The Fight for Kidsboro (9 page)

The election was to be held on the first day of May, and I felt that the past week had been a definite victory for me. I'd been right about Roberto. My approval rating was probably up, and Valerie had lost her whole “He's letting criminals into town” argument. So even though I was disappointed in my city council, I had something to keep my head up about.

I headed over to Jill's office to see how she was planning to cover the Nick/Roberto story in the newspaper. As I approached the newspaper office, I heard two angry voices coming from inside. I rushed in to see what was going on. It was Jill and Marcy. Marcy had one hand on her hip, and with the other she was shaking a pencil in Jill's face.

“You just think you're Miss Journalism, don't you?” Marcy said, not seeing me yet.

“I'm not running your story,” Jill said. “That doesn't mean I won't run other stories.”

“It's a perfectly good story.”

“There are finally some things going on in this town. We don't need fluff. Nobody cares about your canary.” Jill glanced over at me. “Ryan, do you care about Marcy's canary?”

I'd seen Marcy's canary. It was cute. Would I throw myself in front of a bus for Marcy's canary? No. But did I
care
about it?

“Are you gonna answer the question, Ryan?”

“Oh … uh … I don't know. Why?”

“Well, you see, Marcy's my new assistant. I'm paying her 10 tokens a week so she can keep her house.”

Hey! The Everybody Works program in motion!
I thought.

“So I told her to write a story,” Jill continued. “Well, she came back with a story that I don't think works very well for our newspaper.”

“But it's great!” Marcy said. “It could become a regular column: ‘Citizens and Their Pets.' I think Nelson and Valerie have a Siamese cat.”

“Great. We'll make it a double issue,” Jill said sarcastically.

“This is not
The New York Times
. We're kids.”

“It's lame, Marcy.”

“It's not. But even if it was, so what? At least it fills up space.”

“Let me explain something to you.” Jill squared her shoulders as if she was about to teach her pupil something. “There are only two ways that this newspaper makes money—people subscribe to it, and people advertise in it. Okay, right now I have 11 subscribers and one advertiser—Max and his scary insurance ads. Now if any of those people decide that your canary story is too lame for them to keep spending money on this newspaper, I'm doomed. Do you understand?”

Marcy's shoulders fell. “Fine. I'm leaving. Maybe somebody'll murder me on the way home and you can have your great story.” Marcy left.

Jill turned away from me and crumpled up the piece of paper in her hand. “Maybe we should rethink this Everybody Works thing. I didn't know it would cause this,” she said.

“You don't think she'll work out eventually?” I asked.

“She's a really good friend … but she doesn't have a clue about the newspaper business.”

“Then why'd you hire her?”

“I had to. She was desperate. She didn't want to lose her house, so she came to me. I couldn't turn her down. She's my friend.” She sighed, but then her eyes brightened. “I want to have another city council vote on the Everybody Works law.”

“We can't back out on it yet. Just give it a little time. It'll work.” Little did I know that the problems between Marcy and Jill were only the tip of the iceberg.

“Everybody Works Doesn't Work,” part two, occurred the next day when I ran into Pete and Nelson. Nelson was walking quickly, trying to get away from him, but Pete kept up the pace, jumping in front of Nelson to force him to make eye contact.

“But … how do you
feel
about the break-in?” Pete asked.

“I don't feel anything,” Nelson said impatiently. “It just happened. They already caught the guy. It's over.”

“But don't you feel emotional distress or anything?”

“No. Now go away.” Nelson insisted. I was terribly confused by this conversation.

“What about future stress? Do you think you'll have to go into therapy because you'll never feel safe in your own home again?”

“Listen, I'm working on a spanking machine, and I won't hesitate to make you my first guinea pig.”

“What's going on?” I asked.

“He's trying to get me to sue somebody. But there's nobody to sue,” Nelson explained.

Pete was unmoved by my presence. “Okay, let's forget the break-in. What about your life? Has anybody discriminated against you recently? Maybe someone defamed your character?”

“I'm in middle school. Everyone defames my character.”

Pete's eyes lit up. “Okay, okay. Now we're getting somewhere.”

“Forget it, Pete.”

I stepped in. “Look … there's no place for this. We can't have lawsuits against each other.”

“Can I sue the government?” Pete asked.

“No.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? I've never made any money by being a lawyer. Now with this wonderful new law you've passed, I have to find a way to make some money or I lose my house.”

“There are better ways than this.”

“I'm a lawyer, Ryan. I love the law.” I could tell he got that line from a TV show, as well as the next one. “If I do anything else, it's like cheating on my girlfriend.”

