On the way home, Adam’s dad grilled him about taking the taxi to see Danny.

Adam told the truth, but not the whole truth.

Adam did not mention asking Danny for advice about the shoveling case. He did not want his parents thinking he was going behind their backs and trusting someone else.

Adam did not say anything about the stories he was working on. If his parents knew he was preparing to do battle with both Mrs. Boland and the Devil, his mom and dad would yank him out of Harris and homeschool him in the basement.

All Adam said was that he was worried about Danny being depressed.

It worked.

Half the truth was plenty.

His dad was amazed Danny had seen Adam. “When Danny’s down,” his dad said, “he won’t even see me. You really are something, Adam. I’m very proud of you.”

Adam nodded and stared out the window. He loved his dad. For an adult, his dad really tried hard to figure out what was going on.

After dinner, Adam grabbed the portable and went to his room to call Jennifer. He told her all about his visit to Danny. He explained to her that he had been worried about the Willows story not being right for a kids’ paper. “But Danny solved that problem. He’s amazing,” said Adam. “It’s more work for us. We’re going to have to —”

“Talk to kids in the Willows,” said Jennifer. “Guess who I chatted up? Tish Osborne.”

“Where’d you see him?” Adam asked.

“I had my tennis lesson,” she said. “And my mom was late afterward. I was killing time, watching the boys play basketball.”

“And you asked him?”

“One of the things,” she said.

Jennifer said Tish had heard his mother talking about the boarded-up houses. “Tish said people are nervous. He said a kid he knew lived in one of the houses. And after the Bolands bought it, the family couldn’t find another place in the Willows to rent and couldn’t afford anything close by and wound up moving someplace far away, like outside Tremble. Tish couldn’t remember where.”

“Wow,” said Adam. “That’s exactly what we need. Can we use that in the story?”

“I didn’t ask,” said Jennifer. “We were just talking about personal stuff. I would’ve felt funny. Tish can be kind of touchy.”

“He seems a little mean,” said Adam, “but he did me a couple of huge favors. He’s a pretty surprising person.”

“You know that?” said Jennifer. “You’re a pretty surprising person. I’ve known him a long time. We were together four years in a row in elementary. He acts so above everything, but he’s definitely got another side. Like that day at Pine Street Church, watching over the little boys.”

Adam felt bad; he’d never thanked Tish about getting his ball back. He owed Tish.

“He’s really smart,” said Jennifer. “But I don’t think he ever takes home a book, just gets by. The boy can play ball, though. Football, too. And is he hot or what?”

Adam had lost track of the conversation. He’d been following it fine until the part about Tish being hot. He’d never noticed anything about Tish being hot. What was that? How did that get into the conversation?

“Adam, you there?” asked Jennifer. “Adam, come on. There’s no need to get mopey. You know Tish likes that Ashley Wheatley,” said Jennifer. “She’s a lucky girl. . . .”

Mopey? Why would he get mopey? A lucky girl? So that’s how it went. Jennifer just happened to be watching the boys play basketball. Right. They were just talking about personal stuff. Right. Adam had seen a few reality shows; he knew something about how the world worked. Jennifer was trying to deny everything, make a big deal about Tish liking this girl Ashley. As if that meant Jennifer couldn’t be liking Tish, too. Ashley is a lucky girl. Tish is hot.

“The girl goes out with the second-hottest point guard on the team . . .”

Adam couldn’t listen to another second of Jennifer’s malarkey. He had this terrible, empty feeling. He didn’t even remember saying good-bye. He tossed the portable on his bed, picked up his books, and trudged down to the computer. There was nothing worse than Sunday-night homework.

And Tish was the second-hottest point guard?

Adam froze. Tish was the SECOND-hottest point guard?

He instant-messaged Jennifer. Did you say Tish is SECOND??? hottest point guard? he typed.

Did I? she typed.

You did, he typed

Oh my, she typed.

Don’t lie, he typed.

Good-bye, she typed.

It was midnight by the time Adam finished studying for Devillio’s unit test on the nervous system. Adam memorized the three types of neurons. He memorized the difference between a receptor and an effector. He knew that the trochlear was the nerve that controlled the superior oblique muscle of the eyeball and that the glossopharyngeal was the nerve that controlled the tongue muscle. He could fill out every line of the diagram showing what part of the brain controlled smell, speech, muscle movement, skin sensation, convulsions, and vision. The only thing he didn’t know was how his brain always managed to hold on to every last one of these dopey definitions and multiple-choice answers until he’d taken Devillio’s test and then instantly forget it all.

Oh well, he didn’t have a clue how his brain worked, but was thankful to have one that got As.

After turning off the lights, he lay in bed trying to hold on to the feeling of Tish being the second-hottest. It faded fast. His worries, on the other hand, would not fade. He wondered if Tish would talk to them for the Slash. Was Mrs. Quigley on their side or against them? And worst of all, Mrs. Boland. If they did the Willows story, they’d have to see her again. He’d show her this time. He’d spruce himself up so neat and clean, she’d be stunned. The thought of seeing her close up made Adam shiver, and he tugged the quilt up to his chin.

