The Fight for Kidsboro (2 page)

Me? I wanted to be the mayor … and no one had any objections. The others seemed to think I was the perfect choice, and this made me feel good. I liked my title—mayor of Kidsboro.

The five of us became the city council, and with Mr. Whittaker's help, we wrote the city charter, or the Kidsboro Constitution. All the laws of the land would be laid down in this document.

After we wrote the city charter, we decided that if we were going to do this, we would do it right. “I think we should have actual buildings,” I said in our first city council meeting.

“What do you mean?” Jill asked.

“Mr. Whittaker owns the woods behind Whit's End, and he told me we can use it. I think we should build clubhouses for our offices and bigger clubhouses for meeting halls.”

“Build clubhouses?” Scott said. “With what?”

This question led us to another question. Was our new town going to be just the five of us, or would we allow other people in? The clubhouse question answered this for us, because we ran into an immediate problem: none of us had any kind of building materials. Mr. Whittaker didn't want to supply our materials, because he wanted us to come up with our own solutions.

We all knew someone who had a supply of wood, and admitting him as a citizen would solve our problem. Max Darby's father owned a construction company, and Max had easy access to wood scraps. I was worried about asking Max to be a part of Kidsboro, though, because he was known for getting into trouble at school. But having him as a citizen would make it easy for us to get the wood we needed to build our town.

We asked Max, and he loved the idea of becoming a citizen because he thought it could make him rich. He would make us pay for the wood. That's when we decided to set up a money system for Kidsboro. Max would get Kidsboro money (instead of real money) for his wood: tokens (about five cents) and starbills (20 tokens, or about a dollar).

Everything sold in Kidsboro would have to be paid for in Kidsboro money. Mr. Whittaker decided that everyone who became a citizen would be given a certain amount of Kidsboro currency to start off with: enough to buy a house and have a little money left over to spend around town.

Over the next couple of weeks, with Max's help, we built a clubhouse for each of us. Eugene Meltsner was closely involved with the layout of the town, making logical decisions about where everything should go based on proximity to neighbors, quality of soil, and drainage. We also built a meeting hall, which was an open-air pavilion 10 times as large as any of the clubhouses. It was a multi-purpose city council meeting hall and entertainment center.

The next step was to build up our population. We began a search for citizens. Everyone we talked to seemed excited about the idea of being part of a kids' town, so we didn't have much difficulty finding interested people. Everyone was welcome to come to Kidsboro, but it was simply impossible to allow everyone to become actual citizens. We couldn't build that many clubhouses.

We decided that the requirements for citizenship in Kidsboro should be high. We wanted people of reasonably high standards so that we could build up a strong community. The city council would vote on each candidate. I disagreed with a couple of the selections: Valerie Swanson, for one. She was Nelson's sister and a very manipulative girl. But she was voted in despite my arguments against her. That's because She was the prettiest and most popular girl in school. I knew that most of the guys at Odyssey Middle School had secret crushes on her.

Mr. Whittaker gave us advice whenever we really needed it, but for the most part, he held back. He wanted us to get the experience of solving our own problems, and I appreciated this. I doubted that I would ever go to him for advice on a mayoral problem, but I knew that I could if I needed to.

So we had our little town. We started off with 20 people and added more over the next couple of months. Things went smoothly at first. Most Kidsboro citizens came to the town after school through the early spring months, and a lot of us spent our weekend days there. People obeyed the laws; businesses were set up and seemed to be prospering. And I was the mayor.

Which also made me the prime target.

1

THE PIT BULL AT MY DESK

M
Y FOOT SEEMED TO HAVE
a life of its own as it tapped uncontrollably on the ground. I pressed it flatter against the ground in an attempt to stop it, but I couldn't. Fortunately for me, the desk hid my foot's nervous dance from Valerie. I've heard that in the presence of vicious animals, you should never show fear, because it's the first thing they sense. I forced myself to look at her, stone-faced. She would not see me flinch.

She spoke, an evil smile crossing her otherwise perfect face. “I don't care if you
are
the mayor, Ryan. If I don't get what I want, I'm gonna take over this town and run you out.”

I felt the blood drain out of my face. I tried to return the smile, even though I knew that was silly. Valerie's smile didn't convey friendship or kindness. The fact that Valerie smiled was worse than if she had frowned or gritted her teeth. A frown would've meant she was serious about crushing me into tiny little bits. A smile meant she would also enjoy it.

She stood up without taking her eyes off of me. She leaned over my desk until her long, brown hair was almost swinging in my face. It smelled like strawberries, and for a split-second I was distracted. But I shook off the momentary crush and stared at her eyes, which were half-closed like a lion ready to pounce.

“Ashley gets in,” she said. She turned around and left, her work here done.

