Bobby the Brave (Sometimes)

by Lisa Yee

  “I know we’ve been playing soccer for a while,” Mr. Rainerhaus announced, “so it’s time for a change. And this one will be quite a treat! We’ll finish up soccer today and start a new sport on Monday.”

  Bobby blinked several times. It looked like Mr. Rainerhaus was smiling at him.

  “What do you think we’ll play next?” Chess whispered.

  Bobby shrugged. He was fine with soccer. Soccer wasn’t so bad. All you had to do was run up and down the field. He could do that. During the last game, he scored a point when Swoozie, who was the goalie, was watching a butterfly.

  Bobby hoped they wouldn’t be playing softball. Softball was bad news. You could get hit by the ball and get a concussion. His dad had gotten a concussion more than once when playing football.

  At the end of soccer, Mr. Rainerhaus gathered the students. “We have a celebrity among us!” he announced. Bobby tried to spot the celebrity, but all he saw was one of the boys picking his nose by pretending he had an itch, and a girl scratching her armpit and then looking horrified when she saw Bobby watching. Maybe Swoozie was the celebrity because she was such a good singer.

  Then Mr. Rainerhaus winked at Bobby and proclaimed, “I can’t believe I’ve gone all this time without realizing that the son of my all-time favorite football player is in this class!”

  Bobby flinched.

  “Bobby Ellis-Chan, why didn’t you tell me that The Freezer is your father?” Mr. Rainerhaus squatted, put one arm out, and growled in an imitation of The Freezer’s most famous move. “Best linebacker the LA Earthquakes ever had. Best darn football player this country has ever seen!” Mr. Rainerhaus enthused. “My world stood still when Sam Benzoni tackled The Freezer and busted his knee. The day he retired from football was one of the saddest days of my life. I even cried. And I’m man enough to admit that!”

  He looked like he was about to cry again.

  Bobby decided to change his superhero power from superhuman strength to invisibility. He would give anything to be invisible right now.

  “So!” Mr. Rainerhaus said, clearing his throat, “in honor of The Freezer, and because we have his very own son right here in this class, next week we will start — FOOTBALL! Bobby Ellis-Chan, I’m going to be watching you,” he said, wagging a finger at Bobby. “I’ll bet you can teach this class a thing or two. Heck, I’ll bet you could teach me. Perhaps,” Mr. Rainerhaus laughed, “I’ll just have you take over.”

  Bobby glanced at Holly. She looked as worried as he did.

  “Okay then,” Mr. Rainerhaus called out. “Class dismissed!”

  Before Bobby could make his way back to Room 15, Mr. Rainerhaus stopped him. “It really is an honor to be your teacher,” he said. Then he shook Bobby’s hand so hard it made Bobby’s head bobble up and down. “I wonder …” Mr. Rainerhaus hesitated. “Is there any way I could meet your dad? Maybe he could come to PE. It would mean so much to me.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Bobby mumbled. He flexed his fingers to see if they still worked. “But my dad’s pretty busy, you know, with stuff and things and stuff and … um, stuff. So he probably can’t come to school.”

  Mr. Rainerhaus grew solemn. “I understand,” he said, nodding. “A man like The Freezer probably has lots of important things to do.”

  When Bobby got home, he found his father unsuccessfully trying to remove the living room curtains from the vacuum cleaner. Bobby was feeling on edge. It was like that queasy feeling he got when watching scary movies with Annie — he knew something bad was going to happen, but he didn’t know when. Except that Bobby knew he was doomed next Monday at 10 A.M. during PE.

  After greeting his dad, Bobby ditched his backpack in favor of his board and skated up and down his street. With each shuv-it, as he spun his skateboard 180 degrees, he loosened up. There was something liberating about skating. Planting your feet on the deck and the feeling of the sidewalk beneath you. The freedom of flight when you got air, and the hard solid landings when you ollied just right. Getting speed and then cruising. With skating, it was just Bobby and his board. No teams. No teacher. No rules.

  Casey was squealing as she ran around the front lawn and pretended the lawn gnome was chasing her. “Gnomey Gnome Gnome was abandoned and I rescued him,” she had told her mother. “You said you wanted something for the garden, and he’s practically as good as a moat!”

