Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

by Lisa Yee

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” I mumble.

  “All right then,” she says. Mom doesn’t look at me. Instead, she puts on her blinker and eases the car back onto the road.

  JUNE 11, 10:07 A.M.

  Summer classes don’t start until tomorrow, so why are lots of teachers at school today? Don’t they have a life? If I didn’t have to be at school, I’d be as far away from it as I could. I’d be at the North Pole. I’d be on Mars. I’d be at basketball camp.

  Coach Martin is in the gym. My throat tightens. It was Coach who told my parents about Alan Scott’s camp in the first place. He even came to our house to convince them. While my father sized him up, my mother passed him a plate of fancy cookies, the kind she saves for company. Coach is a big guy, but he looked small in our living room. I could tell he felt awkward around my parents. I feel that way sometimes.

  “The program would really benefit a great player like Stanford,” Coach said as he perched on the edge of the couch. “A basketball camp of this caliber will give him an edge to his game.”

  Two days later, I got the good news. I was going to camp! If Coach hadn’t come to the house, if he hadn’t thought it was important, there’s no way my parents would have let me go. He delivered for me.

  Now Coach Martin is counting volleyballs. Even though there are no kids around, he’s wearing his whistle. Without even looking up, Coach asks, “Stanford, are you here to talk to me?”

  Do all teachers have eyes in the back of their heads?

  I come out from behind the bleachers. Coach walks over and we sit down and face the empty court. Just last week at closing assembly, he announced the A-Team lineup for next year. Coach Martin leaned into the microphone and said, “It’s rare to have a seventh grader on the A-Team, but our final player has proven himself. How can we lose with Stanford Wong on the team?”

  As I touched my good-luck charm in thanks, a roar went up in the gym. Stretch started punching me in the arm as Gus and Tico leaped up and began chanting, “Stan-ford! Stan-ford!” Trevor shook my hand and said, “Welcome aboard the A-Team.”

  Now there’s a volleyball rolling around the free-throw line. It looks out of place.

  “I failed English,” I mumble.

  “I know,” he says.

  “You know?” How does he know this? “I’m going to summer school,” I tell him. I must not cry. I’d be such a sissy if I cried. I stare straight ahead and don’t blink. My words run together: “I’m not going to basketball camp.”

  There, I’ve said it. I wonder if he’s going to get mad at me. Coach doesn’t say anything. I hate it when grown-ups are silent. It means that whatever they are going to say next is bad.

  Finally he speaks. “I know how important the team is to you, Stanford. You have a natural talent, something special that I don’t see very often. But Stanford, school comes first.” What, was he talking to my mom? “It’s important that you do well in summer school.” Coach pauses. “I hate to have to tell you this, but if you fail, you’re off the team.”

  If you fail, you’re off the team.

  “What about the B-Team?” I plead. “Can I still be on the B-Team?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Can I at least be on the C-Team?”

  “Listen, Stanford, you don’t belong on the C-Team or the B-Team. You’ve earned your spot as an A-Team player. We need you and I want to see you out on the court when we kick off the school year with the Hee-Haw Game. But you have to have the grades. Stanford, if you don’t pass your summer school class you won’t move up to the seventh grade, and that’s instant disqualification for any school sport.”

  “I know,” I mutter. I don’t want to hear any more.

  As I leave, Coach Martin scoops up the wayward volleyball and puts it with the others. “Stanford, wait!” he yells after me. I turn around. “Call me if you ever need someone to talk to.”

  Coach Martin gives me his phone number.

  I write it on my shoe.

  12:22 P.M.

  If you fail, you’re off the team.

  If you fail, you’re off the team.

  If you fail, you’re off the team.

  Coach only said it once, but it sounded like a thousand times, a million times. A zillion times.

  If you fail, you’re off the team.

  I can’t fail that stupid English class. If I fail that, I fail the sixth grade and I’m off the A-Team. And if I’m off the team, I might as well be dead. Dead and buried. Six feet under with worms eating my eyeballs.

  “Fries with that?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure. Fries.”

  “Next!” the Burger Barn lady yells.

