by H. N. Kowitt
The knot in my stomach got bigger. It wasn’t my fault the fans went crazy! But I sat glued to my desk, unable to look at anyone.
I’d always complained that sports got all the attention at this school. But not having them at all? That made even me feel weird. With a twinge, I remembered the game before the Incident. Sitting in the bleachers, the breeze on my face had felt good, and the game was strangely absorbing. It was hard to imagine it all going away.
“I bet he’s just trying to scare us,” a girl behind me said.
Maybe.
But just in case, I walked out of class with my head down.
“Look!” I heard Kyle, Tank’s friend, behind me. “It’s the guy who lost the game for us!”
CRUD! CRUD! DOUBLE CRUD!
This was the moment I’d been dreading. I tried to run the other way, but Tank blocked me.
“Traitors can’t get through.” He smiled lazily, like he had all the time in the world.
More thick-necked guys came over.
“Traitor!”
“FREAK!”
“You lost the game for us!”
My heart was pounding like crazy. A crowd had gathered around us, hoping for a fight.
“I’m not a traitor, moron,” I muttered under my breath.
Tank’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”
I sighed. “Nothing.”
“He’s got to answer for what he did,” Kyle announced.
“So.” Abs, another jock, got in my face. “Why’d you ruin Luke’s catch?”
“Yeah.” Kyle poked me. “Why?”
Not sure if I should answer, I looked around for Jasper. He’d know what to do. I didn’t see him, though, so I took a deep breath and said, “Look, I’ll explain.” I tried to keep my voice level.
The jocks pressed closer.
I took another deep breath. “When the ball came at me, I put my hands up to catch it. Everyone did. And if that’s a crime, then …” I lifted my chin. “All the guys in my row were guilty.”
“NAAAW!” Tank roared. “No one else knocked Luke out of the way. You blew it for him!”
“Maybe Luke blew it himself!” I yelled back.
Tank looked like he was about to explode. He shut his eyes and blared like a foghorn. “DON’T … EVER … DISS … THE LUKE.”
Kyle pointed at me. “HE IS SO DEAD!!!”
“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” people chanted. The guys pushed me against a locker, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Don’t barf, I prayed, between waves of nausea.
“Bring him here!” Kyle pointed behind the staircase. They dragged me across the floor, eager to tear me limb from limb. The last thing I saw was Tank twisting my arm and licking his lips …
“Dawgs, what were you thinking?”
Tank, Kyle, Abs, two other jocks, and I were sitting in Amundson’s office. Amundson was our pathetic, always-trying-to-be-cool vice principal. He had pried us apart in the hall before they had a chance to skin me alive.
“Fighting is NOT cool,” he lectured. “Fighting is the OPPOSITE of cool.”
The jocks and I looked at the floor.
“If you guys have a problem,” he said, “you can always come to my office and kick it.” Amundson liked to think he could relate to young people.
The jocks rolled their eyes.
“Who started it?” Amundson asked.
Looking at five muscle-bound giants and me, it couldn’t have been hard to figure out. But I wasn’t going to say anything. Then one of the jocks mumbled something about “Danny ruining the game.”
Amundson turned to me with surprise. “That was you?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t even know you liked baseball,” he said.
Boy, was I getting tired of hearing that.
“Now, hear this, dawgs.” Amundson’s voice got rougher as he addressed the jocks. “You guys lay off Danny. Cut the dude some slack.”
At least I’ve got someone on my side, I thought.
“He’s not good at sports. He didn’t know that by getting in Luke’s way, he’d blow our chance at a championship. He had no idea his actions could bring down the whole sports program.”
This was how he defended me?
“Promise you’ll leave Danny alone,” Amundson said.
The jocks grunted.
“Great,” said Amundson. “It’s settled.”
Why did I get the feeling it wasn’t?
We all stood up and shuffled out. Tank glared at me with a look that clearly said, “This isn’t over.”
I didn’t see the poster until third period. It was on the wall outside the gym.
“Good grief.” Jasper tore the poster down and looked at it. “Is that your old yearbook picture?”
“Yeah.” I took the paper from Jasper and ripped it to shreds. It made me appreciate how good I’d had it before, when no one knew my name. Being ignored was definitely underrated.
“Danny!!” someone shouted. “Did Luke kick your butt yet?”
“Loser!” another guy yelled.
“That’s the one from the game who —” Two girls stopped whispering and stared.
Lunchtime was the worst.
It was the second school day after the Incident. I planned to just blend in — wait in line, get my three-cheese tuna melt, and make a beeline for our usual table. No eye contact, no conversation. There and back.
Inching forward in the lunch line, I kept my head in my book. I hoped wearing sunglasses would help. Unfortunately, the lenses were ultra-thick …
So I didn’t see Tank’s foot until it was too late.
WHAP! I fell to the floor, and my lunch splattered everywhere.
“HA HA HA HA HA.” Laughter from the jocks’ table rang in my ears. I picked the grilled cheese sandwich off the ground and brushed myself off, my hands shaking.
“Hey, Danny!” Tank yelled. “You forgot your sunglasses!” He swiped them off the floor and dangled them in the air. I decided not to reach for them.
