The Rookie Bookie

by L. Jon Wertheim

  I put out my hand to shake.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Isn’t betting, like, illegal?” Jamie asked, sounding uncertain.

  “You said your uncle Gary likes to bet on NFL games every Sunday.”

  “Yeah, but Uncle Gary lives in Las Vegas.”

  “Jamie,” I said, “who’s going to find out?”

  “Maybe it’s against school rules,” she said haltingly.

  “I don’t remember hearing anything about that,” I said. “And we’re not in school; we’re on the bus. Besides, when you lose, you can pay me outside of school if it makes you feel better,” I added with a grin.

  Jamie narrowed her eyes and looked at me, and then smiled. “Baltimore to win by more than four points? Deal.”

  We shook on it. (But not before she pretended to spit on her hand before shaking.) As our palms brushed together, I couldn’t help noticing that her hands were bigger, dirtier, and rougher than mine. I also couldn’t help noticing that she was carrying her leather notebook again.

  “What’s in that thing, anyway?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Promise not to tell anyone?”

  “Promise.”

  “You know how some people love to play violin or run or draw?”

  “Sure,” I said, thinking to myself, Or love to make money.

  “Well, I love to write,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like work, the way math or science does. Ideas and different ways to describe things come into my head, like, sort of naturally. So I try to write them down. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Cool,” I said. “You should try to write a book one day.”

  “Maybe I will,” she said.

  That Friday at school, we had something called a “pep rally.” I’d never seen anything like it. It was crazy. But it seemed totally normal for everyone else. The Jonasburg Regional High School football team was opening its season that night, and it was all anyone could talk about. A lot of store windows had “Go Jo” signs in them.

  I knew that Indiana was a big basketball state. Before we moved, Kevin and I saw the movie Hoosiers and watched basketball games of Indiana University (who my Mom grew up rooting for). We made Mom and Dad promise to take us to an Indiana basketball game, hopefully against Purdue—their rivals. Kevin already hated Purdue, and Mom and Dad had even been known to make a gently sarcastic comment about them (that was about as mean as they ever actually got).

  But the people here clearly liked their football, too. As we entered the gym for the pep rally, I realized I was the only person not wearing the school’s maroon and gold colors.

  “Where’s your school spirit?” Clint Grayson barked as he bumped my shoulder, sneering and looking genuinely upset. “This ain’t wherever the heck you came from, you know.”

  “No one told me—” I started to say, but Clint cut me off.

  “Do you know what we do around here with traitors?” he asked, laughing and looking at the kids next to him. Then he punched his left fist into his right palm, making a noise that sounded like an egg being cracked. Clint’s buddies laughed, and they all pushed past me.

  When everyone settled into their seats on the bleachers, Mr. Pearlman, the principal of the high school and the middle school, stood up. He looked like a duck as he walked in a waddling kind of way to the microphone.

  Mr. Pearlman looked even more nervous than usual. All the middle school and high school was there, and pretty much all their parents, too. And even though I was the new kid in town, I already knew that nobody really liked Mr. Pearlman, not even the teachers. Behind me, I overheard Mrs. Liu, the health teacher, whispering to one of the other teachers that he was a “bad communicator” and was “going to chase the good teachers off.”

  As Mr. Pearlman spoke in a serious voice, the speakers crackled and the sound echoed off the walls. He talked about “our proud tradition” and “our expectation of excellence.” It took me a second to realize that he wasn’t talking about the school itself—kids getting top grades or teachers doing a good job in the classroom or the library having enough books. He was talking about the football team. Boy, they take their sports seriously around here. And I could see what Mrs. Liu was talking about. He wasn’t very inspiring.

  As he went on about “a return to glory” and how “we all hope for a show of dramatic improvement,” I remembered what Jamie had said on the bus, about what sports announcers say and what they really mean.

  What Mr. Pearlman really meant was: The team stunk last year, and if we don’t get better, it will mean trouble.

