Ninth Grade Blues

by Bruce Ingram

The movie was something I would never have gone to on my own or with friends. I don't even remember the name of it. It was something about two guys getting revenge for something that had been done against them; I'm not sure what it was, maybe I missed that part of the movie...my attention span was sort of clicking on and off. So the two guys went about blowing up stuff that belonged to the bad guys and then at the end of the movie, the good guys and the bad guys had this long, boring hand-to-hand fight with lots of things smashed over heads and bodies. And the good guys killed the bad guys. Yeah, right, nobody saw that coming, right? The only thing that amazed me was that the whole thing was PG-13; the reviewers must have fallen asleep during the movie like I almost did.

  So after the movie was over, the boys wanted to go get milkshakes, and I felt like I had to force feed myself a single dip mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. Then on the way home, the boys wanted to talk about how great the movie was and then the conversation turned to football and we ended up at my house. The best thing that happened all night was that all the lights were out at my house, and I had been worried all night that they wouldn't be. Paul opened the car door for me then gave me this long, sloppy, rough kiss on the lips, so my first kiss from a boy really wasn't what I would call life changing. It was sort of blah like the whole evening.

  Three days later, Paul texted me and asked if I would like to double date again when we got back to school, that there was another great movie coming out. I can't even remember the name of it. I lied to him and said my parents saw me leave the car and I was grounded for a month...maybe we could go out again after that. That lie just blurted out from my mouth. I didn't even plan it or anything. Now who I am going to lie to next time—Paul or my parents or both—when that month is over, and Paul asks me out again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Marcus

  My second semester is off to a fantastic start...things couldn't be going better! When I got back to school on Monday, first up was Ms. Hawk's class. She said we were ready to start Romeo and Juliet, and did she have any volunteers for the two main characters. I raised my hand first and said that Camila and me would play the parts, and Ms. Hawk said that would be great. I looked over at Camila after I said that, and she sort of looked away, showing how shy she is. I like for a girl to be shy and submissive around me; it shows that she knows I'm in charge and that she trusts me to make good decisions.

  After class, I asked Camila if she would come to the game Tuesday night and root me on and could she wear the sweater to school on Tuesday that I got her for Christmas and again on Tuesday night. That Joshua and Jordan were going to take me home, and maybe the four of us could go somewhere after the game and get a quick bite or something. She said she didn't know if her parents would let her go out on a school night, and she said the sweater was very nice and thanked me for it again. That she would let me know in first period Tuesday about going to the game and all. I know her dad really likes me, she told me that, so I expect we're on for tomorrow night. Got to tend to the ladies, you know.

  Things kept getting better and better throughout Monday. At practice that afternoon, Coach Henson put me with the starting unit while we were doing our drills, and I stayed with them the whole time. Then when practice was over for the day, he told me I would be starting at shooting guard Tuesday night and to get plenty of rest because we were going to have a tough game against Springfield. If you ask me, I should have been starting long ago, but at least give credit to Coach Henson for finally wising up. Coach Dell never used me the right way during football season, especially in the last few games.

  Tuesday morning, Camila told me her parents wouldn't let her go out on a school night, but thanked me "very much" for asking her, and I said I understood but I was still disappointed. Then I asked her why she didn't have my sweater on like I had asked her, and she said that it didn't match her outfit for the day. I said to be sure to wear it tomorrow, no sweat, that it would go good with that short little blue mini-skirt of hers.

  Tuesday night, there's no other way to say it, but I dominated all night long. Quentin and me were in rhythm all night long, and we were in sync from the get-go. Right off the tip, Quentin fed me for a baseline three, and I was just warming up. The next trip down the floor, I drove hard to the basket and made this beautiful up and under move that posterized, absolutely posterized, their power forward. I mean I made that dude look silly.

