Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back! Read online

  He pulled out the paperback they were reading for language arts but could not concentrate. The words were wiggly. Each line reminded him of a lap at the pool. He kept thinking: Would those creeps come after him for calling the police?

  Little kids were doing puzzles or playing with the library’s collection of plastic dinosaurs. Adam used to love coming with his dad on Saturday mornings. Library dinosaurs were big and fierce, bright purple and green and yellow, made of hard plastic. In the Quiet Corner, a father was sitting with two little boys, reading to them. Adam missed big picture books with one large drawing on every page and just a couple of words. Little kids had a great life. No worries.

  “Doing lots of reading?” Jennifer asked, flopping her nitrate printouts onto the table. When Adam didn’t answer, she gently tapped him on the head with a yellow pad — the list of story ideas for the February Slash. “Anyone home?” she said. “Adam, you are even more spacey than usual. You OK?”

  Adam nodded.

  “So, I’ve got this easy story that will cover us for Black History Month,” Jennifer said. “Tremble County is going to rename a street for Martin Luther King. Isn’t that perfect? A feel-good story.” Adam knew the street; it was in the Willows, the poorest and most heavily black section of the county. “They’re having a bunch of kids from Harris go to some rainbow ceremony. Sound good?”

  Adam nodded.

  “I’d be glad to do it.”

  Adam nodded.

  Sammy was finishing a story rating the best egg-bacon-and-cheese sandwiches. “He’s visited five delis so far,” she said. “He’s got seven to go. He says it’s pretty interesting — some fry the eggs, some scramble them, and there’s a lot of subtleties. He’ll score each sandwich from one to four yummy-yummies. Okey-dokey?”

  Adam nodded.

  Their sports feature was a look at the girls’ volley-ball team. And they were planning a brief story listing the distinguished guests coming for the Say No to Drugs Community Players pageant — basically every politician in Tremble County.

  “Phoebe’s got a bunch of stuff,” Jennifer said.

  Adam nodded. He wasn’t surprised. Phoebe, third-grade phenom.

  “She seems to be on this big environment kick,” Jennifer said. “You know Phoebe. Slightly obsessed. They made her recycling captain for third grade. I think she wants to use it as a springboard to higher office. She supports capital punishment for kids who throw a juice can in the regular trash. She says she got this great front-page idea at recycling club. . . . Where is it?” Jennifer rifled through a pile of notes. “Here. Something about a three-hundred-year-old tree being cut down. She says it’s an outrage. It didn’t sound that interesting, but . . .”

  “But she really wanted to do it?” Adam said, his voice a whisper.

  “How’d you know?” Jennifer said, smiling, but Adam did not smile back.

  “There’s a school board meeting coming up,” she continued. “I know you hate meetings, but I think we should go. A lot of the most annoying stuff they do to us gets started at board meetings.” Jennifer braced for a fight, but Adam just nodded. She’d never seen him in such an agreeable, nodding mood. They were getting lots done.

  She asked how his investigation of the school science fair was going. For weeks Adam had been telling Jennifer he was set to unleash this huge story about how parents were the real ones doing kids’ science projects.

  “Any chance you’ll have it for February?” she asked.

  Adam nodded.

  “Great,” said Jennifer.

  “I mean no,” said Adam. “I was nodding no.”

  “OK,” said Jennifer, making a note. “Sorry I got that nod upside down.”

  Adam nodded.

  “Sooo, I rescheduled the staff meeting for Monday.” She paused. “Adam, do you have anything for February? We could use a front-pager from you.”

  Adam nodded. They always wanted the big ones from him. Just once in his lousy life, couldn’t he do an easy story? Something that wouldn’t piss people off, something positive and heartwarming? People assumed that because he did investigations, he liked to pick fights. They assumed that if he got rid of one principal, that’s what he did for a living. Already kids were asking him if he had any dirt on Quigley.

