Vote for Me! Read online

  “You mean all three: local, long-distance/vacation, and celebrity?” Malia asked. “What an awesome idea.”

  I looked at her. “Are you telling me people in Italy know about the three-crush rule, too?”

  She nodded. I couldn’t believe it was an international thing.

  “She also keeps a period log,” Alice added.

  “You can put me in that one as August 5, nine forty a.m.,” Jacqueline said.

  I reached into my bag for both logs. “You’re so lucky,” Alice sighed. “I really hope I don’t have to wait until eighth grade until my name gets in there.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mumbled as I wrote down Jacqueline’s information in the period one. When I was done, I grabbed the crush log. “So who are your three?”

  She fired off some names, but then quickly changed her mind, which meant I had to do some erasing. And then some more names. And more erasing. Until the paper actually ripped.

  How was it that all these people could come up with three crushes and I couldn’t even come up with one? “Look,” I finally said. “Lunch is about over, so why don’t you e-mail me them when you have it figured out and I’ll put them in then,” I said.

  “Okay.” She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Oh, and I just want you to know—you can definitely count on my vote,” she said in a low voice. “Someone needs to stop Cristina Pollock. And the fact that you’re going to try means you’re either really brave or really stupid. So good luck.”

  As she walked away, I looked at my friends. “Let’s hope it’s the first one?”

  After lunch, Dr. Rem-Wall gave a reminder announcement that the sign-up sheet for elections would be up by the end of the day. Getting through the rest of the afternoon was next to impossible, especially because whenever I glanced over at Cristina, she was giving me the evil eye. It was a good thing I didn’t believe in voodoo like Rose did, or else I would’ve been sure that she was putting some sort of curse on me. However, I was so nervous that I went to the bathroom no less than three times to check to see if I had gotten my period. Marissa said that anxiety was known to bring it on. I would’ve gone more if Mr. Eagle Eye hadn’t said—in front of the entire class during social studies—“Lucy Parker, I’m sorry, but no one has to go to the bathroom that much. Now please sit down.”

  By the time the last bell rang, I was a wreck. And the fact that, as Beatrice dragged me down the hall while Alice and Malia pushed me from behind, I saw that the entire seventh grade was gathered around the sign-up sheet next to the gym didn’t help. Cristina was standing right next to it, her arms crossed, with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber on either side of her.

  In the vice president and secretary columns, a bunch of names were printed, but in the president column there was only one: Cristina Pollock.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Cristina demanded.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Great. If this was how it was going to be for the entire election, I was in big trouble.

  “Yes. She’s sure,” Beatrice said. Maybe I could just get her to speak for me during this whole thing. Including the speeches part. Especially the speeches.

  Cristina shrugged. She glared at me with a narrowed-eye Mean Girl look. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Parker.”

  I gave her my best narrowed-eye Mean Girl look back. Which, because I didn’t have a lot of experience giving them, wasn’t very good. “Okay. I won’t.”

  Beatrice shoved a pen toward me. “Lucy, just put your name down, and let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay, but I have to get my lucky pen!” I cried, going through my bag. I wasn’t taking any chances. Finally, I found it—my purple ink, extra-fine-point one. I uncapped it and then got really sad because Laurel had bought it for me at her favorite stationery store up in Morningside Heights.

  Beatrice turned to Alice. “All set with the video?”

  She nodded as she aimed her flip camera toward me. She was going to be Team Have-Not’s official video person. “Wait. There’s no picture,” she said, confused.

  Malia leaned over. “I think it might work if you turned it on.” On the other hand, maybe we were going to have to rethink that “official video person” thing.

  Alice hit the button. “Okay, we’re ready!” Alice yelled. “And ... ACTION!”

  Because my cursive wasn’t that great, I made sure to go as slow as possible. The last thing I wanted was to somehow get disqualified because no one could read my name.

  “Lucy, can you move a little to the right?” Alice called out.