“I’ve got a new name for you,” his friend shouted. “The Sultan of Suck!”
Crud. Crud.
Double Crud.
Walking across the lunchroom, I was sweating like crazy.
Was this what school was going to be like from now on? It was bad enough that Jasper and I had to spend the morning tearing down WANTED posters. I went back to the lunch line for another sandwich.
I prayed this time I’d be ignored.
No such luck. Three seconds after I took my tray, someone threw me into a headlock. What now? I thought wearily. Looking down, I saw an arm with crude Sharpie tattoos on it. I groaned when I realized it was Axl, the school’s worst bully.
Great, I thought. I get away from Tank, and now I’m up against Axl. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Without loosening his grip, Axl dragged me to the table with his pals Boris and Spike. The three of them formed the Skulls, Gerald Ford’s only gang. Somehow I’d gotten suckered into drawing tattoos and graffiti for them when we were all in detention together, but we hadn’t exactly become bosom buddies.
Axl
Boris
Spike
When I got to the table, I turned to Axl frantically. “I didn’t push Luke out of the way!” I said. “I SWEAR! I didn’t even see the guy until it was all over —”
“Oh, I don’t care about the game.” Axl spit a cherry pit into his napkin.
I swallowed. “You don’t?”
Axl shrugged. “Nah. Baseball’s dumb.”
Oh, okay. Phew.
“It’s not cool, like heli-skiing,” Axl continued.
“Or parachuting off a radio tower,” said Spike.
“Or cliff-diving,” said Boris, chomping a giant chocolate chip cookie. Too bad Gerald Ford didn’t offer any sports the Skulls considered manly enough.
“We don’t care,” Axl said. “None of us were even at the game.”
Okay. So …?
“I’m here to talk business.” Axl leaned ov
er. “I saw Tank trip you and the whole fight in the hall yesterday. Tank botched it. He should’ve just jumped you on the way home from school.” Axl shook his head dismissively. “That’s what I would have done.”
“I dunno.” Spike frowned. “Torching someone’s bike always sends a message.”
Ha! Bullies critiquing each other’s work. Who knew?
“These sports fans are insane,” Axl said. “You think they’re going to stop whaling on you? I’m offering an all-around protection package: lunchtime security, hallway defense, and locker surveillance.”
“Protection package …?”
“Anyone who writes graffiti, trashes your stuff, or wrecks your locker answers to us. Here’s my card.”
“H-how much does it cost?” I stammered.
“Twenty dollars a week for the standard package; thirty-five dollars for the deluxe. Deluxe includes after-school monitoring and an on-call alert system. It’s an excellent value.”
Wow. That was a lot of money.
I pretended to consider it. “I’ll think it over.”
“Sure. But if you don’t do it …” Boris narrowed his eyes.
I looked up warily. “What?”
“We’re going to be scraping you up …” Boris leaned toward me. “Off. The. Freakin’. Floor.”
There was nothing like a good sales pitch.
* THINGS TO AVOID WHILE LYING LOW
The Bathroom
The Lunchroom
Chantal Davis
I devised a new hallway route that kept me away from Chantal and her gang. If I walked to the east annex staircase instead of the main one, I would miss her coming out of the bathroom after lunch. It worked.
Until one day I forgot and took the wrong stairs. When I heard Chantal & Co. rolling down the hall, I froze.
“Danny!” Chantal stopped dead when she saw me. Before I could escape, she cornered me against a locker. “You and me got issues. You lost us the game, and you know what that means? We didn’t get to do our victory routine to the new Beyoncé song.”
“It was slammin’ too,” said Raina. “We would have repeated it at Spirit Week, except —”
“We didn’t have one,” Da’Nise said flatly.
“And now we won’t go to any regional championships.” Chantal’s voice was sad. “Where you stay overnight at a hotel room and go to a fancy dinner. Order anything you want.”
“I already had a dress picked out,” said Raina.
I shifted uncomfortably. A crowd had gathered.
Kirby Hammer, a baseball player, came forward. “Right now I would have had a trophy in my room,” he said quietly. “Maybe a championship ring.”
“We could’ve marched in the Fourth of July parade,” someone complained.
“And had a banner up at the mall,” another guy said dreamily.
I could see my foul-up at the game had deprived everyone of something different — even if they were just fantasies.
Then I thought about what it had deprived me of: normal life.
“Even if I barf?” said Sophie. “It’ll be totally worth it.”
She was talking about Da’ Bomb, the new roller coaster, supposed to be the tallest, fastest, and scariest in North America. We were on the bus going to Mega-Fun amusement park, on the big class outing.
We’d all seen the ads:
The field trip was all anyone had talked about for weeks, and I wasn’t going to miss it. I was ready to get back out in the world, eat greasy funnel cakes, and ride the Scrambler and Da’ Bomb. It sure beat a normal Friday of Fun with Phonics, baked fish nuggets, and a cyber-safety assembly.
Tank and his gang would just have to deal with it.
“I’m looking forward to the food,” I told Sophie. “There’s nothing like a deep-fried Oreo …”
“Corn on a stick!” said my friend Emma.
“Two-foot hot dog!” said Morgan.
