Beheld

by Alex Flinn

  Then I spotted them. The mother duck was sleeping, head tucked under her wing. Her babies, seven of them, slept the same way around her.

  “Remember when we used to come with my mom to feed them?” I said.

  “Like it just happened.”

  “It’s been half a lifetime.”

  “Weird.” She looked at the ducklings in the moonlight glinting off the canal. “They’re so cute. No swans to make them feel bad about themselves.”

  “I don’t think that’s how the story goes.”

  “Yeah, but you know that’s what would happen in real life. Did you know that the term pecking order came from stronger chickens pecking at the weaker ones to achieve social dominance?”

  “I didn’t need to know that,” I said. My phone was buzzing in my pocket, but I ignored it. There was no one I wanted to talk to.

  “The more you know. Wonder what happened to the fishhook duck?”

  “Probably long gone.”

  “I guess. He was a fighter, though.”

  “Good old Fishhook,” I said. Amanda moved closer to me, but also closer to the ducks. My phone was buzzing in my pocket again. Probably just a text about practice or something. One person texts, then ten people have to respond. I said, “Hold on. Let me turn off my phone. I keep getting texts.”

  I took it out of my pocket and looked. It wasn’t texts. It was five missed calls from my mother.

  I called her.

  “It’s your brother. He’s been in an accident.” Her voice sounded shaky.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. They took him to the hospital.”

  I said to Amanda, “My brother’s in the hospital.”

  “My dad can take you.”

  I said to Mom. “Go ahead. Tim will bring me. Where is he?” We were already walking back to our bikes. What if it was a bad accident? What if Matt was dead?

  I felt Amanda’s hand on my shoulder. I tried to unlock my bike, but I couldn’t because my hands were shaking. Finally, Amanda did it for me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Guess I’ll have to be.”

  My brother, Matt, my phenomenally stupid brother, who later insisted he was neither drunk nor texting but just tired at ten at night, had fallen asleep at the wheel and plowed through a traffic circle with an ornamental obelisk at its center and giant bronze fish swimming around. The fish were fried and Matt was knocked out for two days, so he got to miss my first meeting with Dad’s girlfriend, a twenty-two-year-old blond yoga instructor who wished me Namaste when we met. I wished I’d been so lucky.

  But at the hospital, Dad told Mom, “I can’t believe you let this happen.”

  “How is it my fault?” Mom asked.

  “He was in your care,” Dad said.

  “Because you ditched him. He has a curfew, eleven o’clock. It was ten.”

  “That’s just like you, always making excuses.”

  “She’s not always making excuses,” I said. “She never makes excuses. You’re the one who’s always blaming everyone else for everything.”

  Amanda took my hand and squeezed it.

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” my father said. “I just want to see my son.”

  “The one who never made you happy in twenty years?” I muttered.

  “And what’s he doing here?” Dad gestured at Tim.

  “He drove me here,” I said, “and he’s being supportive, like you never were.”

  Dad hitched his fingers in his pockets and glared at Mom. “Should have known you’d turn them against me.”

  “No, Dad, you did that yourself.” I tugged at Amanda. “Let’s see if there’s a Coke machine around here.”

  As soon as Dad figured out that Matt wasn’t going to die but probably was going to have to pay for the ornamental fish, he cleared out. Mom and I stayed at the hospital all night. Tim and Amanda stayed with us.

  Matt showed up the first day of school in a wheelchair and with his jaw wired shut. The Great Fish Encounter was the stuff of legend. Mom made him apologize to the mayor of our town for breaking the statue. She never made me apologize to Dad.

  11

  When we were little kids, Amanda was the best at hide-and-seek. The reason was, she was patient. Other people might find a good hiding spot, but the second the person who was it passed by, they’d run for base, revealing themselves, and usually get caught. Not Amanda. I still have no idea where she’d hide, but she could outwait anyone. Probably it was because of softball. She was used to waiting her turn at bat, waiting for someone to hit the ball so she could get them out. So Amanda waited. And waited. She waited in whatever hiding place it was she found, and just when everyone had been caught and I was ready to give up, Amanda would come flying out of nowhere and make it to base. She snuck up on you.

  That’s how it was, falling in love with her.

  Or maybe realizing I’d been in love with her all along.

  She snuck up. One day, we were friends, doing homework or texting, talking, ranting, playing catch. The next day, I was waking up at five in the morning, waiting until it was late enough to text her to see if she was awake, waiting to see her blue Civic picking me up for school.

  Her dad had gotten her the car for her sixteenth birthday, in December, which was two months before my birthday. I’d avoided the question of whether I’d get a car when I turned sixteen. Matt had, and I bet if I was nice to Dad, I would too. But if I got one, I couldn’t go with Amanda.

  I knew I’d never act on it, though. Saying I liked her as more than a friend would kill our friendship. Probably she wouldn’t feel the same way. Or if she did, we’d date a month or so, then break up. Then we wouldn’t be friends anymore.

  Part of me said maybe we could beat the odds. After all, we’d beaten the odds with our friendship, which had outlasted everyone else’s playground relationships.

