The World's Greatest Underachiever Is the Ping-Pong Wizard

by Henry Winkler

  When the bell rang for break, I felt like getting up and dancing for joy. In fact, I did. It wasn’t a big-deal dance but just a little butt-shaking number that went along with a whooping sound.

  “What are you doing, Zip Head?” McKelty said as he shoved past me and headed for the stairs. “It looks like you have a buzzing bee in your trousers.”

  “I think he looks cute,” Kim Paulson said. “Maybe you should do that dance at the Parade of Athletes, Hank.”

  Frankie gave me a friendly elbow in the ribs as we hurried down the three flights of stairs to the playground.

  “You are aware, dude, that one of the finest girls in the class just called you cute,” he pointed out, as if a thing like that needed any pointing out.

  “Maybe there’s hope for this year after all,” I whispered.

  We had barely reached the playground when my sister, Emily, came running up to us, her plaits flapping in the air like a crow’s wings.

  “Hank! You’re not going to believe it. We have the greatest fourth-grade teacher ever!” Emily said all in one gulp. “Her name is Ms Andrews and she thinks it’s fascinating that I love reptiles, and she’s really pretty too.”

  “Actually, she was a former Miss Alabama,” Robert Upchurch chimed in. He follows Emily around like a shadow. A bony shadow with a white shirt and tie.

  “We’re going to do a gigantic project on the tidal marshes of Alabama,” Emily gushed on.

  “With an emphasis on the life cycle of the brown water snake,” Robert added.

  “Man, some people get all the luck,” Frankie said.

  My sister, Emily, loves reptiles as much as Joelle Adwin loves her phone. You should see how Emily acts with Katherine, her pet iguana. She shares her secrets with her, and tells her how she understands her deep reptile feelings. Honestly, you’d think they were soul mates, which come to think of it, they probably are. Emily’s got a long snout and scaly skin too.

  “Bet you can’t guess what other marsh creatures we’re going to study,” Emily continued on.

  “Creatures that look like you, only they slither on their bellies.” I smiled. I was happy with that little zinger.

  “Fine, Hank. Be that way. I’m not going to tell you anything about the courtship habits of swamp alligators, no matter how much you beg.”

  “Why don’t we change the subject?” Ashley suggested.

  “So who’s your teacher?” Emily asked as we strolled on to the handball court in the middle of the playground.

  “Don’t ask, girlfriend,” Frankie said.

  “But I already did,” Emily answered. She may be smart in the book area, but she’s a little thick in the slang area.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” I said, returning a red rubber ball to the little kids who were playing on the handball court. “Our teacher was supposed to be your teacher, until the world spun off its axis.”

  “Actually, the world could never fly off its axis,” Robert said. “Because if it did, we would fall outside the gravitational pull of the sun and splinter off into space.”

  “Robert, doesn’t it worry you that your mind is filled with this stuff?”

  “Actually, it gives me a great sense of pride.”

  “It gives me a great sense of headache.” Frankie laughed.

  “I’ll tell you who our teacher is, Emily,” I said, seeing that she was getting frustrated with our joking around. “Our teacher is Ms Adolf.”

  “No, she was your teacher. I’m talking about this year.”

  “We’ve got her again,” Ashley explained.

  “Isn’t that against the law?” Emily asked. “You can’t have the same teacher twice.”

  “Which tells you everything you need to know about Ms Adolf,” Frankie said. “She’s willing to break the law just to make our lives miserable.”

  “It’s the pits,” I said.

  “Deep pits.” Ashley sighed.

  “Bottom of the bottom,” Frankie added.

  Emily reached into her pocket and pulled out a health-food granola bar. “Here, Hank. You can have my snack,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”

  That’s the thing about sisters. They’re a total pain in the neck and then, just when you least expect it, they turn out to be really nice.

  I was taking the wrapper off the granola bar when McKelty came charging up to me and grabbed the bar out of my hand. He stuck it in his oversized mouth and bit down with his scraggly teeth.

  “What is this rubbish? It tastes like birdseed.”

