Takedown

by Laura Shovan

  The Glenmont Gators were fired up after Evan’s win. Every match went their way. When Dad drove me home, he told me the kid Evan beat was a Gators captain, and their wrestlers wanted revenge.

  I’ve always been proud that Evan’s my big brother. Guys on his team treat him like he’s some kind of hero. But tonight, I noticed the way the Glenmont kids looked at Evan after the match. They were angry, and afraid.

  It isn’t until I get home and text Lev Cavs lost that I wonder if something is wrong. He doesn’t text back.

  I’ll talk to him at practice tomorrow, I tell myself.

  The next night, Josh, Isaiah, and I are carrying wrestling mats to the gym. Lev’s father usually helps the team dads roll out the mats and tape them to the gym floor. But Mr. Sofer doesn’t show, and neither does Lev.

  “Did Lev say he was going to be late?” I ask Josh and Isaiah.

  “We don’t talk much outside of wrestling,” Josh says. He shrugs. “Maybe he’s sick.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  Lev’s face was pale when the Glenmont wrestler got hurt. I thought it was because of the blood. Ever since Josh bit his tongue a few weeks ago, even a little bloody nose makes Lev nervous. He chews his headgear strap, or the collar of his T-shirt, which I told him is disgusting.

  “Chainsaws! Chainsaws!” Coach Billy calls after warm-ups. He lines us up in weight order, from little Devin to the eighth-grade heavyweights. Once Coach is satisfied with the line, we count off, “One, two. One, two.”

  “Ones, you’re on the bottom. Twos, on top.”

  With fifty kids in the room, it takes us a while to figure out who’s going where. “If I hear talking, you’re running laps,” Coach yells. “How many guys got a spot at States?” About six hands go up. “That’s what I thought. We’ve got work to do, men. Set up in three rows straight across. Lightest guys, you’re in this corner.”

  Cody warned me about chainsaws. In this drill, I’ll end up wrestling every guy in my row, even kids who have ten or more pounds on me.

  Milo is my first partner. We set in referee’s position, with me on the bottom. There’s no music. No talking. The wrestling room is silent. We wait for the whistle. Where’s Lev?

  Tweet!

  We wrestle for one minute. When Coach blows the whistle again, all the top men move to the left and work with a new partner. I stay in my spot and wait for the next top man.

  Each guy tries to break me down, but I won’t give. Sweaty armpits clamp around my middle. I hold my position. I wish Lev were here. I think about Trophy Girl, sitting in my room, and I smile.

  “You think this is funny, Delgado?” Coach says.

  “No, sir.” I look down at the mat.

  Josh is my next partner. We’re friendly now, but not enough to talk when Coach is like this. Josh wraps his arm around my waist. His chin digs into my shoulder.

  On the whistle, my left hand clamps Josh’s wrist against my belly. I put my right hand on the mat, as far as I can reach, then shoot my hips away from him and push Josh to the ground. I know what to do: twist my shoulder to face him, get him in a front headlock. Josh flops like a fish on dry land.

  The whistle blows.

  Coach shouts. “Way to be, Delgado. Top men, move down!” Josh pats my shoulder and moves to the next guy. I’ve proved my point. Again. I’m as good as my teammates. If Lev were here, he’d flash me a thumbs-up.

  Matches speed by. I keep looking at the door, waiting for Lev. When Coach reverses us and all three rows of bottom wrestlers switch to the top position, I know practice is halfway over. Lev is not coming.

  I don’t win all my matchups, but I wrestle hard, trying to push Lev’s voice out of my head. Evan got him in the face. I try not to see the Gators coach scowling at my brother, like he’d done something wrong. I wrestle hard. I don’t care what anyone thinks about my brother, or anything else.

  But when practice is over, and we’ve rolled up and put away the mats, I open my phone and see Lev’s message.

  Evan broke that kid’s nose.

  I sit on the floor and type: Accident. Where are you? You missed chainsaws.

  I saw him, Lev texts.

  ACCIDENT.

