Mayor Hubble Is in Trouble! (6 page)

Those were lies!

Well, most of them were anyway.

All the kids were talking to each other. I heard some of them saying that they were thinking of voting for Andrea instead of me.

This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week! I called for an emergency strategy session, and the gang gathered in Ryan's tree house as soon as school let out that day.

“Did you
really
forget to make your mom a card for Mother's Day, A.J.?” asked Alexia.

“I didn't forget!” I said. “I ran out of time.”

“That's just
wrong
, man,” said Michael.

“Gee, maybe I should vote for Andrea,”
said Neil the nude kid. “I'm not sure I could vote for a kid who doesn't make his mom a Mother's Day card.”

“I might vote for Andrea too,” said Ryan.

“You
can't
vote for Andrea!” I shouted at them. “You're the ones who talked me into this in the first place! I didn't want to run for president!”

That's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Mayor Hubble popped his head up into the tree house.

“I saw that flyer that Andrea printed up,” the mayor said. “That girl is very tricky. A.J., it's time for us to play hardball.”

“I didn't bring my glove,” I told him.

“Not
that
kind of hardball!” said the mayor. “We need to dig up some dirt.”

“Should I get a shovel?” I asked.

“Not
that
kind of dirt! Andrea dug up dirt about you. So you need to dig up some dirt about Andrea. It's the only way you can win the election.”

“How can we dig up dirt about Andrea?” asked Alexia.

“Follow me,” said the mayor.

We all piled into Mayor Hubble's limo and drove over to Andrea's house. The limo driver parked a block away, across the street.

“What are we doing
here
?” I asked. “Andrea's never home after school. She's always taking some dance class or piano lesson so she'll be better than everybody else.”

“I know,” Mayor Hubble whispered. “That's why we're going to her house
now
.”

Mayor Hubble sneaked down the street, hiding behind trees and bushes like he was a secret agent. We all followed him.

“What if Andrea's parents are home?” asked Alexia.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh!”
Mayor Hubble said. “Her parents are at work.”

“I don't feel good about this,” said Ryan.

Mayor Hubble led us to the back door of Andrea's house. He searched around until he found a key under the welcome mat.

“Aha!” he said as he put the key into the lock.

“Isn't it illegal to break into somebody's house?” I asked.

“I'm not breaking in,” said the mayor. “I'm using the key.”

“I can't do this,” Neil said. “It's wrong.”

“
You're
not doing it,” Mayor Hubble said.
“
I'm
doing it. And I'm the former mayor, so it's okay.”

He turned the key and pushed open the door. I was afraid an alarm would go off, but it didn't.

“Follow me,” the mayor said. “Let's go upstairs to Andrea's room.”

We slinked up the stairs like secret agents.

“What if we get caught?” whispered Michael.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
said Mayor Hubble.

It wasn't hard to find Andrea's room. It was the one with all the pink in it.

“WOW!” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside down.

The walls were pink. The bedspread was pink. The rug was pink. The stuffed animals, dolls, and other girlie girl stuff all over the place were pink. I thought I was gonna go blind from all the pinkness.

“Andrea sure wins a lot of awards,” said Alexia.

There was a bookcase filled with trophies, plaques, ribbons, and certificates with Andrea's name all over everything.

“We should get out of here,” I said. “She might come home any second.”

“Shhhhhhhh!”
said Mayor Hubble. “Look what I found!”

He was holding a book that was on the desk. The cover said ANDREA'S PRIVATE DIARY.

“I'll bet there's some good dirt in here,” Mayor Hubble said.

“You can't read that!” said Michael.

“Sure I can,” said the mayor. “I'm the former mayor.”

He flipped through the pages. We all gathered around so we could look over his shoulder. Most of the pages were just boring stuff about Andrea's dance class, Andrea's gymnastics class, Andrea's art class....

And then the mayor turned to a page with just three words on it. Three
horrible
words. The worst words in the history of the world …

I LIKE A.J.!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

“Oooooh!”
Ryan said. “Andrea likes A.J. They must be in
love
!”

“When are you and Andrea gonna get married?” asked Michael.

“Can we get out of here now?” I asked.

I wanted to run away to Antarctica and live with the penguins.

I didn't want to go to school the next day. I didn't want to go to school for the rest of my life. Once word got around that Andrea wrote “I LIKE A.J.” in her diary, my life would be over anyway.

So I walked
really
slowly to school. If you walk slowly enough to someplace you
don't want to go, you'll never get there. That's the first rule of being a kid.

A big, black limo pulled up next to me.

“Pssssssssst!”
said Mayor Hubble as he rolled down the window. “Hop in!”

As we rode to school, he pointed to all the yard signs that people had put up on their front lawns:
VOTE FOR ANDREA. VOTE FOR A.J.

“I have a job for you,” the mayor told me. “You need to take down all the Vote for Andrea signs and replace them with Vote for Mayor Hubble signs.”

“Isn't that stealing?” I asked.

“No, don't be silly,” the mayor said, “it's
borrowing
. It's sort of like borrowing a
book from the library. After the election you can give the signs back.”

“I don't know,” I said. “It seems kind of wrong to me.”

“Look,” said the mayor, “the election is tomorrow. I thought you said you wanted to beat Andrea.”

“I do.”

“I thought you wanted to
humiliate
her.”

“I do!”

“I thought you wanted her to wish she had never been born.”

“I
do
!!”

“Well, if you want to win the election, A.J., you need to take down Andrea's yard signs,” said the mayor. “We didn't dig up
any good dirt on her. This is the only way.”

“Okay.” I sighed. “If you say so.”

“Good boy,” said Mayor Hubble as he handed me a bunch of
VOTE FOR MAYOR HUBBLE
signs.

After dinner that night I told my parents I was going over to Ryan's house to check our homework. But I didn't go to Ryan's house. I grabbed the
VOTE FOR MAYOR HUBBLE
signs and went out looking for some
VOTE FOR ANDREA
signs.

It was getting dark outside. I was slinking around the neighborhood like a secret agent. It was cool. At the first house I came to, there were
two
signs on the front lawn. One said
VOTE FOR ANDREA
and the other said
VOTE FOR A.J.

I started pulling the
VOTE FOR ANDREA
sign out of the ground. And you'll never believe in a million hundred guesses who tapped me on the shoulder at that moment.

It was Andrea!

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
I shouted.

She was holding an armful of
VOTE FOR MAYOR HUBBLE
yard signs, just like I was.

“Arlo, what are
you
doing here?” she asked.

“I'm taking away your yard signs,” I told her. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I came to take away
your
yard signs!” she said. “Who told you to do this?”

“Mayor Hubble,” I told Andrea. “He told me to take down your signs and replace them with Vote for Mayor Hubble signs.”

“That's strange,” said Andrea. “He told me to take down
your
signs and replace them with Vote for Mayor Hubble signs
too
!”

Andrea and I looked at each other for a second.

“You mean Mayor Hubble is helping
you
win the election?” I asked Andrea.

“Yes!”

“Mayor Hubble has been helping
you
win the election
too
?” Andrea asked me.

“Yeah!” I said. “He told me he would help me win if I told all the parents to vote for him.”

“That's the same thing he told
me
!” said Andrea. “So no matter which of us wins, it will be good for Mayor Hubble!”

She looked really mad.