The League

by Thatcher Heldring

  “It’s like this,” Aaron replied. “Things are going pretty good in my life. If you show up at school in the fall acting like the helpless dweeb you are now, it could be bad for business—for me. So I figure if you see a little combat over the summer, you might grow a spine and not totally destroy the Parker name. That’s the idea, anyway.”

  “I’m not a dweeb,” I said. “I played football today, remember?”

  Aaron opened the bathroom door. “Two-hand-touch football, and yes, you are,” he said, showing me out. “But don’t feel bad. This is just me being honest, brother to brother. Now go. I have a date tonight.”

  Out in the hallway, Mom was pestering Kate about her math homework. “Is it done?” she asked.

  “No,” Kate admitted. “It’s too hard.”

  “I don’t think you tried,” Mom responded.

  “Can Wyatt help me?”

  Mom shook her head. “No, you need to do it,” she said, looking at both of us.

  “He helped Aaron with his homework.”

  “My answer is no, Kate,” Mom said, shooing Kate to her room. “Now get to it. Your test is in less than a week.”

  “I know that,” Kate said. “And by the way, it’s take-home, so stop stressing.”

  “Get to work,” Mom said again.

  Back in my room, I picked up the football and ran around in short spurts, pretending to dodge invisible tacklers on my way to the end zone. In just over a week, I’d be doing it for real in an actual football game. I was so happy about the idea of playing I didn’t even care that I’d be in something called the League of Pain. I already felt like Brian Braun.

  A knock on the door interrupted my celebration. “Is everything okay?” Mom asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Everything’s fine. I’m just doing my homework for, um, gym class.”

  “Did you call Francis?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Call him now, Wyatt.”

  “Fine.”

  I picked up the phone, then decided it would be easier to send Francis a text. Sorry about today. Something came up. Later. I set the phone down and spent the next twenty minutes trying to spin the football on my finger.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Can you believe it’s almost summer?” Evan asked, swatting at a mosquito later that night. “I’m so ready for school to be over.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of like school.”

  “You’re such a nerd.” Evan slugged me gently on the shoulder to let me know she was kidding.

  “Whatever, tomboy.”

  Evan socked me again. This time, it wasn’t gentle. “Don’t call me that, Wyatt. I told you I hate that.”

  I rubbed my shoulder. “Well, maybe I hate being called a nerd.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes. It wasn’t a good silence, like when one of us looked for the shooting stars while the other person read, or when we were sitting in a theater waiting for a movie to begin.

  Evan was the first one to speak. “Sorry I punched you.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “It didn’t hurt.”

  “Liar.”

  “Hey, I could have punched you back.”

  Evan batted her eyes. “You’d never hit a lady, Wyatt. That’s what I like about you.”

  “Call me a nerd one more time and see what happens.”

  Evan laughed. Suddenly, she sat straight up in the lawn chair. “Oh, I totally forgot to tell you. I got a job at the pool this summer. Well, not a job exactly. But I’m going to be a junior swim instructor. You know, like helping the real instructors teach swim lessons.” Evan pretended to do the crawl stroke. “I’m so excited! I get a free pass to the pool all summer, and when I’m sixteen it’s almost automatic that I’ll get to be a lifeguard.”

  Evan leaped up and started dancing around the porch. “Go, Evan. Go, Evan. Go, Evan.” Then she froze. “And guess who else works at the pool? Ooh la la, Brian Braun. He was there when I turned in my application and he was like, are you working here this summer, and I think I said, um, yes, but I might not have said anything, I don’t know, and he said, cool, I’ll show you around.”

  “Around where?” I asked, even though I didn’t care.

  “The pool, I guess. But isn’t that great? Now I’ll have something to talk to him about next year. You should meet him, Wyatt. You’d totally like him. He’s a really nice guy.”

  “Woo-hoo.”

  “Wyatt, this is a really big deal. It’s like a job.” Evan sat back on the porch swing. “I didn’t tell you the other best part. I met a bunch of the other people who are going to work at the pool and they invited me to watch the fireworks on the hill. You should come.”

  I was pretty sure who else was in that group, which meant I was out. The last thing I wanted to do was hike up some hill so I could watch fireworks with Evan and Brian Braun, even though I thought he was pretty much the coolest guy in Pilchuck.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I told Evan. “I might be folding American flags at the retirement home.”

  “Um, okay,” she answered. “Well, when you get done with that, you should come find us.”

  I told Evan I would think about it, but I had already made up my mind. Evan and I had never hung out in groups, and I didn’t want to hang out with Evan in a group now. I wanted to hang out with Evan by myself.

  I went to my room and found Kate in my beanbag chair, reading a book. I pointed to the door. “Good night.”

  “Why don’t you want to watch the fireworks with Evan?” she asked.

  “Were you listening?”

  “The window was open. Why don’t you want to watch the fireworks with Evan?”

  “Who said I didn’t?”

  “You told her you had to think about it. That’s the same thing. Why don’t you want to watch the fireworks with Evan?”

