The Fight for Kidsboro (3 page)

As I left the meeting hall, I expected Valerie to jump around the corner immediately, but she didn't. This frightened me. I figured I would be okay as long as I could look her in the eye. But if she lurked in the shadows, I'd probably go nuts. Maybe she knew this. Maybe her plan was to drive me crazy by
not
acting. It would certainly cause everyone in town to wonder whether they should have a mayor who was insane. Then, when she had everyone thinking I should be locked up, she would take over. That was probably her plan … and it was working rather well so far.

My stomach was in knots, so I walked to Whit's End to get something to drink.

“Hello, Ryan,” Mr. Whittaker said from behind the counter.

“Hi, Mr. Whittaker.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Why?”

“You look a little pale.”

“My stomach hurts.”

“Are you sick?”

“No,” I said, “but I may be dying.”

“What?”

He made me sit down and spill the whole story of Valerie and Ashley and the city council vote. He smiled and said, “You made the right choice, even though it could make things difficult for you. I wish
all
of our political leaders had your standard of ethics. So, who are you going to nominate next?”

I hadn't thought about that. Since Ashley didn't get in, I had to come up with a new candidate for citizenship. I had a few ideas off the top of my head.

“I've been thinking about Larry Mankowicz.” He was a track star at Odyssey Middle School—a very popular guy who would put Kidsboro on the map just by being there. “Also, Mary Burgess,” I said. Mary was the second prettiest girl in our school, in my opinion, next to Valerie.

“Oh … okay,” Mr. Whittaker said, bowing his head and suddenly becoming very interested in cleaning a glass. He knew both of these people, and though he didn't say it, I could tell he disapproved of my choices. I saw him glance over to one of the booths, and I followed his look. Sitting in the corner by himself was Roberto Santana. I barely knew him, though I knew he had moved to Odyssey from the Dominican Republic about two years earlier. He didn't appear to have many friends. I knew what Mr. Whittaker wanted me to do, though he refused to say it. I felt a little ashamed. I was picking people based on what they could do for Kidsboro, not for what Kidsboro could do for them.

“I catch your drift,” I told Mr. Whittaker.

“What?” he said innocently.

I smiled and left. I had to get council approval.

“There he is,” I said to Scott as we ate lunch in the school cafeteria. I pointed to Roberto, sitting alone at the very last table. He was eating at lightning speed so he could run to the library, where he could be by himself and not have everybody staring at the kid who was sitting alone. He did that every day.

“Roberto Santana?” Scott asked. “Are you sure?”

“He's perfect,” I said.

Scott dipped a French fry into his ketchup. “Excuse me for bringing this up, but you do know his dad's in jail, right?”

“That's just a rumor.” I hated the way kids believed anything they heard. The latest gossip was that Roberto's dad was in jail. No one knew exactly why, but everyone had a guess. Roberto denied all of it. I believed him, though I had no evidence on my side either.

“Maybe it's a rumor, maybe it isn't,” Scott said.

“Yeah, but even if it is true, which I doubt, why should that matter?”

Scott shrugged, his ketchup-soaked French fry dangling limply from his hand. “We don't want any trouble in our town, do we?”

“What Roberto does and what his father may or may not have done are two different things.
”

“So maybe we should ask him,” Scott said.

“Ask him if his father's in jail?”

“Yeah. The city council's gonna want to know.”

“Why should it matter?” I asked.

“I don't know. You don't think it matters?”

“No.”

Family matters were private. I knew this especially, because I wanted my own family matters to be private. My mother and I had moved from California to Odyssey when I was eight. No one knew anything about my life before I came to Odyssey, and I was determined to keep it that way. It was something I never talked about, even with Scott. Roberto had a right to keep his mouth shut too.

“Pardon me for breathing,” Scott said, “but does he even wanna be in Kidsboro?”

“I told him about it,” I said, “and he seemed to think It was a cool idea.”

The next day I presented Roberto's name to the city council. I was met with a less-than-enthusiastic response.

“Do you really know him?” Jill asked.

“No. But I know he's smart. He got the best grade, in my history class.”

“How is knowing history going to help us?” Scott asked, still not convinced of Roberto's worth.

“I don't think he knows how to speak English,” Alice said.

“Yes he does.”