“I’m glad you came today, Danny,” said Emma softly. “I hope those jerks don’t bother you anymore.”
“I can handle them,” I said, in a burst of confidence. It helped that Tank and Luke were on another bus. Being with my friends again made me feel like I could do anything. I needed people more than I’d realized — to laugh at something I said or even tease me about being short. Other people remind you who you are, for better or worse.
Finally we saw the sign in the distance:
Everyone cheered. When we drove through the gates, we crossed a moat and passed a bunch of cool-looking rides.
Pouring out of the bus, Jasper and I headed straight for Da’ Bomb. The giant ride’s loops, dips, and dives stretched out in front of us like some exotic city.
We raced over to the ride’s entrance and got in line. It was early in the day, so the line wasn’t very long. In no time, Jasper and I were on the platform, ready to go. Just as a new set of roller-coaster cars rolled in, someone grabbed my arm.
It was Asia. “We can go up together!” she said, pointing to two empty seats.
We jumped in, and the operator shut the gate right after us. “The ride’s closed!”
I looked back at Jasper, suddenly realizing he’d missed the cutoff. “Sorry!” I yelled. Chantal, Axl, and others glared at us; they’d have to wait too. Phil Petrokis and Kirby Hammer were in the car ahead of us; we were the only four from school who got on.
“That’s not fair!” grumbled Chantal. Everyone wanted to be first on the ride.
As Asia and I sank into our seats, giant safety straps pressed down on us. My heart started to pound. Three thousand feet of intense drops, I’d heard. What if I got dizzy or freaked out or barfed on the coolest, most beautiful girl at Gerald Ford?
“You look a little pale,” Asia said. “Are you scared?”
“Scared! Of this thing?” I looked up at the five-story drop and swallowed. “Hardly.”
The car inched upward on the track with a loud cranking sound, every second bringing us closer to the top and making me more and more tense.
Up, up, up.
Looking below us, I broke into a sweat. What had I done? Did I really need to go on the scariest ride ever with a girl I was trying to impress?
Crud!
Now we were almost at the edge of the giant drop. From that height, we could see the whole park, a maze of highways, and the city in the distance. We were pulling closer to the drop, now just a few feet away. I tried to prepare myself.
Only inches to go … YIKES! We were almost over the edge, and then —
We stopped.
Huh?
Asia and I looked at each other. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Something’s wrong.”
We waited. And waited.
Still — nothing. We looked back behind us — we were at the very top of the roller coaster!
“ATTENTION, RIDERS. THERE HAS BEEN A TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION,” said a voice coming from the loudspeaker. “THE IMPORTANT THING IS NOT TO PANIC.”
When someone tells you not to panic, what’s the first thing you do?
Panic.
* FIVE THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ON TOP OF A ROLLER COASTER
“Look at all the ambulances …”
“Sorry — management wouldn’t spend extra for brakes.”
“Accident-free for five days!”
“This ride has an 80 percent survival rate.”
“Houston, we have a problem.”
Now I was scared out of my mind. But as the minutes ticked by, I worried less about falling and more about what to say to Asia. I hadn’t planned on any more conversation than “Whew — that was scary!” or “Skittles?”
What did I talk about with Jasper? None of our debate topics seemed right: Best James Bond: Connery or Brosnan? Worst job: leech farmer or butt doctor? Is it better to have freeze vision or invisibility?
But then Asia said something, and I said something back. Time started to just go by. It wasn’t as hard as I thought.
* ASIA O’NEILL: RANDOM FACTS
Secretly cri
es at phone commercials
Has a dog named Milkshake
Wishes school had a badminton team
Doesn’t believe in suntans
Wants to design all-female video games
I found myself telling her things, like my idea for a perfume that smells like new art supplies. Asia laughed. “I like talking to you, Danny,” she said. “You’re not afraid to have weird ideas.”
A compliment, sort of. “Thanks.”
“I appreciate that because I’m weird,” she said. “I don’t like girly stuff like cheerleading and shoe sales. I’d rather be playing Garage Band.”
“Yeah?” She really was the coolest. “I love Garage Band.”
“Yeah?” she said.
“Yeah.” Did I dare? “Maybe some time we could —”
“ATTENTION, RIDERS,” the loudspeaker voice blared. Crud! Now they had to make an announcement?
“WE’LL BE EVACUATING EVERYONE STARTING NOW. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.”
Talk about bad timing.
“Woo-hoo!” Asia raised her fist in the air. “We’re getting out of here!”
“Great,” I said glumly.
The roller coaster started moving again, chugging slowly backward. When our feet finally touched the ground, all the Gerald Ford kids were waiting for us.
“Thank God you’re safe,” said Mrs. Lacewell, the school administrator.
But our classmates looked downright angry.
“They’re shutting down the ride,” said Axl. “That reeks.”
“S’not fair!” cried Chantal.
“Hey, Danny!” Jasper called out.
“Wait a minute!” Tank pushed through the crowd and poked a finger into my chest. “You were on the ride?”
Everyone got quiet.
I swallowed. “Yeah. So?”
“Well.” Tank threw up his hands. “That explains it. He went up there, and the thing DIED! He’s a jinx!”
