The Last Reporter (5 page)

“Dear
Slash
Coeditor,” said Phoebe. “Thank you for your question. For your information, I already printed up flyers on the
Slash
copy machine to hand out at school so kids know where to send letters or e-mail questions. I already have a slogan:
Need answers in a hurry? Ask Phoebe and don’t worry!
”

Then she handed Adam a flyer.

This could not be happening. She had used the
Slash
copy machine? The only reason it was even working was because Adam had fixed it. Phoebe refused to lift one finger to help. Unfairness was piling on unfairness. Adam was positive: It did not make one single bit of sense. A third grader writing an advice column?

“Anyone else have any other questions for Ask Phoebe?” asked Phoebe.

Adam wanted to ask Phoebe how much time he could get in juvenile detention hall for punching a third grader real hard in the stomach a hundred straight times. No way she was getting away with this.

“No way!” Adam exploded. “You are an outrage. You are . . .”

Phoebe’s eyes widened and she turned toward Jennifer, blinking really fast like some sort of damsel in distress.

“Don’t,” said Adam, “Don’t try crying your way out of this.”

“Let’s all relax a minute,” Jennifer said. “Adam. . . . Please . . . I understand why you’re so upset, but I have to admit — and I know it’s a weakness — I love advice columns. I read Dear Abby and Ask Amy all the time. It’s kind of cool, the way so many people write in, pour out their problems and no one knows it’s them — they’re just, like, Heartbroken in Kansas City or Missing Him in Mississippi.”

“That’s great,” said Adam. “I’m happy for you. Just one problem — Dear Abby is not in third grade.”

“I know,” said Jennifer. “It’s a good point. But why don’t we do this. Phoebe, you can put out the flyers and then write a sample column with questions and answers and if the coeditors like it, we’ll print it.”

“But if we don’t,” shouted Adam, “WE WON’T!”

“Geesh,” said Phoebe, staring right at Adam. “Ask Phoebe has some advice for you: Try not to get so worked up over little things. That kind of stress is not good.” Then Phoebe smiled and said, “See?”

The staff began to pile out of 306.

“Take it easy, Sammy,” Jennifer said. “Great stuff on the chocolate milk. Thanks for standing up for what you believe.”

Sammy nodded. “You got to do what you got to do,” he said.

Adam was leaving with Sammy, but Jennifer asked him to hang around for a minute.

After the door closed, Jennifer said, “I’ve got something big. I didn’t want to say it with everybody around.”

“Do we have to do this now?” said Adam. “I’ve got to memorize this speech for Mr. Brooks.”

“This will just take a second,” said Jennifer. “It’s big.”

“Something on the Bolands?” asked Adam.

“Nope,” she said. “It’s about the student government election coming up.”

Adam had no interest in student government. All smoke and mirrors and nothing to it, as far as he was concerned. Every spring they’d elect new officers for the next school year. All the grown-ups at school would make such a big fuss. Kids would get so worked up — making special buttons and posters and leaflets to hand out. And the promises they’d make. Soda machines. Candy machines. An ice cream parlor in the cafeteria. A shooting range on the roof. McDonald’s for lunch. A new skateboard park. Right. Never happened. The advisers wouldn’t let them do anything fun. They’d wind up having a car wash and bake sale and raise money for a new fax machine for the main office. As far as Adam was concerned, student government was just grown-up dictators behind the scenes pushing around powerless kids.

“They’re buying the election,” said Jennifer.

“Who?” said Adam. What he was thinking was, Who’d want it?

“Stub Keenan,” said Jennifer. “People are saying it’s the dirtiest student council election ever.”

“Stub Keenan?” said Adam. “He’s, like, one of the most popular kids at Harris. Why would he have to do anything dirty? He’d win easy.”

“I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “But I’m sure they’re right.”

“Who?” said Adam. “Who’s saying?”

Jennifer said she had a secret source. She’d promised not to tell anyone who it was.

Including Adam.

“Jennifer, we’re coeditors,” he said. “We tell each other everything.”

“I know,” she said, “but that was the only way I could get the information.”

Adam was mad. First Jennifer agreed to that ridiculous Ask Phoebe mess, now this. He’d always shared his sources with Jennifer. Hadn’t he given her Mrs. Willard for the Willows story? Hadn’t he gone along with her to the Pine Street church and figured out Reverend Shorty’s riddle? Hadn’t he given her a tour of the climbing tree? Hadn’t he rescued her from Mrs. Boland?

“Geez, Jennifer,” he said. “Sometimes you need to push these sources back; you don’t just go along with what they say. No offense, but you’re just too nice. You’ve got to show them who’s boss. I mean, what do we have to go on? People saying it’s a dirty election. They say that about every election.” Adam shook his head in disgust.

Jennifer unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on a desk in front of Adam. It was a list of names. Then she said, “These kids got two hundred and fifty songs downloaded on their iPods free by promising to vote for Stub Keenan.”

Adam had a middle-school baseball game, but it didn’t start until five, so he decided to bike home, eat something, chill out a little, then bike back for the game. His parents wouldn’t be home from work yet, and he liked having the house to himself.