  He doesn’t answer. I know Evan acts like a jerk sometimes, but Mom says that’s boys being boys. Besides, if Evan hurt that kid on purpose, the ref would have disqualified him.

  I’m glad the next day is a school day. It gives my mind a break from wrestling. I try not to think about Evan, Lev, and all the worries swirling in my head.

  At lunch I tune out Kenna and Lalita’s conversation. Lalita notices I’m not listening. “Are you mad at us?” she asks.

  Why does everyone think quiet equals mad? I shake my head and pick at the carrot sticks in my lunch. “Rough practice,” I say. “I didn’t tell you, Kenna. Last weekend, I almost qualified for States.” It feels good to brag a little. To forget that my wrestling partner isn’t answering my texts. Or that my brother clocked a kid in the face and maybe broke his nose.

  Kenna puts down her yogurt and hugs me.

  Lalita says, “That’s amazing, Mikayla! This calls for a cookie celebration. I’m buying!” She jingles her Hello Kitty coin purse at me and runs off to the lunch counter.

  Kenna tells me all about the beginning hip-hop class Lalita found for us. “As soon as you’re done with wrestling, we can start.”

  Lalita comes back with three chocolate chip cookies. They are gooey and delicious, the one thing our cafeteria is awesome at. All of a sudden, I’m blinking back tears. Kenna hands me a napkin from her lunch bag.

  “Lev and I had a fight, I think.”

  “Oh, no,” Lalita says. “The way you talk about him? It’s precious.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lalita smiles at me.

  Kenna slides closer. She gives me a look that means You can tell me.

  “Later,” I say.

  It’s not Kenna I need to tell, but Mom. If I let her know what happened at the meet, that Lev thinks Evan hurt a kid on purpose to win a match, she’s going to flip. I can picture her shouting, How could you say that about your brother? Delgados are supposed to stick together.

  I call Kenna after school and fill her in. “What am I going to do?” I ask. “Mom and Cody and me, we’re finally getting used to living together, without Evan. If I tell Mom what happened, it’s going to pull everyone in our family apart.”

  “You’ll do the right thing,” Kenna says. “Whatever that is.”

  On Thursday, our class meets Mr. Vanderhoff in the media center. We have the whole period to work on our mythology projects. I’ve been revising my vampire poem, but I haven’t shown it to anyone yet.

  Bryan and I sit behind a display of graphic novels, where he can stare at Marisa Zamora without her noticing.

  I hold my fingers an inch apart. “You’re this close to being a creeper.”

  Bryan smooths back his gelled hair. “I’m doing it today.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Asking Marisa. The social’s next Friday.” He taps me on the temple. “Hello? Lev? The social? We’ve been planning this forever.”

  We have? I shuffle through my memory. I know Bryan’s on a mission to talk to Marisa every day, but I forgot about the social. “Sorry. Wrestling brain.”

  He must be nervous. He’s tapping the table with his fingers as if he’s playing notes on his clarinet. And last period, he threw out half his lunch.

  “Tell me when it’s over,” Bryan says. I must look confused. “When your season’s over, genius. Are you okay?”

  I don’t tell Bryan I skipped practice last night. I don’t tell him about Evan, or Mickey, or my nightmares. It’s all stuck in my head. Every time I try to figure it out, the words rush away, like the river in my dream. I change the subject.

 
“When are you asking her?”

  “Now.” Bryan stands up. He’s dressed up. Instead of track pants and a hoodie, he’s wearing dark jeans and an orange polo shirt.

  “You look good, man.”

  Bryan blinks at me and smiles. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “That’s what you love about me.”

  As soon as I’m alone at the table, I open my notebook. I added some lines to my poem after Evan hurt that kid. Maybe I should take them out. I’m not sure I want anyone to read this.

  Wrestlers are vampires.

  Gyms are their caves.

  They shut the doors,

  stay locked inside,

  and don’t come out

  until day submits to night.

  Wrestlers are vampires.

  They never see the sun.

  They push your face

  into the mat until

  your nose oozes blood.

