by Laura Shovan
It’s already loud in the high school gym. Dad sets up his folding chair and pulls out my after-weigh-in breakfast, peanut butter and jelly on a bagel. I spot Nick Spence running up and down the side of the gym in a sweat suit. Make that two sweat suits. He’s even wearing a knit cap on his head.
Is he cutting weight? I think.
Some wrestlers do weird stuff to make sure they’re in a specific weight class. They chug protein shakes and hit the weight room to get bigger. But usually, they’re looking to drop pounds and move into a lower weight class. I’ve heard stories from Evan and Cody. Kids carrying around spit cups at school to lose water weight. Jogging in double layers of clothing to sweat it off. Cutting weight can be dangerous, so youth wrestlers aren’t supposed to do it. But since when has Nick Spence followed the rules?
Before I can tell Lev about Nick, he pulls me toward the trophy table.
“It’s your first travel tournament,” Lev says, bouncing on his wrestling shoes. He’s gotten a haircut. Without his dark wavy hair to cover them, his ears stick out. He has way more freckles than I thought. “Don’t you want to know what you’re wrestling for?” he asks. There are rows and rows of shiny trophies, each one topped with a golden wrestler boy. “Look at the ones for first place. They’re huge!”
Lev leans over the tape that’s supposed to stop us from touching the prizes. I pull him back, but he shakes me off. “Don’t worry. I won’t breathe on them.”
“I’ll be impressed when I see a trophy with a girl on top,” I say. I’m so busy looking at the awards, I don’t notice Isaiah leaning over the tape with us. He nods hello.
“Never going to happen,” Isaiah says. “No guy wants a trophy with a girl on top.” Lev elbows him in the gut, but Isaiah says, “What? It’s the truth.”
“You think I want a shelf full of trophy boys in my room? No, thank you.”
“She’s got a point,” says Lev.
“Right,” Isaiah says. “You complain to the tournament director. He’ll say he’s not buying girl trophies when there are what—five girls wrestling today?”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“Look,” Isaiah says. “I’m sorry about what happened that time at practice. You’re a good wrestler, but—”
“I know!” Lev exclaims, grabbing us both by the arm. “We’ll invent a trophy with figures you can change! We’ll make a million bucks.”
I laugh. Isaiah’s smiling too. I know Lev’s changing the subject, but I like his idea. If I win, why shouldn’t I be able to take home a trophy with braids in its hair, long eyelashes, and hot-pink wrestling shoes?
I tell them, “If I win today, I’m going to take my trophy home, paint its fingernails, and give it pink knee socks to match mine.” It actually sounds like fun, a project for me and Kenna. Once we’re speaking again. We’ll take one of my trophies and give it a makeover.
“We’re here to wrestle, not change the universe,” Lev says.
“Maybe it needs to change,” I mutter, but they don’t hear me.
“Where’s Josh?” Lev asks Isaiah. I drift away from them, back to Dad.
“Bout sheets are up,” he says, holding up his phone. “I took a picture. Eight wrestlers in your bracket. You’re on mat four all day.”
To anyone who doesn’t wrestle, the bracket sheet must look like a complicated math project. Kids’ names are listed down the middle, with lines and numbers pointing left and right. I’m the only girl in my age and weight class. I scan the names and only recognize one: Lev Sofer. Nick Spence’s name isn’t here. Strange.
My first match is number nineteen. Coach Billy walks me onto the mat. “I talked to your opponent’s coach,” he tells me. “He’s a first-year travel wrestler, just like you.”
I hear Coach’s words, but my ears are buzzing. My fingers and toes prickle like they’re going numb. Coach Billy leans down until his nose is practically touching mine. “Dig deep, Mickey. Find that killer instinct.”
I nod. “Delgados aren’t quitters,” I say.
“Atta girl.”
It’s a close match. We go all three periods. When I win by one takedown, Dad loses his cool. He runs out of the stands, picks me up, and swings me around until my legs fly in the air and we’re both laughing.
