The Last Reporter (30 page)

Thanks to the Ameches’ online edition, their stories spread well beyond Tremble.

Someone had e-mailed a copy of the
Slash
story on the state tests to the
Capital Times,
the biggest newspaper in the state. And that paper’s education reporter had called both Dr. Duke and Mrs. Gross to interview them for a story on how everyone was now saying the state test was easier this year.

Jennifer received more than three dozen e-mails from people who’d read the “
WE’RE STILL HERE
!!!” story and wanted to donate. Person after person wrote,
Finally, someone willing to stand up to the Bolands.

She also got three e-mails from people complaining about their cable bills and one from a woman in Nome, Alaska, upset about her HD reception.

They didn’t know if it was a coincidence, but two days after the
Slash
came out with its story on all the unsolved bike thefts in the county, the boy who’d stolen Adam’s bike was arrested.

Of course, not all the reaction was positive. Stub Keenan was a very popular fellow. Lots of kids said that the real reason the election was called off was that Adolf Quigley had been scared that Stub was about to get everyone McDonald’s for lunch and couldn’t stand to see kids having fun.

And when the
Capital Times
did its story, the state education commissioner himself came out of a very important meeting of the state’s high commission on standards to be quoted saying that this whole ridiculous rumor about the test getting easier was started by a gang of troublemaking punks in Tremble County who ran an underground paper and were too lazy to study.

Many parents of Harris students were upset, too. Some worked for Bolandvision and some worked for companies that depended on Bolandvision. Others just admired the Bolands for being so successful. They liked the idea of bulldozing the last poor neighborhood in the county and putting up mini-estates for successful people exactly like themselves.

At a garden-club meeting, a woman told Jennifer’s mom that her son Roderick knew for a fact that the Harris principal allowed the banned newspaper to meet at the school, and they were going to demand an investigation.

Friday at 11:15, the final bell rang. Classroom doors burst open and kids flooded the hallways. They were loud and boisterous and happy. Nothing could stop them now, and no one tried.

Summer was upon them.

That night, the
Slash
staff gathered at Only Kids Only to celebrate. Everyone came except three staff members who’d already left for overnight camp. The boys looked like their usual selves, in sports shorts and T-shirts, but most of the girls wore dresses. Jennifer had on her red summer dress with the little straps that had made Adam notice her curvy shoulders.

She had arranged to get the private banquet room in the back of the restaurant. The manager wanted to charge them half the regular price because of Sammy’s great stories, but Jennifer explained that was impossible — they had to pay the full banquet-room cost because of journalism ethics. The manager kept insisting until Jennifer said they’d have to go somewhere else. Finally he agreed, saying he’d never had anyone bargain up the price before.

What a party! Food was served buffet style with one whole section of the table set aside to make your own PB&J. There was a blue neon sign they could switch on whenever they wanted that said
ONLY KIDS ONLY,
and when they did, the room got dark, except for the sign, and even the waiters and waitresses had to leave. It really was Only Kids Only.

All night they made chocolate-milk toasts until they were giddy, and then the Ameche brothers taught everyone to Ha-Ha. Both Don and Alan danced with Phoebe, who asked for their autographs when the music stopped.

Jennifer announced a contest to see who could suck down their jawbreaker most by the end of the summer. And since Adam had a head start on everyone, she presented him with a brand-new, unsucked jawbreaker on the condition that he promised not to use it to knock the wind out of anybody. Then she kissed him on the cheek, he turned redder than one of Mrs. Ameche’s championship tomatoes, and they all started cawing like crows.

Things got so rowdy, Shadow had to go around opening every window to let out all the noise.

They partied full-out until after ten.

Adam and Jennifer were the last to leave. They had to pay the bill and figure out a 20 percent tip.

“Great party,” she said.

“I was thinking,” said Adam, “just kind of . . . you know . . . wondering if you might like to come over to my house tomorrow, take a swim at the civic beach, get an ice cream at Marvel, maybe go to a movie.”

Jennifer put down her calculator. “Ice cream?” she said. “A movie?”

“
Gossip Girls 7
is playing at the Tremble 10,” said Adam.

“You want to see
Gossip Girls 7
?” said Jennifer.

“Well, not exactly,” said Adam. “But I read this advice column in the newspaper about a really stupid middle-school boy . . .”

“Ahhh.” She nodded. “I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the paper.”

“I know,” he said.

She stared at him. “I can’t,” she said.

“Really?” said Adam. He felt like an idiot. Why had he ever . . . He was sorry he even . . . Forget everything. From now on . . . “No big deal,” he said. “I’ve got to get going anyway.” He jumped up.

She grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “You are such a funny boy,” she said. “I’d love to go with you, Adam. It’s just, we’re leaving for the airport at, like, seven in the morning. Music camp. In Michigan.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding.

“Stay here,” she said. “Don’t move.” She went over to the wall and flipped the switch, so the room got dark and the blue Only Kids Only sign came on.

She was back. “Where were we?” she asked. She was looking very soft and melty in the blue neon light.

“I think we were at the part where I’m a funny boy,” he said.

Adam knew what he had to do, though he wasn’t sure he could do it. He leaned toward her, so close he could smell her fruity apricot shampoo. She closed her eyes, and so he did, too. He pushed out his lips, and then leaned forward a little more and then . . . he bumped into something bony and pointy — oh, my God, it had to be her chin. He’d missed. He felt like an idiot. He wanted to . . . But as he opened his eyes, her long fingers were on his cheeks. They were steering him to her lips. Their lips touched.

It didn’t feel like too much, and Adam wondered if maybe he was making his lips too tight. Then her fingertip was on his lower lip, and it was going back and forth slowly, just barely touching, like when he was little and his mother put sunscreen on his lips, except this didn’t feel one bit like his mother. Then it was just her soft lips brushing his soft lips and he couldn’t tell where his stopped and hers started or where he was or why anyone would care about anything else.

“I’ll write,” she said.

That would be nice, Adam thought, but he forgot to say it aloud; he just waved as she walked out.

He sat there for a while in the neon-blue dark, he didn’t know how long, just trying to hold on to the feeling. And then he had the weirdest thought — where had Jennifer learned to kiss like that?

The two reading passages included in
Chapter 18
are actual excerpts from the New York State Education Department’s fourth-grade reading test. “Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail” was from the 2004 state test. “The River Otter” was on the 2005 test. Do you agree with Adam and Jennifer about which is easier?

Michael Winerip
is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and columnist for the
New York Times
. He is the author of
Adam Canfield of the Slash
and
Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back!
He says, “After the second book, I was sure Adam, Jennifer, and Phoebe were done for. The
Slash
had been shut down. How could three mere kids tell the world the truth without a newspaper to print it in? But just as I was about to say good-bye, the amazing Ameche brothers showed up. Working from their worldwide headquarters in a gardening shed in their backyard, the Ameche brothers vowed to help Adam and Jennifer start a new, totally kid-run media empire. Was this really possible? And so I had to write the third book to find out.” Michael Winerip lives in Lido Beach, New York, with his wife and four children.