  “Hey, Bobby, can I try?”

  Bobby was surprised to see his father watching him from the driveway. “Oh, uh, sure,” he told his dad. “You’ll need a brain bucket, though.” Mr. Ellis-Chan looked at him blankly. “A brain bucket is a helmet,” Bobby explained.

  “How’s this?” his father said, returning with his LA Earthquakes football helmet.

  Bobby nodded. “That’ll do.”

  When his dad stepped on the skateboard and it bowed in the middle, Bobby grimaced. That was the board that Grammy and Gramps had let him pick out over the summer — the new Troy Eagle Pro 99 deck with Eagle trucks and Greased Lightning smooth-action titanium bearings. “Wait!” Bobby shouted. He ran into the house and brought out his old Troy Eagle Super 74 board. It was worn in all the right places from grinding the axles on the curb, the nose was battered from tricks, and there were Go Girly Girl stickers all over it courtesy of Casey, but otherwise it was in great shape.

  “Here, use this,” Bobby said, offering up his old skateboard.

  Mr. Ellis-Chan leapt on the board, then slowly he pushed off and headed down the street, gaining speed until …

  CRASH!

  “Are you okay?” Bobby yelled, running to his father.

  “Wipeout!” Casey cried, hopping up and down and clapping. “Daddy wiped out! I’ll get my doctor’s kit.”

  Mr. Ellis-Chan looked stricken as he got up. Bobby stared at the skateboard. It had snapped in half.

  “I owe you one,” his father finally said. “I’m sorry, Bobby.”

  Bobby clutched his broken skateboard. That was the board he had learned kick turns on. He wanted to cry, but held back. “That’s okay, Dad,” he said. “I’ve got my new board.”

  “But I broke it. I should have known better.”

  “Really, it’s okay,” Bobby insisted.

  “Guess I should just stick to football,” his dad mumbled. “I’m no Troy Eagle. Well, I’d better go start dinner.”

  Bobby stood holding his broken board as he watched his father trudge down the street toward home.

  Later, while his father was downstairs in the kitchen stirring a big pot of something orange, Bobby checked in on Koloff and Beatrice. They looked bored. “Here,” he said, nudging the soccer ball with his finger. “Try pushing the ball.”

  Neither appeared interested.

  Rover could push his soccer ball into a net, and maneuver in and out of the hoops. Rover could follow Bobby’s hand signals to swim back and forth, and even do flips. Even though it had been nearly a month since Rover died, Bobby still thought about him every day. Sometimes he would go into the backyard where Rover was buried and leave little presents, like a shiny penny or an interesting rock. He missed talking to him. Rover had been an excellent listener.

  “Hey, you guys,” Bobby said as Beatrice circled the castle. “Do you have a couple of minutes to chat?” When they didn’t say no, Bobby took that as a sign that he should continue. “My PE teacher thinks that just because I’m The Freezer’s son, I’m good at football. I’ve got until Monday to figure out what to do.”

  Koloff and Beatrice were silent for the longest time.

  “I know,” Bobby agreed. “This is a tough one. I’m eating seven meals a day, and I’m doing a hundred sit-ups and push-ups every morning. Well, starting tomorrow I’m going to do that. I figure, if I’m bigger and stronger, I’ll be better at football and won’t embarrass myself in front of Mr. Rainerhaus and my class.”

  Koloff did a spin around the aquarium.

  “What was that?” Bobby asked. He sensed that Koloff was trying to tell him something. But he couldn’t
figure out what the fish wanted him to know. “What is it, Koloff? Is it about football?”

  Koloff swam around the tank again.

  “Something about not embarrassing myself?”

  When Koloff rested inside the castle, Bobby gave up trying to guess what his fish was trying to tell him. Koloff wasn’t like Rover, who was easy to understand. “Well, okay then, thanks for listening. We can talk more later. In the meantime, look what I have for you!” Bobby brought out one of the hoops that Rover used to play with. Carefully, he placed it in the water.

