The Kid Who Became President (4 page)

Chief of Staff Lane Brainard made it a point to stay out of the way during the inauguration and tour of the White House. He told me he didn't want to be seen with me all the time, because people would get the impression that
he
was really running everything.

Of course, we both knew that Lane really
would
be running everything. What did I know about being president?

Lane told me to enjoy my first weekend as president, because starting Monday morning, we would have to get to work running the country.

I thought about it and decided the best way to really enjoy the weekend would be to invite my seventh-grade class to the White House. No parents, just kids. Chief Usher Honeywell called all twenty-four kids personally, and every one of them accepted the invitation. I sent my parents off on a tour of Washington to keep them out of the way. Chelsea Daniels decided she'd rather go shopping with her parents than hang out with us kids.

 

At first, my classmates were a little shy about being in the White House for the first time. They were afraid to touch anything or sit on the chairs. With Secret Service Agent Doe always nearby and Honeywell hovering around, I could understand the kids being a little nervous.

I explained that the White House was my home, at least for four years, and they could treat it just like they were going over to anybody else's house.

Everybody loosened up when I showed them all the cool stuff around the White House. On the South Lawn is a tennis court that's surrounded by trees so people on the street can't gawk. Jenna Peeples and Sean Donaldson love tennis, so even though it was cold they grabbed rackets and began to play.

I took the rest of the class to the White House bowling alley, which is under the driveway. President Nixon bowled a 233 there once, Honeywell told us. Richard Fries and Joshua Hertz are in a bowling league back home, so they decided to roll a game.

The rest of us went to the White House game room, where there's a pool table, a Ping-Pong table, and some video games. Kids started peeling off from the group to play whatever they wanted. Video games are my passion, but I wanted to show everyone around, so I didn't get a chance to play.

There are television sets all over the White House, and some of the rooms have five or six TVs lined up together so the president can watch the news on all the major networks at the same time. Kira Ferrie turned on a roomful of TVs, putting one on MTV, one on the Cartoon Network, one on Nickelodeon, one on ESPN, and one on Bravo. A bunch of us gathered to watch all the TVs at once, with the sound turned all the way up. After a half hour, our heads felt like they were splitting open, but it was great fun.

Maybe the coolest thing about living in the White House is that it's got its own movie theater. There are sixty-five seats, and cushy reclining chairs line the front row. “What movies do you have?” I asked Honeywell.

“I can get any movie you want, sir. Even movies that haven't been released yet.”

“How about
Gore, Guts, and Guns, Part II
?” I asked.

“I don't believe I've heard of that one,” Honeywell replied.

“It comes out next month,” I informed him. “I saw the preview on
TMZ.
”

“I'll see if I can track it down, sir,” Honeywell said, and he went trotting off. I was beginning to appreciate the power of the presidency.

With Honeywell out of the way for a while, my classmates started getting goofy. Things started to get out of control. Lucas Weiner and Elliot Liebling had a skateboard race around the East Room, knocking over Woodrow Wilson's candlesticks. Julian Lautzenheiser and Jack Irvin went up on the roof of the White House and dropped water balloons on the Secret Service agents stationed outside. Kirsten Petro dumped pepper into a bag of Cheez Doodles and we had my food taster eat them to make sure they weren't poisoned. Somebody scribbled
MILLARD FILLMORE WAS A DORK
with a bar of soap on a bathroom mirror.

When Honeywell came back and saw what was going on, he looked a little frazzled, but he didn't yell at us or anything. I don't think he was allowed to. He politely whispered to me that perhaps my friends could burn off some of their extra energy if they went for a swim. It sounded like a great idea.

There's an underground tunnel that leads from the White House to a big pool not far from the Oval Office. It was freezing outside, but the pool was heated and most of the kids couldn't resist jumping in.

Agent Doe stood at the side of the pool, keeping an eye on things, I guess to make sure none of the kids tried to dunk me or anything.

“Come on in, Agent Doe,” I called. “The water's fine!”

“No thank you, sir,” he replied.

“Hey, Mr. Secret Service Man,” Jacob Beerbower called, “can I shoot your gun?”

“No.”

“Hey, Moon!” Ian Dabrowka shouted. “Why don't you put on your bulletproof underwear and we'll take turns shooting you in the butt?”

“Not a good idea,” Agent Doe said seriously. I had made the mistake of telling my classmates about the underwear.

“Hey, if one of us attacked Moon,” asked Hilary Hunt, “would you kill us?”

“No, I would just render you unconscious.”

“Can you do that to our teacher?” asked Marissa Cook.

We were all having a great time. Even Agent Doe seemed to enjoy the wisecracks.

I didn't notice that a bunch of the boys had climbed out of the pool and snuck around behind Agent Doe. He didn't notice, either, because he was watching me. It wasn't until they were running toward him that I saw them out the corner of my eye.

“No!” I screamed. “Don't!”

It was too late. The boys rammed into him at full speed and Agent Doe toppled over. He hit the water like a bomb. I actually felt the water level in the pool go up a little because his body took up so much space.

Everybody thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. I did, too, until I noticed that Agent Doe was flailing his arms around and struggling to keep his head above water.

“He can't swim!” I shouted.

“Somebody rescue him!” Katie O'Banion yelled.

“I can't rescue him,” hollered Kate Winstead. “He's too big!”

“We can't just leave him there!” screamed Tennyson Martin. “He'll drown!”