  They crush you flat,

  break you down, bury you.

  “How is your project progressing, Mr. Sofer?” Mr. Van sits down next to me. He looks out of place in the media center, like a giant in a chair made of Popsicle sticks.

  “I have vampires on the brain.”

  “A classic monster myth. Man versus his own animal nature.” I nod like I understand. He tilts his shaggy head toward my notebook. “May I read what you’re working on?”

  “Yes. Not out loud, please.”

  Mr. Van’s lips move as he reads. “Interesting,” he says. “Dark, but interesting.” He points a big finger at my poem. “If I remember correctly, earlier this year, you wrote, I am a wrestler.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here you’ve switched to third person. They crush you flat, break you down. You see? Not we, but they. You’ve separated yourself.”

  “It sounds better that way. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Mr. Van’s eyes stay on my face too long. When I don’t speak, he says, “There’s a famous wrestling match in Homer’s Iliad. Two Greek warriors, Odysseus and Ajax in a test of strength and will, but the match ends in a draw.”

  “Let me guess. After that, they were best friends.”

  “They earned each other’s respect.”

  I’m glad when Bryan rushes back to the table.

  “Hi, Mr. Van,” he says. He’s grinning.

  “Hello, Mr. Hong.” Mr. Van stands up. “Good work, Lev. It’s a strong, thoughtful poem.” He moves on to the next table of kids.

  “Marisa said yes,” Bryan says.

  “All right!” I put my hand out for a fist bump.

  “On one condition.” Instead of sitting, Bryan leans back against the table. “We go as a group. You, me, Marisa, and Emma.”

  “But Emma and I are friends.” In elementary school, we were captains of our egg racer team. We were both obsessed with the Warriors books. We planted trees together on a fifth-grade field trip and came home covered in mud. Going on a date with her would be weird.

  “As a group,” Bryan says again. “Marisa’s not allowed to date until high school. It’s some archaic family rule.” I swear, sometimes Bryan sounds like a page out of Mr. Van’s dictionary.

  “So she’s telling her parents we’re going as a group?”

  “Exactly.”

  “When’s the social again?”

  “Next week. Friday night.”

  In the front of my wrestling notebook I wrote the dates of the state qualifiers. There are only three more chances. This Saturday, and next Saturday and Sunday. Bryan reads the dates and frowns.

  “I can’t,” I say. “Unless I qualify this weekend, I can’t go. I’ll need to practice that night. It could be my last chance.”

  “You’ve been practicing all season. It’s one night.” Bryan crosses his arms over his polo shirt. “It’s important, Lev. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.”

  “I know. Sorry,” I say. I am sorry, but wrestling comes first. Bryan knows that.

  “Forget it.” Bryan gathers his binder and notebook.

  “Where are you going?”

  He doesn’t answer. He weaves through the bookshelves, looking for a spot at someone else’s table.

  I stare at the dates in my notebook.

  Sunday, January 8

  Saturday, January 14

  Saturday, January 21

  Saturday, January 28

  Sunday, January 29

  MARYLAND STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS, February 11-12.

  I wish I could tell Bryan that ever since Dalia took me to Evan’s dual meet, stepping on the mat is the last thing I want to do. But Bryan will say, So, quit.

  It’s not that simple. It would be safer to go to the social, play badminton, and goof around. But that’s not going to earn me a chance to be a state champion. Once you’re a state champ, no one can take that away from you. It’s part of who you are, for the rest of your life.

  Bryan doesn’t meet me at my locker before lunch. All around me, kids are laughing, yelling, talking. Usually I can block it out, but today, the noise is like fingers grabbing the sides of my head. There’s a sharp jab in my shoulder. When I turn, I see Nick Spence.

  “I’m going to crush you this weekend, Sofer.”

  I try to blink away my headache, but it won’t go. “You’re moving back to 95?”

  Nick flops his hair from one side to the other. “It’s a better weight for me.” I can guess what that means. He hasn’t been able to qualify for States at 90 pounds.

  “Okay.” I move to walk around him, but Nick blocks me.