  “She should be nicer to you,” a voice says.

  I turn around and see two guys who were in my P.E. class. “Tell her you’re going to take Rancho Rosetta to the championship!” Joey exclaims.

  “Yeah,” says the other boy. “Now that Stanford Wong’s on the A-Team we’ve got the title locked up!”

  I thank them and then consider hurling myself off a cliff. Great. If I don’t pass English, I’m going to let the whole school down.

  Last year, I ate five Barnstormers on a dare. I threw up the last one, so Gus claims that it was really only four. Today I can barely finish my first hamburger.

  I’m supposed to meet the Roadrunners at the park at 1:30. Except for me, of course, all the Roadrunners will be B-Team starters next year, even Tico. “We’re going to be the number-one most popular seventh-grade group at school,” according to Digger. Already kids offer to let me cut in line in the cafeteria, and if someone’s sitting at the Roadrunners table and sees us coming, they get up and leave. I remember when I used to do that for the popular kids.

  A lot of girls look at us and a lot of guys look up to us. I think the real reason we’re popular is because we all play basketball and because Stretch could pass for a model or a movie star. Besides, the really popular guys are the football players.

  Well, it’s not going to matter anymore anyway. Once I tell the Roadrunners I’m a failure, it’ll be back to the reject table for me.

  2:10 P.M.

  Digger and Stretch are practicing passing the ball to each other. They miss every time. Both are wearing paper bags over their heads.

  On the other end of the court Gus is shouting, “You are so wrong! Snots are hard, boogers are soft!”

  “Excuuuuse me,” Tico protests. “But boogers are hard and snots are soft. Look it up!”

  Tico and Gus have been having the same argument for years.

  Stretch and Digger give up passing the ball after Digger gets hit in the face.

  “Where have you been?” Digger asks, holding his nose. “You’re late!”

  “He’s not that late,” Tico pipes up.

  It’s brave of Tico to stick up for me. Even though he has lots of freckles and funny red hair, Digger can make himself look pretty scary. I’ll never forget when I was eight and shooting hoops by myself after school. Some big kid came by and tried to take my ball.

  Out of nowhere, Digger appeared and frightened the kid away by screaming like a maniac and threatening to get him kicked out of school for stealing. When I tried to thank Digger, he said, “You owe me one. Don’t ever forget that.” Then Digger said the words that changed my life.

  “Say, you’re pretty good at basketball. Do you want to join my team?”

  We’ve been friends ever since. He’s the reason I’m a Roadrunner. He’s the reason any of us are. Digger’s dad is Don Ronster of Ronster’s Monster RV World. He sponsored our Parks and Rec team and named it the Roadrunners because at the end of all of his television commercials, a cartoon roadrunner gets flattened by a giant recreational vehicle.

  “Hey, guys, I have something to tell you,” I say.

  “Whassup?” Gus asks. He drops a beetle in Tico’s hair, but Tico doesn’t notice.

  I take a deep breath and blurt out, “I’m not
going to camp.”

  There is total silence.

  Gus looks like he’s been slapped in the face. “Stanford, you’ve got to go. You’d be nuts not to.”

  “Then I guess I’m nuts,” I mutter.

  “Why aren’t you going?” Tico asks. He starts swatting himself in the head.

  Do I tell them I am a total loser and failed English and might even flunk the sixth grade? Do I tell them that I might not even be on the basketball team, any basketball team? Not even the girls’ basketball team! Loser, loser, loser, there might as well be a big sign over my head that says LOSER.

  The guys are waiting for me to say something. I open my mouth and start slowly. “My dad says I can’t go to camp because —”

  “I knew it!” Digger cuts in. “Your dad doesn’t want you to have any fun, does he? Is it your grades? Remember last year when my dad grounded me for a month because of one stupid D?”

  “Was it Glick?” Tico wonders. “I heard that one time he flunked an entire class.”

  “You didn’t flunk, did you?” Gus sounds shocked.

  “Noooo….” They’re all staring at me. Before I know it, I blurt out, “I got an A.”

  “Really?” Gus says. “Glick gave you an A? That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah.” Tico whistles. “I got a B from Glick and thought that was a miracle.”