  “Would you like an idea?” Jennifer asked. “See if you like this. I got an e-mail. This lady wants to give us an exclusive. Not an entire exclusive, she said — a local exclusive. She’s a press representative for a big Gentleman’s World reporter, Erik Forrest. He’s written for all the top newspapers — New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post. You ever hear of him? Well, he’s covered wars and Princess Di and a bunch of famous murder trials. And now he’s got a new book coming out and he’ll be at the mall bookstore and they said they’d give us a one-on-one.”

  Jennifer waited, but Adam didn’t even nod. “I thought, you know, you’re a great reporter, and he’s a great reporter; you’d have lots to talk about. My dad has some of his old war books and he says the guy’s great. I brought them for you. And the press people sent his new one. Sound OK?”

  She handed him the books. “Adam, say something. You’re scaring me.”

  “When’s your father coming?” he said.

  When Adam got home, his mom and dad hugged him and took his coat and swim bag and together they made him lunch. And neither read the paper while he ate. They kept asking questions about swimming and the library and the books he’d brought home, as if he’d just had the most interesting morning in the world.

  After he said for the third time that he didn’t want dessert, they led him into the living room to “discuss” a few things.

  A Tremble police detective had called. Besides this kid Kenny Gilbert, they had picked up four more boys. Adam was amazed there were that many, but the police said a couple had stayed inside the SUV the whole time. His mom read off the names. Adam didn’t recognize any. This was fabulous — now it was five kids who’d want to kill him.

  And that wasn’t all. His mother said it was probably going to be on the news. They couldn’t stop it. She said the police had put out a press release.

  “For a forty-dollar robbery?” Adam said.

  “It’s not the money,” said his dad. “It’s the idea: ‘Kid Mugged for His Shoveling Money! In the Suburbs!’ You’re a newshound, Adam. You know people eat up that stuff. Plus, the arrests were made so fast — makes it look like the Tremble police are right on top of things.”

  Adam felt dizzy and let his head plop against the sofa.

  “My name?” he said.

  “No, no, no,” said his dad. “They wouldn’t release that. You’re a minor. We said absolutely not. No one will know.”

  Adam looked at his father. Did grown-ups live on the same planet? “Right, Dad,” said Adam. “No one will know.” He headed up to his room. He said he just needed to lie down for a minute.

  When he woke, it was Sunday morning.

  The all-news radio station slogan was, “Give us twenty minutes and we’ll give you the world,” and all day Sunday, Adam’s bloody nose was apparently one of the biggest stories in the entire world. “A sordid snow shoveling tragedy,” they called it. Boland Action News 12 promised “All News All the Time,” and like clockwork at seven minutes past the hour, an anchorwoman who’d been smiling just seconds before turned deadly serious, looked into the camera, and began, “Is there any place where our children are safe?” And every hour she said it, she misted up at precisely seven past, as if she and Adam were dear friends and she was barely able to go on living.

  Even the Tri-River Region’s big city papers ran stories. One headline read, “Newest Outrage: Mugged for His Shoveling Money!”

  The news accounts made the whole thing sound so much larger and more important than it had felt to Adam. They said he’d been “assaulted by five teenagers joyriding in a late-model SUV.” They said he’d been left “beaten in a snowdrift.” They gave the boys’ names and said they would be charged with felony
assault and robbery, which carried prison sentences of up to four years.

  They did not give Adam’s name. But they said that the “victim”— they used that word about ten times per sentence — was a middle-school student who was jumped by the “vile predators” in Tremble’s River Path section.

  He hadn’t felt so awful about going to school since the day he and Jennifer had come out with the story about Mrs. Marris stealing the money. Why didn’t those vile predators have the decency to hurt him someplace he could hide under his shirt? From inside, his nose didn’t feel too bad, but from the outside it was as purple and yellow as a library dinosaur.

  Wherever he went, he kept his head down. If friends passed in the hall, he’d wave but yell that he was late — a very believable excuse in Adam’s case — and keep right on going.

  He took lunch in the library, alone. He got to his classes early and sat right down, pretending he was working. After school, he stayed in a bathroom stall for fifteen minutes doing math homework. He planned to walk into the newsroom after the Slash meeting started. The last thing he wanted was to give a roomful of reporters the chance to conduct a press conference about his nose.

