Election by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online

without it. What did you think about? How did you fill up your day? You find yourself wondering why you'd even
want
to be President, when you already have this wonderful way of spending your time.

TAMMY WARREN
     
    IT WAS SPOOKY to go back to school after my suspension and see these unreal color posters of Paul plastered all over the place, sporting these dopey slogans like “Paul Power” and “We Need Him.” Every time I turned a corner my big brother was watching me, gazing down from the walls and bulletin boards like some kind of puzzled blond god.
    I knew from a single glance that Lisa had done the artwork. She liked drawing with pastels and had once done a portrait of me standing by a window, bathed in morning light, watching leaves fall from a golden tree. When she felt like it, she knew how to flatter a person.
    Tracy had even more posters than Paul did. They were red, white, and blue, and looked suspiciously professional, like the signs you see taped to telephone poles during real elections. “Pick Flick,” advised one of them. “Tracy for Prez,” proclaimed another.
    I didn't plan on doing any campaigning. I figured I could just coast into the election and lose gracefully, the one candidate who'd had the guts to tell the truth and had been punished for her honesty. It seemed like a decent way to go down in history.
    The three days at home had been good for me. I'd discovered this great yoga program on cable, and had learned how to meditate along with the host, the calmest, most sweet-voiced woman in the universe. She told me to imagine my heart as a big red valentine throbbing in my chest, and advised me to release all the negativity I'd allowed to build up inside it. So I did. I let go of my jealousy and anger and need to hurt the people who'd hurt me. Once I did that, there wasn't much reason left for me to even want to be President.
    But a funny thing happened that morning when I got back to school. Kids I didn't even know came up and shook my hand, telling me what a cool speech I'd made and how they were definitely going to vote for me. A girl in a wheelchair gave me a thumbs-up. This greasy-haired sophomore arsonist told me I kicked ass. Some of the nicer teachers flashed me sly, private smiles. Mr. Herrera even winked. These two weird freshman guys—bug-eyed Nintendo geeks—invited me to a party they insisted was going to be totally wild.
    It was just like the yoga lady said: Expel the negative,and the positive will come rushing in to fill the void.

MR. M.
     
    IT WAS THE MOST interesting election I'd seen in my nine years at Winwood. There was a buzz in the hallways, an excitement that couldn't be accounted for solely by the novelty of sibling competition. There was just this sense throughout the whole school that for once we had an election that offered a real choice.
    Paul was running as a visual image—the Student as Hero. Idealized in pastel colors, he presided over our corridors like some kind of benevolent, otherworldly spirit. There was something at once comforting and unnerving about those portraits; you'd see people standing in front of them for improbable lengths of time, studying them like paintings in a museum.
    Tracy had taken the opposite tack. She seemed to be running not as a student, but as a professional politician. Simple as they were—plain red letters on blue cardboard, the
i
in her last name dotted with a bold white star—her posters had clearly been designed by a graphic artist and manufactured by a printer at no small expense. You got the feeling she was running for State Legislature.
    Tammy's posters weren't posters at all, just cryptic messages scribbled on notebook paper, affixed to unlikely surfaces—a file cabinet, the seat of a chair, the inside of a bathroom stall.
    “Vote for Tammy,” they might say. “She's inexperienced and kind of lazy.”
    Or: “Election? What Election?”
    Or: “Go Ahead. Make the Stupid Choice.”
    It got to be a little game. You'd walk