Been There, Done That

by Mike Winchell

  The five adults leaned over his box. Parents and kids looked on. The creature didn’t twitch a whisker. Egberto’s heart sank.

  “Whew!” said the head judge. “This stinks.”

  “And it’s not alive,” the scientist said with a sneer. “Shall we go?” The group turned away.

  Sneakily, Robbie bumped the box. “Wait, what was that?” he said.

  “Your elbow,” said the head judge. “Sorry, Egberto. Not this year.”

  Egberto clamped his lips together and nodded, not trusting his voice. He wasn’t a scientist. He was just a kid who’d indulged in magical thinking. Really, what sane person would believe that a creature made of roadkill and homework could really come to life?

  The judges moved off, headed for Maya’s prizewinning project. Robbie patted his friend’s shoulder. “Tough luck, dude.”

  Egberto nodded, staring up at one of the high windows. Real scientists don’t cry, he reminded himself, even though he wasn’t a real scientist. Absently, he noticed the full moon rise into view. It shone onto his table.

  Robbie nudged him. “Come on. Let’s go make fun of other people’s projects.”

  Letting out a sigh, Egberto trudged after his friend. That was that. There would be no fourth-grade victory this science fair, no rubbing Maya’s nose in it. No A in science.

  He had failed.

  Fellow fourth-graders shot him looks of sympathy.

  Egberto and Robbie had almost reached Maya’s station when the screams started. They turned.

  Kids and parents pushed and shoved, trying to get away from a station down the row. Egberto’s station.

  “Run!” cried a teacher. “It’s alive, it’s alive!”

  A quiver shot through Egberto’s limbs. His heart hammered.

  Could it be . . . ?

  An unearthly yowl filled the multipurpose room. Screams answered it. The crowd surged for the exits, carrying the boys along like twigs in a flood tide.

  Egberto fought against the crowd. He jumped as high as he could, straining for a glimpse. What he saw chilled and thrilled him simultaneously.

  Swollen to three times its size by the moon’s magic, his squatcoon had reared up onto its hind legs. The creature howled and raked its claws at the mob, terrifying and triumphant.

  And then the crowd swept Egberto onward.

  Just before he was pulled out the door, Egberto happened to catch Maya Jackson’s eye. She was scowling like someone had just sat on her birthday cake. He smiled at her.

  Egberto turned to Robbie. “And that,” he said as they spilled outside, “is how you win a science fair.”

  Sarah Prineas

  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

  GRRRRL POWER

  It’s okay for girls to play soccer, right? Or to have short hair? It’s okay for girls to wear raggedy jeans, to run fast, to build tree forts in the woods, to shout loudly?

  When I was a girl, back in the 1970s, one of the things that was a big deal was Women’s Lib. It included a potential change to the US Constitution, the Equal Rights Amendment, which meant basically that women would be treated equally to men under the law. It didn’t pass, but it did show that things were changing in our society. Earlier in our history, women were, for the most part, playing traditional roles—homemaker, mother, grandmother—and if they worked, it was in lower-paying jobs like secretary or housecleaner or preschool teacher.

  So things were changing for women—and for girls, too. For everybody, really, and change is hard for a lot of people. A girl like me—a girl who wore holey jeans and soft, worn flannel shirts and had short hair and liked to play soccer—a girl like me was called a tomboy. What a stupid word, tomboy, as if an active girl isn’t really a girl at all. Anyway, because I was a tomboy, I had run-ins with some people who thought girls should be ladylike and proper, “sugar and spice and everything nice.”

  My biggest enemy was the gym teacher at my school, Mr. Wasilenko. The boys called him “Waz.” He was a former army sergeant, I think, a tough guy. He had brush-cut dark hair and lots of muscles; he wore buttoned-up polo shirts, black sneakers that squeaked on the shiny gym floor, and a whistle around his neck. And he did not think girls should be tomboys.

  Now, I knew my way around a basketball court. I’d started playing soccer in the town league before there was a girl’s team. I was the kickball queen at recess. But then there was gym class.

