Election. Tom Perrotta

FLANAGAN

      I WAS SO NERVOUS the day of the Assembly. It was my speech, after all, that Paul was going to deliver to the whole school. I didn't mind not getting the credit. Paul knew whose words they were, and that was enough.

      In recent weeks, I'd become totally engrossed in the real presidential campaign and was learning for the first time about primaries, consultants, pollsters, spin doctors, all the behind-the-scenes players. I saw myself as Paul's strategist and chief speech writer, his girlfriend and secret weapon, a cross between Hillary and Peggy Noonan.

      We'd arranged to meet outside the auditorium before seventh period so I could give him my good luck charm. As soon as I saw him, I knew we were in trouble. He was pale with dread, and his lips had turned an alarming shade of blue, as though he'd been swimming for hours in icy water.

      Two years earlier, right after my parents' divorce, my dad brought me on a trip to the Bahamas. The second or third day, we took a boat out to this coral reef where there was supposed to be fantastic snorkeling, big neon fish that swam right up and kissed you on the mask.

      There were maybe twenty people on board, and when we got to the reef, everyone jumped in the water but me (I was mad at my dad and had decided to punish him by not having any fun). A couple of minutes later, this tall skinny man climbed back onto the boat and sat down across from me, still in his flippers and life jacket. He told me he was on his honeymoon and had had a panic attack the moment his face went underwater. His voice was normal, and I didn't realize how spooked he was until he tried to light a cigarette. His hands were shaking so hard he couldn't direct the match to where it was supposed to go. I had to do it for him.

      Paul's hands were shaking just like that right before the Assembly. He reached up to fix his hair and almost missed his head.

      MR. M.

      HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS are a notoriously tough crowd. They're suspicious of fancy rhetoric and sensitive to the slightest sign of self-importance. Raised on sitcoms, commercials, and MTV, their attention span for the spoken word is next to nonexistent. They arrange themselves in rowdy clusters and set their bullshit detectors on Red Alert.

      Tracy understood this. Knowing she was a slightly ridiculous, slightly scandalous personage in the eyes of her peers, she decided to neutralize potential hecklers by emphasizing rather than soft-pedaling those aspects of her reputation. Sheathed in a startlingly short, body-hugging red dress and black tights, she delivered an unapologetic self-appraisal that was as accurate as it was provocative.

      “I know you like Paul better than you like me,” she said in summation, “and I don't really blame you. He's a nice, sweet guy and I'm a—well, I'm not nice and sweet, let's just leave it at that. But when it comes down to the wire, who do you want fighting for the students of Win wood High? Do you want Mr. Nice Guy?” She put her hands on her hips and smiled knowingly at the audience. “Or do you want me?”

      TAMMY WARREN

      I WATCHED PAUL and Lisa outside the auditorium. She was talking in a low voice; he was nodding. She smiled and touched him on the shoulder. He looked at his feet, shook his head. In two seconds, a total stranger would have known they were in love.

      She held out her hand, a jewel-like crystal—her good luck charm—sparkling on her open palm. I ducked into the girls' room, found an empty stall, and stood inside it for five, maybe ten minutes, wondering if I would always feel this bad, every day for the rest of my life.

      MR. M.

      THE WHITE PAPER fluttered in Paul's trembling hands. He stared down at the words with that troubled, mildly pained expression of his and spoke in a barely audible monotone, forgetting to look at the audience.

      “When you think about it,” he whispered, “a school is more than just a school it's our second home the place where we spend most of our time and grow as individuals a community but is our school everything it could be let me suggest to you that it is not…”

      He stuttered, lost his place, omitted key words, went back and read entire paragraphs over again. By the time he reached the conclusion, even his most ardent supporters were stupefied. Sound effect snores sawed through the thick air, but Paul read on, undaunted.

      “I want our school to reach its true potential a radiant city … uh, citadel of learning and serving I mean service to humanity that is why I am running for President.”

      The applause that followed expressed relief rather than approval, but I'm not sure Paul was up to making that sort of distinction as he stood frozen at the podium in a post-oratorical daze, a grin of pure panic inching across his face as he tried to remember what to do next. The outgoing President, Larry DiBono, had to direct him back to his seat.

      You had to feel for Tammy as she approached the microphone in a pretty flowered dress. The mob had grown surly after Paul's speech and was now eager for sport.

      “Tammy! Tammy! Tammy!” they chanted, their wolf whistles and catcalls only serving to emphasize her plainness and obscurity. She had to climb onto a footstool just to see the audience.

      LISA FLANAGAN

      TAMMY DIDN'T SPEAK right away. She scanned the rows of seats spread out below her, as if trying to make eye contact with every single voter. I felt funny when she picked me out of the crowd and smiled. Suddenly there were only two of us present in that enormous room. I hated her for that, the way she still had of making everyone else disappear.

      MR. M.

      SHE MUST HAVE STOOD there for two solid minutes, letting the idiots have their fun. It was an extraordinary display of patience, something you might have expected from a veteran public speaker. When she finally opened her mouth, she had the undivided attention of everyone in the auditorium.

      “Who cares about this stupid election?”

      There was another eruption from the crowd, only this time it was spontaneous, cleansed of sarcasm. She had put her finger on the pulse of the event, uttered the unspoken truth that was hovering in a giant cartoon balloon over the entire gathering.

      From his post by the emergency exit, the Vice-Principal, Walt Hendricks, shot me a startled glance. All I could do was shrug. She wasn't reading from the prepared text.

      “You think it really matters who gets elected President of Winwood? You think it will change anything around here, make one single person happier or smarter or nicer? You think the food will taste any better in the cafeteria?”

      The audience was quiet now, but it was a charged silence, the kind you'd get at a wedding if someone rose to tell the assembled guests exactly why this couple shouldn't be joined in holy matrimony. Walt flushed a bright dyspeptic pink and made frantic throat-slitting motions with his index finger, my signal to intervene. I rose from my aisle seat in the front row and began moving slowly toward the stage. I didn't want to pull the plug on the microphone, but didn't see much of an alternative.

      “My opponents have a lot more experience than me,” she continued. “But since it doesn't really matter, you might as well vote for me. Your lives won't be affected one way or the other.”

      I had my hand on the plug when she stepped down off her stool, crossed her ankles, and signed off, to a huge ovation, with a breathtakingly cynical little curtsy.

      Walt's initial impulse was to banish her from the election, but I convinced him not to do it. I said it would turn her into a martyr for free speech and shake our students’ faith in democracy. He was furious, though. Nothing bugs him more than insubordination from one of the “good” kids.

      “The little bitch made a fool of us, Jim. We can't let her get away with it.”

      He suspended her for three days.