The Last Reporter (6 page)

“Big Adam — a girl’s bike?” said Stub. “Kinda gay.”

“Looking for the kid who stole mine,” said Adam.

“Whoa,” said Stub.

“My mom’s,” Adam said, pointing to the bike.

“Hey, we should set up a student patrol to protect kids’ bikes. That’s a great idea,” said Stub. “Maybe we could deputize kids, like crossing guards. Give ’em special badges. I’m running for president, Big Adam — that’s something I’d do. If you want to be chief of the patrol, I could get you in on that.”

Adam thought, Right, and a parachute jump on the school roof. But he didn’t say it. He wondered if Stub was going to offer him a free download.

“Heard the baseball team got scraped,” said Stub.

Adam nodded. They’d lost 12–0. He hoped Stub wouldn’t ask how he’d done — Adam had struck out twice.

“How’d you do?” Stub asked.

“Nothing great,” said Adam.

“GTG,” said Stub. “Take one?” He handed Adam a campaign button that said
PREZ STUB.
“You know Billy Cutty?” asked Stub.

Adam didn’t. “Any relation to Franky?”

“Cousins, I think,” said Stub.

Franky was a few grades ahead of Adam, in high school now. But Adam knew him when Franky was still at Harris Middle and liked him a lot. He was that rare big kid who actually was nice to younger kids. Franky loved the
Slash
and said how great it was. Normally big kids wouldn’t admit anything like that. Adam hadn’t seen Franky for months and wondered what he was up to.

“Billy Cutty’s my campaign manager,” said Stub. “If you can’t find me, Billy’s the one. You need anything, or if there’s any way we can help — Billy’s my guy. You can’t miss him — he’s usually got a million buttons all over his shirt, and he sits at our campaign table at lunch. Hey, good luck finding your bike, Big Adam. That’s a bad deal. Makes you feel like you can’t trust anybody. What’s it look like?”

Adam described his cruiser, and Stub said, “I’ll watch for it.”

“Thanks, Stub,” said Adam. “Appreciate it.”

Mrs. Stanky was Adam’s Language Arts teacher. She wasn’t his favorite adult, but she was bearable. The last few days she’d been incredibly nice to him, and Adam suspected it was because they’d gotten their scores back on the state test and once again, he’d received a perfect 4+. Second year in a row. Teachers liked kids with high scores; it made them feel like smart teachers.

She was describing their last big writing project of the year. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said. “Now that the state tests are over, we don’t have to worry about the five-paragraph essay anymore. We don’t have to follow the writing formula from the state high commission on standards. We’re going to do some real writing, like actual grown-up writers. My kids always say it’s their favorite thing all year. You’re about to see how much fun writing can be.”

A girl raised her hand. “Mrs. Stanky, after all we did on the five-paragraph essay — you’re saying it’s not real writing? No offense, Mrs. Stanky, but how bogus is that?”

Boy, Adam agreed. Mrs. Stanky had spent months drilling the five-paragraph essay formula into their brains for the state test. Topic sentence. Then three examples to back it up: one from literature, one from history, one from popular culture. Then concluding sentence. Repeat for paragaphs two through five. Try not to explode from boredom.

And if ever you tried something different — like writing a paragraph that was one sentence long with dashes in the middle — they’d take off points and send your name to the state high commission.

“Boys and girls, I misspoke,” said Mrs. Stanky. “The five-paragraph essay is real writing. It is important. You need it for the state test. When you get to high school, you’ll need it for the SAT writing sample. It’s just, it has nothing to do with real-life writing. To the best of my knowledge, you’ll never do a five-paragraph essay in college, or in business or in newspapers or magazines, or blogs or short stories or novels or poetry or corporate memos or advertising. I’ve read that some big researchers have studied it and have never been able to find an actual example of a five-paragaph essay ever being published anywhere. But you never know. I’m sure someday, some great researcher like Jane Goodall or Louis Leakey will find that maybe in a fishing village in Madagascar . . .”

The girl raised her hand again.

