Don't Vote for Me (2 page)

By the time lunch rolled around, everyone in the sixth grade had heard about my little speech (not to mention my meltdown). When I walked into the lunchroom, conversation suddenly ceased. Eyes zipped back and forth between Veronica and me, but it didn't look like she'd noticed. She was eating her usual bagel while she pretended to be riveted by the dark-haired popular who was sitting beside her. They were the only two people who hadn't reacted.

I tightened my grip on my lunch box and waited for her to turn around, but she just sat there listening. Maybe the dark-haired popular really was riveting, or maybe she was just going out of her way to ignore me completely. It dawned on the other kids that she wasn't going to make a scene at the same time it dawned on me. A deep breath whooshed out of the room (or maybe that was just my lungs), and everyone went back to whatever they'd been doing.

I hadn't been doing anything, so I plopped down on the bench across from Riley and Spencer (who still hadn't moved a muscle). Though Riley and I had been best bros for as long as we could talk, Spencer hadn't joined our group until the start of the third grade. His family had just moved to Shepherd's Vale (or SV, as I called it), so he hadn't had time to make any new friends. Our teacher had assigned us to sit with him at lunch, and after getting us to laugh by squirting milk out of his nose, then letting it drip back into the carton so he could squirt it out again, Spencer had become the third in our unfinished quartet.

But he wasn't laughing now. Neither was Riley. I pretended not to notice as I unpacked my lunch. Most kids didn't think that lunch boxes were cool anymore, but I strongly disagreed. I'd collected them since preschool, and though I only had a few, the Tick's was my favorite. He wasn't the fiercest-looking dude, but since he could get away with wearing spandex without getting beat up, I figured he was worth admiring.

I managed to unwrap my sandwich—PB and bananas, my favorite—before either of them could get a word out. “Did you come here to sit, or did you come here to eat?”

At least that snapped them out of it. “You know they know,” Spencer said, revealing a wad of partially chewed French fry.

I decided to play dumb at the last second. “Know
what
?” I replied.

Spencer stuck his chin out. “What you said about Veronica.”

I scrambled to come up with an answer that didn't make me look like an idiot, but that answer didn't exist. “I guess I don't know what you mean.”

“I was there, too,” Riley mumbled, “so don't even try to lie to us.”

“Yeah,” Spencer replied. “I got the scoop from Arthur Dibbs, and you know if Arthur knows, then the whole school knows, too.” He massaged one of his temples with the end of a French fry. “For Newton's sake, what were you thinking?”

Spencer wasn't scientific, but he didn't want his parents, who'd gotten degrees in biochemistry from one of those Ivy League schools, to think he was a dumbhead, so he Googled famous scientists and threw their names around like he'd heard of them before. The only problem was, he hadn't.

“I don't remember,” I replied, taking a bite of my sandwich. “I wasn't thinking, just…talking.”

Riley made a face. “And look where
that
got you.”

I chucked my sandwich back into my lunch box. I wasn't hungry anymore. “So I whined about the Pritchard-Pratt. I whine about
everyone
.”

Spencer smacked his forehead. “You can't whine about Veronica. She's Veronica, for Pasteur's sake! Do you have any idea what kinds of repercussions this will have on the greater geek community?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Repercussions?”

“You know, bad stuff,” Riley said.

I rolled my eyes. “I
know
.”

“Do you?” Spencer asked, aiming a French fry at my chest. “Or have you already forgotten Arthur's horrible dance-off?”

“Of course I haven't,” I replied, and for once, it was true. Everyone remembered Arthur's dance-off (but that wasn't necessarily a good thing). No sooner had he challenged Brady to a duel than Brady had busted a sweet move and knocked Arthur off his feet. He'd literally fallen on his face and broken his nose in three places, and that was just a dancing duel. This was ten thousand times more serious.

Spencer motioned toward the populars. “You've got to fix this, David. You've got to go over there and tell her you didn't really mean it.”

“But what if I
did
mean it?” I asked.

“You didn't,” they replied.

Still, I wasn't convinced. I hadn't meant to take potshots at Veronica, but words had to come from somewhere. And the thought of walking over there, of mumbling, “I'm sorry,” while the other populars looked on, was almost more than I could bear. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that Hector was dismantling the remnants of his chicken wing, tearing off strips of meat with methodical precision. Meanwhile, Samantha was massaging each of her knuckles in turn and shooting threatening looks my way. I had zero doubt that they were going to kill me.

