You Go First: Part III

Ben was suitably dressed and full of adrenaline when he walked through the school doors the next morning, twenty minutes earlier than usual with a bag of perfectly rolled posters on his shoulder.

Now that he’d jumped full-force into this thing, he really wanted to implement change. He really wanted Lanester Middle School to evolve.

He wouldn’t be a typical politician. He would be a consummate populist. A president for the people.

He wouldn’t be a typical politician. He would be a consummate populist. A president for the people.

When the hallways were full, there were too many surfaces for the sound waves to bounce from, so no echo. But now he could yell anything he wanted and hear it reverberate through the wide space around him.

Many people report having feelings of dread before something terrible happens. Scientists aren't sure what causes this. Some think we receive subliminal clues without knowing it, through things like body language or peripheral vision. Others believe that our minds are constantly working through problems and solutions unconsciously, which is why we sometimes have hunches we can't explain.

One scientist said that some human beings had an inherent sense when something was wrong. He couldn’t explain it. It was just there, like a mental beacon that stayed quiet until it suddenly perked up and sounded the alarm.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Anyway, premonitions were for things that hadn’t happened yet, not stuff from yesterday.

He had just closed his locker and taken a big swig of coppery water when Theo and a group of like-minded boys (including Derrick Whatshisname) sauntered up to him.

Henry VIII, the last Tudor king, had figures of himself carved into the eaves of the Great Hall at Hampton Court.

The early sixteenth century was a time of great turmoil and unrest for the paranoid king.

Charlotte knew she would sit at the four-top near the books about the Civil War. Charlotte had been to the library with Bridget dozens of times and she always chose the same table. So here Charlotte was, pretending to be completely enthralled by American history, waiting for the club to show up.

Charlotte made word scrambles out of LaFayette while Bridget called the meeting to order.
Featly.
Fettle.

She suddenly felt very stupid, naive, and clueless.

"Yeah. He had a heart attack. Her parents are ancient, so it was bound to happen sometime. He was driving when it happened.”

She wanted them to know that her rock collection was anything but immature. Did they know what a turquenite was? Could they pick an aventurine out of a lineup? Could they define igneous differentiation and fractional crystallization?

Millions of tons of debris were floating around in the earth’s seas, threatening and killing marine life.

So he decided to stand between the trash and recyclable receptacles wearing his friendliest smile.

It bewildered Ben that no one at Lanester seemed remotely interested in the “ocean of garbage,” as he liked to call it, but he figured it was because they weren’t fully educated on the issues.

He was going to take care of that and woo potential voters at the same time.

He refused to let Theo, Sherry, Derrick Whatshisname, or anyone else deter him.

Adversity built character.

For the most part he got bewildered looks and some laughter, but he felt a sense of accomplishment anyway because so far his strategy was working—sixth graders watched him curiously as he gestured frantically toward the appropriate bin, but they would realize their error and discard properly.

“How’s it going, prawn?” said Theo. The other boys snickered. “Do you know what a prawn is?”

“Your inflammatory mediators and cytokines react inappropriately to what they perceive as dangerous pathogens.”

But you still haven't walked into the room. You haven't gone over the threshold.

If he didn’t win the election, he would at least give a resounding speech that would shake Lanester Middle School to its core.

The stage would be his spotlight. His moment in the sun. The apex of his evolution.

If sleep is good for the brain, how come they don’t let us sleep in school? (Ben thought this could have mass appeal, even though he couldn’t imagine falling asleep in class.)

The most important part of the campaign isn’t the candidate, but what that candidate plans to do. He didn’t want to be a politician who ran on charisma alone.

He numbered his platform proposals one through eleven and wrote them out in detail.

He would not relinquish control over his own emotional well-being.

He tried to find solace in the fact that Theo Barrett was his tormentor instead of, say, Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. Theo Barrett was clearly no Einstein.

Well, clearly Sherry had nursed a long-held grudge against him.