The Last Reporter (17 page)

“How do you know Shadow?” Adam asked.

“He found me,” said Mr. Stack. “It was, I guess . . . four summers ago. I was dragging the softball field, getting ready for a night game, and I lift my head and there he is, a little boy picking up trash without being asked. Never seen him before. And he just kept coming back, all summer. He was maybe ten. He’d help me mow, rake, grade; he loved hosing. After eight hours, I’d turn around — he was still working. And this was way before we paid him. Some days he’d be there at seven when I got in, and when we had night games — eleven o’clock, lights out — he was still around. He seemed to pretty much run free. There was a night I went into the Donut Shack. Had to be midnight; I was coming home from a ball game, and there he was, this little guy, sitting on a stool, twirling back and forth and talking with the doughnut man behind the counter.”

“You know what he loves?” Mr. Stack continued. “Carrying around keys. I guess keys make him feel official. I got him a clip for his belt. I let him lock up the ball fields — he’s in heaven.” Mr. Stack waited. “What else you need?”

“The nickname?” said Adam.

“He was always on my heels, and people started asking ‘Who’s your shadow?,’ and pretty soon, that’s what everyone went by.”

“So you were the original person Shadow-ed?” asked Adam.

“Nah,” said Mr. Stack, “just the first time they gave a name to it.

“Adam,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re going to say this, but his life’s pretty hard. A few summers ago, the clothes he’d wear to his Rec job — we were paying him then — they were on the shaky side, so we took him out and bought him. . . .”

“We?” said Adam.

“Me and two of my sons. I figured they’d know what kind of clothes a kid would like, plus I wanted them to see how good they had it. So what happens? A few weeks later, this expensive hoodie we got and sneakers — gone. I figured he’d lost them, and it really made me mad. He said someone at his house stole them. I’ve never known him to lie. Unlike so-called normal people, he’s too honest. So I started visiting the foster homes — I think I’ve been to three — and talking to his case workers. I wanted to learn his story, and I did, boy. They showed me his file folder — it was about as big as you. But the main thing was, I wanted to let these people know there was a responsible grown-up watching, so they had better take care of Theodore.”

Adam got it; Mr. Johnny Stack watching over you was pretty good insurance.

“That enough?” Mr. Stack asked.

“Almost,” said Adam. “When I’m not talking it’s because I’m catching up with what you said — I’m always one idea behind, writing down stuff.”

“You’re lucky,” said Mr. Stack. “I’m usually several ideas behind. We need to wrap up — I got miles to go before I sleep. Who said that?”

“Probably Abraham Lincoln,” said Adam. “I always put that on tests when I don’t know. He pretty much said everything.”

It was time for Adam to ask the question, the one that was the whole real reason for coming.

He explained about Mrs. Stanky making them go to the library to look up old newspapers and the story he’d found about the baby dumped in the diner trash. “Since that’s the day Shadow was born,” said Adam. “Do you think . . . I mean could it . . . Well, was it?”

“No.”

“Really?” asked Adam. “I was pretty sure.”

“No.”

“Do you know the story I’m talking about?” asked Adam.

“Of course,” said Mr. Stack. “It was a big story back then. On all the TV news. Front page. Even national news. Big city papers sent reporters here just to write it up.”

“So it was a different kid born on the same day as Shadow?”

“I guess,” said Mr. Stack.

Adam searched Mr. Stack’s face, but he couldn’t read anything into it.

“OK,” said Adam. “Just to go over this, I guess it was just a coincidence that the baby was born on the same day in Tremble and he had no parents to care for him and Shadow has no parents and the story said because that baby was left in the trash, and had towels stuffed in his mouth and was eighty-five degrees, he might be, well, damaged, and Shadow’s well, you know, not exactly normal. . . .”

“Not normal?” said Mr. Stack. “He’s a hard worker, he’s honest, he’s good and decent . . .”

“Can you at least tell me how you’re so sure?” said Adam.

“No,” said Mr. Stack. “It’s too damn sad. We’ve talked enough about this. I get angry when I think about it.” Adam searched Mr. Stack’s eyes; he didn’t believe him. He thought if he looked hard enough at Mr. Stack, he might wear him down and get him to tell the truth, but Mr. Stack just stared back.

Finally, Adam said, “OK, I guess that covers it. I guess I’m going.” Adam put his notepad and pen in his backpack. “It really wasn’t him?”

“No,” said Mr. Stack.

Adam was just about out the door when Mr. Stack said, “If it was him — if it really was — would you put that in your report? About a boy who thinks you’re his best friend? That he was born in a trash can? Jesus, Adam.”

Everything was going wrong. Everyone was against him. He was sick of it. People said they wanted the truth, but they didn’t. They were afraid of the truth; the truth was messy; the truth was painful; the truth was inconvenient; the truth was uncouth. The heck with them. Mr. Brooks, his World History teacher, had warned them at the start of the year. He’d told them that in ancient Greece, if a messenger brought bad news, they’d kill him. Ever since, people have been
shooting the messenger.
At this point, getting shot sounded like a pretty good solution to Adam.

Since he was failing left and right, since nothing was working out, he figured he might just as well keep going with his reporting and get all his failing over with at once.

His new philosophy was, “So what, right?”

He was going to report this iPod download story. A whole new group of people was about to hate him.

So what, right?

Summer vacation was coming. Just a few weeks. He could hang on. People forget everything over the summer.

He matched kids’ names on the secret download list with the homeroom list and pinpointed three homerooms where a large number of kids got free downloads. One he eliminated right away because it was Stub’s. How great would that be, bumping into Stub while investigating Stub?

