How Not to Run for President by Catherine Clark Page B

party—except for the signs and the weird, gigantic buttons pinned to people’s shirts. Fame. Attention. I loved it.
    Stu, the general, and Kristen, along with Emma, disappeared into the auditorium to take their reserved seats, leaving me standing there feeling like I’d missed the bus. Why didn’t they tell me they were going? I didn’t know how to sneak around and get past the stage without being seen.
    So I was standing backstage listening to the governor’s remarks when suddenly someone tugged at my elbow. “Aidan, listen—I know this is last minute, but Stu just told me he changed his mind. They want you onstage,” Emma said.
    â€œThey do? Why?” I asked. “For what?”
    â€œThey want you to stand there and hold this.” She gave me a big poster-board sign that said, OHIO LOVES FRESH IDEAS! “You appeal to the Ohio element,” she said.
    â€œWhat?” I struggled to hold on to the large sign.
    Emma shrugged. “It’s election-speak. That’s what Stu told me to tell you. Never mind that. Just go, now!” Emma shoved me hard, the way you’d push a shopping cart if you wanted to hop on and go for a ride in the parking lot. I went flailing and stumbling out of the wings and onto the stage, dropping the poster board.
    You know how you try to stop yourself from falling, but it’s like slow motion and you can’t do anything about it? Instead, you just wave your arms and keep falling. I went careening across the stage and slammed right into Governor Brandon at the podium.
    I fell, and I made her fall. It was a domino effect.
    I heard the audience gasp. Then nothing, just total, embarrassing silence.
    I tried to get up, but my foot slipped and I fell against the bass drum onstage with a giant thump. “Ba-dum!”
    The drummer peered at me over her drums. Her long beaded braids knocked against the cymbals, sounding like wind chimes. Either that, or I had a head injury that was making me hear tinkling bells.
    â€œYou okay, little dude?” she asked.
    Man. Even a hippie drummer could insult me.
    Governor Brandon, meanwhile, had crashed into a speaker, high heels first.
    â€œUh, drumroll, please?” I asked. Everyone laughed. When I stood up and shrugged, totally humiliated and wanting to hide, they cheered.
    The Secret Service agents just looked at me, shaking their heads as if they couldn’t believe I was pulling this stunt again. “Identify the threat,” one said to the other.
    And he pointed at me. “He is the threat.”
    The crowd was screaming.
    I hurried to help Governor Brandon to her feet. I apologized again for taking her out. She was looking a little flustered and not quite ready to say anything. I don’t know what came over me at that moment, bravery or stupidity, but I stepped up to the mike.
    Whoa. There had to be a few thousand people looking at me.
    â€œThis wasn’t the planned opening for today’s speech. And I apologize for that,” I said, my voice getting a little louder and clearer with each word. “But when you leave here today, don’t remember this clumsy moment of mine. remember Governor Brandon. You can knock her down,” I said, “but you can’t count her out!”
    There was a deafening roar of applause from the audience as Governor Brandon came up to the mike. She shook my hand as the band kicked off another campaign song. Before she could speak, everyone started chanting her name, and then people onstage began to dance and I backed away, wondering why politicians were such horrible, horrible dancers.
    Behind me in the wings, Kristen and Stu were high-fiving each other, only Stu wasn’t very coordinated and high-fived Kristen in the eye. So then she was screaming and jumping around, holding her hand over her eye.
    I tried to sneak off the stage and back into oblivion. No such luck. Stu and Kristen pushed me back onstage, where I had to sit in