The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco

by Janice Repka

  Phillip shook his head.

  “Your great-grandparents on your father’s side of the family were turnip farmers. They were sensible people, hoping to raise your grandfather to be a sensible man. They taught him that ‘the early bird catches the worm’ and ‘a penny saved is a penny earned.’ They took him to turnip-farming conventions and bought him books about crop rotation and soil conditions.

  “One day your grandfather was riding in the back of the truck on the way to market with a load of turnips. They hit a bump in the road, and your grandfather fell off the turnip truck. In the distance, he saw a circus tent. It was your grandfather’s eighteenth birthday. He looked at his parents’ turnip truck rumbling down the dusty road. He looked at the colorful tent. Your grandfather got the last ticket for the afternoon show. There he fell in love at first sight with the lion tamer’s daughter.”

  Phillip guessed, “Grandma Maybell?”

  “That’s right,” said Aunt Veola. “He joined the circus, and they got married. Your grandfather became one of the greatest lion tamers in circus history. Then your father was born. They named him after the fiercest lion in the act.”

  “Leo Laugh-a-Lot?” asked Phillip.

  “Back then,” Aunt Veola explained, “his name was Leo the Ferocious. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to be a great lion tamer like his father.”

  Phillip asked, “Why didn’t he?”

  “It turned out he was allergic. His sneezing and wheezing got so bad that one day, when he was eleven, his parents sent him to live with relatives in Arizona.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Phillip.

  “It’s not something he talks about. The fact is, he was miserable. The circus was in his blood. When he turned eighteen, he came back and took up clowning.”

  “What happened to his allergies?”

  “He had outgrown them,” she said. “The day he went back, he met your mother, who had joined the circus the year before. She was juggling flaming arrows. They fell in love and got married. Then you came along. They were so happy. Your father swore he would be a clown forever, and he would never leave the circus again.”

  Phillip looked down at his half-full cup of hot chocolate. The steam was gone, but it still tasted good.

  “We each have a place in this world,” Aunt Veola said. “Someday, you’ll find out where you belong. Do you understand?”

  Phillip nodded.

  “Until that day comes,” she added, “you need to stay out of trouble.”

  A unicyclist trying to ride on a high wire can use an umbrella to maintain his balance. An eleven-year-old boy trying to avoid trouble on a four-day suspension from school is on his own.

  The next morning, Phillip accompanied Aunt Veola to the courthouse. He sat in a wooden chair next to the metal detector, counting floor tiles and thinking about his visit to the vice-principal’s office.

  “You’re not going extra hard on him because of what happened between you and my sister when you were in school together?” Aunt Veola had asked Mr. Race. After Phillip had counted all the floor tiles, out loud, twice, he asked Aunt Veola what she meant.

  “Some parts of a person’s past are better left in the past,” she said.

  A short, old man with a long, white beard made the metal detector go off as he passed through. Aunt Veola swept her handheld device under his whiskers and made him remove a tiny flag pin from his shirt collar.

  “But I still want to know,” said Phillip.

  Aunt Veola watched a tiny television-like screen showing an X-ray picture of the items in the man’s bag.

  “Please?” Phillip asked.

  She stared at the screen a long time before she spoke.

  “Someday, when the time is right, we’ll talk about it.”

  Before Phillip could ask another question, she removed a crisp five-dollar bill from her billfold, let it drop into his hand, and sent him to the snack bar.

  Phillip realized that if he went to the snack bar Sam would ask him why he wasn’t in school. What would Sam think when he told him he had gotten suspended? Would Sam still want to be his friend if he knew how much trouble he kept getting into? Phillip wasn’t in the mood to find out. He looked around for another place to hang out.

  He saw a room with comfortable-looking upholstered couches and a nameplate that read: LAWYERS’ LOUNGE. Ancient men in dark business suits sat in thick leather chairs reading newspapers and napping. Scattered about were end tables of decorative wrought iron that were topped with sheets of clear, thin glass. Phillip kept looking.

