Just a few months ago, he had been able to jump into a new book, land with both feet, and be perfectly happy there for hours—even days at a time. There was an endless number of good books, and he had been totally content to hop from book to book, each one like a stepping-stone, leading him across a rushing river, so that his feet never got wet. But now the river had risen, and the river was his life, and he felt like he was drowning.
Nina arrived a few minutes later. She took one look at Alec sitting there staring at his book, and said, “What’s the matter?”
Alec nodded toward the other tables. “A bunch of them want to change the name of the club.”
“Hmm—are you going to do it?”
He shrugged. “I’ll send you an email tonight.”
She said, “Want to talk about it?”
Alec smiled and shook his head. “Got to think first. But thanks.”
“Anytime,” she said.
Alec knew she meant that, but it didn’t help much.
He kept the Ray Bradbury novel open, kept looking at it, but now he was thinking about Nina, about how she had changed. But…had she? Maybe it was only the way he was thinking about her—maybe that was all that had changed. Except…it wasn’t just his thinking about Nina. Everything had changed—even books.
Reading a book used to be like finding a place where no one could bother him or talk to him or remind him about stuff he ought to be doing instead. And now? Books just made him think and think and think…about himself, about Nina, about everybody else—about the whole world.
Even Charlotte’s Web seemed odd now. He used to love the funny parts, and they still made him smile, but mostly the book made him think about real life and about his family. Fern’s little brother, Avery? He always reminded Alec of Luke now. And the farm and the barnyard and the fair? It was all different. The book made him think about all the changes that can’t be stopped, like the seasons, and growing up, even death. And the story made him think about friendship—real friendship.
And that thought led Alec back to Nina.
He liked her a lot, but there wasn’t anything silly or dreamy or goofy about it. They were good friends—except he still hoped that maybe she could start to like him even more.
But now his hope wasn’t like that time he had ridden his bike over to her house back in September. All that stuff had been some fantasy story that he’d tried to tell himself. It had been fiction—and then everything had turned real.
A ripple of laughter from both of the other Losers tables snapped him back to the present moment. He thought maybe those kids were laughing about him, about how serious he was acting about a stupid name for a dumb little club.
It’s not a dumb little club, and it’s not a stupid name!
That’s what Alec shouted to himself, and he really believed it…but was there some way to prove it?
He just didn’t know.
“Please pass the butter.”
As she handed the butter dish across the table to Alec, his mom said, “I got an email today from the school about next Monday’s open house. They’ve made Extended Day part of the program this year—I think that’s nice, don’t you?”
“Not really,” he said, “ ’cause it means there’ll be tons more people there. And Mrs. Case said they’re only doing it because of a scheduling problem.”
“Well, I still think it’s a nice idea,” she said.
Alec shrugged and said, “Fine.”
Jumping in to change the subject, Alec’s dad asked, “So, how far did you get with Fahrenheit 451? Finished yet?”
Alec shook his head. “About halfway through. I really like it. But…do you think anything like that could ever happen in the future—where books were totally outlawed?”
His dad said, “There are lots of countries right now where governments try to control everything people read.”
“Or watch on TV,” his mom added, “or listen to on the radio, or access through the Internet. And remember how the Nazis burned piles of books in the streets, like in The Book Thief? Same thing. And if it happened once, it could happen again.”
Nodding wisely, and speaking to no one in particular, Luke muttered, “Dictators,” and then stuffed a wad of lasagna the size of a golf ball into his mouth.
“Right,” his dad said. “Dictators are always afraid they’re going to lose control, and they always do.”
Alec spread butter onto a piece of warm Italian bread, but as he started to take a bite, a thought hit him—hard.
This afternoon when I wanted to tell those kids they couldn’t change the name of the club? That was being a dictator! So…am I scared I’m going to lose control…or lose respect—or lose this weird battle I’ve been having with Kent? And lose Nina as a friend?
It was because of the word lose—using it four times in a row, one phrase right after another. That’s what caused an idea to come zooming straight at Alec—a big one. It landed smack in the middle of his mind.
He scooted his chair back from the table. “Save my plate, okay? I have to go do something.”
His mom shook her head. “Stay and finish your dinner!”
Without another word, Alec methodically demolished his food. Three minutes later he said, “May I please be excused now?”
He was excused, and by seven-thirty Alec had an email ready to send to the seventeen other members of the Losers Club:
Hi—
Can we all agree to hold off on the name change thing until after the open house on Monday? We can have a vote about it next Tuesday after school, and whatever the majority wants to call the club, that’ll be fine with me.
But I have an idea for the open house, and I need some information from each of you—emailed to me later tonight if possible, and by tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the latest, okay?
Then Alec described what he wanted each club member to send him.
They were all probably going to think he was crazy…including Nina. But Alec didn’t care. He didn’t want to look stupid or unprepared at the open house any more than they did, and as long as everybody went along with him, he was sure this idea was going to work…well, pretty sure.
But he was going to need a lot of help from Luke—because this plan was going to take some serious computer know-how, plus some printer skills. Other stuff, too.