  But I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I couldn’t lose anyone else right now.

  Besides, she probably didn’t feel the same way.

  Even if she did magically know each day if I wanted to drive through McDonald’s or Starbucks, and even if she had memorized my order at each place. But a friend might know that stuff too.

  That day, we had taken a trip through McDonald’s drive-through (number three Egg White Delight McMuffin combo with a Coke and an extra hash brown) when Amanda mentioned sort of casually, “Coach says there’s going to be a scout from UCF at our game tonight.”

  “That’s great.” There were often scouts at their games.

  “Coach says she’s there for me.”

  We were only sophomores, so it wasn’t time to sign yet, but that didn’t stop colleges from looking at the best girl catcher in the county. I knew Amanda wanted to stay in state to be near Tim and Casey.

  “That’s so great!” I said, and I meant it, although for sure no one was recruiting me. Softball was Amanda’s life. I wanted to make the varsity teams because it was fun and it would look good on college applications—especially if I was captain. Everyone liked me, but I knew I was too short to go farther than high school.

  “Think you could go and, like, yell nice things about me, maybe bring some friends?”

  “You won’t need it, but sure.”

  So that night, I recruited Brian and Darien and a few of the other guys, as well as my mother, and we all went to see Amanda.

  I was right that she didn’t need us, though I’d have gone anyway. Softball wasn’t usually a big draw in high school, but our baseball team was having a losing season, and everyone knew how good the girls were, particularly because of Amanda. Also, we were playing Kenwood High, our biggest rival.

  At the top of the eighth, the score was tied at three, and Kenwood, the visiting team, was up. Amanda had had a good game, getting on base once and one RBI, but it wasn’t her best game. Now Kenwood had two girls on base with two outs and one strike.

  Kendra, the pitcher, pitched a curve ball,
which the batter missed.

  And Amanda dropped the ball. It rolled away from her.

  The coach at third screamed at the runner to go, go, go! She started running. Amanda scrambled for the ball, got it, and tagged the runner out at home.

  At least, that’s what I saw.

  What Mom saw.

  What all my friends saw.

  What a stand full of fans screaming Amanda’s name saw.

  But the home plate ump saw the Kenwood runner safe at home.

  That’s how he called it.

  Our coach came out to argue the call. We were booing. The whole crowd was—well, except the Kenwood crowd. I watched Amanda. Tim had taught us not to yell, certainly not to cry, but even though she had on a catcher’s mask, I could tell she was having what her dad would call “a moment.” A dropped ball was bad enough. A run scored on it was tragic.

  Kendra struck the batter out on the next pitch, but the damage was done. The score was three to four, and it was Amanda’s fault. I saw Kendra go up to Amanda in the dugout and put her arm around her.

  When it was time for Amanda to bat, there was one out and the bases were loaded. The perfect opportunity for Amanda, who led the league in RBIs, to hit a sacrifice fly and tie up the game. Hopefully, another demonstration of Amanda’s RBI brilliance would make up for the dropped ball.

  The pitch, and then I saw Amanda hit it perfectly, low and into left field, just out of reach, just like she had about a thousand other times.

  And then suddenly the ball lifted up. Like, it made a dramatic right angle up and sailed over the right fielder’s head and toward the fence.

  The runner on third came home.

  The third base coach told the next runner to come in.

  She did too.

  The ball cleared the fence, somehow.

  The runner who’d been on first came home.

  Then Amanda, looking completely dazed.

  We were screaming her name, everyone was, even people who hadn’t known her name an hour before. I noticed a woman sitting alone, taking notes on an iPad. The scout. She was smiling.

  Four runs scored. Game over. A win.

  Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe no one else noticed because they were watching Amanda or watching the action on the field.

  But the instant before the ball tilted up, I could have sworn I saw Kendra staring at it. And then, not taking her eyes off the ball, she gestured toward it, like she was lifting it.

  It was like magic. Witchcraft.

  Crazy. The witchcraft was Amanda. Her talent. Her awesomeness. Nothing more. I ran onto the field with everyone else. I found Amanda and hugged her.

  “That was incredible!” I screamed. “That was so great!”

  “I know! I know, right? I wasn’t even trying to do that. I was going for the sacrifice. It must have been the wind.”

  It was a windless night in a windless week in a largely windless month.

  But I said, “Yeah, it was the wind. Or you’re just the best hitter in the league!”

  “You think so? You think the scout noticed?” She was holding my hands, shaking.

  “Unless she was comatose. You got a grand slam! In front of a college scout!”

  “Eek!” She screamed, and then she put her arms around me and squeezed me hard, making me wonder if she might feel the same way I did.

  Then about twenty girls pulled her away from me into their vortex of girl energy, screaming her name, and I knew she was just excited. She was a star, and I was her short, pudgy best friend. I was lucky, but that was it.

  12

  After that game, I started noticing that when Kendra was around, stuff happened. Weird stuff. Things like Mr. Cardenas losing a stack of pop quizzes before he got a chance to grade them, or Nolan slipping on a banana peel no one had previously noticed when he was onstage for a pep rally. Things like the marching band bizarrely switching from a West Side Story medley to Suicide Silence, then back without missing a note of “I Feel Pretty.” Nothing too Stephen King, just middle school weird stuff, stuff like Sophie’s shoe getting stuck to the perfectly clean floor or Amanda hitting that grand slam after that unfair call.

