Free I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora

raising the owners’ suspicions. Finally, so that we won’t go broke, we admit that independent booksellers are just too smart for us, and we decide to leave most of them alone.
    In the midst of our creative shelving efforts, we also place I Killthe Mockingbird flyers in as many locations as possible. We tuck them into the empty spots that used to hold all the books we’ve moved. We tack them onto community bulletin boards and tape them onto shop windows. We take our flyers and use them to wallpaper the state. And yet, despite all that, it hardly seems like anybody has even noticed our work.
    Until now.
    After a long day trying—and failing—tofind a bookshop called Mark Twain’s House, Elena brings us back to Mort’s. Inside, Mort is getting ready to close up. “I’m glad we didn’t find the place,” Michael says as we head inside. “Mark Twain made black people look like buffoons.”
    Mort looks up. He doesn’t know what we’re talking about, but that doesn’t stop him from joining the conversation. “Michael,” says Mort, “Mark Twain made everybodylook like buffoons. He was an equal opportunity buffoon maker.”
    Michael sighs. “I guess you’re right.”
    Mort shuts his cash register. “I know I’m right.”
    “The king has spoken,” says Elena. She turns toward her uncle. “Can we hang out in the shop for a while?”
    “This is a place of business,” Mort says. “It is not your own private clubhouse.”
    “We’re going to listen to loud music, surf the Internet,eat junk food, and make plans to take over the world. We can do that upstairs in the apartment if you’d like.”
    “Don’t stay up too late, and be sure to lock the door when you’re done,” Mort tells us.
    Once he leaves, the three of us head to the computer. Elena fires up the machine while Michael flips through a set of vinyl records that Mort’s got stacked beneath his desk. Michael finds a recordhe likes, places it on the turntable, and drops the needle onto the disk. A driving, bluesy harmonica blares from the big speakers, and a man with a deep, rough voice howls that he’s got his mojo working.
    “Check this out!” Elena hollers.
    Michael and I look over her shoulder at the computer. Elena’s got the screen split between several different social networking sites. We’ve created anonymousI Kill the Mockingbird accounts on all of them. In the top corner, she’s also opened the web page we created at WWW.iKILLtheMOCKINGBIRD.com. That’s anonymous, too.
    “People are talking about us!” Elena announces.
    “No way,” I say.
    “What are they saying?” asks Michael.
    On Facebook, I Kill the Mockingbird’s got several hundred Likes and bunches of comments. On Tumblr and Instagram, we find snapshotsof our flyers; and on Twitter, we’ve become #ikillthemockingbird as in:
    WHO STOLE MY MOCKINGBIRD? #ikillthemockingbird
    What’s up with the mockingbird conspiracy? #ikillthemockingbird
    This is a little scary and a lotta cool. #ikillthemockingbird
    FINALLY SOMEBODY’S GOT A GOOD IDEA FOR MY SUMMER READING BOOKS! #ikillthemockingbird
    Michael points at that last comment. “That’s not funny.”
    “Howdid it finally get started?” I wonder out loud.
    Elena starts clicking and scrolling through snippets of conversations and posts.
    It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. #ikillthemockingbird
    THIS IS A NOVEL HOSTAGE SITUATION! HA.HA.HA. #ikillthemockingbird
    “Whoa,” says Michael.
    “What is it?” I ask.
    Michael shakes his head in disbelief. He points at the screen. “Wil Wheaton saw an I Kill the Mockingbirdflyer and tweeted about it.”
    “Wil Wheaton?” I say.
    “Wil Wheaton!” Michael says again. “Wil Wheaton!”
    “Who is Wil Wheaton?”
    “Wil Wheaton!”
    “Michael,” says Elena, “no matter how many times you say his name, we still don’t know who you’re talking about.”
    “He’s a gamer!” Michael takes the mouse from Elena and clicks on Wil Wheaton’s profile. “He’s a total geek