Crusader

  Spanish is the hardest class I have. It's hard for me, anyway, and the three other kids who weren't born speaking Spanish. I like it, though.

  Lunch is lunch. It's quick, crowded, and a little dangerous. Lunch is when kids who are going to get beat up get beat up. We had racial incidents last year that have carried over to this year. Some black guys jumped some white guy. Then some Spanish guys jumped a black kid. I think Hawg got into one of those fights. Then we went on alert. Sheriff's deputies were in the cafeteria and in the halls every period, so things calmed down.

  Anyway, we only get twenty minutes for lunch. I spend them standing in the lines in front of a long row of vending machines, near the cafeteria entrance. I get in a line for chips, and then eat them while standing in a second line for a soda, which I drink while waiting in a third line for a Snickers, which I just stand there and eat. By then, our twenty minutes are up, and it's time to go.

  Fifth period, Journalism II, is my favorite class. I sit in the first row, right in front of Mr. Herman's desk. He keeps a wooden podium on top of his desk. He always stands behind that podium and delivers a lecture, from notes, for the first twenty minutes of class. Then he gives us an assignment from an old workbook called Journalism Today. Sometimes it's a writing assignment, sometimes an editing assignment, sometimes a page-layout assignment.

  I should say, he does that for the kids who sit up front, like me and Betty the Goth and a few others. The kids who sit in the back are pretty much on their own. For some reason beyond my comprehension, about ten football guys signed up for Journalism II, Hawg among them. For all the attention Mr. Herman pays to them, that football group may as well be out on the practice field. Mr. Herman addresses his lectures, and gives all his personal attention, to whoever sits in the first two rows.

  Today's lecture was about the muckrakers. They were a group of American journalists who worked on different newspapers in the early 1900s. They wrote about poor people getting exploited and killed by greedy rich people. Back then the rich people didn't care about the conditions in the factories and the mines and the slums. They could do whatever they wanted, and no one stood up to them. Except the muckrakers.

  Mr. Herman said that the most famous muckrakers were named Upton Sinclair and Lincoln Steffens. He shot a glance at me and added, "But there was a woman muckraker, named Ida Tarbell." I heard some loud sniggering in the back of the room. The rude noises had come, no doubt, from Hawg and some other football guys. But Mr. Herman didn't let on. He never does. He resumed his lecture as if nothing had happened.

  On the way out of class, I handed Mr. Herman a copy of the mall newsletter. I said, "There's a feature by me on the front page, Mr. Herman. And a short one on the back."

  He took it and smiled at me, weakly. I think teaching takes a lot out of Mr. Herman. By the time my class gets here, he has already taught two Journalism I classes and another Journalism II.

  Math class is easy. Algebra, analytic geometry, calculus—it's all easy for me. It always has been. Betty the Goth is in this class; I think it's easy for her, too. She finishes her work in half a period, then spends the rest of the time touching up her black nail polish.

  My last period of the day is study hall, which is the wimpiest elective of them all. A lot of the college-prep students take Latin as their third elective. Not me. I get all of my homework done in seventh period, which is important to me timewise. I'm working my shift at Arcane when those other kids are home studying their Latin.

  Today I was hoping that by seventh period Mr. Herman would have read my article. He came into study hall, sat down at the desk, and opened his briefcase. He pulled out his copy of the newsletter and looked at me sternly. Then he broke into a big smile. "You little muckraker, you. It's quite a story, Roberta. And I assure you, I shall never set foot in that mall again." He pulled a blue pencil from his briefcase, then asked, "Tell me, how did this go over with that Suzie creature?"

  "She didn't like it."

  "I didn't imagine she would."

  "She told me I have to run everything past her now. I think if my dad wasn't standing there, she'd have fired me."

  He grinned devilishly. "Excellent. Excellent." He wagged that blue pencil at me and asked, "Do you want me to be brutally honest?"

  I didn't know what to say to that. I answered, "Okay."

  "Good. Then here it is: You meander in this feature, my dear, like a lost little turtle on the beach. Then you bury your readers with details, like you're a big bulldozer. Extraneous details." He started to make deep blue marks on the article, swiftly and surely. "We don't need to know the name of every person who ever had a passing thought about this issue, do we?"

