Dunces Anonymous (2 page)

“It's perfect,” Josh whispered.

“It just might work,” said Magnolia.

“My friends,” said Wang, “glorious defeat is within our grasp!”

He rolled up his comic book and waved it above his head like a sword.

“Onward, Dunces Anonymous!”

TWO
DOWN WITH JOSH!

J
osh had spent the evening with Wang and Magnolia, writing his speech and drawing a campaign poster on a piece of blue bristol board. Now he was back in Mr. Bogg's classroom, with his speech clutched in his sweaty hand and the poster taped to the blackboard for everyone to see.

Vote for Veggies! Josh for President!
the poster said. Around the border, Wang had doodled some flying carrots and green peppers in superhero capes. They looked pretty cool, Josh thought glumly.

Next to Josh's campaign poster hung Stacey Hogarth's. It was laser-printed and featured a big photo of Stacey's face. Her campaign slogan was
Progressive! Proactive! Professional! Hogarth for President!

Josh looked around the classroom. Two guys in the back were tossing a mini football. A cluster of kids was jostling each other in a rock-paper-scissors showdown. A girl was playing space aliens on her cell phone. Another girl was bopping her head to the tunes on her
MP
3 player, and flipping through a fashion magazine. Would these kids be more likely to vote for someone
Progressive
,
Proactive
and
Professional
, or someone who had cool-looking superhero veggies doodled on his poster?

Josh let out a sigh. He had a sinking feeling that doodled veggies would carry the day.

Finally, Mr. Bogg brought the class to order and called Josh forward to give his speech. He cleared his throat as he walked to the front of the class, his speech clenched in his fist. His mother had told him to start off with a zinger—a quick, zippy line that would tell everyone what he stood for. A line that no one would forget. As he turned to face the classroom, Josh realized he had forgotten his zinger.

He looked down at the crumpled, sweat-smeared paper in his hand. Then he looked back up at the class.

“Lima beans!” he said.

The kids looked confused. Josh swallowed hard and continued reading. “Did you know that lima beans are a good source of cholesterol-lowering fiber? Or that half a cup of boiled lima beans provides one hundred percent of your daily requirement of molbydum… moldybum…molybdenum? Lima beans also supply your body with protein, potassium and vitamin B1! And yet, fellow students, the school cafeteria does not serve lima beans! If you elect me president, I will take French fries off the cafeteria's menu and substitute lima beans!”

Josh paused and looked up, searching for a reaction from the class. Most of the kids looked at him blankly. Then a boy named Eric, whose parents had sent him to fat camp over the summer, began to applaud. A skinny vegan girl named Mona started clapping too. Josh shot a desperate glance at Magnolia. Taking her cue, she jumped up from her seat.

“Boo!” she shouted. “Boo! No lima beans!”

Mr. Bogg rose from his desk. He was a very tall man with a bald, domed head. A blue vein bulged at his temple. “Magnolia!” he barked.

“I was just expressing my democratic opinion, sir.”

“You can express it when the time comes to vote. Now sit down and be quiet.”

“Yes, sir.” Magnolia slid back into her seat with a sheepish look.

Josh shot her a grateful glance. Then he looked down at his scrunched-up speech and carried on.

“Secondly, a lot of people complain that we have too much homework.”

Josh saw some kids nodding their heads, so he spoke quickly. “But that's not true! Homework is essential for scholastic achievement!” He'd borrowed that line from his mother. It was sure to go over badly.

“In fact, the problem is, we just don't have enough time to do our homework,” Josh continued. “So if you elect me president, I'll cancel recess and replace it with a study period instead!”

This time Magnolia didn't wait for anyone to applaud. She sprang to her feet immediately.

“Boo! Bad idea! Boo!”

“Boo!” Wang joined in. “We want recess! Boo!”

“Magnolia! Wang!” Mr. Bogg hollered, slamming a ruler on his desk. “One more interruption and you'll both be going to the principal's office!”

“Yes, sir.” Magnolia slunk back into her chair.

“Josh, please carry on.”

