by Lin Oliver
Oscar walked in first and came right up to the two men at the desk. He had his old personality back, bouncy and full of fun.
“We’re here to see our friends play,” he said. “And we have very big collars on.”
“Indeed you do,” Ted said to him. “Court thirteen, sir.”
Oscar took Alicia’s arm and strode across the lobby. He looked so happy and confident that for a moment, I forgot all about his clubfoot. The person I saw was walking tall, proud to be there.
Charlie was already changed when I got to the bathroom. Quickly, I threw on my clothes and got out my racket. There was going to be no time to warm up. We were going to have to face Kozlov and Shin just the way we were.
As we hurried down the path to court thirteen, we bumped into our dad and GoGo.
“I want you to concentrate out there,” Dad said, falling in step with us. “Focus. Center down. Don’t let anything distract you. Especially you, Charlie.”
“Me?” Charlie said. “I always focus. It’s Sammie who’s the flake.”
“Well, there are some special circumstances on the court that might distract you. I’m just saying to ignore them.”
The announcer was calling our names over the public address system, so there was no time to ask what special circumstances he was talking about. But as soon as we hurried onto the court, I saw immediately what they were. Lauren Wadsworth was sitting in the front row of the stands, sipping Frappuccinos with Brooke and Jillian. She didn’t look pleased to see us. Actually, she never looks pleased to see me, but she gave Charlie a particularly dark look.
All the color drained from Charlie’s face. She looked like someone had punched her in the gut.
“Lauren looks really mad,” she whispered to me.
“Don’t talk to her now,” I said to Charlie. “Remember what Dad said. We have to focus.”
We shook hands with Kozlov and Shin, and then went to the bench to put down our gear. Before anyone could stop her, Lauren was out of the stands and courtside, marching right up to Charlie and getting in her face.
“I heard what happened this morning,” she said. “Everyone knows.”
“We just left the police station a half hour ago,” Charlie said. “How do you know?”
“Sean called the General from the bathroom,” she said. “The General called Brooke, and she told me.”
“It’s all hearsay,” I said.
“I have no idea what that is, Sammie,” Lauren said. “And besides, this is none of your business. My conversation with Charlie is only for SF2 ears.”
“You better put some diamond studs in them then,” I said.
Okay, maybe not the funniest joke in the world, but I’m pretty pleased with it.
“You double-crossed us,” Lauren said to Charlie. “That’s not the SF2 way.”
“Please don’t be mad at me,” Charlie begged. “I had to tell what I knew. Otherwise, Oscar wasn’t going to get his leg fixed. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.”
“Who cares about your stupid conscience?” Lauren snapped.
“I do,” I snapped back.
“I thought I made it clear this wasn’t any of your business,” Lauren said, curling her lip at me. The official was motioning to her to get off the court so we could begin the game. But no one tells Lauren Wadsworth what to do.
“I thought you were a friend, Charlie,” she went on. “We took you in and made you one of us. We trusted you. And now look what you’ve done. Sean and Jared are going to have to do stupid community service. And they’re not going to have any spending money for at least a hundred years. All to protect your little Mexican friends.”
That took my breath away. I looked at Charlie to see what she was going to do. Once again, I hoped and prayed that she would act like the sister I knew, the sister I loved.
And thank goodness, she didn’t let me down. Lauren had crossed the line, especially the part about Oscar and Eddie being “our little Mexican friends.” I could see Charlie’s attitude shift right there in front of me, the minute Lauren said those words. It was like she instantly transformed from a scared kid to a strong, confident grown-up. Just like nerdy little Clark Kent does when he runs into a phone booth and changes into Superman.
“Lauren, that is a terrible thing to say,” Charlie said without flinching or batting an eye. “First of all, Oscar and Eddie are not Mexican. They’re from El Salvador. And second of all, it doesn’t matter where they’re from or whether they wear cool clothes or what color their skin is. Oscar was innocent and he didn’t deserve to be punished for what Jared and Sean did.”
“Well, aren’t you Little Miss Perfect,” Lauren said. “Since when did you get so goody-goody?”
“You can call it what you want, Lauren. But I know that I’ve been a good friend to you. And I didn’t do what I did to hurt you. I did it to help Oscar. I’d like you to be able to understand that.”
“Well, I have news for you,” Lauren said. “I don’t understand it at all. In fact, after what you did, I don’t want to be friends with you. No one does.”
She waved to Jillian and Brooke. They came trotting over like the good little followers they were.
“What’s up?” Brooke said.
“We’re leaving,” Lauren answered. “We have better things to do with our time than watch a couple of jock girls play some stupid game.”
Just like that, the three girls with the bounciest hair on planet Earth marched off the court without so much as a backward glance.
A Date for a Date
Chapter 17
“I’m nervous to see him,” I said to Alicia as we walked into the lobby of Children’s Hospital. “I hope he’s not in pain.”