  On the fourth floor, he saw a sign: LAW LIBRARY. Perfect, he thought. As Phillip entered the library, he could smell musty, aging books. The bookcases went from floor to ceiling, with a stepladder at the end of each row. The tables were heavy oak with matching chairs that made clunky sounds when moved. No one was sleeping here. Men and women were busy searching shelves.

  A young lawyer with a yellow notepad strode down an aisle and examined a row of books. She grabbed a volume and retreated to a table. Phillip inspected the hole she left. Each one of the books around it was precisely the same size, shape, and color. Only the small numbers on the books differed: Atlantic 2nd. 487, Atlantic 2nd. 488, Atlantic 2nd. 489. Phillip thought maybe the books were about oceans. He slid one off the shelf and looked through it. The words appeared to be English, but they didn’t make any sense. “Discovery rule tolls statute of limitations,” he read. Phillip slipped the book back into its hole.

  Wandering into the next aisle, he found more sets of matching volumes. He passed through row after row, occasionally pulling a volume and examining it. The print in each book was so tiny and the pages so numerous that Phillip believed he could empty his entire brain and not fill even one volume.

  At the far end, the bookcases were lower, covering only three-fourths of the wall. A small, bright green book sitting on the highest shelf caught his eye, but he was too short to reach it. Phillip stepped onto the first shelf. He was almost there. He stepped onto the second shelf.

  Suddenly, he felt the bookcase begin to wobble. As Phillip jumped off, the bookcase gave way. It crashed down, spewing books onto him.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” he screamed.

  Phillip expected to feel the hefty, wooden bookcase flatten him like a cardboard clown run over by a steamroller. But the bookcase did not hit him. Its top was wedged against one of the tall units standing firmly behind him.

  Rescuers dug him out, then chewed him out for being there. Once the law librarian, Mr. Chang, determined that Phillip was not injured and that the boy was Veola’s troublemaking nephew, he issued a proclamation.

  “Young man,” Mr. Chang said to Phillip, “you are not leaving here until you have picked up these books and properly reshelved them.”

  A couple of strong men in suits lifted the bookcase and righted it, mumbling about faulty shelving and product liability lawsuits. Phillip picked up the books, methodically—one at a time—and put them back on the shelves.

  After a while, he found the green book that had caught his attention. Its title was Fighting Back in Court. Phillip opened the book. On the first page, a lawyer wrote about how the book would teach people their legal rights and how to file their own lawsuits.

  Phillip knew what a lawsuit was. Even though he wasn’t allowed to watch television, he did go to the movies sometimes. Bartholomew the Giant had once taken him to see a movie about a lawsuit. Plus, once the circus hired a lawyer for the purchase of an exotic animal, although it turned out the lawyer didn’t know the difference between a double-humped camel and a dromedary.

  “So that was Matilda’s kid.”

  “Yep. Spilled the whole load of books.” The voices came from the next aisle over. They were hushed but loud enough for Phillip to make out the words.

  “Like mother, like son.”

  “Whatever happened to Matilda?”

  “Who knows, and, after what she did, who cares?”

  Phillip dropped the green book and tip
toed to the end of his aisle. He peeked around the corner to see who was talking, but they were gone. Why were they making such strange remarks about his mom?

  Phillip returned to the green book and kept reading. He learned that purposely hitting someone with an object is called “an assault and battery.” If you commit an assault and battery—if you hit someone—and you hurt them or damage their property, you should be held responsible. According to the law, you have to pay that person money to fix the damaged property.

  Being careful not to pop the lenses out, Phillip pushed his broken glasses back up his nose. He kept reading, skipping the hard or boring parts. So the librarian wouldn’t get mad, he reshelved the fallen books with one hand while he read the green book in the other. By the time Phillip was done shelving the books, he had reached the last chapter, “How to File a Small Claim.” Phillip wondered if he should stay out of trouble by leaving alone the matter with B.B. and his glasses, or if he should fight back in court for money to pay back Aunt Veola.

