The Kid Who Ran For President (6 page)

The instant I opened my eyes the next morning, I knew my life would never be the same.

The phone rang at 5:30. A lady asked if I was Judson Moon. When I told her I was, she said, “Judson, I'm Ann Curry with
The Today Show
. Could I talk with you live on the air this morning?”

“Very funny,” I said groggily, and hung up the phone. It was too early for practical jokes.

But as soon as the receiver hit the cradle, the phone rang again.

“Judson Moon?” a woman's voice asked. “The boy who's running for president?”

“Yes?”

“I'm Rebecca Gardner, talent coordinator with
The Tonight Show
. Would you be available to appear on our program tomorrow night?”

“I don't know,” I mumbled. “I have a lot of homework this week.”

“We'll charter a flight for you,” she offered. “First class hotel. Limousine. Would you like to visit Disneyland while you're here? I can arrange that.”

“Can you call me back in five minutes?” I asked.

I hung up the phone and it rang again.

“Judson, this is Ann Curry again. Listen, I'm sorry I woke you up. But it's a morning show and we have to get going pretty early …”

“Call back in five minutes!” I snapped at her.

I wanted to get Lane on the phone, but every time I put down the receiver, the phone would ring again.

Somebody from
People
magazine called saying they wanted to put me on the cover.
The National Enquirer
wanted to buy the rights to my life story. Finally I was able to speed-dial Lane.

“You gotta get over here!” I practically shouted into the phone. “America is calling!”

“The Associated Press story must have hit the papers,” he said. “I'll be right over. Let me handle every thing.”

I hung up the phone and it rang again. It was Mrs. Syers. She complained that
TMZ
had woken her up at five o'clock in the morning begging to interview her.

I took the phone off the hook while waiting for Lane to bike over to my house. Mom and Dad rushed out to work before I had the chance to ask them if I could stay home from school. Lane wheeled into the driveway right after my folks pulled out of it.

The phone rang about a second after we put the receiver back on the cradle.

“Moon campaign headquarters,” Lane answered matter-of-factly.

Everybody who was anybody was trying to get through.
Sixty Minutes
wanted me and Mrs. Syers on the show. MTV wanted to follow me around for a day with their cameras and turn my life into a reality TV show. Some Japanese TV station was willing to fly an entire camera crew to America to interview me. Ann Curry called again.

Lane cut a deal with a big New York publisher for my life story. He told Pepsi I don't do commercial endorsements. Watching Lane work the phone was like watching a master potter mold a vase out of clay.

When the smoke had cleared, Mrs. Syers and I were scheduled to appear on
The Today Show
,
The Tonight Show
,
The Late Show
,
The Daily Show
, and
Good Morning America
. I would be on the cover of
People
,
Sports Illustrated for Kids
,
Time
, and
Boys' Life
.

Hardball
wanted me to go on their show, but only if I didn't appear on any other TV shows. Lane told them to buzz off. He turned down requests from the TV shows, magazines, and bloggers he never heard of.

“Why did you turn down
Meet the Press
?” I asked Lane. “I thought that was your favorite show.”

“You're not ready to meet the press,” he replied.

In the middle of all this, I managed to get through to school and tell them I wouldn't be coming in. I told the secretary I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, which was absolutely true. She had read the papers, and said she thought everybody would understand.

By ten o'clock, reporters started gathering out on the front lawn, setting up cameras and satellite hookups. Some guy was trying to interview me with a bullhorn. I pulled the shades down. It was like
Night of the Living Dead
, when the zombies are trying to claw their way into the house.

We decided to let just one reporter in — Pete Guerra, the guy who came out to the lemonade stand and wrote the first story about my run for the presidency.

 

“The power of the press,” muttered Guerra after pushing his way through the mob of reporters and through the front door. “You're gonna have to reseed your lawn, Moon. Reporters are worse than animals.”

Pete sat down on the living room couch and asked a few questions. When he was finished, he asked me if I would mind a little friendly advice. I told him I would appreciate any tips he might have.

“You kids are new at this,” he said. “Lots of people want you, Moon. But there's something you should know. Nobody out there is your friend. Everybody wants a piece of you. To sell newspapers or magazines. To improve their TV or radio ratings, or get suckers to click on their web site. To make money. All I'm sayin' is, be careful. Don't trust
anybody
. America chews up celebrities and spits 'em out. I hate to see a nice kid like you get burned.”

I thanked Pete for the advice. It was obvious that he was more than just a reporter. I could count on him as a friend.