“Finally,” Josh continued, speaking quickly to get things over with, “if you elect me president, I'll abolish the class Halloween and Christmas parties and replace them with homework periods instead. And,” he added in a flash of inspiration, “I'll replace all the Halloween candy with lima beans!”

“Boo! Boo!” This time Magnolia jumped onto her chair, shouting and waving her arms. “Down with Josh! Down with Josh!”

“Down with Josh!” Wang echoed, pounding on his desk.

“Magnolia! Wang!” Mr. Bogg thundered. But it was too late. The entire class had taken up the chant. “Down with Josh! Down with Josh! Down with Josh!” they yelled.

Mr. Bogg rose like an angry giant. The large blue vein in his temple throbbed.

“Magnolia Montcrieff! Get down off that chair and march yourself to the principal's office immediately! You too, Wang Xiu!” Mr. Bogg boomed. The class fell silent. Magnolia climbed down from the chair and hung her head. At her seat in the front row, Stacey Hogarth smirked.

Mr. Bogg stood with his hands on his hips as Wang and Magnolia filed toward the classroom door. As she passed Josh, Magnolia lifted her head just enough to flash him a quick grin. She was out the door before Josh could smile back, but he felt a tear of gratitude spring to his eye. It took true friends to shout “Down with Josh!” so loudly and convincingly. It was good to know he had such friends.

Josh was late getting home that evening. He felt it was a point of honor to wait in the schoolyard until Wang and Magnolia finished their detentions, and to give a bus ticket to Wang, who had missed the school bus. By the time Josh swiped his pass-card to get into the front door of his mom's condo building, the lobby was already full of adults coming home from work. The lobby had shiny marble floors and two elevators with gold-colored doors, and Josh hated it. He liked the house they had lived in before the divorce. It was an ordinary house with swings in the backyard and a rec room in the basement. The kind of house where families with kids lived. As far as he could tell, he was the only kid who lived in his mom's condo building.

A knot of adults stood in front of the elevators, waiting for the doors to open. The men were dressed in suits and ties. The women wore jackets and skirts and high-heeled shoes. Some of them were talking on cell phones while they gripped briefcases or laptop-computer bags. They all looked as if they had been class presidents when they were kids. Josh veered away from them and headed up the back staircase toward the sixth floor.

In the kitchen, his mother was making supper and talking on the phone. Josh snuck up behind her and stole a carrot slice from the salad she was making. “I just don't think we can move forward under those parameters, Jen,” Mom was saying.
Move forward under those parameters—
that was how class presidents were supposed to talk. He didn't know exactly what it meant, but from the tone of his mom's voice, it sounded like a fancy way of saying no.

Josh set the table while his mom finished talking on the phone. Then he held the plates while she dished out the supper, which was some kind of chicken with orange slices and pieces of crushed burnt nuts on top. Mom always cooked supper from scratch. “I'm not about to shirk my family responsibilities just because I have a career,” she'd say. His dad had a different attitude. “Cook my own dinner? What, and put all the pizza joints out of business?” Josh had eaten a lot of takeout when he'd stayed with his dad last summer.

Mom's eyes sparkled as they sat down at the table. He could tell she was excited about the class election.

“So,” she said, “am I speaking to the new president?”

“No, I lost.” Josh tried to sound disappointed.

“Oh, Josh!” Mom looked at him like he'd just dropped an expensive dinner plate. “What happened? Did you flub your speech?”

Josh shrugged. The speech had gone brilliantly. But how could he explain that to his mom?

“Stacey Hogarth won.”

“Stacey Hogarth!” His mother pursed her lips. “I know her mother from the Women's Business Council. Those Hogarths are all the same.”

Not like us Johnsons, thought Josh. No one ever told him he was just like his mother. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Josh couldn't decide, so he picked up his knife and fork and tackled his supper. If he scraped off all the nuts and oranges, he discovered, it was ordinary chicken underneath. Josh didn't mind eating ordinary chicken; in fact, he liked ordinary chicken. That was his mom though—she'd never serve ordinary chicken for supper. Just like she didn't want him to be ordinary Josh—he had to be Josh, the class president.

“Don't worry, Mom,” he said, trying to cheer her up. “I started a new club at school and guess what? I'm the president.”