  As I did, my hand slipped (my coordination problems got a lot worse when I was nervous), so instead of Lucy, it looked like my name was Lucp. “Does anyone have any Wite-Out?” I called out. I tried not to get too sad as I thought about how if Laurel had been here, she would’ve had some with her.

  “I do!” called out Martin Sage, who was almost as organized as Laurel.

  After I fixed it, I began to write again. Until Alice dropped the camera. And it skidded across the floor and hit the wall so hard that the battery popped out.

  Beatrice shook her head and sighed.

  “It’s okay,” Malia said. “I’ll just take a picture with my iPhone. I’ll even use the Hipstamatic app so it looks really cool.”

  This time I made it through my entire name without messing up. I even made the period after the B in the shape of a star that actually looked like a star.

  “Uh-oh,” Malia said as she looked at her iPhone. “I didn’t wait for it to save. Can you pretend you’re signing again?”

  Cristina walked up and peered at my name. “Well, it’s official. You really are crazy.” She turned toward the crowd. “For anyone who’s interested, we’re going to be handing out Vote-for-Cristina-Pollock fudgesicles in the gym!”

  As a stampede started, I had to press myself up against the wall in order not to be knocked over. At the moment I kind of wished I wasn’t running. All the nervousness about what I had just officially gotten myself into had suddenly made me really hungry, and I really liked fudgesicles.

  chapter 5

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  You know how I told you how Laurel and I got in a fight? Well, it’s three days later, and we’re STILL in a fight. And a person doesn’t have to be a famous psychologist like you to know that three days + no talking = BAD NEWS. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We are talking a little bit—but it’s stuff like, “Miss Piggy, can you ask Lucy to pass the ketchup, please?” and “Miss Piggy, please tell Laurel that her cereal bowl is on my side of the table.”

  If Mom and Alan were here, I’m sure that they would call an Emergency Parker-Moses Family Meeting and make us make up, but they decided to take a few days of QT, so they’re at some fancy hotel in Connecticut. Probably doing it, because according to Marissa, that’s what adults go to hotels to do. Which is so gross I can’t even think about it.

  So because of that, Rose is watching us. And because she doesn’t really watch us, but instead watches a lot of TV, I don’t think she notices that we’re not talking.

  The problem is, I really miss Laurel. And I feel like if I ever needed her, it’s now, because of the campaign. Because the truth is, I’m really scared about it (especially the having-to-give-a-speech part). As cheesy as some of her pep talks can be because she tends to repeat stuff that has happened in Very Special episodes of her series, they also make me feel better.

  In fact, I was all set to apologize to her last night—EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY DID in a text, although she says it wasn’t a real apology. But when I got to her room, although her door was closed almost all the way, because of my extra-fantastic hearing, I just HAPPENED to hear her on the phone with Maya, her makeup artist. And because my leg was bothering me, which made it so it took me sort of a long time to walk away, I just HAPPENED to overlisten and hear her say that the way I was acting was “very immature.”

  First of all, that’s so not true, and secondly, it’s not like
she’s an adult or anything. I mean, she’s only two years, three months, and six days older than me. Well, obviously I didn’t end up apologizing because of that. And it’s not even like I could say, “You know, I would’ve apologized, but then I heard you say I was immature,” because then she’d know that I was overlistening and someone as quote-unquote MATURE as she is wouldn’t understand the whole overlistening thing.

  Do you have any advice for me as to how to make up with someone even if you think that you didn’t do anything wrong and they should be the one to apologize to YOU?

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  P.S. When you write back, if you could also give me some pointers on how to write a great speech, that would be very helpful, too.

  “Okay, before we begin our Team Have-Not brainstorming session,” I announced the next afternoon after school, “I just want to remind everyone”—at that, I looked at Alice—“that there’s no bringing up You-Know-Who.”

  The brainstorming sessions would have taken place in my bedroom, but because Mom and Alan were out of town, we were in the kitchen chowing down on all the junk food we had bought with some of the campaign funds, aka my allowance.

