Election Madness (9 page)

"Let me tell you something, Miss Priss. I'm going to show you how to make one batch and then you're on your own. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Auntie, you're clear."

Auntie Dee's lesson on preheating the oven and oven safety and how to use a potholder and how to use the icing tubes to write takes forever. Nikki is showing more patience than Deja. She sits at the table, listening politely. When the first batch of cookies comes out of the oven, Deja paces the floor as they cool. She keeps touching them with the knuckle of her forefinger to see if they're ready for the icing.

Luckily, Nikki's mom has let them use her oven as well. She brings two batches over as soon as they have cooled. In the first go-around, Nikki and Deja have forty-eight cookies to decorate with
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Auntie shows them how, and then lets them start writing on their own.

Of course, it's harder than it seems. Nikki's better at writing with icing than Deja is, and her cookies look much better. Until she gets the hang of it, Deja's letters are either too squished or too big. But because there are extra cookies, they just eat the ones she's messed up.

It isn't long before Nikki is flopping down in a kitchen chair and saying, "My hand's tired. I need to rest."

"My hand's tired, too, but we still have thirty-one more cookies to do."

Auntie peeks in just then to remind them that bedtime is right around the corner.

Deja and Nikki sigh heavily at the same time.

Then, Auntie says the most wonderful thing that Deja has heard during her whole campaign: "Don't worry, I'll finish up."

Deja smiles happily and high-fives Nikki, just as Nikki is turning to high-five her.

Auntie has put the cookies in shoeboxes. They sit on Nikki's and Deja's laps as she drives them to school. "I'll talk to Ms. Shelby, and what she says goes. If we have to take the cookies back home, we'll just put them in the freezer." Deja lifts up a shoebox lid. Auntie put the cookies in the refrigerator overnight and now the icing is nice and hard. She's layered them between sheets of wax paper. Deja is quite proud of her cookies. She can't wait to give them out.
If
she can give them out.

"You two go get in line," Auntie says, parking a little bit down the street from the school and taking the boxes from Nikki and Deja. "I'll go talk to Ms. Shelby."

The girls head to the Room Ten line and before they know it, Auntie is walking toward them empty-handed, giving them the thumbs-up. Ms. Shelby must have said yes!

All day, Deja watches the clock, waiting for the moment when Ms. Shelby gives them permission to get up out of their seats, gather their boxes of cookies, and leave all of their classmates behind. At least the afternoon is partly taken up with a film on California Native Americans, which makes the time go faster.

Finally, after math, after social studies, and after the film, Ms. Shelby tells them that they may pass out the
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cookies. Again, Deja has butterflies in her stomach—this time, from anticipation. This whole election has made her stomach topsy-turvy.

The best part of knocking on classroom doors and explaining quietly to the teacher why she's there is knowing that all eyes are eagerly on her and her boxes of cookies. She wonders if Nikki is experiencing the same thing. Nikki's taking the other two third grades and their own class. Deja's taking the two first and second grades.

"Look with your eyes, not your hands," Mrs. Mumford tells her second-graders as Deja passes the cookies around. Everyone is eager to get their little hands in the box to extract what they decide is the biggest cookie. Deja loves watching their faces as they read
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She loves hearing them say it out loud as they read.

As she leaves the first grades, she thinks her plan might work. "Don't forget to vote for me," she has said with each cookie she's handed out. This has been the best day of the entire election.

"I think I'm going to win," Deja says to Nikki on their way home.

"I think you are, too," Nikki agrees.

Deja has managed to save two cookies that would have gone to two kids who were absent. She pulls them out of her book bag and hands one to Nikki. Somehow, because the cookies are the key thing that's going to get her elected, they taste extra good. She smiles happily all the way home.

But the next day, as she and Nikki enter the schoolyard, Deja stops short. There are
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buttons everywhere. Almost every kid Deja sees has a big, glittery
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button pinned to their shirt or blouse. One kid has it pinned to his cap, which he's not supposed to be wearing, anyway. Deja stands frozen in place. She can't believe her eyes.

"Where did they get those?" Nikki exclaims.

"Gregory Johnson must have given them out." just then, one of the first-graders runs by, holding up a button and calling out to Nikki and Deja, "Gregory Johnson is giving these away—for free! You should go get one!"

