The Fight for Kidsboro (13 page)

I was actually a little bit excited by the fact that I got one more vote than I had expected. From whom, I couldn't guess, but at least somewhere out there I had a fan I didn't know about.

For the next week, I spent very little time in Kidsboro. I cleared out my office the day of the election, but after that I pretty much stayed at home—my
real
home. Valerie seemed to have the city running pretty smoothly. I heard a rumor that she was going to put Luke Antonelli (and his pool) up for a vote soon, along with a few others.

I did make one trip to town that week. We actually have a church in Kidsboro. It's not a building, but rather an area next to the creek that runs along the edge of town. I went to real church every week with my mother. When we first came to Odyssey, we never went to church, but then we met Mr. Whittaker and he took us. I didn't like it too much at first, but over the next two years, I really began to enjoy it. I became a Christian a year after we started going.

The “preacher” of Kidsboro, a 10-year-old, African-American boy named Joey, held a service for anyone who was interested. Joey's father was the pastor of the liveliest church in Odyssey. The singing in that church could drown out a low-flying aircraft.

I'd only been to a couple of services at the Kidsboro Community Church, and there had never been more than three people in attendance, including the preacher himself. Mr. Whittaker sometimes came to show his support, but I could tell it made Joey nervous to have him there. It would be like me making a political speech with Abraham Lincoln in attendance.

The service was about 15 minutes long. There was always a song, a short sermon, and an offering, but no one ever put anything in the offering plate. Joey was always hopeful, though. He never missed a week, either. He always had something to say.

Mr. Whittaker was already sitting down when I got there. We were the only ones there. Joey was glad to see me. He said he was sorry about the election, and that he would pray for me. Oddly enough, this was kind of nice to hear.

Joey led the three of us in a chorus of “Seek Ye First,” which I knew. Mr. Whittaker knew it too. Joey wanted to try it in a round, but I told him that would be kind of weird since there were only three of us.

Joey then launched into a sermon. This day he spoke about the Ten Commandments. I knew all of them already, so I kind of sat back and let him go through the list, smiling and nodding but not getting much of anything new out of the sermon.

But then he said something that struck me. He said, “Wouldn't it be a great world if everybody followed the Ten Commandments?” How true. No stealing. No killing. No lying. None of that. The Ten Commandments—now those were some rules you didn't mess with.

I was so struck by Joey's statement that I didn't really listen to the rest of the sermon. After he was done, Joey prayed with his arms raised, then passed the offering plate. I took it and stared at it for a second. He wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, and neither was I. But then I reached into my pocket and took out 12 starbills—everything I owned—and placed it into the offering plate. He looked at the money as if it were the Holy Grail. I patted him on the shoulder and said, “Thanks, Joey.” He was still staring at the money when I started to leave.

“Good sermon, huh?” Mr. Whittaker said.

“Yeah,” I replied. We headed to Whit's End together in silence. I was considering the perfect world that Joey had described.

I'm not exactly sure why I gave everything I owned to the church. Maybe it was because the church was the last thing in Kidsboro that I felt I could have faith in.

The following week, right out of the blue, the impossible occurred.

I was at Whit's End with Scott on the first day of summer vacation. We had been spending a lot of time together, mostly away from Kidsboro. Without me, I guess he didn't have any reason to be there either.

“You wanna take an Imagination Station adventure?” Scott asked. The Imagination Station was Mr. Whittaker's most popular invention. It was like a time machine, where you could visit places in history and people from the Bible. I wasn't really in the mood for an adventure, but Scott got in and started pressing buttons.

“How about the Boston Tea Party? You wanna go there?”

Just then, I noticed a boy in a leather jacket glancing over at us. I couldn't see his face well, but every now and then I would look over and he would quickly turn the other direction. It was as if he was staring at me, but didn't want me to know it. I looked in at Scott.

“Oh, let's do the Lewis and Clark adventure! That's so cool!”

I tried to listen to Scott, but heard footsteps behind me. I turned.

“Jim Bowers,” he said, looking at me. A lump settled in my throat.

“W-W-What?”

“You're Jim Bowers,” he said.

My leg was shaking uncontrollably. “You … you're mistaken. My name is Ryan.”

“Gimme a break, Jim. I'd know you anywhere. What, in four years you've already forgotten me? Jake Randall.”

I glanced at Scott to see what his reaction to all this was. He was half concentrating on his list of adventure options and half on me. I turned toward the machine. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

“Don't be an idiot, I know who you are.”

Scott shifted in his seat to get a square look at this kid. “Pardon me for being on Earth, but you've got the wrong person. His name is Ryan Cummings.”

“Ryan Cummings?” he said with a chuckle. “Get real, Jim. Stop the game. I know it's you.”

I turned around, showing a little more anger than I probably should have. “Listen, I don't know what you're talking about. My name is Ryan, and this Jim is probably somebody that just looks like me, okay? Now would you please leave us alone?” I quickly became very interested in the Imagination Station.