  "No, sir."

  "We just need two people—the David and the Goliath. The good guy and the bad guy. Do you follow me?"

  "Yes, sir. I think so."

  "So who is David here?"

  "Uh, I don't know. The turtles?"

  He looked at me unhappily. He thought for a moment, then said, "Perhaps. Perhaps. But you only need one. Two good guys make a crowd. Perhaps this Toby the Turtle fellow could be the good guy, the David here. What do you think?"

  "Uh, okay."

  "Toby will personify all that is good and noble on the environmental side." Mr. Herman made another series of swift pencil strokes. "Now, who will personify all that is evil and avaricious on the developers' side?"

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "If Toby is to play David, who will play Goliath? Who will be the bad guy?"

  "I guess that would be Mr. Lyons."

  "Yes. Excellent. I think Mr. Ray Lyons will do nicely. In fact, it's a masterpiece of casting." Mr. Herman finished editing the article with a flourish of his hand. He turned the newsletter around and held it out to me. It looked like some kindergartner had scribbled on it with a blue crayon. There must have been a hundred separate edits; just about every line had been changed somehow. He said, "Now, that's what a newspaper editor would do to you, my dear."

  I must have looked pretty shocked, because he softened his voice. "Please. Please. Don't take this so personally."

  I shrugged. "No, I'm not."

  "This is what an editor would do to you ten minutes after hearing that you had just won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism."

  I shrugged again. "It's okay. Really."

  I turned the article facedown. I pointed to the back of the newsletter. "Did you look at my short feature?"

  "This 'People Pieces' thing? No, that's trivia. I'm only interested in the journalism."

  "Okay. Thank you, Mr. Herman. Now what should I do with this?"

  "Type it up, with my changes, and give it back to me. I'll put it in your portfolio."

  "Okay."

  Mr. Herman looked away, into his briefcase. He pulled out a pile of journalism class papers and started to mark on them. I got out my math and Spanish books and set to work finishing my homework assignments. But my mind drifted—first to my mom, then to Arcane, then back to the mall newsletter. I was still trying not to take Mr. Herman's critique personally.

  A strange sight greeted me when I got to the mall entrance. In the mallway, directly opposite Suzie's glass window, was a pile of television sets. The sets were stacked up three high and three wide, forming an almost perfect square. Once inside, I could see that all nine sets were turned on to the same channel, Channel 57. I could see nine separate images of Angela del Fuego, Mr. Herman's least-favorite television journalist. The sound was off, but that didn't matter. Today's topic on Angela Live was pretty obvious. She was interviewing a row of men who were dressed like women.

  Suzie was watching the TV wall from her desk as I walked in. She said, "I wish the sound were on. I want to hear what those guys have to say."

  I said, "Can I use the computer? I have to revise my feature."

  Suzie looked alarmed. "What for?"

  "For class. Mr. Herman wants to put it into my portfolio."

  "Will anybody else see it?"

  No.

&
nbsp; "Okay, then. Go ahead."

  I logged on and located my document. Suzie called over to me, "Hey, you know what? Angela Live has its own website. I got onto it today. And guess what? You can see what her topics are going to be up to a week in advance. I'm glad I looked. I have a bus full of Brazilian teenagers coming in here on Friday. And guess what the topic is?"

  "What?"

  "'Teenagers in Brazil'! I couldn't believe my eyes. I called Sam up at Crescent and asked if I could borrow a big-screen TV for Friday. He didn't want to risk putting a big screen out in the mallway. He thinks somebody's gonna vandalize it. But he offered this—nine portable TVs. What do you think? I like it even better."

  "Yeah. It looks pretty cool."

  "I'm going to take the teenagers on a tour of the mall at three. It'll give me a chance to use my Spanish. I'll get them all back here at four, gathered around the TV wall, so they can watch Angela."

  "Sounds okay. But, you know, they don't speak Spanish."

  "Who don't?"

  "The Brazilians. They speak Portuguese."

  Suzie didn't want to believe me, I could tell, but she finally did. She said, "Is that right? They must understand it, though. If everybody else down there speaks it, they must understand it."

