

Marvin McBrayer: Zebra For President

by Shawn Wray

Chapter One

Marvin McBrayer stood outside the door to the office and took a deep breath. He leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair. He had never been called to the office before. At least he was seeing the guidance counselor and not the principal. He took his backpack off of his shoulders and tucked his shirt in. He wasn't sure what that was supposed to accomplish. Tucking it in couldn't change the fact that he was just wearing a t-shirt that said Gamer on it with a pair of khaki shorts.

Was he breaking the school dress code? He didn't think so. He looked at his shorts and checked the length. They were past his knees so he was okay in that department. His shirt was old but it didn't have any holes in it.

Marvin opened the office door and slinked inside. He quietly sat down in one of the chairs against the faded blue wall underneath the poster advertising the upcoming school events. In the back of his mind he hoped that he was invisible, but he felt like he was as noticeable as an elephant that had just twirled into the room like a ballerina. Mrs. Estler, the school guidance counselor, was seated at her desk in the office across from him, her tightly wound bun bobbing back and forth as she organized a stack of papers in front of her. Her horn-rimmed glasses were low on her nose so that she had to tilt her head back and look down at her work. Everyone said that she was as old as the school. If he asked his parents if they remembered Mrs. Estler they said yes. He had a feeling that if he asked his grandparents they would remember her as well.

She stopped what she was doing and lay down the red marker that she was writing with. Marvin's friends had a joke that her marker was filled with the blood of kids who got sent to her office. She looked up from her papers. She had a smile on her face but Marvin couldn't tell if it was because she was glad to see him or because she was about to do something horrible to him.

"Hello, Marvin," she said. "Come inside and have a seat."

An image of her strapping him into an electric chair flashed through his mind. He shook his head and blinked his eyes to get rid of it. It didn't work.

"Did I do something wrong, Mrs. Estler?" he asked as he made his way into her office and sat in one of the chairs facing her desk.

"I wouldn't say that, Marvin," she said. "I want to talk to you about your grades."

Marvin sighed. He was afraid that it had something to do with his grades.

"I'm trying really hard," Marvin said.

"Well, you know that your grades have been going down over the last couple of months," she replied. "Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know," he said. "It's probably because I got sick."

"I remember when you got sick," she said. "You were in the hospital for a week at the beginning of the year."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "I had pneumonia."

"Well, it looks like you're still missing a lot of assignments from then. And you've been absent a few more times. You're missing some assignments from then as well."

Why was she being so nice about it? Any minute now she was going to say something that was going to seal his fate. She was going to call his mother or she was going to make him take a note home. He was going to be caught!

"Why are all of these assignments still missing, Marvin?" she asked.

"Because I can't get it all done, Ms. Estler!" he exclaimed. He felt the dam burst inside him and he was trying his best to choke down the tears. "It's too much work! It's all of the assignments that I missed when I was out on top of the ones that I have to do when I'm here!"

"Calm down, Marvin," Mrs. Estler said. "You're not in any trouble. I didn't call you here to yell at you."

"You didn't?" Marvin asked.

"No," she answered. "You're having a problem and I'm here to help you. I'm not going to torture you. I'm your guidance counselor and that's what I'm here for." She picked up the red marker and waved it in front of her. "Although...I haven't filled my marker with blood in quite some time." Marvin swallowed so hard that his throat made a gulping noise and she laughed. "That was a joke."

"You know about that?" Marvin asked.

"Adults know more about what you kids say than you think we do," Mrs. Estler said. "Although I have had some pretty good laughs over that particular rumor." She picked a file folder off the stack next to her and opened it. "Let's see if we can figure something out. You're still missing at least three assignments in almost every subject. You've turned in a good bit but you're past the deadline on most of these. When your progress report comes out at the end of this week you're going to have some pretty low marks."

Marvin sunk in his chair. He was doomed! His progress report was going to make or break him. His parents had been asking him for weeks if he was caught up on his make-up work and he had been telling them that he was. It was easier to say yes than it was to explain why he wasn't or admit that he didn't think that he'd ever be able to catch up. This had been going on for so long and the work had continued to pile up so much that sometimes he felt like he was drowning in homework. He had gone to his room after dinner most nights for the past month and worked until he couldn't hold his eyes open anymore. All that and he was still behind.

"I'm scheduling a meeting with your parents for tomorrow afternoon," Mrs. Estler said. "I've already talked to your mother and we've discussed what's going on."

Marvin gulped again. He was doomed!

"She said that she didn't know that you were this far behind," she continued.

Doomed!

She smiled. "It's not that bad. We're going to work something out. We'll discuss your grades and your work load. I think we'll be able to get your grades up in time for your report card."

Marvin took a deep breath. This was going a little better than he thought that it would be.

"There is one other thing that I'd like to talk to you about," Mrs. Estler said.

Marvin held his breath. One other thing? That's what the lawyers and cops on TV always said right before they lowered the boom on the bad guy and sent him away for thirty years!

"I've been looking at your file and I see that you haven't participated in any extracurricular activities since you've been going to school here."

Marvin adjusted himself in his chair. "I played basketball last year in sixth grade. I had to miss practice so much that I always sat on the bench during the games."

"And you missed practice because you got sick a lot?" Mrs. Estler said.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "It's not always as bad as when I was in the hospital. But I get a lot of colds and ear infections and stuff like that. When I got sick my mom would keep me from going to practice so I never had a chance to learn the plays. My coach just made me sit out the game most of the time."

"I see," Mrs. Estler said. "Well, I always encourage students to find an activity that they enjoy doing. It doesn't have to be a sport. Our school is really special for students your age because of the number of activities that we have available for you. You have access to a lot of opportunities that could open up whole new hobbies and interests for you."

Marvin nodded. Culver Junior High School consisted of the seventh and eighth grades. Other than the fact that they went to school in the same building, the two grades could not be farther apart. The eighth grade had all of their classes on the first floor of the school while Marvin's classes were on the second floor, other than gym. Marvin's sister went to the high school and she had told lots stories about how the ninth-graders were considered to be the scum of the school. The older kids loved to torture them between classes and in the cafeteria. Marvin felt like it was the same way here between the seventh and eighth grades. As a result, most of Marvin's class steered clear of the extracurricular activities since they wanted to avoid the older kids as much as possible. Seventh grade students tried to stay on the second floor as much as they could.

"I know," Marvin said.

"What kinds of things are you interested in, Marvin?" Mrs. Estler asked.

"I like comic books," Marvin said. "I like movies, too. And I read a lot of books about animals."

"Well, we don't have a comic book club," she replied. "But we do have a classic movie club and a pretty good zoology department. So, you think about what you'd like to do the most and let me know. I'll make sure you get in the club that you want."

"I'll think about it," he said. He got up from his chair and went back out into the office. As he was making his way to the door his eye caught a glimpse of the poster for upcoming events. He noticed another poster hanging right beside it that he had not seen before. The posters had been hanging all over the school for a week but he had not really given a thought to them. Suddenly, he realized which school activity that he would be most interested in.

Chapter Two

"You can't be serious."

Marvin looked at Tommy and back at the poster hanging on the wall like a fine work of art. It was just a big piece of paper that Ms. Finch had made and tacked to the cafeteria door. On it was a drawing of a cartoon-looking version of the White House. Huge letters across the top it read "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!". At the bottom of the sign it said that nominations were open for all positions on the student council.

Marvin had a huge smile on his face as he stood and gazed at the sign. He looked as if he were staring at the Mona Lisa.

"Serious about what?" he asked Tommy.

Tommy shook his head and snapped his fingers in front of Marvin's face. "Are you really thinking about running for a student office?"

"Why not?" Marvin asked.

"Well, for one thing you're only in the seventh grade," Tommy said. "Those kids are usually way older. What office are you thinking about?"

"Well," Marvin said as they went through the door and made their way to their usual lunch table. Chad and Lena were already there and halfway through their bagged lunches. "I think I'd make a pretty good class president."

"Class president?" Tommy said as if Marvin had just said that he were running for class sneaker inspector. "You've lost your mind!"

They sat down at the table and opened their lunches. Marvin pulled out the turkey sandwich that his mother had made for him and took a bite.

"Hey, guys," Lena said through a mouthful of chocolate brownie. "You have got to hear what Chad just said."

"Stop it, Lena," Chad said, picking at his applesauce with a plastic spoon.

"No way," she replied. "Tell them what you just told me."

"No," Chad said.

"Fine," Lena said. "I'll tell them. Chad said that turkeys are so stupid that when it rains they look up at the sky and the water fills up their mouths until they drown!" She ended the sentence with a loud laugh as if it were the funniest thing that had ever been said.

"I've heard that before," Marvin said.

Chad looked at Marvin and smiled as if he were grateful to have someone on his side.

"That's what my grandpa told me," Chad said.

"That's crazy," Tommy said. "If that were true then turkey hunters would just have to wait until after it rained and then go pick up all the dead turkeys they wanted."

Chad glared at Tommy. "It's not the wild turkeys. It's only the ones that they keep on farms and stuff."

Lena laughed even harder at this statement and Chad looked at her with growing rage. Marvin could almost see fire smoldering in his eyes and could imagine a laser beam coming out and roasting Lena in her seat.

"Well, guess what good ol' Marvin has decided to do," Tommy said.

"I haven't decided anything, Tommy," Marvin was irritated. Tommy was making fun of him as usual.

"Marvin thinks he could be class president," Tommy put his nose in the air as if to mock Marvin for even thinking he could do it.

"Isn't that usually for older kids?" Lena asked.

"That's exactly what I said," Tommy replied.

Marvin looked down at his sandwich and fumed. He didn't know why he even told Tommy anything like this. He always acted like nobody should ever try to do anything. Just go to school and go home. That was pretty much his philosophy in life. He never tried out for any sports or joined any clubs. He just wanted to go home every afternoon and watch monster movies and cartoons.

Tommy had been his best friend as for as long as he could remember. Their moms were best friends so they had always spent a lot of time around each other. They'd been together since birth. But other than the fact that their moms knew each other they had absolutely nothing in common.

Marvin was tall and a little overweight. Not really what he thought of as fat, but he was still bigger than most of the kids his age. He liked to read. As a matter of fact he read more than he did anything else. It was nothing for him to go home on Friday afternoon and not come out of his room for anything other than meals and to go to the bathroom until it was time for school on Monday. He would stay in there the entire weekend and immerse himself in whatever book he had discovered lately.

Tommy, however, was the opposite. He was just as tall as Marvin but he was really thin. When they took their shirts off in the gym locker room almost every bone in Tommy's body could be seen. Marvin's mom called him scrawny but he had a lot of muscle. He wasn't afraid of anything or anybody. Whereas Marvin avoided getting into any kind of argument with people, Tommy loved it and would actually seek out confrontation. He preferred watching TV and playing video games. The only time he ever read an actual book was when they were assigned one in school. Usually he didn't even do that. Either he would look up a bunch of notes on the internet or he would get Marvin to explain the book to him.

But just because Tommy didn't like to do anything other than rot away in front of a TV that didn't mean that Marvin wanted to. He had just gotten back to school a couple of days ago after he had missed a week. He had a really bad cold. And back in the summer he had bronchitis, which his dad had assured him had nothing to do with dinosaurs. It had gotten worse and he had ended up in the hospital. He spent enough time sitting at home and watching TV when he was sick.

The truth was that class president had always been something that he wanted to be. It wasn't like it was some kind of a dream of his, but he still really liked the idea. He had watched an old black and white movie about a kid that was always being picked on. By the end of the movie he had won the class election and had ended up being one of the most popular kids in school. That was what Marvin wanted. He wanted every kid in school to look up to him and to come to him for advice.

"Be serious, Marvin," Lena said. "You're never going to get elected."

That was just the way Lena was. She told you what she thought and she didn't really care if it hurt your feelings or not. She wasn't the kind of girl that went out searching for people to be her friend. She just sort of went around doing what she wanted and saying what she thought. People that didn't like her stayed away from her. Those that didn't mind it stuck around. Marvin, Tommy, and Chad had stuck around longer than most.

She was a little more like one of the guys than she was like the girls their age. She didn't wear dresses or curl her hair. She usually wore the same jeans and t-shirts that the guys were wearing. She did have long brown hair but it was always pulled back into a simple ponytail and it wasn't out of the ordinary for it to be messy and knotted.

"Why not?" Marvin asked.

"Well, for one thing you're not old enough," she replied. "Do you think that the eighth-graders are going to want a seventh-grader to be their class president?"

Marvin shrugged. "I don't know. Why wouldn't they?"

"Because eighth-graders hate us," she said. "We're nothing to them. See, watch this."

She looked past him and he saw two older boys walking toward them with their trays in their hands. They were talking to each other and laughing.

"Hey, guys," Lena called to them. The two boys turned to her and their smiles immediately dropped from their faces.

"Shut up, worm!" one of them yelled and they kept walking.

Lena looked smugly at Marvin. "Did you hear that? Worm! He called me a worm!"

Tommy laughed. "Congratulations!"

"It proves my point," she said. "They think we're the scum of the earth. There is no way that they're ever going to elect one of us to be over them."

"Besides, Marv," Tommy said. "You get sick a lot. I mean, we've only been in school for two months and you've already been out sick like three or four times. And every time you miss almost a week."

"That shouldn't matter," Marvin said.

"It does," Tommy replied. "I mean, I invite you over to my house to play video games all the time and your mom says that you can't either because you're sick or you have too much make-up work to do."

"Well, I never said that I was definitely going to run," Marvin said. "I just want to think about it."

Chad looked at Marvin and smiled. "I think you should do it."

Chad had not been part of the group for very long. He had just moved to town back in the summer so this was the first year that he had gone to school here. Marvin had liked him right away and started inviting him to do things with the rest of them. He was shorter than Marvin and Tommy and he had hair that was so blonde that some of it looked white. He liked to wear button-up shirts with a collar. They hadn't seen him wear jeans very often. He was more likely to be wearing khakis. He and Marvin got along really well because they both liked to read. And they liked the same kinds of books.

Lena chuckled. "Well, we've established what happens when you think."

Chad glared at her again. She made fun of him a lot and Marvin always wondered why he put up with so much from her. But, the three of them had been friends for a long time and then Chad had fit right into the group. He guessed that there had to be something to their friendship for it to last that long.

"I'm being serious," Chad said. "My dad says that you never know what you're capable of if you don't try."

Marvin nodded. "You're right, Chad. I think I'm going to go talk to Ms. Finch. I'm going to put my name on the ballot."

"I'll be your campaign manager," Chad said.

Marvin was about to thank him when Tommy chimed in.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm his best friend. If anyone is going to be his campaign manager then it should be me!"

"You were just trying to talk him out of running," Chad said.

"What does that matter?" Tommy replied. "It's my job to try and stop my friends from making stupid decisions. But once they make them I'm behind them a hundred percent."

"Thanks," Marvin said. "I think."

"Don't thank me," Tommy said. "You're making a huge mistake."

"Some manager you're gonna make," Chad said.

Chapter Three

The the bell rang at three o'clock and the second floor exploded in excitement. The seventh grade students still seemed to get as excited at the end of the school day as they did on Friday. Marvin didn't get it. He watched the kids running for the bus line as if the buses were pulling out at that minute and they were going to have to make a jump for it. You'd almost think that the Principal Edwards had made an announcement that any student still on school property five minutes after the bell rang was going to have to spend the night in the cafeteria scrubbing dishes.

Marvin didn't have to make his way to the bus line. His mom usually picked him up after school. She was a nurse but she worked the early shift which meant that she got home pretty early in the afternoon. When he got out to the front of the school he saw the brown minivan sitting there in line with the rest of the cars. His sister, Megan, was already tossing her backpack in through the side door and getting in to the front seat.

"Hey!" Marvin said when he got to the van. "It's my turn to sit up front!"

"Good luck with that, Troll," Megan said as she put her ear buds in and tuned out the rest of the world.

"Marvin, just get in the van," his mother said. "We don't have time to argue about it."

Marvin rolled his eyes but climbed into the van and slid the door closed. Megan always did whatever she wanted and his mom always said we don't have time to argue.

"What's for dinner?" Marvin asked.

"It's only three o'clock," his mom said.

"So?" he said as he pulled one of his books out of his backpack. It was one of the animal books that came in the mail every month since his mom had signed him up for a book club. This one was about African animals, which was his favorite.

"We're probably just going to be picking something up on the way home," she replied. "You know that you have that appointment today."

"What appointment?" Marvin asked.

"Your doctor's appointment," she said.

"I'm not sick," Marvin said.

