by David Klass
“Yeah, he needs to watch what he says a lot more than we do,” Dylan pointed out.
“I understand your strong feelings, but let’s try not to hold grudges,” Coach Percy suggested. “Your principal gave us our season back. Suppose we repay his gesture with forgiveness and even a little rudimentary progress in soccer?”
There were boos and hisses from the Losers. They all looked angry, except for Shimsky who was smiling, as if enjoying the fact that once a revolution has started no one can control it.
“I’m not suggesting we plunge into Spartan training,” Percy hastily explained. He glanced at Pierre. “But let’s try not to launch any more shoes at the goal.” His gaze swung over to Frank. “Or get tangled up in the net.” He looked at Zirco. “And I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t want anyone to drown.”
“Why should we change the way we play for Muhldinger?” Becca demanded. Percy was her favorite teacher, so I was a little surprised by how sharply she confronted him.
“Yeah, he’s only letting us finish our season because his job is on the line,” Frank agreed. “We may be the Losers, but so far we’re totally kicking his butt by doing what we do.”
Percy looked surprised by the fury of the team’s response. He knitted his fingers behind his neck and paced back and forth for a moment, the way I had seen him do in his apartment when Becca and I had asked him to be our coach. Finally he stopped pacing and nodded at us. “I take your point. I certainly don’t want to change the wonderful … exuberance of our team. Let’s do our best to … do what we do … and make sure we have fun.”
Fun was a kind word for it—what we were good at was losing. As we ran onto the field, a chant went up from my teammates: “Losers, losers, losers forever!” It was picked up by a few grinning students sitting on the grass. “Losers, losers, losers forever,” they chanted in a familiar rhythm that made a mockery of our most famous football chant: “Fremont, Fremont, Fremont forever!”
I joined the chant, but as I looked around I was also dreading what was to come.
* * *
Sure enough, everything that could possibly go wrong on a soccer field did. To the delight of the increasingly large crowds that came to watch us over the next few days, practicing seemed to make us worse and not better. Some of it was due to our genuine lack of sports talent, but as the week wore on I realized that several of my teammates were making themselves look lousy on purpose.
They must have been untying their cleats before shooting drills because the number of shoes that were launched at the goal kept growing. Frank dodged them and occasionally snatched one out of the air and winged it back. He fell asleep twice in the goal during practice that week, and it became a running gag that he managed to find new ways of getting tangled in the net. Once his head got snagged, and we had to cut the nylon mesh with scissors.
Our midfielders sprinted forward, backed up, and ran side to side at the same time, and frequently two or three of them collided in what looked like bad traffic accidents in the middle of the field. Bodies piled up, there were dramatic screams, arms and legs thrashed, and lots of laughter rang out.
The “Jenks” became our team’s signature dribbling move, and was repeated with many creative variations. The move had been invented by our spectacularly uncoordinated defender—Alan “the Jinx” Jenks—who sometimes missed his head when he went to comb his curly brown hair. To perform a Jenks, a player whiffs on the ball completely while trying to kick it forward and then back-heels it blindly on the backswing. Great teams feature the Nutmeg, the Rainbow, the Maradona, and the Sombrero. We had the Flying Shoe, the Sleeping Goalie, and Jinx doing the Jenks.
Percy gave up trying to rein in the mayhem, and often contributed to it. His attempts at positioning drills were taken from ancient battles and frequently led to chaos. On Thursday he had us reenact the Battle of Gaugamela, and Meg led a “cavalry charge” into the fence of the tennis court. On Friday when the weather turned sunny Percy showed up in a pith helmet that made it look like he was ready for a safari. Kids on the sidelines laughed and filmed him with cell phones.
Every evening my mom asked me what was going on with our team, and I told her nothing much. Dad had no questions—he missed several dinners and when he was there he just wolfed down his food and excused himself. I couldn’t tell if he was still mad at me or just pissed off at life in general. I decided to stay quiet for a while and keep a low profile, both at home and with our team.
I had never been involved in a breaking news event before, and I kept expecting the Losers saga to die down. Instead, our school’s efforts to limit media coverage seemed to stoke the fires. We were featured on several TV sports and news shows, and every day I got more e-mails and phone calls from reporters and bloggers. I took Mr. Bryce’s advice and deleted the messages.
But some of my friends were clearly doing a lot of talking, although they were smart enough to ask not to be named. Articles and blogs came out with all kinds of inside information about our team. They described our goofy practices, our nutty coach, and our geeky players. A few of them even named me as the team captain and scorer of our only goal.
The media hype built through the week, as if our match on Tuesday against Maysville was some sort of watershed event. When I got home from soccer practice on Friday there were five messages on our home phone from different reporters asking me to call back. I erased them, but when the phone rang a few minutes later I picked it up out of habit. “Jack Logan?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yes?”
“This is Dianne Foster from the Star Dispatch. I left you two messages.”
“Sorry but I’m not talking to reporters.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I don’t bite.”
“I just don’t want to.”
“Well, then suppose I do the talking and you just listen,” she suggested. “I think you’ll want to hear this. Okay?”