  He slid the green book into the bookcase and went into Mr. Chang’s cubicle.

  “Where do people go when they need legal advice?” he asked Mr. Chang.

  “Depends what’s in their pockets,” said Mr. Chang. “Rich people call the County Bar Association and get a referral to a private attorney. Poor people talk to the public defender.”

  Phillip pulled one dollar and twenty-five cents from his pocket.

  “Where can I find the public defender?” he asked.

  Once a circus performance begins, only the death or serious injury of a performer can stop it. Once Phillip decided to find legal help for his broken eyeglasses problem, he wasn’t about to let anything stop him.

  “Hello,” he said to the lady sitting behind the desk in the public defender’s office. She had a clump of dark hair piled on top of her head, held by an array of clips and pins, and wore a pink ruffled dress shirt. She scrunched her eyes and frowned as she tapped on a computer keyboard. It took a while before she even noticed Phillip.

  “Can I help you?” she finally asked, suspiciously.

  “I have legal questions,” said Phillip. “I tried to follow along in the book, but it got confusing.”

  “Are your parents here?” she asked. Phillip shook his head.

  “Do you have a guardian?” she asked.

  “What’s a guardian?”

  “If you have to ask, you don’t have one,” she said, returning to her work. “Come back with your mother or father.”

  “My mom and dad don’t live here,” Phillip said.

  “Then who do you stay with?”

  “My Aunt Veola and Uncle Felix.”

  “You said you didn’t have a guardian,” she huffed.

  “No, you said I didn’t.”

  “Are you getting smart with me?” she asked, with a raised voice. Phillip shook his head.

  “Come back with your aunt or uncle,” she said.

  “But they’re busy at work.”

  “So am I.”

  Phillip felt his ears heating up. Aunt Veola could explain about his parents not being there, but he couldn’t ask her to come to the public defender’s office until her shift was over. By then, the office might be closed.

  He checked the clock on the woman’s desk. It was a novelty clock. On the ends of the hour and minute hands were silhouettes of running children. On the end of the second hand was a dodgeball. When the second hand swept by the hour hand, he could almost hear Coach yell, “You’re out.”

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Go on now.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

  She gave a mean face.

  “Listen, boy,” she said, “if you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call security.”

  A picture flashed in Phillip’s mind of Aunt Veola rushing up the steps and bursting into the room.

  “Please do,” he said. If Aunt Veola did come, he would be allowed to see the lawyer.

  The mean-faced lady stared angrily. Phillip stared back. It reminded him of one of his dad’s routines. Two clowns staring each other down over some silliness. He half expected her to pull out a seltzer bottle and spray him.

  Bzzzzz.

  The phone made a strange noise, and the sound of a woman’s voice came out.

  “What’s all the commotion out there?” the voice from the telephone intercom said. “I’m trying to write a brief.”

  The mean-faced lady picked up the phone.

  “Not to worry, Ms. Johnson,” said Mean Face to the receiver. “It’s only a boy.”

  Mean Face paused.

  “I’ll ask him,” she said. Mean Face covered the receiver and said dryly, “She wants to know what you want.”

  “I want to talk to a lawyer,” said Phillip.

  “He wants to talk to a lawyer,” said Mean Face to Ms. Johnson. “I told him he needs a parent, but he refuses to leave.”

  Phillip wondered if he had really refused to leave.

  “She said to send you back,” said Mean Face. “She’d like to take a look at this troublemaker.”

  Phillip gulped.

  Mean Face pointed down a dimly lit hallway.

  He stopped at a half-opened door that said: MS. DAISY JOHNSON, ESQ., ASSISTANT PUBLIC DEFENDER. She had a friendly name. But Phillip knew that things weren’t always what they seemed. After all, the most bloodthirsty animal in the circus is the human flea.

  “Don’t lurk in the hallway,” Ms. Johnson said. Phillip pushed the heavy door open.

