Adam Canfield of the Slash (15 page)

Adam did not believe it. Franky Cutty had set him straight early on. Franky said there used to be teacher advisers, but the last four had quit because Marris was such a witch to work with. He said the real reason it was called the
Slash
was that Marris made sure she slashed anything interesting out of every article.

Tuesday morning on the way into the building, Adam dropped off the proofs in the main office. As usual, Mrs. Rose’s head was at the front counter. “The principal was expecting this last week,” Mrs. Rose’s head said.

Adam stared at her. He found it impossible to concentrate on what Mrs. Rose’s head said. There was something about the way she loomed down from the high counter and that round hairdo — it must have been an optical illusion — because even knowing the facts, he still could not help wondering if she was just the Head.

“We’ll call you down after Mrs. Marris has the opportunity to look it over,” the Head said.

Adam kept staring. Finally, the Head said, “You can go.” He stood frozen. “Are you all right, young man? You seem dazed.”

“It’s your head.” Adam said. “Not your head. It’s my rose, Mrs. Head. No! It’s my head, Mrs. Rose. My head’s still groggy; we were up late finishing the
Slash.
Your head’s great.”

“Move it, buster,” the Head said. “No way I’m giving you a late pass.”

Third period, the voice of Mrs. Marris’s secretary, Miss Esther, came over the loudspeaker telling Adam to report to the office. He was nervous. He didn’t know if hearing back so quickly was good or bad.

The Head buzzed in the coeditors, then led them past the ancient Miss Esther, who seemed to be taking a midmorning nap; apparently the exertion of calling Adam and Jennifer to the office had worn out the poor thing. They hurried down the stairs to the Bunker, where Mrs. Marris sat in her throne-like chair, the
Slash
proofs spread across her enormous desk.

She was smiling, which didn’t mean a thing. “I can see you two have been busy beavers,” she said. “All in all, a good beginning for this editing team, and, really, I have just a few small things, a qualm or two, and one huge question mark.”

Adam wasn’t sure what a qualm was, but he was pretty certain it wouldn’t improve his day. As for the huge question mark, he was certain what that was about.

“First,” she said, “I was delighted by the ‘Free Help!’ story. A gem! That’s what I call investigative reporting at its best. You found the story yourself, didn’t need to be told to do it, and gave credit where credit was due. I applaud you. Now, if it were my paper, I’d have it at the top of page 1. What could be more important than a guide to help Tremble children on the state test? But I do respect that this is a student paper and it’s your call. I would just ask that you include the full names of Mr. and Mrs. Boland when you mention their foundation.”

“No problem,” said Jennifer. “What is Mrs. Boland’s first name?”

“Spring,” said Mrs. Marris. “Spring Boland.”

“Very good,” said Jennifer. “So now that will read ‘. . . thanks to a generous grant from the Boland Foundation, funded by Spring and Sumner Boland.’”

Mrs. Marris beamed. “This is a story,” said the principal, “that meets my test for good journalism: Does it help propel the Good Ship
Harris
forward? You bet it does!”

What Mrs. Marris said next surprised them. She liked the basketball hoop story. She actually said that. “I must applaud Tremble County,” she said. “Those basketball hoops are the biggest eyesore, but I always assumed they were just another modern stupidity cluttering up daily life. I had no idea they were such a violation and that something could be done to get rid of them. Tear them all down, I say!”

She found the missing plywood cow story amusing and told them that she felt the sugarcoated smile contest was “pointed” but fair game, as were dentists in general (“money-suckers who didn’t have the brains to get into medical school”).

It was the Eddie the janitor story, she said, that gave her “real problems.” She couldn’t understand why they picked Eddie when there were so many “more worthy” people to profile. “He’s a janitor,” she said. “And we have all these educated people. Do you really want to make him a page 1 janitor?”