Hector and Samantha were the most brutal kids in the sixth grade (and had been for some time). They'd long since mastered wedgies—in fact, they'd probably invented them—and rumor had it that Samantha had spent most of winter break studying ancient bamboo torture in some temple in Shanghai. Also, Hector and Samantha swore like late-night cartoon characters. Riley thought they swore because their vocabularies wouldn't fill the front and back of a Post-it Note, but I thought they swore because they were the populars, and as we all knew, populars could get away with anything.

But I refused to let them get away with me.

“No,” I finally said. “I'm not gonna apologize.”

Spencer smacked his forehead again. We kept telling him he'd lose brain cells if he kept smacking his forehead, but so far, that hadn't stopped him. “What are you, insane?”

“No,” Riley said darkly, “he's just suicidal.”

“I'm not suicidal,” I said, flicking one of Spencer's French fries at him. “And I'm not insane, either. I just don't think we should have to bow down to these bozos.” Or at least I'd thought that this morning. “I mean, who died and made them popular?”

“We did,” Spencer said. “We talk about what clothes they wear, what songs they listen to, and what movies and TV shows they watch. They're popular because we say they are, but do they ever repay us?” He stuffed a French fry in his mouth. “Don't they know that all we want is a seat on student council?”

“I don't,” Riley said.

“Me neither,” I admitted.

Spencer's eyes bulged. “
What?
I'd swear off trans fats for a year if someone would give me a seat!”

I flicked a thumb over my shoulder. “Well, you're never gonna get one if Veronica keeps deciding. She doesn't even know your name.”

Two of the many perks of winning the popularity contest that we called an election were getting to fill the five-seat student council and getting to pick a vice, who, along with the class president, ran the student council meetings and coordinated with Ms. Quintero on “important school business” (according to the school constitution). Whoever had come up with this idea clearly wasn't a BG. We'd been underrepresented since 1787.

Spencer opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get a word out, his attention shifted to something—or someone—over my shoulder. Grudgingly, I turned around. Veronica was climbing onto the populars' table, giving everyone a look at her signature All Stars. They were in such good condition that they looked brand-new, but I'd been shopping secondhand since Radcliff, one of my brothers, had introduced me to the art nearly six years earlier. Those skinnier toe caps meant that that pair of All Stars was thirty years old (at least). If Radcliff had been here, he probably would have offered her his whole PEZ collection—not to mention his firstborn child—for those vintage shoes.

I tried to tell myself that her plans had nothing to do with me, but I still wanted to dash
.
Except I couldn't move. Not even the lunch ladies were immune to Veronica's powers. One of them tried to intervene, but one look from Veronica froze the woman in her tracks.

Veronica surveyed the lunchroom like a queen surveying her kingdom. “It has come to my attention that a certain unnamed someone thinks I don't have the perspective to speak for this class. Now, I'll remind this someone that I've won the last two elections without breaking a sweat, but in case
you
think I won because no one ran against me, let me set the record straight. I'm perfectly willing to campaign against anyone—and I mean,
anyone
—who thinks he or she can beat me.” She scanned the crowd with frosty eyes—until those eyes landed on me. “So by all means, join the race. And may the best candidate win.”

She held my gaze for one more second, then tossed her hair over her shoulder and hopped down from the table. Brady extended his hand, but she paid it no heed. After disposing of her bagel, she swept out of the lunchroom with her nose in the air.

While her friends raced to catch up, I just sat there, stunned. I'd already lost my appetite, but now I was afraid that I might lose my lunch. I wrapped an arm around my stomach and hunkered down behind my lunch box. Maybe if I asked him nicely, the Tick would fight my battles for me.

Riley shivered from head to toes. “What are you going to do?” he whispered.

“What do you think?” I asked. “I'm gonna hightail it to Panama and open up a taco shop.”

“You can't make tacos,” he said. “And I don't think they eat them there, anyway.”

“And,” Spencer replied, “you don't have a passport. I'd let you borrow mine, but you're pastier than I am.”

Spencer was the only kid in SV who had an actual passport, which he used to travel between SV and Hong Kong. He was born in New Hampshire (or maybe New Jersey), but his parents were Hong Kongans (or whatever you called them).

I knotted my arms across my chest. “Then I'll just do nothing,” I said.

Spencer rolled his eyes. “You can't do nothing,” he replied. “That's what we've been trying to tell you.”

“Of course I can,” I replied, coating each word with confidence. “I'm really good at doing nothing. It's one of my better skills.”

Riley snorted, then sighed.

“This will all blow over in a few days,” I said. “You just wait and see.”

Spencer inhaled another wad of French fries. “You don't believe that for a second.”

Of
course
I
don't
, I almost said, but for once, I kept my mouth shut.

By the time I got home, I was as worn out as an old shoelace. Faking stupidity was tougher than it looked.