  Back in those days, girls were supposed to wear bloomers when doing anything athletic. Not shorts! You probably don’t even know what a bloomer is. Bloomers are like puffy skirt-shorts with elastic around the legs. So I was supposed to wear these horrible blue bloomers for gym. And while the boys played basketball, the girls were supposed to jump rope or sit on the benches at the side of the gym and watch the boys. It was really unfair.

  I would like to tell you that this story has a happy ending. I wish I could say that I protested, that I went up to Mr. Waz and told him that I wanted to play basketball, too, and that he realized what a mistake he’d made, and let all the girls play basketball if they wanted to.

  But I was just one skinny ten-year-old girl. I was a little scared of tough Mr. Waz.

  So I never said anything. I kept quiet, like a good girl. And I never got to play basketball during gym class.

  Sarah Prineas

  THE STORY

  FRANNY'S CHALLENGE

  Along with every other junior high and senior high student in the school, I am sitting on the bleachers in the gym. That’s almost three hundred people, plus all the teachers. We’ve been sitting here for an hour, and the gym has been getting hotter and stuffier, and everybody is getting more and more bored.

  Mr. Bazinet, standing in the middle of the shiny basketball court with a clipboard, is running the show. Next to him stands my friend DaShae, who is reading her summer project report about volunteering for ten days at a soup kitchen in Chicago. Her voice is a monotone. Around me, students are whispering and slouching and generally not paying any attention.

  I’m up next.

  My best friend, Pip, sits beside me. “Are you nervous?” he whispers.

  I nod. My butt is sore from sitting on the bleachers for so long, and I have a feeling like—you know when you have a balloon filled with helium and you let it go and it flies around the room squealing as all the air comes out?

  Pip reaches over and takes my hand in his.

  It keeps me from flying around the room squealing, at least.

  Finally DaShae finishes reading her boring report and hands the microphone back to Mr. Bazinet. Rolling her eyes with relief, she finds her place again among the students in the bleachers.

  Mr. Bazinet checks his clipboard. When he speaks, his voice booms out of the microphone. “And now for the last seventh-grade summer project report . . .” He flips a page. “Franny Prendergast presents the Girl Project.”

  Pip gives my hand a squeeze and lets me go.

  I get to my feet and climb over him and a couple of other kids to get to the aisle, and then I go down to the basketball court. My sneakers squeak on the shiny floor as I cross to the center, where Mr. Bazinet hands me the microphone.

  I look around. The bleachers are packed. Teachers are leaning against the walls. I see Pip, and a clump of football boys, and DaShae and my other friends, and then they blur together into one big, bored group that isn’t going to listen to me.

  My heart is pounding so hard it’s almost making my whole body shake.

  “The Girl Project,” I say, and my voice, high and nervous-sounding, echoes in the gym. “This summer I learned ten things about being a girl, and I’m going to tell them to you now.”

  I take a deep breath.

  I have my ten things, but they seem like a boring list with hard words like gender stereotypes, and equality, and sexism, and nobody’s going to pay any attention. I shake my head.
>
  Okay.

  “Here is what I know,” I say.

  Girls are supposed to be skinny, I tell them. Girls are supposed to be curvy. Girls are supposed to wear makeup and nail polish and bikinis. Girls are supposed to like things that are pink and sparkly. Real girls are girly-girls. Every girl wants to date the quarterback of the football team. Girls are cheerleaders. But girls can grow up to be doctors or firefighters or plumbers or anything they want to be. The greatest athlete of all time, Babe Didrikson, was a girl.

  “Don’t be bossy,” I tell them.

  “Don’t be loud.” And my voice echoes off the gym walls.

  “Be ladylike.

  “Be quiet.

  “Be a good girl.

  “What a mess,” I say.

  Mess . . . mess . . . mess echoes in the gym.

  “We have to do something about this,” I tell the entire school, “because it’s not fair.”

  Everybody, to my surprise, is paying attention. Sitting up, leaning forward. They may not be interested; they may just be waiting to see if I get in trouble. But they are listening.