Being the most overprogrammed kid in America, he wasn’t used to getting out of school when so many kids were walking home. He loved whizzing by them, especially the girls, and rode with no hands in the middle of the street so everyone could see what a well-balanced individual he was. A few kids called his name, and he waved without looking back. He was surprised at how many kids he didn’t know. To remind himself how fast he was, he started counting all the kids he was passing. There were two girls, two boys and a girl, and just as he turned onto his street, on his corner, two tall boys, making a grand total of thirty-seven, the biggest margin of victory since Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France by seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds in 1999!

And Adam wasn’t even taking steroids. He rode right up onto his front lawn, jumped off the bike before it had totally stopped, and bounded into the house.

“Canfield wins again!”
he shouted as he burst into the living room to thunderous applause. He had to admit, he was pretty funny. He dropped his backpack by the front door, then went downstairs to the back of the house to the family room to check the computer for messages.

There was something good. A note from Erik Forrest. Mr. Forrest was the world-famous reporter Adam had written about for the last issue of the
Slash.
When the
Slash
was shut down for doing the great story about the schemy Bolands, Mr. Forrest had helped them out. He’d done a front page story in the
New York Times
that described the Bolands trying to bulldoze the Willows. He had even mentioned the
Slash
investigation. The
New York Times
! Adam had been sure that everyone would know forever what a great paper the
Slash
was.

Unfortunately, no one in Tremble except their relatives seemed to care.

The subject field in Forrest’s e-mail said:
State Investigation!

Adam raced through the message, hoping to find something in the e-mail that said, “The
Slash
will be saved!” Not a word of that. So he returned to the top and read the whole e-mail. It said there was some good news; after the story in the
Times,
the state office of fair housing had opened an investigation into the Bolands.

Adam let out a hoot. The Bolands were being investigated! Thanks to the
Slash
— and of course, the
New York Times
! What if they went to prison? What a story!

Mr. Forrest said the
Times
would probably run a news brief.

Adam reread the e-mail to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. A news brief? He was amazed — in the next
Slash
it would be on the front page. Adam could already see the headlines:

It was a good lesson. One newspaper’s front-page scoop is another newspaper’s news brief.

Adam forwarded the e-mail to Jennifer, then headed upstairs to get a snack. As he passed the front door, he slowed, then stopped.

That was weird. Where was it? He went out front. It wasn’t on the lawn. Hadn’t he left it there? He checked the garage, then the side yard. He stepped out into the street and walked a couple of houses in each direction.

He came back and circled his house one more time.

It was gone.

His bike was gone.

Adam rode his mom’s bike to his baseball game. He was dreading what would happen when his parents found out. He knew they’d scream. They’d want to know why he hadn’t locked his bike or put it in the garage.

How could it be his fault? The bike was out there for one second, at most. It was in the front yard — an automatic safety zone. Was he supposed to know that some creep would steal it even before Adam could eat his snack?

It had to be one of the kids he’d passed coming home from school. It had to be someone close behind him, since the bike had disappeared so fast. Those two tall boys on the corner?

That night, when he told his parents, they were angry, but it was a quiet angry. “I paid a lot of money for that bike,” his dad said, and pounded his fist on the table, though he didn’t seem to be pounding at Adam; it seemed more like general pounding.

They called the police, and a detective came over to take down the information. It wasn’t anywhere near as big a deal as the time Adam had been mugged for his snow-shoveling money. He was surprised; the police officers who had come to the house after he was mugged wore uniforms, carried guns, and had seemed huge — real muscle guys. This detective wore a suit coat and tie, had a big belly, and was old, like somebody’s grandfather.

After the Canfields described the bike — a black-and-white Electra cruiser — the detective asked for the serial number. Adam’s dad didn’t have it, but the detective said the people at the bike shop record all the numbers, and they could get it from them.

“You have much luck getting bikes back?” asked Adam’s dad.

“Not much,” the detective said. “I’m on the job twenty-five years, seen just about everything. Getting one back — maybe once in a blue moon.”

Adam’s dad said they were going to drive around and see if they could spot it. “Any suggestions?” he asked.

“Check the alleys behind the restaurants in town,” the officer said. “Sometimes the kids working at the restaurants steal them.”

Adam and his dad spent about an hour driving around. They rode through several neighborhoods, going up and down streets slowly, looking into side yards, and checking out any kids riding by. Adam felt like they were about to find it any minute, and every time someone rode by, he tensed, but they didn’t see it.

“Keep your eyes open at school,” his dad said.

Adam checked the bike racks in the morning and right after school but saw no sign of it. He was using his mom’s bike now and never left it unlocked.

One morning, as he straightened up after locking the bike, he found himself staring up at Stub Keenan. They knew each other by sight, but that was about it. They did different sports — Stub played football, wrestling, and lacrosse; Adam soccer, basketball, and baseball. They’d been in the same class just once, back in kindergarten. Adam believed you couldn’t form too many life-or-death opinions about people based on kindergarten. Stub wasn’t even Stub then — he was Roderick. Adam didn’t know where the nickname came from, but he could guess why a person named Roderick might need one. The big thing Adam remembered was that Stub had been real good on the monkey bars; he could zip back and forth and hang forever. He wasn’t sure whether that would make Stub a good school president.

Adam noticed an iPod wire hanging from Stub’s ear; it felt funny knowing a major secret about someone he barely knew —
if
Jennifer was right.