Rosie Swanson: Fourth-Grade Geek for President (2 page)

Slowly, Maxie got off the swing. He helped Earl stand up. Then they both fell over in the grass.

I still can’t believe I’m best friends with these two. But I am.

I gave them each a hand. “Come on, you guys. We need to go report those creeps to the principal’s office before the bell rings.”

Earl shook his head. “Oh no. No way, Rosie. Forget it. I’m not squealing. And besides, I’m never setting foot in the principal’s office again. I still get nightmares about the last time we were all in there.
Real
nightmares, I mean. The kind where I wake up all tangled in the sheets and I have to turn on the light.”

“I agree,” said Maxie. “If Mr. Shivers gets to know the three of us any better, we’ll be on his Christmas list.”

I just sighed. I hated to admit it, but I knew they were right. It wasn’t even November yet, and each of us had been to the office two times already. Actually, it’s where we first met.

I was sent for passing notes. I wasn’t passing them to the other kids, though. I was passing them to my teacher, Mr. Jolly. None of my classmates knows this about me, but in my head, I picture myself as Rosie Swanson—Secret Informer. I report on rule breakers. I think of it as my job, sort of.

Even Maxie and Earl don’t know I’m a secret informer. I mean, they know I’m a nut about following school rules and everything. Like I always
make them cross at the crosswalks, for instance. But I’ve never told them about the note writing and how I tell on people. I know they’d think I’m a tattletale. And I’m not.

Secret informers are different from tattletales. We don’t tell on other kids just to get them in trouble. We do it for their own good. Reporting illegal activities to your teacher helps bad kids understand that they can’t get away with stuff, and they become better citizens.

I’ve been a secret informer since the summer I turned seven. That’s the summer my mother and I went into a candy store at the beach and I spotted an old lady stealing a piece of saltwater taffy. She took it out of one of the jars, unwrapped it, and popped it right into her mouth without paying for it.

I couldn’t believe it! I’m talking about a
grandma
here. Except for when they drive, you almost never see grandmas break the law.

I still remember how I stopped what I was doing and watched her chew. Only instead of being embarrassed, she winked at me. You know … like we were both in on this together.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then. And I’ve decided that winking was even worse than taking the candy. Because that old lady tried to make a little girl think it was okay to steal. And that was just wrong, you know? It was just plain wrong.

I still get angry about it. Since then, I’ve taught myself to say “The old lady took a taffy” without moving my lips, but I doubt that I’ll ever get to use it.

Anyway, after that happened, I decided that I was never going to just stand around while somebody broke the law again. So that’s when I became a secret informer.

I’ve had a lot of success with spying over the years. Take Ronald Milligan, for instance. Since I wrote a secret note to my teacher, Ronald has been asked to stop blowing his nose in the drinking fountain. I take a lot of pride in that.

But still, for some reason, my teacher, Mr. Jolly, hasn’t really appreciated my spying as much as you’d expect. Like I mentioned, that’s why he finally sent me to the principal’s office. To get me to stop writing notes. And the office is where I met Maxie and Earl.

As I was remembering all of this, Earl reached in his pocket and unwrapped a brand-new package of Rolaids. In addition to his other medical problems, Earl Wilber has what you call a nervous stomach.

“I wish I ran this school,” he said. “If I ran this school, I’d lock those sixth-grade creeps in a dark, smelly dungeon. Then I’d hire one of those professional wrestler guys to bully them until they cried.”

Maxie nodded. “I know just how you feel,” he said. “But Rosie’s probably right, Earl. We shouldn’t let farkleberries like that get to us.”

Farkleberry
is one of Maxie’s special words. Finding weird words in the dictionary is sort of a hobby of his. That’s because he’s a giant brain.

Maxie’s very different from Earl and me. But even though the three of us aren’t anything alike—if you put us all together, we’d make a pretty well-rounded person, I think.

Earl was still grouching. “Yeah, well, I still wish I could run the school. They’re having those stupid class elections pretty soon, and the same popular kids will get elected who always get
elected. And not one of them knows the least bit about how it feels to be called names and pushed around.”

“Run,” said Maxie.

Suddenly, Earl’s face went funny. “Oh geez! Not again!” he yelled. Then, thinking the bullies were back, he took off across the playground.

Maxie rolled his eyes. “No, Earl! Come back!” he hollered after him. “I meant run for
office.
”

Earl stopped in his tracks. “Oh,” he said, embarrassed.

He turned around and came back. “Yeah, right. Me … president of the fifth grade,” he said. “Very funny, Mr. Funnyperson. That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.”

Maxie shrugged. “Well, you’re always complaining about the creeps around here, aren’t you? So maybe if you ran for president of the fifth grade, you could change some stuff.”

I thought about what he was saying. I mean, it’s just weird, you know? But the idea that one of us could actually run for class office had never even occurred to me before.

“What about me?” I said. “I bet I’d make a
pretty good fourth-grade president, don’t you think? Huh, you guys? Don’t you think I’d be good?”

Maxie and Earl gave each other one of those
looks.

“What did you do that for? What’s wrong with me being president of the fourth grade?” I asked.

Earl shrugged. “Nothing’s exactly
wrong
with it, Rosie,” he said. “It’s just that sometimes you can be a little bit …”

He hemmed and hawed. “Well, you know …”

“Bossy and overbearing,” said Max.

