Fabulous Five 003 - The Popularity Trap (6 page)

Jon had redone his homework for chapters two, three, and
four and gotten nearly all the problems correct. Christie was amazed at how
accurate and neat his papers were, and he smiled proudly when she told him so.

"It's because of your help," he said. "You're
a good teacher." Then he changed the subject.

"I was at Bumpers this afternoon when you played the
recording. It really went over big. You probably have a good chance of being
elected class president."

Christie looked down. The tape
had
gone over well,
and it had been exciting when the kids were all congratulating her. But it didn't
change anything. After the fun of planning the campaign with her friends was all
over, if she won, she would be president.

"You really don't want to be class president, do you?"
he asked as if he had read her mind.

She shook her head without saying anything.

"Why are you running, then?" he asked.

"My friends want me to. I promised them I'd try. And my
parents would be disappointed, too, if I dropped out of the election."

"That's the difference between the two of us, I guess,"
he said, frowning. "You try to satisfy everyone, and I don't try to
satisfy anyone, because I know I can't."

"But you can do well when you really want to," she
insisted. "Look at how fast you're catching up in math."

He smiled at her. "For some reason I feel like trying
now. Maybe you
shouldn't
try so hard. I don't mean that you should be
like me or make bad grades. I mean, just don't do everything everyone wants you
to."

"I don't know," she answered. "I've done it
all my life."

"Don't get me wrong," he added quickly. "It's
just that you're important, too. If you keep being the person everybody else
thinks you should be, you'll never find out who the real Christie is."

"And if you keep copping out," she added, looking
deep into his eyes, "you'll never know how special you can be."

Neither of them said anything for a minute. Then Jon
grinned. "What's that old saying about a happy medium?" he asked. "Maybe
we should both look for that."

"It's a deal," said Christie.

She poured them each a soda, and they settled down at the
table to work on math. Jon was almost caught up now. Christie was proud of his
progress, but she also dreaded for the tutoring sessions to end. Especially now
that things were going so well between them.

When the lesson was finished, Jon closed his book and
started to get up from the table, but for some reason he sat back down.
Christie was puzzled by the serious look on his face, and then surprised when
he put his hand on top of hers. It made her feel tingly all over.

"You've helped me a lot," he began. "Now I
think I know how to help you."

"How?"

"By helping you get out of the elections."

"I don't know. Everyone is depending on me," she
said with a sigh. "I can't just back out."

"What if someone besides you
or
Melissa won?"
he asked.

She looked at him, not understanding. "But there's no
one else running. No one from Copper Beach Elementary is."

"I've been thinking," he said. "What if there
was a mystery candidate? Someone no one knew? That would get a lot of
attention, wouldn't it?"

She looked at him blankly. "A mystery candidate?"

"Think about how excited everyone would get if all of a
sudden there were posters for a candidate without a name. We could even make a
tape like you did and ask Mr. Matson not to tell who made it."

"But who would the candidate be? Don't tell me that
you're
thinking of running now?"

He chuckled and raised his hands in protest. "Not me. I
haven't figured out who it could be yet, but we've got until next Tuesday to
come up with someone. And I promise you that it won't be a cop-out candidate,
either. We'll find someone who'll do a good job."

"Do you mean to say that you want to campaign for
someone and you don't even know who it is?" she asked incredulously.

"Sure. Why not? Are you game?"

Christie laughed. Coming up with a mystery candidate really
sounded like fun. It just might work. And if it did . . .

"It's still early. If you could stay a little longer,
we could plan our campaign," she said.

"Let's do it," he said, opening his notebook with
a flourish. "Maybe our candidate, whoever it is, will go on to be the next
president of the United States." They laughed together.

As Jon bent his head down over the notebook, Christie looked
at him. He was a lot different from the first night he had come over to study.
His eyes were twinkling and he was excited about what they were doing. He
looked so handsome with the lock of soft brown hair down on his forehead. She
was happier being with him than she would ever be running for some dumb old
school office. If this was what it meant to look for the happy medium, she was
all for it.