  “Hey, squirt!” It was Annie. Her football jersey was covered in dirt. She looked into the aquarium. Koloff stared back at her. “What’s up?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well, guess what?” Annie said. Even though she was wearing her helmet, Bobby could see her smile. “Coach says I’m one of the best quarterbacks Rancho Rosetta High School has ever had. Can you believe that?”

  “I can believe that,” Bobby said. His voice was flat.

  “You don’t sound too happy,” Annie said. “What’s with you?”

  “What’s with you?” Bobby shot back. “Why do you have to be so good at football?”

  “Whoa, what’s your problem?”

  Bobby stared at Diver Dave. “I don’t have a problem,” he said as his jaw tensed. “Everything’s fine. Now leave me alone.”

  “Geez,” Annie muttered as she backed out of the room. “And you say that I’m moody!”

  Bobby waited until he was sure she was gone to start talking to his fish again. “It’s not fair,” he told them. “I’ll never be like Annie, no matter how hard I try.”

  All weekend the familiar sound of the sewing machine whirring away filled the air. To Bobby, it seemed like his dad had been working on the Sandy costume forever. Yet whenever he’d ask about it, Mr. Ellis-Chan would say, “Soon enough, son. You’ll have to wait until it’s done to get the full effect!”

  While Annie was out buying Halloween decorations with Mrs. Ellis-Chan, Casey stayed home to watch Princess Becky’s Planet. Princess Becky sang to the Halloween pumpkins to make them grow big and strong. That’s what I need, Bobby thought. If I could get Princess Becky to sing to me, maybe I’d get big and strong.

  As he watched the rest of the show, Bobby wondered if his mom would let him quit school. He didn’t want to face Mr. Rainerhaus on Monday. Perhaps he could get a job. Bobby tried to think of what he was qualified to do. Ice-cream tester. Donut taster. Rock collector.

  The sewing machine noise ceased and Mr. Ellis-Chan appeared in the doorway holding a football. “Bobby, how about tossing the ball with me for a bit?”

  Normally when his dad asked him to play football, Bobby said no. But this time was different. Maybe, just maybe, a miracle would occur and he could learn enough not to humiliate himself during PE. It was a long shot, but anything was worth trying.

  “Sure, Dad, why not?”

  Mr. Ellis-Chan lit up. “Really? Wow! All right then, let’s go!”

  The targets and other things were still set up for Annie’s football drills, but Bobby was more interested in just throwing the ball and catching it. He knew the rules of the game pretty well. Bobby had watched football lots of times on TV with his father. Whenever someone got tackled, Bobby shut his eyes. He didn’t like seeing people get hurt.

  The last time his dad played professionally, Bobby had been six years old. When The Freezer got knocked down and didn’t get up, both Bobby and his mother started crying.

  Later, at the hospital, Bobby was still crying. He thought his father was going to die. But he didn’t die. Instead, his knee was so busted that he would never play pro ball again. Bobby never told his dad, but he was happy when he heard the news. That meant he wouldn’t get hurt anymore. Only, these days Annie was playing football and now Bobby worried about her, even though she was tougher than most boys.

  Mr. Ellis-Chan lined up five footballs on the ground in front of him. “First, we’ll practice catching. I’ll throw these to you one after the other. You just catch the ball, then drop it and catch the next one, okay?”

  Bobby felt his body tense as he nodded. Five footballs meant that he could mess up five times in a row.

  “It might help if you open your eyes when I throw the ball to you,” Mr. Ellis-Chan suggested.

  Bobby did his best to keep his eyes open as his father threw. Still, he missed almost every time. Once he did catch the ball, but it hurt when the pointy part hit his chest. Why don’t they make footballs softer? he wondered.

  They switched to throwing. “Okay, hold the ball like this,” his father said, showing Bobby what to do.

  Bobby tried to imitate his dad, but the ball was too big for his hands. Plus, it never went very far when he threw it, and it certainly didn’t have that same spin The Freezer’s or Annie’s throws had.

  “You just need more upper-body strength,” Mr. Ellis-Chan was saying. “Put more muscle into your throw, like this.” Effortlessly, the football sailed across the sky. “You’ll get there. Don’t worry.”

  But Bobby did worry. He had to get there by Monday.

  That night before bed, Mrs. Ellis-Chan came in to check on her son. “New poster?” she asked.

