“I can’t. I’ve got tons of homework to do.” He picked up his backpack, stood up, and headed toward the front doors. I watched him go, and when he was almost out of earshot, I said, “Reverse psychology is a wonderful thing.” It wasn’t really an insult. Not technically anyway.

As I suspected, Logan hadn’t been gone thirty seconds before my friends started in.

“What was that all about?” Aubrie asked.

I pressed another star onto my poster. “Just some stupid bet we have going. He thinks I can’t go two weeks without insulting someone.”

“And you took the bet?” Chelsea asked—which just goes to prove what she really thinks of me.

“Yes, I took the bet. I can do it.”

Aubrie and Chelsea looked at each other, then both started laughing. I chucked one of the stars at them.

“I can do it,” I said again.

Aubrie pursed her lips together in a knowing smile. “I think he was flirting with you.”

“When? When he called me a cheater, or when he told me I wear too much perfume?”

“No,” Aubrie said slowly. “It was the way he looked at you.”

I pressed another star on the poster. “Doubtful. He just wants me to go out with Doug so Doug will set him up with some chick named Veronica.”

“That’s probably a front,” she said.

I nearly called her crazy, but figured that might classify as an insult.

At this point, Rachel traipsed back over to us. “I got six more signatures just to make sure we have enough.” She dropped the papers by me, then sat down and stretched out her legs. “Did I miss anything while I was gone?”

Aubrie winked over at her. “Just Logan Hansen hitting on Samantha.”

“He wasn’t hitting on me. He was trying to make my life difficult.”

Chelsea smiled and tossed Rachel a marker. “Some guys don’t differentiate between the two.”

“Oh!” Rachel held up one hand, as though just remembering. “Amy and her friends are upstairs making campaign posters. It looks like vandalism on poster board. I mean, they’re just writing stupid stuff.”

She turned to me for some commentary, and I tried to think of something that wouldn’t be unkind and I wouldn't mind if someone said it about me. Rachel waited, her puzzlement growing with my silence.

Finally Chelsea said, “Don’t mind Samantha. She’s on an insult-free diet.”

I rolled my eyes at Chelsea because Logan hadn’t said anything about facial expressions in his rules.

Aubrie looked over at Rachel and told her, “Logan bet Samantha she couldn’t go two weeks without insulting anyone.”

“Oh,” Rachel said in a sad sort of way. “I hope you don’t have a lot riding on it.”

I put the last star on my poster, pressing it down so hard that glue squeezed out underneath the edges. “Your faith in me is so touching.”

It was really beginning to bug me that no one thought I could win this bet. After all, it wasn’t like I insulted people all of the time. I didn’t. Well, at least I didn’t insult people any more than everybody else insulted people.

“Back to the issue of posters,” I said. “How many do you think we should make?”

Aubrie stenciled in another letter. “I think we should make a ton of posters and take all of the good hall spaces.”

Chelsea bent over her poster, coloring in my name. “I think we should wait to see where Amy puts her posters and then put ours next to hers. That way everyone will be able to make the comparison between good and trashy.”

“Let’s just take Amy’s posters down when we see them,” Rachel added. “We’ll call it introducing Amy to the constituents in the garbage can.”

I slid my poster over to Chelsea so she could do the lettering. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Samantha’s right," Aubrie agreed. "That wouldn’t be fair,”

Chelsea shrugged. “You know what they say: All’s fair in love, war, and high school.”

I shook my head. “We’d get in trouble if we got caught. I’d probably be kicked out of the race.”

“So you won’t take them down,” Rachel said, “and we won’t get caught doing it. It’ll be easy.”

I wasn't sure if they were serious or not, but I didn't want to find out. “I don’t want to run a mean campaign, and I don’t think I have to. I can beat Amy and Rick on merit alone.”

My friends exchanged glances, but didn’t offer opinions otherwise. “Okay,” Chelsea said. “We’ll be nice.”

All in all we made six posters, which was good for our first day. And they looked crisp and professional. Mine would be the nicest posters. Rachel had already said Amy’s were lousy, and Rick wouldn’t come up with anything good. He probably didn’t even know how to spell two of the three words in the sentence “Vote for Rick.”

We hung up the posters around the school hallways, and then I told everyone I’d clean up the art supplies so they could go home. I felt bad making them stay any later on my account.

I stuffed what I could into my backpack, stacked up what I needed to carry, and then picked up all the scraps of paper to throw away. Cassidy walked by as I was hauling stuff to the garbage can.

She stopped when she saw me. “Hi, Samantha.”

“Hi.” I dropped the last of the scraps into the garbage can and tried to brush off some dried glue stuck on my hand.

“I saw some of your posters. They look really good.”

“Thanks. Were you here helping Amy with hers?”

“Yeah. Our posters aren’t nearly as nice as yours. You ought to be glad I didn’t help you after all.”

If she hadn’t said this, I probably never would have brought up the subject, but somehow seeing her standing in front of me smiling and chatting, like she was r eally my friend, just irritated me.

“You know, Cassidy, I still remember last year when you wrote me that note. The one that said you were sorry we’d been fighting and you hoped we could be friends. I guess you didn’t really mean any of those things, did you?”

She blinked at me with a stunned expression. “Yes, I meant it.”

“Then how come you’re campaigning for my opponent?”

“Because Amy is my friend too. Besides, she needs my help more than you do. You have lots of friends to help you."

I held one glue-covered hand out to Cassidy pleadingly. “I need your help more than anybody. I really, really need to win this election. I mean, what does it matter to Amy whether she wins or not? She has the grades to go anywhere.”

“The grades to go anywhere?” Cassidy repeated.

At first I didn’t say anything. I just stood there by the garbage can wavering between reason and hope. It seemed like a dangerous thing to do—to give your opponent information about yourself that could be used against you—but when it came right down to it, I trusted Cassidy. If she understood what was at stake, if I gave her a good enough reason, she’d leave Amy’s campaign and help me.

“You’ve always planned on going to a good college, haven’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, so have I, but my grades are only average, and I bombed the SATs.”

She shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. “You still have next year to bring your score up.”

“I’m going to, but this year I got an eight ten. I need to be president to boost my chances of being accepted someplace I’d actually want to go.”

Cassidy opened her mouth in protest. I went on before she could. “I know it sounds calculated, but in the long run it’s not going to matter to Amy whether she wins or not. For me, this election could decide my future.”

For a moment there was silence between us. I’d put forth my argument on one end of the scale, and I waited for her to put her decision on the other.

With a shrug of her shoulders she delivered her verdict. “I’m not sure running for president is the answer to your college application problems. I mean, shouldn’t you run for president because you actually want to be president?”

“I do want to be president,” I said. “Weren’t you just listening to what I said?”