Freshman for President

  “It will go fine,” Paige interrupted, giving Jack a glare.

  “It will,” Eden said. “Think positive. You’re going to look great, you’re going to sound great, you’re going to be great.” She laughed. “That sounds like that quote from Shakespeare: ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.’”

  “So which one am I?” Milo asked.

  “I think you’re having greatness thrust upon you right now,” Paige said. “This interview is something big, and you’re going to have to rise to the occasion.”

  “And you’re trying to achieve greatness,” Eden said. “We all are.”

  “Speak for yourselves. I was born great,” Jack told them all. “So that covers it. We have all three kinds riding in this car right now. We’re like freaking Romeo and Juliet in here.”

  “The quote is from Twelfth Night,” Eden informed him.

  “You’re assuming too much,” Maura said quietly.

  They all turned to look at her, and Milo wondered if everyone else was as surprised as he was.

  “You’re assuming everyone wants to be great.”

  “Don’t they?” Milo asked her. “No one wants to be a loser. No one wants to be—just nothing at all.”

  “Some people don’t care about being great. They just want to be happy. Or left alone. Or invisible.”

  No one said anything; no one had a response. Milo felt as though it was his job to say something, but he couldn’t think of a combination of words that wouldn’t be wrong, all wrong. He couldn’t drop his words into that silence without thinking them through, and thinking them through took up too much time and made it even harder to speak. The silence deepened and became permanent. Even Jack didn’t say anything.

  Maura flicked her turn signal and moved out into the left lane to pass a car that had slowed down on the hill. Milo, staring out of the window, saw a teenage girl driving the car. A teenage boy was sitting next to her, his feet up on the dashboard. They were laughing. Their lives, encapsulated in that short moment of passing, flicked by and then disappeared from view. Maura pulled back into the right lane.

  Milo remembered when boys really started calling Maura, right after she turned sixteen. On the rare occasions when he could reach the phone first, he liked to torment her if a guy was on the other end of the line. He had been twelve, and he felt it was payback time for all the torture she’d inflicted on him as the younger brother. After the guy had asked for Maura, Milo would think of the most annoying things he could say:

  “She can’t come to the phone right now. She’s in the bathroom. It’s intestinal.”

  “She’s on the other line. Some other guy just called.”

  “Maura? You shouldn’t be calling her. She’s only thirteen. She skipped a few grades.”

  Inevitably, Maura would arrive on the scene, snatch the phone from his hand, and tell him he was dead. “Sorry, that’s just my little brother,” she’d say brightly. “Who is this? Hey! How are you?”

  It was also fun to take messages if she wasn’t home. “Could you tell her Ryan called? And ask her to call me back?” some guy would ask.

  “No problem,” he’d say, and then he’d write on the message: “Some guy called. I think his name was Brian. He said not to bother calling him back.”

  Eventually, guys figured out not to leave messages with him, and eventually, Maura got her own cell phone. But it had been fun teasing her while he could. It was definitely nothing worse than what she’d done to tease him, calling him “Miley” in public and telling everyone on his Little League team that he’d still slept with his stuffed penguin until he was ten (he had, but they didn’t need to know that).

  He remembered how she had been back then, when she was sixteen and asked to every single dance. Back then, he thought dances were stupid (he still did, actually). But in Maura’s life, it was all exciting—dances, school, friends, being on the school’s swim team. There hadn’t been enough room in her life for all the things she wanted to do and all the places she wanted to be.

  He saw very little resemblance to the person driving the car now. Her reservoir of loneliness was so deep, she had turned into a shell to keep it all inside. But maybe a little crack had appeared in the shell today. Why else would she have said what she did about greatness? She had taken part in a conversation without being dragged into it.

  He looked over at her, but he still didn’t say anything. He still didn’t have the right words. He hoped he found them someday.

  Chapter 17

  September

  E-mail suggestions from various teenagers sent to www.writeinwright.com

  I think we need to get rid of standardized tests. They stink! It felt like all we did this year was take test after test. I didn’t even care by the time we took the last one. Maybe that’s why American students test lower than some other countries. We have so many tests that we quit caring!

  I know you and a lot of the other people responding think we should get rid of standardized testing, but then how are they going to measure anything? They can’t give us all personal interviews to see how smart we are.

  I agree with the other people who have posted about being worried about the environment and taking care of the earth. The only thing is, where do we start? My town doesn’t do recycling. And that’s the only idea I have. So now what?

  Do you have any ideas for helping more teenagers go to college? I really want to go, but I probably won’t get a scholarship and I can’t go without one. It’s too expensive.

  They should definitely raise the minimum wage. Put that on your platform.

  Voting at sixteen would be awesome. Do you think you can make it happen in time for the election this year?

  All the news on TV is bad. People are dying in countries everywhere, and it seems like things aren’t going so great in America either. You really think you can fix any of that? How?

