Total Knockout
Page 14
“Come on, folks,” cheered Jared, who clutched a handful of bills in his hand like a street cards dealer I’d seen on cop shows. “This is your chance to get back at your favorite teachers for that pop quiz! Come on, Michael,” he called to the team’s quarterback, Michael Rutter. “Cream Coach Fleck for all those suicides he makes y’all run!”
Someone bumped me from behind, eager to get to the front and pay their money. I saw Cooper bringing out more pies from the kitchen and went over to him.
“You came!” he said as he stacked pies in a precarious tower. “I might be wrong about this whole thing. Jared already has a fistful of money.”
I didn’t want to be the know-it-all, but I couldn’t help but feel extremely cautious. I tried to sound light as I said, “Did Melanie buy all these pies?”
“Yeah.” I made a face, and Cooper said, “I know, I know. That’s what I was worried about. But Melanie kept saying it’s an investment, and I’m starting to think that maybe she’s right. We’ve made a ton of money already.” He looked out at the scene and said, “Anyway, it’s too late now.”
Mrs. Weeks walked into the cafeteria, and I watched as her jaw went limp at the sight of the bikini cutout. “Have the teachers agreed to do this?” I asked.
“Coach Fleck is in. He was the one who helped Melanie find the cutouts. He’s still trying to rally more teachers. He was supposed to do it sooner, but Melanie only asked him this morning, so . . .”
A huddle of women English and math teachers stood off to the side, talking quickly, with hard looks on their faces. “Uh, do you think the female teachers are going to be offended by the bikini cutout?”
“Why?” he asked, licking whipped cream off his fingers.
“Cooper,” I began, pointing to the cutouts, “you’ve got a guy wearing a suit but the woman is wearing a bikini. That’s totally sexist.”
“No!” Cooper bristled. “It’s funny! I bet we can get Coach Fleck behind the bikini one, too. He’s down for anything. Look,” he said. “I have to get back there.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Make sure you buy a throw, okay? We might need the money.”
I looked around at the tables filled with pies and hoped that I was wrong about the whole thing.
“Attention, Blue Jays!” called Melanie over a microphone that someone had handed her. “I’d like to welcome everyone to our first annual Pie Throw!” Some kids clapped and whooped. “I want to remind everyone that the pies you throw will be for a good cause. Our fighting Blue Jays are still on a winning streak but freezing their buns off during this cold weather! So hand over that money, pick up a pie, and cream your favorite teacher!”
A few kids clamored in front of Melanie to buy a pie, but so far, it looked like only Coach Fleck had volunteered to be a target. I watched Melanie work the crowd so easily, making students laugh and goading them into buying double the amount of pies they had intended. She wore a chocolate-colored derby and her eyes were bright with the thrill of having accomplished something wonderful. I wondered, for the first time, why she wore hats every day. Were they some sort of security blanket for her, like hiding behind glasses or extremely long hair?
Cooper came out of the kitchen with more pies, and when he saw Melanie working the crowd, a smile spread across his face, and I felt a pang in the pit of my stomach.
“And now,” Melanie announced after Jared had collected even more money, “it’s time for Coach Fleck to assume the position!”
Coach Fleck put his head through the wooden hole of the man in the suit. Quarterback Michael Rutter missed Coach Fleck with his first throw. “I expect more from you, Rutter!” Coach Fleck taunted. The guys around Michael laughed and shoved him, and Michael looked more serious when he pulled back his pie arm and chucked the next pie with more force. This time, it landed square on Coach Fleck’s face. He looked stunned, but then licked the cream off the sides of his mouth and laughed. “Pretty good!”
Another football player shoved Michael aside for his shot at Coach Fleck, and although he grazed Coach with the first hit, his other two splattered on the board beside him.