  “It’s a whole-grain oatmeal energy bar with flax and sunflower seeds,” I told him.

  McKelty handed what was left of the bar back to me. “Here, you eat it,” he said. “You look like you need to bulk up before the football tryouts tomorrow.”

  “You’re not supposed to be bulky for football,” Ashley told him. “You’re supposed to be lean and mean.”

  “Trust me, McKelty,” Frankie said. “Zip here has what it takes for the football pitch.”

  Frankie’s a good friend, and he likes to say nice things about me. But I have to be honest with you. What he said was not true. Well, I am lean. And sometimes I’m mean, especially to Emily. But I definitely do not have what it takes for the football pitch. When I run down the field, I look like a wobbly old bike with loose wheels. But none of us – not Frankie, or Ashley or me – was about to share that sweet little picture with Nick McKelty.

  Quite the opposite.

  “Oh, I’ll be at football tryouts, all right,” I said. “No ball is safe around this foot.”

  Just as I lifted my foot to show it off to him, another big red rubber handball came flying off the court and landed accidentally on my shoe. I hadn’t even seen it coming. Frankie gave me a look that said, “Don’t act surprised, Zip. Be cool.”

  “Nice kick, Hankster,” Ashley said.

  I think McKelty was impressed, because he started to brag, which he always does when he’s feeling like someone else might be better than he is.

  “I’m going to be the first guy picked tomorrow,” Nick the Tick said. “And not only that, I’m going to do the best football demonstration in the Parade of Athletes.”

  “Right, and my name is Bernice,” Frankie fired back.

  “Well hello, Bernice.” McKelty grinned, thinking he had come up with a really clever comeback. He burst out laughing, and a spray of crumbs and seeds shot out at us through the gigantic space between his two front teeth. An aircraft carrier could sail right in between that gap.

  Suddenly, a shrill whistle sounded right next to my ear. I wheeled round and was just about to say, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” when my mouth froze mid-sentence. It was Ms Adolf, holding a brand-new whistle she had added to the cord round her neck. It was grey. I ask you: where in the world can a person even buy a grey whistle?

  “Pupils, break is officially over,” she called out in her playground voice, which is strict like her regular voice, only louder. “It’s time to get back to your desks so we can begin your fifth-grade studies.”

  “And that means you, Hank Zipzer,” Mr Love said.

  Head Teacher Love? Where did he come from? And how’d he find me? That proves it. His eyeballs do come out and roll around school, just looking to get me into trouble.

  I hadn’t even started the fifth grade and already I was wondering if I’d ever even see the sixth grade.

  The next day, I spent the morning with the exciting, sweet, kind, loving and always-has-a-good-word-for-me Ms Adolf. And to make things even more wonderful, we had a thrilling, action-packed, super-charged morning doing long-division worksheets. She even threw in a few problems with the ever-popular decimal point.

  I looked down at those sheets and all I could think of was the Hopi Indians. That might seem strange to you, but it wasn’t to me. You see, the Hopi Indians wrote their whole history on the walls of their caves in a hieroglyphic code called pictographs. Ms Adolf’s long-division worksheets made about as much sense to me as those H
opi hieroglyphics. Actually, the cave paintings make more sense because sometimes you can see a buffalo or a warrior on a pony. What I had in front of me on my desk made my eyes spin in my sockets. They were going so fast, they were like propellers that were going to lift my butt right out of my seat. Thank goodness for the desktop that held me in place or I would have shot right through the ceiling.

  At 10.14 that morning, Ms Adolf said my second favourite word in the English language.

  “Break,” she announced.

  In case you’re wondering what my first favourite word is, it’s “weekend”. Except when I’m really hungry, and then it’s “pizza”.

  By the time I had walked down the stairs and through the double doors and out on to the playground, I was starting to feel happier.

  Hank, think of your glass as half full rather than half empty.

  That’s what my grandpa, Papa Pete, always tells me. I always think of my glass as half full of chocolate milk, because I love chocolate milk, especially Nesquik when you make it in a blender. We’re talking smooth.

