Small Steps - Louis Sachar [21]
Murdock laughed. “Man, don’t you just love her?”
“She’s all right,” said Wiley.
“So what do you want to drink?” Murdock asked X-Ray.
Next to the cash register was a large metal bucket filled with ice and soft drinks.
“Root beer,” said X-Ray.
Murdock looked at Armpit. “Let me guess. The same?”
Armpit shrugged.
“Does he tell you when to go to the bathroom, too?”
Armpit smiled and sheepishly shrugged.
And now that you got me . . .
in your arms,
Ooh, I feel so . . .
soft and warm.
There’s only one thing
I want to say . . .
Armpit bit into his sandwich. He’d eaten a lot of barbecue in his life, but this might have been the very best. Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that he now had all his money back, and then some.
Just hold on!
a little longer.
Just hold on!
a little bit longer.
Hold on, baby,
just a little bit longer
And then I’ll be on my way.
12
X-Ray sold four more tickets to a couple of high school students from Westlake, and just like that, Armpit had another two hundred and seventy dollars. He was up three hundred dollars, and there were still two tickets left, which would mean another hundred and thirty-five for him.
The final two ruler-of-the-world campaign speeches were given Thursday morning. The second-to-last speech was given by Claire, Tatiana’s friend, who brought Dumbo the Elephant.
“. . . so all the other elephants made fun of him, but then he got drunk and ended up in a tree, and these birds sang to him. And then his mouse friend said he could fly because of a magic feather. . . .”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the movie,” a boy in back said, but Claire just continued.
“I used to love that movie!” Armpit heard Tatiana whisper. He wondered if she still planned to vote for Coo.
The last speech, given by Robbie Kinkaid, was for an armadillo name Joe. Robbie obviously made up the speech as he went along, including the name of his armadillo.
“This is an armadillo, I think. You can vote for him if you want. His name is . . . Joe. Joe the Armadillo. He’s brown, and has four legs, and this shell thingy. . . .”
Then came the vote.
Everyone had to write down his or her first and second choices.
Joe the Armadillo won, and Dumbo was elected vice ruler of the world. If for any reason Joe was unable to fulfill his obligations, Dumbo would take over.
Armpit tried not to let his disappointment show. After all, it was just a stupid assignment, and people just voted for the only ones they could remember.
“I’m sorry Coo didn’t win,” Tatiana said to him after class. She placed her hand on his arm as she said it.
“No biggie.”
“You gave the best speech,” she told him, her hand still there.
“It would have made Ginny happy.”
“She’s your sister?”
“My neighbor.”
“That’s right. She has leukemia?”
“Cerebral palsy.”
Armpit wondered if Tatiana had forgotten her hand was there, but if she had, he wasn’t about to remind her. Her fingernails were painted green. Her perfume smelled like cantaloupe.
“Say, listen,” he said. “Do you like Kaira DeLeon?”
She squeezed his arm. “‘Red Alert!’ I love that song.”
“You want to go to the concert on Saturday?”
She bit her lip. “You mean with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?” he asked, just to make sure.
She smiled. “Yeah.”
By the time economics was over, Armpit had convinced himself that X-Ray had already sold the last two tickets and that he was going to have to buy two from a scalper for fifteen hundred dollars. He could hear X-Ray’s voice in his head. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars—each.”
When the bell rang he bolted out of his seat and hurried to the office, where he asked the secretary if he could use the phone. She seemed sympathetic, but it was against school policy. Apparently not the principal, the superintendent, or even the president of the United States could change school policy.
Where was Joe the Armadillo when you needed him?
He left the office and spotted Matt Kapok, a skinny white guy from his economics class. Matt was probably the only student in his