I tried to glare at him, but he just touched the side of my face.
“See?” he said. “Cute scowl.”
Just then, I didn’t care who his father was, or his uncle. All I could think was that I’d show him cute.
“Vote for Toby!”
Any violent and/or furious kiss-related thoughts rising in my mind were immediately quelled when I heard a familiar voice that sounded way too self-satisfied for its owner’s good.
“Vote for Toby. Vote for Toby. Hey, baby. How you doin’?” Slight pause. “Vote for Toby.”
Jack glanced over his shoulder at the source of the voice and then turned back to me, incredulous. “Does your brother have a death wish?” he asked.
“Toby Klein—the people’s candidate. Voting for Toby is like voting for yourself, except it’s not at all narcissistic. Vote for Toby. She’ll— Well, hello there, gorgeous. Call me. We’ll do lunch.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again.
“Vote for Toby!” Whatever he was doing, Noah was getting progressively louder.
“Yes,” I said, answering Jack’s question. “He has an obviousdeath wish. He must also be a masochist, because this is going to hurt.”
My moment with Jack temporarily forgotten, I stalked off, rounded another corner, and came face to face with my brother.
He was wearing a sandwich board with my photo plastered to the front.
He was handing out buttons and flyers with my name on them.
And, unless I was mistaken, he’d gotten his friends to do the same.
“Vote for Toby.”
“Vote for Toby.”
“Vote for Toby.”
All up and down the hallway, the biggest goofballs in the class below me were actually encouraging their peers to throw their homecoming votes my way. From this distance, it looked like Chuck might have even been handing out candy.
I may be short, but it only took me three hugely angry steps to be standing directly behind my brother. I tapped him on the shoulder—harder than required to get his attention—and he turned around.
“Vote for To—” he started to say, but the moment he saw the look on my face, he changed his mind. “Hey there, big sis,” he said in a little-boy voice especially designed to remind me that I was his older sister, he was the baby, and my family had a strict no-maiming policy.
He needn’t have worried. I wasn’t going to maim him. I was going toendhim.
“Noah,” I said through gritted teeth. He waited, and Icouldn’t even go on. Instead, I gestured at his sandwich board, the buttons, and the various other freshmen watching our interaction, their hands full ofVOTE TOBYposters.
“Explanation,” I barked, knowing that nothing he said would make this any better, but feeling as if I should allow him to have some final words other than “hey there, big sis.”
Noah said nothing.
“Now.” My voice started off low and dangerous, but it rose to a yell.
“I told you,” Noah said, his grin never faltering, even as he showed the beginning signs of preparing to run. “I’m your campaign manager.”
“I don’t want a campaign manager,” I said, stepping even further into his personal space. “I don’t want to win.”
“I know,” Noah said. “That’s why you’d be perfect!”
I grabbed the lapels of his shirt, even though the fact that he had three or four inches on me meant that I had to reach up a little to do it. “If you don’t make all of this disappear in the next five minutes,” I said, “you’ll be perfectly dead, and Mom and Dad will never miss you. Clear?”