Adam was out front in the running club race, heading down the homestretch. Not a cloud in the sky, and he’d never noticed, but today, every blade of grass on the track’s infield was perfectly trimmed, like a putting green. The white lines separating each running lane were exact, right down to the last white-chalk molecule, which, come to think of it, Adam could see clearly now, thanks to his new microscopic vision. It was fun having microscopic vision, and he was glad his parents gave it to him for Christmas.

He had about a hundred yards to go, when the second-hottest runner started closing the gap until the boy was right on Adam’s heels. Speaking of heels, his new microscopic vision had detected tiny clumps of caked mud on the bottom of his running shoes. Adam was trying to clean the shoes and run at the same time, when the second-hottest runner whizzed by, then the third-, fourth-, and fifth-hottest. The race was over. Adam was last.

Head down, he waited for someone to say that he had nothing to be ashamed of, but nobody did, and Adam started limping a lot so everyone could see that finishing last wasn’t his fault; it was his leg’s fault.

And then, with no warning, in the center of that perfectly clean infield came a mammoth explosion, and there stood a terrible vision. It was curvy and shaggy on top, and was gleaming so brightly it appeared to have just climbed out of the bath tub. There were fiery green eyes, and each one had a blinding beam pointed right at Adam. And the beast bellowed, “You’re obviously a pig. You tracked mud onto my clean infield — prepare to die!”

Adam searched for some way to fight back, but the infield was so clean, there wasn’t even a twig. Desperate, he could think of just one thing. He yanked off his running shoe and heaved it with all his might toward the fiery green eyes.

Adam crouched, covered his head, and, as instructed, prepared to die. There was a roar and shriek. “No, no! Not those tiny clumps of caked mud!” the beast bellowed. Adam peeked up. The beast teetered, then collapsed, falling to the ground with a deafening thud.

The room was dark; the covers were on the floor. For a long time, he lay still, waiting for his breathing to return to normal. What a dream. He must be losing his mind. He had a feeling there was an important hidden message — that beast seemed awfully familiar — but then his head got heavy, and he was asleep again.

Next afternoon, the lines to vote in the bully survey snaked out of Room 306 and down the hallway. There was such a crowd, Mrs. Quigley assigned a security guard to the third floor. She said the last thing she wanted was kids bullying other kids about who should be worst bully.

The voting took longer than expected, and it wasn’t just the large turnout. Kids spent a lot of time writing their favorite bully story. Some needed both sides of the ballot.

The coeditors had planned to have the voting in 306. But when the line backed up to the down stairway, they decided to hand out ballots to everyone waiting in the hall.

Kids sat right on the floor and filled them out.

To make sure everyone voted just once, the coeditors assigned Phoebe and Shadow to be voter monitors. The two carried official Harris Elementary/ Middle School clipboards, which, for Phoebe and Shadow, was nearly the same as having super powers. As students handed in the folded ballots, the monitors checked off the names from the school attendance list and asked for each voter’s birthdate to confirm that no one was using another kid’s name.

More than half the school voted. While Adam still thought the survey was a bad idea, even he got caught up in the excitement. Slash staff members felt on the inside of something very big. They loved walking in and out of 306 whenever they felt like, without having to stand in line.

Phoebe would deny it to her grave, but Adam calculated that she had walked in and out of 306 a total of 107 times, just for the power of it. At one point, to torment her, Adam suggested that she stay in the hallway and they’d let her know if she was needed inside 306.

“Can’t do that,” Phoebe said. “I’m on strict orders from your coeditor, Jennifer, to make sure that all is going smoothly on both sides of that door,” she said, pointing to 306 as if it was Saint Peter’s gate. “If you have other orders, please clear them with Jennifer, the Slash senior coeditor.”

Senior coeditor? Phoebe really was cheesy. Adam could not let her get away with that. “As a matter of fact,” Adam lied, “Jennifer herself told me she wanted you to stay out here in the hall. Jennifer said.”

“I’ll need that in writing from Jennifer,” said Phoebe. “A lot of rumors are going around, and as Jennifer herself told us during our monitor briefing, we don’t want to be faked out by some quote-unquote idiot. No offense.”

In the end, Phoebe got hers.

Her official comonitor nearly drove her mad. The two were constantly bickering over who got to check off each voter.

“I saw her first,” hollered Phoebe, racing to grab a fourth grader’s ballot. Phoebe had taken off her shoes and slid the last ten feet down the hallway, narrowly beating Shadow to the girl.

“The coeditors said monitors are supposed to take turns,” said Shadow, snatching the ballot from Phoebe. “You had the last turn. So I have this turn. Taking turns means you have a turn, then I have a turn. It does not mean you have a turn, then you have a turn, then I don’t have a turn.”