His mom laughed. "I know you're not, Marvin. Remember when I took you to the immunologist last week?"

"Yes," he said with a moan. The only reason that he remembered was because he had been in his office the entire day. It was one of those doctor's offices that was actually in a hospital. They made him sit in the waiting room for almost two hours. Then they had taken him back to a room where he had to wait for another hour until a nurse came in and stuck his finger and took some blood. When the doctor finally came in, all he said was that he was going to do some blood work and see them back in a week. Then the nurse had stuck him again! This time it was in his the bend of his arm and she filled three little glass tubes with blood. "Is it going to take all afternoon?"

"I don't know," she replied. "But we have to go. He's trying to figure out why you've been getting sick so much. Don't you want to find out?"

"I guess," Marvin said and turned his attention to his book. He got so caught up reading about lions, tigers, and hippos that he didn't even notice when they pulled into the parking deck outside the hospital. He faintly heard his mother telling him to hurry and that they were going to be late for their appointment. Megan just realized where they were and groaned so loud that it echoed throughout the structure. His mother gave her some stern words and they made their way into the hospital.

The waiting room was not as crowded as it had been last week. There were only about ten people sitting in the cramped area with chairs lining the walls. There was a TV in the corner that was playing an old episode of Spongebob and there were a few kids were on their knees around a table that had some toys on it. Marvin, of course, felt that he was too old to play with toys. At least, he was too old to play with toys while he was in front of people. And these were little kid toys, anyway.

There were plenty of parents in the room as well. Some of them were moms that were flipping through magazines that had pictures of clothes or food on the front. Since most of the waiting room magazines were the kind that were usually read by women, the two or three dads that were in here were stuck either reading a tattered copy of a kiddie magazine or staring at Spongebob's antics like a zombie.

Marvin's mom signed them in and they had a seat. Megan pulled out her phone and spaced out again. Marvin sat down and watched TV for a few minutes. He wasn't really a big fan of Spongebob anymore. He had watched it a lot when he was a kid and he still thought it was funny when it was on. But it had been a long time since he had worn any clothes with the characters on them.

He started to look around at the other people in the room. Most of the kids were playing with the toys on the table but a couple of them were sitting with their moms or dad with their eyes closed and laying their heads on their shoulders. He guessed they were pretty sick. He had been in plenty of doctor's offices in that same position.

He had brought his book with him and he dived back into the animals of the African planes. It did pass the time because it only seemed like a few seconds until a nurse came to the door and called his name. As the three of them got up and followed her out of the waiting room he glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that they had been there for nearly an hour.

The nurse led them to the exam room where they did the usual routine. They weighed him, as if they really thought that he was going to gain any weight since last week. Then they stuck a thermometer in his mouth and put a cuff around his arm. There was a hum and the cuff tightened to the point that he thought his fingers were going to explode. This was what they used to get his blood pressure. The whole time the nurse was smiling and he wondered if she was going to be smiling later when the doctor eventually told her to stick him with some more needles. It wasn't a question of if he was going to be stuck. It was just when and how many times. He knew this doctor would probably have to do it because he had not seen him before last week. But he sometimes wondered why Dr. Fredrick, his pediatrician, still poked him with needles every time he came to see him. He always had one of the same three or four illnesses. Why not just give him the same thing he got last time. It sure would save his fingers some pain!

"Everything looks good so far," the nurse said. "I'm going to let you wait for Dr. James in his office."

"His office?" Marvin asked. He had never been in a doctor's actual office before. Usually going to someone's office was serious business. He had already been called to Mrs. Estler's office today and now he was having to do it again.

"It's no big deal," the nurse said. "Dr. James already did his examination on you last week. He just wants to talk to you about the test results." She opened a door marked with the doctor's name, Dr. Timothy James. "He'll be just a few minutes. Have a seat."

They went in and sat down. Megan started complaining to her mom about what time it was and all the things that she had planned on doing this afternoon. Marvin's mom told her that they wouldn't be there very long and that she would still have time to go to the mall or the library or whatever it was she wanted to do when they got home.

Marvin tuned out his sister's whining. He sat down in a chair across from the desk and looked around the office. There were shelves on three of the walls that held dozens of thick books with all sorts of boring titles that had words like anatomy and immunology. There was a big section of one wall that was covered in photographs of kids. He guessed that those were kids that came to see him a lot. The thing that really caught his eye was the stack of comic books in the corner. He couldn't see what the titles were but he was tempted to go over and start going through them.

The door opened and Dr. James slid inside. He smiled at Marvin and put out one of his big hands.

"Marvin," he said. "Good to see you again."

Marvin shook his hand and nodded. Dr. James leaned over and shook his mom's hand and waved at Megan who was staring uncaringly out the window.

Dr. James was a really tall man. He had a full head of white hair and a big wide grin that almost reached from one side of his face to the other. Marvin had really liked him when he met him the other day. He smiled a lot and he liked to tell jokes. The only thing that unnerved him was his eyes. They didn't look mean or anything but they did look like they were bulging. He kind of looked like a cartoon character that had just gotten surprised. A thick pair of glasses were guarding them.

"Welcome back," he said as he had a seat behind his desk. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," Marvin said.

"Good," he said. He looked at Marvin's mom. "I got the results back from Marvin's blood work. I have a diagnosis that I'm pretty confident in and I want to talk to you guys about it." Marvin's mom nodded and thanked him. Dr. James looked at Marvin. "What do you know about your immune system?"

"That's the thing inside you that fights off sickness," Marvin said. He had always imagined little soldiers inside his body that had a war with germs whenever he got sick.

"That's a pretty good definition," Dr. James said. "Your body creates antibodies that helps to fight off illnesses and infections. See, we are in contact with all kinds of bacteria and germs every single day. Our immune system is what keeps us from catching every illness that we come across."

That word, doomed, was flashing in Marvin's head again. He was getting a really bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was this doctor saying that there was something wrong with him?

"Marvin," he said. "I'm going to throw some pretty big words at you. I think that you have something called primary immunodeficiency, or PI for short. "

DOOMED!

What was that? Deficiency!? That sounded awful! That sounded like a disease. Not just any disease but something that made your eyes melt or your teeth fall out or...

Marvin's mom put a hand on his arm and he jumped. The doctor let out a little chuckle.

"What does that mean?" Marvin asked. "Is that bad?"

"Well," Dr. James said. "It's a condition that we're going to have to treat. I'm going to go over the technical definitions with your mother in a few minutes. You don't have to memorize that big word. What I want you to remember is just four letters. C-V-I-D. That's what it stands for...Common Variable Immunodeficiency. That just means that your immune system doesn't work as well as most people. It's called that because it is the most common form of PID t hat we diagnose. That's why you get sick more often and it's also why you take longer to get well."

Marvin gulped even louder than he had in Mrs. Estler's office.

"Am I going to get sicker?" Marvin asked.

"Well, like I said, we're going to have to treat you," Dr. James said. "PID i s genetic. That means that it's a disorder that you had from the time that you were born. One of your parents or grandparents may have had a gene that transferred to you and caused it. We don't know that part for sure. But it isn't something that you caught like a cold or the flu or something. What we want to try and do is get those levels up to a place that's closer to where they should be. And we want to try and keep them there for as long as possible. There are a couple of treatments that we can do. I'm going to talk to your mom about them and figure out which one is the best. But, I just wanted to talk to you first and let you know that this is what you have. But it's something that we're going to deal with. The treatments that I have in mind are going to make you feel a lot better for a lot longer. Okay?"

Marvin nodded. His mom patted him on the hand and he looked over at her. She was smiling but she looked sad at the same time.

"Since you have a weaker immune system you have some responsibilities," Dr. James said. "If you know that someone is sick then you have to do your best to stay as far away from them as possible. And you have to wash your hands a lot. If you can't get somewhere to wash your hands then you need to carry some hand sanitizer and use it often. I'm going to give you something." He reached behind him and pulled one of the comic books off the stack in the corner.

YES!

"A comic book?" Marvin asked, hiding his excitement.

"Yes," he replied. "This comic is designed to answer some of your questions. Your mom is going to have some information as well She'll be able to talk to you about it after she's read it. Do you have any questions for me?"

He had a question but he didn't want to ask it. He wanted to know how serious this was. How sick was he?

"No, sir," he said.

Dr. James stood up and shook his hand again. Then he asked him and Megan to go back out to the waiting room while he talked to his mother. Marvin got up and walked out into the hall and Megan came out and closed the door.

"Wow," she said. "You're sick, Marvin."

"No, I'm not," Marvin said defensively. "I just have a weak immune system!"

"I know," she said. "That's really bad. You might get cancer or something."

"That's not funny!" he said.

"I wonder if mom will let me turn your room into a movie theater if you die," she said.

She walked off and left him by himself. He slowly walked to the waiting room where he was sure to sit as far from his sister as he could. He pulled his book back out and stared at it. He tried to read about the African animals but all he could think about was what was going on inside his body. After a few minutes he put the book away and pulled out the comic that Dr. James had given him. He hoped that it could give him some answers.
Chapter Four

In study hall the next morning Marvin sat in the library as he and Chad watched Tommy flip through the pages of his notebook.

"What about this one?" Tommy asked.

He sighed as Tommy showed them another campaign poster idea. He had drawn several of them the night before. They were crudely drawn and he hadn't colored them. They were just the slogans that he had come up with and some stick figures.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Tommy said. "Who cares 'cause vote for Marvin!"

"That's stupid, Tommy," Marvin said.

"Okay, fine," Tommy said. "What about a big picture of a koala that says 'Vote For Marvin—He Has All The Koalifications'?"

Marvin just stared at Tommy for a minute. "Are you kidding me?"

"What?" Tommy asked.

"Where are you getting these ideas?" Chad asked.

"Well, I got some of them online," Tommy said. "My dad came up with some of them."

"I can tell," Marvin said. "Tommy, I want to take this seriously. I have to make kids that are a lot older than me believe that I'm the best guy for the job. You're just making a bunch of jokes. How many of those posters are just Chuck Norris jokes?"

"None of them," Tommy said.

"You got ideas from your dad," Marvin said. "Your dad loves Chuck Norris jokes."

"Okay," Tommy said. "A few of them are."

"The older kids are going to be making posters that have jokes like this," Chad said. "The student council race is just a popularity contest. If Marvin wants to win then he's going to have to do something to stand out. It's going to take more than just posters. He's going to need an event."

"What kind of event?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know," Chad replied. "You're the campaign manager."

"Well, it was your idea," Tommy said.

Chad smiled. "You really want me to come up with something." Marvin and Tommy both nodded. "Okay. I'll try."

"In the meantime we can start making posters," Tommy said to Marvin. "Do you want to come over this afternoon and work on them?"

"I can't come over today," Marvin said. "My parents have a meeting with Mrs. Estler and then I have a ton of make-up work to do."

"See," Tommy said. "That's what I was telling you yesterday. You always have a reason not to come over."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," Marvin said.

Mr. Carver, the librarian, walked past them with a stack of books that he was putting back into their place on the shelves. He looked at the boys as he worked and smiled at them.

"Good morning, boys," he said. They returned his good morning and turned back to what they were doing. "Marvin, did you read that book that I recommended to you?"

He had given Marvin a book a week or so ago. It was a book by a woman named S.E. Hinton called The Outsiders. Marvin had really liked it. He had already finished the whole book. It was the kind of thing that his mom probably wouldn't have liked him reading. It had some cursing in it and a couple of the characters were killed. But he liked it a lot.

"Yes, sir," Marvin said. "I finished it. I started reading another one that she wrote called Rumble Fish."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Carver said. "That's another good one. Although, all of them are good. I loved them when I was your age."

Tommy nudged him and showed him another page in the notebook. Marvin rolled his eyes. This time it was a drawing of a man with a thick black mustache. Underneath it he had written "I Mustache You To Vote For Marvin For Class President".

"That's stupid, too," Marvin said.

"What are you boys working on?" Mr. Carver asked.

"Marvin's running for class president," Tommy said as he pulled out another page. "I'm his campaign manager."

"You're going to run for class president?" Mr. Carver asked.

"Yes, sir," Marvin said. "At least I want to."

"When did you come to that decision?"

"Yesterday," Marvin answered.

"You haven't put your name on the ballot yet?" the teacher asked.

"No, sir," Marvin said.

"Didn't you look over the rules, Marvin? The students that want to run for student council were supposed to have their names turned in to Mrs. Finch by nine o'clock this morning. That was about fifteen minutes ago."

"What?" Marvin asked.

"I'm afraid you may have missed your deadline," Mr. Carver said.

Marvin stood up from the table and looked down at Chad and Tommy. "I have to go tell her to put my name down!"

"She's teaching a class, Marvin," Chad replied.

"I won't interrupt," Marvin said. "If she's teaching then I'll wait."

"You can go and check to see if she's giving a lecture," Mr. Carver said. "If she is then you come right back and you'll have to try and catch her between periods."

Marvin nodded and started for the door. Tommy and Chad threw their books into their backpacks and raced out behind him.

"No running, boys!" Mr. Carver called.

Seventh-graders rarely ventured below the third floor of the school. There was a staircase at the back of the building that they took to get to the cafeteria and the gym. The main office was at the front of the building by the entrance. So when they got to school in the morning they went up the stairs to their classrooms and had no reason to go below it.

When Marvin, Chad, and Tommy came down the stairs they stopped and stared at the hallway for just a minute. It almost looked like a different school. The walls were a different color, there were at least twice as many lockers along the walls, and there were no silly cartoon characters on the teacher's doors telling them to Read Because It's Fun.

"Ms. Finch teaches English!" Chad said. "I think her room is around the corner."

They went down the hall and turned right. There was a hallway just like this upstairs but it just led to the grade lockers. Down here there were four classrooms. There were windows in the doors and they looked in them to see full classrooms full of eighth-graders with their heads hung over their desks doing their work. Ms. Finch's door, however, had the window covered. Instead of being able to see the students inside the room the only thing that they could see was a poster with a picture of a football player that Marvin had seen before but couldn't name holding a book.

"Great," Marvin said. "I can't see if she's teaching."

"Then open the door," Tommy said.

"I can't interrupt her class," Marvin replied. "I'll get into serious trouble."

"But if you don't get on that ballot then I won't get to be your manager," Tommy said.

"Is that all this is about for you?" Chad asked.

Tommy shrugged. "I'm just saying that he has to go in there or it'll be too late."

"I don't know," Marvin said. "Maybe I should just come back after class and see if she'll still put me down."

"What if she isn't here?" Tommy asked. "What if she has a free period? What if she has to leave and go home or go to the toilet or something?"

"Well, can you put your ear to the door and see if you can hear her talking?" Marvin asked.

"Sure," Tommy said. "Or I could do this." He walked up to the door, knocked twice, and opened it. Marvin looked on in horror as thirty members of the eighth grade class turned toward the three of them and gave them their undivided attention.

"Yes?" a voice called from inside. "Who's there? Come in."

They stepped inside the room. Ms. Finch was standing at the front of the room and was still pointing to the information that she had just written. Marvin let out a low moan and made a mental note to murder Tommy as soon as he got a chance. Tommy looked at him and he saw the light in his eyes that told him that he thought this was hilarious. All Marvin could think was that Ms. Finch looked a lot like a bird...a bird that might pluck his head off with no effort at all.

"Yes?" Ms. Finch repeated. "What is it?"

"Um," Marvin started. He was experiencing a rare condition in which his tongue stops working. It wasn't so much that it stopped working as much as it was that he forgot how to use it or that he even had it at all. He just stood there, staring at her with his mouth hanging open like he had taken a bite of pizza that was too hot.

"Young man," Ms. Finch said. "I'm in the middle of teaching a class. Why are you barging into my classroom in the middle of it?"

"Could I speak to you outside for second, Ms. Finch?" Marvin finally got out.

"No," she replied. "Tell me what it is so that I can't get back to teaching."

He looked at Chad and Tommy. His eyes were wide with fear. Was he going to have to announce this in front of the whole room? He could feel his heart beating in his chest so hard that he wondered if his shirt was bouncing off of him.

"He wants to put his name on the student council ballot," Tommy said.

The room exploded in laughter. It wasn't just a few little chuckles. It was the kind of laughter that Marvin usually heard when his parents took him to a really funny movie and the audience laughed all the way through it.

"The names were due at nine o'clock," Ms. Finch said.

"Yes, ma'am," Marvin said. "But that was only a few minutes ago. I didn't know that there was a deadline."

"What grade are you in, young man?" she said.

"Seventh," he said. There was another explosion of laughter. This one wasn't as loud but it still made the three boys feel very uncomfortable.