  “We can do the Girl Project all the time,” I go on. “We can notice when things aren’t fair, and we can do something about it.”

  I look into the crowd and catch Pip’s eye. He is staring at me with laser intensity. He gives me a little nod that means, Do it.

  Before, I wasn’t sure I was going to do this, but now I am.

  I think of something that once happened to the great athlete Babe Didrikson, who won Olympic medals for track and was an amazing basketball player and golfer. This boy named Red Reynolds, who was the star of the football team at her high school, challenged Babe to a boxing match. He told Babe to hit him as hard as she could, and he boasted, “You can’t hurt me.” He figured she wasn’t tough enough.

  Because she was a girl.

  “I have a challenge,” I tell everybody in the entire school. “Because there’s something that’s not fair right here in this gym, and we can do something about it.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Mr. Bazinet interrupts, and reaches over to take the microphone from my hand. “You need to go sit down now.”

  I step away. “No,” I say into the microphone. “It is my turn to talk. I am talking now, and you have to listen.”

  “Go get him, Franny!” shouts a voice from the crowd.

  I feel a surge of strength. This is the basketball court. This is my place.

  “We can do the Girl Project right now,” I tell them.

  I point to the huge painting of a blue-and-gold horse on one wall of the gym, over a basketball hoop. “Our team name is the Stallions,” I say. I point to my own shirt. “The girls’ teams are the Lady Stallions, right?”

  “I assume you have a point, Miss Prendergast,” Mr. Bazinet interrupts, and makes another grab for the microphone.

  I step away from him again. “Lady Stallions,” I repeat. “Lady Stallions? What does that even mean?”

  A couple of people in the crowd laugh, and there are some mutters.

  “A stallion is a boy horse. I mean, by definition it is,” I say. “So how can you have a lady boy horse? It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “No!” somebody shouts from the crowd, and a couple of other people join her. There’s more muttering and shifting. They’re not convinced, I can tell.

  “So here’s my challenge,” I say, turning to face Mr. Bazinet, who is standing with his big arms folded, his face going red. “We change our team name to something more fair.”

  Mr. Baz shakes his head. He holds out his hand for the microphone, but I shake my head and keep my distance, because I know that once he has it, he won’t give it back.

  He speaks loudly so everybody in the gym can hear him. “Our team has been the Stallions for as long as we’ve had a school here. The name stays the same.”

  “The name stays the same,” a boy shouts. The voice sounds like this kid on the football team named Kent.

  “The name stays the same,” a couple more people chant, and not just boys, either.

  “Okay,” I tell Mr. Bazinet. “Then I challenge you. I will shoot foul shots against any boy you choose, and if he wins, the name stays the same, and if I win, we get a new team name.” I grip the microphone. He could so easily say no, and it’ll be all over. “Deal?” I push.

  I see Mr. Baz thinking it over. He narrows his eyes, looking me up and down, and I know what he sees—a twelve-year-old girl with short hair, wearing a skirt and basketball sneakers. I blink, trying to look harmless and sweet and . . . girly.

  “The name stays the same,” a group continues to chant, and I hear others telling them to shut up, and arguments and cheers.

  Mr. Bazinet holds up a big hand, and slowly the gym falls silent.

  I can see what he’s thinking. He’s going to put me in my place. I’m sure to lose, and that will show me. Slowly, he nods.

  “Kent,” he says with a nod toward the bleachers. “Get up here.” He points at a teacher. “Get a ball.”

  • • •

  The gym is silent. The air is hot and stuffy. Kent and I are at the foul line. He’s a foot taller than I am and twice as heavy. He’s wearing a Stallions football jersey and a ball cap covering his red hair, and slouchy jeans and sneakers. He’s the center on the boys’ varsity basketball team, and he’s good.

  I am good, too, but he might be better.

  “The first to make five baskets wins,” Mr. Bazinet’s voice booms from behind us. He hands the basketball to Kent and then steps aside.

  Kent turns and gives me a fake bow. “Ladies first,” he says with a sneer, holding out the ball.