  Stretch gives me a funny look. I turn away.

  Gus grows serious. “Then it’s got to be the money. Everyone knows that Alan Scott’s Basketball Camp’s like the most expensive one in the universe.”

  Tico slaps me so hard on the back that I almost fall down. “Don’t worry, Stanford. We’ll have our own camp, and we’ll only charge half of what you were going to pay the pros.” He lowers his voice. “Attention, Stanford Wong, Roadrunners camp will commence first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, right,” Digger scoffs. “We’ll just work our entire summer around the all-important Stanford Wong. We’ll all get up early so that Boy Wonder can get his practice in.”

  “I can’t play in the morning,” Gus grumbles. “I’ve got a summer job mowing lawns.”

  “I can’t either,” I say. “I have a summer job too.” The guys turn from Gus to me. I start to panic. “My dad says —”

  Digger cuts me off. “Oh man, not your dad again? What does he want from you now?”

  “He wants me to work for him,” I begin. “My dad really needs me to help him out at the office. He says he wants to see more of me this summer.”

  “Does his office have good snacks?” asks Tico. “At my mom’s work they always have a lot of good stuff there. One time I went to visit her and they had three kinds of cake in the break room.”

  Digger gets close. His breath smells like licorice. “I can’t believe your dad would pull you out of Alan Scott’s camp and make you work. That’s a bummer. So besides being good at basketball, I guess we’ve got idiot dads in common.”

  I wince. My dad’s not an idiot. Even though Digger’s always dissing his dad, Mr. Ronster is good to us. He has all our Roadrunners Parks and Rec trophies and photos on display in a special case in his showroom. We don’t play for Parks and Rec anymore, but he still springs for Roadrunners T-shirts and takes us to at least one Laker game every season. We all pile into one of his RVs, and Mr. Ronster always invites me to sit up front with him.

  Digger’s dad went to every one of our B-Team games last year and cheered so loud whenever I made a basket that he always lost his voice. He says he’s my “number-one fan.”

  My dad’s never even been to one of my games.

  I break away from the guys and head for the hoop. Stretch picks up my signal and passes me the ball. Energized, I leap into the air as my arms reach up and my hands release the basketball — it floats across the court and then whoosh!, clean through the basket. I’m flying high until Digger shouts, “Stanford, you were out-of-bounds,” and I come crashing back down.

  6:05 P.M.

  I’m not sure if he’s trying to be funny or mean or what, but my father has posted my book report on the refrigerator. He made a copy of it before signing it and returning it to Mr. Glick. Now every time I get something to eat, I have to look at the big fat F and it makes me lose my appetite. Hey, now there’s an idea: the Stanford Is Stupid Diet. With my grades, it has the potential to make millions of dollars. Maybe I won’t have to go to college!

  As I grab a bottle of water I hear Mom ask, “Yin-Yin, have you seen the Hamburger Helper?”

  Yin-Yin answers sweetly, “Kristen, I have no idea where your groceries ran off to. Perhaps you ought to keep a better eye on them.”

  “What are you saying? That I cannot even manage to keep track of the groceries?”

  “I didn’t say that,” my grandmother replies. “You did.”

  My mom is slamming all the cabinet doors as Yin-Yin rearranges the utensils. They used to be really close, but that was before Yin-Yin moved in with us last fall. She was supposed to move into Vacation Village. That’s the lame name of the old-people’s home. But there was some mix-up and she couldn’t get in right away. So she’s here until they have an opening, which I think means she has to wait for someone to croak.

  Dad insists that everything worked out great, because my sister had just started college and suddenly we had a spare room. He didn’t even ask Sarah or Mom or Yin-Yin if it was okay. One day he just moved my grandmother’s stuff in with my sister’s. I’ll bet Yin-Yin is the only old person with a purple beanbag chair in her room, a poster of Mongo Bongo on the wall, and a green Lava Lamp next to her bed.

  After a while Mom had to start working part-time instead of full-time to keep an eye on my grandmother. Sometimes Yin-Yin gets in trouble. She forgets things. She’s been known to salute the mailman and put clean dishes in the oven. One time she set a doggie dish filled with dog biscuits on our front porch.

