Give a gang of teenagers free food and an opportunity to talk, and you’ve got a winning combination. I smiled out across the crowd. I wanted to soak in Duke’s success since it looked like I might never get the same opportunity, according to Tami … and my mom.
“A set of extraordinary circumstances made us decide that Duke should run for mayor.”
To be honest, it was originally done to tweak the opposing candidate who was unworthy of the office. He showed how incompetent he was when he decided to try to get the court to reject Duke as a candidate. But that wasn’t a thought to voice right now.
“Be that as it may, there’s an old saying about not throwing stones if you live in a glass house, and we don’t need to do that here. We are here today because the good people of this county put the most qualified candidate on the ballot,” I said.
“We support you, Duke!” someone called out, which got the crowd rocking again.
“Everyone who helped get signatures, please raise your hands.”
There was a nice round of applause.
“Without your help, we would never have gotten enough signatures in such a short amount of time. I want to single out one person: Destiny Crown,” I said and saw my girlfriend’s eyes narrow. “Destiny, come up on stage.”
She hesitated, but everyone encouraged her. When she was beside me, I continued.
“Destiny went out and got the most signatures …”
One at a time, I invited up each person who had helped in some way. That included my parents, Brook, my photography class, and many more. I figured if you made the mistake of making me get in front of a room and wanted to hide, too bad.
I explained to everyone that my grandmother would do all the heavy lifting for my boy as mayor. He gave her a big kiss when she leaned down to pet him. She was lucky he didn’t nail her in the mouth. Yuck!
“Before we came up here, we received some great news. Based on the exit polling, Duke has won in a landslide!”
I began to dance around, and Duke acted like he did when we were alone in my apartment and did the Dukey-Doo. It’s a dance move that involves a lot of tail-wagging, hand-clapping, and bouncing around. Music came on, and I showed everyone how to do it. For some reason, the old folks bailed on us at that point.
Video of our dance led the late news. It was what was needed to break the tense feeling as the election returns continued late into the night. Someday, I would learn.
The crowd cleared out shortly after, as I’d thought they would.
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Chapter 44 – Panic! At the Flight School Wednesday November 9
Precious and I had settled in as roommates. Brit had kept her word and was taking care of her cat and the kittens. When I came out from my shower, I found Precious on my pillow.
“Morning,” I said formally.
My only complaint was that there was cat hair everywhere. I planned to call Caryn today and have her get us a housekeeper. Peggy hadn’t been cleaning my apartment since the summer began and I’d gone to Cuba. Not that I was complaining, but I could see that dealing with all the little ones was more than my mom and Peggy could handle and worry about the house. It was time we got someone.
Caryn had also been interviewing people to help with childcare. She did the initial interviews, and then they had to face the gauntlet of Peggy, Pam, and my mom. I suspected Scarlet would weigh in at some point. If the candidate passed all that, I was sure they could handle the job.
I wasn’t running today, so I got dressed and packed my bag for the football game. I grabbed my letterman’s jacket.
“You ready?” I asked.
Precious hopped off the bed and beat me to the back door. I let her out and then entered the house to let Duke out. He seemed to know when to be downstairs. The two buddies left to explore the backyard.
I found my mom and dad drinking coffee and reading the paper.
“Did you hear? Governor Higgins won his race,” Dad announced.
“That’s great. What happened in the presidential race?” I asked.
“It wasn’t called until the middle of the night. It was a big upset,” Mom told me.
“How could that happen? Every news story I saw predicted he was going to lose by double digits,” I wondered.
No one had any answers as to how they’d gotten it so wrong. What they needed to do was put Duke in charge of the country. I was sure he could even convert cat lovers to his side.
“What’s Duke doing today?” I asked.
“This morning he gets sworn in, and then he’ll spend the day at your grandmother’s farm while we come up for your game,” Mom said.
Duke and Precious came bounding into the kitchen, followed by Chuck.
“Sorry, she got past me,” he said to explain why the cat from hell was in my mom’s kitchen.
Everyone was in shock when she jumped into my lap, and I wasn’t clawed.
“Want to hold her?” I asked my dad.
You would’ve thought I’d pointed a gun at him. I took Precious to my apartment before we were both evicted.
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