“I am not,” I snapped. “I’m not bossy and whatever that other word means. I just happen to believe in following the rules, that’s all. What’s so wrong with that? In case you’ve forgotten, my grandfather happens to be a retired police detective.”

Maxie’s mouth dropped open. “No! Really? You’re kidding! Gee, I think that’s only the jillionth time you’ve told us that. Isn’t it, Earl? Isn’t that the jillionth?”

Earl pretended to count on his fingers. Then he shook his head. “The jillionth and one,” he said.

They were only teasing, but it still hurt my feelings. I’m very proud of my grandfather. He’s part of the reason I’m such a model citizen.

He and my mother and I all live in the same house that Mom grew up in. It’s just the three of us, too. We’re sort of a different kind of family, I guess you’d say. We would have been a regular kind of family, but my father and my grandmom both died when I was a baby.

I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I used to have a girlfriend who was almost like a sister. But we haven’t spoken in over a year. It wasn’t my fault, exactly. She spray-painted a bad word on the sidewalk and I was forced to report her to the police.

Anyhow, even though my granddad is retired, he still hangs around the police station a lot. Sometimes when I go down there with him, this one sergeant lets me wear his hat. I’ve met criminals down there before, too. Not the real dangerous kind. But still, most of them haven’t shaved for a while.

“It’s not very nice calling me bossy, you know,” I told Maxie. “And anyway, I don’t care
what you say, I still think I’d make a good class president. I have excellent values and I follow the rules. Plus also, I have a bullhorn, which I could bring to school to keep the children in order.”

Maxie raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?” he asked. “You have a real, actual bullhorn? An official one? Like the cops use on TV?”

“Yup,” I said. “It’s my grandfather’s, but I’ve used it before. Just ask my mother if you don’t believe me. Last summer I snuck outside with it. And I ordered her to come out of the house with her hands up.”

Now Earl was impressed, too. “Wow! And she
did
it? She really raised her hands and came outside?”

“Well, kind of,” I said. “I mean, at first she just went to the window and yelled at me to put it down. But then some of the neighbors who were out in their yards started chanting, ‘Come out, Helen! Come out!’ So finally she ran outside and snatched the bullhorn away from me.”

“Wow,” said Earl, again.

“Yeah, wow,” I agreed. “A bullhorn is a pretty powerful piece of equipment, all right.”

I didn’t tell them the best part about that day, though. It would have sounded stupid to say it. But the best part of that day was how that bullhorn turned a little voice like mine into a loud, booming voice that everyone listened to.

A voice of
authority
, I guess you’d say.

And I’m telling you the truth … a voice of authority can make you feel bigger than anything.

2
TO RUN OR
NOT TO RUN?

ROSEBUD SWANSON FOR PRESIDENT OF THE FOURTH GRADE

The idea kept flashing on and off in my head like a neon sign. I’m not kidding. Ever since I mentioned it on the playground, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

ROSEBUD SWANSON FOR PRESIDENT OF THE FOURTH GRADE

Boy. That’d show everyone, wouldn’t it? If I was president of the whole entire fourth grade, I bet Maxie and Earl and I would never get picked on again.

The idea wasn’t totally impossible, you know. I mean, you don’t
have
to be cute or popular to run for president. It’s not an actual requirement or anything.

At school we have a poster of the presidents of the United States, and practically none of those guys were cute. George Washington even had weird-looking hair. I realize that weird-looking hair was in style back then, but I still think one of his friends should have pulled him over and said, “Hey, George. Change the ‘do.’ ”

Anyway, maybe it was just a coincidence, but at the exact same time the thoughts about becoming president were floating around in my head, my teacher read an announcement about the class election.

“There’s going to be a candidates’ meeting for fourth-graders right after school,” he read from the school bulletin. “Anyone who is interested in running for class office should report to room thirteen—that’s Mrs. Munson’s room—at three o’clock sharp.”

As soon as he said it, I got butterflies in my stomach and goose bumps came on my arms. The kind of goose bumps that don’t go away when you rub them.

“That’s today, right, sir?” I called out. “The meeting’s today?”

A couple of kids turned around and looked at me. They rolled their eyes as if they couldn’t believe a person like me would even
think
about running.

Judith Topper, the jerky girl who sits right in front of me, was one of them. The two of us aren’t that fond of each other.

“Yeah, right, Rosie,” she said. “Like you could really win an election. You’re not cute. And you’re not popular. Get a clue, okay?”

“Oh really, Judith?” I said back. “Well, if I’m not cute, then what does that make you? Repulsive or putrid? Pick one.”

Judith made a face at me. “Geek,” she said.

That’s when I really started to boil inside. It’s just not fair, that’s all. Why does being cute and popular have to be so important? Why isn’t it ever enough just to be a regular, average person?

There’re lots of us around, you know. In fact, almost everybody in my entire class is just a regular, average person. Some of them even wear glasses like I do.

Also, there are kids with crooked teeth and braces and dumb haircuts and big noses and ears
that stick out. We even have two boys in our room who can put you to sleep just by talking to you.

I felt myself relax a little.
Average.
It’s not a bad word, really. It’s nice, in fact. Comfortable, sort of.

Norman Beeman caught me looking at him and blushed. Norman is one of the dumb haircuts. Also, he has fat, freckled fingers. And sometimes he wears yellow fishing boots to school. I would like to ask him about the boots, but Norman Beeman scares me a little.