  “No, thank you,” I say sweetly. “You go ahead.” I give him a big smile.

  “Fine, since you’re not a real lady, anyway,” Kent says, and, shouldering me aside, he steps up to the foul line. “And,” he adds, “you’re going to lose.”

  He has a half grin on his face as he toes the line, bounces the ball once, and in a smooth, practiced move, takes his first foul shot.

  Swish.

  A bunch of people in the gym cheer loudly. Mr. Bazinet gives a smug-looking nod.

  Kent retrieves the ball and passes it to me, throwing it just a little too hard. My hands sting as I catch it.

  And I remember that Kent won a state tournament basketball game last year by making two foul shots in the last few seconds. He can handle the pressure. I’m not sure that I can.

  My hands shaky, I start my foul-shot routine. Every basketball player has one. Carefully I line up my toes with the edge of the foul line. I bounce the ball three times without looking at the hoop, and bend my knees. I bounce again and look up at the hoop. Then a deep breath to settle myself, and I shoot.

  My nervousness has made me tight, and as the ball leaves my fingertips it feels wrong.

  The ball bounces on the rim and falls away.

  Miss.

  I hear Kent’s triumphant shout, and some laughs from the crowd. One of the football players shouts, “Nice shot, Franny.”

  “One for Kent, zero for Franny,” Mr. Bazinet says into the microphone.

  Trying to shut out the noise, I fetch the ball and pass it to Kent.

  He lines up, and, making it look easy, makes his second basket.

  Smiling as if he’s already won, he passes me the ball.

  I do my routine, trying to stay loose, relaxed. I shoot.

  Swish.

  “Two for Kent, one for Franny,” Mr. Baz says.

  Then Kent lines up, does his one-bounce routine, and . . .

  . . . he misses.

  There’s a loud groan from one section of the bleachers; a few people cheer or clap, almost all girls.

  Kent shrugs and passes me the ball, and I step up to the line. I do my routine.

&n
bsp; Swish.

  Kent steps up to the foul line. He oh-so-carefully lines up his toes. He bounces the ball three times without looking at the hoop. Then he gives me a sly look and bends his knees.

  It takes me a second, but then I see what Kent’s doing. He’s making fun of my foul-shot routine.

  He bounces the ball again and looks at the hoop, and then he gives a little butt-waggle.

  I don’t do that.

  He gives an exaggerated sigh—imitating my deep breath, I guess—and shoots the ball.

  Swish.

  Grrr.

  But it’s first one to make five baskets. It won’t be long now.

  And it’s time to reveal the next part of my plan. Like Mr. Baz, I hold up my hand for silence. The crowd stills. “If I win, we’re changing our team name to something more fair. I think this would be a good one.” Carefully, I strip off my Lady Stallions T-shirt to reveal the shirt I’m wearing underneath.

  Pip came up with the name, and he made the shirt. In big letters, the blue-and-gold T-shirt says Mighty Dragons, and there’s a picture of a fire-breathing dragon in the center. There are some cheers, and some groans, and some clapping. Catching sight of Pip in the bleachers, I give him a grin, and he grins back.

  I pick up the ball and do my routine, adding a little butt-waggle just for Kent, which makes a couple of people in the crowd laugh, and then I shoot.

  The ball bounces on the rim and then drops through the net.

  Kent three, Franny three.

  The gym erupts in cheers. “You go, girl!” somebody shouts.

  Kent steps up to the line. He’s not half-smiling anymore; he looks mad. He does his one-bounce routine, he eyes the hoop, he shoots . . .

  . . . and he misses.

  Somebody in the crowd screams, and there’s yelling and jeers.

  “Settle down, settle down,” booms Mr. Baz.

  Kent passes me the ball. I line up to take my shot. I’m just about to shoot, when he gives a loud, fake sneeze, trying to distract me.

  I hold on to the ball.

  “Knock it off, Kent,” comes a voice from the bleachers. I look over and can’t believe it; it’s a football player named Max, a good friend of Kent’s. He’s standing tall, and he nods at me and smiles.