"Alright, class," Ms. Finch said. The room quieted to an occasional snicker and lots of whispering. The teacher turned back to the three boys. "I'll allow it. What is your name?"

"Marvin McBrayer," he said.

"And which office do you want to run for?" she replied.

Marvin looked at Chad and Tommy. Their eyes were saying the same thing that he was feeling. He braced himself."

"President," he said.

This time the laughter was louder than the other two times combined. A couple of the students actually fell out of their seats. One student yelled above the commotion.

"Did you hear that, Jen?" he called. "You've got some kindergarten competition!"

Several students turned to a girl sitting in the front row of the classroom. She was laughing as well, but not quite as hard as the rest of them. Her eyes looked more angry than amused.

Ms. Finch, who was laughing as well at this point, told the class to settle down and they did for the most part. She wrote some information on a piece of paper.

"Alright, Marvin," she said. "There's a meeting tomorrow morning at 7:30 in this room for all candidates and their managers. You have to be here. Understand?"

Marvin nodded and the three boys quickly stepped out into the classroom and closed the door. Another wave of laughter erupted as soon as they were out of sight. Marvin sighed.

"Wow," Chad said. "That was brutal."

"Yeah," Tommy replied. "And did you see Jenny Collins? She was so mad! She must be who you're gonna be running against."

"She's the smartest girl in school," Marvin said.

"Yeah," Tommy said. "You're dead."

Marvin shook his head and they headed back to the safety of the third floor.

Chapter Five

The meeting with Mrs. Estler and Marvin's parents did not go as badly as he thought it would. No one threatened to imprison him or inflict some other horrible punishment on him. He had been dishonest and he owned up to that. When he had gotten so far behind in his work and he felt that he was drowning then he should have talked to his parents or Mrs. Estler. He just assumed that the rules were the rules and that there was no sense in asking for them to be changed.

Marvin's parents discussed the diagnosis that he was given the day before. His dad said that it was obvious that the reason that he had been missing so much school was because of his CVID. His immune system was weak and it caused him to get sick more often. Mrs. Estler told them that now that there was a medical diagnosis then they would be able to get special help for Marvin. She said that they would make "accommodations", which meant that there would be special things put in place to help him stay caught up. That would help him keep up with his work better. He would be allowed more time than usual to complete missed assignments. And when he came back to school after missing a few days he would be assigned a tutor that would help him go over what had been taught while he was out.

They went home after the meeting and his mom stepped into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Marvin decided to go up to his room to do his homework until it was time to eat. Megan was in her bedroom and had her stereo turned all the way up. He hated it when she did that because it made his entire computer desk shake. He pounded on her door as he walked by.

"TURN IT DOWN, MEGAN!" he yelled.

"GO AWAY, TOAD!" she yelled back. A second later her door opened and she peered out at him with a huge grin on her face. "Hey, Marv. I heard you made an announcement in Ms. Finch's class today."

Marvin groaned. "Even the high school is talking about me?"

"Not everyone," she replied. "Just most of it...which is the all that matters, I guess." She laughed. "Do you really think you have a prayer of winning class president against Jenny Collins?"

"I think I'd make a pretty good president," Marvin said. "I've got leadership skills."

"Who do you lead?" she asked. "Tommy and Chad? That little tomboy, Lena? Seventh-graders don't count, you moron! Middle school doesn't count either. Nothing happens until you get to high school. And even then, you're still a nobody until you're at least a junior."

He sighed as she burst into another fit of laughter and he went into his room. He spread his math book out in front of him and tried to tune out the nagging thoughts of that horrible moment. His mind was stuck with image of all of those older kids laughing at him like he had walked in to Ms. Finch's room dressed as a clown.

The music next door stopped suddenly. He heard muffled voices and then the music came back on but it was much lower than before. A second later there was a knock at the door and it opened. Marvin's dad was standing there, smiling at him. He made a nodding motion at the wall in the direction of Megan's room.

"How can you study with the mosh pit going on over there?" he asked.

Marvin blinked. "What's a mosh pit?" he asked.

His dad shook his head. "Never mind. Do you need any help with your work?"

Marvin didn't mind his dad helping him with his school work. He was usually really helpful when he was doing math since it wasn't his best subject. His dad did math problems for a living, or at least that's what he thought that he did. He worked at the courthouse as an accountant. He always told people that he was a CPA. Marvin didn't really know what those letters stood for but if it meant getting paid to do this stuff all day he didn't know how it was possible. He would die!

"Sure, Dad," Marvin said. "But I don't know how much you can help. I'm not getting any of this."

"Well, show it to me," his dad said. He pulled the math book toward him and looked it over. "Oh, you're doing factor trees. Well, do you know what a factor is?"

"No," Marvin said.

"Do you know what a prime number is?" his dad asked.

"Nope," he replied.

"Do you know how to find the GCF?"

"The what?"

Marvin's dad let out a little laugh. "Marv, you know math builds on itself. If you don't get the concepts from chapter one then you're going to have a hard time learning anything in chapter two. By the time chapters four or five come around you'll be completely lost."

"That's me," Marvin said. "Lost."

"Can I call you Hurley?" his dad asked. Marvin looked at him questioningly. His dad was always telling jokes that he just didn't understand. His jokes weren't as lame as the one Tommy's dad told, but they still didn't usually get a laugh from Marvin or his sister. "My point is that you have to really pay attention in math class if you hope to master this stuff."

"I do listen, Dad," Marvin said. "That's what I was saying in Mrs. Estler's office. I get so far behind that I can't get caught up."

"You mean you don't know how to do this because they taught it while you were out?" his dad asked.

"Yeah," Marvin replied. "When I come back to school the teacher just hands me a stack of make-up work and says that I have three days to get it turned back in."

"He doesn't offer to go over it with you?"

Marvin shrugged. "Well, he has a tutoring day on Tuesday after school. But I have five other classes that I have to do work for and all those teachers have their tutoring day on Tuesday."

"And you can't go to all of them," his dad said. Marvin nodded. "Okay, Champ. I don't want you to sweat this too much. We're going to get a handle on this. When Mrs. Estler gets those accommodations started then it should really help a lot. And, on top of that I'm going to find you a tutor. Susan Gibbons next door is pretty good at this stuff. She gets really good grades." Marvin looked up at him and saw him wink. "And she's cute."

Marvin blushed. "I guess."

His mom called from downstairs that dinner was ready. His dad replied that they were on their way.

"We'll come back after dinner and I'll see if I can at least get you to understand how to do a factor tree," his dad said. "It's really not very hard."

"Thanks, Dad," Marvin said. They got up and started to head out of the room.

"Oh," his dad said. "I overheard you and your sister. You're thinking about running for class president?"

"I put my name on the ballot today," Marvin said.

"Is it president over the whole seventh grade?"

"No," Marvin replied. "It's the whole school."

"Wow," his dad said. "That's a pretty big goal."

"Tommy's my campaign manager," Marvin said. "He's making posters. They're not very good."

"I see."

Marvin lowered his eyes. "Are you going to tell me that I'm too young or that they're never going to vote for an seventh grader?"

"No," his dad said. "Of course not. Why would I say that? If you're the best man for the job then that's it. Are you the best man for the job?"

"I think so," Marvin said.

"Well, then good luck," he replied. "You know, I ran for treasurer my junior year and won. I might have some pointers."

"Like what?" Marvin asked.

"Well," his dad said. "What about passing out cards with a piece of gum stapled to it and the card says Please CHEWse Marvin For Your President?"

His dad walked out of the room and Marvin put the palm of his hand on his face.

Doomed!

Chapter Six

Marvin and Tommy braved the staircase to the second floor again the next morning. The school was quiet for the most part. The buses wouldn't start arriving to drop off students for another ten or fifteen minutes. When they emerged onto the floor that was usually avoided by their class they immediately got a lot of stares from the early birds that were roaming the halls.

Marvin felt like he was on display. It was like he had been hauled up on a stage and locked in a big glass box and everyone was invited to just gawk at him and judge him. He clutched the strap of his backpack tightly, almost like he were gripping a lifeline that would hopefully drag him to safety if things got rough.

"What time is it?" Marvin asked Tommy.

"7:25," Tommy replied. "We'd better get in there. You don't want Ms. Finch to think you're always late."

They rounded the corner to the hall where the four senior classrooms were. Standing next to one of the doors was Lena, propped against the wall as if she belonged there. She was putting the last bite of a toaster pastry in her mouth and looked at them with a knowing smile.

"What are you doing here?" Tommy asked.

"Nice to see you, too, Dork," she replied. "I came to help."

"Help do what?" Marvin asked. "It's just a campaign meeting."

"And I know a couple of things about campaigns," she replied. "I've won Chancelor at Camp Wikiki for the past three summers."

"Marvin already has a manager," Tommy said smugly.

"Maybe he needs co-managers," she replied.

"That doesn't make any sense," Tommy said. "Why would he need two managers?"

"Because I'm smarter than you," Lena said.

"Maybe she's right," Marvin said.

"You think she's smarter than me?" Tommy asked.

Marvin closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, Tommy. I mean maybe she can help. We've got a lot going against us."

"Fine," Tommy said. "Whatever you say."

"I have a stipulation," Lena said.

"You have a what?" Marvin replied.

"A stipulation," Lena said. "It means that if I help you then there's something that I want in return."

"What?" Marvin asked.

"I want you to campaign to get new softball uniforms," she said.

"Softball uniforms?" Tommy repeated.

"Yeah," Lena said. "We're playing in rags and they put all the money into the football team. I want you to ask the school to invest in new uniforms for the softball team."

"What if they say no?" Marvin asked.

"Then I want you to figure out a way for us to get them," Lena said.

"How do I do that?" he asked. Lena just shrugged. That was her way of telling him that she didn't care how as long as he agreed to do it. He knew that he could use her help. Lena was right about her being smarter than Tommy. She was smarter than both of them put together. He gave her a little smirk that said that he was out of options and nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Let's go in."

The door to Ms. Finch's room was standing open and she was seated at her desk. She was finishing up some paperwork and sipping on a cup of coffee, her long beak-like nose sticking out over the top of the cup as she drank.

There were other students seated in the desks. They were all chatting with each other. Some of them were scribbling notes. One girl was unrolling a poster to show to someone. It had a picture of a four leaf clover and it said "Stacy Is Your Good Luck Charm: Vote For Her For Vice President". All of the students were older than Marvin. There did not seem to be a single eighth grader running for any office at all. He was starting to feel like he was making a huge mistake.

"Good morning, Mr. McBrayer," Ms. Finch said when she saw him. "I'm happy to see that you're on time today."

Marvin nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Good morning."

"Have a seat," she said. "This is only going to take a few minutes."

Marvin, Tommy, and Lena sat down toward the back of the room to avoid the older kids that kept giving them sideways glances. There were about fifteen people in the room and Marvin knew that there were only four offices that were on the ballot. He thought that the kids were being very nice to each other for so many of them to be rivals in the race.

"Are you the kid that's running for president?" one of the boys asked. Marvin nodded and the boy turned to a group of girls in the far corner. He could see that Jenny Collins was part of that group. "Hey, Jenny! Your competition is here!"

Jenny looked up and laughed at the boy's antics. She gave Marvin a glance and the smile drifted from her face. He held her gaze for a moment and then she turned back to her conversation.

"Dude," Tommy said. "She hates you."

"She doesn't know me," Marvin said.

"It doesn't matter," Tommy replied. "She was the only one running for president. She had the whole thing won until you came along."

"You mean there isn't anyone else running for president?" Marvin asked.

"Nope," Lena said. "Just you and her. She had it in the bank until you put your name in."

Great! Marvin sunk into his seat. This was fantastic! He knew that it was a long shot that he would be able to win but he had thought that there would be a lot more people running. In the back of his mind he figured that he would be eliminated before the race even started. He wanted to be the president but part of him would have been relieved if he didn't have a shot. Now he realized that it was official. He had thrown his hat in the ring and he was going to have to campaign against one of the most popular girls in school.

"Alright, everyone," Ms. Finch said as she stepped up in front of the class. "We don't have much time so I just want to go over a few details and rules. The election will be next Friday. You have one week to campaign for your offices. You're all allowed to make posters and hand out flyers as long as you bring it to me for approval. There will be an assembly on Thursday for you all to give your speeches."

Speeches?

Marvin hadn't even thought about the fact that he'd have to give a speech! He was going to have to get up in front of the entire school and tell them why he should be their class president. He hadn't even figured out the answer to that himself! All he knew was that he wanted to do it. And he didn't even know why he wanted to do it. How was he supposed to give a speech?

"Don't make any promises in your speeches that you can't keep," Ms. Finch said. "You can't change the lunch menu to include doughnut burgers and you can't change the school mascot to the fighting zombies so don't tell people that you can. Other than that, you're free to do what you want. But I want you all to realize that each one of these offices comes with a set of responsibilities. There are weekly meetings and there are things that have to be done. If you don't plan on doing the work then I will ask you to withdraw from the race now. It's better to do that than to force people to work harder later on because you're not pulling your weight.

Is she looking at me? Marvin thought. It sure looked like she was.

Ms. Finch dismissed them just as the first bell was ringing. Marvin, Tommy, and Lena got up and walked out of the classroom. They started heading for the stairs.

"I didn't think about the speech," Marvin said.

"What do you mean?" Lena asked. "Of course you have to give a speech. Don't you watch TV? Whenever someone is running for anything they have to talk about it. How else are you going to tell people what you're going to do for them if they vote for you?"

"I don't want to get up in front of the whole school," Marvin said.

"You haven't really thought this out, Marvin," Tommy said. "You want to be the class president. The class president represents all of the students in the whole school. How are you supposed to do that if you can't give a speech?"

"Well, what am I supposed to say?" Marvin asked.

"I don't know," Tommy said. "What do you want to change about the school?"

"We're in the eighth grade," Marvin replied. "We never leave the third floor."

The three of them looked at each other and smiled.

Just as the they were about to have a breakthrough they sensed a presence coming up behind them. Marvin could see a shadow of someone much larger than them growing on the wall over theirs. They turned around to find Jenny Collins looming over them. Her nostrils were flaring and Marvin thought that he could almost see smoke emerging from her ears.

"Hi, Jenny," Marvin said.

"Don't say hi to me," she replied. Marvin had only spoken to Jenny once before when she had come over to his house for one of Megan's birthday parties. She had seemed nice enough at the time. But now when she spoke her voice had an edge to it as if she were a dragon that had just been awakened from a hundred year slumber. "Do you know how many people were going to be running for president against me before yesterday?"

"None?" Lena asked.

"That's right," Jenny said. "I was going to win by default. They were only having the vote for tradition and for the other offices. Now I actually have to campaign!"

"I'm sorry, I guess," Marvin said.

"You're sorry?" Jenny asked. "I need this, Marvin. I need it for my college applications and for scholarships. Why are you doing this?"

"For the same stuff," Marvin said.

"Baloney!" she said. "You're doing this because you want to be a big kid. Well you're going to have to work for it."

"What does that mean?" Lena asked.

"It means that if Marvin wants to be the president then he's going to have to earn it," Jenny said. "You'd better make some really good posters because I'm gonna bring it!"

With that she turned and stormed off down the hall. Marvin turned to the other two and found them laughing.

"What is she going to do?" Marvin asked.

"I don't know," Lena said. "But it doesn't sound good."

Chapter Seven

Marvin walked in the kitchen door and got the bag of dog treats down from the top of the fridge. Chuck came running up to him and sat down. He put one paw up in the air and Marvin dropped a treat into his mouth. The dog took it to the corner of the room where his bed was to eat it.

"Marvin?" a voice called from the living room. He put his backpack on the counter and went in to find his mother sitting on the sofa. She was surrounded by pamphlets and flyers. He looked at one of them and realized that she was reading about immune systems and treatments.

"Why are you home so early, Mom?" he asked.

"Dr. James called," she said. "When I spoke to him the other day we discussed a course of treatment for your CVID. Well, he said that he had gotten approval to start you on an infusion treatment."

"What does that mean?" Marvin asked. He had heard the term infused before but it always had something to do with putting fruit into olive oil or something like that.

"There is a nurse coming over to help you do your first treatment and she'll explain the whole thing to you," his mom replied.

"Tonight?" Marvin asked. She nodded and he felt the blood drain from his face. "Mom, I can't do it tonight! Tommy, Lena, and Chad are coming over to help me make my posters and write my speech. The campaign starts on Monday!"

Megan had come in the room just as he was saying this and let out a little giggle.

"You might as well hang that up, Marv," she said. "How can you expect to beat Jenny Collins?"