  By halftime, I had sixteen points, Quentin had seven assists, and we were up by five, which should have been more, but Springfield's shooting guard got some lucky bounces on a couple of threes. I have to tell you that Coach Henson took me out for about four minutes halfway through the second quarter, or I would have had even more points. Coach Henson barked at me and said I wasn't focusing enough on defense and letting my man get by me too much. Man, I can't play all-star style offense and defense all the time. I'm carrying the team on offense—get real, Henson.

  Anyway, when the second half started, I came out on fire. I mean I really lit up the crowd—Camila should have been there to see me. It all started when Quentin and me got out on a 2-on-1 break, and I slammed that sucker down with authority and the crowd just went wild...absolutely, freaking maniac-type wild. The next time down, I was feeling it and shot a long three, but it rimmed out, but our center Eric tapped it in, and we were up by 9, and we never looked back. I poured in three more threes, made a one-handed slam on a fast break, and ended up with 29 points and we won by 13.and it wasn't that close. In case there were any scouts in the crowd, I even worked on my passing, feeding Eric and Quentin for buckets late in the fourth quarter. I mean, what a dominating performance.

  Wednesday morning in English class, Camila and me finally got to read our parts for the first time, and I could tell Ms. Hawk was impressed. I've got to tell you that that Old English writing of Shakespeare's is hard to read, and I don't know what the heck is going on in that play. But my life is going so great now, that I can put up with a little aggravation. Our next game is Friday night against Stephenson, and I'm planning to bust the 30-point barrier. I just may pour in 35; who knows, a 40-point night is possible with the way I'm playing.

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Mia

  On the way to school on Wednesday, Camila told me on the bus that she was going to break up with Marcus as soon as she got the chance, that she couldn't stand being "his lady" anymore. That he was absolutely smothering her with demands on what to wear and what to do and not once in the six weeks that they had been dating had he ever asked her about her thoughts or opinions on anything and it was just me, me, me with Marcus and everything that they did or talked about and he was stuck up and self-centered

  When Camila got started complaining it was, like, she couldn't stop. She complained about Marcus' ego and how she was tired of hearing about how much money he was going to make playing pro football and basketball and how hard it was going to be to juggle both sports at the same time, that somebody named Bo Jackson had done it and so could he..."no sweat." She said if she heard him say "no sweat" one more time to her, she would scream. Camila went on and on, and I thought, well, she and Marcus lasted six weeks, that's not bad; I wasn't sure they would last a month, and I knew it would be over between them in two months. But I didn't need to tell Camila all that, she had figured it for herself and that was good. Hannah, who was sitting behind us, was listening the whole time, and she said maybe Camila could give Marcus one more chance, and both Camila and I glared at her at the same time, and Hannah didn't say one more thing about second chances.

  Then Camila told me that she needed to find a guy like Luke, that she really liked the way the two of us operated together, and that we were a "really cute couple." I told her that Luke and I weren't a couple, that we weren't dating, that we just hung out together. And Camila said, "Oh, please, everybody can see you two are a couple, and the way you smile at each other all the time." Then she said, it was just a matter of time before Luke and I started to date, probably our sophomore year when my parents said I could date. All I
said was that I liked Luke a lot, and he was very sweet and we talked all the time.

  I didn't want to say anything more, but I have to tell you that I've been thinking more and more about Luke and I going out on our first date and how great it would be. And I know it won't be until next year, but I confess that I worry some too that my poppa won't like me going out with a boy who's not Hispanic. I don't know how Mama would feel about that, but I think she would take my side if Poppa was against it. I wouldn't ever want to disobey my parents, but if I explained to them how sweet and wonderful Luke is, I think they would understand...at least, I hope so.