  * * *

  Milo sat at his dining room table with his head in his hands. He was supposed to be writing an essay for his history class comparing and contrasting the three branches of government in America. Instead he was trying to create a solid, cohesive campaign platform for all the teenagers in America.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on Milo. In order to try to make history, he was probably going to miss turning in a paper and might fail history. But there were only so many hours in the day, and he didn’t want to humiliate himself on national television. He thought even his parents would be able to understand that.

  He lifted his head.

  Eden sat across from him. Her long dark hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she had a pencil sticking out of it. Milo wanted to reach over and pull the pencil out and start writing with it or something.

  He looked back down at the computer screen. This was taking forever. Plus his chair was uncomfortable. His foot had fallen asleep. He had been up since five that morning; now it was ten at night, and he was tired. He couldn’t concentrate.

  Eden looked up at Milo as he thrashed around in his seat like a freshly caught fish.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “My foot is asleep, and I think my brain is itchy.” His mind hopped from topic to topic. The background noise from the show Maura was watching on TV wasn’t helping either. “Can’t you watch that somewhere else?” he snapped, turning toward Maura.

  He heard Eden’s sharp intake of breath. Too late, he remembered what she had said about Maura hanging around them and how maybe that was a good thing.

  He tried to fix it. “I mean, could you just turn it down a little?”

  Maura clicked off the television and walked out of the room. Everything was silent.

  Now he really couldn’t think.

  “I didn’t mean for her to leave,” Milo told Eden.

&n
bsp; “I know.” Eden was sympathetic.

  They went back to their reading, but it wasn’t long before Eden spoke again. “Have you come up with anything yet?”

  “Not really,” Milo admitted. “What about you?”

  “I’m stuck too.” This was the hard part—trying to think of ways they could actually implement their campaign platform, ways to take action. It was fine to talk about making the world a better place, but both Eden and Milo thought they should be able to point to something that their campaign was actually doing to accomplish that.

  Milo sighed and looked at the next e-mail. It was from a girl named Josie, who was also from Arizona. Phoenix, in fact:

  I have a deal for you. You want to know what teenagers care about, and in your last blog post you asked for us to share any concrete ideas we have.

  So here’s the deal. We have an idea, but we need money to carry it out and we need media exposure. You can use my idea in exchange for promoting it and supporting it. Interested? Read on . . .

  My boyfriend, Brandon, and I are seniors in high school and last year we were on the committee for our Junior Prom. Our committee came up with the idea of having Proms for a Cause. Teens spend tons of money on prom tickets and dates and all of that each year. Some of us were trying to think of a way we could help other people out but not have to give up on having prom altogether.

  So here’s what we did. We got some local restaurants to donate the food. We got a hotel to donate their ballroom for the evening. We found some stores willing to donate décor, and a DJ who was willing to cut his rate significantly for the cause. Now when the students buy their tickets to prom, most of the money goes to a charity decided upon by the entire class. Our class chose to send the money to the Happy Factory, for example. (They’re an organization that makes toys for needy kids. One of the guys on the committee has a brother who works for the organization, so it seemed personal.)

  It worked so well that the junior class is doing it again this year, and one of my cousins in California talked her prom committee into doing it for their school as well. I’m thinking Proms for a Cause could catch on in other places. Each school could choose its own cause—a member of the community in need, sending money to organizations that work nationally, starting a scholarship fund for someone, whatever. It’s a real way to make a difference.

  It works because everyone wins. The students still get their prom, the sponsors have done something nice for the community, and a bunch of money can go to people who really need it.

  As I said before, it seems like this might be a good fit for both of us—you get a concrete idea you can use and expand on, and we get publicity, which we need to get Proms for a Cause to take off.

  What do you think?

  Milo dramatically clicked “Print,” with as much fanfare as he could. Eden didn’t notice, so he flung his arms skyward and said, “Nice,” as loudly and emphatically as he could.

  “All right, what is it?” Eden looked up from her laptop. Before he had even started talking, she started smiling.

  “Why are you grinning? I haven’t even said anything yet.” Milo pulled the paper out of the printer.

  “Because you’re smiling. It’s impossible not to. You’re contagious.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “I meant it as a compliment. Go ahead. What were you going to tell me?”

  “I just read an e-mail from the smartest girl ever—” He didn’t even finish the sentence before he knew it was going to get him in trouble. “Except for you, of course, you’re on your own level of smart—”

  Eden was laughing now. “And?”

  “Just read this.” He slid the paper across the table to Eden.

  He knew Eden liked it before she even said anything. She started to nod, and then she started talking to herself a little, totally lost in the e-mail and the idea. He couldn’t resist. He leaned across the table and pulled the pencil out of her hair. Oops. Apparently, it had been holding her hair up somehow and now it all came tumbling down.