  I looked around to decide how I was going to spend my fifteen minutes of break. I saw Frankie and Ashley pick up a football ball and start passing it to each other.

  “Come on, Zip,” Frankie called. “Dribble with us. We have to practise for tryouts later.”

  The truth was, I was nervous about the after-school tryouts. What if I didn’t get picked for a team? I know, I know. That doesn’t really happen because there are no cuts in this league. But what if I was the last one to get picked? That does happen. I’ll bet you know someone it’s happened to.

  “No thanks,” I hollered back to Frankie. “I’m in a dribble-free zone right now.”

  “Come on, Hank,” Ashley said, kicking me the ball. “How are you going to get better if you don’t practise?”

  “I’m going to think about that as I walk past the swings,” I said. I kicked the ball back to her, and of course it went in totally the opposite direction. It landed right in front of Nick the Tick.

  “Nice pass, football nerd,” McKelty said. “I hope you don’t get picked for my team.”

  McKelty was standing next to Joelle. They were standing close together, like boyfriend and girlfriend. I know the thought of McKelty even having a girlfriend is too icky to let into your mind, but sometimes the truth is hard to take.

  “Nick tells me he’s really good at football,” Joelle said, looking up at him with her squinty little eyes. “He says he never misses the ball.”

  “Sure, if I had feet the size of tables, I wouldn’t miss the ball either,” I fired back.

  I just have to take a minute and say that I do occasionally have great comebacks.

  “Oh yeah, watch this,” Nick said. He pulled back his big, thick leg at the end of which was his size-twelve Nike and let loose on the ball lying at his feet. I swear the ball said “Ouch.” It took off like a missile, flew across the playground and landed smack in the middle of Ms Adolf’s backside. It was as if she had a football magnet under her grey skirt.

  “Ooouuuph,” she said, sounding like a wrestler who’s just been pile-driven into the mat.

  McKelty ran away, leaving me staring eyeball to eyeball at her.

  “Henry, I think you owe me an apology.”

  “Ms Adolf, I promise you I never touched that ball. I’m allergic to that ball. That ball and I do not get along.”

  “Then perhaps you can explain how that ball hit me in the derrière.”

  I’m no rat, even when someone as obnoxious as Nick McKelty is involved.

  “You’re finding out what I already know. Footballs have minds of their own, Ms Adolf.”

  Luckily for me, at that very moment, Luke Whitman thought it necessary to show Katie Sperling his pet African centipede, Bugsy, which he had brought to school in a sandwich bag.

  “Gross!” Katie shrieked. “He’s putting that hairy bug on my face!”

  As Ms Adolf turned to rescue Katie and put Bugsy back in his bag, I took the opportunity to run as far away as I could and ended up in the kindergarten area of the playground.

  “Hi, Hank,” said a little voice from the sandpit.

  “Mason!” I said. “My man!”

  Mason Harris Jerome Dunn is just about the cutest little kindergartner you’d ever want to see. I met him during summer school, and we became friends. He wears Donald Duck T-shirts every day. The guy is a Donald Duck nut and an artistic genius. No kidding. He drew a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge in the sand that looked so real, I wanted to walk across it and buy some Chinese dumplings at my favourite dumpling shop in Lower Manhattan.

  “I’m not a man, Hank. I’m a kid.”

  “It’s just an expression, my man. What are you drawing?”

  “A pirate ship,” he said.

  “That’s really cool. Want me to help you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I picked up a stick and started to draw a cannon on the deck of Mason’s ship. He was busy making a treasure chest. I hate to admit this – even to you – but I really love to play in the sand. No one there is counting your HB pencils and telling you that fifth grade is serious business.

  Suddenly, Mason got up.

  “Now I’m going to play football with Sam Chin.”

  “Hey, wait. Why are you leaving?”

  “I’m practising football for the Parade of All Feets.”

  “That’s ‘athletes’, dude.”

  “OK. Bye, Hank.”

  Mason ran over to another little kindergarten guy who was holding a football. He kicked it to Mason, who stopped it with his foot.

