . they’re not like that in Washington. I just can’t do it to him. I can’t betray him by throwing the election. . . .”
“Why not?” I ask, with real exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, why
not
? Love Scott Sparks if you must. That doesn’t mean you have to back out of our agreement.”
“But it
does
,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not just in love with Scott. It’s Randy, too. And the election.
Everything. The late-night strategy sessions, making posters, eating bowls of popcorn while we work on his speech. This is why I got into politics in the first place. This is the stuff I forgot about. One brave kid, daring to step forward and say, ‘Hey, I count, too. . . .’”
Lucan enters with my piping-hot nachos (how does he make them so quickly? It’s like he can read my mind). Lolli bounds in after him and puts her paws in my lap.
“I’ve seen that dog before,” says Verna, with a thoughtful look on her face. “Hanging around Randy’s school . . .”
Damn it. She was supposed to stay in the kitchen. “Keep it up, Ms. Salisbury, and I’ll let you see her fangs.”
Verna smiles. That was stupid of me. I already know empty threats don’t work on her.
Maybe not-so-empty threats will be more effective. “You do realize, I can
make
you keep our agreement. By revealing the nature of our bargain to Mr. Sparks.”
Behind her, The Motivator smiles. Blackmail is a strategy he is very comfortable with. But Verna keeps smiling, too. All her grit and defiance are suddenly back. Clearly, I’ve just played the ball straight into her court. “Go ahead and try,” she says. “Do you really think he’d believe you? A mysterious billionaire tries to fix a middle-school election? It’s a laugh.”
Then she looks serious. Her eyes go flat, her mouth becomes a little line. She’s suddenly a parody of bull-headed determination. “But even if he did believe you . . . even if he did tell me to get lost . . . go ahead, tell him. Because I won’t do your dirty work anymore.”
My God. She really does love him.
“The Motivator will escort you out.”
She looks startled. “That’s it?”
“The Motivator will escort you out.”
“Okay, well I have a check here paying you back for—”
“Get out! Get out of my sight! Get out!”
Lolli opens her mouth so wide she positively erases her muzzle with the enormity of her teeth. She stalks toward Verna, who rushes out in a confused flurry, the check fluttering to the floor behind her.
Lucan stands there with my platinum platter of nachos as if nothing has happened.
Sheldrake drawls over the speakerphone, “
That
went well.”
I rip off my face in disgust. Damn these humans and their idiotic emotions. They’re the only things in this world I can’t control.
Chapter 36:
OH, THE HUMANITY
Important days don’t look like anything special when they start. Invariably, the sun rises and people wake up. Coffee is swilled and eggs are swallowed. Everybody goes about the business of acting like their lives matter and then, no matter how important the events of the day end up being, the sun invariably sets. The sun rose before the soldiers stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day, and the sun set after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed. Sunrises and sun-sets are real jerks about putting things in perspective.
Today doesn’t look like anything special. The sun hangs in the sky like a slice of faded lemon. The school bus grumbles at the corner like a dying yellow elephant. The NewsChannel 5 traffic copter, which always, strangely enough, follows my bus, hovers overhead like a tame black dragon twirling its tail in circles.
But today is special, and Mom has the sappy grin on her face to prove it. She is smothering me in kisses now, mothering me to the very extreme of my endurance. “I’m so proud of you,” she says. “You are my specialest, specialest, very best boy. And we are going to have an extra amazing dinner tonight to celebrate your victory . . .
Mr
.
President
.”
Then she gives me about a thousand more kisses. The school bus blows out a big blue fart to show its annoyance.
Today is the day I get elected president. Verna’s defection and Sheldrake’s aborted endorsement have thrown a few wrenches into my plans, but nothing fatal. I have a speech tucked into my pocket—two pages of pathetic garbage guaranteed to make everyone in the audience pity me enough to vote for me. And if they don’t . . . well, my speech is good
enough
that people will believe it when I beat Randy by two votes. After I rig the count. I’ve got every possibility covered.
Mom leans down and whispers in my ear, “And don’t forget . . . you’ve got a special surprise coming your way.”
Oh,
that
. “But what is it, Mom? Tell me!”
But for the first time in my entire life, Mom stops hugging me before I stop hugging her. She smiles impishly and skips away into the garage. I give Lolli a kiss on the snout and climb on the bus. Tippy the bus driver doesn’t even seem to notice I’ve gotten on, but he closes the door behind me just the same. I make my way back to my seat, enduring the taunts and jeers of my peers, and prepare to meet my destiny.
