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  Rachel stood up and closed the door. “I mean, what do you want to say about them? I don’t get it. Also, um, you can’t say the word . . .” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Period.”

  “You and Dahlia are totally proving my point,” I said. “Why can’t you talk about periods? Boys say ‘poop’ and ‘fart.’ Those are natural bodily functions, too.”

  “I know, but this is middle school,” Rachel said. “Do you really think boys can handle it? I’m not even sure girls can.”

  “I bet a lot of boys know about periods already,” I said. “And if they don’t, they should learn. My dad knows about them. He even got Violet flowers when she got her period.”

  “He sent them to school?” Rachel said, her jaw dropping.

  “No, at home,” I said. “Isn’t that sweet?”

  “It is,” she said. “But not everybody wants to call attention to their period.”

  “Oh,” I said. I’d kind of imagined a “congratulations on your period” flower delivery service at school, but I didn’t tell Rachel that.

  “Also, you’re not a health teacher,” Rachel said. “And you haven’t even gotten your period yet.”

  “Yeah, but some girls have been getting them since elementary school!” I said. “It’s like this mystery. When is it going to happen? It could be at any moment. And what if you’re at school? That’s scary. I don’t want girls to feel scared. I want them to be prepared!”

  Rachel paced back and forth in front of me. “You have to find some way to get your message across without shocking people. I think there’s only one way this is going to work. And even then, it’s risky.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Janet March had something on her website once,” she said. Janet March is one of Rachel’s heroes. She’s a famous businesswoman. “It was about how to make a message appeal to your audience.”

  “Like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down?” I asked.

  “Kind of,” Rachel said, typing something into her phone. “Here it is. It’s called subliminal messages.”

  Let’s Get Subliminal!

  A Janet March Guide to Subliminal Messaging

  Everybody has a message, from politicians to teachers to parents. But sometimes the real message is below the surface. Massage your message with these techniques!

  Include a brief flash of an image that will appeal to your audience.

  Use music to set the desired mood.

  Use repetition. When you repeat a word or a phrase, this makes the audience comfortable with what you’re saying.

  FROM

  WARTY MORTY’S TREATISE ON MAGIC

  Copyright 1973

  V Is for “Ventriloquism”

  A ventriloquist speaks without moving his lips, so his voice seems like it’s coming from somewhere else. A lot of folks use puppets or wooden dummies to practice ventriloquism, which is also called “throwing your voice.”

  To throw your voice, you need to do two things:

  Speak without moving your lips.

  Make your voice seem distant, like it’s coming from somewhere else.

  FUN FACT-O-RAMA

  The first successful American-born ventriloquist was Richard Potter, a black man born in 1783. (Many magicians say that he’s the first professional American-born magician, period!)

  What’s New with

  Mel Chang

  If It Trends, We’re Friends.

  WEDNESDAY

  PETER GRONKOWSKI OUT

  Mike’s campaign has offish dumped seventh-grade businessman Peter Gronkowski after the dirty money scandal.

  In a statement, PG said, “I resigned from Mike’s campaign to spend more time with my businesses. Look out for Peter’s Pocket Warmers later this month.”

  Peter’s exit pleased one voter. “Does that mean . . . no more emails?” asked Mateo Medina, his eyes filling with happy tears. “No more kids outside my house threatening to judo kick me? YES! MIKE FOR PRESIDENT!”

  MEANWHILE . . .

  Despite Mike’s crisis, Clover O’Reilly’s poss connections to known prankster Thalia Jung leave her on shaky ground. Watch for fireworks at the campaign rally this aft, in the gym.

  POPLAR POLL

  Clover: 50%

  Mike: 42%

  Anita Tinkle 5%

  Undecided: 3%

  14

  Clover

  The gym was packed for the rally. The Poplar Middle School Pops Band played the school song:

  Over the treetops and ’round the bend,

  Poplar Middle School is a friend till the end.

  It’s our school spirit that sets us apart,

  A whole lot of joy and a whole lot of . . . heart!

  Hardly anyone was singing. Most kids were laughing or shouting “fart” at the “heart” part of the song.

  Dr. Dana tapped the microphone and cleared her throat.

  “Today’s video rally is for the candidates to show you, in their own words, what they stand for,” she said. “We’ll go in alphabetical order. First we have . . . Clover O’Reilly.”

  I jumped up. “Here I go!” I squealed to Rachel. “I can’t wait for you to see it. Don’t worry, I super-massaged the message.”

  Rachel had had to leave early last night to study for a French quiz with Amelia. But I knew she’d love the video, because I’d followed Janet March’s directions to a tee.

  The video started with a cool song I made up myself on the computer. The word “Clover” exploded on the screen in a cloud of gold glitter.

  The audience oohed and aahed.

  When the glitter faded, there was a stop-motion animated glitter cat behind it. The frame pulled out to reveal a whole line of glitter cats. They were doing a kick line like the Rockettes, saying, “Clover for President!”

