Adam Canfield of the Slash (14 page)

“What are you doing?” whispered Adam. “You’re walking like that chair’s glued on.”

“Staying in my seat as promised,” said Jennifer. “I once saw this investigative reporters’ convention on C-SPAN. The speaker said reporters can’t lie, but they don’t have to volunteer the whole truth. We told that lady we’d stay in our seats; we didn’t say how much the seats might move around. Get busy!”

Adam rolled his eyes but followed her lead. Holding the chair to his butt, he waddled to the wall map. “A.S. Phase I — must be accessory structures,” Adam said.

“Albert Einstein reborn,” said Jennifer. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Adam scanned the map for the words “basketball” or “hoops” but couldn’t find anything. It was obvious each red pin stood for an accessory structure. But were they hoops?

Standing half-crouched with the chair tight against his butt, he had trouble seeing the top of the map. But he found the Tremble River, then followed its winding path down to his part of town, locating his street. There were two red pins. That was it! Two red pins! There were two hoops on his street, his and the Corcorans’. He looked at the street next to his, where he knew there were no hoops. No pins! He looked at Jennifer’s street. “You the only hoop on your street?” he asked.

“Just us,” she said.

“One pin!” said Adam. He tried every friend with a hoop — Kaiser, Weiss, O’Shea, Gross, Ramirez, Capone, Glazer, Carey. A perfect match: one hoop, one pin.

“Got it!” said Adam excitedly.

“Count them,” said Jennifer. “Quick.”

Adam let out a moan. There were so many pins.

Jennifer said, “Use your estimation skills, boys and girls,” and Adam understood. In second grade they’d learned several estimation tricks. If he counted every pin in one part of the map — say one-fifth of it — he could then multiply that total times five and get an estimate for the entire map.

He got busy but before long was distracted by a low whistling from Jennifer. Other people’s whistling was so annoying, especially when he didn’t know the tune. He tried to put it out of his head but finally whipped around to make a nasty comment and realized Jennifer was frantically waddling her chair back to its original spot. Why did he always turn stupid in emergencies? He pulled his chair tight, then race-waddled back.

They sat still, concentrating on slowing down their breathing. Adam could hear voices in the hall. Men’s voices. The Herbs! He could make out bits of conversation. They sounded happy. Adam heard a whoop. They were getting closer. Then one chanted, “Done, done, done.”

“All one thousand and forty-eight,” said the other.

“Done, done, done.”

They burst into the room and Adam was amazed. The Herbs looked exactly like he’d expected, two older men in plaid shirts with potbellies, green work pants, and keys jangling at the hip. The black Herb, Herb Green, was carrying a box of Tasty Choice doughnuts, and the white Herb, Herb Black, had three coffees in a cardboard tray. They practically danced to their desks, giving their visitors big smiles.

“Must be Girl Scout cookie season,” said Herb Green, smiling at Jennifer. “We’ve got a visitor.”

“If we’d known,” said Herb Black, “we wouldn’t have bothered with doughnuts.”

“Any new cookie selections this year?” asked Herb Green.

Jennifer hoped her smile didn’t look as nervous as it felt. “We’re not from the Girl Scouts,” she said.

“Actually we’re reporters,” said Adam.

“Student reporters,” said Jennifer, explaining about the
Slash.

The Herbs asked how they could help.

“We’re working on a story on accessory structures,” said Adam.

“Oh, we don’t need a story on that,” said Herb Green, cheerfully. “We already had one in the
Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser.
Nice little write-up.”

Adam nodded. “But it was kind of general,” Adam said. “We wanted to know what it meant by accessory structures.”

“Mrs. Boland thought it was best to keep things general,” said Herb Black.

“Mrs. Boland?” asked Jennifer.

“Mrs. Sumner J. Boland?” asked Adam.

“Herb, is there another Mrs. Boland?” said Herb Green.