Dad puts me down and hands me a five-dollar bill.
“You earned a treat. Don’t tell your mom,” he says. I nod. I’d give him the money back if he’d swing me like that again.
It’s the day of the first tournament. I hear my parents’ shower running and pull the covers over my head. I don’t open my eyes. If I look at the clock, it’s going to say five-thirty. My body feels like I got flattened by a steamroller at last night’s practice.
The hall light clicks on. Abba pulls my covers back and shakes me awake.
“Don’t wanna get up,” I mumble. I had the dream again last night. The shadow-person walked to the middle of the bridge and called to me. He wanted me to wrestle, but when I stepped on the log, I fell, same as before.
I must fall back asleep, because next thing I know, I’m standing on my parents’ bathroom scale in underwear and socks. I’m not sure how I got here.
“Ninety-four point six,” Abba says. “That’s cutting it close. No breakfast until after weigh-ins.”
If Mom were here, she’d be brushing her wet hair, splashing it on me, trying to make me laugh, but she and Dalia don’t fly home until tomorrow morning.
* * *
The rest of the morning is a blur of packing: food for after weigh-ins, peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, apple slices, a few Hershey’s Kisses, my headgear and last season’s headgear for emergencies, my notebook. I get dressed in layers of red-and-gray Gladiators gear and hope my new singlet doesn’t give me armpit wedgies.
Abba sits at the table with a cup of coffee. “Lev, stop bouncing.”
I ignore him, plant my hands on the kitchen table and bounce even higher. One of my sandals flies off my sock and hits the back door. Grover woofs.
Abba puts two big hands on my shoulders. “Settle,” he says. I look at his scruffy face. His stubble is almost as gray as the hair on his head. Abba leans forward until our foreheads touch. “Save your energy for the tournament.”
When we step outside, cold, quiet night touches my face. I hear a long, lonely “hoo.”
“Is that an owl?”
Abba nods. “It’s a good sign. You’re going to wrestle smart today.” He rubs the top of my head. “Let’s hit the road, Jack.”
I toss a pillow and blanket into the back of Abba’s SUV. He puts on his favorite band from when he was in high school, Rush. The sound pumps like heat through my muscles.
Why do I love this sport? Who wants to leave the house before six a.m. on a holiday weekend? It’s cold enough to freeze the boogers inside my nose. But later this morning I’ll have a great match. I’ll feel my opponent hesitate for a second, my instincts will kick in, and the other guy will be on his back, fighting for his life. I’ll push down on his chest and slap! The ref’s hand will come down and I’ll be standing in the center of the mat, victorious.
* * *
My first match is against a kid from the Burtonsville Bulldogs. Coach Billy calls me over. “Be aggressive out there,” he says. “Take the first shot.”
“First shot, best shot.” It’s one of Coach’s favorite sayings.
I jog onto the mat and put on the red ankle cuff. The ref has a matching red cuff on one wrist and a green one on the other. He uses them to tell the judges when a point is scored. Every time he raises his arm with the red cuff, the judges mark down a point for me.
A boy in Burtonsville purple puts on the green cuff, then takes his stance across from me. We shake hands.
“Wrestle!”
Lunge. Knee down, hands out. I grab his leg and pull the Bulldog down, spinning be
hind him. “Takedown. Two!” the ref yells, and holds up two fingers.
Seconds into the match and I’m sweating. I pull the Bulldog’s arm out from under him, forcing him flat to the floor.
“Time!” a voice yells. I don’t have time to check in with Coach before the ref sets us up for the second period. I’m top man, my chin hovering above the Bulldog’s shoulders.
On the whistle, I move. Almost without thinking, I sink a half nelson, sliding an arm through the kid’s elbow and behind his head. I roll the boy over. He pants and groans, kicks and bucks. I hold on. The ref is belly down on the mat next to us. I catch his eye for a second as he checks the Bulldog’s shoulders. Slap! The ref’s hand hits the mat.
It’s over.