“I'm just trying to figure out how he's going to help Kidsboro,” Jill said.

“We didn't ask that question about any other candidate. I mean … we've got people in this town who have almost no positive qualities at all except that they're somebody's friends. Now why does Roberto have to live up to higher expectations?”

They all exchanged looks.

Nelson was the only one brave enough to speak up. “I know this may not be a reason to keep him out, but you do know about his dad—”

“Yes!” I answered angrily. “I know what people say about his dad. What does that have to do with
him
?”

Nelson adjusted his glasses. “Some studies indicate that criminal behavior is genetic.”

“Have any of you ever seen Roberto steal anything?” I asked.

They shook their heads.

“Have any of you ever seen him destroying property? Getting into a fight?” More heads shaking. “Then we have no evidence that he is anything but a good student.
That
we have evidence for.”

“I agree,” Jill said. “We can't keep him out because of his father. But I think he should have a probation period. A couple of weeks to show us what he's got—since nobody really even knows him.”

Everybody around me nodded. I was against this, but I was confident that Roberto would soon show everyone that he could be an asset to the community. So I agreed. Roberto would become a citizen of Kidsboro, but he would be watched very closely.

I gave Roberto the news (though I didn't mention the probation), and he seemed happy about it. I had a feeling he was just thrilled to be a part of something.

Scott and I showed Roberto around the town, including his new clubhouse. Usually, new citizens were given a plot of land, and then they were responsible for buying the wood to build their own houses. But our town builder and handyman, Nick, had built this one for Jeffrey, a boy who had come in about two weeks before, but had moved away suddenly. We gave Roberto the choice of buying this clubhouse or building his own. He decided this one was fine. It was just like everybody else's anyway. It was a rectangular box made of scrap wood that was big enough to stand up in, with about a foot and a half of head room for most people. If you stretched out both arms, you could touch either wall at its width, and its length was enough for two people to lay end-to-end. You had to duck your head to get through the door.

“Very nice,” he said, and we exchanged smiles.

Then we showed him the business district—the newspaper office, the church, the police station, and the bakery. We saved the bakery for last because it was the most successful business in Kidsboro.

We turned the corner around the meeting hall and saw the sign for Sid's Bakery. Sid, one of two African-Americans in Kidsboro, made muffins, donuts, cookies, and cakes—all himself. He used ingredients that he bought from Mr. Whittaker. We could all buy smaller items from Mr. Whittaker with tokens, and he would buy ingredients or parts from the store with real money. Obviously, this meant Mr. Whittaker would be spending his own money and getting nothing in return since he couldn't use the tokens anywhere but Kidsboro, but this was one of the sacrifices he made in order to keep Kidsboro going.

Sid's business had thrived. He had one advantage in that kids are never too picky about freshness, so he could frequently sell a three-day-old donut. The bakery was not much bigger than a regular clubhouse, but Sid always had a table full of pastries inside. I hadn't been there in a while, and I thought I would buy a cinnamon-raisin donut for Roberto as a “Welcome to Kidsboro” gesture. But when we got there, Sid was leaving.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“You're too late. I just threw away my last donut,” Sid said. Roberto was visibly disappointed.

“You're closing already?”

“Yep. Forever.” Sure enough, there on the outside of the door was a sign that read “Going Out of Business Sale.” Sid closed the door behind him. “We had muffins for a token apiece,” he said. “You should've been here.”

Sid's muffins were usually four tokens each—and everyone in Kidsboro would agree that they were worth it. Most people in town had some vague idea about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Sid didn't just have an idea. He had a destiny. At age 13, he was a fine chef in the making. He was already better than my mom—not that my mom was a bad cook. He was just a master—a pastry artist. Closing his bakery was like Michelangelo deciding to go into real estate.

“Why are you shutting down?” I asked.

“It's not worth it. Hardly anybody buys anything anymore.”

“
We
were just coming to buy something,” Scott said.

“Great. But where have you been? You know how much stuff I sold last week? Two donuts, three cookies, and a bear claw. I can't survive on that.”

“So what are you gonna do?” Scott asked.

“I don't know.”

“You can't leave!” I shouted, sounding more desperate than I meant to. “Maybe it was just a slow week. People'll be back.”

“I can't wait for that. I'm wasting too much good food.”