“Well, that's good,” said his mother. “What's the club called?”

“Dun…” He caught himself just in time. Mom would flip if she knew he'd started a club called Dunces Anonymous. He took a big gulp of milk to give himself time to think.

“Dunno yet,” he said. “It's just a club where kids can get together and talk about, you know, their ambitions for the future.”

Ambitions for the future
. Mom would like that, and it wasn't
exactly
a lie.

“That sounds great, honey,” Mom said. “You could call it Young Leaders of the Future.”

Josh gagged on his chicken. That was exactly what he
wouldn't
call it.

“Yeah, maybe,” he mumbled. “I'd have to ask the other kids in the club.”

His mother smiled.

“Democracy is good, honey,” she said, “but a leader has to lead.”

Josh stared back at his mom. Sometimes he didn't get her. If a leader has to lead, why was she always trying to boss him around?

“Well, good for you, honey, for landing on your feet!” his mother continued, spearing another piece of chicken. “Young Leaders of the Future. I'll have to tell Stacey Hogarth's mother about it the next time I see her.”

“No! Don't tell her…,” Josh protested. His mother interrupted him.

“Now, Josh, you shouldn't be so modest about your accomplishments. Right?” She reached over and lifted his chin. “Right?”

“Right, Mom,” Josh mumbled. She smiled and kept eating, but Josh could barely choke down another bite of his chicken, even with the nuts scraped off. Why had he said anything to his mom?

If his mom talked to Stacey's mom, Stacey's mom would talk to Stacey. And if Stacey thought Josh had started a Leadership club, she'd want to join—that's the kind of girl Stacey was.

But they couldn't let Stacey join Dunces Anonymous. If she did, she'd ruin everything.

THREE
MONTAGUES AND CATAPULTS

“
R
omeo and Juliet
! Sheesh!” Magnolia plucked the book from her backpack and flung it emphatically onto her mother's favorite floral armchair.

The gesture was completely lost on Josh and Wang. The two boys had taken over the red velvet sofa and were madly thumbing a pair of video-game remote controls, filling the Montcrieffs' living room with gunshots and explosions. Magnolia picked up the master remote and clicked off the
TV
.

“Hey! We were just about to get to level nine!” Wang protested.

“I thought we were having a meeting!” said Magnolia.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” said Josh.

“Well, we'd better get down to it,” said Magnolia. “The auditions for the school play are this Friday. What are we going to do?”

Josh glanced nervously at the swinging door that led from the living room into the kitchen.

“Don't you think we should keep our voices down?” he said.

Magnolia had to admit that her living room wasn't the best place in the world to hold a meeting, what with two parents and three nosy younger brothers running around the house. But that bossy Stacey Hogarth had taken over Mr. Bogg's classroom for her Bake Sale Organizing Committee right after she was elected president, and there was no place else for them to go.

Magnolia had warned her two middle brothers, Randy and Robin, to stay out of the living room. But she couldn't very well stop her mother from cooking supper in the kitchen. From behind the swinging door came the blabber of the kitchen television set and the banging of pots and pans. While she cooked, Magnolia's mom always watched her favorite soap opera,
Young Hearts Afire
.

“Don't worry,” said Magnolia. “She doesn't hear
anything
when her show is on.”

“I heard that, sweetheart!” Magnolia's mom burst through the swinging door, carrying a plate of cookies. Garland, the youngest of Magnolia's brothers, trailed behind her, clinging with one hand to her gauzy, flowered dress. He was reaching out his free hand and babbling, “Tookie! Tookie!” Their mom was paying no attention.

Magnolia's mom liked to say that little boys were like zucchini vines: the best thing to do was just let them grow. Girls, on the other hand, were like delicate flowers: they had to be nurtured and cultivated. Sometimes, Magnolia wished she had been born a zucchini vine so that she could get on with her life.

“I think it's so lovely when Magnolia has friends over!” her mom exclaimed, setting down the plate of cookies on top of a pile of celebrity gossip magazines on the coffee table. “Did you boys come to help her with the audition?”

“Um, something like that,” said Josh, biting into a cookie.