little pepperonis. If you pinned them to your shirt, they left an oil stain.
Even Norman Beeman liked my stuff better. He plodded right up to me in the hall and said, “Your posters are way neater than his.”
I looked down at his feet. “Thank you, Norman,” I said. “Love your boots.”
Even Summer Lynne Jones’s campaign buttons were better than Alan’s. And at least Summer hadn’t stolen my ideas. Actually, she told Earl that she thought my food poems were revolting.
Instead, her posters were pictures of people at the beach doing “summery” things. At the top of every poster, there was a picture of the sun wearing sunglasses. It said:
LOVE SUMMER THE BEST!
Like a lot of girls I know, Summer dots her
i
’s with little hearts. Talk about revolting.
Her campaign buttons were little paper-doll swimsuits made of different-colored constructionpaper. They even had tabs on them like real paper-doll clothes.
The girls loved them, too. When Summer passed them out after the candidates’ meeting, I could actually hear girls squealing because they were so cute.
Still, out of all the candidates, Louise the Disease’s campaign was the absolute stupidest. All her posters said the very same thing:
LOUISE MARIE SMYTHE—
SHE COMES WITH HER OWN CALCULATOR .
It made her sound like a doll you’d get for Christmas. I’m surprised she didn’t add, “Batteries not included.”
She didn’t stand a chance against Robert Moneypenny. His posters were cooler than anything. Each one had a snapshot of Robert leaning back in an easy chair, with his feet propped up on a big desk. And underneath each picture it said:
MONEYPENNY FOR TREASURER
THE NAME SAYS IT ALL …
Except for Alan Allen, Karla something turned out to be the meanest person running for office.
Her posters were sort of vicious, if you want to know the truth. They said stuff like:
ROXANNE HANDLEMAN GOT A “D” IN PENMANSHIP .
And:
ASK ROXANNE HANDLEMAN ABOUT HER GRADE IN SPELLING .
They didn’t stay up long, though. As soon as Mr. Jolly saw them, he called a short candidates’ meeting and told us that dirty campaigning and “mudslinging” were not allowed. He said that even though it happens in real campaigns, elementary schools should have higher standards than our nation’s leaders.
Anyway, I never thought I’d say this, but making posters turned out to be one of the easiest parts of running for office. The hardest part was how I had to go around being nice to people all the time. And how I had to always keep smiling.I’m not kidding. I even had to smile at kids who make me sick.
Maxie said it’s called “sucking up.” He said it’s the American way.
Sometimes I smiled till my cheeks ached. Once I had to go into the girls’ room and massage my face muscles. But even after all that, it didn’t seem like it was making much of a difference.
“I don’t think this cheery stuff is working,” I said to Maxie one afternoon. “Hardly anybody ever smiles back. And besides, when you go around grinning all the time, kids think you’re a sicko or something. Yesterday I was standing around smiling at a bunch of kids in the lunch line, and this boy I didn’t even know told me I was giving him the creeps.”
Maxie wasn’t very sympathetic. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. You have to keep smiling. Smiling is one of the main rules of politics: one, smile; two, have a firm handshake; and three, never wear a bad toupee.”
Judith Topper was the hardest person for me to smile at. Just in case you forgot, Judith is the jerky, creepy girl who sits right in front of me.
Every day she came to school wearing one of Alan’s stupid pepperonis. I’m positive she only did it to annoy me. Sometimes she’d even point at it and say, “Alan says we’re gonna have pizza every single Friday. That’s why I’m voting for
him
and not
you
.”
I tried not to let her see how much it bothered me. Mostly, I’d just keep my voice calm and say, “I
Even Norman Beeman liked my stuff better. He plodded right up to me in the hall and said, “Your posters are way neater than his.”
I looked down at his feet. “Thank you, Norman,” I said. “Love your boots.”
Even Summer Lynne Jones’s campaign buttons were better than Alan’s. And at least Summer hadn’t stolen my ideas. Actually, she told Earl that she thought my food poems were revolting.
Instead, her posters were pictures of people at the beach doing “summery” things. At the top of every poster, there was a picture of the sun wearing sunglasses. It said:
LOVE SUMMER THE BEST!
Like a lot of girls I know, Summer dots her
i
’s with little hearts. Talk about revolting.
Her campaign buttons were little paper-doll swimsuits made of different-colored constructionpaper. They even had tabs on them like real paper-doll clothes.
The girls loved them, too. When Summer passed them out after the candidates’ meeting, I could actually hear girls squealing because they were so cute.
Still, out of all the candidates, Louise the Disease’s campaign was the absolute stupidest. All her posters said the very same thing:
LOUISE MARIE SMYTHE—
SHE COMES WITH HER OWN CALCULATOR .
It made her sound like a doll you’d get for Christmas. I’m surprised she didn’t add, “Batteries not included.”
She didn’t stand a chance against Robert Moneypenny. His posters were cooler than anything. Each one had a snapshot of Robert leaning back in an easy chair, with his feet propped up on a big desk. And underneath each picture it said:
MONEYPENNY FOR TREASURER
THE NAME SAYS IT ALL …
Except for Alan Allen, Karla something turned out to be the meanest person running for office.
Her posters were sort of vicious, if you want to know the truth. They said stuff like:
ROXANNE HANDLEMAN GOT A “D” IN PENMANSHIP .
And:
ASK ROXANNE HANDLEMAN ABOUT HER GRADE IN SPELLING .
They didn’t stay up long, though. As soon as Mr. Jolly saw them, he called a short candidates’ meeting and told us that dirty campaigning and “mudslinging” were not allowed. He said that even though it happens in real campaigns, elementary schools should have higher standards than our nation’s leaders.
Anyway, I never thought I’d say this, but making posters turned out to be one of the easiest parts of running for office. The hardest part was how I had to go around being nice to people all the time. And how I had to always keep smiling.I’m not kidding. I even had to smile at kids who make me sick.
Maxie said it’s called “sucking up.” He said it’s the American way.
Sometimes I smiled till my cheeks ached. Once I had to go into the girls’ room and massage my face muscles. But even after all that, it didn’t seem like it was making much of a difference.
“I don’t think this cheery stuff is working,” I said to Maxie one afternoon. “Hardly anybody ever smiles back. And besides, when you go around grinning all the time, kids think you’re a sicko or something. Yesterday I was standing around smiling at a bunch of kids in the lunch line, and this boy I didn’t even know told me I was giving him the creeps.”
Maxie wasn’t very sympathetic. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. You have to keep smiling. Smiling is one of the main rules of politics: one, smile; two, have a firm handshake; and three, never wear a bad toupee.”
Judith Topper was the hardest person for me to smile at. Just in case you forgot, Judith is the jerky, creepy girl who sits right in front of me.
Every day she came to school wearing one of Alan’s stupid pepperonis. I’m positive she only did it to annoy me. Sometimes she’d even point at it and say, “Alan says we’re gonna have pizza every single Friday. That’s why I’m voting for
him
and not
you
.”
I tried not to let her see how much it bothered me. Mostly, I’d just keep my voice calm and say, “I
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