As more guys hit Coach Fleck, each seemed to hit him harder and harder. From where I stood it looked like it hurt, but Coach Fleck never let on. He decided to take a break (the football players booed him) and then something inexplicable happened. Mrs. Miller, a stocky woman who taught economics and wore outdated glasses, got behind the faceless bikini woman. All the guys started whooping wildly, running up to the tables to hand over their money. I had a bad feeling in my stomach, but when I looked at Melanie, she wore the same ecstatic expression beneath her brown derby. Wade Lazcano stepped up, and he threw his pie at Mrs. Miller with such force you’d think he was pitching for the Rangers. The pie didn’t just hit Mrs. Miller right in the face, but it knocked her glasses off, landing them on the floor in a puddle of cream.
Mrs. Miller tried to laugh, but she pulled her head out of the hole and said to the jeering crowd, “I think that’s all this old woman can handle!” I felt horrible for her as she came around to the front of the bikini woman to pick up her glasses, but I gasped as she bent down and Wade nailed her in the butt with another pie.
The crowd cried, “Oooo!” Melanie playfully reprimanded Wade, but she was laughing, too. Then Ms. Jenkins came over and warned Melanie in a stern voice that I could barely hear over the crowd, “Melanie, keep this under control!”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said while wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Y’all, seriously!” she called to the crowd. “Be nice!”
With everyone crowding around the pie table to get a better view of the smashing, Shawn Foster shoved Donnie Schaffer into the pies, and Donnie landed with his arm covered in cream. Shawn laughed, but Donnie picked up the ruined pie and held it threateningly at Shawn.
“Dude, don’t even.” Shawn laughed. They were barely arm’s length apart, but Donnie pulled back his arm and smashed the pie into his friend’s face; that was all the crowd needed. After that, it was total pie pandemonium.
Pies flew everywhere. People just started grabbing them from the tables and hitting anyone who was close by. The teachers, who had been huddled against the wall, scrambled out the door, apparently feeling no need to step in and stop the chaos. Mrs. Weeks screamed, “Children! Please!” while Coach Fleck roughly grabbed the players he could reach by their arms. Their fellow teammates saved them by smacking pies right on top of Coach Fleck’s head. Ms. Jenkins stomped toward Melanie in her sensible low heels but slipped on the creamy mess, landing with a thud. I ducked from pies that flew like bullets across the room and made my way over to her.
“Are you okay?” I called to Ms. Jenkins over the fray. Her face blazed with anger. I tried to help her up but her heels slipped and down she plopped again.
Coach Ryan came to help her up, and she made a pained expression as he did so. Melanie was screaming at the people around her to stop.
Ducking pies as I went, I grabbed Melanie’s upper arm; she whirled around to face me. “What?” she demanded, her eyes wild, and I wondered if she had any measure of composure left in her.
“Melanie, get the microphone! You’ve got to make everyone stop!”
Her eyes finally seemed to see me, and they were filled with tears. I thought she was going to ask for my help, but instead she yelled, “I can do this by myself!” Someone behind her called her name, and when she turned around she was greeted with a pie right to her head, knocking her chocolate-brown derby to the cream-slicked floor. Melanie let out a horrid scream, as if a wig had been removed to reveal a bald head.
With splatters of pie all over me, I bent down to pick up her ruined hat. When I handed it to her, her hands were shaking. She pulled the hat down tight over her head. And as the cafeteria sunk further and further into chaos, Melanie briefly took in the scene, then shoved past me and ran out the doors.
BLUE JAYS . . .
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
P-Day at Angus
BY NICOLE JEFFRIES
A fierce and unexpected battle raged during what should have been a joyous, generous fund-raiser last week. Friday was P-Day (Pie Day) at Angus, and our cafeteria, like the bloodied beaches of Normandy, became a bona fide battlefield. This time, though, pies were the weapon of choice, along with a heavy artillery of sexism, not to mention outright disregard for authority.
The first annual Pie Toss, brainchild of inexperienced president Melanie O’Hare, was supposed to be a chance for the eighth-grade student council to raise money in a unique and spirited way, and to leave their mark on their class for years to come. But instead of raising money for the football team’s much-needed warm-up suits, this year’s council made its mark by being the first-ever fund-raiser to actually lose money.
