“Why should it be up to people who don’t go to school anymore to decide if we have sports or not?” I ask Mom.
She checks the vegetable lasagna in the microwave and pulls off the plastic covering. “Because property taxes are how most public schools are financed. You have to vote on them.”
“What if we lose?”
She resets the microwave. “Tess, why the doubt all of a sudden? When you and Bo signed up all those people for yard signs, you were confident that you’d win. This have anything to do with the soccer game the other day?”
I shrug and grab a carrot from the salad. “I don’t know—maybe. I thought we were the best. That we could beat any team in our league. I never missed a penalty shot like that before. Maybe I’ve misjudged our chances of winning the levy, too, and then we’ll lose sports.”
“Tess, in Cleveland, levies have failed for years. Forget sports—students are in classrooms that aren’t heated in the winter, ceilings caving in, water damage. No textbooks, desks, basic school supplies.”
I sigh. This sounds like her clean-your-plate-children-are-starving-in-India speech. “Okay, Mom. But it still su—stinks if we lose. I can’t imagine going to school and not staying after for sports. I mean, what’s the point?”
Mom looks up from chopping veggies and gives me a stern look, and I wonder, did progress reports come in the mail today?
“I understand how you feel.” She walks over to the fridge and opens the door. “Did your father pick up some milk the other day?”
“In the back. Behind the orange juice.”
“Hey, what’s for dinner?” Mark stops the microwave and opens the door for a peek.
“Reset that and be patient!” says Mom.
“Mark, tomorrow after school, could you drive Bo and me around so we can put up the yard signs for the levy?”
“Nope, I’m busy.” He grabs a breadstick from the table and shoves it in his mouth.
“It won’t take long. Mom and Dad have a dinner, and Bo’s mom works late on Fridays.”
Mom gives Mark a lawyerly stare. Unlike Dad, she has no problem playing judge, jury, and jailer in our lives. Since Mark’s on probation for the mailbox mishap, I know she’s thinking that he should do his civic duty and lend a hand for a good cause.
Mom doesn’t say a word—one look, and Mark gets the message loud and clear.
“All right, all right, I’ll drive you and goalie boy around for an hour, but that’s it!
“Just be quick and pitch the dumb signs out the car windows because I’m not wasting my Friday night with you two!”
“Thanks, Mark.” I try planting a big kiss on his face, but he grumpily grabs another breadstick and retreats to his room until dinner.
* * *
Friday in school, Bo gets in trouble during lunch for trying to juggle two apples and an orange. But a girl fight distracts the monitors and they forget to assign him a detention. A pack of eighth-grade girls targets a few pretty sixth-grade girls who need to be put back in their place.
The principal breaks up the fight and practically carries one of the hysterical eighth-grade girls out of the cafeteria in a bear hug. Everyone else is hyped and chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!”
Ibby says, “I hate it when they act like this—animals. Why do they like to see people fight?”
“Don’t know,” I say. “I guess it’s like reality TV in front of their faces.” I try to distract her. “Hey, my mom said you could sleep over tonight. After school today, Bo and I are putting up the levy signs. Want to help?”
“Sure, but how are you going to carry all those signs?”
“Mark’s going to drive us around.”
“Oh.” Ibby takes a sip from her water bottle. “Maybe I’ll meet you at your house after you’re done.”
“Come with us, Ibs. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m not allowed in the car if Mark’s driving—remember?”
“Oops, forgot.” This summer, when Mark first got his temps, he drove Ibby home after a visit. When he dropped her off, he accidentally drove up onto their lawn and crushed one of Mrs. Bloom’s antique garden gnomes. She added teen drivers to her list of phobias and made a rule that Ibby wouldn’t be allowed to drive with Mark from then on. I offer her a barbeque potato chip. “Meet you at my house after, then. Say, around seven or so. Okay?”
She takes two chips. “Sure, thanks.”