  “But we don’t have a dog!” Mom sounded more exasperated than usual.

  “That’s what you think,” Yin-Yin told her.

  Lately our kitchen has turned into a dim-sum factory, something my mother is not pleased with. I don’t think she would mind so much, except that Yin-Yin is always following her around saying things like, “Another frozen entrée? Interesting.”

  I’m glad that Yin-Yin’s living with us. I sort of miss Sarah, though I’d never tell her that. She’s already so conceited, I’m surprised her head hasn’t popped. My sister skipped a grade, got all A’s, played the flute, volunteered at the animal shelter on Saturdays, and delivered meals to old people on Sundays. Sarah barely has time to visit us this summer. She works at the college bookstore, and after the Fourth of July she’s going to sail around the world and take classes on a ship. Sarah didn’t even have to ask twice. Dad just whipped out his checkbook and paid for it. Everything my sister does impresses him. I’ll bet if she picked her nose and made a bunny statue out of boogers, he’d think it was terrific. Sarah’s going to be a lawyer just like Dad. Maybe they can sue each other.

  My father misses dinner again. We have sandwiches because Mom never did find the Hamburger Helper. Now she’s rinsing the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher. Dad says that’s unnecessary, but she does it anyway.

  The television’s blasting. I join Yin-Yin on the couch as she watches her game show and yells out the answers to the people on TV. She has always wanted to win “A NEW CAR!”

  Top Cop’s up next. During a commercial, Yin-Yin pats my knee. “Stanford, did I ever tell you that I once considered becoming a policewoman?”

  Wow, that’s hard to believe. My grandmother a cop? But then, Yin-Yin’s been full of surprises lately. “You’d sure give Top Cop some competition!” I tell her.

  Yin-Yin and I burst out laughing. I see Mom standing in the doorway wiping her hands on a towel. She turns and goes back into the kitchen.

  Top Cop’s a rerun. As he interrogates a murder suspect, I let out a huge sigh that’s been building all day.
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  “School?” Yin-Yin asks. She’s seen the refrigerator.

  I nod.

  “Feeling bad?”

  I nod again.

  “I have just what you need.”

  Yin-Yin leaves the room. As I wait for her to come back, I watch a commercial where a cat is dancing. How do they get those cats to do that? I tried to get the neighbor’s cat to dance, but it wouldn’t cooperate. Now it runs away whenever it sees me.

  My grandmother returns carrying a big blue box. It’s not dim sum, which surprises me. Her answer to everything is dim sum: turnip cakes, dumplings, spring rolls, shu mai … Whenever my parents fight, she pushes dim sum at them and won’t leave until they’re both eating. “They can’t fight if their mouths are full,” is her theory.

  As if she’s reading my mind, Yin-Yin says, “Dim sum means ‘to touch the heart.’ But for stress like yours, you need this.” She places the box on my lap.

  I look down. She is right, of course. I lift the lid and reach inside for my needles and yarn. Other than basketball, knitting is the only thing that calms me down. If the Roadrunners ever found out, I’d be dead meat.

  So here we are, just Yin-Yin and me. We don’t talk. Instead, she yells at the television and I knit.

  JUNE 12, 7:31 A.M.

  What’s wrong with this picture? It’s summer and I’m up early. I’d rather be sleeping. Or playing basketball. Or hitting myself on the head with a brick. Anything other than starting summer school.

  I get down to the kitchen in time to be with Dad. He’s grumpy and Mom’s all stressed-out again. “But you missed dinner four times last week,” she’s saying as she grips the coffeepot. “We hardly ever see you.”

  Dad’s jaw tenses. “You know I’m up for a promotion.” My father works for Calvin Benjamin Jacobs, the big law firm. “This Alderson case could make or break my career. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  I have no idea what he is talking about.

  My mother mutters something, then accidentally misses Dad’s cup.

  “Kristen!” he exclaims, shaking the coffee off his hand.

  “Oops,” says Mom.

  “I’m out of here,” Dad announces as he gets up.