  And he was surprised. It didn’t seem like anyone knew. At least no one said anything. It had taken a lot of bobbing and weaving, but he’d faked out the school. Maybe he’d overblown things. Who cared, really?

  Adam opened the door to Room 306 quietly. He ducked his head and tiptoed along the far wall to the back of the newsroom. He’d never felt so stealth-like. When he looked up, they were all staring.

  At him.

  When he stared back, they immediately gazed at the floor, the ceiling, any place but Adam.

  He made eye contact with Jennifer, who was standing up front. “We were just talking about stories for February,” she said.

  “That’s good,” said Adam. “Sorry, I’m late, I was just —”

  “No problem,” said Jennifer. “Really, don’t worry about it. We didn’t get that far.”

  Adam nodded. “What are you up to?”

  Now Jennifer was looking at the floor.

  “The staff feels we need to do a story on . . . ah . . . well . . . see . . . um . . . bullies. . . . Not special ones, just bullies in general. Regular bullies. You know, random bullies.”

  “Random bullies,” Adam repeated. Did they . . . ? Had they figured . . . ? Please, no.

  “We’re sick of it!” said a typist, and now they were all talking at once, competing to tell the most gruesome bully stories. There were back-of-the-school-bus bully stories, bathroom bully stories, bully stories about purposely being hit in the face with a dodgeball in gym.

  “So here’s my idea,” Jennifer said, and she told them about this famous newspaper, the Village Voice, that she’d read about on the Romenesko journalism website. For years the paper did an annual exposé on the ten worst New York City slumlords — landlords who didn’t care if their apartment buildings turned into rat-infested dumps.

  “We could do the ten worst bullies at Harris Elementary/Middle School,” Jennifer said.

  Ten worst bullies? They loved it! People were bouncing on couches, banging computers, standing on tables for the chance to nominate their favorite bully.

  Except Adam. He felt sick.

  He couldn’t believe how carried away they were getting. He had to stop this. Everyone at school would know. They’d assume he ordered up the story because of the snow-shoveling mess. They’d think it was his pathetic way of getting back at his bullies.

  “Excuse me,” he said weakly. “Excuse me.” They would not quiet down. “Can I talk for one minute?” It made him mad. All the frustration of the last few days was welling up inside. Bullies? What did they know about bullies? He had to make them listen.

  Adam grabbed his backpack and hurled it against the wall so hard that a bulletin board full of Slash citations for excellence crashed to the floor. Citations floated across the room.

  Everyone turned toward him.

  “Thanks for the chance to talk,” he began. “I’m only the coeditor around here.”

  “Ad-man, you know we love you,” said Sammy.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Adam. “And you know, no one loves kicking butt more than I do. Guys, don’t forget, I was the number-one person behind Sammy’s groundbreaking investigation of the cafeteria mashed potatoes. And I did help get Marris fired as principal. So, I’m not afraid of trouble. But I see a big problem.” He paused. “You want top ten bullies? Tell me how we rank them. How do we decide what makes one bully worse than another? There’s no fair way. Is a kid who bangs your head against the bus window worse than a kid who grabs you and whispers, ‘How’s it going, fat boy?’”

  “Adam,” said Jennifer, “Adam, listen —”

  “Is a kid who pushes you off your bike worse than a kid who gives you a wedgie?”

  “Adam,” Jennifer said. “Let me —”

  He was hot. “Is a kid who shoots his grandmother and buries her in the basement worse than a kid who dumps her in a cement mixer?”

  “ADAM!” shouted Jennifer. “STOP! PLEASE! Look, I agree. Newspapers must be fair. But you’re talking about problems that would come up if we, the Slash staff, decide on the worst bullies — if we try to set up our own point system and we rank the bullies and we serve as the total judge of bulliness. But we don’t have to do that. What if we run a poll? We announce it on the front page of the February issue. Every kid at Harris gets to vote for the worst bully. And then we print the bully poll results in March.”