“Go on,” I said, curious despite myself.
“I’m writing an article about your soccer team that you may be very interested in,” she said. “You see, I know who you are, Jack.”
“I don’t know what that means. I’m no one. Goodbye.”
“That’s very modest of you,” she said with a laugh. “But you’re Tom Logan’s youngest son.”
I gripped the phone a little tighter. “My father has nothing to do with this story.”
“Doesn’t he?” she asked. “The captain of the self-proclaimed worst soccer team in America that’s challenging its own high school’s testosterone-fueled sports ethos just happens to be the son of the best football player in the whole history of the school? To me that’s a pretty interesting father-son story.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But please don’t write it.”
“I already have,” she said. “I just want to confirm some of the details. Is it true that you were offered a spot on the varsity football team? They even wanted to give you your father’s old number. And when you turned it down your principal put his fist through a door?”
“Who told you that?” I tried to think of who knew all the details of what had happened in Muhldinger’s office. Dylan? Frank? I hesitated for a long second. Becca?
“And is it true that your father personally called Principal Muhldinger and asked him to give the Losers a chance to play, so in a way your team’s challenge to your school is all his doing?”
I hung up the phone, and even though it was warm in our kitchen I shivered.
24
Becca opened her front door and looked a little surprised to see me. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Just passing by,” I told her. “Want to take a walk?”
She studied my face for a second and jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Are you okay? Did something happen with your dad?”
“Still just the silent treatment.”
“You look … worried,” she said.
“Just a little upset. All the attention our team is getting about our game on Tuesday is making me … anxious
.”
Her pretty hazel eyes glittered excitedly. “Yeah, it’s crazy, isn’t it? I think a couple hundred people may show up, and tons of reporters.”
“You sound pretty happy about that.”
“I love it that the truth about this stupid town’s priorities is finally getting outed,” she admitted, “and I think it’s cool that so many people have been so appalled. And I really love it that Muhldinger and his minions can’t put a lid on this story. No one can control social media.”
“You seem to be controlling it pretty well,” I told her. “I bet you’ll get a great college essay out of it.”
She studied my face. “Jack, what’s going on?”
“How about that walk?”
“Okay,” she said. “Let me grab a jacket.”
She threw on a blue windbreaker and we walked along the sidewalk without speaking. It was late afternoon and starting to turn cold. Cars were pulling into driveways as people got home from work, and parents popped out on porches and shouted for their kids to come in for dinner. On a big lawn beneath some maple trees, a rough neighborhood football game was going on—tough-looking ten-year-olds tackling each other without pads as the next generation of Fremont warriors took shape. I watched three smaller boys stop one bigger kid, wrap up his legs, and drag him down like a pack of hyenas.
The houses and yards gave way to a nature reserve with marked trails. “Want to go for a little hike?” Becca asked.
“It’s getting dark.”
“I know the trails really well,” she said, and her hand brushed my own. “Sometimes it’s nice to get a little lost together.”
“I’m already lost,” I told her, sitting down on a bench near a streetlight.
She sat next to me, and we watched the last rays of the autumn sun filter down through the branches of the reserve’s tall trees. “What’s the matter, Jack?” Becca finally asked. “Why are you so mad at me?”
I described my conversation with Dianne Foster and the article she was writing, and how much she had known.
“You think I gave her that information?”
“Asking my dad to call Muhldinger was your idea,” I reminded her. “You were the only one there—besides my parents—when we had that talk with him. After he made the call, I went up to my room and texted you the good news.”
Becca nodded that this was all true, and then she stood up and turned away. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d ever hurt you like that.”
“Who else knows about that phone call?” I asked. “I didn’t tell anyone. I’m sure my parents didn’t, either.”
“Lots of people know,” she said softly. “Percy does. And I told the story to Meg, and that’s like broadcasting it.”
“Why did you tell Meg what happened in my house, with my family?”
Becca shrugged. “I told her the next day. She’s my best friend. I was giving her a report on our date. Girls do that. I told her about the dinner, how nice your mother was, the walk home, and about our first kiss—and I guess I also talked about your dad and how we asked him to make that call. It was no big deal, I was just so happy the way the evening went that I gave her a full report.”
“It’s a big deal to me,” I told her. “So Meg spilled everything to Dianne Foster and that’s how this mess happened?”
“I didn’t say that it was all Meg’s fault. Reporters talk to lots of people when they write articles.” Becca was wearing a coat zipped up to her neck, but she shivered. “Listen, I would never tell anyone private things about your family. I love you, Jack. I don’t have anyone else I feel that way about right now.”
An owl hooted, and its call seemed to circle through the gathering darkness like a warning. I was very angry, but I stood up and put my hand out for a fist bump. “Okay, teammate,” I said, “can we agree to tell the truth to each other?”
She bumped me back and then came in for a hug. “We always should.”
“Who locked the football team in the Keep?”
“Not me,” Becca whispered. “I swear.”
“But you know? And you don’t trust me enough to tell me?”
She hesitated a second more. “Shimsky.”
“I figured. And the video of our team? Did he post that, too?”