  I heard some applause. Even Rachel was smiling.

  One of the backup-dancer glitter cats tilted her head.

  “Who are you voting for?” she asked the head glitter cat.

  The head glitter cat looked at the camera. “Clover. Period,” she said.

  Underneath the voiceover I’d put in a subliminal audio message: “Bathrooms. Bathrooms. Bathrooms.”

  “Is something wrong with the sound?” Rachel asked. “Weird. Suddenly I have to pee.”

  “Everything sounds great to me!” I said. Even my subliminal messages were working!

  I’d put in a super-fast image of a monster truck, to show something that appealed to boys. I even added a subliminal fart sound to make the message extra boy-friendly. But I guess it wasn’t very subliminal, because Rachel poked me and said, “Was that a farting truck?”

  I shrugged.

  The animated glitter cats came back.

  “Clover is cool. Period,” said the head glitter cat. Every cat down the line repeated, “Period!”

  “Does that count as subliminal?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s a double meaning,” I said. “AND it’s using repetition. Very effective.” I’d even given the cats both boy and girl voices to massage the message even more.

  But suddenly the main music cut off. All you could hear was the message underneath, which was definitely not subliminal. “Natural. Beautiful. Natural. Beautiful.”

  “Huh?” Rachel said.

  It got worse. I’d tried to squeeze in an image of a cool-looking guy kicking a soccer ball, but the dancing-cat layer of the video didn’t go away, so it just looked like the guy was kicking the cats.

  “This is just disturbing,” said Rachel. “Not natural OR beautiful.”

  “I’ve never done subliminal messages, okay?” I hissed. “Everyone makes mistakes!”

  Then my face popped onto the screen. What I’d really
said was, “Hi, I’m Clover. As president, I want you to say the word ‘period.’ Period!”

  But with the audio all messed up, you couldn’t hear any of my real message, just a repeating loop of fart sounds.

  Oh. No.

  My video was a disaster.

  15

  MIKE

  The auditorium went dead quiet after Clover’s video. Then a lot of kids started cracking up. A few people applauded, but not at the same time.

  “What just happened?” I whispered to Amelia.

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen a lot of weird campaign stuff. But that might be the weirdest. Even weirder than Tatum Tolliver doing a blindfolded interpretive dance instead of a speech.”

  I scanned the crowd and saw Peter. He was sitting by himself, wearing his phone headset but not talking. Maybe they were like headphones to him. A way to get through a hard time. And I was the one who’d made things hard.

  My shoulders tensed up. I wanted to use the Balducci Levitation and float right out of the auditorium. But Dr. Dana walked up to the microphone to introduce me.

  “FYI, I cut out the part with the fake baby,” Amelia whispered.

  “Good,” I said, relaxing a little. The doll thing was pretty fake and cheesy. Also, last night I’d had a nightmare about being chased by an army of screaming, makeup-faced koddlers.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have something way better!”

  Dr. Dana tapped the microphone. “Well, Clover, that was . . . interesting,” she said. “Now let’s hear from Mike.”

  I sat up straight. I hadn’t seen one frame of a video that was supposed to be all about me, but I had to trust my team.

  The video started with a picture of Dad.

  Huh?

  “Meet Mike’s dad,” said the voiceover.

  “That dude looks familiar,” someone in the audience said.

  “Dude!” said someone else. “It’s Stu the Sports Dude!”

  The crowd gasped.

  “No way!”

  “That’s Mike’s dad?”

  “Awesome!”

  There was a series of shots of Dad at the news station, shaking hands with baseball players and basketball players.

  “I’ve known Mike since . . . well, since the day he was born,” Dad said in a voiceover.

  There was a picture of Dad in a doctor’s mask, holding me as a newborn.

  “Awwwww,” Scott whispered behind me.

  “Mike’s always been cool,” Dad said in the video. “A really fungal dude. He likes to hang out.”

  There were more pictures of Dad on set at WPOP, talking to famous athletes.

  There was Dad telling a joke on the air. “Why do teenagers travel in packs of three?” he asked. “Because they can’t even.”

  There was Dad kicking a soccer ball with Ethan Jackson, the kid from Poplar High who went pro.

  There was even Dad eating ice cream at the Cone Zone with Peter’s street team kids. Peter had tried to make them look like cool, older athletes by putting them in makeup and tracksuits, but Daniel was still wearing his leprechaun hat. I could tell they were sitting on stacks of books to look taller.

  “Is this just . . . pictures of my dad?” I asked.

  Amelia nodded as another picture flashed of Dad with his barber. “Isn’t it great? He was so excited to help!”

  Amelia hadn’t used any of the pictures I’d given her. Like the ones with me and Granberry working on puzzles together. I guess they weren’t exciting enough for the video.

  Suddenly the music stopped. The screen went black, and some words came up, right beside the WPOP logo:

  “Mike for President. Endorsed by STU the SPORTS DUDE.”

  The crowd went wild.

