Free Don't Care High by Gordon Korman Page A

been stuck at Don’t Care High a lot longer than you have. I’ve put up with the decaying building, sweated in the heat, shivered in the cold, and hocked my life for a few cubic inches of locker space. But mostly I’ve put up with the people. I think there are a lot of nice guys who go to this school, but half the time you have to hold a mirror to their mouths to see if they’re still breathing. If you go by their liveliness, most of the kids probably qualify as vegetation. Now, this year everything started to go right. I met someone who, despite his ambition, is a person I can talk to. And together we made Mike Otis student body president. At first it was just a joke because we could have made my little brother’s gerbil president. But now I see we can do something. I’m not sure what it is, but I think I see that it’s possible for the students of this school to be different than they are now, and that’s something we have to try.” He smiled engagingly. “At least you’ll admit we don’t have anything better to do.”
    Paul gazed at his friend with grudging admiration. If Sheldon wanted to go into politics, he certainly had the mouth for it.
    * * *
    That night, there was more high drama and adventure going on in the next apartment, where the late movie raged on as usual. It was impressive that, night after night, the neighbours managed to find a movie with the appropriate quota of gunfire, explosions, sirens, and hand-to-hand combat. Better still, why was the hero always named Steve? Yes. Another Steve was getting another medal, and another leading lady. Was there a rule that all dashing, high-action adventure types had to be named Steve? Or was this a series — the same Steve as last time (but a new leading lady!)? Even more instructive, this movie had a Paul in it. Paul was the snivelling coward who got no medal and no girl, but did get his thriving law office torched while he was inside, double-crossing Steve to save his own hide. Tough darts, Paul.
    He crawled into bed and pulled the covers up around his ears. Tomorrow Sheldon was going to go back to school and resume his efforts to establish Mike Otis as the saviour of Don’t Care High. Hmmph. But Sheldon did have one point: Neither of them had anything better to do. After all, what did it hurt to tell everyone that Mike Otis was wonderful, so long as Mike Otis didn’t mind? So what would it hurt to help Sheldon who, in a world of Feldsteins, Morrisons, Daphne Sylvesters and Auntie Nancys, had befriended a lost soul from Saskatoon? It could even be fun. It was certainly better than sitting in a law office with no spirit of adventure, waiting for someone to throw a Molotov cocktail.
    That settled it. Next week he would try to become one of the president’s men.

6
    T he weather warmed up, and the rain began. Don Carey High School dripped. In some fourth floor rooms, the problem was so bad that classes had to be relocated to the basement, which seeped. Feldstein’s stairwell had four inches of water, and the locker baron was forced to spend his office hours in hip boots. The halls became semi-swamp, and the ancient terrazzo floors were so slippery that one workman atop his stepladder slid fifteen feet before crashing heavily into the fire doors. He sustained a sprained ankle and multiple bruises.
    It was this news that greeted Mr. Gamble upon his arrival Monday morning, the rain and traffic already having grated on his nerves.
    â€œThe parking lot is a swimming pool!” he told Mrs. Carling as he took off his boots and wrung out the cuffs of his pants. “Some idiot parked a big black, gas-guzzling dinosaur in my space! I don’t need to hear about accidents and floods. It’s just like the school board to paint our walls when what we need is to have our roof fixed!”
    â€œThe injured man is in the nurse’s office,” the secretary informed him. “He’s very