In Discovery Tech, Mrs. Bustamonte’s in a better mood today. Sarah Willingham apparently went around the school and collected every last mouse ball she could find. She put them in a juice-box purse that she stitched together herself from used plastic juice packets and presented them to Mrs. B.
Some people have way too much time on their hands.
Mr. Metz is not in a good mood. The word around school is that Georgie’s parents complained about him to the principal. Metz was forced to attend a meeting and listen to the Taxuses’ ideas on how he should teach intelligent design in Science, along with evolution.
I heard that they also brought up Bo’s Pledge of Allegiance and encouraged the school to take disciplinary action against him for disrespecting both God and country. I hope Mrs. Korn explained to them that it’s nothing personal. And besides, Bo’s the only kid I know who can recite extensive passages from the Bible as well as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—by heart.
When I get home from school, the levy signs and their metal posts have been delivered and are stacked in a neat pile next to my garage door—all fifty-three of them. Wow! Somehow seeing the slogan INVEST IN THE BEST on a little orange-and-black schoolhouse drives it all home. This is it! People really will be going to the polls next week to vote. Bo and I have our work cut out for us this afternoon to get these up in the neighborhood.
I begin by slipping the placard signs over the metal posts and stapling the sides together. I’m just about finished when Bo walks up the driveway and says, “Hey, you didn’t tell me we had to make them!”
“I’m not making them, only stapling them together so we can put them in the ground. See, the wire posts and the signs come separately.”
“‘Invest in the best’?” he reads out loud. “What a load of crap!”
I shrug. “You’ve got to sell it or they won’t vote for it.”
Bo walks into the garage. “What’s with the little orange schoolhouse with the bell on top? Since when do schools look like that? Would’ve been better if they put an armed guard in a tower.” He comes out holding a basketball, bounces it twice, puts it through his legs, and then takes a jump shot. It bounces off the rim and begins rolling down the driveway into the street.
“Hey!” I shout. “Feel free to pitch in anytime.”
“Got to get ready. Basketball tryouts in three weeks.” He retrieves the ball and continues dribbling past an imaginary defense, up and down the driveway.
“Not going to be any tryouts if the levy doesn’t pass.”
“Right!” Bo tosses the ball onto the lawn and picks up a sign and jabs it into the ground. “There, don’t say I didn’t do my part.”
“Nice try—hey, watch out!”
Speeding down the street, Mark makes a sharp turn into our driveway—barely missing the replacement mailbox Dad put up just three days ago. He guns the car, pretending to run us over, and stops with a squeal of brakes five feet in front of us.
“Your brother’s a maniac.”
“Tell me about it. Ibby’s not allowed to get in the car with him, otherwise she’d be here helping us.”
“Lucky Ibs.”
Slamming the car door, Mark says, “Hey, losers, if you want me to chauffer your lazy butts around, you’d better load all those signs in the trunk by the time I come back out or you can forget about it!”
He steps over the posts I’m trying to untangle. “Tess, almost as much metal here as in your mouth.”
I jab at him with a post, but he leaps out of the way and slams the garage door behind him.
“Friendly guy,” Bo mutters.
“He’s gotten worse ever since he got his license and Luke left for college. Pretty soon, he’s going to need a convertible because his big fat ego won’t fit in this car.”
Bo and I count out the signs—forty-one of them. We leave the twelve extra leaning against the side of the garage and gather up the rest to put in the trunk. We’ve just about got them in when we hear a familiar voice behind us. “Hello there!”
What is she doing here?
I don’t think Jillian’s been on this side of the street since she moved in this summer. Did she come over to get a levy sign? I tried two more times to talk to her parents, and every time I rang the bell, Jillian answered and said that they weren’t home or that they couldn’t come to the door. Yeah, right. She’s just jerking me around.
Bo says, “Hey, Jillian. What’s up?”
“My dance troupe just won a major competition and now I’m heading for Regionals next week. I’m so excited because I did most of the choreography and I designed the costumes as well. I think I have a great shot at winning the whole competition!”
And I think Jillian has a pronoun problem.