Alec scribbled a quick list of the supplies he would need. Looking it over, he decided that, between his mom’s home office and his dad’s home office, most of these things weren’t going to be a problem. So that was good.
The biggest problem? Time. Because eight o’clock next Monday evening was going to get here fast.
The message was finished, and Alec had triple-checked each address.
He read it all over again for the fourth time.
Then he took a deep breath and made himself click the SEND button. His computer made a loud whoosh, and the email was on its way.
It was time to stop worrying and get to work.
It was open house night, and Alec’s dad visited all his classrooms with him while his mom did the third-grade tour with Luke.
Social studies, math, language arts—Alec trudged along from room to room, sitting down, standing up, nodding when spoken to, smiling now and then. But he barely heard a word, hardly noticed anything except how dry his mouth felt and how many times he gulped. And the closer it got to eight o’clock, the worse he felt.
Finally, their last classroom visit ended. He and his dad met up with Luke and his mom near the office just as Mrs. Vance made a P.A. announcement: “Please make your way now to the gym for refreshments and a brief presentation about the Extended Day Program.”
Alec was glad to see a lot of parents and kids heading for the doors, going home. Even so, the hallway leading to the gym was packed.
As he shuffled through the doorway with his family, the gym seemed smaller to Alec, and it took him a moment to figure out why: the folding bleachers along the west wall had been pulled out. It looked like almost every seat would be filled in a
matter of minutes.
At eight-fifteen Mrs. Case stood up and gave a short welcoming speech, introducing herself as the director of the program. Then she said, “And now it’s time for our show-and-tell, so I’d like all the Extended Day kids to go to your regular places. But before we talk about the activities that happen here in the gym, I want to introduce Mr. James Langston. He’s standing here surrounded by the students he helps every afternoon in our Homework Room, and he’d like to say a few words.”
Mrs. Case tried to hand him the portable microphone, but he waved it off.
Mr. Langston looked around the gym and it got even quieter—he had the same effect on all the parents that he’d had on Alec.
He cleared his throat, then spoke with a voice so loud and clear that it almost echoed off the walls.
“The kids who come to my study room work hard every day—it’s a wonderful thing to see. We don’t have anything special to show everybody this evening. But when the grade cards come out in December, I would stack up the scores of these kids against the scores of any other group of kids in the whole school. They make good use of their afternoons, and it’s an honor to spend time helping each of them to do such excellent work. Thank you.”
The applause was loud and long, and the kids gathered around Mr. Langston were clapping, too. It made Alec wish he had stayed in the Homework Room—if he had, his open house presentation would be over already!
Mrs. Case said, “Thank you, Mr. Langston. And now we’re going to start here in the Active Games corner of the gym with Mr. Ben Jenson. Then we’ll go right around the room, and all the different groups will tell a little about how they spend their afternoons.”
Alec was back at the club table, and he sat at his regular spot. Nina smiled at him, but it didn’t make him feel any better. The way the room was set up, the Losers Club was last in line for the show-and-tell. Alec wiped his hands on his pants again, but they kept sweating.
Mr. Jenson stood next to home plate on the Wiffle ball diamond. “The Active Games kids started out the year with a super kickball league. Now we’re having fun with Wiffle ball, and pretty soon we’re going to switch over to another great indoor game, Nerf dodgeball.” He turned to the boys and girls who had lined up along the wall behind him, and asked a question that sounded totally rehearsed to Alec. “Does someone have an idea why so many kids like the Active Games Program?”
Almost every hand went up, and Mr. Jenson pointed at a fifth-grade girl.
“It’s just so fun, and after sitting in a classroom most of the day, it’s great to be able to run around!”
Mr. Jenson gave her a big smile. “Thanks, Haley! Now, let’s get the Wiffle ball teams out here and see some action!”
Totally rehearsed, thought Alec. But he had to admit that it made a good little show.
Players took their positions, the pitcher stood at the mound, and it didn’t surprise any of the kids to see who was up at bat—Kent.
He tapped home plate with the skinny yellow bat, got set for the pitch, then crack! The ball whizzed left, just above the shortstop—a perfect base hit. Over five hundred kids and guests clapped and cheered and hooted as Kent sped to first base, rounded toward second, then held up as the left fielder got the ball back to the infield.
Mr. Jenson knew there wasn’t going to be a better moment than that one, so he said, “That’s what we do, and the kids all get a real kick out of it!” Then to the players he said, “Thanks a lot, everybody!” and the onlookers clapped again as the teams went back to their places along the east wall.
Mrs. Case announced, “Mr. Brian Willner is in charge of our Clubs Program. Mr. Willner?”
She held out one hand toward him, and the focus shifted to the northeast corner of the gym.
“Thanks, Mrs. Case. We’ve got six active clubs, and there’s a lot going on every day. The club members themselves are going to tell you what they’re up to, starting in this corner with the Chess Club.”
The four chess kids took turns talking about how they were learning the classic moves, studying books and videos with some of the great games of the grand masters, and playing several games of their own every day. Their presentation lasted less than three minutes.
