Dodger for President (6 page)

No such luck. Amy turned away from me and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Ick 'er'a'ent!” Lizzie exclaimed.

“What?” I asked.

“Ick 'er'a'ent!”

Amy put one hand on her hip and used the other to poke me in the chest with her magnifying glass. “What in the world does that mean, Willie? Did you guys come up with some kind of dorky president code just so I wouldn't be able to solve your campaign secrets? Come on, you can tell me—I'm your sister! What does 'ick 'er'a'ent! mean?”

“I don't know, I swear! Lizzie, are you okay? What does 'ick 'er'a'ent! mean?”

The door burst open, and Lizzie was standing there with a fluorescent blue stain all around her mouth. When she opened her mouth to yell at me, I saw that her teeth and tongue were blue, too. “It's permanent, you goofball!”

I started to apologize and tell Lizzie that I didn't think that particular brand of marker caused
permanent
stains, but Amy started talking first. “Well, jeepers, Lizzie, you could have just said so!”

The next thing I knew, Lizzie was running out of the house.

Amy was still standing next to me on the top of the landing. She blew a bubble, cracked it loudly, and said, “God! I hope when
I
meet the boy
I'm
going to marry,
I'm
not so obnoxious to
him
!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HALF AN HOUR LATER
, Dodger and I were sitting glumly on the edge of my bed. I had called Lizzie's house, but her mom said she didn't want to talk. I couldn't stand it. I knew I had to be careful about talking with Dodger because Amy was prowling around, so I blasted some music. Then my mom came up, knocked, came in, sat next to me, and asked me to turn it down. Before her magical adjustment, Mom would have given me a whole big lecture on the horrors of popular music, but now she just mussed my hair and said, “Arguing with a
girl, then cranking up the tunes—my Willie is turning into a teenager!”

After she walked out, Dodger started jumping around, saying, “My Willie is turning into a teenager! My Willie is turning into a teenager!” and laughing his head off. Boy, was he a riot. And had my mother actually used the phrase “cranking up the tunes”?

Dodger said, “Whoa, little teenage dude! I have the BEST idea. I've been thinking—for the election, you know?—that you need a cooler walk. I mean, no offense, but you need a cool-kid stride, a manly strut. Buddy, you need a skater walk! Now would be the perfect time to get you one. And then when you go grooving your way up to the stage for your speech, everybody will know what I know—that Willie Ryan is the most awesome presidentialtype guy around!”

“Uh, Dodger? How do I get a new walk? I mean, I walk the way I walk. That's just how I am.”

“Nah, that's how you
think
you are. Listen, I once had this really weird gig on a ship, helping this Greek guy named Jason find a golden fleece, and—”

“What the heck is a golden fleece?”

“It's like a fur coat made of gold, but that's not the point. The point is that I was sailing around for, like, a year. And when I got back onto land, my whole stride was totally different. For like a century after that, the Great Lasorda used to imitate my walk and call me his “little sailor monkey.”

“Oh, so all I have to do is sail around the world a few times, and then I'll have a walk that even a genie with sparkly gold pants can feel free to laugh at?”

“No, that's just how I did it. You don't need a sailor walk anyway. And getting a skater walk should be a lot easier.”

“All right, I'm listening. How do I get a skater walk?”

“Easy. All you have to do is learn to FLY!”

Oh, swell. All I needed to do was learn to
fly
. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

Half an hour later, I was in the woods with Dodger, wearing my bike helmet and a look of utmost fear. Dodger was trying to get me to step onto the Magic Carpet of Khartoum. He was also trying to persuade me to lose the helmet.

What's the Magic Carpet of Khartoum? Apparently, it's a flying carpet, just like in the Aladdin stories, but even scarier—because when you're on the Magic Carpet of Khartoum, you're totally invisible! So anyway, Dodger said, “Bud, I'm telling you: There's totally no point to wearing the helmet. You want to hear the wind whistling through the fur on your ears! Besides, it's not like the helmet will do any good. You're not going to fall, and if you did—well—I don't think the helmet would really save you from—oh, never mind. Like I said, you're not going to fall.”

