by Lisa Graff
Ms. Emerson swiveled around from where she was writing at the board. Her black crone eyes zoomed in on me.
The room went silent.
Slowly, Ms. Emerson glanced down at the roll-call sheet on her stovetop desk.
“Trent, is it?” she asked me. She didn’t have to ask it. She knew full well. In this town, everyone knew.
“Trent,” I confirmed.
She took a slow, wrinkled breath. “Trent,” she said. “I’m happy to discuss any concerns you may have with my rules after homeroom ends, but just at the moment we have some very important things to discuss that pertain to the whole class, and not much time to do it. Furthermore”—her black eyes darted to the list of rules she’d scribbled on the board—“as we’ve just gone over, talking out of turn is not permitted in this class. As I’ve mentioned, rule breaking may be grounds for detention.”
And with that, she moved on, to ask Sarah Delfino to help her hand out student schedules.
“How long is detention?” I asked, interrupting Ms. Emerson again a minute later, when she had just started in about changing periods and lockers.
“I’m sorry?” Ms. Emerson said in that way that indicated she wasn’t sorry in the slightest. She narrowed her eyes at me, and everyone in the class sucked in their breaths together. The wrinkled old crone’s eyes did not look pretty when they were narrowed.
“How long is detention?” I asked again. “How long does it go for?”
Ms. Emerson straightened up her old-crone back. You could almost see the wheels in her head turning, deciding if she should answer me or not. I guess she finally decided she should.
“It lasts as long as I deem appropriate,” she told me. I bet she thought she was being really clever, giving me an answer like that.
I nodded, still thinking. “Could it last all the way to five o’clock?” I said. “I mean, if someone did something really terrible?”
“Trent,” Ms. Emerson said slowly. Like a dog growling, low and menacing. “You’ll be staying in your seat after the bell rings for first period. You and I are going to have a little talk.”
Everyone in the class was busy oohing at that, like I was in so much trouble and they all thought it was amazing. But I knew better.
“No,” I said, and I stood up. “I won’t be doing that,” I told Ms. Emerson. “But I will see you in detention.” I walked to the door. And I swung my elbow wide.
And then, just as the bell rang—I couldn’t have timed it better if I’d tried—the wrinkled old crone’s precious potted plant smashed to the ground, and I swept through the door into the hallway.
It wasn’t until I checked my schedule on the way to first period that I realized I had Ms. Emerson for nearly every class.
• • •
Lucky for me, first period was not with Ms. Emerson. First period was P.E.
I’d always been good in P.E.
Fallon was in my P.E. class, I noticed (I couldn’t not notice—she waved at me and jumped when she saw me, like we were best friends in the whole world, and I had to pretend I’d never seen her before). But thank goodness they split us up boy-girl, with the girls on the other side of the gym. Different P.E. teachers, too.
Our P.E. teacher was named Mr. Gorman. He was thick, with legs like tree trunks, and you could tell his brain was probably filled with moss. But I didn’t actually figure out how much I was going to hate him until he started roll call and called everyone’s name, first and last, like teachers always did, and got to Noah Gorman and just said, “Noah,” no last name. And Noah shrugged up at him from where we were all sitting on the floor, and Mr. Gorman marked him present, and that’s when I noticed that Mr. Gorman looked a whole heck of a lot like Noah’s dad.
That’s right: My P.E. teacher was my ex–best friend’s uncle.
Fantastic.
Mr. Gorman spent ten full minutes telling us the rules of his class, which were pretty much exactly the rules of homeroom. Then he started talking about intramural teams. He went through a bunch of them—hockey, football, tennis. Finally he got to baseball, and I sat up a little straighter.
Okay, I admit it. I was interested. My arm was aching just thinking about swinging a bat. I guess I’d missed it. I really had.
“Intramural baseball is starting late this year,” Mr. Gorman said, holding tight to his clipboard as we sat around him on the gym floor, staring at him about crotch level. (I have never understood why gym teachers always insist on standing when all the kids are sitting on the gym floor.) (Also, why do gym teachers always have clipboards? What do they even do with them?) “Three weeks from today. Anyone who wants to can join the team, and from that group we’ll be selecting players for the team in the spring. Intramurals is for learning the ropes. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s no place for sissies. We meet every day, rain or shine, and we play hard.” He looked around the circle. “Any questions?”
When I raised my hand, I thought I heard a few kids from my homeroom snicker, like they thought I was going to be a smart-ass or something. But I wasn’t going to be a smart-ass.
“Yes?” Mr. Gorman called on me.
“Anyone who wants to can join an intramural team?” I asked.
You could tell some kids were disappointed that I hadn’t been a smart-ass.
“Anyone,” Mr. Gorman confirmed. “Skill level is not important in intramurals. It’s an opportunity to learn.”
I nodded at that. If anyone could join, that meant no one could freeze you out. No one could decide you didn’t belong.
The day was looking up.
After that, Mr. Gorman broke us up into teams for basketball, and I’ll admit I was kind of excited about it. I was really good at basketball, and it wasn’t even my third-favorite sport. I leaned forward on the balls of my feet while Steve Bickford dribbled the ball, looking who to pass it to. I loosened up my shoulders, rolling them forward then back, watching the action on the court. I’d missed this, being on a team. It had been a long time.
