I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class (16 page)

People are creatures of habit. If you picked your nose with your left pinkie finger yesterday, you’ll probably pick it with your left pinkie finger today, and with your left pinkie finger tomorrow, forever and ever for the rest of your ugly snot-covered life.

 

Let’s talk about someone much less disgusting than you: Tatiana. As far as creatures of habit go, she is probably the most habitually pink creature in the world. Her sweaters are pink, her socks are pink, her sneakers are pink, her panties are pink.
⁸⁷

 

Even if my surveillance cameras hadn’t taken photographs proving that the vandal is actually Jordie Moscowitz (he’s a real winner), I would have had a very hard time believing that someone so thoroughly pink as our Tati would choose to express herself in blue. It just doesn’t work that way.

 

On the other hand, people can embrace
new
habits when they realize their old habits just aren’t
working
for them anymore. Take Moorhead, for example. He’s decided to let mystical messages typed on cigarettes guide him in the pursuit of his dream woman. You might call this behavior irrational, but it’s probably the most sensible thing he’s done in years. He knows he’s not making any progress with Sokolov on his own; if the cigarette messages offer a better path, he’d be a fool not to follow it.

 

Even a middle-school middlebrow like Moorhead knows why his angels have advised him to “
CARRY A COPY OF
GRAVITY’S RAINBOW
.” It’s to make him look smart. Sokolov is bound to be impressed by a man who reads something so thick.

 

Which is why he looked so pleased with himself this afternoon. A copy of
Gravity’s Rainbow
loomed ominously on the corner of his desk, like a two-ton marble monument to his brain. He was leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his neck, beaming like a baby that’s used the potty for the first time.

 

Oh yes
, he was thinking.
This makes me look smart
.

 

At one point he saw Pammy Quattlebaum eyeing the book in admiration, and he flashed her an arrogant smile, like a rock star grinning at a fan.

 

Meanwhile, a pack of hastily prepared cigarettes, all screaming
HIDE THAT THING IN A DRAWER
, were being rush-delivered to him.

 

It was a
brand-new
copy of the book. You’d think even a middle-school middlebrow would know better than that. How’s he supposed to impress Sokolov if she thinks he’s reading
Gravity’s Rainbow
for the
first time
?
⁸⁸

 

“The next message will read
GET A USED COPY
,” I dictate, though there’s no one but Lollipop, Sheldrake, and me in the blimp. Somewhere, far beneath us, someone hears me and someone obeys.

 

“You’re too cruel to that man,” says Sheldrake.

 

“He doesn’t think so.” I scan some tax returns for errors.

 

Nothing pops up, but I can’t say I’m all that interested. I push the stack of paperwork aside. “By the way, Lionel, I’m arranging a few public appearances for you.”

 

“Do I have to?”

 

“One of them, you’ll actually enjoy. It’s on my father’s station. The other . . . well, that’s going to be at my school. A speech about the value of democratic elections in the public-school arena.”

 

Sheldrake breathes heavily and fidgets in his seat. I glare at him. “Spit it out.”

 

“You’re certainly making a big deal out of this election.”

 

“I want it to be a
very
big deal,” I say. “I want people to recognize that this is important.”

 

“You mean you want one person in particular to think it’s important.” I stiffen, and Lollipop shows Sheldrake all five thousand of her little white needles.

 

Sheldrake barrels forward, heedless. “Look, you know I never give you advice—but why do you care what
he
thinks? You’re twice the man he is, and you haven’t even hit puberty yet.”

 

I grab the speaking trumpet. “Captain Malthus, open the bay doors. We’re going to be dumping something over the river.” The floor behind Sheldrake’s chair collapses downward, like a horizontal pair of saloon doors in a cowboy movie, and the white lights of the Omaha skyline bathe us in their glow. Tax forms flap around the cabin like bats. “
Hil
,” I command, and Lollipop inches toward Sheldrake, teeth bared, back arched.

 

Sheldrake pales. “There’s no need to threaten me, Oliver. I’ll shut up. But I don’t see why you don’t just fix the damned election and be done with it.” He’s being very brave. “Just rig the vote and stop worrying about it.”

 

Lollipop’s growl rises an octave. It becomes scarier as it becomes more shrill. She’s less than a foot from him now. The slobber that hangs from her mouth glistens in the reflected light like a silver knife.

 

“Damn it, Oliver. Stop that dog.”

 

I respect him for not saying “Please.”

 

“
Maita
,” I order. Lollipop stops, just a few inches short of him. All the hostility instantly drains from her body. She cranes forward and licks the sweat from Sheldrake’s cheeks.