Mom could tell something was wrong as soon as I trudged through the door. She was halfway through her Sudoku—they only took her a few minutes—but after taking one look at my face, she set it on the couch. “All right,” she said. “Let's hear it.”

Mom was lots of things—a former litigator, a Sudoku champion, and a not-so-awesome cook—but most of all, she was Mom. Dad said she could roast any witness in three questions or less, but she said her real talent lay in raising six boys (or at least five and a half, since she wasn't finished raising me).

When I didn't answer, she made a face. “Did Garth empty his spit valve on your shoe again?”

I shook my head. “I think Garth was home sick. He was coughing all over the place yesterday. He probably has pneumonia, which means I'll probably have pneumonia within the next day or two.”

Mom half smiled, half sighed. “Is that what's eating you?”

I shook my head again. “I guess I was just…thinking.” Under my breath, I added, “I probably don't do that enough.”

Mom made a strange noise. It sounded like a laugh, but that couldn't have been what it was. Something must have gotten stuck at the back of her throat.

“Will you at least give me a hint?” she asked when I just stood there thinking.

I pressed my lips into a line, determined not to let it out, but the pressure slowly built until I couldn't keep it in: “I told Riley that Veronica doesn't represent our opinions and that we should, you know, fight, and a few kids overheard me, and now everyone knows.”

“Even Veronica?” she asked.

I nodded slowly.

“Oh, David, you know how powerful words can be.” She glanced down at her lap. “They can hurt people, you know.”

“Not the Pritchard-Pratt,” I replied. “She's, like, the queen of ice. I doubt a heat-seeking missile could penetrate her permafrost.”

“Most people would seem different if you could see them from the inside.”

The truth of her words hit me like a thousand-pound gorilla—I'd always been of the opinion that I was cooler than I looked—but I pretended that they hadn't. “She didn't
seem
upset. In fact, she challenged me to run against her.”

Mom picked up her Sudoku. “Well, then, I think you should.”

I shook my head. “No way.”

“Why not?” she replied.

“Because that's not the way it works! Don't you remember middle school? The populars win the elections and score the winning baskets, and the BGs play the fight songs and grovel at their feet.”

Mom considered that, then shrugged. “Why couldn't someone do both?”

For a second, maybe less, I saw two flashes of Veronica. In the first flash, she was sitting behind the piano, and in the second, she was standing on the populars' table, freezing us with one look.

But Veronica didn't count. She was the exception to every rule.

“Because you can't,” I said emphatically, then said it once more for good measure: “You just can't do both.”

“Whatever you say,” Mom replied, but I could tell she didn't mean it.

* * *

I had to shuffle past the office to get to my locker the next morning, which meant I had to shuffle past the dreaded sign-up sheet. It fluttered daringly in the air-conditioned breeze, and I got the impression that it wanted to be seen.

But the sign-up sheet didn't pose even the slightest threat. I wasn't going to give in, so it wasn't an issue. Mom might have been right about most things, but she wasn't right about this.

Instead of waiting for Riley, I headed straight to the band room. It was usually deserted before school, and I could use the practice. When I originally signed up for band, I'd planned to play the tuba, but when we tried out each instrument on the first day of school, I'd struggled to stay upright when it was just sitting on my shoulders. After that, I'd taken the trombone for a test-drive, but my arms hadn't been long enough to fully extend the slide. That was how I'd gotten stuck with my rinky-dink trumpet (which Mr. Ashton had referred to as “the little man's horn”). It wasn't an instrument I was keen to master, but if I ever wanted to graduate to bigger, better things, I had no choice but to play it.

I'd just slipped through the door when I jolted to a stop. The band room wasn't empty. Veronica was sitting on the edge of the woodwinds.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, tightening my grip on my trumpet case. The handle suddenly felt slippery.

“What does it look like?” she asked.

“It looks like you got lost on your way to the bathroom.”

“I don't get lost,” she replied, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I'm always
exactly
where I mean to be.”

“All right,” I said, taking the bait. “Then why did you
mean
to be here?”

Her shoulders actually slumped. “I don't know,” she admitted. “Mr. Ashton asked to see me.”

I cupped a hand around my mouth. “Well, in case you haven't noticed, Mr. Ashton isn't here.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “But he should be here any minute. He told me to come early.”

If we'd been in a movie, that would have been Mr. Ashton's cue. He would have magically pranced through the door before I was forced to say something. But we weren't in a movie, so he didn't appear. I could have run away, but seeing her sitting there like she owned the place made something in me snap. The band room should have been my territory—I was the BG, not her—and I wasn't going to stand here and let her take over everything.