  Coach Williams was next to speak, and he seemed a little nervous at first, nodding over at Mr. Pearlman. But then he started talking about the team and the season, and it was like a general from one of those army movies, talking passionately to the soldiers. “I can only put eleven guys on the field at once!” he said. “But there’s no limit to how many of you can support us from the bleachers! I want you to be our twelfth man!” I found myself nodding in agreement. Then, as I looked around, I saw that everyone else was nodding, too.

  Next, Coach Williams turned to his players. “I can’t promise we’ll win every game, but I can promise you this, guys,” he said, his face now turning red. “I’m gonna give you everything I got as a coach.”

  “Everything I got”? He meant “everything I have.” But I kept that to myself. The anti-annoyance pledge and all.

  “In exchange, I need you to give me everything you got as players. I’m gonna give one hundred and ten percent to make you better players. But you have to give each other one hundred and ten percent, too!”

  I wondered how anyone could give more than 100 percent. It’s not like there’s extra credit. I mean, 100 percent is the most you can possibly give, right? I kept this thought to myself, too.

  Coach Williams wasn’t through. “Iron sharpens iron! And you are going to sharpen each other!”

  Everyone cheered like crazy.

  Coach Williams then announced the players, and they stood one by one. Meanwhile the cheerleaders did these weird kicks. When Coach Williams got to Kevin, he called him a “California import.” I thought that made him sound like an avocado or something. But it still must have felt good to Kevin to get noticed like that. He stood up from his folding chair and raised his hand.

  “K-Dog!” someone yelled.

  How had he already gotten a nickname? Typical. People were still learning my real name.

  When Coach Williams was done, the band played the Jonasburg fight song. Everyone stood and the mood turned serious. I had no idea what the words were, so I faked it, trying to fit in. (If you mouth the word “watermelon” over and over, you can pretty much look like you know the words to any song.) But Clint, just a few seats down from me, saw what I was doing.

  “Remember what I said about traitors,” he hissed.

  CHAPTER 4

  IT PAYS TO KNOW THE SCORE

  That night, Mom, Dad, and I piled into the car and went to Kevin’s first game as an Indiana football player. Actually, it was his first game as a football player, period. But that didn’t stop him from being totally psyched, like he’d been living here all his life.

  The Jonasburg Whales opened the season against the Ikeville Eels. I wondered why two schools in the guts of America, hundreds of miles from an ocean, had sea creatures for mascots. Once again, I shared this thought with the only person who wouldn’t find it annoying—me.

  I walked into the stadium with my parents but hoped I wouldn’t have to sit with them. It wasn’t that they embarrassed me, but… well, okay, maybe they embarrassed me a little. Mom had come right from the studio and was wearing a denim jacket spattered with paint, and her head was wrapped in a rainbow-colored bandanna. Dad had on his leather jacket with tassels and a beret. Let’s just say they stood out from the other parents.

  We were passing the concession stand when I saw Ben Barnes, Avni Garg, and Jacob Alexander, all from my grade and all in the fantasy football league.
“Hey, Mitch!!” one of them yelled.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly a yell. I may have imagined those exclamation points. But that’s how it sounded to my ears. And it felt pretty good.

  I turned to my parents. Dad was already waving me off. “Go with your friends,” he said. “But unless you want to walk home, find us after the game.”

  “Got it.”

  As I left to sit with Ben, Avni, and Jacob, I could see Mom smiling. And I knew why.

  All summer I’d heard (and overheard) my parents whispering about “Mitch’s adjustment.” Kevin would be fine. It was me they were worried about. I got good grades, sure, but I couldn’t play sports. I annoyed people. I didn’t usually fit in.

  And now here I was, at my first football game, and people were yelling (or at least calling) my name. Mom figured I was making friends already. No drama, no problems. Take that, adjustment period!