  More scouts were looking at Amanda now. She still played on two softball teams along with her classes, community service projects, and driving Casey around in her car. I had most of those things too. But every morning, we drove to school together, and every night, we lay in bed and texted.

  Sometimes, the subject matter was about serious things.

  I’m really overwhelmed lately

  Yeah, I bet having to talk to college scouts and sign autographs must be a pain

  It was just that one girl who wanted an autograph. I think Celia put her up to it to mess with me

  Just ONE autograph

  I’m serious Chris. What if I fail all my classes and can’t even go to college?

  Are you failing?

  No. It’s just hard. I’ll probably get a C in algebra 2

  Maybe take math for college readiness next year instead of precalc

  Everyone would make fun of me

  Remind them that you have a bat and you’re not afraid to use it

  I think the school would frown on that . . .

  You’re Amanda Lasky. They can’t make fun of you. You’re a badass softball queen

  True . . .

  Other times, it was less so.

  I really want a slurpee

  Now? It’s 10:30 on a school night

  With a bendy straw

  A purple one

  Who do you think invented bendy straws?

  I thought Google was your friend.

  Checking

  Enlighten me

  Ancient sumerians invented the straw in 3000 bc. They were made of leaves

  Interesting

  A guy named marvin chesterstone invented the modern straw made of paper because he didn’t like leaves in his drink

  Makes sense

  Then a guy named joseph friedman invented the bendy straw in the 1930s to help his daughter drink her milkshake

  Nice dad

  I still want a slurpee

  Would your mom let you go if I picked you up?

  Yeah

  I’ll be there in 10 minutes

  And sometimes, we still went to the playground and sat on the monkey bars.

  Generally, things were going pretty well for me. If you don’t count that I barely spoke to my dad and was in love with a girl who had me permanently in the friend zone. But I had good grades, good friends, and a surprisingly decent relationship with my brother (his near-death experience seemed to have mellowed him). Until Coach Tejada posted the rosters for next year’s team, and I was on JV for the third year in a row.

  And all my friends made varsity.

  “Man, that sucks,” Darien said after he finished celebrating his own position on the varsity roster long enough to notice I wasn’t on it. “What are we gonna do without you?”

  “Maybe it’s a mistake,” Brian said. “You should ask Coach if he forgot you.”

  “It’s no mistake.” I pointed to the JV roster. “He didn’t forget me, just remembered me on JV.”

  We stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Darien said, “Tough blow, man.”

  “Yeah, tough blow,” Brian agreed.

  “Maybe next year,” Darien said.

  “Yeah, maybe next year,” Brian agreed.

  They kept repeating the same things until I wanted to punch one of them to see if the other would bleed. I needed to get out of there, so I said, “Yeah, I need to go. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”

  But I didn’t. And I did go talk to Coach Tejada, and he said exactly what I knew he’d say. “Sorry, Burke. You’re a great kid. You’ve got great heart, and I love having you on the team. But you’re just not big enough to play varsity. If you were only a few inches taller. Maybe next year, if you grow a little.”

  I nodded. “Maybe.”

  But I knew I wouldn’t.

 
I wanted to see Amanda. But I knew she probably had practice for something, homework for something, a game that night where she’d be the star and no time for her short, toady little friend who’d probably still need her to save his Spider-Man toy from a bully, if it came up. So I didn’t call her. I walked home.

  On the way, I stopped by the park. It was spring, and the mother ducks were there with their babies. I sat by the canal and took my shoes off, then rolled up my pants legs. They were a little too long. Mom had gotten the wrong size, and now that she was working, she wasn’t as on top of returning things, or shortening them, so I’d just worn them like that, dragging slightly on the ground. I fished out the wadded-up peanut butter sandwich from my backpack and threw it, bit by bit, into the water. I was an ugly duckling, too small for sports, too insignificant to make a move on the girl I loved.

  We ducklings needed to stick together. I noticed a crow nearby and threw it a crumb. It was ugly too.

  “Hey there. Everything okay?”

  I looked around, at first seeing nothing. Then I found her. Kendra.

  “What? Yeah, everything’s fine.” I’m just short, and I suck.

  “Oh, okay. You looked kind of . . .” She stopped, then peered into the water as if something had caught her eye. “Hold on.”

  She stalked toward the canal near where the ducklings had congregated. They scattered, making little peeping noises. Kendra reached her arm below the surface. She pulled something out, brown and wriggling. A snake! It writhed around, but she held it firmly away. Then she flung it as far as she could. It flew through the air and landed on the opposite canal bank. She shook off her hand, then came back and sat beside me.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Water moccasin.” Her voice was totally calm.

  “What? Aren’t they poisonous?”

  “Uh-huh. It would have gotten those ducklings.”

  “But . . . how did you . . . ?”

  She shrugged. “Confident hand. Don’t try this at home.”