  "You could give it a try." I looked back through the window. Angela del Fuego was feeling a guy's fur collar.

  Suzie turned her attention to a FedEx envelope on her desk, so I got back to work on my feature. I quickly made about a dozen edits before she interrupted me again. "I helped organize a big fund-raiser last night at Marina Bay, a big political fund-raiser. People came to meet Mr. Lyons and to give him their support. You know he's running for the state senate? He has some famous campaign manager from Washington helping to get him elected. Your dad and I met him last night. His name is Philip Knowlton."

  Suzie paused, as if waiting for me. I said, "Was he nice?"

  She looked at me like maybe I was putting her on. But I wasn't. She answered, "He's not here to be nice, Roberta. He's here to get Mr. Lyons elected." Suzie opened a Twix bar. "But I guess he was nice enough. Basically, the more money you had to contribute to the campaign, the nicer he was to you."

  "That's pretty creepy."

  She gave me that same look. "No, that's just the way it is." Suzie bit the Twix in half. "He wants to schedule Mr. Lyons for an event' here in September."

  "What event?"

  "The new fountain. Mr. Lyons will be here to turn it on and to give a speech. Channel Three will definitely be here to cover it, and maybe Channel Fifty-seven and the Sunshine Network.

  "'National attention' is the word they were using last night. Mr. Lyons needs to get 'national attention.'"

  I started to point out to her that that was two words, but I caught myself. I got up to leave, but there was something about Suzie's look that made me stand still by the desk. She seemed to be struggling with something. She finally said to me, "Roberta, you know your dad and I are getting pretty close now. Right?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I just want you to know that if you ever need to talk to me for ... girl talk? You know. I'm here for you."

  I flashed back in horror to Mom's words from the dream, Do you need to talk to me? I wanted to shout at Suzie, No! I don't need to talk to you. I need to talk to my mother. But I only shouted to myself.

  Suzie must have noticed the change in my face. She quickly added, "Of course, if you'd rather talk to someone else, that's fine, too. I'll understand. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  I hustled out of there.

  WEDNESDAY, THE 23RD

  As I passed the rotunda today, I heard a loud clanging sound. I looked over and saw Leo kneeling behind the DANGER horse. He looked up and saw me, too, which was bad, because I was already late.

  He yelled, "Hey, Roberta! Come over here."

  Leo is a skinny, wiry guy. He has one of those bodies that could be anywhere from thirty to seventy years old. He has a square head and big false teeth. His teeth are so big that they look like a mistake, like he got some big guy's teeth instead of his own. I called back, "I can't, Leo. I'm late. Can I talk to you on break?"

  He yelled, "Come over here!" again. I looked ahead at Arcane, then I detoured over to the rotunda. Leo gestured around him. "Look at this, will you?" I guessed he was talking about the big hole and the loose tiles. "You got to tell your dad's girlfriend"—he bugged his eyes toward the office—"Suzie the Floozy over there, that this ain't gonna work."

  "What isn't going to work, Leo?"

  "This new fountain scam they got going now. They're telling everybody we got a new fountain. Do you see anything new here?"

  "No. I guess not."

  "I'm hooking up the old fountain. There ain't one new thing under here. Just an old pump, an old motor, and some very old pipes. They need to rip it all out and start over."

  "But, Leo, isn't the whole point that they want the old fountain back? So people can remember what it was like ten years ago?"

  "It broke ten years ago! That's why we shut it down and capped it."

  "Oh." I looked nervously at Arcane.

  Leo took pity on me. "Go on. If you gotta go to work, go on. But remember to tell her what I said."

  I half ran the remaining twenty yards to Arcane. Kristin was alone behind the counter.

  I said, "I'm sorry I'm late."

  She said, "You're late?"

  "Yeah. Is my dad here?"

  "He's in the back, eating."

  On weekdays Uncle Frank usually works from ten to five, and then Dad takes over from four to nine. Sometimes it's the opposite. Either way, that one hour when they overlap is uncomfortable for everybody.

  Someone who looked at our business from the outside, like the mannequin in Slot #61, might think that Uncle Frank does all the work and Dad does nothing. That's probably how Karl and Kristin look at it. That's definitely how Uncle Frank looks at it. But the fact is my dad has been in the arcade business for twenty years. He really knows what he's doing. Uncle Frank has been in the arcade business for three years. He only thinks he knows what he's doing.