 

“Captain Malthus, close the bay.” We cease to glow in the city lights, and the wind in the cabin dies. I pour Sheldrake a cup of tea. “I’m sorry, Lionel. I lost my temper.”

 

“No, it’s . . . I was out of line.” The teacup shakes in his hand. “It’s not my place to say. . . . But I do care. And I worry. I feel like you’re letting important business slide.”

 

“I’ll decide what’s important,” I tell him. “And as for rigging the votes—I will if I have to. But why bother when it’s so easy for me to win?”

Make posters to put up at school.

 

That’s it.

 

There are no issues to debate in a student-council election. There are no tax rates to be cut, no bond measures to be passed, no perverted practices to be outlawed. Student councils don’t
do
anything. Maybe if you go to a school that has a radio in the cafeteria, the student council will decide what station is played on the radio.

 

My school does not have a radio in the cafeteria.

 

Since there’s nothing important to talk about, student-council campaigns are massively simple operations. Just poster board after poster board reading VOTE FOR ME! taped up wherever the principal lets you. Our ancestors fought the Revolutionary War so we’d have the right to do this. They must be so proud.

 

The first posters of the eighth-grade presidential campaign have popped up outside Ms. Sokolov’s room. One is made of three strips of red, white, and blue:

I wonder if that might not be too intellectual for my classmates.

 

My mother’s contribution is taped up right next to it. It’s a piece of cardboard so heavy with paste and glitter and plastic flowers that it’s nearly falling off the wall. It’s message: Vote for Watson! He will make the best President!

Or that’s what it’s
supposed
to read. Someone has crossed out
PRESIDENT
and written
DOODY
in red Magic Marker.
⁸⁹

 

I turn away from the posters and find myself facing Tatiana, who has a psychotic smile smeared across her mouth. I try to step around her, but she laughs—a tinkling elfin river of laughter that runs through a shadowy valley of scorn. Shame compels me to turn my back to her. I stare straight into the madness that lives in her dark-brown eyes.

 

“We got our work cut out for us, don’t we, Tubs?”

 

I nod like a dummy. Tati gives Mom’s poster a lazy tug that sends it crashing to the floor. Then she blows me a kiss and skips into Sokolov’s room.

 

Oh yeah. Tati’s back. Someone anonymously sent Mr. Pinckney photographs proving Jordie Moscowitz was the graffiti vandal, and Tatiana returned this morning like a triumphant hero. Her mom dropped her off at school in a brand-new pink Mercedes some uncle they’d never heard of left them in his will.

 

Megan Polanski, the Most Popular Girl in School, watched with undisguised envy as Tati climbed the front steps. “Why are you so lucky?”

 

Tati didn’t miss a beat. “’Cause I’m so good.”

 

Randy Sparks is using the last few seconds before study hall to hand out stickers that read I’M VOTING FOR RANDY.

 

Most of the people walking by ignore him. Most of the ones who don’t ignore him push him out of their way. And most of the ones who don’t do
that
take a sticker and then drop it immediately or paste it on the first locker they pass. He’ll get in trouble for that.

Verna has to do better. It’s important that Randy’s campaign not look like a
total
joke, or I run the risk of having Daddy tell me, “It’s not a real election, man.” “Tell Sheldrake to arrange a sit-down with Verna,” I mumble.

 

“What’s that?” says Randy, who I’ve walked up to.

 

“Can I have a sticker please, Randy?”

 

Randy looks confused. “Um . . . Oliver, the stickers say
I’M VOTING FOR RANDY
.”

 

“Ha-ha!” I say. “That’s the same name as you!”

 

Now he looks
really
confused. “That’s because it is me. Look, Oliver, you’re my opponent. You really shouldn’t—”

 

“You won’t give me a sticker?”

 

“No . . .”

 

 

“Why are you always picking on me, Randy Sparks!” I bawl. “I want a sticker!”

 

“Okay! Okay!” Randy’s fingers flutter like overcaffein ated butterflies as they peel a sticker off and stick it to my chest. “Pretty,” I say, admiring my shirtfront. The bell rings, and I strut into Sokolov’s room like a prizewinning peacock. Randy watches me go, baffled. I have that boy so off-balance it’s a wonder he can stand upright.

 

La Sokolova
calls the roll like normal. She doesn’t pause when she gets to “Lopez, Tatiana.” She doesn’t even take a few minutes to apologize for “mistakenly” getting Tati kicked out of school. In fact, Sokolov doesn’t look sorry at all; if anything, she looks annoyed. Maybe that’s because Tati hasn’t stopped grinning at her since class began.

 

I raise my hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”