“Enough,” said Mrs. Stanky. “Let’s accentuate the positive.”

She told them that they were going to do a profile of some student in the school who was really different from them. And it couldn’t be someone in their English class. And they had to interview that kid a lot, so that they really understood the differences. And they should follow that person around and go to his or her home if they could, and meet his or her parents if that were possible.

And they had to do some real, primary research, she said. They were supposed to go to the library and find a copy of a newspaper for the day that kid was born so that they could see what was going on in Tremble and around the nation and world on that day.

“I’m not talking about Googling that date,” said Mrs. Stanky. “No Googling. I will know if that’s how you do it. I will take off points if I catch you Googling. That goes for Yahooing, too. You must read the actual newspaper. I’ve arranged with the librarian at the main branch. There will be a research sheet that you all must sign so I know you’ve been there.”

“One more thing,” she said. “Be careful. Say someone is born on December 2nd, 1984 —”

“Is that your birthday, Mrs. Stanky?” said a boy.

“I said
someone,
not me,” she said. “So, if you want to find out what happened on December 2nd, 1984, what day’s paper do you want?”

“Duh,” said a girl. “December 2nd, 1984.”

“You sure?” said Mrs. Stanky.

Adam knew what she meant. To find out what happened on December 2nd, they’d have to read the December 3rd newspaper. It took a few minutes for someone to finally say it.

Adam was excited. It did sound fun. He knew who he was going to do, too: Shadow. You couldn’t get much more different than Shadow. Plus Adam already knew a lot about Shadow. He’d visited Shadow’s after-school job. He knew his boss was Mr. Johnny Stack, who looked out for Shadow; Adam would love the chance to finally meet him. He also knew Shadow lived in foster care and took special ed classes in 107A. He’d never been in 107A. It would be neat to see what went on inside there. Plus he liked spending time with Shadow. Shadow definitely was different.

At lunch, Adam found Jennifer. He pulled the speech he had to memorize for Mr. Brooks out of his backpack and handed it to her. “Test me,” he said. “I think I know it.”

When he’d finished, Jennifer said, “Not bad. You did good on the stuff about battling Hitler and moving the world forward to the ‘broad, sunlit uplands,’ I love that. You just forgot the part about the free world sinking into the abyss of a new Dark Age. You want to try one more time?”

“Nah,” said Adam. “It’s close enough. Guess who I ran into today at the bike rack? Stub Keenan.”

“Was he stealing your bike?” she asked.

“No,” said Adam. “Actually I was hoping he was giving out free bikes to kids who’d vote for him.”

“You’d do it,” said Jennifer.

“I might,” said Adam.

“Did he offer you a free download?” asked Jennifer.

“He didn’t,” said Adam. “He was campaigning.”

“So how are we going to get that story?” she asked.

Adam didn’t know. He didn’t think they could just print the list of names unless they had someone telling them on the record — being quoted by name — that these were kids who got the iPod downloads. “I don’t suppose your source — who’s so secret you can’t tell your coeditor — would be quoted saying these are the kids who got downloads?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No way.”

“Is there anyone who knows Stub real well, who Stub pissed off so bad he might tell us?”

Jennifer was quiet, then finally said, “Not who’d be named. At least I can’t think of anyone.”

“You know what’s funny,” said Adam. “Stub told me his campaign manager is this kid Billy Cutty. The campaign manager must know about the downloads. Well, the thing is — I know his cousin, Franky Cutty — he’s this really neat big kid.”

Jennifer shrugged.

“It’s just a little surprising,” said Adam. “I guess good people can have bad cousins.”

“Your cousin does,” said Jennifer.

“That’s probably an insult, isn’t it,” said Adam. They talked about whether one of them — or maybe both — should ask Stub for a free iPod download to see if it was true, but decided against it. The whole thing could get twisted around, like it was their idea to get something for their vote. It could make Adam and Jennifer look like the bad guys — asking for a freebie. And then Stub could say he’d only done it because they asked.