Too long.
We were pretty far into the game before I got my hands on the ball. Zak Halmeciek passed it to me because I was wide open and had a great angle on the basket, and we both knew it. So he passed me the ball, and I caught it. It felt perfect in my hands. Solid.
I turned to the basket. Bent my knees to shoot.
And then, I don’t know why, my arms got clammy. Sweaty, even though it wasn’t that hot in the gym. I could see tiny droplets of water beading up on my skin. And as soon as I saw that, for no reason at all, it got hard to swallow. Hard to breathe.
Before I could figure out what was going on, the ball was suddenly snatched out of my hands, and the guys on my team were groaning. “Trent!” Zak shouted. “What’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you shoot?” And I turned around and there was Noah Gorman, dribbling my stupid ball across the court.
Noah didn’t even like basketball.
I barreled over to him, fast as I could, and got my hands on the ball easy, because Noah had no idea how to guard himself. Noah tried to yank the ball back, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Foul!” Noah cried as I tried to wrench the ball from his grip. “Trent, quit it. Foul!”
But it was my ball. I had it. I had it. I ripped the ball completely out of Noah’s hands, and Noah fell to the floor like a sissy, and I turned to scram back down the court, but everyone on Noah’s team was suddenly yelling “Foul!” at me, too, like I’d done something wrong, which I hadn’t.
“Shut up!” I shouted back at them. But even as I shouted, my skin grew clammier, my throat got tighter. I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it.
“Shut up!” I shouted again. And then, to show everyone how wrong they all were about me fouling, to show them that I didn’t even care about stupid basketball anyway—it wasn’t even my third-favorite sport—I threw the ball as hard as I could, acr
oss the gym. It smashed into the rack of soccer balls on the far end. Broke it. Balls everywhere.
“I didn’t foul anyone!” I shouted. My breath was coming back, just a little. “Just shut up!”
Which is about all I got out before fat Mr. Gorman ripped me off my feet and practically threw me into the bleachers. Everyone was staring at me with their eyes wide and their mouths open. Except for the people whose eyes had gone tiny, squinting. I glared at them all. What did they know?
“Your nephew was the one who fouled me,” I told Mr. Gorman, breathing in deep now that I had air to breathe again. Even with Mr. Gorman inches from my nose, his face angry and purple, his eyeballs practically bugged out of his head, it was easier to breathe here on the bleachers.
Mr. Gorman just kept shaking his head at me, not saying a word. He really did look pretty mad.
The girls were trickling in from running their laps outside. I kept an eye out for Fallon, but I didn’t see her. Good.
Finally, Mr. Gorman must’ve gotten some words in him. “Everybody, to the locker rooms,” he said. And the guys started, slowly, to head over. “Not you, Trent,” he told me when I tried to get up. “You stay.” Great. On their way to change, the guys all kept looking over their shoulders at me, then turning back to each other and saying something.
Well, Noah didn’t look.
“I guess having a P.E. teacher for an uncle doesn’t make Noah any good at not fouling people,” I told Mr. Gorman.
Mr. Gorman pressed his fat lips together. “Let’s get something straight, all right, Trent?” he said. He did not sound like he was about to tell me some sort of a joke. “In this class, I’m Mr. Gorman , the phys ed teacher. You got that? I am not anybody’s uncle. I am not anybody’s husband, or son, or second cousin. I am your teacher. I’m Noah’s teacher, too, plain and simple. Noah knows that, and I need you to know that. You got it?”
“Sure,” I said. The bell rang. Fallon still hadn’t come back inside, I noticed. I stood up. “Thanks for the lesson.”
“Sit your ass back down, Trent,” Mr. Gorman told me. “I’m not even close to done.”
He said that. He said “ass.” I’m pretty sure teachers aren’t supposed to say “ass.”
“But the bell rang.”
The look Mr. Gorman gave me then—well, I knew in that instant there was a reason he’d become a P.E. teacher. I bet he could’ve wrestled a bear and won.
I sat my ass back down.
“You listening now?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“Good. Because I need you to hear something. In this class, I am your teacher, and you are my student. I met you today, in this gym, and that’s the kid you are when you’re here, you got that?” I blinked at him. I didn’t say anything. “I don’t care who your friends are or aren’t, I don’t care who you’re related to, I don’t care if you’ve robbed a bank or won the Pulitzer Prize. When you’re in this gym, you’re the kid I see in this gym.” He poked his first two fingers in the air, pointing at me, every time he said “in this gym.” “So you get to decide who you are in this gym, no one else. It’s up to you. You got that, Trent?”
I shrugged.
“You got it?”
I was pretty sure that if I didn’t get it, he was going to poke his fat fingers all the way through my brain, so I got it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I got it.”
“Do you want to tell me a good reason you broke my soccer rack?” Mr. Gorman asked me.
I did not. Because my skin felt clammy did not sound like a good reason.
“Trent?”
“No, sir,” I answered.
Mr. Gorman looked at me a long time after that, not saying anything. The guys started to leave the locker room, in their regular clothes, and some of them were milling around, waiting for something truly terrible to happen to me on the bleachers, and still Mr. Gorman kept staring.