  “Want me to pass it to you, Hank?” Mason called to me.

  “Sure, fire away,” I said, getting up from the sandpit. This might be good practice for the tryouts. I figured I’d be good enough to kick it back to a five-year-old.

  Mason passed the football to me. It came straight and fast. He was good! I saw the ball coming and I put my foot out to stop it. I thought I had everything under control, but I missed it by a mile. The ball rolled right past me, bounced into the sandpit and landed on the pirate ship.

  “Wow, Mason, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s OK, Hank. You’ll learn.”

  This isn’t a good sign for my tryouts later. I’m a fully fledged fifth-grader and I can’t even stop a ball kicked by a kindergartner.

  “Hey, guys, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you play by yourselves for a while?”

  “Do you have big-kid stuff to do?” Sam Chin said.

  “You bet I do,” I said. And I walked away trying to look like a big kid with somewhere to go.

  OK, Hank, so you don’t want to play football with the fifth-graders. And you can’t play football with the kindergartners. What’s left?

  You’re not going to believe this, but those long-division worksheets were starting to look really good.

  There’s a section of Central Park called the Sheep Meadow, which is a big, flat field just up from the carousel. Maybe you’ve heard about it. It’s pretty famous because sometimes at night during the summer, they have concerts where tons of people crowd together to listen to music. I went there once with my parents to see the Dave Matthews Band, but when Dave came out and started to play, everyone stood up and all I could see was a lot of adult rear ends. I think I’ll wait until after I have a growth spurt or two until I go to a concert there again.

  The football tryouts for all West-side kids were being held in Sheep Meadow. By the time we got there, there were hundreds of kids from many different schools all over the field. Ashley’s mum had picked us up from school and walked us to the park, since my mum was at work at our deli, The Crunchy Pickle, and my dad had had to take Emily to her allergist appointment. I was glad Ashley’s mum took us, because she’s a doctor and all she likes to do is sit on the bench and read articles about heart valves and skin rashes. She doesn’t watch the tryouts, and she doesn’t really care who’s a good player and who’s not.

  Lots of different coaches were
scattered around organizing how they were going to do their team tryouts. Mr Rock had told Frankie and me to find Coach Gilroy. His son Patrick was in the fifth grade at Trinity School, and he was organizing a team for ten- to eleven-year-old boys.

  Mr Rock said Coach Gilroy would be wearing a green and white jersey. I looked around the field and spotted him talking to a few of the dads.

  I knew I was in trouble the minute I saw him. Coach Gilroy was a huge, muscular guy who was standing with his foot on one ball, and had three other balls tucked under his arm. He was a four-football coach. All the other coaches on the field were holding just one. And listen to this: his football shorts had been ironed with a crease down each leg. Who irons football shorts? Only a guy who’s seriously crazy about his football, that’s who.

  Oh boy, Hank. Get your game face on. Yeah, I would if I knew where it was.

  I have this thing about sports balls. They cause me lots and lots of problems. Except bowling balls. My grandfather, Papa Pete, is a champion bowler and he taught me his technique. On a good day, I can bowl two strikes in a row, which makes me feel unbelievably good. But other balls of the non-bowling type are really tricky. Last year, with a lot of help from Frankie and Papa Pete, I learned to pitch a softball. But that’s all I can do. I mean, I can’t field or hit or do any other softball-type stuff.

  See, I love sports. I’m just not good at them. In my sessions with Dr Berger, she has explained that a lot of kids with learning difficulties don’t have good hand-eye coordination. That means that my eyes and my hands, or in this case my feet, are not talking to each other. Or if they are talking, they’re not listening to each other very well.

  “All right, players, take a knee,” Coach Gilroy said in a big voice that sounded like Darth Vader’s. He had come over and gathered up about twenty of us guys. As we huddled together, I smelled something rotten, like a fish with bad breath.

  Wait a minute. I know that smell. It’s McKelty breath!

  I looked round and, sure enough, there was Nick McKelty, taking a knee right next to me. First I had to get him in my class. And now he was on my football team. That was way too much McKelty time for me!