Three mornings in a row he made secret sweeps by the two rooms to see if he could recognize kids from their yearbook photos. It was harder than he thought. The first time, he identified three kids and then wasn’t completely sure it was them. But after two more pass-bys, he had eight kids he felt certain about.

It was time.

He figured if he could get two or three admitting it with their names, that would be enough to print the story.

Piece of cake.

He wished.

So what, right?

At least he had a secret plan.

Adam got to school early. He told his parents he was going in for extra help. It was true in a way — he needed all the extra help he could get. He dropped off his book bag in his locker, made sure he had his notebook, a pen, and the secret list, headed for the 300 hallway by the two homerooms and began hunting for the kids he’d identified. He tried not to look like he was looking, more like he was randomly happening by.

He spotted two boys by their lockers. And not a lot of other kids around. Perfect. He felt like racing over to get this done, but he didn’t want to seem suspicious and made himself lollygag — one of their new Vocabulary Builders.
One, two, three, lollygag,
he said to himself.
And four, five, six, lollygag . . . and ready . . .

“Finally, I got you,” said a loud squeaky voice, and a chill went through Adam. He’d been found out. Stub Keenan must have spies everywhere.

“I knew it,” the squeaky voice said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Adam had an awful thought. That voice — it sounded familiar. Was it? Oh, no. It couldn’t be. He did not want to look over his shoulder and find the world’s most annoying third grader.

I don’t deserve this, he thought. Please, don’t let it be who I think it is.

He turned slowly. It was. And she was waving a fist full of papers at him. PHOEBE! Not Phoebe. Anyone but Phoebe. A thousand terrorists would be better than Phoebe. The entire Taliban would be better than Phoebe. He glanced around. It was a miracle. Nobody seemed to have noticed. The usual mayhem in the halls had people distracted. The two boys were still by the locker, talking. There were a couple of minutes before the bell. He could still pull this off.

“Go away,” he hissed in a whisper.

“What?” said Phoebe. “Talk louder.”

“Just go away. I’ll talk to you later,” Adam hissed again. “Please, I’m begging . . .”

“You’re beginning?” asked Phoebe. “What are you beginning?”

Adam was inches from exploding. It would feel so good to scream at Phoebe with every ounce of his lung power. But that would ruin everything. The boys were still there. Hallway traffic was thinning — this was good. Fewer witnesses. All his planning. This was his moment.

“Beginning what?” repeated Phoebe. “You need to speak up; you’re blurring your words.”

Adam grabbed his notebook and scribbled,
I’m BEGGING! Go. Now!,
underlining the
BEGGING
four times.

“That’s not how you spell
beginning,
” said Phoebe. “I’m surprised, the junior coeditor of the
Slash
— I hate to say this, but you’re a terrible speller.” She handed him back the paper with the correct spelling. “I love spelling words with lots of letters,” she said.

The bell rang. The boys had disappeared inside their homeroom. He’d missed his chance. Phoebe!

“What are you doing here?” he asked weakly. “You’re not in middle school.”

“I’ve been looking for you for days,” Phoebe said. “You’re never in 306. I finished my first Ask Phoebe column. It’s pretty great. Jennifer said I should go over it with you. She said you were definitely the man for the job.” She wiggle-waggled the column in Adam’s face.

Ever since this thing with Jennifer, Adam had been avoiding 306, but at this point he didn’t care.

So what, right?

First Jennifer and that Ameche brother —“Oh, Don, I’d love to, Don. Don, that would be so nice, Don. Don, that’s so sweet, Don. Don, wow, Don.”

Then Mr. Stack, the kindest man ever, was mad because of Adam’s question about Shadow. Then he’d missed his chance to finish the iPod story by seconds, thanks to you-know-who. And now the perfect end to his life. Editing Ask Phoebe. He knew it — this impossible, ridiculous, absurd feature was going to be the most popular thing in the newspaper. They could investigate the daylights out of everybody. They could get the Bolands thrown into prison for a hundred years. No one would notice. This would be the talk of Harris. It didn’t matter that an advice column by a third grader was a human rights violation. Kids were going to love it.

Adam read her answer twice. “Is this true?” he asked.

“What,” said Phoebe, “that it’s a free country? Definitely.”

“No,” said Adam. “About this girl Teresa. Is this someone you know?”

“Well, kind of,” said Phoebe. “I know someone named Teresa . . . but she wasn’t kidnapped. Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, did you hear about this Teresa person in the news?”

“Oh, come on,” said Phoebe. “Haven’t you ever looked at the statistics? Someone gets kidnapped in this country every three seconds. There’s probably a Teresa being kidnapped at this very moment.”

“Really,” said Adam. “Well, then I’d suggest you go online and find the statistic, and we’ll use that in the answer.”

Phoebe looked outraged, but Adam did not budge. “Excuse me,” she said. “This is supposed to be funny. This is supposed to help people with real problems in their real lives. People looking for a wise voice as a trusting guide through dark times. Everyone I talk to says, ‘Ask Phoebe is going to be huge.’ Everyone says, ‘There’s such a need.’ You know what my grandma says? ‘Phoebe, sweetheart, I can’t wait.’ She can’t wait!”

“Well, she’s going to have to,” said Adam. “When you did your stories on Eddie the janitor and the smile contest and the three-hundred-year-old tree — they were great, Phoebe, full of real people with real facts. This has to be the same. Just because it’s Ask Phoebe doesn’t mean there are no rules. If there’s no kidnapped Teresa with precious curls, you can’t say there’s a kidnapped Teresa with precious curls. Now, if you want to say something like:
By having a cell phone a kid could have more protection if someone tried to kidnap or rob her,
you could say that.”