Christie and Jon were waiting at the school doors when Mr.
Bartosik, the head custodian, opened them early the next morning before any
other students had arrived. After they dropped her bag of oranges off at her
locker, they rushed through the empty halls to carry out their plan.

Mrs. Winchell had given them long rolls of newsprint that
were left over from an art project at Mark Twain Elementary, and they had
painted brightly colored banners for their mystery candidate on them, rolled
them back up, and carried them to school. Now they were unrolling them again
and taping them up in the hallway where everyone would see them.

Christie took a deep breath and crossed her fingers as she
put up the last poster. "We can't back out now," she said.

"Good luck, mystery candidate, whoever you are!" Jon
added with a laugh.

A little while later Christie hurried to The Fabulous Five's
favorite spot by the fence to wait for her friends, and she had been standing
there, fidgeting nervously, for nearly fifteen minutes before they arrived.

"Hi," called Melanie as she and Beth walked up,
pulling a wagon full of oranges. "I bribed my little brother by promising
him a double-scoop ice cream cone after school if he would let me borrow his
wagon," she said brightly. Katie and Jana were right behind them, carrying
their oranges in brown paper bags.

"Boy, I can't wait to see what Laura and her friends
have planned for today," said Katie as they unloaded the fruit into their
lockers. "You know she's not going to take yesterday without a fight."

"I couldn't forget the look on her face all last night,"
said Beth, giggling, as she stuffed a bag loaded with oranges on top of some
books. "I even dreamed about her standing there flicking her braid. I woke
up laughing."

"Well, I'll bet The Fantastic Foursome had a long meeting
yesterday to figure out what to do next," said Katie.

"Maybe they'll sing that dumb little commercial in the
cafeteria again," added Melanie.

"I don't know about that, but I'll bet they have a tape
to play at Bumpers after school," said Jana. "What do you think,
Christie?"

Christie smiled. "Oh, I'm sure we'll get some surprises
today." Then to herself she added, If only you knew!

"If anyone hears about what they're up to, spread the
word," said Katie. "Did you call Shane last night like you said you
would?" she asked Melanie.

"Yes. And the rat wouldn't tell me who he's going to
vote for. He said to be at Bumpers this afternoon and he'd tell everyone what
Igor said."

They all laughed at the thought of Shane's talking to his
pet iguana. All except Christie. Were they going to stand around talking
forever? she wondered. She was dying to walk around the halls where the posters
for the mystery candidate were hanging and see what kind of attention they were
getting. But at the rate The Fabulous Five were moving, they would still be
standing at their lockers when the first bell rang.

"Hey, look," whispered Jana. "There are Laura
and the others. Let's keep an eye on them."

The halls were filling up as more and more kids arrived for
school, so they were able to follow The Fantastic Foursome without being seen.
Suddenly Laura and her friends stopped in the middle of the hall by the
principal's office and stood looking at a poster. Melanie motioned the others
to follow her, and they walked up trying to look as if they were just on their
way to class.

Christie had to bite her lower lip to keep from giggling.
The poster had a cutout of Vanna White standing by some hand-printed squares
that looked like the ones on the
Wheel of Fortune
television show. The
blocks were empty as if they were part of a puzzle. Underneath them was
printed:

WHO IS THE MYSTERY CANDIDATE FOR 7TH-GRADE CLASS PRESIDENT?

Christie hoped everyone would realize that they were
supposed to guess the name that went in the squares.

"Is this another one of your tricks?" Laura snapped
at them. "If it is—well, you've got it right. It's a
mystery
why
you put Christie up for class president."

"Yeah," said Tammy. "You would have been
better off keeping the whole
thing
a mystery. Especially after Melissa
wins." The four of them turned in unison and stomped off.

As they moved closer to see, Christie faked interest in the
poster. She had to admit that she and Jon had done a good job in the short time
they had had the night before.

"If they didn't put it up, I wonder who did?" Jana
thought out loud.

"You've got me," said Melanie.

Christie turned so that no one could see her face. She
couldn't help feeling a mixture of guilt, over not being honest with her best
friends, and glee, over the trick she and Jon had pulled off.