  I sat on my bed. “Because she’s going to be with a bunch of people I don’t know and there’s nothing fun about that.”

  “But she invited you.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I said.

  “Why don’t you just admit you like her?” Kate asked me.

  I looked at Kate. “Like her?”

  “Like her like her,” she said.

  “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  Kate didn’t care. “You should tell her. She might like you too.”

  “We’re just friends. That’s all. She likes Brian Brian. I mean Braun.”

  “Who’s Brian Braun?”

  “He’s a lifeguard. At the pool. Where Evan is working this summer. He has more muscles than Batman. You see what I’m saying?”

  “You should watch the fireworks with her. She might get scared and grab your hand.”

  “Then what?”

  Kate looked at me like I was crazy. “You don’t know?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Hold it back, dummy.” She shook her head as she walked out of the room. “Hopeless,” I heard her say as she padded down the hallway.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t get the thought of holding Evan’s hand out of my mind. Could that really happen watching fireworks? How would I know when to let go? What if I never let go? Would we just hold hands all the way through high school? We’d have to take all the same classes and sit next to each other. That didn’t sound too bad.

  The next time I saw Evan I was going to tell her I’d changed my mind about watching the fireworks. Which meant Brian Braun wouldn’t be the only football player on the hill that night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I was looking forward to the fireworks, but I’d have to wait. The Fourth of July was still a month away. I needed to make it through another week and a half of school before I could even think about summer. On Monday I was bending down to find my math book when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Miss me?”

  I looked up to see Spencer Randle, and gulped. Had it been a week already?

  “Not really,” I said.

  �
�I thought about you every day I was gone,” Spencer said through a fake smile. “I thought about crushing your head like a grape.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Before Spencer could say another word Mr. Groton appeared. “Is everything all right here?” he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  I felt Spencer’s eyes on me. There was no way I was opening my mouth this time. Mr. Groton would have to suspend me first.

  “Wyatt?” Mr. Groton asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “Um, yup. We’re just talking.”

  “That’s good,” said Mr. Groton, looking directly at Spencer. “Because my good friend Wayne Puckett was just asking about Mr. Randle. He wanted to know if you were staying out of trouble.”

  “Coach Puckett?” Spencer asked. “The high school football coach?”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Groton. “He told me he’s looking forward to seeing you at tryouts this fall, but that he doesn’t have any room on his team for discipline problems.”

  “What else did he say?” Spencer asked.

  “He asked me to keep an eye on you. I promised I’d give him a full report on everything you do between now and the end of the school year.”

  Hearing that filled me with relief. I knew I’d be safe until the end of the year. Then it would be summer and I wouldn’t see Spencer again until September, and by that time, I’d be a football player too. I bet Spencer wouldn’t even recognize me after one summer in the League of Pain.

  Mr. Groton smiled at us. “All right, then. You boys get to class.”

  I ate lunch with Francis in Mr. Leland’s classroom. The first thing I did was apologize for skipping the amateur tournament.

  “It’s cool,” Francis said. “But you missed a good time. We were like five feet from the first tee, right up against the rope. I could hear the golfers talking to their caddies.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said, not thinking it was awesome at all.

  Still, it did feel good to apologize for real, I thought as we helped Mr. Leland pack up his science equipment for the summer. “Where do you keep these?” I asked, pointing to the microscopes.

  “I keep them in a secret storage room deep beneath the school,” Mr. Leland said.

  “Sounds like a good place to hide,” Francis said.

  I was relieved to see Francis joking around. If he was mad at me, he wasn’t showing it. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t say anything about the League of Pain or golf camp just yet.

  Mr. Leland was stacking science books in a cardboard box. “So what are you two doing when school gets out?” he asked.

  “We’re going to golf camp,” Francis replied, pointing at himself and me at the same time.

  I tried to imagine what Francis was going to do when I didn’t show up on the first day. Then I realized I had another problem. A humongous problem, actually. When it came to golf camp, I couldn’t not say anything. If I just didn’t show up, Francis would ask my mom where I was. That was if someone from the golf club didn’t call her first. I needed a cover story that both of them would believe.

  I wasn’t sure how to create a cover story. If it had been a math problem, I would have used a formula. If it had been a history problem, I would have looked it up. This felt like a problem without a solution. But I knew every problem had a solution, so I used all my brain power to find one.

  By Saturday morning, I still hadn’t come up with anything. Hoping to give my mind a rest, I wandered into the den, where Dad was watching golf.

  He patted the couch when he saw me. “Grab a seat,” he said with a smile. “The final pair just teed off.”

  I sat down and tried to get interested. The golfer on the screen was standing on a bed of pine needles under a stand of oak trees. His ball lay on the ground, not far from the roots of the tree.

  “What a jam!” the announcer was saying, like the guy was hanging off the edge of a cliff.

  The golfer strolled from his ball to the fairway and back again. He talked to his caddy. He took a practice swing with one club, then replaced it with another club.

  Dad shook his head. “He’s overthinking it,” he said. “If he just chips back to the fairway, he’ll have a great look at the green. The problem is in the guy’s head.”