  Wednesday during lunch after we had gone through the line and gotten our food, Elly came up to us and asked if she could sit with us—that her "lunch bunch" of Paige and Mary were off sitting with their boyfriends. Of course we said sure— I really like Elly and would like to get to know her better. Paige wants to sit with Allen, and Mary sits with Ian and Paul and some of the other football players and Elly really didn't want to sit with a bunch of upperclassmen and their girlfriends. Then Hannah said she had heard that Elly had gone out with Paul over the break and asked how that had gone, and Elly groaned and said "don't ask," so we took it that she didn't particularly have a grand old time. So we went back to discussing what we had been talking about all through the lunch line, Camila's soon to come breakup with Marcus, and Hannah asked Elly what she thought, and she said now was not a very good time to ask her about dating and boys. That her first date, though she couldn't say it was "the pits," it really wasn't what you would call a "night filled with glamor."

  We all laughed at that, and it was right after that that Marcus came by our lunch table, and what happened next wasn't pretty. First, Marcus, asked why Camila wasn't wearing his sweater like he had asked, and Camila said she hadn't worn it yet. Then Marcus asked if she wanted to go out to Pizza Hut with Joshua and his girlfriend after the basketball game Friday night, and all Camila said was no. Then Marcus asked why not, and she said could they go somewhere and talk in private. Then Marcus got mad and said Camila could say whatever she wanted to say in front of us.

  I had never seen Camila act smart-alecky toward anyone before, she's really polite, but she said really sarcastic-like that she was glad he had finally given her permission to say something and what she wanted to tell him was that she was breaking up with him. He got this really shocked look on his face, and I thought he was going to try to talk her out of it at first, but then he said, "no sweat," there were other fish in the sea, and there were lots of other girls in this school that would love to go out with him. And he just turned and walked away.

  Elly then said if there was big-time drama like this every day at our table, maybe she had better go somewhere else to sit. And we all laughed, and I told Camila I was proud of the way she handled the whole dumping the guy thing, and even Hannah said that Camila could do better in the man department. Elly said we should celebrate our new quartet and Camila being single again with chocolate ice cream cones, which seemed like a pretty good idea to all of us. There's nothing better than chocolate when you've had a tense day.

  Two Weeks

  Later:

  Snow Day

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Luke

  Thursday in the library, Mia and I had finished up my math tutoring and were cruising the Internet before deciding what our next book club read was going to be. All day long, everybody had been talking about the weather forecast for Friday, and since Mia and I don't have cell phones we decided to check out weather.com for ourselves. The prediction showed that there was going to be three inches of snow Friday morning, which would be good enough to close school, but not so deep that would keep the kids from going to the mall on Friday afternoon and hanging out, which was why everybody seemed so excited about the snow coming.

  Mia and I studied the forecast and then I said that I didn't want to miss our book club meeting and would she mind walking to the library and us having our get-together. She said that would be awesome, that if it snowed her poppa wouldn't be able to go to his construction job, and he could babysit her sisters while she met me. We then figured out where we could meet about a mile from the library and that both of us would have to roughly walk about two or so miles to meet up. She said she could ask her mama to pick her up around 5:15 because she would have to be at work at the doctor's office no matter what. I said I didn't mind walking back home, that maybe I could even get some running in if the snow had melted off the sidewalks much. Then she squeezed my hand and told me thanks for wanting to get together like that, and I tell you when she does that and says things like that, it make me feel so good about myself like nothing else does.

  So we decided to meet at the junction of Salem Avenue and Main Street around 1:00 and that would give us about four hours of being together with both the mile-walk and reading time. We had never spent so much time together before, and I was so excited I got there at 12:30. I didn't mind waiting in the cold for her, and she must have been excited, too, because she was there by 12:40.

  We started off walking on the sidewalk, and it was pretty clear of snow, so we were just heading for the library and talking about all the possibilities for books to read that Mrs. Kendel and Ms. Hawk had suggested, and I was just so happy to be with her, and I could tell that she was so happy to be with me...and it was just great. Then this most amazing and wonderful thing happened. She slipped on some ice, which wasn't amazing and wonderful, but I caught her and kept her from falling, which was very good, and held her hand to sort of help her over a rough patch that was like twenty yards long, then the sidewalk cleared, but she didn't let go of my hand.