“That’s the killer instinct I want to see,” Coach Billy says, grabbing me around the shoulders. First match of the season, and I pinned my guy. I’ve got this. I know I’m good enough to make it to States.
Lev finds me in the hallway, studying the updated bracket sheets. There’s an F for Fall next to his name. Pinning a guy in your first match of the season. I bet that feels awesome.
“How’d you do?” he asks, trying to see around me.
“I won.”
“You did? You don’t sound happy about it.”
I point to my next match on the bracket sheet, number fifty-three. Lev’s name is right under mine.
“Oh,” he says. “That stinks.”
“You’d better not go easy on me just because you’re my partner. Pretend you’ve never seen me before in your life.”
“Quit worrying. Josh and I have wrestled at tournaments plenty of times.”
“I thought you’d be all about the Fearsome Threesome today,” I say as we walk back to the gym. Lev tilts his head toward the cafeteria. Josh and Isaiah are in line, waiting for hot dogs, chili, and donuts. Once weigh-ins are over, wrestlers love their junk food.
A kid passes us. The slogan on his T-shirt says On the Mat, Beneath the Light, That’s Where Real Men Come to Fight.
“Give me a Sharpie,” I say. “I need to fix that shirt. It should say That’s Where Women Come to Fight.”
“You can have this.” Lev pulls a pen out of his special notebook.
“You’d give me the pen from your journal? I’m honored.”
He grimaces. “It is not a journal. It is a notebook. Besides, I agree with you. Coach Billy says wrestling is for anyone tough enough to step on the mat.”
“Then he’s full of it.” I take a long drink from my water bottle.
“You don’t think that’s true?”
“If you’re a boy. I have to work twice as hard as everybody else in the practice room.”
The other day at lunch, Lalita asked me if I like Lev, and not just as a partner. “Is he boyfriend material?” she wanted to know. She shivered, which made her hair bow shake.
Kenna scowled at her. “Do we have to talk about boys?”
“Exactly,” I said. “We’re eleven.”
“I’m not eleven,” Lalita said. “I turned twelve in October.” She leaned across the table and told us in a low voice, “My sister got her period when she was twelve.” Lalita shivered again and smiled with her electric blue braces showing, like this was the most exciting news ever.
I guess Lalita might call Lev cute, but I think he was cuter with long hair. He looks younger and goofier with short hair and those funny ears. I think it makes me like him even more. As a friend.
“Are there any Eagles in our bracket?” I ask Lev.
“Spence is here today, but I don’t see his name.” He scratches his short hair where his headgear made a cowlick. “He’s supposed to be wrestling ninety-five, like us.”
In the hall, a vendor is selling Maryland State Wrestling hoodies. I spot Nick Spence in line with his little sister. Her pink T-shirt is exactly like one I had before I started wrestling: Wrestler’s Sister: Stay on My Good Side.
Nick glares at us as we walk by.
“I like your wrestling shoes. Pink is my favorite color,” his sister says to me. Her blond hair is in two French braids, just like mine. Nick tries to pull her away, but she tells me, “I’m going to wrestle like my brother.”
“In your dreams, Anna,” Nick says to her, but he’s smiling.
I get a good look at the number written on Nick’s arm before we go back to the gym.
“Did you see that, Lev?” I ask. “Eighty-nine point three.”
I was right. This morning, Nick was trying to sweat off a couple of extra ounces before weigh-ins.
“Spence is cutting weight,” I say. “He’s wrestling in the ninety-pound weight class.”
“Why would he do that?” Lev looks confused, but I know exactly what’s going on.
“So he doesn’t have to wrestle me.”
I don’t say anything to Dad, but I think about Nick Spence the rest of the day.
I was at a dual meet with Cody once, when he was on the Eagles. We were in the stands watching a match when one of the older boys went into convulsions. His dad laid him flat on the bleachers. Dr. Spence ran up the steps with another doctor, a mom from the opposing team. EMTs had to take the kid out on a stretcher. Mom told me later, he’d been cutting weight. The convulsions happened because all the fluids and chemicals in his body were out of whack. It was scary. I will never cut weight. Mom says it’s not healthy for me if I want to, as she puts it, “develop.” Sometimes Mom reminds me of Lalita Parsons.