“Not that I know of, Herb,” said Herb Black. “Mrs. Sumner J. Boland. Chairwoman of the county zoning board. Number-one zoning official in Tremble County. Our boss. The woman we report to. At our last zoning board meeting, she told the reporter from the
Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser
that it was best to keep the story nice and general. No point of upsetting people. No sense of crowding up a story with a lot of details.”

“Herb’s right,” said Herb Green. “It works out nice. The
Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser
reporter is very respectful about listening to Mrs. Boland since her husband owns the newspaper. Same with the folks over at Bolandvision News 12. Good reporters. They write what you tell them. Cuts down on confusion. Fewer mistakes. Everything’s nice and coordinated.”

Adam and Jennifer nodded.

Herb Black put the coffee that said “3 creams/3 sugars” on the woman’s desk. Herb Green took his black; Herb Black took his light. “Doughnut?” Herb Green asked the youngsters. “Got plenty. We only needed six, but for a dollar and nine cents extra, you get a dozen. The more you spend, the more you save, ha-ha.”

Adam was starving but caught Jennifer’s eye and said no thank you. Jennifer felt it wasn’t proper to accept any gift — no matter how small — from someone they were writing about: it looked too much like a bribe.

Remembering how hungry he was made Adam agitated. He needed to get this over with and get out of there. It was too much pressure, all this dancing around the subject.

“Listen,” he said. “That nice woman who was sitting here — before she left for her break, she told us she didn’t know how many basketball hoops would be coming down because of the new enforcement policy.”

Herb Green was about to bite into a cream-filled when he abruptly stopped and put his doughnut down. “She told you that?” said Herb Green.

Adam nodded. “She said we’d have to ask the Herbs how many hoops would be coming down.”

“She said that?” asked Herb Black.

The two reporters nodded.

The Herbs looked at each other. “You want me to handle this, Herb?” said Herb Black.

“All yours, Herb,” said Herb Green.

“I want to be clear,” said Herb Black. “This crackdown does not affect hoops in backyards or playground hoops. It does not affect indoor hoops. It’s only outdoor freestanding hoops in the front part of a housing lot.”

“Just driveway hoops on poles and sidewalk hoops?” said Jennifer.

“Exactly,” said Herb Black. “That’s all.”

“You know how many that would be?” asked Adam.

“Not many,” said Herb Black.

“Maybe a thousand?” asked Adam.

The Herbs glanced at each other.

“About,” said Herb Green.

“About one thousand and forty-eight?” said Jennifer.

The Herbs didn’t look quite so jolly anymore. “That is the final tally,” said Herb Black. “That is the number we just came up with today. You going to write all that in your little newspaper?”

Adam and Jennifer nodded.

“Whew,” said Herb Black. “I don’t know.”

“You might want to check with Mrs. Boland,” said Herb Green. “She likes to be in charge of what goes in the news.”

“You understand,” said Herb Black.

“We understand,” said Jennifer.

“We definitely understand,” said Adam.

They thanked the Herbs. It took all of Adam’s and Jennifer’s willpower not to cartwheel down the hall. As they neared the elevator, Adam whispered, “We did it.”

“Shhh,” said Jennifer. “Let’s get out of here.”

They pressed the “up” button. Finally, the arrow lit up, the door opened, and there, behind the metal gate, stood the very large woman from od Enforcement.

A chill went through Adam and Jennifer. She stood in their way.

Then she smiled and stepped aside. “Got tired of waiting for those Herbs, I bet. Knew you would. Got to go a mighty long ways to catch a Herb.”

“You aren’t kidding,” said Jennifer. “The N-7 . . .”

“To the Q-13 . . .” said Adam.

“To the P-104,” said Jennifer. As the metal gate closed, they waved and Adam said, “
Ave atque vale,
honey.”

Adam and Jennifer knew it would be a long, hard weekend finishing the October issue. They’d heard horror stories from past editors about getting the paper out and planned to spend every free moment at Adam’s house. He had the best computer, complete with a scanner for photos.