They were too surprised to answer.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mrs. Marris continued. “I think it’s great to celebrate someone from his culture. As you know, ‘Multicultural’ is my middle name. No one loves Multicultural Month more than Mrs. Marris of Harris. Surely, Jennifer, you understand what I’m saying. Positive role models are so important. Now, your father, Jennifer, he’s a lawyer — he’s the person you ought to profile. There’s a man who’s done his people proud.”

Jennifer’s face was hot and she turned away.

Adam kept waiting for Jennifer to say something. She was so much better than he was in these tight spots. But Marris seemed to have wounded her pretty good, and when she didn’t jump in, he got so nervous, so jittery, finally he just blurted out: “I love the Eddie story! It made me cry!”

For several moments there wasn’t a sound in the Bunker, except the faint wheeze of Miss Esther snoring upstairs. Mrs. Marris was caught off-guard by such heartfelt honesty, a style of communication she was not accustomed to.

Finally she said, “Really?” There was a look of pure disgust on her face. “You, too, Jennifer?”

Jennifer nodded.

Mrs. Marris let out a dramatic sigh. “I would expect you, Jennifer, given your background, to understand better than anybody what I’m talking about.” She paused like she was waiting for something. Then she said, “Well, you can’t save people from themselves, I guess. I could not disagree more. But if you insist, I need you to take this out.” And she walked around the desk and showed them what she’d circled in red:

“But, Mrs. Marris,” said Adam. “That’s such nice detail. It goes to the heart of the story — Eddie knows how to care for baby birds; he can be a carpenter, electrician, plumber. He may not have much schooling, but he has so many talents.”

“No,” said Mrs. Marris, making the grand circle back behind her desk. “It’s too much detail. Slows down a story that’s already dry as dust.”

“I disagree,” said Adam. “I think it shows —”

“Please,” said Mrs. Marris. “Take it out.”

Adam said, “If you’d only let me —”

“Take it out,” repeated Mrs. Marris, who was standing by her chair now, squeezing a paperweight so tight, her knuckles were white. “I said take it out. I mean take it out. Am I speaking a foreign language? Take it out, take it out, take it out. As for what you think, Mr. Big-Shot Editor, I don’t give a rat’s —”

“MRS. MARRIS!” Jennifer interrupted so loudly that the principal shook her head, like someone had snapped her out of a trance.

“Mrs. Marris, I see your point,” Jennifer continued. “I agree completely. It really slows the flow, does not belong in this story. Too many facts can ruin a good story. We’ll take it out.”

Adam felt weak, seeing someone as strong as Jennifer bullied into submission, but when he glanced her way, Jennifer did not look defeated. She looked like herself again, actually a much angrier version of herself. Adam knew that look — Jennifer was smoking. Something was up.

“One more thing,” barked Mrs. Marris, who wasn’t even pretending to smile now. “Where is the story about Miss Bloch’s gift to Harris? I gave you the whole story. Explained everything,
A
to
Z.
Where is it?”

Adam and Jennifer gave a mumbly, long-winded explanation about how they’d been so busy with voluntary/mandatory, Quiz Bowl Gladiators, Geography Challenge, snowflake baseball, baritone lessons, science fair abstracts, tennis, church . . .

“STOP!” yelled Mrs. Marris. “STOP BLATHERING! Now, listen and listen good. That story on Miss Bloch
must
be in next month’s issue. Are you clear on that? This is not a maybe. This is not something we are going to debate. This is not something you’re going to tell me you didn’t have time to do because you had to go to a meeting of the Future Dentists of America Club. This is an order. Make sure it’s in there and on the front page. This woman donated her money to Harris. I think she deserves at least as good treatment as the school janitor, the man we call to clean up the vomit around here. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD? AM I COMING IN LOUD AND CLEAR?”

They nodded.

“Well, good,” she said, waving them away. “Be gone.”

As they trudged up the concrete stairs, past Miss Esther — who had reawakened and was doing the
New York Times
Sunday crossword puzzle in ink — Jennifer was sure she knew why Marris had ordered those two sentences cut from the Eddie story.