* * *
After Lev and I warm up, he finds Coach and I get my dad. Dad’s going to coach me so Lev can have Billy the Kid in his corner.
I tuck my braids into my cap and put on my headgear and mouth guard. I back into Dad’s chest like I’ve seen Evan and Cody do a million times. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, lifting me off the ground with a squeeze that stretches my muscles.
“Go get ’em,” he says.
I put on the green ankle cuff, my lucky color, praying I make it to the end of the match without getting pinned. Lev wraps the red cuff around his ankle. Even though I’ve already won a match today, I think, I’m going to freeze. I’m going to forget how to do this.
The voices in the crowd go fuzzy as I take the mat. Then the whistle blows, and Lev and I are grappling. My hands grip his arms, pushing him back without letting him loose. He puts a palm on my forehead, then pulls my head down. When I react, he takes a shot and grabs me behind the knees, his head in my middle. Then my feet are off the ground. I land hard on my butt. I scramble to turn and base up.
“Two!” the ref shouts. I see his red cuff flash above me. Lev’s winning already.
Once I’m in down position, I tuck up and stay there. Lev tries to force my shins apart with his knees and flatten me out on my stomach, but I won’t let him.
A faraway voice says, “Time!” The ref signals us to get up.
I’m panting when I get to Dad’s corner. He smiles and cups a hand behind my head. “You’re putting up a great fight out there. That’s your partner?”
I nod.
“He’s a good wrestler.”
I don’t last the full three periods. Early into the third, my stomach’s pressed to the floor. Lev has his elbow in my back. I can’t let him pin me, but the score is 15–0, enough for Lev to earn a technical fall. The ref stops the match. When he raises Lev’s hand in the air, I’m too embarrassed to look at him.
After I shake hands with Lev and Coach Billy, I jog to my dad’s corner of the mat.
“Did he have to tech me?” I ask.
I must sound like I’m whining. Dad’s jaw tightens. He is not happy with me. “You went defensive,” he says. “Next time, take a shot instead of tucking up and stalling.” Dad hands me a tissue. “No crying on the mat, Mikayla. Go clean up and get back out there.”
I splash water on my face in the girls
’ room. I haven’t lost a match in almost a year. Last time a kid beat me this bad, Kenna was the one who found me in the bathroom. She rubbed my back and handed me tissues until I stopped crying. Now she’s having fun at Lalita Parsons’s amazing house, and I’m hiding in a high school girls’ room.
I dab cold water on my eyes one more time before going back to the gym. Then I climb to the top of an empty bleacher with a book and try to forget about getting creamed.
“Hey, Mickey. Nice view.” Lev pulls himself up to sit next to me.
“I’m not speaking to you.”
“Why?” He looks surprised. Lev holds out an open pack of Twizzlers. “Because I beat you?”
“Teched me. I didn’t even score one point.”
“At least it wasn’t a pin,” he says. He pulls out one red twist of candy and chomps it. “You told me not to go easy on you.”
I ignore him and open my book.
“You’re upset.”
“How’d you guess?”
He pokes me in the chin. “You do this thing with your face when you’re mad. You push your chin out.”
I’m not sure I like that Lev knows this about me.
“Hey, it’s your first tournament,” he says. “Stay mad at me if you have to, but take it out on your next guy. You don’t want to be done for the day.”
I grimace at him. My lips peel back from my braces. “Mad enough for you?”
“It’s a start.” He holds out the Twizzlers again. “Best candy for wrestling,” he says, pulling another twist out of the pack with his teeth.
“You’re gross, you know that?”
“That’s what all the girls say. And by ‘all the girls,’ I mean my sister.”
I laugh and take a Twizzler. It’s sweet and just chewy enough to make me feel better.