With those words of comfort ringing in my ears, I listened to Dodger's very helpful instructions on proper flying-carpet usage. Here are some tips, for those of you who might want to try this at home with your own airborne floor coverings:

 

-Dude, you've totally got to BE the carpet.

-The carpet is, like, your friend.

-All you have to do is—well, you just lean the way you want to go, and the carpet pretty much—I mean, usually—the carpet kind of just does it.

-Don't look down. Remember: The carpet is totally invisible, so you REALLY don't want to look down.

-Don't hit any power lines. Seriously . . . don't.

-Oh, and tree limbs really hurt. I mean, duh! They're completely made of wood.

-Since you're invisible, you can't see your feet. And since the carpet is invisible, you can't see the edge. I strongly advise you to, like, not move your feet around.

-Remember the “don't look down” part. And the thing about the power lines.

-Have fun!

 

Then Dodger decided I was ready for a testdrive. He got on the carpet (which, of course, I couldn't even see . . . but I could tell he'd gotten on it when I suddenly couldn't see
him
) and told me to stand behind him with my arms around his waist. Stepping on was unbelievable. I mean, everyone probably has dreams of being invisible, but when it really happens, your brain just can't handle it. I kept thinking,
Ahhh! Where's my hand? Where are my feet?
And this was the weirdest part of all—because I'd never even realized I could always see it at the
lower inside edge of my vision—
WHERE'S MY NOSE?

Eventually I got over this enough to function, and Dodger talked to me until I followed his voice and found his waist. This was odd, too. My face felt the sensation of being pressed up against Dodger's furry back, but I was looking right through him at the view ahead.

“Ready, buddy?” Dodger asked.

“Uh, wait, I'm not really—”

“All right, then. Dude, let's FLY!”

So we did. Holy moley! I can't even come close to telling you what it was like, but I'll try. Picture the scariest roller coaster you've ever been on, with no safety harness. I mean, I hate roller coasters with a burning passion—but this was the single coolest thing that had ever happened to me. We were flying low over the trees, passing birds in midair. Dodger was leaning to one side, then the other, and we were banking from side to side, like a plane when it's turning to land. And the wind was whistling around my furry ears—well, at least, it was whistling through the holes in my helmet.

“Having fun?” Dodger shouted over his shoulder.

I wanted to scream or cry or just whimper. But amazingly, all that came out of my mouth was a big belly laugh. And once I started laughing, I couldn't stop. Dodger was laughing, too, so hard that I could feel his whole body shaking. “Hold on, dude,” he said. “It's time for some advanced maneuvers!”

Let me tell you, if you've ever gone flying off a skateboard ramp, you might have some starting point for understanding Dodger's advanced maneuvers. Just picture that, but upside down, with some loop-de-loops thrown in. And you're invisible, fifty feet up, holding on desperately to an invisible chimp. Jeepers. I wasn't sure if I should have a heart attack or let go of Dodger, pound on my chest like King Kong, and shout my war cry to the skies.

I settled for laughing some more. In fact, I didn't stop until Dodger said, “Sssshhhhh! We have to be quiet now! Look!”

I hadn't really been paying attention to the view below me, especially since Dodger had told me specifically not to look down. But when I did, I couldn't believe it. We were over the school playground. Directly below us, James Beeks and Craig
Flynn were sitting on the swing set, having an argument. Dodger drifted lower and lower until we were hovering between two sets of tube slides, maybe twenty feet away from the swings. I could hear James saying: “We have to win. Ryan and Barrett embarrassed me publicly. They challenged me. Dude, they challenged
us.
”

Flynn nodded. “That's true,” he said. “But you were getting in their faces first. Besides, what do you have against them anyway?”

“I just hate the way stupid Ryan ruined my whole baseball season.”

Craig frowned. “How did he ruin your season? He got the big game-tying hit in the championship, right?”