Adam, on the other hand, did not have a clue. He was just glad to have emerged from the Bunker alive. He’d never felt so drained. His feet were concrete; his head throbbed. Mercifully, he didn’t have a baritone lesson that day; in his condition, he couldn’t lift a kazoo.

Jennifer arrived home that afternoon and immediately wrote Adam a long e-mail, explaining her theory on what Mrs. Marris was up to.

Adam didn’t read it. By the time swim team practice was over, the emotional and physical strains of the day had taken their toll. For the first time since he was a little boy, he fell sound asleep at the dinner table. His head just plopped down on his chest between forkfuls of mashed potatoes, and he was out. His dad cradled him in his arms, carried him upstairs, and put him to bed.

It was not a peaceful sleep. Adam tossed and turned. He woke in a daze, soaked in cold sweat, then burrowed under his covers for warmth and fell asleep again, only to have another wild, crazy, feverish dream.

It’s a race again. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and he is way out in front of everybody, gliding effortlessly around the oval track. As he enters the final turn, his fans are holding up the
Slash:
“Canfield Wins! Canfield Wins!” Adam has never felt happier, but then he has a nagging feeling. How did they know he won before the race was over? What’s worse, and this is not a minor thing, he seems to be falling off the track. Why is that? He leans as far as he can in the other direction, straining to stay in his lane, stretching mightily, but he cannot get himself straight. In the distance he can see the other runners, tiny now, nearing the finish line, and he’s alone, in the middle of the infield. The dirt is soft, so soft, that when he makes one last try at running, he sinks. Fighting is pointless; he craves rest. Deeper and deeper into the soft, warm, rich brown dirt he goes, sinking peacefully until — he’s buried. What?! There’s been some mistake; he can’t be dead; he’s a four-pluser; surely someone made an error. He refuses to die this way. He kicks and thrashes his arms to clear off the dirt and frantically opens a tiny breathing space, but as he leans farther out, toward the cool, fresh air, he goes too far and falls, down, down, down. There’s a thud. He’s in an enormous white room with no windows. An old woman is sitting on a throne, and he knows her right away. Miss Minnie Bloch. She looks like Miss Esther, but he’s sure it’s Miss Bloch. And she says to him, “I’m rich. Come see my bathroom.” She opens a door, and there is the most dazzling bathroom he has ever laid eyes on, including a toilet bowl as big as a swimming pool, with water that’s crystal clear and so inviting. Several swim team members are laughing and waving and calling for him to jump in the toilet.

Adam sat bolt upright. He was on the floor, having fallen out of bed, but his brain was wide awake. Marris had used Miss Bloch’s hard-earned money to remodel the bathroom in the Bunker! To build custom-made cabinets! To install an electronic system! She wasn’t spending a cent of the seventy-five thousand dollars on kids. It was right there under their noses, right in the Eddie story. No wonder Marris wanted those sentences cut out. No wonder she wanted to dump the whole Eddie article! Blessed Phoebe, world’s greatest third-grade reporter, she was absolutely right — she had made friends with the best source in the entire school, the man who saw everything yet moved invisibly among them. Mr. Eddie James.

Adam needed to tell somebody, but it was past midnight, and of course there was only one person to tell. She’d be impressed. He slipped downstairs to the playroom and signed onto the computer. He would send Jennifer an e-mail laying out the whole thing. He glanced at his in-basket and saw a half-dozen e-mails, mostly jokes from his soccer buds.

But there was one from Jennifer, marked “urgent.” He opened it. The message was really long. Adam read.

It was all there. Every last loose end tied up. Was he impressed. What a girl. She’d figured it out herself. He checked the time it was sent — late afternoon. Even more impressive. She figured it out while she was awake. He moved the mouse, clicked the response arrow, and tapped out a brief reply so she’d see it before leaving for school the next morning:

“Good morning. You are amazing. Good night.”

He slid the keyboard over and placed his head on the desk. He wasn’t sleepy; his head just weighed a lot. And that’s how his father found him in the morning.