  I see Bryan pass by on his way to lunch. “Bryan!” I yell, but he swerves into the crowd.

  “I need to talk to you about your partner,” Nick says.

  “Talk to her yourself. You’ll see her on the mat on Saturday.”

  Nick grips my arm. My hand shoots out and catches him behind the neck. I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve wrestled Nick so many times. It’s a reflex.

  Before either of us can move, a hand lands on my shoulder. Mr. Van eases the two of us apart. “On your way, Mr. Spence. You’ll be late for lunch.” He turns Nick around and sends him down the hallway.

  “Still nursing a rivalry, I see,” Mr. Van says.

  “Yeah.”

  “ ‘An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.’ ” Mr. Van’s voice is deep and comfortable. I know he’s trying to calm me down, but quoting poetry at me won’t help.

  “That’s not going to happen, Mr. Van.”

  “Give it time.” He strokes his beard, then walks away.

  I slam my locker shut. Mr. Van doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Why didn’t Bryan come over to help me deal with Spence? He’s supposed to have my back. I know he’s mad about the social, but that doesn’t mean Bryan and I are done being friends, does it?

  Lev is the first person I look for at practice. He and Isaiah are carrying a mat to the gym. Devin rides the rolled-up mat like a cowboy, waving one arm in the air. I laugh and head over to help them. Then I sit with Isaiah, Josh, and Lev, lacing up my pink wrestling shoes.

  “It hurts my eyes every time you put those on,” Josh says.

  “You should talk. Yours are neon yellow. It’s like someone took a highlighter to your feet.”

  Isaiah cracks up, but Lev is silent. I slap him on the back and say “Let’s go” when Coach calls for drills.

  “I’m working with Milo tonight,” he says.

  Josh gives Lev a sideways look, then turns his back on him and faces me. “C’mon, Mickey. You and me.”

  The two of us find an empty spot on the mat. I’m trying to be a good partner for Josh, but I keep wondering why Lev is upset with me. Evan didn’t do an
ything wrong.

  I find Lev in the hall during water break. He’s holding Devin up to the fountain.

  “Stop avoiding me,” I say, when Devin finishes drinking and runs back to the gym. “We’re on the same team, Lev. Same weight class.”

  Lev fills his water bottle from the fountain. When he’s done, he says, “Spence is wrestling 95 tomorrow.”

  “So?” Is that what he’s upset about?

  “Just telling you.” He starts to walk away.

  I follow. “What’s wrong? I thought we were friends.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m tired. That’s all.” He stops and rubs his shoulder. “I run out of steam this late in the season, right around qualifiers.”

  “That’s only part of it,” I say. “You’ve been ignoring me, like at the beginning of the season. But this time, it’s ’cause you’re upset with Evan.”

  Lev shakes his head.

  “Yes, you are. You think you’re better than everyone, Lev Sofer.”

  Lev takes a step back. “What? No. I don’t. My record stinks this season.”

  “I’m not talking about wrestling. You think you’re better in here.” I poke him in the chest, hard. “You judge people. Nick. And now Evan.”

  Lev pulls away from me.

  “I’m just telling it like it is.”

  He turns around and goes back to the gym.

  I’m alone in the hall, gulping air. Finally, I have a wrestling friend and I go and blow it. I let my mouth control my brain. I’ve got to get Lev to talk to me. But as soon as practice is over, Lev and Mr. Sofer are out the door.

  “Why’s Lev being such a butt-wad?” Josh asks while we roll up mats. “Did you two break up or something?”

  “I have no clue,” I lie.

  I’m quiet in the car on the way home. Mom puts on our favorite Broadway cast recording, Bye Bye Birdie. She tries to get me to sing along with her, but I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

  “Want to talk about it?” she asks when we get home.

  “Can I shower first? I feel gross.” The truth is, I need a few extra minutes to figure out what I should say to Mom. How am I going to explain what’s happening with Lev, when I don’t understand it myself? He’s so full up with anger about Evan that it’s spilling over onto me.