From behind me, I could sense he was deep in thought. “I don't know what you're doing. Maybe you think I'm mad at you or something. I'm not. I'm okay. But I'm staying here with my grandmother until the end of the summer. I'll find out what's going on.” I watched him in the reflection of the computer screen inside the cockpit. He stood there for a second, then left. I exhaled.

“You know that guy?” Scott asked.

“No. Never seen him before.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. Jim Bowers. I hadn't heard that name in four years.

I felt bad about lying at Whit's End, but I had panicked. It was a matter of personal safety, and I didn't know what to do. One day I would have to apologize to everyone for my deception. But for now, I tried to forget about it. I had a feeling it wasn't over, though.

Reports had it that things were going great in Kidsboro. All of Valerie's friends had become citizens. Somehow she got her pool, and it was the hot spot, even though it hadn't gotten quite warm enough in Odyssey to really require a pool. The pool was three feet deep and only 15 feet in diameter, but she packed the min there like sardines. Last I heard, She was working on the volleyball court. I couldn't imagine that she wouldn't get it.

I read a lot of books in my bedroom that week. Before we had started Kidsboro, my summers had always been spent reading alone in my bedroom. I would read about 20 books a summer. So in a way, it was kind of nice to get back to that.

I would take trips into Kidsboro just to see what was going on, but I'd never spend more than a few minutes there. Nobody said a lot to me as I passed them on the streets. I guess they didn't want to disturb my grieving process—or maybe they just felt guilty for not voting for me. Whatever the case, I didn't feel much like I was a part of the community any more. But I still had my books.

I was reading a good one when my mom told me I had a visitor. I went to the front door and looked through the screen. It was Jill. “Hey,” she said softly, smiling.

“Hey,” I replied the same way.

“Whatcha doin'?”

“Reading. What are
you
doing?”

She shrugged. “Just thought I'd stop by. Haven't seen you in a while.”

“Yeah …” I looked out at the front porch swing and motioned to it. We sat down. “I haven't spent a whole lot of time in Kidsboro lately.”

“I know,” she said, pushing her hair away from her eyes. I was wondering if she had a point to this visit, but it didn't matter to me if she didn't. It was nice just to see her.

“Marcy and I made up,” she told me. I thought there was a slight tone of forgiveness in her voice, and I eased up a bit.

“Good.”

This was not her point. She had another one. “So, have you decided that you don't want to be our friend if you can't be our may or?” This was not the point I expected. I expected one about a thousand times less blunt. She backed off when she saw me practically swallow my own tongue. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I know you're just … depressed or whatever.” She looked at me deeply, like She was trying to sense what I was feeling. “You feel like you're losing your town?”

By this point, I had pretty much recovered from the first question, so I answered her. “I guess a little bit.”

“Well, you're not. We miss you. And we need you.”

“You need me? Why?”

“I don't know. There's just something not right about everything when you're not there.”

“You mean it's a lot more fun when I'm not there,” I said.

“Oh … Valerie's done some good things, I won't lie. The pool's a blast. She's got about a hundred other ideas, too. The place is gonna be Disneyland by the time she's through. She's even gotten a few people new jobs in the rec center she's building. But … it doesn't have the same … I don't know,
feeling
to it. We used to be such a family, you know? Well, the stuff that happened with me and Marcy kind a stunk, but still … deep down we were all friends, and we liked being around each other.”

“And now?”

“Now … well, for example, Luke Antonelli's planning on moving next to Nelson. And Nelson's scared of him. He doesn't even want to live there anymore. He says he's gonna build another house somewhere else. And two of Valerie's friends had a fistfight the other day. Stuff like that never happened before. Makes me think it's because you're not around.”

“I'm surprised you'd say that. I thought you'd be thrilled to have Valerie as your mayor. No lawsuits. She probably lets you print whatever you want in the paper.”

“Sure, but … I'd rather have you.”

“Really?”

She pushed her hair away from her face again and blushed a little. She looked at me. “
I
was your third vote.” She cocked her head and laughed. I laughed too, because I never would've guessed that.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you were right. I never should have printed that story about Roberto's dad. And you were right about Roberto being innocent. And even though it didn't work out the way you wanted it to, that jobs program was something you thought would be a good thing for the town. And if we had given it more time, I think it probably would have worked. You're always thinking of the town first. You're always doing whatever's right. You're the only person I know who does that. And I want somebody like that as my mayor.”

“But I lost.”

“Come back anyway.”

I thought about it for a second, and the next logical question came to my mind. “What am I gonna do for a living?”

“I don't know. You can work with me. Be my sports editor. You won't get paid. I'm still paying off Corey. But we've got a volleyball court coming, you know.”

We laughed for a second, and then decided we had other things to talk about. We sat and talked until the sun went down.

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