"Don't start, Megan," Marvin's mother said. "Marvin, I can't help the timing. This is when the nurse can come. You'll just have to call your friends and tell them to come tomorrow. It's Friday night. You have the whole weekend to work on your campaign."

Marvin groaned and his sister laughed.

"What kind of work are you going to do?" Megan asked. "Posters with Spongebob all over them?"

"I don't watch Spongebob!" he yelled.

"Whatever," she said. "You're still a loser."

Their mother gave Megan a very stern look. She rolled her eyes and went off to her room.

"Marvin," his mom said. "I want you to go upstairs, take a shower, and get ready for a guest. Then call your friends and tell them that you'll have to see them tomorrow. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

He did as he was told and got himself cleaned up. His mom was a firm believer in looking your best when people were coming to visit. Even when his grandparents came over he was forced to shower, brush his teeth, comb his hair, and put on clean clothes. He thought it was a little too much but he had learned that it was easier to just do it than it was to argue about it.

When he was done he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed Tommy's number. His mom answered. He asked if he could speak to Tommy. She screamed loud enough that Marvin was pretty sure that every Tommy in the state was probably turning to find out who was calling them. When Tommy finally answered he let him know that he wasn't able to work on the campaign that night. He decided not to tell him exactly why.

He didn't know how much his friends knew about immune systems and stuff and didn't really feel like explaining it to them. He also wasn't sure how they would take it. I have an immune deficiency sounded like a simple enough statement, but it could open a lot of doors. His friends might think that he was contagious and that they could catch something from him. He also thought that they might think that he was dying and start feeling sorry for him. He didn't want either of those things. He wanted everything to stay the same as always.

Tommy wasn't happy but he would get over it. Marvin called Lena and told her the same thing. She didn't seem to care as much but said that she would be over the next morning so they could work on the campaign all day. He tried to dial Chad's number but no one answered. Maybe his family had other plans and he wasn't going to be able to come over anyway. He shrugged and headed back down the stairs.

They had dinner a little early that night and it was just Chinese food that Marvin's dad picked up on the way home. His mom wanted everything to be finished before the nurse got there. Marvin loved Chinese food. They usually went to the buffet in town on Friday night and he could usually put away at least two big platefuls of food. Most of the time he scarfed down a bunch of sushi and egg rolls, too. It was his favorite. When his dad stopped for takeout, though, he always picked up all the things that he liked, which meant that they were going to be eating some really spicy food. Kung Pao was his dad's favorite and it set his whole head on fire!

When they got done eating and clearing the kitchen it was six-thirty. Marvin's mom was nervously pacing the house. She was acting like she was the one that was going to be put on treatment tonight. Megan had gone to her room to get ready to go to the movies with her friends while Marvin and his dad sat on the sofa and watched TV. When the doorbell rang Marvin heard a commotion from the kitchen that sounded like someone dropped every dish in the cabinet. His mom came running into the living room and motioned for them to join her at the door.

"Why do we all have to answer the door together?" Marvin's dad asked.

"Just come on," his mom replied.

They gathered around the door and his mom opened it. There was a woman with wild red hair standing at the door. She was wearing an outfit that looked like pajamas but Marvin knew that they were called scrubs. They had a pattern that looked like balloons all over them. Her hair was the thing that stood out, though. It was as red as a fire truck and stood out on her head like a big scarlet helmet. She was wearing the kind of glasses with horns that Mrs. Estler wore and she had on a lot of make-up. As soon as he saw her Marvin thought that she was supposed to be dressed like a clown, which would have kind of made sense because she worked with kids a lot. But it only took a minute to figure out that this was just the way that she dressed.

Marvin thought that was a little scarier.

"Hi," the woman said in a high-pitched but gravelly voice. "I'm here to see Marvin McBrayer."

Marvin's mom put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward.

"This is Marvin," she said. He smiled at her as she reached a hand out toward him. He wasn't sure that he wanted this lady to touch him but he knew that if he was rude he would hear about it later. He shook her hand.

"My name is Belinda," the woman said. "Most of the kids call me Nurse B."

"Won't you come in?" Marvin's dad said. Nurse B came inside and took a look around.

"You have a beautiful home," she said and they thanked her. "Now, where would do you want to do the treatment?"

"Is it going to be messy?" Marvin said. "Maybe we should do it in the bathroom."

"Why would it be messy?" she asked.

"I don't know," Marvin said. "Whenever Chuck gets his treatment mom makes him sleep on an old blanket that night."

Nurse B laughed out loud. "Good gracious! No, Marvin. This is nothing like that. Why don't we have a seat in the living room so that I can explain all of this to you?"

Marvin and his parents sat down on the sofa while Nurse B sat in a chair that faced them. She opened up the bag that she had been carrying and pulled out some packages. Some of them had coils of plastic tubes while others had things like bandages and tape. She saw the flyers and pamphlets that Marvin's mom had been looking at earlier.

"So, you've read a little about the treatment?" Nurse B asked her.

Marvin's mom nodded. "Yes. But it goes a little over my head."

Nurse B shrugged. "You don't have to know all the details. Marvin, do you know what blood plasma is?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "We learned about it in science. It's kind of like the glue that holds the blood cells together."

"Right," she said. "When you cut yourself you can see blood coming out. What you're actually seeing is plasma that is filled with what we call platelets. The plasma also holds the antibodies that make up our immune system. The treatment that you're going to start today is called a subcutaneous infusion."

Marvin was staring at her blankly. He had heard all of these words before. Most of them had been vocabulary words in middle school so he kind of knew what they meant. But when Nurse B put them all together like that he just had no clue what she was talking about.

"I know you don't understand, Marvin," Nurse B said. "It's okay. You will. People all over the world donate plasma just like they donate blood."

"There was a blood drive at my school for the older kids," he said.

"Okay," she replied. "Did you see how they were getting the blood?"

"They put a needle in their arm," he said.

She nodded. "That's the same way that they get plasma. Then they take the plasma, test it to make sure there isn't anything bad in it, and then they mix a bunch of donations together and make this." She reached into her bag and pulled out a small bottle of clear liquid. "This is the medicine that they make from plasma."

"I have to drink somebody's plasma?" he asked.

"No," she said. "That's where the word subcutaneous comes in. That word means that you take the treatment just under the surface of your skin."

Needles!

She picked up one of the packages that she had laying out on the coffee table and opened it. Inside were two very thin tubes and at the end of each one was a very, very small needle. Marvin turned to his mom.

"You didn't tell me there were going to be needles," he said angrily.

"I know, Marvin," his mom said. "I know that you don't like needles. But this treatment is going to help you keep from getting sick as often."

"It's not a very big needle, Champ," his dad said. "They stick you with bigger ones than that at the doctor all the time."

"Yeah," Marvin said. "And it hurts!"

Nurse B lay the needles back down. "Marvin, this only stings a little. And you may not even feel it because I'm going to put some medicine on you that is going to numb the places where the needles go. I just need you to trust me."

Marvin nodded. He knew that he wasn't getting out of this anyway. He might as well just do what they wanted. What was he going to do? Was he going to try to make a break for it? Where would he go? He sighed.

"It's only one time?" he asked.

"No," Nurse B said. "The doctor has ordered a treatment once a week."

Marvin sat up and stared at her in horror. "Once a week? For how long?"

"Well, that depends," she said. "You'll go back to see Dr. James in a few months to have your levels checked again. If it looks good then he may back you down to every two weeks or something like that. But some people stay on these treatments for years. Maybe for life."

Life!?

Tears welled up in Marvin's eyes. Up until now he had not thought much about what the doctor had said. He knew that he had an immune system deficiency and he kind of knew what that meant. It was causing him to get sick a lot and he was struggling in school. But until now he had thought of it as something that he was eventually going to get rid of. He thought that he was going to get better the way that people get over a cold. Hearing the word life suddenly made it dawn on him that this might be something that he'd have to deal with forever. It felt as if a judge had just handed him a life sentence.

Marvin's mother pulled him into her arms.

"It's okay, Marvin," she said. "You're going to be fine."

"No it's not, Mom," he cried. "I don't want to have to be sick forever."

"I know that you don't," she said. "I don't want you to, either. That's why we're trying to find ways to make you better."

"A lot of people take these treatments, Marvin," Nurse B said. "I'm going to teach you how to do it and you'll be able to give them to yourself without anyone's help at all."

"It's a little tougher than taking a pill or drinking some cough syrup," his dad said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But it sure beats missing out on what's going on around you because you feel too bad to go out."

Marvin nodded. He wiped his eyes as Nurse B started telling him how the treatment worked.

Chapter Eight

Nurse B showed Marvin and his parents a video that talked about the subcutaneous infusion and showed him some more pamphlets and pictures. She went over how everything worked. It all looked pretty intimidating. He just couldn't grasp the concept of possibly having to stick himself with needles every week for the rest of his life. His mom told him not to think of it that way. He should think about it like he was taking medicine to get better. Maybe he would get well enough to not have to do it anymore.

Finally, it came time to get started. It began with Nurse B asking him to take off his shirt. Marvin didn't like that at all. He didn't even like to take off his shirt during the summer when his family went to the beach. He was chunky and his skin was really white. He hated even having to change his shirt in gym when he had to put on his uniform. He had endured his share of teasing and name-calling over it. Nurse B assured him that she had seen plenty of little boys and girls and that he was not the scrawniest boy among them. Hefty was the word she had used. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant.

He reluctantly pulled off his shirt. His mom took it and folded it, placing it on the back of the sofa. Nurse B picked up a yellow tube like the kind that toothpaste came in.

"This is called lidocaine," she said. "Have you ever been to the dentist and had to get a filling or anything like that?"

Marvin winced. "Yes. I hate that! They drilled my teeth and everything."

"I know," she replied. "I hate it, too. Did they give you a shot in your jaw before they started?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "It numbed everything. I couldn't feel anything on that whole side of my face."

"Right," she replied. "That was Novocain. It sort of makes the nerves in your skin go to sleep for a while so that you don't feel the pain as much. The dentist uses it so that he can work on your teeth without hurting you. Lidocaine is made out of a lot of the same stuff except that this is a cream that you're going to rub on your belly in the two places where the infusion is going to go."

"You're going to put the needles in my belly?" he asked.

"This kind of treatment is known as sub-q," she said. "That's short for subcutaneous. It just goes under the surface of your skin," she said. "It's easiest if you find a place that has a little bit of fat. You can put it in your arm or leg if you want. Some smaller children even put it in their bottom. Do you want it there?" Marvin smiled and blushed. "I didn't think so. You can alternate your locations. You can put it in your belly one week and move it to your arms the next."

She applied the lidocaine to his stomach in two places with a piece of cotton. She told him not to use his fingers or they would go numb as well. After she had put the cream on she covered the two places with a piece of clear plastic to keep it from rubbing off on the furniture. She said it would be about a half hour before the cream had been on long enough to do its job.

"So how long does the whole treatment take?" Marvin asked. "I mean, am I going to have to stay home from school once a week because it takes all day to do this?"

"No," Nurse B replied. "The whole thing should take hour and a half...maybe two. It may take a little longer until you get the hang of it. The best way to get finished quickly is to get your lidocaine on before you start unpacking all of your other supplies and getting them ready. That way you don't have to wait for it to kick in."

As Marvin waited for the next step he watched Nurse B get the medicine ready. She had a big syringe that she had to put the liquid in the little bottle into. It looked like the kind of thing that you get a shot with but a whole lot bigger and with no needle.

Nurse B went into the kitchen to wash her hands. When she came back she put on a pair of blue rubber gloves.

"Are you ready, Marvin?" she asked.

"For the needles?" he replied. She nodded. "I don't think so but I guess we'll do it anyway."

"Do you need me to hold you down, Marv?" his dad asked. "You're not going to jump up at the last second and start doing ninja kicks, are you?"

Marvin laughed and shook his head. His dad was just trying to lighten the situation and calm him down.

Nurse B pulled off the plastic that was covering the places where she had rubbed the lidocaine. She took an alcohol wipe and got off the excess cream. She gently touched the area with her finger.

"Can you feel that?" she asked.

"No," he replied with a smile.

"Good," she said. "Then you probably won't feel this either."

She opened the cap on one of the needles. The sharp end slid into his skin like it was nothing. Marvin didn't feel a thing. He didn't like the idea of the needle and hated watching it go in but at least there was no pain. Nurse B looked at him for approval. He nodded and she slid the other needle in. She covered the two needles with another plastic bandage that she called a tegaderm.

"Okay, Marvin," Nurse B said. "That's the worst part. You can put your shirt on now." His mom handed it to him and he pulled it over his head and let it fall down over the needles. There were still tubes hanging loosely from underneath. She connected the tubes to a big contraption made of plastic with a dial on the side of it. She popped the syringe in place in the top of it and turned the dial. There was click and a sound like the kitchen timer makes when his mom turned it on.

"What is that?" Marvin asked, looking at the plastic thing in her hands.

"This is your infusion pump," she replied. "It sends medicine from this syringe to the needles a little at a time. It takes about an hour or so to pump all the medicine through."

"So, after I turn that dial I just wait?" Marvin asked.

"Yep," Nurse B said. "You can watch TV, read, or do your homework. Just don't wrestle with your dog or do any hang gliding. You don't want to fall and mess up those needles."

"Would you like a cup of coffee while we wait?" Marvin's mom asked.

"That sounds good," Nurse B said. She turned to Marvin. "If you start to feel any discomfort or if you think you're getting light-headed I want you to let me know right away. I'm going to be here until your treatment is completely finished."

"Okay," Marvin said.

"Do me a favor and stay here in the living room or at least in the downstairs part of the house," she said. "Don't go off to your room until we're done."

He nodded and his dad turned on the TV. There was nothing on but the news. His dad always said that it was important to watch the news and keep up with what was going on in the world. He had tried but he just didn't care. It was boring.

The doorbell rang and Marvin's dad got up to answer it. Marvin took that opportunity to change the channel. There was some kind of space show with robots and lasers on. It wasn't really the kind of thing he liked to watch but it was better than the news. A second later his dad came back into the room.

"Marvin," his dad said. Marvin turned and looked at him, wondering why his dad was speaking in a voice barely above a whisper. "Chad is at the door."

What?!

Of course! He hadn't been able to get in touch with Chad to tell him to wait until tomorrow to come over. He thought that he had gone somewhere with his parents. But apparently he still had time to make it. Marvin groaned. He didn't want anyone to see him with these tubes and things coming out of him. He looked weird! He looked like a freak!

Marvin shook his head. "No, dad! I can't see him tonight!"

"You can't just tell him to leave," his dad said sternly. "You invited him over."

"But that was before I knew about this," he said, holding up his pump.

"It doesn't matter, son," his dad said. "We're not going to be rude."

Marvin sank into the sofa cushions, wishing that he could just melt into them and disappear. "Fine!" he exclaimed. He grabbed a pillow and put it over his stomach to try and cover the pump and the tubes that were coming out from under his shirt.

His dad went back to the door and let Chad come inside. He led him into the living room.

"Hi, Chad," Marvin said. "What's up?"

"Are you ready to work on your campaign posters?" Chad asked. "Where are Tommy and Lena?"

"They're not coming," Marvin said. "I had to cancel."

"Oh," Chad said. "Did something happen? Should I leave?"

"Well," Marvin started.

"Of course not," Marvin's dad said, giving him a sideways look as he led Chad around the sofa so that he could have a seat. "You're welcome here, Chad. Always."

Marvin's dad went into the kitchen and the two boys turned their attention back to the TV.

"I tried to call you," Marvin said.

"I had to go eat dinner with my parents," Chad said. "I came over as soon as we got home."

"Well, I'm sorry I had to cancel," Marvin said. He glanced nervously at the pillow.

"What's going on, Marvin?" Chad asked. "Why did you have to cancel if you're just sitting here watching TV?"

"I know that it looks like that's all I'm doing," Marvin said.

Chad looked at what Marvin kept glancing at. "Why is there a tube coming out of your shirt?"

"Look, Chad," Marvin said. "I think it would be better if you just..."

Chad grabbed the pillow and snatched it away from him. "Oh my god!"

"Hey!" Marvin yelled. "Give that back!"

Marvin's dad came running in the room at the sound of the commotion. "What's happening?"

"Is that...?" Chad was stammering.

"Stop staring at me!" Marvin yelled defensively. He could see it now. Chad would go to school on Monday and tell a few of is friends what he had seen. Before the end of the day either everyone would be laughing at him or the whole school would think that he was dying or something.