Agent Doe was going underwater for the second time. While everybody stood around arguing, I swam over to him and grabbed him around the neck. It was hard to do, because his neck was about as thick as my waist. But I had taken a lifesaving course at summer camp one year, and I knew the basics of how to handle somebody who was drowning.

I got Agent Doe's head out of the water and slowly began pulling him to the shallow end of the pool. It was like dragging a whale ashore.

It took six of us to haul him out of the water and lay him down on the concrete. He was gasping for air and his walkie-talkie was ruined, but it looked like he was going to make it.

“Are you okay, Doe?” I asked.

“I think so,” he choked, spitting out water. “I thought I was supposed to protect
your
life, sir, not the other way around.”

 

After that fiasco, I thought it would be a good idea to get the kids out of the pool area. It was almost dinnertime anyway. When everyone was dried off and dressed, I took them up to the Oval Office. The kids were really impressed. Most of them wanted to sit in my chair and have their picture taken.

“I'm starving,” Max Pappalardo said as he sat at my desk. “What's for dinner?”

“Anything you want,” I replied. “This is the White House.”

“Pizza!” everybody yelled at once.

“We have to have it delivered,” I told them.

“Cool,” Max said. Before I could stop him, he picked up the receiver of the red phone on the desk.

“No!” I shouted.

“What's the matter, Moon?”

“That's the hot line!”

“You've got a hot line to the pizza parlor?” Max marveled. “Man, being president is the coolest.”

Somebody in Russia must have picked up at the other end. Max looked puzzled, like he couldn't understand what the person was saying.

“Do you speak English?” Max asked. “We want four large pies with everything on 'em. Delivered to the White House.”

There was a long pause. We all stared at Max when he put down the receiver.

“What did they say?” I asked nervously.

“Call Pizza Hut,” Max said calmly.

So we did.

 

After dinner, Honeywell told me he had a big surprise. He led a brown-haired guy over to me. The guy was holding one of those metal film cans that are nearly the size of a manhole cover.

“President Moon, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Robert Banks.”

“Rob Banks!” I shouted excitedly. “The guy who directed
Gore, Guts, and Guns
! I love your movies! You came all the way from Hollywood to see me?”

“I was in New York when they tracked me down, Mr. President,” Rob Banks said. “I heard you wanted to see my next movie. It's not quite finished yet, but I brought along what I've got so far.”

We all went to the White House movie theater. Honeywell fired up the popcorn machine and we watched the new movie along with Rob Banks. It was great.

“Those explosions were awesome,” I told Mr. Banks when the lights came back on. “I love watching stuff blow up.”

“Who doesn't?” Rob Banks replied with a laugh.

“You should make a whole movie with nothing but stuff blowing up,” I suggested.

“That's not a bad idea, Mr. President,” he said as he shook my hand.

That's one of the best things about being president, I discovered. People say your ideas are great no matter how stupid your ideas are.

After the movie, Rob Banks left and all the kids sat around the Lincoln Bedroom talking about the great day we had. We were hoping the ghost of Abraham Lincoln might appear. He never showed up, so we went to bed.

 

On Sunday, we had another blast. Honeywell, probably to get us out of the White House before we completely wrecked the place, suggested I take my classmates to Camp David.

Camp David is a presidential retreat sixty miles from Washington in the mountains of Maryland. President Eisenhower named it after his grandson. Presidents go there when they need some peace and quiet. We all piled into helicopters, and twenty-five minutes later we were there.

I was afraid that Camp David would be a big bore, but it was almost like Disney World. There's a heated pool, horses, snowmobiles, a golf course, a skeet and archery range, and a badminton court.

It even has a trampoline. It was hard to imagine Richard Nixon bouncing around on a trampoline, but
I
sure enjoyed it. We all had a wonderful time.

When we got back to the White House on Sunday night, another surprise was awaiting us. Earlier that morning, Honeywell had told me that many actors and musicians had visited the White House and performed there. All the president has to do is ask, he said, and celebrities are usually thrilled to be invited.

Honeywell mentioned that the Juilliard String Quartet happened to be in Washington that weekend, and maybe they would perform for me and my friends. I asked him if anyone else was in town. He looked into it and said he could get either the New York Harp Ensemble or a Suzuki violin group.

“Do you think you can get Aerosmith?” I requested.

“I'm not familiar with him, sir.”

“It's a quintet,” I informed him. “Very classical. They've been performing together for thirty years. Really excellent.”

No way I was going to tell Honeywell that Aerosmith was the loudest, raunchiest, and most outrageous rock-and-roll band in history.

But Honeywell got on the phone, and when we returned from Camp David, Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, was in the Blue Room, drinking champagne out of one of Thomas Jefferson's crystal goblets!

Wow! I got to meet the guys in the band, and they even asked for
my
autograph.

We gathered my classmates in the State Dining Room, and Aerosmith put on a show that just knocked our socks off. My ears were ringing, the walls were shaking, and I was seriously afraid that the giant chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were going to come crashing down on everybody. If Honeywell hadn't been hard of hearing, I think he would have run screaming out of the place.

For their encore, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry hauled me up onto the stage to sing “Walk This Way” with them. It was the greatest moment of my life.

 

I felt sad when all the kids said their goodbyes and piled into limos to go to the airport and fly back to Wisconsin. The White House seemed so quiet suddenly. I almost wished I could go with them.

Honeywell came over to me when the last limo pulled away. He looked exhausted. Wordlessly, he handed me the
Washington Post.

“It looks like you're doing a great job, sir,” Honeywell said. “In all my years at the White House, I have never seen such a high approval rating.”