Just then Lisa Snow and Sara Sawyer came up behind them and
stopped to look at the poster. "Who put that up?" Lisa asked.

"We don't know," answered Katie.

"Is it legal?" Sara asked.

"Sure," answered Katie. "You can write in
anyone you want. You only have to get petitions signed if the candidate's name
is going to be on the ballot."

Randy Kirwan and Scott Daly walked up and looked at the
poster, too, and soon a crowd had gathered. Everyone started trying to guess
the name of the mystery candidate. Christie listened and had a hard time
keeping a straight face. What makes it even funnier, thought Christie, is that
it's taped up next to one of Melissa's posters. One that says she wants to
clean up the gum tree. How boring, compared to a mystery candidate.

"Maybe it's Whitney Larkin," offered someone in
the crowd.

"Naw," said someone else. "There aren't
enough letters."

"Hey, look," called Jana, who had walked down the
hall a short way. "Here's another one." Christie followed as everyone
rushed down to see.

This one said:

WHO DOES EVERYONE
KNOW?
WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON?
WHO DOES EVERYONE TRUST?
WHO WOULD MAKE THE BEST 7TH-GRADE CLASS PRESIDENT?
VOTE FOR THE MYSTERY CANDIDATE
____________________?

As the group of seventh-graders stared at the poster in
silence, Christie had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.

When the bell rang signaling the start of seventh-grade
lunch period, Christie raced to her locker and grabbed her lunch and her
grocery bag of oranges. The bag was practically overflowing, and she balanced
it carefully, clamping her chin down on the oranges on top to keep them from
spilling onto the floor as she headed for the cafeteria.

She ignored curious stares as she made her way toward The
Fabulous Five's regular table. Katie was already there with her oranges, and
Jana and Beth were coming through the swinging doors behind Christie. That left
Melanie, and she was a few minutes late because she had persuaded Mr. Bartosik
to let her store the wagonload of oranges in the supply closet down the hall.

"That should do it," she said as she shoved the
wagon under the table and sat down with a breathless sigh.

"Has anyone found out who put those posters up for the
mystery candidate?" asked Jana, taking a bite of her cream cheese and
jelly sandwich. "They're all over school."

Christie cringed at the mention of the mystery candidate. It
was one thing to dream up the scheme with Jon and another to have to keep a
straight face while her friends talked about it.

"No," grumbled Beth. "But I still think it
was Laura and her friends."

"I don't think so," said Katie. "They really
seem to be as confused as everyone else."

"I agree," said Jana. "There
is
someone else running. But who could it be?"

"Somebody who knows more people, the poster says,"
answered Melanie.

"And knows about everything that's going on,"
added Beth. "And someone people trust."

"That definitely leaves out Laura and her friends,"
snickered Katie.

"Come on, guys," said Christie, desperately trying
to change the subject. "If we're going to pass these oranges out, we'd
better get at it."

"Right," said Jana, "before Melissa and her
friends sing their dumb little jingle again."

They cleared away their lunch bags and then began passing
out oranges to all the seventh-graders. Christie took the outer rows of tables
on the left side; Katie took the outer rows on the other side. Jana and Beth
worked the next rows, and Melanie pulled her little brother's wagon up the
center aisle.

"Gimme two!" shouted Clarence Marshall. Without
even reading the stickers he began trying to juggle the oranges, but instead of
catching them, they crashed down on his head. Everyone around him roared with
laughter.

Soon kids all over the room were raising their hands and
asking for oranges, and the girls were wading through the tables as fast as they
could hand them out. Only Laura McCall and her friends refused them, sticking
their noses into the air and turning away when Beth went by their table.

When Christie reached Jon, he was smiling. "What do
your friends think of the posters for the mystery candidate?" he
whispered.

Christie laughed. "It blew their minds. Wow! Have I
been having trouble keeping a straight face."

"It's going to work," he assured her.

Christie nodded and handed him an orange. For an instant
they both held it, looking at each other and smiling.