After some polite applause, one of the girls in the Origami Club stood up and told a little about the history of origami. A very nervous boy then explained how origami teaches a person to be patient, orderly, and precise. Then a girl talked about the kinds of animals and forms they were learning to fold. They ended by holding up the biggest origami swan that Alec had ever seen—over two feet tall, folded from one enormous square of pink paper—and then they placed twenty more swans on their table, each one smaller than the one before, with the very last one so tiny that it was invisible to anyone who was more than five feet away. The nervous boy ended by saying, “And we hope you’ll walk by our table later and look at our other designs!”
More applause.
Alec gulped again and again. It was going to be his turn any second now.
A girl and a boy from the Robotics Club took turns explaining a little about their projects and the different kinds of electronics they were using. Then two remote-control robots the size of shoe boxes darted out from under their table, chased each other halfway across the gym, turned around, and sped back as the crowd laughed and applauded. That took less than five minutes.
The Lego kids unveiled a castle they had designed and built themselves, but they didn’t have much to say about it—four minutes, tops.
More polite applause.
The Chinese Club had put together a little play, just as Reese had mentioned last Monday. Alec liked it—partly because the shopping scene they had written was clever, and especially because it lasted a full seven minutes.
As the applause for the play died down, Alec was wishing there would be an earthquake, or maybe a fire drill—anything to keep him from having to stand up and talk in front of all these people. And Kent. And Nina.
But there was nothing he could do except begin.
On a nod from Alec, Mr. Willner pulled a cart out of the club storage closet and wheeled it over to his table. The gym got quiet as Alec unloaded eighteen small plastic bins, each one with a cover—six bins on the newest table, six bins on the chatty table, and six bins on the original table in the corner. Every bin was labeled with a different kid’s name, and Alec put each one in front of the right person.
As he placed Nina’s bin on their table, she looked up at him, a question on her face—none of the kids in the club knew what he was doing. Alec tried to smile, but he was so nervous that he grinned like a chimpanzee.
He stood in front of the table and faced the crowd. “My name is Alec Spencer, and—”
Mr. Jenson called from the other side of the gym, “Louder, please!”
Alec gulped, and one of the Homework Room kids got the portable microphone from Mrs. Case and ran it over to him.
He started again, and this time his amplified voice made him feel like he was yelling. “My name is Alec Spencer. Our group has eighteen members, and it’s called the Losers Club.”
When he said that, a ripple of awkward laughter ran through the gym.
Alec said, “I’ve got something I want to say about the club’s name, but first I want every member to open the bin there in front of you, grab the sheet of paper on top of the stack, and run in that direction, like this!”
Alec popped the top off his own bin. Inside it looked like a stack of paper, but each sheet was taped to the next one, edge to edge, like one long accordion fan. And when Alec grabbed the top sheet and took off toward the far corner of the gym, the paper came streaming out, unfolding from the bin behind him like the tail of a Chinese dragon.
Because that big idea during dinner last Monday? This was it. He wanted to show everybody what the so-called losers at his table were doing with their time. He had asked each club member to email him a list of every book they had ever read—all the ones they had at home, books they’d read in
classrooms, and any others they could remember, and also to send him permission to access the titles of all the books they had ever checked out of the school library. Because he wanted to end up with a pretty accurate total, a list of every single book each of these kids had read during their whole lives, right up to today. For Alec, that list was five hundred and thirty-seven different books—starting with Goodnight Moon and ending with Fahrenheit 451!
Luke had helped him search online and print out a picture of every book’s cover onto one sheet of regular paper, and then they had used wide plastic tape to join them into the long unfolding river of book covers that followed him. They had both worked four hours each night during the school week, and then all day Saturday and Sunday. On Thursday, Alec had been ready to quit, but Luke saved the day with a simple database program so they could organize and print all the different cover images in big batches—and a lot of the kids in the club had read the same books.
Alec’s accordion of book covers was over 380 feet long—so long that when he got near home plate, he had to turn to his right and keep pulling the sheets from the bin.
The other club kids were laughing now, pulling their own streams of book covers from the bins, trotting across the hardwood floor. Eighteen long trails of paper fanned out from the back corner of the gym—it looked like a satellite image of a huge river delta.
Once all the club members had stopped running and had pulled their sheets out of the bins, other kids and the parents came closer to look, and then realized what they were—so many book covers, close to three thousand in all!
There was a burst of conversation as people pointed here and there, spotting books they remembered reading, books they loved.
Alec found a strong, clear voice—a voice he hadn’t used before.
“Could I have everyone’s attention again?” The room hushed quickly, and he said, “What you’re looking at here are almost all the books that each of us kids have read so far during our whole lives. And that’s what we do in the Losers Club—we read. I made up that name because back in September I wanted to have a table mostly to myself so I could read with nobody bothering me—and I figured that if I called it the Losers Club, no one else would want to join. But other kids heard that it was just a place to hang out and read, and they liked reading more than they hated the name.”