“Cool,” says Bo, and he makes a fist and gently knocks his knuckles against hers in congratulations.
“Jillian, we’re putting up yard signs.” I look at her knowingly. “Which reminds me—”
“I know. I know,” Jillian says, waving her purple nails in my face. “Mark asked me to come over.”
I glare at the house, looking for my Benedict Arnold brother.
Jillian continues, “We’re catching an early movie at the cineplex and he figures it would save time if we did the signs on the way.”
We?
I must look like a fish in Mark’s aquarium. The one whose big mouth repeatedly opens and closes but nothing comes out of it. Mark and Jillian O’Hanlon on a date? What happened to hating the O’Hanlons? Why complicate things by turning her into a girlfriend?
On cue, Mark walks out of the garage. I notice he’s wearing that expensive T-shirt again, and he reeks of aftershave or some stinky cologne. Has he totally lost his mind over this fluff chick?
Everyone piles into the car except me. I stand there in back of the trunk, wondering if it’s too late to pull all the signs out and maybe find another ride. Mark turns the key, and exhaust fumes hit my face. I slam the trunk and quickly move out of the way. With Mark’s driving record, I’m in danger of becoming driveway-kill.
“Wait, I forgot the clipboard with the addresses!” I shout. I run into the garage and grab them from the workbench.
Of course, Mark doesn’t wait.
He throws the car into reverse, tires squealing, as he just misses the new mailbox for the second time, and peals out into the street. There, he drives along close to the sidewalk at about five miles per hour. The three of them laugh their heads off in the car as I run to catch up.
“It’s not funny, Mark!” I shout, smacking the window with my hand.
But I guess it is, because he doesn’t stop until we’re about fifty yards from our home. I yank open the door. “You skipped three houses that need signs, moron!”
“More fun watching you run!”
“Pop the trunk before I pop your face!”
I pull the first sign out and furiously stab it into the Stimpsons’ front lawn. When I get back into the car, Jillian’s got the radio blasting as she sings along with the pop music and does slutty dance moves with her upper body in the front seat. Mark’s laughing, and Bo’s bouncing around the backseat, mocking her big-time.
“Get this dance on,” Jillian sings.
“Get these signs up!” I shout over the radio. “How about one for your house, Jillian?”
She shimmies. She shakes. She shuns me.
We spent the next hour and a half stop and go, rap, R&B, rock and roll, up and down the streets of our neighborhood, until every last sign is on a front lawn. Mark drops Bo off at a friend’s house, and I assume he’ll take me home to meet Ibby. Instead, he claims they’re running late for the movie and would I mind if he let me out right here, three blocks from home?
I could make a huge scene and threaten to accompany them to the movie if they don’t drive me home, but the thought of spending another minute with these two makes me want to puke. I bail out of the car, slam the door, and start jogging home. I feel like I could run a marathon if I had to.
* * *
“I can’t believe your brother would date Jillian,” says Ibby later that night as we share a bowl of popcorn and watch one of our favorite Jane Austen films, Pride and Prejudice. “I mean, from everything you’ve told me, they’re total opposites. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Nooo, they’re exactly the same,” I say. “Both jerks!”
Ibby laughs and licks the salt and butter from her fingers. “Well, then they deserve each other. Poetic justice, as Mr. Chen always says.”
“I guess, but it burns me up about the signs. She acts so fake and nice to the boys, but treats me like dirt. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her parents. I know it’s only one vote, but I hate the fact that she thinks she’s won!”
“She hasn’t won, Tess. Voters will decide on November second.”
“Unless…”
“Oh, no. There’s that I’ve-got-a-plan look in your eyes again.”
“Remember those extra signs I told you about?”
“Yes, but—”
“Wouldn’t it be a shame for them to go to waste?”
“Tess, I don’t think—”
I grab her hand and pull her toward the door. “No time for thinking, Ibs. Time for action!”