  That made me think. Maybe my problem was all in my head. What if I just did the easy thing and asked Dad one more time, man to man, if I could play flag football instead of going to golf camp? It wasn’t the League of Pain, but there would be no need for a cover story. Not a bad solution.

  “I don’t think I want to go to golf camp,” I said, wincing as the words came out. It felt good to be honest with Dad, but I had no idea how he’d react.

  Dad muted the television. “Maybe you don’t now,” he replied. “But once you get there and start swinging the clubs, you’ll change your mind.”

  “Dad, I mean it,” I said, gathering my courage. “I really want to play football with my friends. I don’t want to go to golf camp. I know it’s what you want, but it’s not what I want.”

  “I thought we talked about this,” Dad said. “The deal was you can try another sport after golf camp. I bet you’d be great at tennis.”

  “I’ve been playing football with some people from school,” I said. “I even scored a touchdown. So can I play flag football? You just have to sign a permission slip, otherwise I can’t do it.”

  I saw Dad’s attention go back to the television screen, where a different golfer was standing in a sand trap. The guy stuck under the oak trees was gone.

  “You mean later in the summer … after golf?”

  Dad wasn’t getting the message, and it was starting to make me mad. “Instead of golf,” I said.

  “Wyatt, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t play football. That’s your mom’s call. But you are going to golf camp this summer. I know you don’t believe me, but I really think golf is the perfect sport for you.”

  Why did that feel like an insult? Why couldn’t Dad see that I didn’t want to be the guy stuck in the sand trap? I wanted to be Brian Braun, who broke all the records and did whatever he wanted to do.

  “I’m going upstairs,” I told Dad.

  “Wyatt,” he called.

  Something in the way his voice had softened hinted at a change of heart. I stopped on the steps and listened hopefully.

  “Yeah?”

  “By the end of the summer, you’ll be thanking me for this. I promise.” Then he winked.

  That was the end of the conversation.

  I went into my room, closed the door behind me, and dialed the phone. I didn’t have a cover story yet, so I just started talking.

  “Pilchuck Golf and Tennis Club,” said a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. “Jo speaking.”

  “Uh, hi,” I said.

  “Hello,” said the woman. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Wyatt Parker. I’m signed up for golf camp this summer.”

  “Are you confirming your place?”

  “No, I, uh, have to cancel. I just found out that I have to go to, um, space camp.”

  “I’m sorry to hear you won’t be at golf camp. Just so you know, the prepaid fee is nonrefundable. That’s club policy.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “Great,” said the woman. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then have a nice day, Wyatt. And have fun at space camp.”

  The second I hung up the phone, Kate pushed my door open. She was holding a piece of paper with math problems on it.

  “Thanks for knocking,” I told her.

  “Why did you say you were going to space camp?” she asked, marching into my room.

  “Once again, it’s none of your business.”

  “Tell me, or I’ll tell Mom and Dad, and then it will be everybody’s business.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kate and I stood in the center of the room, staring at each other as Aaron’s m
usic thumped against the walls next door. I knew she wouldn’t actually tell on me and I was pretty sure she knew that too. But I also had to face the fact that it wouldn’t take Kate long to figure out I wasn’t going to golf camp, or space camp. Then she’d really start asking questions.

  I sat on the edge of my bed. “Can you keep a secret?” I asked Kate. I had to make sure, especially before telling her the truth about my plans, except for the part about Aaron being the one who told me about the League of Pain in the first place. Of course it took her less than a second to put that together anyway.

  “I knew Aaron wasn’t volunteering this summer!” she exclaimed.

  “Who said anything about Aaron?” I said, trying to play dumb. “This has nothing to do with him.”

  “Oh, please,” Kate shot back. “Who would ever believe that story about him picking up trash in the park? Plus, duh, it’s football.”

  “Good point,” I said. “So you won’t say anything to Mom and Dad?”

  “I won’t say anything,” Kate said. “But you have to help me with my math homework.”

  “What am I, the family tutor?” I grumbled. “How come nobody in this house can do their own homework?”

  “Please, Wyatt,” she begged. “It’s just one little worksheet. It’s not even homework. It’s just practice for my test.”

  “Mom told you to do your own homework.”

  “Mom told you not to play football.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Sit down and grab a pencil. I’m not doing this for you.”

  “This is so cool,” Kate said, her eyes shining. “It’s just like Don’t Tell Mom I’m a Mermaid. Only instead of being a mermaid, you’re trying to play football. And instead of me helping you get back to the ocean, you’re helping me with math.”

  For the next half hour, I showed Kate how to multiply and divide fractions. It didn’t take long for her to pick it up. When it came to brains, she was closer to me than Aaron was. As soon as we finished her worksheet, she went right back to explaining the plot of Don’t Tell Mom I’m a Mermaid.

  “See, the only people who knew the main character was a mermaid were the mermaid’s friends, and they all had to keep the secret from their parents and teachers because if any adult found out, she’d die.”