  The mood turned sour, though, once the game started. Kevin caught three passes, which might sound like a lot, but they were the only three passes that Jonasburg completed. The quarterback, Neil Butwipe (I’m not making it up, that was really his name, though he claimed it was pronounced boot-wee-pay), was… let’s just say not that great. Over and over again, he would throw incomplete passes and the crowd would groan. (And can you imagine having “Butwipe” stitched in shining gold on the back of your jersey for every game?)

  “Aim the dang ball! Either that or move over and let someone else play quarterback!” yelled one woman—the backup quarterback’s mom, I bet.

  “Who’d he throw that to?” one man wearing a Jonasburg jacket yelled in frustration. “I have a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t suck this much.”

  Not bad trash talk. Jamie would be impressed. But even so, it wasn’t really nice or fair.

  In the first place, Neil was a kid, not a pro. Plus, it wasn’t all his fault. In history class we learned about non-aggression treaties, when one country agrees not to fight another. Jonasburg’s offensive line played like they had signed a non-aggression treaty with the other team. What’s that? You want to sack our quarterback? Why, go right ahead! Right this way! If there had been a stat for the number of grass stains on your uniform, Neil would have gotten game MVP honors.

  But the offensive line was only part of the issue. The real problem was something that the fans in the bleachers didn’t yell about, like they didn’t even notice it. But I did.

  Coach W. was making bad decisions. I mean, awful decisions.

  He was good at teaching players how to do things, whether it was throwing passes into the wind or tucking the ball into your body when you ran so the defense couldn’t strip it away. And he was a master motivator; I’d seen that at the pep rally. Kevin announced after his first practice that he would “run through a brick wall for that guy.”

  But the choices Coach Williams made out there on the field sometimes didn’t make sense. In the second quarter, Ikeville was leading 13–0. Jonasburg scored its first touchdown when Neil scrambled, couldn’t find an open receiver, and ran the ball into the end zone to make it 13–6. Instead of kicking an extra point, Coach Williams had the Whales try a two-point conversion, which didn’t make any sense. Even if the two-pointer had been successful, Jonasburg would be down by five and still need a touchdown to move ahead. Making a two-point conversion is a lot harder than kicking an extra point, so why do it if the benefit is basically the same as kicking the easier extra point? The two-point try failed when the Ikeville team gang-tackled poor Neil.

  Another time, Jonasburg had the ball at the Ikeville thirty-yard line and it was fourth down with two yards to go. Coach Williams had a choice: punt or go for it. He decided to punt, giving the ball back to Ikeville. Julio Haberberg, a shaggy-haired kid whose sister rode my bus, jogged onto the field. He took the snap and booted the ball—into the end zone. So Ikeville got the ball on the twenty-yard line and eventually scored seven plays later.

  Again, I disagreed with Coach W.’s choice. If Jonasburg had gone for it on fourth down, they might have kept the drive alive and had a chance to score. Coach W. was probably worried about not getting the two yards on fourth down and having to give the ball back to Ikeville. But by punting the ball he gave it back to them anyway. And only ten yards farther down the field than if he had tried and failed on fourth down. It seemed like Coach W. gave up a huge opportunity—trying to keep the ball and score—for a small cost of possibly giving the ball back to Ikeville, which he did anyway by punting!

  At halftime, I walked with Ben Barnes to the concession stand, where I ordered a pretzel and a large lemonade. Ben was tall and skinny and on the basketball team, and he ate the kind of stuff my mom would faint if she saw on my plate. Sure enough, he ordered something called an “Indiana taco.” It was a bag of corn chips that someone had opened up and filled with a heaping scoopful of beef, topped with cheese and sour cream.

  “Hey, health nuts,” came a voice from behind us.

  As I spun around, I could feel my face breaking into a smile.

  “Hi, Jamie,” I said. “How you doin’?”

  “I’d be doing better,” she said, “if Coach Williams had remembered to turn his brain on. What’s he thinking out there? Or, better yet, is he thinking?”

  Amazing.

  We had thought exactly the same thing. Other kids and parents were buzzing about how well Ikeville was playing or complaining about the Jonasburg quarterback. Jamie and I were the only ones to realize that Coach Williams wasn’t helping.