She shook her head. “That’s not my secret to tell.”
“You either trust me or you don’t.”
She looked up at me. “You really don’t think we should keep secrets from each other?”
“They’re poison.”
“Okay,” she said, “then here’s a secret.” She leaned so close that I could feel her warm breath. “I just want to be someplace else. I want to go off to one of the beautiful places I’ve read about in books and—and disappear. I even made a list: Togo. Madagascar. Fiji. Bali…”
She paused, out of breath, and her eyes were wet and shining.
“My father filed for divorce two days ago. My mom’s on a heavy diet of antidepressants. She’s like a zombie, walking around in silence, except when she talks to lawyers. I hate my life right now. Do you understand that? I hate it.”
I held her tighter. “So what’s happening with our soccer team is the only thing taking your mind off it?”
“It makes me smile and feel good about something. It’s a lot more real than the two of us sailing away to Bali.”
“The two of us? I thought you were getting ready to sail away yourself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t kick you out of the boat if you stowed away.”
I ran my hand through her hair. “You posted that video of our team, didn’t you?”
“No. But I helped,” Becca admitted. “I filmed Muhldinger on the bus with my cell phone. I was aiming it between two seats and I was scared to death he would see me, but his anger made him blind.”
“Who’d you give it to?” I asked. “Who put the video together and posted it?”
She kept silent.
“The school system may hire someone to try to find out,” I told her. “Whoever did it needs to be on their guard. Was it Meg? I don’t think she has the technical know-how. Dylan could do it but he wouldn’t have the nerve. Chloe? Shimsky?”
Becca started trembling in a way that I remembered from her panic attack in the barn. She tried to shrug me off.
“Calm down,” I said. “Just breathe.”
“I’m fine,” she gasped. “Go away, Jack.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I told you I loved you. Why couldn’t you say it back?”
There it was. I knew it was coming at some point, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Well, maybe I need to hear it,” she said, and started to hyperventilate. “I can’t believe … you’d think … I betrayed you. That really hurts. Go.” She pushed my shoulder so hard I nearly fell over the bench, and she shouted: “Get away from me!”
I let her go and she sat on the bench, holding her stomach. I just stood there and watched, feeling stupid, but ready to help if she needed me.
She slowly came out of it and I sat down next to her. We stayed like that for about five minutes without speaking, and I listened to her breathing get more and more regular.
“My God,” she finally said. “Worst ever.” She glanced at her watch and stood. “I’d better go back. My mother notices when I’m not in the house and she panics. She called the fire department a few nights ago.”
I stood also. “I’ll walk you home.”
We headed back up the block. The football game had ended and autumn darkness was knitting together tree branches and streets and empty yards. We walked silently. When we reached her house we stopped in the long shadow of the hedge, and she looked into my eyes. “Please don’t make me tell you about the video.”
“I’m not going to make you tell me anything, Becca. But I wish you would.”
“Why?”
“Because I just do.”
“Someone could get in a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
&nb
sp; “Of course,” she said. “But there are things…”
“What things…?”
Becca hesitated for a long beat and then said, “Sometimes it seems like you’re not like the rest of us. You are not a real Loser. You want to win.”
So the truth was that she didn’t completely trust me. I wondered if Frank and Dylan were thinking the same thing.
“Maybe I’m not like everyone else on our team, but I made a choice,” I told her. “I know who my friends are, and I hope they know who I am.”
She looked at me and finally said something so softly that it took a second for my mind to register it. “Percy.”
I stared back at her. “No way. He doesn’t even own a computer.”
“He rocks on computers,” she said. “He runs simulations of ancient battles on software he writes himself.”
I was still skeptical. “He’s too polite. He would never take on Muhldinger and our school.”
“Don’t be such a muscle-head, Jack. He’s smarter than all of us put together. Muhldinger called him an idiot and Percy didn’t like that. And he’s going back to England next year. He’s got a great teaching job lined up. So he can do whatever he wants.”
I remembered meeting him in the principal’s waiting room, and how he’d said he thought Muhldinger had summoned us to let us know he was ending our season. “But when the Web story broke he didn’t have a clue what was going on.”
“The English make the best actors,” Becca told me with a little smile. “He certainly fooled you. Trust me, he knows exactly what’s going on.”
“Where did he get all that footage of our team playing its first game?”
“A friend of his from England is the coach of the Marion team. He sent Percy everything he needed.”
“Becca?” her mother’s voice called from the porch. “Is that you?”
“I was just taking a walk, Mom,” she answered. “Go back inside. I’ll be right in.”
There was the sound of the screen door banging.
“It feels like he lied to me,” I told her.
“Not telling the full truth isn’t lying,” Becca said. She took a deep breath. “But I don’t want you to ever say I lied to you, Jack. So here’s the full truth. You’re right—I talked to that woman reporter at the Star Dispatch, too. Meg talked to her first, and I think Meg sent her to Dylan, and then she called me. I didn’t know exactly what her article was going to be about and I never, ever intended to tell her any secrets about your family, but I did answer her questions about our team and how it got started. Maybe that was a mistake. I’m not sure.”