"Chad," Marvin's dad said. "This is really easy to explain. You see, Marvin is using..."

"An infusion pump," Chad said.

Marvin and his dad immediately stopped talking and looked at Chad. Marvin's mouth dropped open. He picked up the pump and held it in the air.

"You know what this is?" Marvin asked.

"Sure I do," Chad said.

Marvin's mom and Nurse B came walking back into the room with their coffee. As soon as Nurse B saw Chad her face lit up.

"Chad Harrison!" she exclaimed.

"Hi, Nurse B," he said. He ran over to the red-haired woman and gave her a huge hug, nearly knocking the coffee cup out of her hand.

"You know her?" Marvin asked.

"Sure he knows me," Nurse B said. "I used to visit him all the time."

"Why?" Marvin asked.

Chad smiled at him and pointed to the pump attached to Marvin's stomach. "She set me up when I used to have to do infusion treatments."

"You had to do these treatments?" Marvin was confused. He was looking from Chad, back to Nurse B, and to his parents. All of them were smiling as they all seemed to understand something that he just wasn't getting.

"Marvin," Nurse B said. "Chad did infusion treatments for a while because he also has CVID."

"My doctor told me I had it when I was ten," Chad said. "Nurse B used to work in his office."

"So you had to put these needles in your stomach and everything?" Marvin asked.

"Sometimes," Chad replied. "I also put them in my legs. I didn't like doing it in the same spot every time."

"Chad, we never knew that you did treatments like this," Marvin's dad said as he motioned for everyone to sit down. They all took the same seats that they had been in a few minutes before but this time Chad sat in a chair next to Nurse B. "Marvin never said anything about you having to take a lot of sick days from school."

Chad shrugged. "I never told him about it. Most people have never even heard of CVID so if you bring it up they just don't get it. But it does make sense now that I know that you have it, Marvin. I thought that you missed a lot of school days. I used to miss school a lot, too."

"But the infusion treatments have made it better?" Marvin's mother asked.

"Not really," Chad said. Marvin looked horrified.

"Well, Chad was a little different," Nurse B said, trying to ease Marvin's mind. "Sometimes the medicine that we use in the infusions just isn't what the patient needs. It's usually what we try first but in Chad's case the medicine just wasn't a match."

"So what did you do?" Marvin asked.

"Intravenous immunoglobulin," Chad said. Marvin must have had a look on his face like he had just started speaking Klingon because Chad started laughing. "Everybody calls it IVIG."

"Marvin, do you know what an IV is?" Nurse B asked.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "I had to have one when I was in the hospital with pneumonia. They stuck me in the arm and put a tube in to give me medicine.

"That's what IVIG is," she replied. "They put in an IV and give Chad the antibodies that he needs that way. It's just a different form of treatment but it means that he has to go spend a couple of hours at the hospital once a week instead of just doing it at his house like you're doing tonight."

Marvin couldn't believe what he was hearing. He and Chad had a lot more in common than he had thought. They had the same interests in books and comics. But Marvin had no idea that they shared something as huge as the illness that had affected every part of his life.

"And you don't get sick anymore?" Marvin asked.

"I did," Chad said. "I got sick a whole lot when I was little. And I still do. I mean, I still get sick more often than most kids. It's usually sinus infections for me. But now I don't get sick nearly as often and when I do it's not as bad."

"Why didn't you tell me you had something like this?" Marvin asked.

"Why didn't you tell me when you found out you had it?" Chad replied.

Marvin shrugged. "I don't know. It guess because people always make comments about me being sick a lot. Like how Tommy gets mad at me when I can't come over to his house. I didn't want to tell anybody that I had something else."

"It's the same with me," Chad said. "I don't ever bring it up because nobody understands it. It actually caused me a lot of problems at my old school. It's one of the reasons my parents moved me."

"What kind of problems?" Marvin asked.

"I missed so much school that it seemed like all the groups kind of moved on like I wasn't there," Chad said. "My friends got so used to my not being there that they stopped inviting me to do things. I kind of felt like I was on my own. And if I ever told anyone that I had an immune system disorder they acted like I had some kind of disease and didn't want to be around me anymore."

"Well, I'm kind of glad that I know it now," Marvin said. "I feel like I'm not all by myself anymore."

"You've never been by yourself, Marvin," his mom said. "You know that we're here to help you through everything."

"I know, Mom," he said. "But now that I know that Chad has CVID I kind of feel like it's not this weird thing that's I have wrong with me. There are other people out there that have the same thing."

"There are a lot of people with CVID," Nurse B said. "It's considered to be a rare condition, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of people that have it."

"I meet people that have it all the time when I go get my treatment," Chad said. "There are people with CVID and other immune system disorders that come there to get treated. I have to go Monday afternoon. Why don't you come with me?"

"Really?" Marvin asked.

"Yeah," Chad replied. "You can meet some other people like us."

"That's a great idea," Nurse B said. She turned to Marvin's parents and they nodded. "I think it would be wonderful for you to see some other patients and to learn more about treatments."

Marvin thought it would be a great idea as well. He was actually surprised at the fact that he felt excited about it.

They talked a while longer until it was time for the pump to be disconnected from Marvin's stomach. Nurse B slid the needles out and covered the spots with a bandage. She gathered up all of the materials that she had used and put them into a red plastic container with a lid on it. She said it was a special container that kept people from accidently getting stuck by the needles.

"Now," Nurse B said. "Does that look like something that you can do by yourself?"

Marvin grinned shyly. "I think so," he said.

She laughed. "Well, your mom has a book that has very detailed instructions. Of course, if you don't feel comfortable doing it I can always come out again to make sure you can. You may have some itching and some irritation. Take some allergy medicine if you do."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

Nurse B gathered her things and gave both of the boys a hug. Marvin's parents walked her out to her car and his dad helped her load her things. After she had left Marvin asked his parents if Chad could spend the night. They said that it was fine with them if he asked his parents. After a quick phone call Marvin and Chad went upstairs and spent the rest of the night talking about books, movies, and TV shows. They didn't discuss CVID anymore that night, but it was on Marvin's mind. But he wasn't thinking about how sorry he was that he had it. He was thinking more about how he was glad that something that was so difficult to deal with had been able to bring him closer to his friend.

Chapter Nine

The treatment didn't go entirely without side effects. Marvin had a headache when he got up the next morning. His mom gave him something for it. Tommy and Lena finally did get to come over on Saturday and they spent the entire afternoon coming up with slogans for posters. They went to the store and bought an entire stack of poster paper. They dragged at least ten sheets back to Marvin's house but by the time they finished they only had three completed posters. The rest of them had either been so covered with mistakes or they just decided they were too stupid to hang up in front of the school. One sheet became Lena's doodle paper since her idea of helping was apparently writing her name a thousand times and drawing pictures of snowflakes all over the place.

The final products looked pretty good to Marvin. His parents said that they looked pretty good to them. Of course Megan looked at them and was sure to let them know that they were the worst things that she had ever seen and repeated the fact that Marvin was stupid to even try to win.

One of the posters had photographs of Marvin doing things like sitting behind a desk writing, talking on the phone, and standing by an American flag with his hand over his heart. It just had the words Vote For Marvin McBrayer For Class President written in the middle of it. The second poster had a picture of a bodybuilder that they had cut from a magazine and the words Marvin McBrayer Is The Toughest One For The Job written on it. The third one was pretty simple. It just had a drawing of a crown on it with the words Keep Calm And Vote For Marvin McBrayer For President.

They weren't the best posters in the world but they had worked really hard on them. Tommy had brought his notebook full of ideas but most of them had been shot down before they had even bought the poster paper. They actually drew one up that had a picture of Uncle Sam saying that he wanted You to vote for Marvin. It turned out that none of them was very good at drawing Uncle Sam so they scrapped the idea.

When Marvin got to school on Monday he was feeling pretty excited about displaying his posters. He had figured out the best places possible to place them to be sure that every student in the school would see them at least once during the day. He was going to hang one by the front office since most of the bus riders walked through that hallway in the morning. One would go in the cafeteria, of course. The third one would be placed on the wall between the boys and girls bathrooms. He just hoped that Ms. Finch approved them and he could get to his choice spots before they were taken either by Jenny or one of the kids running for a different office.

Chad and Tommy were waiting for him by the front door. He came walking up to them smiling from ear to ear. He quickly lost his smile when he saw the look on their faces. They were both frowning and looked like they were about to tell him that his grandmother died.

"What's wrong with you guys?" he asked.

"Jenny Collins got to school early," Chad said.

"So?" he replied.

"It's not good, Marvin," Tommy said. "It's awful."

"You're acting like she's slaughtering animals in there," Marvin said.

"No," Tommy said. "But she is slaughtering your campaign."

Marvin handed the posters to Chad and went up the stairs to the front door. Once he went inside he was faced with a life-sized cutout of Jenny Collins. She was dressed in a suit and tie and holding out her hand which held a miniature version of the school. There was a giant banner across the entrance that said Jenny Collins For President.

Jenny...the real Jenny...was standing under the banner with a group of her friends. They were all wearing matching t-shirts with the same slogan on them. Jenny smiled at him and walked over.

"Good morning, Marvin," she said, looking at the posters in Chad's hands. "It looks like you've been busy this weekend. You have three posters."

"Yeah," Marvin said. "What about it?"

"Well, I just hope that I left you enough good places to hang them," she said. "I had fifteen posters printed this weekend and I got here really early to hang them."

"What do you mean?" Marvin asked. "You had them printed?"

"Oh, yeah," she replied. "My brother is a photographer and my cousin owns a print shop. It was nothing." She handed him a flyer that had a professional photograph of her smiling face with perfect hair printed on it like it had come right out of a magazine. It had her slogan on the bottom. "Have one of my flyers. There is a coupon on the back for a free desert at Nero's Pizza. My mom knows the owner."

"Did Ms. Finch approve all of this?" Marvin asked.

"Of course she did," Jenny said. "Nothing I've done has broken any rules. Anyway, good luck with your three posters and with your campaign. Have you finished your speech yet? You know the assembly is on Thursday and the whole school will be there? That's three hundred students. Okay, bye."

With that she turned and walked away from them and went back to her group of giggling girls. They continued to hand out the flyers with a coupon for free desert to every student that walked in the door.

"This is a disaster," Marvin said.

"No, it's not," Chad said. "You have a good chance against her, Marvin."

"How do you figure?" Marvin asked. "She's got professional posters and free desert! My posters were colored with markers."

"Yeah," Tommy said. "They are kind of lame."

"Seriously, Tommy!" Marvin exclaimed as they headed down the hall toward Ms. Finch's room. "You are the worst campaign manager ever!"

"I'm just trying to be real," Tommy said. "I told you this whole president thing was a bad idea. You should just pull out of the race."

"The whole school will be laughing at me," Marvin said.

"Calm down, guys," Chad said. "It's really not that bad. The entire seventh grade is going to vote for you. We stick together."

"Yeah, but there are way more eighth graders," Marvin said. "Even if every seventh grader voted for me she would still win."

"You just have to win over part of the eighth grade," Chad said. "Like I told you before, you need an event. You need something that will get the entire school talking."

"Have you come up with anything yet?" Marvin asked him.

"No," Chad said. "Not yet. We have three days until the assembly. The race isn't over. It's just starting."

"I guess we just need to get these posters approved and hang them," Marvin said.

On the way to Ms. Finch's room they passed at least three of Jenny's posters. They were all really well done. One of them looked just like the flyer that she had given him. The other two were big, printed out versions of internet memes that they saw all of the time online. One of them had an older bearded man sitting behind a table and it said I Don't Always Do The Smart Thing...But When I Do I Vote For Jenny Collins For Class President. And the last one had a picture of a cat with a grumpy expression on its face and it said I Didn't Vote For Jenny Collins...I Hate Myself.

"Why didn't we think of something like that?" Tommy said when he saw the third one.

"Tommy," Chad said. "Stop."

Ms. Finch approved the posters, but Marvin was pretty sure that she was holding back laughter when she looked them over. She wished him luck and he headed back out into the hall. Of course the places that he had chosen except the cafeteria were taken already. He went in there to hang one and the kids eating breakfast at the table nearest to him were snickering and giggling. It didn't help that Jenny's biggest poster was right next to him. The only other two places that he found were in the gym and in the library. He doubted that anyone would even look at them in there.

"Posters don't make a campaign, Marvin," Chad said. "We can do the thing with the cards and the gum like your dad suggested."

"No," Marvin said. "Not that. It's stupid."

"Well, something similar," Chad replied. "We'll talk about it at lunch."

Marvin nodded and they all went up the stairs to the third floor to get to class. Marvin had been really excited to start this campaign when he got up that morning. Now it was beginning to look like the worst mistake of his life.

Chapter Ten

The rest of the day wasn't that great. Marvin was only around seventh-graders most of the time. He stayed on the safety of the third floor as much as he could. He ran into a couple of eighth-grade boys on his way to the gym and there were quite a few in the cafeteria when he had gone there for lunch. They looked at him with sly smiles that all but told him that they were talking about him. He imagined the whole school was talking about him. Someone had even drawn mustaches on the photographs of him on his poster. He was a joke.

Tommy promised him that he would make up a new poster to replace that one. Marvin said it was fine and that he didn't even want to talk about it anymore.

Why did he think that he could be class president? Why did he even want to be class president? The more he thought about it the less it made sense. He liked to read and watch movies. Those were the total of his hobbies. He had played some sports before but he was never really good at them. He didn't like to build models. He didn't collect things. He wasn't interested in debate, trivia, or any of those things.

After school he sat down on the bench outside to wait for Chad. None of the kids around him said anything about the posters. They didn't even seem to notice him. He guessed that was why he had decided to run for student council. It didn't really have anything to do with wanting to make a difference in the school. He just wanted to be noticed. He wanted the kids in his school to know that he existed. His three friends were the only ones that he ever talked to. It wasn't that he felt like they weren't enough. He just wanted to be more important to his class.

Ever since he had started getting sick a lot he had several instances where he had to miss days or even weeks of class at a time. It always seemed like he would come back after a long absence and he would have so much work to do to catch up with where the other kids were in their studies that he didn't have time for all the fun stuff. He skipped the after school events, the school dances, and the weekend birthday parties. Eventually he felt like he had skipped making a lot of friends. And that's what he wanted. A lot of friends.

He had three pretty good friends. Well, he had one really good friend and two that had stuck around longer than the rest. Tommy was the one that he had always considered to be his best friend, even though he usually just did what he wanted to do regardless of what anyone else wanted. Tommy was kind of selfish, but he had always been there.

The same was true for Lena. But Marvin liked her for her personality and her strength more than anything else. She was as tough as nails and he liked that about her. It was so different than himself that he felt like if he could just keep her around then some of that would have to rub off on him.

So he wanted to be known. He didn't want to be the most popular kid in school. But he wanted to be able to look back and know that he mattered. He wanted to know that something about him actually counted for something and he wasn't going to be forgotten when he moved on.

But why president? Why not secretary or treasurer? Why did he have to pick the biggest goal that there was? He was a seventh-grade nobody that was running against the smartest and most popular girl in the entire school! What was he thinking!?

Chad finally emerged from the school and made his way to the bench where Marvin was sitting. After last night Marvin was really beginning to feel that his friendship with Chad was better than the others. It wasn't just because they both had CVID. It was because they had so many other things in common. And the fact that they had a lot of similar experiences dealing with their illness had helped.

Chad's mom was already in the car line with the other parents picking up their kids. They climbed into the car and she turned to them and smiled.

"It's good to see you, Marvin," she said.

"Thank you," he said. "I appreciated you letting me come along."

"That's no problem," she said. "I'm glad you could come. When Chad told me that you just got diagnosed with CVID I knew that it would be a good idea for you to go with us. You will meet a lot of people that are just like you."

His appointment for his treatment was right after school so they went straight to the hospital. They parked in the same parking deck that Marvin had been in the week before and started making the long walk to the clinic.

The part of the hospital where the treatments were given was all the way on the other side of the building. Marvin thought that they could have parked somewhere else and probably wouldn't have had to walk as far. But Chad's mom said something about parking meters and validation and he guessed it was supposed to explain it. He didn't understand but he went along with it anyway.

When they went inside the clinic the first thing that Marvin noticed was that the waiting room was a whole lot bigger than the one in Dr. James's office. They were actually on a balcony that overlooked the big fountain in the hospital's main lobby. The sound of splashing water was really loud and the lobby's glass ceiling let in so much sunlight that it didn't even seem like there even needed to be any light turned on.