The ill-fated Pie Toss began ominously, with Coach Fleck taking a hard hit to the face by his own quarterback, Michael Rutter. As if that and the bikini-clad female cutout weren’t bad enough, things spiraled further out of control, finally erupting in absolute anarchy that not even Ms. Jenkins could control. Ms. O’Hare herself ran out of the cafeteria, leaving her mess behind for others to clean up. It wasn’t until school custodian Mickey Shroud stretched a water hose from the kitchen and sprayed down the students that any order was restored.
Although Jared Hensley collected a stack of money prior to the outbreak, all money has been ordered back to the school to repay the extensive damages the cafeteria suffered, not to mention the cost of the pies purchased for throwing, which were bought at Ms. O’Hare’s discretion at Sugar Pie’s Bakery.
School damages include two ruined cash registers, two speakers, a microphone, the American flag, plus additional cleaning needed for the floor and windows.
Furthermore, two students were injured, both by slipping on the floor—cheerleader April DeHart sprained her wrist, and seventh grader Cory Atkinson cracked his elbow. Even our own principal, Ms. Jenkins, suffered a broken tailbone. Coach Ryan, never one to leave a soldier behind, quickly came to help Ms. Jenkins off to safety while dodging pies like so many German bullets on those beaches of Normandy.
We can only hope that Ms. O’Hare has learned the painful lesson that our own principal learned—that rushing into a situation before considering the outcome will lead to disastrous consequences.
“This is so good,” I said to Cooper a week after the pie toss as we sat on his trampoline, huddled in blankets and sipping Mexican hot chocolates his mom had brought out. The school paper lay between us, and I nudged it away from me with my blanket-covered toe. I took another sip of the rich, chocolatey drink, feeling it slip through me, sending immediate comfort through my veins. I couldn’t help but think that however Melanie was feeling at that exact moment, a sip of this would make her feel one iota better.
Cooper sat next to me on the trampoline, staring off toward the back of his house, not really listening. He’d been different since the pie toss—very quiet, almost pensive. Sad, I guess. I wondered what was going on between him and Melanie. Not that he ever talked about her around me, but there was something new in his silence that made me a little bit worried for him.
Melanie, on the other hand, had turned her massive failure into a big joke, laughing loudly with anyone who teased her about the pie debacle. Her locker had been decorated with pictures of pies cut out from magazines, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was the one who’d put them there.
As for how she acted toward me, she did nothing more than walk past me silently on the bus.
“Hey,” I said to Cooper. “You there? How’s Melanie really handling this whole thing?”
He turned his eyes down to the inside of his mug and shrugged. “I don’t know. She blew up at me on Friday and hasn’t really talked to me since.”
“Why’d she blow up at you?”
“Said I let her take the fall alone.”
“But she’s president,” I said. “And it was her idea.” It was both the wonderful and the totally worst thing about being boss—good or bad, it all came down to you. Like, you could spar with the best and have the most amazing coach and cut-man and promoter and whatever else, but everything that goes on in that ring is all down to you.
“I didn’t try to argue with her, and she hasn’t talked to me since.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, wondering how far I could tread without upsetting Cooper any more than he already was. “Because it seems like she’s talking to everyone else about it. Every time I pass her she’s joking about what a beautifully spectacular event it was. I heard her tell Shawn Keane that it was worth getting in trouble for.”
Still staring into his mug, Cooper said, “I’m not even sure we’re still together.”
Cooper looked absolutely miserable. His shoulders were all slumped, and his eyes looked heavy and burdened. I wanted to at least put my hand on his knee, pat his back or something, but I didn’t want to spook him again. Plus, I was still detoxing myself of those feelings I’d had of him. I expected to make a full recovery.