  Even when Jennifer was wrong, she talked better than he did. He could see her idea racing happily through their sloshy brains. First one, then several said it was a great plan, and Sammy the food critic shouted, “Bully poll!” and they were all chanting, “Bully poll! Bully poll!”

  Adam put up his hands. “OK,” he said. “If we’re going to list the ten worst bullies, we have to give them a chance to give their side, right? That’s the fairness rule. So, you’re going to have to ask them how it feels being a top ten bully — and they’re going to pound you out. Remember: they’re bullies. We’re not talking Billys — bullies!”

  Jennifer would not back down. “Kids might actually be happy making the list,” she said. “Like they’re the most feared or toughest. It won’t be that bad.”

  Ulysses S. Jennifer was not going to surround him again. He had to make them feel fear, quick. “All right,” he said. “Just one favor. Before we announce the poll in the Slash, we need to find out which of you will volunteer to talk to the top ten bullies. I need a list of people willing to interview the bullies and get the bully side of the story. People who don’t mind going face-to-face with the most vicious kids at school. It’d probably be good if you know karate. Or if your parents are paramedics for an ambulance service or are licensed to use a defibrillator. Let’s see hands. I need names.”

  He scanned the room. They finally got it. He could see those brains focusing: they were envisioning themselves getting the crap beat out of them. Not a hand went up. Kids were staring at their feet. Kids who’d been walking around with untied shoelaces since kindergarten were suddenly bending down to tie them.

  Then a measly third-grade hand shot up. Phoebe! Adam closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Phoebe!

  “I’ll do it,” she squeaked. “This is a big story, all right. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service. Jennifer is right. It’s not just a list of worst bullies for kids to laugh at. It should be required reading for grown-ups, too. Especially teacher grown-ups. They forget about us being bullied every single day of our life. Since I was in Miss Hickey’s first grade, kids mocked me for being smart. ‘How’d you get the answer so fast, smart girl?’ And I didn’t know what to say, because my mommy, she was always so proud of my smartness — I was her little smarty-pants. The way these kids said it, being the smart girl didn’t sound good. They just wanted me to give them answers. And when I finally said no, the
y got mean. They’d whisper on the way to Miss Hickey’s desk or the pencil sharpener — Dweebie Phoebe. Phoeb the Feeb. Where was Miss Hickey? How could that lady not hear for a whole year? Once I stayed after to talk to her. ‘You’re too sensitive, Phoebe.’ It’s not my fault! I didn’t ask to be this smart so soon. And I hate them for being mean to a person who can’t help it if she has high reading comprehension.”

  Jennifer was hurrying toward Phoebe. Everyone knew what could happen if the third grader got on one of her nervous talking streaks, like that night at the boathouse before the big exposé last semester. Jennifer had to get to her quick, put her arm around her, rub her back, calm Phoebe down, before . . .

  “We have to do this,” Phoebe went on. “We must say no to bullies. No bullies! We all know that one of our Slash coeditors — I’m not supposed to say his name — was viciously beaten by the worst bullies. . . .”

  There was a gasp.

  Everyone looked at Adam.

  Jennifer was rubbing Phoebe’s back, but it was too little, too late. “Phoebe,” Jennifer moaned.

  “I know,” said Phoebe. “I didn’t mean to; it slipped out.”

  “Adam, wait,” Jennifer called. “Adam, come on.” When he didn’t slow down, she ran after him. Adam was fast, but he had a full backpack and Jennifer caught him by the door to the down stairwell.

  “I’ve got basketball practice,” he mumbled.

  “You knew people were going to figure it out,” she said.

  “Everybody knows?” he asked.

  “No,” Jennifer said. “Some. The Slash staff — you know, reporters.”

  Adam started to ask how many people Jennifer had blabbed to, but stopped. This wasn’t Jennifer’s fault. “How long?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow the rest’ll probably know,” she said. “That’s my guess. Parents saw the news; kids saw your nose, but kids don’t listen to the news. I figure when everyone gets home tonight, the lightbulbs will flash on all over town.”