There’s something really eerie about being outside at two o’clock in the morning when everyone in your neighborhood, including your parents and dorky brother, have long gone to bed. The air is cold and we can see our breath. The grass crunches when we walk on it, stiff with the first frost finally blanketing our town. About a dozen signs are leaning against the side of the garage where I left them. I grab three and head down the driveway.
Ibby stands there in red flannel cat pajamas and flip-flops. “Tess,” she whispers.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing? Jillian didn’t say yes to even one sign on her lawn.”
“Yeah, I know.” The metal posts are cold so I shift them to my other hip. “But, she didn’t say no to three.”
Ibs nervously runs her hands through her curly hair and sighs. She knows there’s no talking me out of it, so the best she can do is to follow me across the street and try to be a voice of reason in the middle of the night.
I stick the first sign right smack in the middle of a dandelion patch and put the other two on either side—INVEST IN THE BEST, INVEST IN THE BEST, INVEST IN THE BEST!
“Beautiful,” I whisper.
Ibby stands there with her arms crossed, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Okay, you’ve made your point—three times. Now, let’s go back inside. I’m freezing.”
“Not yet.”
“You’re trespassing. You’re going to get in trouble!” she hisses.
I sling my arm across her shoulders and step back, admiring my work. “Chill, Ibs.”
“No problem,” she mutters, “I’m freezing my ass off.”
I laugh out loud, covering my mouth so as not to wake the O’Hanlons.
Ibby smiles, beginning to enjoy the fun of letting a curse word fly in the dead of night while standing in the middle of the road in flip-flops and flannel.
“We’re not going to get in any trouble, and even if we did, wouldn’t it be worth it to see the expression on Jillian’s face?”
Ibby smiles. “I guess so.”
We hear a noise from across the street.
“Oh no!”
The garage door to my house opens and a dark figure stands silhouetted in front of the light for a moment, closes the door, and makes his way down the driveway.
“Now I’m in trouble,” I say.
“What are you two losers doing out here in the middle of the night? Halloween’s not for another—whoa!” He points to the signs on the O’Hanlons’ lawn. “You do that?” he demands.
Ibby looks at me wide-eyed. Having grown up an only child with a timid cat, she’s failed to develop a healthy disregard for an older brother’s stupid questions.
“You’re in deep freakin’ trouble, Tess Munro! Don’t you know it’s against the law to put political signs on people’s front lawns without their permission? You want Mom to lose her license? Dad, his job at the school?”
Ibby’s shoulders tremble beside me.
“You’re full of crap, Mark! No one’s going to lose their job. Besides, it’s my job to put up the signs in this neighborhood, so go back to bed with your Woo-woo doggie and your shabby-lookin’ boxers and mind your own business!”
“Woo-woo doggie?” whispers Ibby.
“A stuffed animal he’s been sleeping with since he was a baby,” I explain.
“Okay, crazy girl. Psycho sis.” He takes a couple of jabs at my face, stopping just short of contact.
I brace myself and refuse to back down.
“But don’t say I didn’t warn you when we’re tossed out onto the street this winter, huddled around a barrel fire, toasting marshmallows and wienies stuck on your stupid metal signposts.”
I shake my head. “You’re the one who’s toasted, Mark. Come on, Ibs.” Grabbing hold of her icy hand, I lead her back toward the house, with Mark grumbling behind us. In the pitch-black garage, we almost trip over a pile of sneakers and a basketball lying on the floor in front of the door.
A fierce whisper—“Hey!”
We turn around.
“Where you going?” Mark asks, as he absentmindedly scratches the waistband of his boxers.
“Inside, dorko.”
“You got to finish the job.” And with that, Mark lifts the remaining nine signs leaning against the garage and carries them across the street. They rattle and clank against each other as they hit his leg. Ibby and I watch in amazement as, one by one, he plants them in the ground all over the O’Hanlons’ front yard.
“Tess?”
“Hmm?”
“How do you think Mark’s date with Jillian O’Hanlon went tonight?”
“I don’t know.” I smile at her. “But I think it’s safe to say that there probably wasn’t any good-night kiss!”