As Pete pushed his way out the door and through the throng of reporters and cameramen on the front lawn, I spotted Gus, our mailman. Lane and I ushered him inside.

“They say dogs with rabies are dangerous!” Gus said, handing me a thick stack of letters. “Some guy just offered me fifty bucks to give you a note.”

“What did you tell him, Gus?”

“I told him he could get it here a lot cheaper if he'd just put a stamp on it.”

Usually the mail is a bunch of catalogs and coupons and other junk. But the pile of mail Gus handed me was a bunch of letters in regular-size envelopes with my name and address written on them by hand. I pulled out one envelope and ripped it open.

A check for $34.25 fluttered to the ground. I ripped open another envelope. It was from a kid in Arkansas who put up a lemonade stand. $52.50 in bills and change tumbled out.

Lane and I put all the envelopes on the floor and started furiously ripping them open. There were about fifty of them. Some were simply addressed
JUDSON MOON, MADISON, WISCONSIN
.

Some of the letters were from kids who put up lemonade stands. Other kids had car washes, bake sales, or yard sales. Kids were actually selling their own
toys
to raise money for me!

With each letter was a check or a bunch of bills. The largest contribution was $103.

We counted up all the money and it came to $2,568.75. We felt like we had won the lottery.

“You're a genius,” I told Lane.

“And
you
,” Lane said, clapping a hand on my back, “are becoming America's hero.”

In the next few days, Americans must have guzzled a lot of lemonade. Poor Gus showed up at the door with an enormous sackful of envelopes. He looked like Santa Claus. Money and gifts poured in from all over the country.

Deep in the pile was a card that said I had a package waiting for me at the post office, and that I should come get it right away. I went over there to pick it up and the package was a dog — a little cocker spaniel I named Chester. I always wanted a dog, so at least
something
came out of running for president.

Lane took care of all the details. He opened a bank account and carefully recorded each donation. He rented office space and coordinated volunteers to run it. An artist was hired to draw a picture of the moon with a photo of my face in the middle of it. The logo was used on our bumper stickers, T-shirts, buttons, and flyers.

The campaign was picking up speed, and Chelsea was acting more and more friendly to me at school. She came up to me at my locker one day and said she had something important she wanted to talk about.

“I've been reading up on the First Ladies,” she said, “and they always have something they're crusading for. Y'know — keeping America beautiful, reading, women's rights, and stuff.”

“Is there some cause you want to crusade for?” I asked.

“Well, I was thinking, do you know how many silkworms die to make a silk blouse?”

“I have no idea, Chelsea.”

“Lots!” she exclaimed.

“So you want people to boycott silk clothes?” It seemed like a weird cause to me.

“No!” she exclaimed, horrified. “I
love
silk clothes! I want to lead a crusade in favor of better conditions for those poor silkworms.”

At first I thought she was putting me on, but the vacant look in her eyes told me she was absolutely serious. For all I know, silkworms are an endangered species.

“I say go for it, Chelsea,” I said. “If you believe in a cause, you have to fight for it.”

 

Mom and Dad could no longer pretend I was just fooling around. When Dad knocked on my bedroom door one night at bedtime and asked if we could have a little talk, I was surprised. The last time we had a man-to-man, I had just run over his vegetable garden with the snowblower.

Dad sat down on my bed and fiddled with the globe on my night table.

“I don't know much about politics, Judd,” he said. “All I know is cardboard boxes. But somehow, I figure they're pretty much the same.”

This
I wanted to hear.

“When I sell a customer a pallet of boxes, I want those boxes to be strong. That's the main thing. If the boxes are weak and fall apart, that customer will never buy a box from me again.”

“The president has to be strong too, right, Dad?”

“Right. But it's not good enough to
just
be strong. A box has to have other good qualities. It has to hold lots of stuff. It has to stack easily. It can't weigh too much. You have to be able to put it together quickly. And it has to be labeled clearly so people know exactly what's inside it.”

“A president has to be a lot like a box, right, Dad?”

“In a way, yes.”

For just about the first time in my life, Dad and I were communicating … in an odd sort of way.

“Dad?” I asked. “What would you do if customers really liked a box, but you knew perfectly well that the box was poor quality?”

“Simple,” he replied instantly. “I'd sell him the box.”

“Even though you know it's not right?”

“The customer is
always
right, Judd,” he said. “That's the first rule of selling. You've got to give the customers what they want.”

“But what if the customers are stuck with a piece of garbage?”

“That's
their
problem,” he explained as he got up from the bed. “They get what they pay for. Maybe next time they'll use a little sense and pick a better box.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. He flipped off my light and I thought about that before falling asleep.