It was pretty ill—everybody screaming and high-fiving and throwing their hats in the air. Kids who refused to be seen in public with their parents didn’t mind being hugged and kissed in front of the whole town. We’d been victims for so long, watching the new mall suck the life out of Sycamore. Now we were back in charge of our own lives. Pavel, Chuck, and I pulled gummy worms out of our pockets and toasted the great moment.
I turned to Pavel, shame-faced. “I never should have accused you of messing with the web page.”
“Technically understandable,” Pavel mumbled, his mouth full of candy.
“Technically, maybe,” I conceded. “But that’s not Awesome Threesome style.”
The only person not jumping for joy was Jennifer. She couldn’t—she still had the injured Elvis, wrapped in Daphne’s jacket, clutched in her arms. She was so determined to get credit for saving the beaver that she hadn’t let go of him through all those hours. Now she was walking purposefully toward Audra Klincker, the reporter who would tell the world about the Friends of Fuzzy and their epic rescue.
But then something must have changed the head cheerleader’s mind. In the middle of all the chaos, she walked right past the reporter and gave the injured animal to Dr. Casper, our town vet.
That might have been the most amazing thing to come from a pretty amazing day—finding out that Jennifer Del Rio had a heart.
It was the happiest of all happy endings.
I meant that Elvis turned out to be okay, not the part where the town was saved. That was pretty good, too.
But back to Elvis. Picture the best fireworks display you’ve ever seen against a pitch-black sky, during a supernova, with Mount Krakatoa erupting in the background.
That still doesn’t come close to describing how thrilled I was when Dr. Casper announced that Elvis was fine. After the celebration on the ramp, the vet took the poor beaver back to his office for a full examination. The diagnosis: only bruising, no internal damage. The car had sideswiped him, not hit him straight on. He was scared and shaken up, but otherwise in perfect beaver health.
As for the ramp, people were still a little nervous that the bulldozers might come back the next day, or the day after that. Just because we’d stopped them once didn’t mean the state government had changed its mind. No way could everybody in Sycamore put their lives on hold to stand out by the freeway as human shields forever. But the next week we got word that the Transportation Department had postponed the demolition until they could “review” the situation. Mayor Dolinka told us that the state was so far behind in reviewing things that Sycamore was off the hook for at least three years. And since that was too long to leave a crumbling ramp, the Division of Highways would have to repair it. In other words, by the time anyone got around to demolishing our exit, it wouldn’t need demolishing anymore.
It was good news, I guess, but it didn’t exactly fill me with confidence in government. I knew kids who were this flaky, but the state was supposed to be reliable, right? How could we be sure they wouldn’t just change their minds?
Cam wasn’t worried. “If the bulldozers ever come back, the P.A.G. will go out and stand on the ramp again,” he promised everybody.
That was the real big story. The Positive Action Group had been reinstated with Cam back as president. The minute that happened, every single kid who wasn’t already a member joined up. Mr. Fanshaw said it had to be the first time in the history of school that a club ever reached 100 percent membership. Our first project was selling tickets for the Fall Charity Raffle. I wasn’t convinced that was quite as important as some of the other things the P.A.G. could turn its attention to, but Mr. Fanshaw assured me that this was what Cam wanted. Well, how could I argue with that? If it hadn’t been for Cam, who knew what would have become of poor Elvis?
After a few days under observation in Dr. Casper’s veterinary clinic, Elvis was finally introduced into the habitat we had built for him all those weeks ago. He loved it, just like I’d always known he would. Watching him swim and play and chew wood filled me with so much happiness I was afraid I might cry. Okay, I did cry. Luckily, nobody noticed, because there was a lot going on right then.
Mayor Dolinka himself held an official town ceremony in the woods, and even unveiled a plaque that read:
This didn’t sit too well with Jennifer Del Rio and the Friends of Fuzzy, who weren’t in love with the idea of the middle school getting all the credit. They had to suck it up, though. What choice did they have? Time was on our side, not theirs. In a couple of years, we would be them, and they would be gone.
In the end, what really mattered was that Elvis was safe and sound and happy. We had the P.A.G. to thank for that, which meant we had Cam to thank, too. He was the best thing that ever happened to this town. I can’t believe I actually said that guy was a slacker.
Seriously, what was I thinking?
Rule the World was ill.
Beyond ill.
The convention hall stretched as far as the eye could see. Game logos the size of buildings hung everywhere. And the people—thousands of them, ages nine to ninety, some dressed as characters from their favorite games. It was my lifestyle poured out around me in all its natural beauty.
I wasn’t totally relaxed, though. As I eyed the competition at the various tournament stations, it looked pretty fierce. I had my work cut out for me, no question about that.
My father kept me company while I waited for my partner to arrive. “Nervous?”
“Just excited,” I replied. “I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life. I honestly didn’t believe it would ever come.”
“About that.” Dad shuffled uncomfortably. “I had a crazy idea last week that you only started the P.A.G. because you were afraid we were going to take away your console. Mom and I are proud of everything you’ve accomplished these past months, but we’d hate to think that you’re doing it just for us. So if you want to quit … ”
“What?” I was stunned. “No way! I’m the pagger-in-chief ! They need me!”
Hey, I wasn’t abandoning my lifestyle. Still, when I looked around Rule the World—ill as it was—it wasn’t everything. It wasn’t my family, my friends, my school, my town. The Positive Action Group had worked its way into all that. It had started as a hoax, but had ended up the realest thing about me.
Besides, the P.A.G. had never needed me to run it anyway, so staying on as president wouldn’t take a huge bite out of my lifestyle. Plus, there was no way I was leaving the Friends of Fuzzy to take credit for all the good deeds in town. The word around Sycamore was that Jennifer Del Rio had been accepted to Harvard. Poor Harvard.
“Hi, Cam!”
Chuck fist-bumped me. He’d made the trip to Rule the World just to cheer me on. What a great friend. It was hard to imagine we’d been fighting.
I’d never say it out loud, but I was glad he wasn’t my partner for this tournament. The same went for Pavel, who was right behind him. He was every bit as good a gamer as Chuck, and supersmart besides. But the level of play around here was so intense that neither of them would have been able to handle it.
“Ready?” Pavel asked me.
“I will be in a minute.”
We all watched as my mom approached, escorting my Rule the World partner. Melody came over to stand beside me.
“Got your game face on?”
I grinned. “You know me. It’s the only face I’ve got.”
That’s right, my sister, Melody, was my partner—or maybe I should say I was her partner, since she was better than me. It was a little humbling to admit, but we were in the big leagues here, and the stakes had never been so high.
When you were facing Rule the World–level competition, you needed someone like Evil McKillPeople on your side.
Gordon Korman is the #1 bestselling author of five books in The 39 Clues series as well as eight books in his Swindle series: Swindle, Zoobreak, Framed, Showoff, Hideout, Jackpot, Unleashed, and Jingle. His other books include This Can’t Be Happenin
g at Macdonald Hall! (published when he was fourteen); The Toilet Paper Tigers; Radio Fifth Grade; Ungifted; Schooled; the trilogies Island, Everest, Dive, Kidnapped, Titanic, and The Hypnotists; and the series On the Run. He lives in New York with his family and can be found on the web at www.gordonkorman.com.
Copyright © 2016 by Gordon Korman
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, May 2016
Jacket art © 2016 by Ross Dearsley
Jacket design by Nina Goffi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-82317-3
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Gordon Korman, Slacker
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