  Bobby nodded. He had just put up his autographed Troy Eagle poster on his wall — the one of Troy doing an aerial over the Grand Canyon.

  “What shall we talk about tonight, Bobby?” his mother asked as she fluffed up his pillow and motioned for him to get into bed. As was their custom, they had a nightly talk about the universe, or rocks, or skateboarding. It was Bobby’s job to decide, and he always picked interesting subjects.

  “Mom,” he began, “when do you think I’ll start growing?” He had been thinking about this a lot lately.

  Mrs. Ellis-Chan took Bobby’s hand in hers. “Well, I can feel you growing right now!” she exclaimed.

  Bobby took his hand back. “No, really, Mom. I’m serious.”

  His mother brushed the hair away from his eyes. “Yes, I can tell you are, and that you’re not a little kid anymore.” Bobby nodded. He was happy his mother had noticed. “Everyone gets their growth spurts at different times. You’ll have yours soon enough. How tall are you compared to the other kids in your grade?”

  “Not the smallest, but nowhere near the tallest,” he said. “Do you ever think I’ll ever be as big as Dad?”

  “Hmmm,” his mother mused. “That’s unlikely, because you’re a combination of my side of the family and his. If you think about it, your father is way bigger than either of his parents were. As for his strength, you know how much your father works out.”

  Bobby nodded. His dad was always lifting weights in the garage, and he ran a couple miles a day with Annie. Sometimes Bobby followed them on his bike.

  “Annie’s pretty tall,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, and Annie is in high school. But by the time you’re her age, you will be a lot taller, I promise,” his mother reassured him. “Any other questions? Or are you stalling for time now?”

  Bobby started to say something, but then stopped himself. “All done,” he said.

  His mother kissed him on the forehead. “Okay then! Now, lights out. It’s time for bed. Getting plenty of sleep will help you grow! Good night, honey.”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  Bobby did have one more question, but it always got stuck in his throat. He wanted to know what “He’s not like me” meant.

  On Monday morning, Mrs. Carlson announced, “Class, Mr. Rainerhaus has food poisoning and is out sick today, so PE is canceled.”

  Bobby tried not to grin, because that would be rude. Still, he felt a wave of relief wash over him. No PE! No football! But when he turned toward Chess, it looked like Chess had food poisoning too.

  “Are you okay?” Bobby asked.

  “I’m nervous,” Chess croaked.

  “What are you nervous about?”

  “About the musical. My uncle Carrom is coming, and he’s a great singer,” Chess exp
lained. “Every family reunion, he forces us to listen as he sings Bollywood songs. He says he’s bringing all the relatives to the musical — and you know how many of those I have.”

  “Well, I’m scared I’m going to forget my lines,” St. James confessed. “I had no idea Daddy Warbucks was such a blabbermouth.”

  “Boys,” Mrs. Carlson said, “is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

  St. James pointed to Chess. “He’s scared.”

  “So is he!” Chess cried, pointing back at St. James.

  Mrs. Carlson looked curious. “What exactly scares the two of you?”

  “The musical,” Chess said softly.

  Several students nodded in agreement.

  “Well,” Mrs. Carlson said, “let’s take a few minutes to talk about our fears. It’s an excellent subject.” Chess sat up straighter. So did St. James. “What are the kinds of things that you find scary? I know that when I was your age, I was scared of the dark, and to this day I still sleep with a night-light on.”

  Bobby was happy to hear that his teacher had a night-light too.

  Everyone had their hands raised, ready to share what scared them.

  “Wow, this is certainly a hot topic,” Mrs. Carlson noted. “I think we’re going to need to spend more than a few minutes on this. Okay, here’s what we are going to do. I’d like everyone to write down what scares you. You don’t need to include your names. Then I’ll write everyone’s fears on the board and we can talk about them. If you don’t want to write anything, you don’t have to.”

  Some students began writing immediately. Others stared off into the distance. A few chewed on their pencils or fingernails. Bobby disguised his handwriting by slanting the letters to the left.

  After about ten minutes, Mrs. Carlson asked the class to fold their papers in half and pass them forward. “After recess we’ll talk about this,” she said. “In the meantime, please take out your history books.”