  Uncle Frank soon came walking up the mallway from the north side. He was carrying some weird type of vacuum cleaner. Kristin greeted him with, "What's that, Daddy?"

  "It's a shampooer. I rented it from Lombardo. I'm having nightmares about what's living in this carpet." Uncle Frank looked around the arcade, probably for Karl. He told Kristin, "I want Karl and the two stooges to do this, but I want you to supervise them. Okay?"

  "Okay, Daddy."

  "The two can move the furniture. Make sure they don't break anything." He studied the machine. "Karl can run the shampooer." He looked over at me and said, with a touch of pride, "Karl can run any machine." He looked back at Kristin. "But make sure he's thinking clear."

  "Okay."

  Devin walked by and stopped to look at Crusader. Uncle Frank said, so only Kristin and I could hear, "Look at that dirtbag, will you?"

  Kristin agreed, "Gross."

  "Somebody needs to tell that guy it's two more months till Halloween."

  I told him, "He was in here last night with the goths. They were doing Vampire's Feast."

  Uncle Frank told Kristin, "You call me if he even looks at you."

  I followed Uncle Frank to the back, where he deposited the shampooer. Dad was leaning against a carton, eating a meatball sub. Uncle Frank didn't look at him, but he did ask, "So how did it go yesterday?"

  Dad answered, "Not bad. A little slow."

  "Slow? Then I hope you sent the useless twins home."

  "No. I let em stay."

  "You let them sit around on their butts all day?"

  Dad winked at me. "I like to keep them around in case we get busy. You have good days and bad days in this business. You never know which one it is until the day is over."

  Uncle Frank stepped into the open bathroom and started washing his hands.

  I handed Dad my revised feature. He asked, "What's this, honey?"

&
nbsp; "This is an improved version of my feature about the turtles. Mr. Herman's going to put it into my portfolio."

  "Great. I'll read it right now. What's your portfolio?"

  "It's a folder where you keep samples of your schoolwork. Your best work."

  "Uh-huh. Now, tell me, is that something you can send to a college with your application?"

  "I don't know. I guess so. If they want it."

  Dad addressed Uncle Frank. "Roberta's going to the University of South Florida for a degree in journalism. It's all set. We bought that prepaid college plan for her when she was little. Now all she has to do is get decent grades." He looked at me. "Like she has been."

  Uncle Frank said, "Good. That's good. I looked into that plan for Kristin, but we weren't even Florida residents till last year, not officially. So it wasn't worth it."

  Dad said, "You gotta buy it when they're young. Roberta was only eight when Mary Ann got hers."

  I couldn't believe my ears. Dad and Uncle Frank were having a real conversation! Uncle Frank asked him, "How much a month was it?"

  "We didn't do the monthly plan. We plopped the whole thing down at once. That's the cheapest way to go. You pay five grand one time. It was all the money we had in the world. But now, ten years later, she's got a free ride to college." Dad looked away. He always gets a sad look when he tells that prepaid college plan story.

  Hawg, Ironman, and Karl arrived right at seven o'clock. Kristin put them to work with the rug shampooer. Hawg dragged the black platforms aside, Ironman picked up the trash under them, and Karl followed with the rug shampooer. It was a very efficient operation. It was also a very noisy operation, and the place looked like it was turned upside-down. Not too many customers ventured in.

  Nina stopped by at about seven-thirty. Nina is Kristin's best friend. She's as glamorous as Kristin is, only in a darker, Latin kind of way. They both attend Our Lady of Lourdes Academy. It's a private school, mostly for rich Catholic girls. Nina is both rich and Catholic. Kristin is neither. Uncle Frank sent her there after he visited Memorial High and saw what the kids there look like.

  Nina doesn't need to work. Her father is Dr. Navarro. He's the occupant of Slots #2 and 3, Florida Dermatology. It's one of three medical offices that he owns. Nina comes in whenever she feels like it to help him with the computerized billing. Tonight she didn't feel like helping, so she was hanging out at Arcane.