I hugged my trumpet case and skirted the edge of the band room, then set my stuff next to my chair and lowered myself into my seat. I popped the latches as quietly as I could, but in the suffocating silence, the pops echoed like gunshots. I snuck a peek at Veronica to see if she'd noticed, but she was still just sitting there, making herself as small as possible.

My hands trembled like dead leaves barely clinging to their branches as I tugged my mouthpiece out of its divot. I blew into it once or twice, then slid it into its slot and tapped the valves experimentally. It was more warm-up than I usually did, but she still hadn't moved. Finally, I was down to either playing or talking, so I picked the latter.

“Aren't you curious?” I blurted. I desperately wanted to know if she'd heard what I'd said.

At least that snapped her out of it. “Aren't you?” she replied.

I crinkled my forehead. “About what?”

She folded her arms across her waist. “About why I said what
I
said.”

I swallowed, hard. It was like she'd read my mind. How had this conversation spiraled so far out of control? I thought I was the one asking the questions. But then, I
was
curious about the Lunchroom Stand.

“Well, sure,” I said nonchalantly. “I think everyone has been wondering why you climbed onto that table.”

Veronica waved that away. “The table was a prop. A stepstool would have worked, but I didn't have one handy.”

“Trust me,” I replied, “you don't need a stepstool.”

For a second, maybe less, Veronica's frosty expression slipped, and I winced despite myself. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe Veronica
did
care. But then her features hardened, and I felt a little better. Clearly, my words hadn't affected her. It must have been a trick of the light.

“I'm tired,” she said. “Tired of winning by default.” She looked me in the eyes. “I'm ready for a blowout.”

The look in her eyes burned right through me, and I shrank away from her. If she was looking for a blowout, she'd come to the right place. Except I wasn't going to run. But I didn't have a chance to get those words out before Mr. Ashton strolled into the room, a stack of music in one arm and a box of doughnuts in the other.

“Oh, I'm glad I caught you!” he said. “David, Veronica, why don't you pull up a seat?”

She sent me a sideways glance. “Don't you think you should have mentioned that he asked to see you, too?”

I held up my hands. “He didn't tell me anything!”

“No, I didn't,” he replied, but then he ruined it by winking. “Since I knew he'd be here, anyway.”

I knotted my arms across my chest. Why did everyone seem to think that they had me figured out? I wasn't that predictable, was I? I tried to kick my music stand, but my kick went to the right, so my foot connected with the back of the piano instead. I had to bite my lip to keep from saying a bad word.

Mr. Ashton set the box of doughnuts on his desk—it sounded mostly empty—then dusted off his hands. “I wanted to talk to you,” he went on as he gave her a piece of music, “because I thought you'd like to play something in our upcoming recital.”

“But we already are,” I said.

“Allow me to rephrase,” he replied as he handed me a copy. “I thought you might like to play a duet in our upcoming recital.”

Veronica's jaw dropped. “You want us to play
together
?”

Now it was Mr. Ashton's turn to nod. “You and David are my stars!”

I found that hard to believe. “But I don't even like the trumpet.”

Mr. Ashton waved that off. “You're a budding Louis Armstrong!”

I crinkled my nose. “Louis
who
?”

“Forget it,” he replied as he leafed through his music. When he found the piece he'd given us, he added, “Why don't you just take a look?”

I squinted at the title (which was partially obscured by a smudge of chocolate icing). “‘La Vie en rose'?” I read out loud. “That's not even English, right?”

Veronica shook her head. “No, it's French.” Under her breath, she added, “Not that
you
would know.”

She might have whispered it, but she'd clearly meant for me to hear. I slammed the music down, but before I could come up with a decent reply, Mr. Ashton held his hands up.

“Now, now,” he replied. “There's no reason to get testy. I'm not asking you to love it, I'm just asking you to
try
.”

I rolled my tongue around my mouth. Veronica didn't react.

Mr. Ashton sighed. “If you come back Monday morning and you absolutely loathe it—really loathe it, not just hate it—maybe we'll try something else. Or just give up altogether.” He held the music out like he was offering us his soul. “But at least give it a chance.”

Grudgingly, I flipped the music open and played the first few notes in my head. At least it didn't sound too schmaltzy. French music usually was.

Veronica stuffed hers in her bag. “All right,” she replied as she made a break for it. Just before she disappeared, she glanced back at me. “But this doesn't change anything. I'm still going to destroy you.”

“No, you're not,” I said, “because I'm not gonna run!”

“Of course you're not,” was all she said, but as she swept away, I thought I could hear her laughter skipping back down the hall.