Finally Jennifer had to pull them aside and threaten to take away their clipboards. “I don’t know if I can trust you with official school property,” she said.

“That’s not fair,” said Phoebe, holding up hers. “I care! You see all these neat flower and butterfly stickers I put on mine? I’m not some kind of jerky person,” and she stared at Shadow so there was no question which jerky person she meant.

“Neither am I some kind of jerky person who doesn’t care,” said Shadow.

Jennifer ordered them to keep track of how many each registered and make sure they did exactly the same number. “It would mean a lot to me,” she said.

For the rest of the afternoon, Shadow shadowed Phoebe everywhere, reading off the totals after each ballot was collected. “That’s 87 registered for you and 86 registered for me,” Shadow announced. “Eighty-seven is one more than 86. So I register the next one. Then I will be 86 + 1, 87, and you will be 87 + 0, 87, exactly the same. And it will really mean a lot to Jennifer.”

When the voting was completed, the Slash staff wanted to count the ballots immediately, but the coeditors nixed that. Adam and Jennifer worried that if all twenty-four did the counting, results would leak out prematurely. They said they would tally the ballots themselves, pick out the strongest bully stories, and report to the staff.

Adam and Jennifer each took half the ballots home. Adam couldn’t wait to see the results. He brought the ballots to his room, closed the door, and dumped them on the floor. He would not have admitted this to Jennifer, but it was very exciting. There was a piece of him that really wanted these kids to be humiliated for being jerk-faced bullies. He was looking forward to calling Jennifer as soon as he had the totals. He wanted to see if they both got the same top ten. Then they’d add the votes together.

After the first couple of dozen votes, a clear leader emerged and as far as Adam was concerned, it was a great choice. This boy was awful. Part of what made his bulliness so aggravating was his phoniness. On the surface, he sounded great. He was tall and wide — muscular, not fat — a star on the football and wrestling teams. His folks owned a gas station and convenience store in town plus a copy store, and they were big deals in the Chamber of Commerce. Adam was always seeing their photo in the Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser, getting some kind of plaque.

Even so, this kid was the essence of snaky bulliness. He wasn’t running around beating the crap out of everybody every second. It was more that he was constantly reminding kids, in quiet ways, that he could do whatever he pleased. He’d cheerfully mention that you were in his seat at the lunch table and make you move. Or he didn’t want you sitting in the back of the bus just for today because he was saving seats for his friends. Or he’d pass in the hall, giving you a big smile and a playful punch on the arm that left a dark bruise.

Adam himself had voted for the creep.

But the pure joy of seeing a bad kid exposed had disappeared by the time Adam was half done counting.

One of the top ten vote getters — toward the bottom, maybe ninth or tenth, but still top ten — was Shadow. At first Adam thought it was a mistake, that kids put his name down because he’d collected their ballots. Then Adam had a moment of panic, worrying there was a side of Shadow he didn’t know. After all, Shadow was strong — the work for Mr. Johnny Stack made the veins in his arms stick out. He was always lurking around. Maybe he had a crazy side Adam didn’t know about.

But then Adam read the comments. Room 107A drools the world, one kid wrote. Retard for president, wrote another.

Shadow was their joke vote.

There was more discouraging news. A lot of kids got at least one bully vote, including Adam, who got three. He didn’t know for sure, but he could guess which star third-grade reporter cast one of them. And while three votes was nowhere near enough to make top ten, he felt terrible. One kid wrote: This whole bully vote is to scare kids because you’re a chickenshit who called the cops for no good reason. Forty bucks is a joke!!!

And there was worse news.

In second place when Adam stopped counting was Tish Osborne.

Tish, who made sure Adam got picked that Saturday on the Rec courts. Tish, who got Adam’s basketball back and didn’t hang around to be thanked. Tish, who helped at church. Adam was beside himself. These people who voted — they didn’t understand a kid like Tish. They just saw the surface stuff. They were the jerks.

Adam kept thinking about what it would be like telling Tish that he’d been voted Harris’s number-two monster.

He could not count another ballot. He didn’t want to know the results. For a moment, he thought about ripping them all up and chucking them out.

He hoped Jennifer was happy. He’d told her this bully vote was a mistake. But did she listen? No one listened to him. She’d manipulated the whole Slash staff against him. Fine. Let her break the happy news to Tish. And Shadow — she could tell Shadow, too. That would be a great moment in modern journalism. Shadow didn’t have enough problems.

Adam hated this. He felt some of it was his fault. If only he hadn’t invited Shadow to join the Slash. If Shadow hadn’t been collecting the ballots, kids would never have thought to vote for him.

Adam went into his closet and pulled out a shoe box full of basketball cards. He dumped the cards into the third drawer of his bureau, his sports shorts drawer. Then he scooped up the bully ballots, stuffed them into the empty shoe box, fastened the top with rubber bands, and shoved the box into the back of his closet, where no one ever looked, behind his black tie shoes.