Chad's mom went to the desk where the receptionist was sitting and signed them in. As Marvin went with Chad to sit down he looked around the waiting room. There weren't that many people here. He only counted four people. There was an elderly couple and a woman with a really small child of about four or five. The child was playing with a doll and everyone else was watching a talk show on the TV hanging from the ceiling.

"We won't have to wait out here for very long," Chad said. "They usually get us back pretty quick."

"There's hardly anyone here," Marvin said.

"Oh, don't let that fool you," Chad said. "This place stays pretty busy. There will be a lot more folks in the back."

"So, all you do is get an IV and then leave?" Marvin asked.

"They do my height and weight and all that just like you do when you go to the doctor," Chad said. "Then they start the IV and I watch TV until its finished."

"Oh," Marvin said. "I thought you had to take the IV home with you."

"No," Chad said. "A lot of people do IVIG at home but my mom says that our insurance won't let us do it that way. So I have to come here." He looked past Marvin and his eyes lit up. "Hey, there's my doctor!"

Marvin turned around and saw Dr. James standing by the desk talking to Chad's mother.

"That's Dr. James," Marvin said.

"You know him?" Chad asked.

"He's my doctor, too," Marvin said. "I just started seeing him last week."

"I've been seeing him since I was nine," Chad said. "He's awesome. Did he ever give you one of his comics?"

"The one about PID ?" Marvin asked. "Yeah. It was okay."

"He makes those," Chad said. "He writes the stories, draws the pictures and everything."

Marvin thought back to the comic that he had left laying on his desk in his bedroom. It had been a pretty good story. It sort of told a little about CVID with a superhero spin on it. He had thought that the writing was a little corny but the art seemed to be just as good as any of the X-Men or Avengers comics that he normally read. He found himself wishing that he had brought it with him. If Dr. James wrote it he should get him to sign it.

Dr. James finished talking to Chad's mom and came over to where they were sitting.

"Hi, guys," he said. He held up one of his hands with the palm facing out. Chad reached out and slapped it. When he held it out to Marvin he reached up and touched it in the same manner, but a lot less enthusiastically.

"Hi, Dr. James," Chad said.

"Hi, Chad," the doctor replied. "I'm just checking on a few of my treatment patients. How have you been feeling?"

"Pretty good," Chad replied. "No infections for a while."

"That's what your mom was just telling me," he said. "I think we're going to try moving your treatments so that you'll only have to come in every six weeks instead of once a month."

"Really?" Chad asked.

"Sure thing," he said. "They're going to get some blood samples and run a couple of tests to be sure your levels are high enough. But I think it'll work and you won't have to come all the way down to the hospital so often."

"That's awesome!" he said. By then his mom had finished at the desk and was sitting beside him. She smiled at him and they hugged.

"How are you feeling, Marvin?" the doctor asked.

"I've been doing pretty well," Marvin replied.

"How did your treatment go the other night?"

Marvin shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Kinda weird, though. I was really tired the next day."

Dr. James nodded. "Yeah, it can do that. I'm going to email your mom and let her know that you need to be taking a good multivitamin every day. And you need to make sure that you're eating good, healthy food and not skipping any meals. And lay off the junk food. That will help keep your energy up."

Marvin nodded and said that he would. The doctor smiled and said goodbye to all of them before heading off to the part of the hospital where his office was. Marvin turned to Chad.

"So, you're not as sick?" he asked.

"I guess," Chad said. "I mean, CVID is genetic. So, I'll never completely get over it. But I've been hoping to get healthy enough to not need as many treatments. Coming down here so much gets old."

The door beside the receptionist's desk opened and a woman in pink scrubs came out and waved at them.

"Hi, Chad," she said. "We're ready for you."

Marvin wasn't sure what he was going to see when he went through the door. He guessed that it was going to be a doctor's office just like all of the others that he had been in before. There would be and bunch of exam rooms, a couple of offices, and the restroom. What he saw when he walked in was completely different. He found himself in a very large room. There were a few smaller rooms off to the side but they were dark and no one was in them. The walls of this room were lined with chairs. They weren't chairs like the kind you sat in to eat dinner. These were almost like beds. They were long and they leaned way back but the back came up so that you'd have your head up if you sat in it. There were at least twenty of them, ten on each wall. Next to each chair was a machine with IV backs hanging off of it.

There were people laying on more than half of the chairs and there were three nurses running back and forth between them. The nurses were pressing buttons, adjusting tubes and bags, and bringing drinks and snacks to their patients. The nurse led Chad to an area in the back where she got his weight and took his temperature and blood pressure. Then she had him get up onto one of the chairs and she started getting his treatment ready.

Chad didn't seem to mind needle as much as Marvin. It may have been due to the fact that he had been doing this for so long. The nurse wiped off the bend of his arm with an alcohol wipe. She quickly and skillfully took a needle and stuck it in. She had it covered and ready to go so fast that Marvin could barely believe that she had even started.

"Everything okay?" she asked Chad. "Any pain?"

He shook his head. "I'm good. Thanks."

She turned and looked at Marvin. "Is it your turn now?"

Marvin's eyes must have widened to the size of headlights because the nurse smiled and Chad and his mother started laughing.

"She's kidding, Marvin," Chad said. He looked to the nurse. "He's a zebra, too."

The nurse raised her eyebrows. "Really? So you just came to see how the IVIG treatments work?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Dr. James just started me on sub-q treatments last week."

"Oh, well, if the sub-q works for you then it's a great way to go," she said.

"Which one is better?" Marvin asked.

"Neither one of them is better or worse than the other one," she replied. "They're just different. Some people have reactions to one that they don't have to the other. Sometimes we just have to try different things to figure out what works best for each patient."

Marvin turned to Chad. "Why did you call me a zebra?"

"Dr. James didn't tell you about that?" Chad asked. Marvin shook his head.

"People with PID call themselves zebras," the nurse said. "A lot of times a doctor sees a patient and treats them for the symptoms they're showing. If someone comes in with an ear infection then the doctor will just treat them for the infection and send them on their way. But people with immune system disorders have an invisible illness that can be hard to diagnose. Doctors are trained that if they hear hoof beats then they should be looking for horses. But we say that zebras have hooves as well. So doctors are trying to train themselves to look deeper than the symptoms if patients are getting sick often."

Marvin looked around the room at all the people that were lying in the chairs and had tubes connected to their arms. There were a few kids about his age but one or two that were a lot younger. Some of the patients were about the age of his parents. A couple of them were a lot older. They looked like they could be the age of his grandparents.

"Do all of these people have CVID?" Marvin asked.

"Not necessarily," the nurse said. "They all have some form of PID . But there are a lot of different kinds of immune disorders. CVID is just one of them. But these treatments can help a lot of different people with different kinds of problems."

The nurse told them that she had to go get some more patients started on their treatments and walked away. Chad's mom said that she was going to go back out to the waiting room but that Marvin was welcome to stay with Chad. Once she had left Marvin looked down at the tube taped in place on Chad's arm.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"It does at first, when they put the needle in," Chad replied. "But only for a second. It doesn't hurt now. The thing is, I don't really mind it. When I was a little kid I got sick so much that I couldn't do anything. I couldn't play any sports. I had trouble making friends. I had to miss so much school it wasn't funny."

"Tell me about it," Marvin said. "I can't keep up with all the make-up work. I could spend every night in my room with my head buried in my books until bedtime and never catch up."

"I've been there," Chad said. "But it got so much better after I started doing my treatments. You'll see. How long has it been since you've been sick?"

"A couple of weeks," Marvin said. "Remember? I was in the hospital."

"I remember," Chad said. "How do you feel right now?"

"I feel okay," Marvin said. "I'm a little tired."

"Before I started doing this I had more bad days than good ones," Chad said. "If I wasn't sick with something then I was tired all the time. Dr. James said that it was because my body had used all of its energy fighting off infections. And even when I wasn't sick it took my immune system so much just to keep me well that it just zapped me."

"So you don't mind the needle," Marvin said.

"Not anymore," Chad said. "If this is what I have to do to feel better then I'll do it."

Marvin felt like a moron. He had spent so much of his time dreading the needles and making such a big deal about them. He should have seen it the same way that Chad did. The needles were what his dad called a necessary evil.

"I wish I could look at it like you do," Marvin said.

"You can, Marvin," Chad replied. "This is new to you. That's why I wanted to bring you here with me. I wanted you to see that there are a lot of other people dealing with the same things that we are. That's another thing about zebras. They travel in herds. They don't go off on their own because when they do, they get hurt."

"Thanks, Chad," Marvin said.

Marvin sat in a chair beside Chad and they talked. Chad explained what the medicine felt like as it went in and told him about how he felt once it was over. As more patients were brought in to get their treatments done Chad would introduce him to them. Several acted like they were old friends with Chad and would fist bump him on their way by. Others would stop and tell Marvin a little of their story. He met a woman that was a mother of two teenagers. She had CVID and her son had it as well. She came in to do her treatments here and her son did the infusion therapy at home. Then a guy a few years older than them came by. He said that he was from another part of the country and had moved here to go to college and had to come and do his treatments once a month. He had been doing infusions for years but now he did IVIG for two reasons. He said that he didn't have to do it as often and because it was easier to remember since he didn't have his mom make him.

Marvin was amazed at the different kinds of people that were coming in. The other thing that he noticed was that they didn't seem to be angry or sad about it. They didn't look like they were upset because they had to come down here, get stuck with a needle, and spend most of their afternoon waiting for the medicine to go in. They all seemed to be genuinely grateful to have something available to them to help them feel better. Marvin suddenly felt himself looking forward to his treatment on Friday.

Chapter Eleven

About an hour later Chad was finished with his treatment. Marvin got up to go to the restroom while the nurse took the IV out and put a bandage on Chad's arm. He was gone for a couple of minutes. When he came back he found that Chad's mom had come back in to get them and that they were ready to leave. Chad was talking to another patient. This time it was a man. He was really tall and had on a cowboy hat that looked like it was made of leather. He was wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans with holes all over them including two really big ones that exposed his knees. He had a chain hanging off of the side of his pants and his face was covered with a brown beard. As he got closer the man looked at him with his large, happy blue eyes. Marvin had a feeling that he had seen him somewhere before.

"Is this your friend?" the man asked.

"Yeah," Chad said. "This is Marvin McBrayer. Marvin, I want you to meet..."

"Sid Coyote," Marvin said, stumbling on his last step and almost falling forward. The man reached his hand out and Marvin shook it. "You're Sid Coyote, aren't you?"

"Some people call me that," the man replied. "Most people just call me Sid."

Marvin felt like he was in the presence of greatness. His knees became weak and he was suddenly aware that he didn't know what he should say. Sid Coyote was by far his very favorite musician of all time. He had been around for a long time. His dad was a fan as well. In fact, that was how Marvin had heard of him in the first place. His dad used to play Sid's older songs in the car. He was one of those guys that could really mix different kinds of music together and make it sound great. He usually sang hard rock with lots of drums and loud guitars but in the middle of the song he would break into a rap that would flow so well with the music that it sounded like it belonged.

"Why in the world are you here?" Marvin asked.

"The same reason my friend Chad is here," Sid said. "I'm getting my treatment."

Marvin looked from Sid back to Chad. "Sid Coyote has CVID?"

Chad, his mom, and Sid all started laughing. Marvin suddenly felt out of place and he was becoming aware that he was acting like an idiotic fan.

"I'm sorry, Marvin," Chad said. "I've known Sid for a couple of years. He moved his recording business to Birmingham a while back and started getting his treatments here."

"But, you're rich," Marvin said to Sid.

"What does being rich have to do with it?" Sid asked. "You think rich people don't get PID?"

"Of course they do," Marvin said. "But you can afford to have all of this brought to your house. Why would you want to come down here?"

"I like the people," Sid said. "The nurses are really cute, for one thing." He winked at the nurse that was walking by as he said this. She gave him a smile and a look that told him to behave himself. "Also, I realized that there were a lot of kids with my same condition that came down here so I wanted to do whatever I could to help them deal with this."

"How long have you had PID?" Marvin asked.

"Well, I mean it's genetic," Sid said. "So, really I've had it my whole life. But I'm over forty years old. Most doctors didn't even know what it was when I was your age. I wasn't diagnosed with it until I was about thirty-three or thirty-four."

"That's a long time," Chad's mom said.

"It really is," Sid replied. "My parents didn't know what was wrong with me. I was sick all the time. I wish that had found out about it a lot sooner because I might have felt a lot better when I was a kid. But at the same time I'm kind of glad that I didn't."

"Why would you be glad?" Marvin asked.

"I missed a lot of school when I was growing up," he said. "That had its bad side because I missed out on what was being taught and it was hard for me to keep friends. But I also spent a lot of time at home. We didn't have the internet back then and the video games weren't as good as they are now. So I spent most of my time learning how to play the guitar."

Marvin smiled. "So it made you who you are."

"Sort of," Sid replied. "I probably wouldn't be a singer now if I hadn't gotten sick so much back then. So I kind of owe my success to it. But at the same time it has been hard to be successful with this kind of condition. I've had to cancel concerts because I got sick and I've had to delay recordings, too. Managers and fans don't like you to get sick that much when there's money on the line. IVIG has been a life saver for me."

"Sid," the nurse called from behind them. "We need to get you started."

"And we need to go home," Chad's mom said. Marvin shook Sid's hand again.

"It was nice to meet you, Mr. Coyote," he said.

Sid laughed. "Call me Sid, Marvin. If you come in with Chad again bring some of your CDs and I'll sign 'em for you."

As they left the nurse came over and gave Marvin a sticker. It looked like one of those ribbons that people wear to raise awareness for something. This one had black and white zebra stripes.

"This will remind you that you're a zebra," she said. "Zebras are different...but they are beautiful."

They left the hospital and Marvin stayed in a daze the entire ride home. He talked to Chad but he didn't want to talk about treatments or CVID anymore. All he wanted to do was talk about Sid Coyote and what a great musician he was. Chad reached into a box in the floor of the car and pulled out one of Sid's CDs. It was his first one, which was the one that Marvin's dad used to play all the time. It had Sid's signature across the front of it. Chad handed it up front to his mom and she reluctantly slid it into the player.

The rest of the ride home was spent immersed in loud drum beats and screaming guitars.

Chapter Twelve

Marvin stayed very busy for the next couple of days. Tommy had not replaced the messed up poster the next day. He claimed that he forgot. He promised he would have it done by today but Marvin had a feeling that he would forget again so he made a new one himself. It didn't have any pictures or catchy slogans on it. It just said Vote For Marvin For Class President. That was all the time that he had to spend on it. Sure enough, when he got to school that morning the poster was still there.

He had done his make-up work all evening the night before and he had made the poster that morning before he had left for school. He had also gone to the store and bought a huge bag of lollypops and had stood by the front door of the school and handed them out to students as they came in. One of the students that came in was Tommy. He had a sly grin on his face when he saw him and looked down at the bag of candy.

"What are you doing?" Tommy asked.

"I'm trying to get some votes," Marvin said. "Can you take some of this to the back entrance and hand them out?"

"No way," Tommy said. "That's the lamest thing I've ever heard of."

"Fine," Marvin said. "Thanks a lot."

"What are you getting mad about?" Tommy asked.

"You're supposed to be my campaign manager," Marvin said. "You said you wanted the job but you're not doing anything. I'm doing all the work."

"You're passing out candy, Marvin," Tommy said. "How much work is that?"

"You were supposed to replace the poster in the cafeteria yesterday," Marvin said.

Tommy snapped his fingers. "I knew I was forgetting something."

"You're supposed to be helping me," Marvin said. "I'm running against one of the most popular girls in the eighth grade."

"I know," Tommy said. "I don't understand why you're working so hard."

"Because I want to win," Marvin said.

"But you're not going to win," Tommy said.

Marvin jerked as though Tommy had just slapped him.

"What?" he asked.

"You're not going to win, Marvin," Tommy said. "I thought you realized that."

"No, I didn't realize that," Marvin said. "If I did then I wouldn't even be running."

Lena came in the front door and saw them arguing. She walked over.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Apparently, my manager doesn't have any faith in me," Marvin said.

"Tommy," Lena said. "What did you say?"

"He doesn't have a prayer of winning this thing," Tommy said. "You know that."

"No, I don't," Lena said. "He just needs to win over part of the eighth grade. You're supposed to be helping him do that."

"No eighth-grader is going to vote for him," Tommy said. "They think we're a bunch of little kids. Besides, everybody knows that he's sick all the time."

"What!?" Marvin yelled.

By this time the volume of their voices was beginning to draw attention from the other students. They started to gather around because they could sense that a good fight was starting to come together.