James snarled, “But then we lost anyway in extra innings. And I made the last out! All season long, I got the big hits. All season long, Willie Ryan struck out. I mean, come on—there's a reason why we called him Wimpy all year. Then the one time he gets a hit, my dad is there, and—”

Craig said, “I still don't get it. What does his hit have to do with you?”

James said, “Duh. You know my dad only came
to that one game all stupid season, right? And I had to blow the game in front of him. And then when I got off the field, Ryan was standing right next to us, and
both
of his parents were giving him a hug. Then that ugly Lizzie gave him a high five. Meanwhile my father looked over at Wimpy and said, ‘Too bad you're not a clutch hitter like that kid James!' ”

Neither one of them said anything for a while. Then Craig said, “I'm sorry that happened to you, but I still don't see the big deal about the election.”

“Craig, this is my big chance to show my dad I'm a winner again. And that's why we have to sneak back into that school and—”

“I won't do it, James. I won't cheat!”

“What are you talking about, Craig? You cheat all the time. Remember when you got busted for copying off Wimpy's spelling test? What was that, an accident?”

“No, but that was different. If I had gotten a better grade on that, it wouldn't have made someone else get a lower grade. But if we cheat on this and win, it hurts Lizzie and Willie.”

“And what do you care?”

“Umm . . . well . . . I don't know. But there's another thing, too. My mom said if I get in trouble at school one more time, she's going to take away my cell phone.”

“And?'

“James, you know this. Don't you even listen when I tell you stuff?”

“Kind of.”

Craig snorted. “You know my mom's been divorced twice. And you know my ex-stepdad has custody of my little half brother every other week.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, my brother, Tyler, gets nightmares. So I sleep with my cell phone on vibrate under my pillow. And when he gets really scared, Tyler calls me.”

Wow, I couldn't believe it! Craig Flynn—big, scary Craig Flynn—was, like, his little brother's protector.

James made a face and said, “Aww . . . that's tho thweet! Cwaig helps his wittle bwother!”

“Oh, shut up. The point is, I can't get caught—wait! What's that?”

Craig was pointing right at us!

“What's what?” James asked.

Dodger said, “Oopsie! I need to take evasive action. Hold on!”

Wow, I thought advanced maneuvers had been wild, but evasive action opened up a whole new world of heart-stopping panic. First we shot straight up maybe thirty feet. Then we rocketed backward into the trees at the edge of the playground so fast that I thought my nose would break against Dodger's shoulder blade. Finally we did a full 180-degree-spin move, then accelerated to absolute top speed as Dodger . . . umm . . . dodged his way between the tree trunks until we shot out of the woods into my backyard.

Then we stopped so short that we went tumbling off the front of the carpet together. I think I might have fainted for a moment, but when I opened my eyes, Dodger was smiling from ear to ear. “Oh, man,” he said. “That was
awesome
!”

I felt like I had to swallow to keep my heart from flying up my throat and out my mouth. So I gulped a few times. Then I said, “What happened back there? I thought the carpet was invisible.”

“Well, it is, mostly.”

“What do you mean, mostly? How can something be
mostly
invisible?”

“Dude,” Dodger said. “Aren't
I
mostly invisible? I mean, nobody but you and Lizzie can see me.”

Good point. “But wait, didn't Craig just see us? Oh, wow, I am so—”

“No, Craig couldn't see
us
. He must just be a Carpet Seer, that's all. It's not that crazy. I mean, there used to be a whole bunch of Carpet Seers in Roswell, New Mexico, and back in 1947, they saw me out on a practice run with—”

“What's a Carpet Seer?”

“Well, it's like having one of the minor magical subtalents. You know, like having the Ghost Ear. Or being a Horse Whisperer. Or an Elf Smeller.”

Elf smeller?
Elf smeller?
“So, all these different kinds of people can see or feel or hear magic?”

Dodger looked thoughtful. “Willie, I think almost all people could—if they gave it a chance.”

Then the sparkle came back into Dodger's eye, and he yanked me to my feet. “Walk!” he commanded.