  “He should put lipstick on his head and make up his mind,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Get it? Lipstick? Make up his mind. Makeup?”

  “Ugh,” I said. “That’s a lame one.”

  “Why didn’t he go for it on fourth down?” yelled Jamie. “I mean, you knew that Julio would kick it as hard as he could and end up sending it into the end zone. He might as well have just handed them the ball.”

  “I know! And how about that two-point conversion call?” I exclaimed.

  “Don’t get me started,” said Jamie. “We would only have been down by six points, and if he had gone for it on fourth like he should have, we would probably be ahead by one point at halftime instead of down by two touchdowns!”

  I nodded. And even though we were losing, I couldn’t help but smile.

  In the end, Jonasburg lost 33–20. At some point Coach Williams got so frustrated he threw his clipboard into the air. Like most of his team’s passes, it hit the ground and bounced harmlessly away.

  The day after the game, Kevin and I both helped out Mom and Dad at the store. We painted a back wall and swept the floors and threw out broken shards of clay. Mom sold a painting in the morning, and Dad sold two flowerpots in the afternoon. Before Kevin ran off to a movie with his new flock of friends, Dad suggested we celebrate a successful day by having dinner as a family.

  “Good idea,” Mom said. “What do you guys want us to cook?”

  Mom and Dad took turns cooking dinner. It was a lot of tofu and salad and dishes our friends called “Hippie Food.” But, probably because we grew up eating it, Kevin and I never complained much. Actually, I bet most kids would prefer tofu to chicken fingers—which always sound gross to me—if they had a blind taste test.

  Before I could think about what to request, Dad piped up. “No cooking! We’re going out to eat tonight.”

  Going to a restaurant as a family? We hadn’t done that in a long time. Even when we drove halfway across the country to Indiana, Mom and Dad didn’t want us to eat fast food. Instead we’d find a local grocery store and make sandwiches in the car.

  “Why not?” Mom said. “I could use a night out. And, anyway, we should be celebrating.”

  Celebrating? I ran through everyone’s birthday in my head, making sure I hadn’t forgotten.

  “Celebrating what?” I asked.

  “How well it’s going for all of us in Indiana,” Mom said. “This was a big move. It was a real test for the whole family, and we’re
passing with flying colors.”

  I smiled a little as we got in the car. It was nice to see that Mom wasn’t worrying about me anymore.

  We ended up at Grisani’s, which claimed to have “The Finest Italian Cuisine in Jonasburg,” not bothering to add that it was also the only Italian cuisine in the town. As we studied our menus, I must have made a funny face.

  “What is it, Mitch?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why write on the menu ‘a heaping portion of delicious pasta’?”

  “That’s what I was going to order,” Mom said. “What could possibly be wrong with that?”

  “I’m sure nothing’s wrong with the food,” I said. “But why not just call it a plate of pasta and then serve me a lot, which would be a good surprise. When you call it ‘heaping,’ my expectations are going to be high. Then you add on ‘delicious.’ If my definitions of heaping and delicious aren’t their definitions of heaping and delicious, I’m going to be disappointed.”

  “If you can’t eat it all, bring the rest home in a doggie bag,” said Kevin, missing the point, as usual.

  But Mom got it. “That’s true, Mitch. I guess I do expect something really good.”

  “And the description made her want to order it, too. Isn’t that what a restaurant should do?” my dad asked.

  “No,” I said. “A restaurant wants you to come back. If your order is disappointing, then you probably won’t.”

  Everybody went back to their menus, but I hoped this idea would somehow stick in my parents’ heads when they went to their art store in the morning. Sometimes they describe the pieces in it as “beautiful” or “picturesque” or “scenic,” but if the customer doesn’t see them that way, they’re not going to buy anything or tell their friends about the store. I wish my parents understood these things better, since it was a big part of why we had to move in the first place. But we were having such a nice time that I decided to let it go.