  “You mean Laurel, right?” Alice asked.

  I sighed. “Yes, Alice. That’s who You-Know-Who would be.” Who, at that moment, was in her bedroom with the door closed, which was pretty much how it had been since our fight, other than that one time she had forgotten to close it so I overlistened and heard her call me immature.

  She nodded. “Okay. Got it.”

  “So has anyone come up with any brilliant ideas since yesterday?” I asked as I rolled the sides of my ice cream sandwich in Fruity Pebbles.

  Alice stopped pouring Hershey’s chocolate syrup on her mini marshmallows. (Beatrice had been worried that spending part of our campaign funds on junk food was a bad idea, but I totally disagreed. Especially because it was my money. I mean, how could a person think well if all she had in her stomach was something healthy, like an apple?) Alice’s hand shot up. “Oh! Oh! I have one!”

  “Is this one as good as the one you had yesterday when you said that Lucy should walk around wearing deer antlers and handing out buttons that say, ‘Dare to Be Different—Vote for Lucy B. Parker’?” Beatrice asked as she gnawed at the white part of a double-stuffed Oreo with her teeth.

  “What was wrong with that one?” Alice asked, hurt.

  Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Because deer and dare are not the same word, Alice.”

  Alice shrugged. “They’re close. The both have d’s and e’s in them.”

  “Sorry, but there will be no wearing of antlers or any other kind of animal ears,” I announced as I finished erasing the whiteboard from yesterday’s campaign slogan brainstorming session. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been very brainstormy, because at the end of the day, we all decided that “Lucy B. Parker for President” wasn’t all that creative.

  Malia turned to Alice and smiled. “So what’s your new brilliant idea?” She really was one of the nicest people I had ever met. It may have been because of the Italy thing, because back when Laurel and I were still friends, she had said Italians were the nicest people in the world.

  “Okay. So the idea is ... during your campaign speech, you announce that anyone who votes for you will get to be an extra on Laurel’s TV show!” she said excitedly.

  The three of us looked at one another. If this were a reading comprehension test, Alice so would have failed. “Okay, that’s not going to work,” I replied. “See, (a) you just mentioned You-Know-Who again,” I explained. “And (b) before I even agreed to go through with this, I said that I’d only do it if we didn’t play the whole my-frister-is-a-superstar card.”

  “Oh. Well, when you said that, it probably went into my left ear,” she said, “which is why I didn’t hear it.”

  “It was in a text,” I replied. “And you wrote back: ‘ok, but u’d totally win with that!’”

  “Fine, so I remember!” she cried. “It’s just that it’s such a super-awesome idea. Plus, this wouldn’t be Laurel helping with the campaign. This would be Laurel helping after the campaign.”

  I stood up and walked around so that I was facing her right ear. “I’ll say it again,” I said. “I don’t want You-Know-Who helping out with the campaign.” I reached for my election notebook and a pen. “Now, let’s talk about the speech. I was thinking that starting with ‘Good afternoon, my fellow students. My name is Lucy B. Parker’ might be a really good way to go.”

  “Beatrice, you might want to tell someone that ‘My fellow students, good afternoon’ flows better” came a voice from the end of the kitchen.

  I looked up to see Laurel standing there with her arms crossed. “Beatrice, can you please tell the person who just said that that (a) I happen to think that ‘Good afternoon, my fellow students’ flows just fine, thankyouverymuch,” I replied. “And (b) if she bothered to look at the sign-up sheet in the hall, she’d see that I had reserved this room until five.” As soon as Mom and Alan left, Laurel had put up a sheet where we could reserve different rooms in the house so that we wouldn’t run into each other.

  “Well, I happen to be thirsty,” Laurel said all huffily as she marched to the fridge and took out a bottle of water. Wait—because she had said that directly to me, did that mean she was talking to me again? And if so, did that mean we had made up even though there hadn’t been an official apology?