Finally he nodded, like he’d made up his mind about something. “Today didn’t happen,” he told me. “You get a fresh start tomorrow.”
I stood up. Headed to the lockers.
“I want to like the kid I meet tomorrow, got it?” he called to me.
I kept on walking.
I saw Fallon coming in from outside just as I reached the locker room. She was all by herself. I could tell by the look on her face that she hated gym almost as much as I did.
“Hey, Trent,” she called over, and she gave me a little wave.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t wave back.
I want to like the kid I meet tomorrow.
I knew better than anybody that that was never going to happen.
• • •
The rest of the day went about as well as you can imagine. Ms. Emerson glared at me all through language arts. All through literature. All through social studies. The only time she didn’t glare at me was when she confirmed that I did, in fact, have detention, young man.
Someone had swept up her precious potted plant. I hoped it was having a very happy life in the garbage can.
During lunch, I didn’t feel like getting glared at by anybody, so I spent the whole time in the bathroom, hiding out, scribbling in my Book of Thoughts while perched on the back of the toilet tank. That was about as much fun as you can imagine, too.
Even detention was a disappointment. Ms. Emerson sat behind her sink-counter for a long time, just staring at me, looking like she was going to give me some big lecture or whatever, but she never did. I certainly wasn’t going to be the first one to talk. Finally she said, “Trent Zimmerman, I have lessons to plan. Why don’t you sit there and be silent until I decide you can go home?”
So she planned, and I drew in my Book of Thoughts until she decided I could go home at 4:15, which was way too early. But I walked my bike instead of rode it, and I took four detours, too, so by the time I got home, it was 5:03. There was a note from Aaron on the table.
Trent—
I told you 4:50. We had to leave without you.
—Aaron
I crumpled the note into a ball and threw it in the garbage, and fixed myself some soup for dinner. Mom got home just after Aaron and Doug, and neither of them mentioned that I’d skipped dinner, and Dad didn’t call about it either. Mom did say, “Detention on the first day of school, huh?” with her eyebrows raised to the ceiling. And then when I told her that it was an accident, with Ms. Emerson’s stupid plant, she looked at me for a long time, studying my face like she was deciding whether or not to believe me. I guess believing me must’ve been easier, because finally she said, “You can always talk to me, Trent.” And I agreed with that, because, duh, I wasn’t about to say anything otherwise. And then, thank goodness, Mom turned on the game.
The Dodgers beat the Padres, 5 to 4, so I guess the day wasn’t a total loss.
FIVE
Am I going to like the kid I meet today?” That’s what Mr. Gorman asked me as I walked into the gym on Tuesday morning. He was standing in the doorway, holding his clipboard, like he was waiting for me or something.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Are you?”
And I walked straight up to the bleachers—didn’t even bother to go to the locker room and change into my gym clothes—and I sat.
“Trent?” he asked me. “You planning on participating today?”
“Can’t,” I said. “I twisted my arm helping my mom move furniture last night.” And I made a big show of rubbing my arm, my right one. “I forgot my note. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
Mr. Gorman frowned at me, but what else was he going to do? He couldn’t exactly pick me up and force me to play basketball. So he just sort of made an “Mm-hmm” noise in his throat, and checked something off on his clipboard. Probably the box that said I was a screw-up.
I spent the whole period watching other kids play basketball, which is not nearly as fun as it sou
nds.
I spent all of lunch in the bathroom again, which is even less fun than it sounds.
• • •
“Am I going to like the kid I meet today?” Mr. Gorman asked me on Wednesday. Still standing at the door. Still holding his clipboard.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Depends if you like kids who can’t play basketball because of their horrible colds.” I fake-sneezed. I think a little got on Mr. Gorman, which was an added bonus. “I’ll bring my note tomorrow!” I said as I made my way up the bleachers.
Mr. Gorman made a check on his clipboard.
• • •
By the time lunch on Wednesday rolled around, I was getting pretty sick of the bathroom. So, even though I really didn’t want to, I went to the cafeteria. Bought myself lunch. Sat down at a completely empty table in the corner.
Guess who decided to sit down next to me.
“Trent!”
I tried to make myself look so large that I took up the whole table, but Fallon found room anyway.
“Hey,” she told me. “You’re here.”
“Yeah.” I held up my tuna sandwich to show her. “It’s lunch.”
“But you weren’t in the cafeteria yesterday,” she said. “Or Monday, either.”
I just shrugged. No way I was going to tell her I’d been hanging out in the bathroom.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now.” She opened her chocolate milk like an expert. Took a long swig. “I wanted to tell you something.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to talk to her about her stupid scar anymore. I didn’t want to argue with her about drawing her weird pictures. “Don’t you have any friends?” I asked her.
All right. It came out meaner than I meant it.
Fallon froze, halfway to her apple. Hand just frozen in midair, like she’d been zapped or something. But then, just when I thought she was going to burst into tears like a real girl, she unfroze herself and grabbed the apple, like nothing had happened at all. Like the freezing had just been a fritz in my vision. “Don’t you?” she asked.