“Why do you say that?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Can you still be together when you haven’t talked in a week?” Cooper’s cheeks flushed pink, and I could tell he was getting riled up. “She won’t answer when I call, she doesn’t return my texts or e-mails, and she totally avoids me at school. I left her a note in her locker, you know, just telling her that the pie toss was a good idea, but I’m not even sure that’s what she wants to hear, because you’re right, she does joke all the time to everyone but me about what happened.” Cooper let out a deep breath, then sipped his hot chocolate.
I wanted to tell him that it was really crappy of Melanie to be so mean to him. He’d never done anything but be nice to her. I understood that she was feeling low—who could understand better than me?—but I also learned, the hard way, that you can’t take your anger out on innocent people. Which made me realize, with a pang to my heart, that Melanie and I had both misused Cooper’s generosity. I had been no better to Cooper than Melanie was being to him now, and that made me feel ashamed.
When I looked out toward our street, I noticed a red dot bobbing down the sidewalk. I nudged Cooper. “Melanie,” I said.
As he turned to look, there was a pained, hopeful look in his eyes. She turned up his driveway, and Cooper tossed the rest of his hot chocolate on the ground, then dropped the mug on the dead grass.
“Want me to leave?” I asked, but Cooper didn’t say anything. When I scooted to the edge of the trampoline to get down, Melanie was close enough to say to me, “You don’t have to go.” I sat back, wondering what she would say. She was wearing her magic red hat, and I wondered why she needed it today.
She stood before the trampoline, looking between the springs for a moment. “I figured you’d both be here,” she said, and I wondered if I heard an accusing tone in her voice. She looked up at Cooper, but quickly turned her attention back to the springs. “So anyway,” she said quickly, “I guess that’s it then.” For a moment she didn’t say anything more, and I wondered if she was talking about him or the student council. Melanie looked at me, her clear brown eyes boring straight into mine before she again turned back to the springs. “I’m done. I have about as much to do with the student council now as you do,” she finally said.
My heart raced. “You can’t quit. That’s what everyone expects you to do.”
She rolled her eyes, and I could tell she was only feigning indifference. “I wish. Mrs. Peoria actually thinks I did it just to get kicked off. Everyone knew I didn’t want to be president. Mrs. P said she wasn’t about to go through the trouble to replace me, but she did take away all my power.” Melanie laughed at this. “Whatever, I don’t care. She’s right—I didn’t want to be president. You know that.”
I realized so many things at once. That Melanie used to always gloss over her problems with a smile and a joke, but twice now she had faced them—now, and when she’d appr
oached me on the bus. And I didn’t even recognize her bravery in doing this.
I also realized, fully and finally, that I had forced Melanie into a position she’d never wanted any part of, a position I knew she wasn’t cut out for. My own need for power and success at any price not only led to my own downfall, but it also put Melanie in this position now. “Melanie,” I began, “I’m really sorry about everything. I never should have asked you to—”
“It’s fine, whatever,” she interrupted. “It was fun for a couple of weeks, and what better way to go out than with P-Day? I mean, I couldn’t have hoped for a better ending.” Even as she spoke, I could tell she was lying, even if she didn’t know it.
Finally, she looked at Cooper. So did I. My heart raced for him. He look petrified, like he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile, and my stomach clenched at what was coming next. I wished I was anywhere but there. “Coop,” she said. She tossed her hair off her shoulder, and I knew she was pretending like it was no big deal. “Look, I’m sorry but . . . you know.” She plucked the springs with her fingernail. “Thanks for, um, being cool and everything.”
Cooper sat with his eyes scrunched up, his mouth hanging slightly open.
“So anyway,” Melanie said definitively. “I guess I’ll see y’all around.” She gave us each one last look, then turned around and walked off.
It wasn’t until she’d turned back onto the road that Cooper seemed to find his voice. “What,” he said, “was that?” He stood up on the trampoline and strained his neck to get a better view of her. “Did she just break up with me? Is that what that was?” I didn’t know if he actually wanted me to respond, so I kept my mouth shut. Yeah, she hadn’t handled it perfectly, but at least she had tried. Cooper looked down at me and asked, “Is it?”