Ayanna joins them, happy, it seems, to bring them up to speed. "He's been passing them out since he got here—to everybody!"

Deja is dumbfounded. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

Nikki speaks for her. "Uh-oh."

That's just what Deja is thinking.
Uh-oh.

Then Nikki shakes her head sadly. "I bet they forgot all about your cookies, Deja."

Deja knows she's right, but she just can't think of anything to say.

The voting takes place in the classrooms after morning recess. There's a special box for each classroom where students will place their ballots. The boxes will then be taken to the office where the votes will be counted, and Mr. Brown will announce the winner after lunch recess. Deja tries to read her classmates' faces as they mark their ballots, fold them, and walk to the special box to drop them in.

What will be will be,
she thinks. She's heard Auntie say that before. A lot of times.

The PA system begins to crackle right in the middle of
The Whipping Boy.
Deja gasps—softly, so she doesn't think anyone has heard. Ms. Shelby stops reading and holds up her hand for silence. Nikki looks over at Deja and her eyes are big like saucers. That just makes Deja more nervous.

Then they hear Mr. Brown's official-sounding voice:

"Good afternoon, students of Carver Elementary School. This is your principal. I know we've had lots of excitement these last two weeks with our first school-wide election. And, I'm sure we're all anxious to hear who is going to be our first student body president."

Deja wonders how long he's going to talk without really saying anything. Antonia, who Deja hasn't even paid that much attention to today, looks over at her. Ayanna and ChiChi turn around in their seats to look at her, too. Ms. Shelby smiles encouragingly. Mr. Brown drones on.

Then, finally, he announces it. "
Our new student body president is Gregory Johnson.
"

The cheers and hollers from the fifth grade classrooms can be heard all the way down the hall. Room Ten is silent. Surprisingly, Antonia doesn't smirk at Deja, but sits facing straight ahead. Nikki gives Deja a sympathetic look, and Ms. Shelby walks over and puts her hand on Deja's shoulder. "You did a great job, Deja. So don't be discouraged. There was only going to be one winner. Maybe next year."

Deja nods slowly and swallows hard. She doesn't say anything because she's afraid that her voice will be shaky.

"You know what we're going to do, class?" Ms. Shelby says. She walks over to her desk and picks up a small stack of yellow construction paper. "I'd planned to have you make congratulations cards for whoever won. So, we're going to make congratulations cards for Gregory Johnson." She nods and smiles and raises her eyebrows like she's really happy.

Ms. Shelby places a piece of yellow construction paper on Deja's desk and Deja looks down at it blankly. She has no idea what she will write. After a few moments, she sighs and lifts her pencil. Maybe stuff will come to her after she writes the word
Congratulations.

Congratulations Gregory Johnson, I can't Say I'm real happy that you won over me, I think you won because your one of the big kids and you gave out all those buttons that people can put on and keep. And maybe people
think you can do a better job. But I can to even tho I'm in third grade.

But I Say congratulations anyway. I hope you do a good job and make our School famous and make all the kids good kids and make it so people want to come to CarVer Elementary. I hope you stop kids from fighting and make them do there homework and be nice and respect all the teachers like they should. Thats what I was going to do. Maybe it was going to be hard. But I was going to try anyway. So thats all I got to say. So congratulations again.

Deja sighs again and draws a rainbow on the front. It's what she really knows how to draw best.

"What were the results?" Auntie Dee asks, opening the door before Deja can even take out her key.

"Gregory Johnson," Deja says flatly. She turns to wave goodbye to Nikki, who is opening the door to her own house.

"Oh ... I'm sorry," Auntie says with the kind of half smile that looks like it's meant to show sympathy. "What can I do?"

Deja shrugs.

"You want to go out for pizza?" They almost never go out for pizza.

Deja shrugs again.

But Auntie seems to know what those shrugs mean. "Go get Nikki," she says. "We're going for pizza." She turns to pick up the telephone to call Nikki's mother. "I'm sure her parents will appreciate an evening alone," Auntie Dee says.

Later, in the car on their way to the pizza place, Nikki nudges Deja. Deja looks down. Nikki is holding a hot cinnamon sucker. "You had this left in your candy bag."

"I'm going to run next year," Deja repeats resolutely, and holds out her sucker to Nikki so that she can share in its yumminess. "And I betcha I'll win."