  We kept walking, and I stopped talking and I got nervous about still holding her hand because the sidewalk was really clear by then. And I think Mia could tell I was a little nervous about holding her hand, and all she said was "I like it," and then she squeezed my hand, and I held hers just a little bit tighter, and we walked the rest of the way there hann-hand. I haven't had a lot of things in my life to make me happy—no the word is euphoric, extremely happy—except having some really good days fishing and killing that doe last fall. But nothing ever has made me as happy, as euphoric, as walking along with Mia and holding her hand. I'm not what you would call a lady's man, I mean look at me. I've grown maybe an inch this school year, so I'm like 5'8" and 140—nobody's going to cast me as the leading man in a romance movie about high school kids.

  But there I was walking down Main Street with definitely the smartest girl in the ninth grade, definitely one of the prettiest, and in my opinion, she and Elly are definitely the sweetest girls in the whole class. And I'm holding her hand, it was freaking unbelievable... me with her. And she likes me for myself and cares about what I have to say and overlooks the fact that I'm as dumb as a board in math.

  We got to the library, and Mia got out the reading list that Mrs. Kendel and Ms. Hawk had helped with and on it were Grapes of Wrath, Things Fall Apart, Invisible Man, Black Boy, and As I Lay Dying. We decided to go online and read information about what all the books were about and then write down on a scratch sheet of paper what our top two choices were and see how they matched up. It was amazing, but both of us had Grapes of Wrath as our first choice, and I asked her why that was hers, and she said we had studied the 1930s earlier in the year and that she wanted to learn more about that time period, and I said that was why I picked it, too.

  So we each checked out a copy of Grapes of Wrath, and we sat together on a sofa in the back of the library, and for the next three hours, we read for a little while about the Joad family, then talked about what we had read for a little while, then sometimes talked about other things, and then the next thing we knew it was almost 5:00, and I said I had better go because I would barely have time to make it home before dark and there would be some slick patches on the sidewalk. And she said her mama would be there soon to pick her up. And we squeezed each other's hands one last time for the day, and I left. It was just about the best day of my life. No, it
was the best day of my life—even better than when I killed my first deer.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Elly

  I was still asleep when Mom came in to wake me up on Friday. I looked over at the alarm clock and it said 9:00 and then I looked out the window as Mom had just opened the blinds, and I could see that snow was still falling, so I quickly realized why she had let me sleep so late. Then she said that Daddy had left for work, and my brothers were still asleep and did I have anything I wanted to tell her about anything I had been doing recently. That she had run into Paul's mother yesterday evening at the grocery store when she decided to stock up on a few things before the snow came.

  I knew I was in big trouble, and Mom knew I knew, and then she said something like, "You can imagine my surprise when Paul's mother said her son really had a nice time going out with Elly the other night and hoped they could go out again real soon." So Mom asked me how was she to go about dealing with a statement like that, and did I have any recommendations for a response. Then, hurrying on and not yet giving me time to say something, Mom said that, interestingly, over Christmas, she had talked my father into letting me date second semester of my ninth grade year, that she had been impressed with my grades and maturity, and that the next time I asked if I could go out on a date, the answer was going to be yes. And then Mom asked had she "been in error" concerning her opinion on my maturity and that's when I burst into tears and buried my head into her lap and said I was so sorry.

  While I was crying, she asked if I had told any more lies, and I said yes, that I had told Paul that she and Dad had seen me come in late on our date and that I was grounded for a month. She laughed at that and then said that that statement was no longer a lie and that I was now "indeed," she said, grounded for a month, and that if the snow stopped and melted a little this afternoon, I would not be allowed to go to the mall or anywhere else. Mom then told me how much she loved me, that I had always been a responsible young lady and that she didn't expect any more "trouble." and I promised her that I would never again lie to her.