"Marvin," Lena said. "Calm down."

"What are you trying to say?" Marvin yelled at Tommy.

"I'm not trying to say anything," Tommy said. "We all know that even if you do win you're just gonna get sick again and have to quit. That's what you always do."

"You jerk!" Marvin moved toward him and Tommy stepped back. He had his hands out as if he was inviting Marvin to hit him.

"Marvin!" Lena yelled. "If you get into a fight you'll be disqualified from the election. You need to calm down."

"Yeah, Marvin," Tommy said, tauntingly. "Calm down."

"Tommy," Lena said sternly. "Go away!"

The door to the office opened and Mrs. Estler stepped out. She looked around at all of the students that had gathered.

"What's going on out here?" she asked.

"Nothing, Mrs. Estler," Lena said. "Marvin and Tommy were having a disagreement.

Mrs. Estler looked at Marvin. He could feel his eyes welling up with tears and his lips were trembling.

"Everyone get to class," she said. The students started to leave. She walked over to Marvin, Lena, and Tommy. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, ma'am," Lena said.

"We're fine," Marvin added.

"I've never seen you two get into an argument before," Mrs. Estler said. "It sounded like it was about to come to blows."

"No, ma'am," Tommy said.

"If I have to bring you into the office Marvin will be immediately removed from the race," she said. "So, you're sure that I don't need to intervene?"

They all nodded. She told them to get to class. The three of them headed to the third floor. None of them spoke to the others.

At lunch that day Marvin saw Tommy walk past their usual table as he went to eat with another group of students. They met eyes for a second and he could tell that Tommy was just as angry as he was. He looked across the table at Lena.

"Am I not supposed to be mad?" he asked.

"Of course you are, Marvin," she said. "But you know Tommy is selfish. He always has been. He was a bad choice for manager anyway."

Chad was sitting next to Lena, eating his sandwich and looking at them. He shook his head and looked over at where Tommy had chosen to sit. He was at a table with the kids that acted up in class the most. A couple of them were bullies

"Tommy's a good guy," Chad said. "He just doesn't think about others enough."

"You give him too much credit," Marvin said. "He's a jerk."

"You're just angry, Marvin," Chad said. "You guys have been friends forever."

"The worst part is that now I don't have a manager," Marvin said.

"The speeches are tomorrow," Lena said. "You're almost finished campaigning. Do you really need a manager?"

"My manager is supposed to introduce me at the assembly tomorrow," he said. "I don't want to be the only one that goes up there without an introduction."

"Well, I don't do crowds," Lena said. "I don't even like to get up and give a report in front of the class. Much less do I want to be in front of the whole school."

Marvin looked at Chad. "Will you be my manager, Chad?"

"Huh?" Chad asked.

"You wanted to do it to begin with," Marvin said. "Before Tommy took over. You'd do great."

"I guess I could," Chad said. "But the posters have all been made."

"I don't need you to do any of that," Marvin said. "Just come up with a good introduction for me at the assembly tomorrow."

Chad shrugged. "Okay," he said.

That night Marvin sat at his desk. He stared at the blank page on his computer screen. Ms. Finch has said that their speech needed to be between three and five minutes long. So far, he had not written one single word. He had been getting ideas for the past week of what he wanted to say when he was in front of the school. But now that it was actually time to put them down on paper he couldn't think of anything.

He was frazzled. His hair was messed up from where he had ran his hand through it so many times out of frustration. He was sweating. The palms of his hands had become sticky. He looked at the clock. It was eight-thirty. He was going to have to get to bed soon unless he wanted to yawn and look drowsy in front of the whole school.

Just has he was getting ready to give up and close the lid on his computer the instant messenger window popped up. It was Chad.

ChadMorgan659: You still up?

MarvinMcB: Yeah. But I give up.

ChadMorgan659: Give up on what?

MarvinMcB: This stupid speech. I haven't written one word!

ChadMorgan659: All you have to do is tell what you want to change about the school.

MarvinMcB: But what?

ChadMorgan659: You already said that you wanted to get the classes put together more. You

said that you wanted the seventh and eighth grade classrooms to be mixed

up.

MarvinMcB: Yeah. So that the seventh grade doesn't feel like they go to a different

school. That's fine for getting votes from the seventh grade. But what

the older kids?

ChadMorgan659: I might have a couple of ideas.

MarvinMcB: Want to share?

ChadMorgan659: Not yet. Finish your speech. Don't worry about the details. Goodnight.

MarvinMcB: Goodnight.

He closed the messenger and opened his word processor again. He started to type. Just a few of the basics that he knew he'd have to say. Everyone's speech was probably going to be close to the same. He had to introduce himself, tell what grade he was in, what office he was running for.

He looked over at the zebra ribbon sticker that the hospital nurse had given him. He had come home and stuck it to the bottom of one of the posters on his wall. Why should his speech be the same as all the else's? He was a zebra. Zebras were different.

Sitting on his desk in front of him was the copy of The Outsiders that Mr. Carver had given him. The story inside that book went through him in flashes. He was starting to realize why that book had intrigued him so much. It was all about being different. That story was about a boy that was too smart to be stuck in a life full of violence. But he could see some of what he had been experiencing there as well. It may have been because of how much time he had to spend away from school, but he had always felt like he was out of place. Maybe he was an outsider. Pretty soon he was typing away. By the time he went to bed that night he had written the best speech that he could.

Chapter Thirteen

The good feeling that he felt when he went to bed that night was completely gone when he woke up the next morning. He opened his eyes and felt a stabbing pain pierced his forehead. He sat up in bed and a wave of dizziness came over him. His nose was so stuffed up that he couldn't even breathe out of it. He went into the bathroom and blew his nose. His mom was walking by as he did.

"What's wrong, Marvin?" she asked as he came out of the bathroom.

"I'm okay," he said, though the gravel in his voice said otherwise.

"You're sick," she said. "Go back in your room and lay down. I'll call the doctor."

"Mom, I can't miss school today!" he said. "I have to give a speech this afternoon."

"Marvin," she said, shaking her head. "You look awful. You can't go to school feeling like that."

"I have to!" he exclaimed. Just as he said it his dad walked up the stairs.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Marvin's sick," his mom said. "He's supposed to give a speech today and he wants to tough it out."

"Oh, the big election speech?" his dad asked. Marvin nodded. "You look pretty rough, Marv. The speech isn't until this afternoon. Are you sure you're going to make it that long?"

"I have to, Dad!" he said. "The whole campaign is riding on my speech today."

His dad looked at his mom and smiled. "Is he running a fever?"

She reached out and put her hand on his forehead. "I don't think so."

"Load him up with cold medicine and let him go," he replied. "Call the doctor and make him an appointment for after school."

"Thanks!" Marvin said.

"If you start feeling sicker you call one of us immediately," his dad said. "Someone will come and get you. We sure don't need you passing out in front of the whole school."

Marvin suddenly had that image in his head. The way that his head was swimming right now that could be a very real possibility.

Going to school that morning was one of the hardest things that he had ever had to do. Every time he moved his body ached. He stuffed tissues into his pocket to wipe his endlessly running nose. His mom gave him a big dose of cough medicine and gave him something that was supposed to help his nose and drove him to school.

When he got there he had started to feel human but he still felt like he had been hit with a bag of rocks. The dizziness was better now that he was moving around but he still couldn't breathe through his nose. His mom had stopped at the store and gotten him a pack of cough drops. He knew that he had to save a couple of them for the assembly but he went ahead and popped one of them in his mouth.

Chad was waiting for him at the front door when he got inside. He could tell by the look on his face that he looked as bad as he felt.

"You got sick?" Chad asked.

"Yeah," Marvin said. "Evidently the treatment hasn't kicked in."

"You don't know that," Chad said. "If you hadn't taken your treatment you might've gotten a whole lot sicker. What if you had gotten something that normally would have put you in the hospital and the treatment knocked it down to a bad cold?"

"I guess," Marvin said. "But it couldn't have come at a worse time."

"I know," Chad said. "I'm surprised you made it in at all."

"I can't miss today," Marvin said. "The whole thing depends on this speech."

"Did you finish writing it?" Chad asked.

Marvin nodded. "I think it's pretty good. But I'm going to sound ridiculous with this stuffed up nose."

"Attention students."

It was the unmistakable voice of Jenny Collins. She was on the intercom and she was addressing the school. Marvin looked in the office window and saw her standing by the front desk with the telephone in her hand. She looked at him and waved.

"This is Jenny Collins, the best choice for your student body president. I just wanted to take minute and let everyone know that there are doughnuts available in the cafeteria this morning. There are four different kinds and they will be there until the last bell rings. So please come by and help yourself and I'll see all of you this afternoon at the big assembly."

"Ms. Finch couldn't have approved that," Chad said.

"I bet she did," Marvin said. "Jenny seems to do whatever she wants."

Jenny came out the office door and gave both of them a warm smile. That was the worst part about her. She could do something cold and awful to you and be really nice about it.

"Hi, Marvin," she said.

"You're buying votes," Marvin said. "That's against the rules."

"I am not!" Jenny said. "Giving away doughnuts is no different than those lollypops you handed out."

"But you know doughnuts are way better," Chad said. "And it's the day of the speeches."

"There are no giveaways allowed on the day of the election," Jenny said. "That's tomorrow." She pulled a flyer out of her binder and handed it to him.

"You already gave me one of these," Marvin said.

"Oh, no," Jenny said. "This isn't a campaign flyer. This is an invitation to my End Of Campaign party tonight at Nero's Pizza. My uncle is Nero and he said that we could have the whole place and all the pizza we want. The whole school is invited."

The two boys watched her leave and Marvin mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say?" Chad asked.

"Nothing I want to say out loud!" Marvin replied.

"I hope you wrote one heck of a speech," Chad said.

"I hope you came up with that event you were talking about."

Chad shrugged. "I tried. I couldn't come up with anything."

"I'm a dead man," Marvin said.

The rest of the day went by in a daze. He went to his classes and he did his schoolwork as best he could. He went to the bathroom between every class and blew his nose. At lunch he had another dose of cold medicine and he sucked on his cough drops as often as he could. By mid-afternoon he felt a little better but he still didn't feel like himself. He was exhausted.

He went to the auditorium at the beginning of the last period. The students would be there a few minutes after the bell rang, but Ms. Finch had asked all of the candidates and their managers to be there early. He and Chad were the last ones to get there. The candidates for vice president, secretary, and treasurer were sitting in the chairs on the stage and were all reading their notes. Ms. Finch was connecting the microphone on the podium and giving instructions to the boy that was running the sound booth. She saw Marvin when he came in and waved for him to get up to the stage.

"You're running behind again, Mr. McBrayer," she said.

"I'm sorry," Marvin said as he and Chad made their way up onto the platform. She pointed to the two chairs next to Jenny Collins and her manager, Sarah. When they had been seated she turned and faced the candidates.

"Alright, everybody," she said. "The students will be here in just a few minutes. I want to go over everything really quickly. You will all have five minutes to speak. First, your manager will get up and tell the student body who you are and which office you're running for. Then, the candidate will get up and speak for no more than five minutes. Now, remember what I told you about making promises that you have no authority to make. No one should be promising to repave the parking lot or to install a skateboard park behind the gym."

Everyone chuckled. The auditorium doors opened and the students started to file in. Marvin could feel his heart starting to pound. The butterflies in his stomach were fluttering overtime.

"You doing okay?" Chad asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied. He watched the kids coming in. He saw Lena walk in and she waved at him. He waved back and smiled. Then, right behind her he saw Tommy and his smile disappeared. Lena whispered something to him and he held up two fingers in a kind of wave. Marvin didn't return it.

"Tommy looks sad," Chad said. "You think he's sorry?"

"I don't know," Marvin said. "I don't really care right now."

"He's your best friend," Chad said.

"Lately you're my best friend, Chad," Marvin said. "I've got more in common with you than I ever did with Tommy."

"Well, he's still your friend," Chad said. "You can't let this argument come between you."

"I'm not going to worry about it today," Marvin said. "I've got to get through this speech and I'm as sick as a dog."

"You're right," Chad said. "But you need to relax. They'll save the candidates for president for last and you'll be behind Jenny in alphabetical order."

"So I have to sit though everyone else's speech before I do mine?" Marvin asked.

"I thought that was a good thing," Chad said.

"I want to get it over with!" Marvin said.

The assembly started, as it always did, with the Pledge of Allegiance. They all stood and recited the words with one hand over their heart. Marvin looked out over the assembled students and felt like he was gazing through a thick fog. His eyes hurt and he felt like he wanted nothing more than to just lie down and go to sleep. Going to sleep would be so nice right now.

One by one the campaign managers got up and introduced their candidates. Then the candidate would get up and make a speech. There were a lot of promises to have more hat days or to have pizza served more often in the cafeteria. Marvin thought it was really odd for kids that were running for treasurer to be making promises about rules and policies. Weren't they just supposed to keep up with the money?

Marvin watched the giant clock on the wall over the exit door. This assembly had already lasted thirty minutes and it was almost over. He wasn't even sure if he was going to get a chance to give his speech. It all depended on how long Jenny talked.

After Sarah went to the podium and gave a quick introduction Jenny finally started to address the school. Marvin's heart was pounding more than ever. He was next! He forced himself to pay attention to what she was saying.

"If I am elected," she said after she had introduced herself, "I promise to make an effort to bridge communication between the students and the teachers." What did that even mean? Did students have a hard time talking to their teachers? "I promise to organize cleanup days to keep our school looking beautiful." Who would want to do that? Clean? "And I will organize a junior high prom that will be better than the one they're having at the high school."

The students sat and looked at her in silence until she yelled "Pizza party at Nero's tonight!". Those words caused an eruption of cheers and whistles. Kids were standing, yelling, and pumping their fists. They acted like they had just listened to their favorite movie star recite lines from a movie.

"She just promised to make everyone pick up garbage," Marvin whispered to Chad. "And they love her for it."

"Don't worry about it," Chad said. "You're going to do fine."

Chad got up from his chair and walked down to the podium. He looked out at the students and leaned into the microphone.

"Marvin McBrayer is in the seventh grade," he said. "He has good grades, his teachers and friends love him, and he cares a lot about this school. He wants to be your next class president. So, please welcome my friend, Marvin McBrayer."

Marvin got up and walked toward the podium. Chad stopped him halfway there and shook his hand and smiled. Marvin got to the microphone and looked out at everyone.

It was like he was watching the whole thing on TV. He didn't even really feel like he was there. He was looking at the crowd through someone else's eyes. And they were all staring back at him, their eyes making him painfully aware of things that he didn't even know were true. His mind raced, hitting him with flashes of what the kids in the crowd were seeing. Was his shirt too tight? Was his hair standing up in back? Was his nose clean? Was his fly open?

He took a breath and unfolded a piece of paper. His speech was pretty short but to the point. He stretched it out in front of him.

"My favorite book is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. It's all about the differences between people. When Ponyboy meets a girl he likes he says that he realizes that the sunset she saw from her patio is the same one that he saw from his back steps."

The crowd was just looking at him. They weren't smiling but they weren't frowning either. They just looked at him. "This school is a lot like that story. There are two groups of people. We have seventh graders and we have eighth graders. The seventh graders are looked down on as though they are babies even though we're only one year younger.

"Everyone is different," he continued. "There is not one person in this school that is exactly like someone else. If we were all the same we'd all be pretty boring. Some of us are bigger. Some of us are taller. Some of us like pop music and some like country. And some people have a tougher time than others. As S.E. Hinton said in the book...things are rough all over.

"What I want to work on is putting all of us together. We don't need to have the seventh and eighth grades separated on different floors of this building. I want to move things around so that we can pass each other in the hall and get to know everybody. That way, when we go to eat lunch, we can sit with each other and see what the other grade has to offer.

"So, when you cast your ballot tomorrow, think about the fact that you're a little bit different. Make the choice that's a little bit different. Vote for me. Thanks."

There was some applause as he headed back to his seat. It was nothing like the ovation that Jenny got when she promised everyone free pizza, but at least they were acknowledging that he has said something. As he approached his seat Ms. Finch started back to the podium. Suddenly, Chad jumped up and headed back to the center of the stage.

"Where are you going?" Marvin whispered.

"Remember the event?" Chad said with a smile.

"You said you couldn't come up with anything," Marvin replied.

Chad winked at him. "I lied."

Ms. Finch had just started giving instruction to the back row of students on how to calmly and quietly exit the auditorium. Some of the kids had already gotten out of their seats. Chad came up to her side and whispered to her. She shook her head but he whispered something else.