“It would be our word against Stub’s,” said Jennifer. “We don’t want that.” Adam agreed. If it were their word against Stub’s, they’d lose. The school board had shut them down for being troublemakers. Most adults didn’t look closely into stuff like that; they wouldn’t understand that Adam and Jennifer were
good
troublemakers.

Adam could see what they had to do, and was dreading it. “We’re going to have to talk to the kids on that list,” he said. That would be a mess. Once he or Jennifer started asking kids about free downloads, word would get back to Stub. Then they’d be in a big fight with Stub, and none of the other kids on that list would talk.

How could they ever get someone to admit it?

The bell rang. “Who knows?” said Adam. “Maybe there are stories you can’t put in the paper even though they’re true.” He hated to think that. He’d always believed that if it was true, there was a way.

“We have to,” said Jennifer. “The person who gave me the list took a huge risk. We can’t let Stub steal the election.”

Adam shrugged. He used to think that truth would win out, but since the
Slash
had been shut down for printing the truth about the Bolands, he wasn’t so sure. He took his apple and carrots, put them back in his lunch bag, and tossed the bag in the garbage.

“That’s good food,” Jennifer said.

“I used to bring it home,” said Adam. “But my dad got ticked — he really believes in making me a balanced lunch. So, I chuck it out to make him feel good.”

After school, but before baseball practice, Adam went out to the bike rack. His bike — or rather, his mom’s — was still there. Several kids were unlocking bikes to head home and Adam noticed a boy he didn’t know pulling out a black bike. Adam’s eyes riveted on it; he’d swear it was his. It was different, but the same. The bike was a flat black color, not the shiny black-and-white of Adam’s bike. There was no chain guard. And in several spots — the post under the handlebars, the back of the seat, the bar supporting the seat — were big decals with lightning bolts that Adam’s bike didn’t have.

“Hey,” said Adam. “Wait.”

The kid was starting to push off.

“Could I take a look at that bike for a second?” said Adam.

The kid was pedaling. Adam didn’t recognize him. He hadn’t gotten a great look at the two boys on the corner that day, but this boy didn’t look like them. They were tall; this kid was short and chubby. Adam caught up, got in the way of the boy, and held the bike by the handlebars.

“Can I look at that bike?” asked Adam. “Where’d you get it?”

“Borrowed . . . from a friend,” the kid said. “I really need to go.” He hopped on and pushed away.

Adam was almost positive. The curve of the handlebars felt so familiar. Somebody must have painted it. And the decals — that was it! — they’d been put everywhere the Electra nameplates would be. The kid had disguised it. Adam could have grabbed the kid; he didn’t seem tough — but held back. There wasn’t total proof. Adam was going to have to get the serial number from his dad and keep it in his pocket. His dad had showed him where the serial number was, on the bottom, under the pedals. He’d said it was like a fingerpint, branded into the metal, so you couldn’t get rid of it, even if it was painted over.

Maybe the kid was telling the truth. Maybe he had borrowed it. But then this kid had to know the boy who stole it. Adam was mad at himself. He watched the kid ride off. He should have asked. He thought of following the kid, but he had baseball practice. The coach might bench him for being late, or worse, make him do laps.

Adam didn’t know where to start for the test story, so he decided to visit Mrs. Quigley, the acting principal. She’d be delighted to talk to him about such good news. He figured that even if she wasn’t the exact right person, she usually had an extra plate of Moisty Deluxe cookies sitting around, so it wouldn’t be a total waste.

On this afternoon, bless her acting-principal heart, she had cold milk, too. Why did Mrs. Quigley have to be leaving at the end of the school year? It wasn’t fair. Adam figured maybe they were getting rid of her because she liked kids too much.

“It’s wonderful to see you, Adam,” she said. “I really miss the visits from you and Jennifer. I miss being the
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adviser. I miss our story meetings. I miss knowing what’s really going on around here. So come on, tell me, how’s the
Slash
doing, now that you’re free from Dr. Bleepin and the school board and all those grown-ups who believe in censorship?”