  She looked up at him. The flash of her eyes as they met his made him feel a little bit . . . something. Nervous? Not really, except maybe in a good way. He just felt different, good different, when she looked at him like that.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I needed something to write with. I didn’t know that would happen.”

  “That’s all right.” She looked at the pens and pencils strewn all over the table and raised her eyebrows at him. “I guess you needed this particular pencil, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eden twisted her hair back up with one hand. With her other hand, she grabbed another pencil and slid it back into her hair. Messy sprigs stuck out, but still, it held. Milo was fascinated. Girls knew how to do so much stuff.

  He was still leaning in toward her, so he sat back. “I’m back on task. I promise. I’ll e-mail Josie back right now. Unless you want to . . .”

  “Why would I want to?”

  “I don’t know. It’s about prom. Don’t girls really care about that stuff?”

  “Yeah, but not any more than guys do.”

  “Oh, gimme a break. Girls care way more about dances and stuff than guys do. Girls get all dressed up, they make their hair all crazy, they talk about it with their friends—”

  “Guys care too.”

  “I think they only care because girls care,” Milo mused. “I think if they like the girl then they really want her to have a great time.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never been to prom,” Eden teased.

  “Neither have you!”

  “We’re not seniors, anyway. It seems like that’s the year prom really matters at Sage High.”

  “That’s true,” Milo agreed. He had an idea. “Tell you what. Let’s make a deal. If neither of us has a date within a week of Senior Prom, then we’ll go together.”

  For some reason, that seemed to hurt her feelings a little. “Oh. Well, okay.” Her voice was flat.

  Great. First he’d offended Maura, and now Eden. He tried to explain. “You know what I mean. Look, what if you really wanted to go with some guy and you couldn’t because I had already asked you?”

  “What if I wanted to go with you?” Eden asked him. She had really long eyelashes. He noticed them because she was doing her best to bat them at him. She was teasing him, he was sure of it, and suddenly he felt a little sad.

  So he changed the subject. “Do you think our senior class officers would be interested in doing something like this? Or would they think we were trying to tell them what to do with their own prom?”

  “We could ask. You know Halle Bulloch? One of the senior girls helping with the campaign?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “She’s on the Senior Prom committee. I’ll talk to her and see what she thinks. You e-mail Josie back and tell her we’re on board.”

  “That works,” Milo said. He pretended to start typing his e-mail and read it out loud: “Dear Josie. We love your idea. We love your idea so much that we want to take it to Senior Prom. We want to marry it. We want to have its children . . .”

  “Stop it.” Eden was laughing again. Milo loved making her laugh. He was on a roll again, having found his footing after the misstep with his prom idea.

  “Get back to work, Wright.”

  “All right, all right. Man, you are bossy.”

  “What do you do without me here to keep an eye on you?”

  “Actually, I work pretty hard when you’re not here distracting me.”

  “That’s what you tell me, anyway.” They both grinned at each other. Milo felt bad for the other presidential candidates who had to pick their running mates for political gain. They didn’t get to run with one of their best friends, one who was smart and thoughtful and funny and hard-working.

/>   And—he could admit it—really good-looking, especially when she laughed.

  * * *

  Eden’s dad picked her up at eleven, and he made her promise that this was the last late school night for a long time. “You kids are going to wear out,” he told Milo kindly. “You need to pace yourselves. There’s still a month and a half left before the election.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get some sleep, too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Milo said again.

  “Bye, Milo,” Eden called back.

  “Bye, Ede. See you tomorrow.”

  Milo went back inside and immediately disregarded Mr. James’s advice about getting some sleep. He sat back down and found that Josie had already e-mailed him back, asking for a time they could talk on the phone. After a flurry of e-mails, they set up a phone conversation for 6:30 the next morning, before they both had to be in school. Milo wondered if she was distantly related to Eden. Six-thirty in the morning . . .

  He spent the next two hours writing a synopsis of their platform. By the time he was finished, he could recite the key points by heart: Start a petition to reduce standardized testing. Make the world a better place (one way to do that was through RecyclABLE, a collection program involving teenagers). Help other people in the community, country, and world (through Proms for a Cause). Get involved. Find out about the issues and vote on Election Day.

  Then he put together a post for the blog, answered an urgent e-mail from Spencer, reread his campaign platform one last time, and wrote perhaps the worst history paper imaginable. He didn’t care. It was two in the morning and time for bed.

  He had one final thing to do, though. He wrote “I’m sorry” on a piece of paper. On the way to his room, he stopped by Maura’s door.

  Maura’s room was dark, so he didn’t knock. He slid the note under the door and paused for a second before he turned away. He wished he could knock and that she would answer and he could ask her for advice on girls. He wished they could talk about something, anything. He felt a trace of bitterness in spite of himself.