This was just great. The only problem was I didn’t think I could throw her out. My bladder made my decision for me.
“I can’t wait to tell Brook you showed me Mr. Happy,” Cassidy teased.
“I’m making a list,” I warned her.
“What list is that?”
“Everyone whose butt I’m going to kick once I’m feeling better.”
“Good luck with that,” she scoffed and then got an evil glint in her eye. “You could give me your list. You might have to prioritize it because I’m only allowed to hurt one boy a week.”
“Yuri,” I blurted, and then thought more about it. “No, Phil.”
“What about Dare? He stole your girlfriend.”
“You’d hurt Dare?” I asked, shocked.
That was like saying you would kick a puppy.
“On your orders,” she said with a straight face.
The scary part was, I believed her.
“That’s okay. I’ll take care of my own list for now.”
Cassidy looked disappointed. I was a little worried she might go rogue, though. Yuri had a habit of mouthing off to the wrong people. Cassidy would probably take him down on principle. I would bet Pam would pay to watch that. Maybe that would be my Christmas present to her.
◊◊◊
We had finished, and Marshal and Curtis were packing up.
“Hey, David,” Marshal said to stop me. “What are you planning on doing for your class project?”
I grinned because I was excited about this one.
“I’m going to shoot a campaign ad for my dog to run for mayor.”
They both gave me a funny look, so I explained about the current mayor being arrested and my deep hatred of Thomas Fox.
“What platform is Duke going to run on?” Marshal asked.
“I haven’t really thought about it. I just know that he would make a better mayor than Thomas Fox.”
“He doesn’t like squirrels,” Tracy suggested. “He could run on a platform of ridding the town of the vermin.”
Duke thought the little bastards should all die. That started a brainstorming session. Cassidy pointed out that she’d seen a bumper sticker that said that their dog was smarter than your first grader. We thought Duke was probably smarter than Thomas Fox, if his grades at State were any indication. Then we came up with ten things that would change if dogs ruled the world.
Duke’s Possible Platform:
I wasn’t sure how to work that all into my ad, but it gave me a starting point. Marshal and Curtis loaded the equipment into my SUV so I could use it this weekend. I planned to get some shots of Duke in action so I could stitch it into my ad for my class project.
◊◊◊
When I got home, Dad had already started Duke’s campaign.
“The first thing we have to do is get him on the ballot. There’s a link on the town’s website with the instructions on how to get signatures and the form it has to be on,” Dad said as he handed me one. “We need to get 550 signatures and have them turned in by close of business on Wednesday.”
“Why such a weird number?” I asked.
“I talked to my mom, and she said that we should get at least ten percent extra in case any signatures get rejected.”
That was welcome advice because if it were up to me, I would have gotten to 500 and stopped. I was sure Thomas Fox would be challenging the signatures. If it had been left to me, we would have had no margin for error.
The form said that Duke was running as an independent. It asked for the person signing the petition to provide their printed name and address, and then they had to sign it. The form had room for three signatures per page. Dad told us that Grandma Dawson had pointed out that one of the most common disqualifiers of a signature was that people forgot to print their name on the form.
“Your mom took Duke to the hospital with a stack of these. She’s getting started,” Dad said.