Whew! I could finally exhale. I wiped the sweat from my fore head with a sleeve and paced around the office, trying to work off some nervous energy. Most of the guys in our school, including me, actually admitted to being afraid of Valerie. The guys who wouldn't admit it were lying. And crushing me under her cruel thumb would be as easy for Valerie as crushing an ant with her foot.

We had grown to 29 citizens in our short two-month history, and we were planning to accept a new person into our town to make it an even 30. That afternoon, Valerie's best friend, Ashley, would be reviewed by the city council for possible citizenship. Valerie was trying to ensure that Ashley got the votes required to get in. One thing about Valerie: It was horrible being her enemy, but it was great being her friend. Having power in your corner has many advantages. Valerie knew that the five council members had to vote on Ashley. If Ashley didn't get an 80 percent majority vote (meaning four out of five people had to say “yes”), she didn't get in at all. No doubt Valerie pretty much knew how the voting would go: Ashley had three votes in the bag, and one vote against her. I was the wild card. If I voted yes to Ashley, she got in. If I voted no, she didn't.

The problem was, I didn't like Ashley. She called me “Dummings,” a less-than-clever variation of my last name, Cummings, plus she got into trouble a lot in school. I'd seen her cheat on tests and copy other people's homework assignments. She was not the type of person I wanted in my town. Kidsboro was a community filled with good citizens who followed rules. After all, this was not a real city—we couldn't actually force anyone to pay a fine or stay in jail, so everyone had to follow the rules on his or her own. A person like Ashley wouldn't take the laws seriously. I was sure of that.

So here was my choice: I could put the town in danger by allowing in a person who might ruin it; or I could put
myself
in danger by tugging on the chain of a fierce pit bull named Valerie.

Politics.

I went to the meeting hall pavilion where the city council met. All five members of the council gathered around the table.

Scott Sanchez was talking to himself, muttering the phrase “Walk the dog” over and over, which most likely meant that he was supposed to go home and do that right after the meeting. He would probably end up forgetting anyway, as he usually did.

To Scott's left,
Kidsboro Chronicle
reporter Jill Segler had her notebook out and a pencil resting on her ear. Next to her, Police Chief Alice Funderburk was jerking her head back and forth to crack the bones in her thick neck.

Finally, Nelson Swanson was studying a chart he had created on his computer. At the top, the heading was “Voting for Ashley.” Below the heading were two columns—a list of reasons for voting “yes” and a list of reasons for voting “no.” In the “no” column were all the things that I would've had in
my
“no” column—that Ashley was not very nice, that She was a dishonest student, and so on. In the “yes” column was one phrase, typed in the biggest font Nelson could fit on the sheet of paper: “VALERIE WON'T KILL ME!” Nelson was Valerie's brother and the only one smarter than her in town. But unlike her, he used his intelligence in positive ways.

They sat there staring at me, knowing exactly what was going through my head. Ashley's future in Kidsboro, and possibly
my
future as a living, walking human being, depended on my vote. Jill and Alice would vote for Ashley because she always invited them to her birthday parties. Ashley lived on Trickle Lake and her birthday party always included boating, swimming, and water skiing. It was the best party of the year. So Jill and Alice would vote for her simply because they wanted that invitation in their mailboxes.

Nelson would end up voting for Ashley. Getting Valerie mad at
me
was one thing. But actually living with her every day in adjoining rooms like he did, where she had easy 24-hour access to his neck, would be a nightmare.

I knew Scott would vote against Ashley. Scott had never liked Ashley, and he would do anything to keep her out, even if it meant putting his life in danger.

So the vote would be three to one. If I voted yes, the vote would be four to one, and Ashley would have the required 80 percent.

We went around the room. “Yes,” Alice said.

“Yes,” Jill said.

“No,” Scott said.

“Yes,” Nelson said.

No surprises. They all sat up in their chairs and gazed at me. I could almost feel Valerie's hands around my neck, ready to squeeze. I took a long breath, still not quite sure what I was going to say. I closed my eyes tightly. Sweat began to drip down my face. Not a sound came from the other four members of the council as I opened my eyes and let the word slide off my tongue.

“No.”

2

DANGEROUS CHOICES

I
REMAINED SEATED AS EVERYONE
filed out of the meeting hall past me. Nelson looked at me the way a priest would look at a man who was about to be executed. He adjusted his glasses and put his hand on my shoulder as if to say, “Bless you, my son,” and that he'd pray for my soul. Scott, being my best friend, probably thought he should be supportive, and so he said, “The town thanks you.” Then he went to his clubhouse, obviously forgetting that he was supposed to go walk the dog. Jill smiled as if she just might have a homicide to report in the next edition of the newspaper. Alice offered her protection. I think she was joking, but I'm not sure.