"Students," she said into the microphone. "Mr. McBrayer and his manager have an addition. Since there is a little time left allotted to them I will allow it. Please sit back down."

She stepped away and Chad leaned into the microphone.

"Marvin's personal friend has agreed to appear today to endorse him as candidate for president," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen will you please welcome...Sid Coyote!"

The students in the audience said nothing. They didn't move. They didn't cheer. Most of them had a skeptical smirk on their faces. A loud thump filled the room for several beats and then went into a spectacular drum solo. The walls were vibrating with the sound of it. A second later the scream of one electric guitar slid into their eardrums. The curtain at the back of the stage parted and there in front of everyone was not only Sid Coyote but his entire band. The guitar and drums were joined by the bass and the keyboard as every student in the school suddenly jumped to their feet and started screaming at the top of their lungs.

The candidates that were sitting on the stage leapt out of the way as Sid made his way to the front. He had his own microphone in his hand and he looked out at the audience.

"How's everybody doing?" he said. The crowd screamed and he smiled. "I just wanted to drop by and let you all know what a great guy you have in Marvin. He'd make a great president and I hope you'll all vote for him. Now, let's end this thing with some rock and roll!"

The music went up and Sid began screaming in the microphone. He was singing a hit from his last album and every kid in the room was singing it with him.

Marvin just stood at the side of the stage and stared. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Chad was beside him, banging his head up and down. He reached over and put his hand on his shoulder.

"How did you do this?" Marvin screamed.

"I asked him," Chad replied. "He was glad to do it."

He looked to his other side at Jenny Collins. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Sid, but she wasn't cheering or smiling. She was biting her lip and she looked like she was on the verge of breaking into tears. Her arms were straight down on the sides of her body and her fists were so tight that it looked like her fingernails had to be digging into her skin.

Marvin turned back around and laughed. "Thanks, Chad! This is awesome!"

"I know," Chad replied. "You're welcome, Mr. President!"

When the song was over Sid stepped to the front again and started singing another song. This was one that Marvin had never heard before. It was slower and pretty short.

"There's a difference between you and me

when you break us down individually.

No one's the same. Who would want to be?

We can conquer the world if you'll join with me."

This was completely different than anything Sid had ever recorded. Marvin had all of his music and had never heard this on any of his CDs. They were hearing a brand new song that just happened to be about the same thing that Marvin had just said in his speech.

The song went off and told some little stories in each of the verses. Each story told about how being different was okay. But the song kept coming back to those same lines as the chorus. Finally, Sid yelled "Sing with me" into the microphone and the entire school started singing those lyrics. Marvin looked at the crowd. They were all swaying back and forth to the song as the music brought them all together. After they had repeated the lines four or five times Sid finished up with an awesome guitar solo that had everyone screaming again.

"Alright, guys," he said. "We've got to cut out. But I want you all to remember my buddy, Marvin, tomorrow when you vote." He turned to Marvin and held up a fist. "Zebras, bro!"

Marvin laughed. He and Chad pumped their fists as well. "Zebras!" they yelled.

Sid walked over and put his arms around Marvin and Chad and walked them to the back of the stage as the crowd exploded in cheers again. The curtain fell back into place and the assembly that would go down in history as the one with best campaign speech ever was over.

Chapter Fourteen

From backstage Marvin could still here the crowd cheering. The screamed for an encore but Ms. Finch went to the podium and announced that it wasn't going to happen. Sid and his band were packing up and leaving. Of course, Marvin guessed that they would be here at least until the buses had carted off the last student to be sure that they didn't get ambushed in the parking lot.

Marvin could not stop smiling. Sid introduced him to all of the members of his band. He knew that they weren't the usual guys that performed with him on stage. He explained that they were in another city getting things ready for a concert that he was going to be performing in the following night. But these guys had performed with him on his recordings a few times. He explained that they may not recognize them but they had definitely heard them play before.

"Sid, I don't know what to say," Marvin said. "Thank you for coming. This is huge!"

"Marvin, I was glad to do it," the man replied. "Chad's a good friend of mine and now you are, too. As a matter of fact I'm going to be playing downtown next weekend and I want both of you to be there as my guests."

"That's awesome!" Chad said.

"That song that you sang at the end," Marvin said. "How'd you know that my speech was going to be about being different?"

"I didn't," Sid said. "How could I. That's a song that I'm actually still working on. It's going to be on my next album. But when I heard your speech I thought this was a good enough time to play around with it. It went over pretty well."

"I'll say!" Marvin said.

"Alright, guys," Sid said as he put his guitar into its case. "We've got to get all this stuff packed up and hit the road. And you guys probably have a ride to catch."

They shook hands with everyone again and said goodbye. Sid gave them each a fist bump and they headed out from behind the curtain to let the band pack up.

The auditorium was almost empty when they came back out onto the stage. The only people that remained were a few students still hanging around in the seats and Ms. Finch and Jenny Collins who were standing by the podium. Jenny was very upset.

"But they have to get everything approved by you," Jenny was saying. "Marvin has to be disqualified!"

"Jenny," Ms. Finch said. "Everything that happened in here today was approved by me."

"It was?" Jenny asked through her strained voice. She was still choking back the tears.

Ms. Finch nodded. "Chad came to me yesterday and asked if it would be alright if he had a band perform at the assembly. I told him that it was fine."

"But it was Sid Coyote!" Jenny yelled.

"Calm yourself, Jenny," she replied. "I didn't know that the singer was going to be such a popular one. But I don't see what difference it makes who the performer was."

"He's buying votes!" Jenny argued.

"I allowed you to give away doughnuts," Ms. Finch said. "And I'm allowing your pizza party tonight. Marvin and Chad haven't done anything that breaks the rules." Jenny threw her arms into the air and ran off the stage. Marvin thought he could hear her sobbing as she left the auditorium. Ms. Finch walked over to the two boys. "I believe that is a first for this school."

"Yes, ma'am," Marvin said with a laugh. "They won't be able to top that next year."

"I would ask you how in the world you managed to pull that off," Ms. Finch said. "But I think I would rather it remained a mystery. Good luck tomorrow, Mr. McBrayer."

She gave him a wink and got to work putting the chairs away as Marvin and Chad made their way out of the auditorium.

"That was incredible, Chad," Marvin said. "Thank you for pulling it together."

"It wasn't a big deal," Chad said. "Sid knows what a tough time that I had at my old school. He figured doing this would help you win and it might help me make a few friends."

"Well, I don't know if it's going to help me win," Marvin said. "But it sure got under Jenny's skin so it was worth it."

They were laughing when they emerged into the hallway. But the laughter stopped when they saw Tommy propped up against the wall. For a moment Marvin thought that he was there to try and fight him. Marvin had no interest in fighting and started to ignore that he was there and keep walking. But he saw that Lena was there, too. He calmed down. This wasn't an ambush.

"What is it?" Marvin asked.

"I messed up, Marv," Tommy said. "I didn't take your campaign seriously. I'm sorry."

Marvin nodded. "It's okay, Tommy."

Lena slugged Tommy in the arm. "What else?"

"Ouch!" Tommy yelled. He scowled at Lena but she matched it. He turned back to Marvin. "And I'm sorry that I said what I did about you being sick all the time. You can't help it."

Marvin reached out and Tommy shook his hand.

"We've been friends since kindergarten," he said. "I'm not going to stop being your friend just because you're a big dope. I already knew that."

Tommy laughed. "You're not mad?"

"Not anymore," Marvin said.

Lena stepped up beside them. "I am."

They all turned and looked at her.

"Why?" Marvin asked.

"Because nobody told me that you and Chad knew Sid Coyote!" she yelled. "Do you know how long I've wanted to meet him?"

"How in the heck do you know him, anyway?" Tommy asked.

"Well, we met him at the hospital," Marvin said.

"Why were you at the hospital?" Lena asked.

So the four of them headed toward the front of the school and out to the car pick-up area. Along the way, Marvin and Tommy told Lena and Tommy about their immune system disorders. They explained that it was the reason that Marvin had missed so many days of school. They told them about the treatments that they had to take and that Chad had met Sid Coyote during one of his treatments and had known him ever since.

"I feel bad, Marvin," Tommy said. "I mean, I know I apologized for what I said to you. But I didn't know that you had a disease."

"Don't worry about it," Marvin said. "I'm a zebra, but I'm still Marvin. I don't want any of this to affect our friendship. I just want you to consider it when I say that I can't come over because I'm sick."

Tommy nodded. "I will."

"Look," Lena said. "All of this is nice and everything. But when am I going to meet Sid? Is he still here?"

"He's trying to escape the crazy fans," Chad said. "That includes you."

"We're going to his concert next weekend," Marvin said. "Maybe we can get him to let you two come as well."

"My mom has his number," Chad said.

When they got outside Tommy and Lena departed for the bus stop. Marvin and Chad saw that their moms were there to pick them up.

"So, are you going to that pizza thing tonight at Nero's?" Chad asked.

"No way," Marvin said. "I don't think we'll be on the guest list after today. I think I'm just going to hang out at home."

"Maybe I'll come over," Chad said. "I can bring my Sid Coyote albums."

"I have all of them," Marvin laughed. "But you can come over and we'll listen to them."

They bumped fists and headed off to their cars.

Chapter Fifteen

Marvin felt a lot better the next morning. He was at least able to breathe through his nose. The stabbing and pounding in his head had let up. Of course after he had eaten his breakfast his mom made him take another dose of medicine anyway. She had forced him to go to the doctor after school the day before. They told him to keep taking the medicine that he was on and gave him an antibiotic to be sure that he didn't get an infection. They didn't stick his finger this time. He wasn't sure that he would even care if they did. He was riding high after the impromptu concert that had been held in his honor at the assembly.

He was excited to get to school today. It was Election Day but he wasn't really thinking about that. He knew that today he and Chad were going to be the most popular kids in school. He had a vision of the kids carrying him down the hall on their shoulders. They were going to ask a million questions about how they knew Sid Coyote. He would answer them all like he'd been friends with the singer for years.

He went into the school and saw Jenny was handing out her flyers. They were the same ones that she had been handing out Monday. He didn't care, though. It was against the rules for her to be campaigning at all on the day of the election. He doubted that Ms. Finch had approved it, but it wasn't going to bother him. Not today! Today was going to be wonderful!

And the day did go by pretty easily. A lot of kids came up and asked him about Sid Coyote. He only bent the truth about how much he knew him a little. He tried to let Chad take most of the credit, but he didn't volunteer any information about which one of them knew him first.

The moment arrived at lunch. When he went into the cafeteria there was one table set up for people to sit down, take a ballot, select their choices, and drop it into a big box on the table. After that they went and had their lunch. The table was full when Marvin got there. Chad was just finishing up and walked over to Marvin.

"Do you know who you're going to vote for?" Chad asked.

"It's a toss-up for president," he replied. "I kind of like both candidates."

"I hear the guy is a real moron," Chad said. They both laughed and Chad went over to their usual lunch table and sat with Tommy and Lena. Marvin went to the voting table and filled out his ballot. He hated himself because as much time as he had spent on the campaign he still barely knew some of the kids running for office. He vowed to himself that if he was elected he would get to know each member of the student council by name.

He marked an X by his own name. Then he made a mark next to the names of kids that he knew, even if he only knew who they were. He folded his ballot and put it in the box. Then he went and had lunch with his friends. They talked about Sid Coyote, homework, teachers, and other students. None of them brought up the election.

The ballots were counted after lunch. During the last period of the day the familiar hiss of the public address system filled the school and Ms. Finch's voice came over the speakers.

"Attention students," she said. "I have the results of the election. It seems that almost every student participated and I'm going to announce the winners now. If you win your race please report my classroom first thing Monday morning. The winner for student treasurer is Kyle Young."

Since Kyle was not in their classroom no one felt the need to applaud. Marvin was sure that downstairs in one of the eighth-grade classrooms there was a little bit applause going up for him.

"The winner in the race for student secretary is Julie White," Ms. Finch continued. "The winner in the race for student vice president is Dana Ballentine. And your student council president is..."

Marvin crossed his fingers. He actually crossed his fingers. He glanced over at Chad who gave him a thumbs up. No matter what happened, he had tried his best. He had done everything that he could to win over as many people as he could. And he did it without drawing on anyone's posters or saying bad things about anyone. He was proud of himself and that was what mattered.

"Jenny Collins!"

Marvin's heart sank. Chad's thumbs up disappeared and it was replaced with a look of sorrow. He felt the sorrow as well. He knew that it had been a long shot. He knew that it would be really hard for him to win over the eighth grade and become president. But he had still had hope. He had gotten his hopes up and now it felt like someone had just cut a bridge out from under him.

"Sorry, Marvin," one of the kids next to him said. He nodded and thanked them. Then the rest of the kids around him offered their condolences as well. They all said that they had voted for him and that the concert yesterday had been unbelievable. He gave his thanks, but deep inside he was wishing that he could just sink into his chair and vanish.

After school he gathered with his friends in the front hallway. They all patted him on the back and did what friends were supposed to do. They tried to make him feel better.

"I told you, Marvin," Lena said. "It's a popularity contest. Jenny is the most popular girl in the eighth grade."

"She's probably going to be a terrible president," Tommy said. "If she thinks I'm gonna go out and pick up trash...she's crazy!"

"Think about it like this," Chad said. "Next year, you'll be in the eighth grade and you'll be the one that everyone votes for. Maybe we'll be able to get Sid to come back."

"I guess I won't be able to work on those softball uniforms," Marvin said to Lena.

Lena shrugged. "We'll make due."

The door to the office opened and Ms. Finch and Mrs. Estler came out. They had their purses slung over their shoulders and they were headed for the door. They glanced over and saw the group and stopped. Mrs. Estler gave them a big smile and Ms. Finch managed as much of one as any of them had ever seen on her.

"I'm glad we ran into you, Marvin," Mrs. Estler said. "I wanted to tell you that you did a very good job on your campaign."

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't feel bad because you didn't win," she continued. "Jenny only won by twelve votes."

Marvin's jaw dropped. Twelve votes? That all that stood between him and being the president?

"Wait," Lena said, obviously doing the math in her head. "That means that over twenty-five of the eighth graders had to have voted for Marvin." The teachers nodded and Lena turned to Marvin. "That's huge! You were actually able to talk twenty-five eighth graders out of giving their vote to one of their own."

"Marvin, every student that ran for office is officially part of the student council," Ms. Finch said. "You don't hold an office but you'll attend all of the meetings and participate in the voting process."

"Really?" Marvin asked. The election suddenly didn't seem as final as it had a moment ago.

"And we've been thinking about what you said in your speech yesterday," Mrs. Estler said. "We think that you're right about there being too much division between the grades in this school. We want you to help us figure out some solutions."

"You were the only seventh-grader that ran for office," Ms. Finch said. "So, I'm appointing you to be the student council's special ambassador for the seventh grade. You'll represent your entire class at all the meetings."

"That sounds pretty important," Chad said.

"It is," Mrs. Estler said. "But Marvin has been showing a lot of initiative and some real improvement lately. I think he'll be able to handle it."

The teachers left and headed out to their cars. The school was growing quieter by the minute. Tommy and Lena would have to go to the bus stop soon and Marvin's mom was probably already sitting outside, waiting for him.

"So," Tommy said. "Do you want to come over tonight and play some games?"

Marvin shook his head. "It's Friday. I have to do my infusion tonight."

"Maybe we could come over to your house and watch a movie while you do it," Chad said. Tommy and Lena nodded at that suggestion.

Marvin looked at Tommy. "You really want to come hang out with your friend that has CVID? I'm going to be all hooked up to my pump."

"You're my friend," Tommy said. "Having CVID has nothing to do with that. It's like saying that you want to hang out with your friend that has a crooked toe. Who cares?" That was good to hear, coming from Marvin's most hard-headed friend.

As they parted ways, agreeing to see each other in a few hours, Marvin thought about everything that had happened over the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago he was a shy kid that got sick a lot and was struggling to keep up. Today, he was still a shy kid and he was still struggling to keep up. But now he had reasons. He knew why he was sick so much and he was doing something to try to make it better. He knew why he was behind in his work and he was getting caught up as fast as he could. But today he was also more than that. He had stepped outside of his comfort zone. He had ran for student council president against the most popular girl in school and he had come very close to winning. Now he had a pretty important role in the school and he was going to do his best.

He headed out to his mom's car and saw Chad getting into his. He could still see Tommy and Lena as they made their way to the buses. He knew that no matter what he had to do he would always be able to do it as long as he had friends that supported him like they did.

He was special and he knew it.

The End