  * * *

  Amelia’s eyes were shining as we left the gym. “Did you love it?” she asked me. “It was magical. Your dad did such a great job!”

  I pretended to look at something behind me so she wouldn’t see my face. This version of me—the kid Dad talked about, the fungal kid who hung out and didn’t do magic—that’s who he really wanted. Not the kid he actually got. That’s who my team wanted, too. And it made me dizzy if I thought too hard about it. That I wasn’t good enough the way I was.

  My stomach turned. The video was supposed to be about me, and I wasn’t even in it, other than some picture of me as a newborn. It felt like a trick, and not the good kind. Like one of those con games I read about in Warty Morty’s Treatise on Magic. The audience became victims, and we were the con artists.

  Amelia handed me an envelope.

  “This is from Peter,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “Money he raised for the campaign,” she said. “And he gave Brayden the dollar back. Brayden was pretty mad, but Peter said he’d handle it.”

  I looked for Peter in the stands again, but he’d already left.

  “What do we do with the money?” I asked.

  “We can donate it to the school or give it back to the kids who donated,” she said. “It’s not that much. Peter gave it to me so no one would see you talking to him. He didn’t want any bad optics.” She paused. “He’s a pretty good guy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He is.”

  I opened the envelope. Inside was just three dollars and a list of people they came from. “Good luck, Mike,” said the note. “Best, Peter.”

  I know Peter signed everything with “Best,” but I think he really did want the best for me. Okay, he also wanted to sell his stuff in the school store and get rid of homework so he could spend more time on his businesses. But in his heart, I knew Peter just wanted me to get something I’d never had from kids our age: respect. He was trying to help because he was my friend.

  Was.

  I closed my eyes, trying hard to disappear into my magic mindset. I didn’t want to be president anymore, but I couldn’t drop out. Not with a whole auditorium and my team and Dad counting on me. And what about magic camp?

  I couldn’t drop out, but I couldn’t win, either. So I had to figure out how to lose.

  What’s New with

  Mel Chang

  If It Trends, We’re Friends.

  FILE UNDER: WHOA

  For the first time ever, Mike is LEADING in the polls! IKR?

  “I can’t believe Mike knows Stu the Sports Dude! Fungal!” —Seventh grader Jake Tripoli

  “Fungal? Mike’s video was so sick it was viral! It needs antibiotics!” —Big TOE, seventh grade

  “Antibiotics are for bacterial infections, not viruses.” —Ms. Cholley, school nurse

  “I have a lot more time now that Peter Gronkowski’s not sending me emails. Hey, do you think Stu the Sports Dude could introduce me to Riley Reginald, the best pitcher in Poplar Pigeons history?” —Mateo Medina, seventh grade

  Clover’s video drew mixed reactions:

  “I’m not a big fart fan.” —Larry Abrams, seventh grade

  “Is farting presidential? Maybe, maybe not.” —Seema Singh, seventh grade

  “Clover’s video had way better fart sounds than Mike’s. She has my vote.” —Alan Firenza, seventh grade

  “I kept hearing the word ‘period.’ Was she talking about fifth period or second? I slept through them both.” —Seamus Henry, seventh grade

  “Did anyone else see monster trucks? Even I’m confused.” —Holly Herman, seventh grade

  “I was in Spanish class? We watched a video on verbs?” —Bea Salt, eighth grade

  SUPPORT FOR ANITA TINKLE REMAINS STEADY.

  “Look, I think she can get the job done.” —Anonymous

  POPLAR POLL

  Mike: 46%

  Clover: 45%

  Anita Tinkle: 5%

  Undecided: 4%

/>   Peter Gronkowski Group Text

  PETER:

  Greetings,

  I’d like to offer my services for your campaign.

  Best,

  Peter S. Gronkowski

  CLOVER:

  R U serious?

  PETER:

  Yes. This is a legitimate offer, from a legitimate business professional.

  RACHEL:

  Where have I heard that one before . . .

  PETER:

  Hear me out. My relationship with Mike’s campaign is in the past. Let’s work together toward a more productive future.

  RACHEL:

  What’s in it for you?

  PETER:

  Image rehab. My brand can’t handle the stain of dirty money. Profits are already down. I want to help you AND make myself look good.

  RACHEL:

  At least you’re honest.

  CLOVER:

  How can U help me?

  PETER:

  I can offer you my vast network of email addresses and cell phone numbers.

  CLOVER:

  I dunno . . .

  RACHEL:

  Me neither. But it’s kind of fun, watching him sweat.

  PETER:

  Hey, I can read that!

  RACHEL:

  Sorry.

  CLOVER:

  No thx, Peter.

  PETER:

  WAIT. There’s one more thing.

  CLOVER:

  ???

  PETER:

  I can do makeup.

  CLOVER:

  U can???

  PETER:

  I’m licensed and everything. I’m a graduate of Rafael X’s Online Course in Cosmetic Application. And I can bring my street team over to your campaign.

  CLOVER:

  Soooooo fungal. You’re hired!