  This fighting business was very confusing.

  Once she had the water, instead of going back to her room, she poured it into a glass and continued to stand there. “What?” she asked as we all stared at her.

  “Um, we’re in a campaign meeting?” I said.

  “Oh right. Sorry. I should go, then,” she said. “Seeing that someone doesn’t want my help.” I guess we weren’t talking again after all. She pointed at the mess of papers that we had strewn across the kitchen table, some of them covered with smears of chocolate and glass ring stains. “Even though, from the looks of it, I’m not sure how anyone can get anything done when they’re so ... unorganized.”

  “Okay, (a) that person will have you know that this may look like a mess, but it’s an organized one,” I replied. “And (b) I—I mean that person—I mean—” This whole talking-to-each-other-but-not-exactly thing was driving me crazy. “Anyway, we’re doing just fine here.”

  “Fine,” she said, stomping out. “I know when I’m not wanted,” she announced over her shoulder.

  “I never said you weren’t wanted!” I yelled after her. “That’s putting words in my mouth, which, if you look at the Official Parker-Moses Family Rule Book, you’ll see is not allowed, according to rule number 22!” I turned to my friends. “Did you hear me say she wasn’t wanted?”

  They shrugged. “Maybe those exact words didn’t come out of your mouth,” Malia said. “But it does kind of seem like that.”

  “Well, that’s not true,” I replied. “If she just apologized, I’d be happy to have her help,” I said. “But in a regularfriend way—not in a superstar kind of way.”

  “Why should I apologize again when I already apologized once?!” came Laurel’s voice from behind the door.

  “Okay, (a) stop overlistening,” I yelled, “and (b) I already apologized once, too, so we’re even!”

  “That text was not an apology!” she yelled back.

  Beatrice got up and started gathering up her stuff.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “If you guys are just going to spend all your time fighting like this, I’m going to go home and watch TV. We’re not getting anything done.”

  As Alice and Malia began to pack up as well, I sighed. Unfortunately, she was right. And we had a lot to do.

  Luckily, after that, Laurel’s shooting schedule got superbusy, so most nights I was already sleeping by the time she got home, and she was still sleeping by the time I left for school. That gave me plenty of time to practice my speech aloud without worrying t
hat she was standing on the other side of the door overlistening and giving me all sorts of pointers that I hadn’t asked her for.

  Even though, because of all her appearances at the Emmys, the Grammys, and the MTV Movie Awards, she was an awesome speech giver and probably could have helped me write a great one. Still, when you practice a speech in the mirror, it’s not like you’re going to get very good feedback from the person looking out at you. So when Dad called one afternoon, I asked him if he’d listen and give me feedback.

  “Sure, honey, I’d love to,” he said.

  “Great. But can I ask you a favor first?”

  “I already know what you’re going to say,” he said. “And the answer is, of course I’ll be honest even though you’re my daughter.”

  “Actually, I was going to ask if you could turn off that sloshing-water CD,” I said. “So I don’t have to stop and go to the bathroom in the middle.”

  Once that was taken care of, he listened while I gave my speech. Because I couldn’t see him, I had no idea if he was also thumbing through baby books or Babies R Us flyers or anything like that, but at least I couldn’t hear him typing. “So what’d you think?” I asked when I was done.

  “I thought it was just great, honey,” he replied.

  “Really? You did?”

  “Absolutely. And it got me thinking—”

  “That ‘Good afternoon, my fellow students’ sounds a lot better than ‘My fellow students, good afternoon’?” I asked hopefully.

  “No. I was thinking that maybe that Future Young Leaders of America for Toddlers workshop I saw advertised at the coffee shop the other day might not be such a bad thing for Ziggy to check out,” he replied.

  When did zombies come in and body snatch my real father and replace him with this guy, and just how could I get my real dad back? “Dad!”

  “What?”

  “You always said you couldn’t stand those people!”

  “What people?”