Let’s be honest, I’m nervous. I’ve undertaken far greater, far riskier endeavors in the past, but nothing I was ever this personally invested in. This isn’t about getting a monopoly on pomegranate production in California. This is about
me
getting elected president. And it’s been a lot harder than I’ve liked. But it will be worth it, tonight, when I’m eating that special victory dinner. When my father, who doesn’t even have the guts to come see my speech, is forced to propose a toast in my honor. When he has to shake my hand and say, “Congratulations.” When he has to acknowledge me as an equal.
That will be sweet.
I settle back in my seat and let the soothing rhythms of Tippy’s growling and my schoolmates’ screaming and the
thwack-thwack-thwack
of the helicopter lull me into a state of semi-calm. I should try to appreciate this moment. This is an important day, a historic day.
But my calm is broken by a persistent, annoying
beep-beep-beep
coming from a car that’s following us. I try to ignore it, but Stephen Turnipseed says, “Hey, Lardo! Your mommy wants you.” I try to ignore that, too, but he says it again and points out the bus’s back window. I turn around and look. Sure enough, Mom is following the bus in her Buick, leaning on the horn for all she’s worth and waving. Liz and Tati are squeezed into the front seat next to her, with Logan poking her head through from the back.
PINK PYTHONS
is scrawled in bright paint across the hood of the car, next to a drawing of the ugliest, most genetically defective, cross-eyed, drooling
111
snake you’ve ever seen.
TEAM TUBBY
is written in shaving cream on the windshield. Dozens of balloons and streamers and tin cans are tied to the bumper and the roof rack. They drag like dead kites behind the car.
All of them—Bomb Squad, Silent But Deadly, Moggsy, even Queen Python herself—are smiling the biggest, craziest, toothiest smiles possible. Any psychiatrist who saw them at this moment would quickly throw them into a dark basement for the good of society.
This is their surprise?
This
is going to win me the election? Four hyperactive females in a vandalized midsize sedan? That’s not going to win me a game of checkers.
Frankly, I’m disappointed. Not in Liz or even Mom—this is just the sort of affectionate but futile gesture they specialize in. But Tatiana’s better than this. She thinks
bigger
than this.
Or so I thought. Ah, well. It was nice of them to try, anyway. I wave back at them weakly and return to my seat.
I decide to distract myself from worrying about my speech
112
by playing with Moorhead a little. He’s made steady progress worming his way into Sokolov’s affections, following my directives to
TELL HER YOU LIKE ITALIAN OPERA
and
TELL HER YOU LIKE BUSTER KEATON MOVIES
. My Research Department tells me Sokolov doesn’t know anything about Italian opera or silent movies, so Moorhead can talk his fool head off about them without fear of embarrassing himself. The man is blissful with his success so far. The arrogant smirk on his face these days is probably the same one a male black widow spider wears when he steps onto his girlfriend’s web.
It’s time to take his courtship up a notch. I will increase the strength of the verb he uses, plus I’ll make the remark more personal. Today he will
TELL HER YOU LOVE HER TASTE IN MODERN LITERATURE
. This is both complimentary and condescending; it’s sure to intrigue her. Which means that tomorrow, he’ll finally be able to
ASK HER OUT TO DINNER
.
“Cigarette message for Moorhead,” I mumble, to whatever minion is listening. “
TELL HER YOU LOVEHER—
”
That’s when the riot starts.
113
There is screaming, and jumping up and down on seats, and foot stomping, and window slapping. What’s worse, all of it is gleeful. My busmates are positively beside themselves with joy. Perry Wengrow and Stephen Turnipseed push in next to me to get a better view out the window.
A flatbed truck, with TWOMBLEY AMUSEMENTS painted on it, is approaching us from around the corner as we reach Harney Street. But the truck itself is not what’s riot-worthy. It’s what the truck is
towing
.
An enormous, inflated, hot-air balloon. Maybe forty feet tall. Fully worthy of being floated down Broadway during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, alongside Snoopy and Mighty Mouse and all the other cartoon dirigibles.
And it’s in the shape of Oliver Watson Jr. (
see plate 17
).
Two thoughts immediately rush through my head:
• That balloon makes me look fat.
• My God,
what have they done?
A quick glance back at my mother’s car confirms my fears. Liz and Logan and Mom are bouncing in their seats like Mexican jumping beans with severe attention deficit disorder. This is their
big surprise
. Liz has gotten her father, the inflatable-gorilla king, to make a giant balloon of
me
. One that is
much fatter
than I have ever been. And now this
monstrosity
—this
abomination
, this
embarrassment
—is going to follow my bus all the way to school.