  “Come in and have a seat.” She was a pretty blond woman, wearing a flowery dress and chewing bubble gum. Her desk was covered with wrinkled papers and upside-down books.

  Phillip sat in a worn, overstuffed chair.

  “You have a legal problem?” she guessed.

  He nodded.

  “I have an appointment in ten minutes,” she said. “So you’ll have to talk fast.”

  Phillip didn’t know where to begin. He couldn’t tell her everything in ten minutes. It took his dad longer than that to put on his makeup.

  “B.B. Tyson won’t stop trying to hit me,” Phillip said.

  “I take it this B.B. Tyson is a school bully. Is that how your glasses got broken?” she asked.

  He nodded again.

  “If a bully is beating you up, that’s a juvenile-crime matter,” she said.

  “She’s not beating me up,” Phillip explained. “She’s hitting me with a dodgeball. In gym class.”

  “You mean playing dodgeball? I can’t make a criminal case out of two kids playing.” She leaned back in her seat and blew a fruity-fresh bubble.

  “But it said in this law book that if you intentionally hit someone and you hurt them, you have to pay for their damages.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “The civil law does say that.”

  Phillip gave her a confused look. She took the gum out and held it while she explained.

  “There are two kinds of law in this country: criminal and civil. Criminal law applies when people commit crimes and have to go to jail. Civil law is for when they damage other people’s property and have to pay money to fix it.” She popped the gum back in.

  “I want B.B. to pay money damages,” said Phillip, “so I can pay back Aunt Veola for my new glasses.”

  “In a civil action for assault, you would have to prove that B.B. intentionally hit you. Do you think you can prove that?”

  Phillip nodded.

  “You wouldn’t only be putting the bully on trial. You would be putting the whole game of dodgeball on trial.” She blew a small bubble and burst it with a loud pop. “I couldn’t help you personally. I’m a criminal lawyer and I work for the government. You would have to hire a private lawyer. How much money do you have?”

  Phillip dug into his pocket and pulled out his $1.25.

  “That wouldn’t cover the filing fees,” she told him. “Is that it?”

  “I get a dollar a day for snack money. I could sta
rt saving it,” said Phillip.

  “Let’s be realistic,” said Ms. Johnson. She pulled out a long, thin line of gum and twisted it around her finger while she thought. Finally, she said, “You’re going to need a civil lawyer who will do your case pro bono.”

  “Pro who?” Phillip asked.

  “Pro bono is Latin. It means ‘for the public good.’ In other words,” she explained, “you need a lawyer who will work for free.”

  “Lawyers do that?” he asked.

  “Some do, depending on the case. You need someone who believes principle is more important than pay. It’s got to be someone who is smart and tough and isn’t afraid to stand up against the whole town if he has to. There’s only one Hardingtown lawyer who would be willing to even consider such a thing. I’ll arrange for you to meet him.”

  In the era before automobiles, a circus would march down the main street. When the parade was to begin, the circus owner, called the governor, would yell to the townspeople, “Hold your horses,” so they wouldn’t be frightened by the exotic animals. To noncircus people, the expression came to mean “Have patience while you wait for something.”

  The next day, as Phillip waited for the mystery lawyer, he could hardly hold his horses. Ms. Johnson was supposed to meet Phillip at the snack bar at 2 P.M. and introduce them. Phillip borrowed a law book and took it to the snack bar to study while he waited. The book was full of interesting cases. In each, two people, the plaintiff and the defendant, would tell their story. Then the judge would say who won the case and why.

  Phillip was reading about a tavern fight when he saw Sam heading his way. He didn’t want to be rude, but he hoped Sam wouldn’t want to chat.

  Sam sat at his table. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “The sky,” said Phillip.

  “I heard about the suspension,” Sam said. “Bad break.”

  “I guess,” said Phillip. He looked over Sam’s shoulder for the mystery lawyer.

  “How’s your case coming?” Sam asked.

  “You know about that?” asked Phillip.

  “Like they say in Disneyland, it’s a small world.”