I rolled my eyes. Pete remained undaunted and looked at Nelson. “Now are you gonna listen to me or not?”

“No.”

“You're missing out on almost certain riches, my man.” Pete shook his head sympathetically, and then took off to badger more potential clients. I looked sheepishly at Nelson.

“We should've seen this coming,” Nelson said. “And you know what? Somebody's gonna end up suing. And if it works … everybody's gonna want a piece of the action. It'll be a litigation free-for-all.”

Something told me Nelson was right.

7

EVERYBODY WORKS

I
SAT IN MY OFFICE
, banging a pencil against my card-table desk. History is filled with leaders who had to make tough decisions under pressure. I'm sure plenty of people asked George Washington, “Why are we crossing the Delaware? It's a dumb idea to cross the Delaware. Let's just go around the Delaware.”

I picked up a pen and began to drum it against the desk as well. I knew that nobody would blame me if I decided to change my mind about the law. If I took the idea back to the city council, they'd choose to forget the Everybody Works program had ever happened. The town wasn't too thrilled with it—I knew that. But I also believed it would work over time. In a few months, when the economy had picked up, people would be telling me what a brilliant idea it was. The thought passed through my brain that I could take back the new law, get reelected, then pass it again. But I knew that wouldn't be right. Maybe I could get reelected just on the basis of my integrity—the fact that I wouldn't take back the law, even if it meant possibly losing the election. George Washington stuck to his guns. So would I. Maybe people would reelect me because of that.

Fat chance.

Jill burst in without knocking. I jumped when she slapped a piece of paper down on the desk in front of me.

“I'm being sued!”

“What?”

“Yesterday's paper had an interview with Corey Hawkins.” Corey was the neighborhood garbage collector. “You know how Corey wants to start having recycling bins in town?”

“Right.”

“So I let Marcy do the interview. And she writes in the article that after he picks up our garbage, he uses some of it to decorate his room.”

“What?”

“Exactly what I said. I asked her, ‘Are you sure he told you that he decorates his room with garbage?' I asked her that three times. She swore up and down that's what he said. So I did what you told me to do—I figured I would give her a shot. I ran the story. Well … as it turns out, Corey doesn't decorate his room with garbage. He simply
knows
someone who decorates his room with things that other people would
consider
garbage.”

“That's a pretty bad misquote.”

“Apparently Corey's the laughing stock of the town now. He told me that one kid gave him a moldy donut and a nail and asked him if he wanted to hang it up on his wall.”

“So he's suing for libel.”

“And he's got a case.”

“For how much?

“Thirty starbills. I don't have it.”

“I can't believe this.”

“Do I have the authority to call a city council meeting?” she asked without hesitation. She had obviously already given this some thought.

“I'll talk to Corey. I'll ask him not to sue.”

“That's not the point. This program isn't working. It's making people too desperate for money.”

I leaned back in my chair. She had a point. “I'll look into it.” She gave me a long, hard stare, nodded her head, and left without another word.

It was time for some more appointments. When in doubt, make an appointment. I needed to find out if this program was working at all. So I spoke to all the people who had been “forced” to get jobs, 10 in all, and they agreed to meet with me in my office to discuss their progress. It had been two weeks since I had set up the Everybody Works program, so if anyone was having trouble finding work, this was his or her last week to come up with something.

I thought I'd begin with the one person who I knew would have the biggest problem with the new law—James the doctor. It's rumored that one summer he faked sunstroke to get out of mowing the lawn. He'd looked it up in some medical journal and acted out the exact symptoms. Then after his father finished the lawn, he faked a miraculous recovery. He was actually admired for how good he was at being lazy. If anyone was going to fail at finding work, it was James. That is, unless he was pushing people down cliffs so he could give them medical attention and charge them afterward. The Way things were going, that sort of thing didn't appear to be beyond the people of this town.

James came in with a much different look on his face than when he had come in before. He actually seemed excited to talk to me. Of course, the cliff theory immediately came to mind.

“So, James, how are you doing?”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Are you finding any work?”

“Sure.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “What kind?”

“I sold some lemonade and juice and stuff. See?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out two starbills. My mouth fell open. “Remember how it was so hot the other day? I guess people were pretty thirsty, huh?”

“You made two starbills selling drinks?”

“And change. Sold about 40 cups.”

I smiled. “You're kidding me. That's great!”

“I just thought about what you said about being a productive member of society and participating in the economy. So I figured I should do this.”