The
Slash
had three students who typed stories on their home computers, then e-mailed them to Adam. Even if they wanted to, the typists could not have worked in 306. Newsroom computers were not hooked into the Internet. Mrs. Marris had forbidden it. When Jennifer had asked about getting the room wired, Mrs. Marris gave her a big speech about how overrated the Internet was and how most kids wasted their time playing violent games or surfing adult websites. “How long do you think I’d be principal,” Mrs. Marris said to Jennifer, “if I came in some morning and one of your clever little reporters had plastered Harris with printouts of naked web babes?”

To assist them in laying out the pages, Adam’s parents had bought him Pagination Made EZ software. At the top of the first page, he programmed in the banner typeface,
THE SLASH.
On the same line, in a box at the right top, he typed,
October Edition.
On the next line, he typed,
Harris Elementary/Middle School.

Then came the real work. Adam and Jennifer spent Friday night arguing about what the front page should be. Both agreed the basketball story had the hottest news, and they placed it at the top right side of page 1, with a large headline: “Your Hoop’s Coming Down!” The story carried a double byline, by both Adam and Jennifer, and was continued inside, taking up nearly two pages.

They disagreed about what story should go on the top left of page 1; Adam wanted the missing plywood cow and the hundred-dollar reward; Jennifer favored Eddie the janitor.

While Jennifer agreed that a hundred-dollar reward would create more buzz than Eddie, she felt there were other considerations. “We don’t want two stories at the top that aren’t about Harris,” she said. “We need balance.”

So they put Eddie on top and the hundred-dollar reward right below it. Jennifer wanted Phoebe’s smile contest to run under the basketball piece, but Adam said he had something else.

That afternoon on the bus ride home, he had dashed off a story about the new state test study guides. It was only fifty-seven words long and described how the guidebooks were being made available free of charge thanks to a generous grant from the Boland Foundation. Adam’s headline read simply, “Free Help!”

Jennifer was surprised. “You hate that testing stuff,” she said. “Now you’re Mr. Test Prep?”

“Trust me,” said Adam. “We’re going to need it when Marris realizes there’s no story on Miss Bloch’s gift to the school.”

Along the bottom they stripped the smile story, with the headline “Dental Contest Sugarcoated.”

They picked three photos for page 1. Two were by Front-Page Phoebe: Eddie with the two saved mourning doves and smile champion Suzy Mollar with the M&M bag stuffed over her head.

They also ran the cow’s photo, an old snapshot the owner had passed along to Jennifer. The three-deck headline by Jennifer read:

FIND THIS COW!

$100 REWARD!
NO QUESTIONS ASKED!

In the lower-left corner was a box with summaries of stories on inside pages, including “Halloween Safety Tips” and the tryout schedule for the Say No to Drugs Community Players.

They were exhausted and didn’t finish until Sunday night. Whatever could go wrong went wrong. The software for laying out pages was not that EZ; Adam had to call the company’s 1-800 help line seventeen times.

Still, they did it. At 9:47
P.M.
Adam popped out the CD and held it high. Their first issue as coeditors. All on that precious disk.

The next morning Adam’s dad dropped off the disk at the print shop that had been doing the
Slash
for years. The shop made them a single copy — the page proofs — and Monday night Jennifer and Adam checked them over. The paper was six pages long and, to the coeditors, looked like a Michelangelo. They put their feet up and read every word over. They cradled each page in their hands like it was a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, reading their favorite sentences out loud to each other. They laughed at the Herbs and once again were moved by Eddie. They kept staring at their own bylines.

Finally Adam said, “We did it.”

“Done, done, done,” said Jennifer.

Their only worry now was Marris. She had to approve the proofs. They’d make the changes she wanted, then take the corrected proofs to the print shop and get five hundred copies made.

Mrs. Marris once told them that she had not assigned an adult adviser to the
Slash
because she wanted it to be a true student newspaper. She told them she believed in freedom of the press, that censorship was the enemy of democracy. She explained that she might provide editing guidance, but it was their paper.