A week had passed since the match with Kozlov and Shin. Charlie and I played some of the best tennis we’ve ever played that day. Even Mustache Man and Ted left their post at the mahogany table in the lobby and came to watch our last set. Charlie was fired up by anger at Lauren. I was fired up by love for my courageous sister. It was a powerful combination. Not only did we win, we got written up in the Sand and Surf newsletter as the doubles team to watch in the Under-14 category. They said we even had a chance of making national finals.
They ran pictures of us, too. Charlie looked great—not all made up like she was for the fund-raiser, but when she was holding our trophy and laughing and glowing with pride, she was a knockout. That was a much better look for her than the top-model game she had been trying to play. As for me, I have to be honest. I didn’t look so hot. Well, actually, the problem was that I looked too hot. You could actually see sweat dribbling down my upper lip. And as usual, my hair had turned that lovely shade of baby-poop brown. The only thing I needed to be a total embarrassment to the Sand and Surf Club was a yellow polka-dot skort.
When Dr. Mandel learned that Jared and Sean were the ones who set the fire, he called Oscar and told him the surgery was back on. We celebrated the news, and our big tournament win, with pizza and frozen yogurt at Antonio’s. We invited everyone in the Bermudez family to come. Eddie invited Lily, who showed up looking her usual fabulous self in a fringed suede jacket, a red bandanna around her neck, and vintage cowboy boots.
“Wow,” Oscar said. “You look like our grandfather Eduardo. He lives on a ranch in the mountains and rides horses all day.”
“You’re crazy, Oscar,” Eddie said. “Grandfather Eduardo has a black mustache and a big belly. Lily is beautiful.”
“Watch out for my nephew,” Candido said, pulling out a chair for Lily to sit down. “He is in love with love.”
We ordered pizzas and drinks and delicious buttery garlic bread. In between the pepperoni chomping, Oscar presented Charlie and me with a drawing he had done.
“This drawing of Iron Man is for you, Charlie,” he said, “because you showed me you are strong like iron. And, Sammie, this one is for you.”
“Who’d you get?” Charlie asked me.
“Wonder Woman,” Oscar answered.
“I get it
,” Ryan said. “Because Sammie can block bullets with her bracelets.”
“No,” Oscar said simply. “Because she is cool.”
Just as Candido was standing up to make a toast to thank us for coming forward to defend Oscar, Lauren Wadsworth walked into the restaurant with her mom, dad, and little sister.
I watched Charlie carefully. The minute she saw Lauren, she smoothed her hair and tried to smile. Chip Wadsworth came over to our table.
“Terrible about Jared and Sean,” he said. “They’re going to have to learn their lesson the hard way.”
“It’s such a shame,” Mrs. Wadsworth added. “They’re such nice boys.”
No one at our table spoke up to agree with her. After an awkward silence, she turned to Lauren and said, “Honey, do you want to invite Charlie and Lily to join us at our table?” Then looking at GoGo, she whispered, “The girls are such great friends, I know they hate to be apart.”
Obviously, she hasn’t heard the news.
Charlie’s eyes lit up at the invitation, but before she could answer, Lauren spoke up.
“That’s okay, Mom. I think Charlie should stay right where she is.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Wadsworth said, looking a little confused. “How about you, Lily? Do you want to come sit with Lauren?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Wadsworth,” Lily answered. “I’m happy where I am, too.”
Lauren put her tiny nose in the air and pointed her expensive pink patent leather shoes in the direction of the Wadsworths’ table. As she stomped away, I glanced over at Charlie. She looked like someone had hit her in the face. There were the beginnings of tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Maybe no one else could see them, but I could. And GoGo could, too. She reached out and took Charlie’s hand.
“False friends come and go,” she said. “But true friends are with you forever.”
“I know, GoGo,” Charlie said. “It just hurts, that’s all.”
“You can be friends with us,” Alicia said. “We’re pretty fun, aren’t we, Sammie?”
“A laugh a minute,” I said.
“And there’s always me,” Lily said. “I may be in the market for some new best friends. I know I’m no Lauren Wadsworth, but hey, I am what I am.”
Charlie half smiled at that. But when Lily turned her attention back to Eddie, I noticed that Charlie grew very quiet. I could see her watching Lauren out of the corner of her eye. I’m sure she was wondering what was going to happen with her and Spencer. And I was also sure she was hoping Lauren would come over and apologize, tell her how wrong she was, and how much she still wanted to be friends.
Of course, Lauren did no such thing. But something pretty sweet happened instead. When we got home after dinner, Charlie came running into the living room where I was watching The Simpsons with Ryan, waving her phone around like it was a flag on the Fourth of July.
“Hey, look!” she shouted, pointing at the screen.
“No offense, Charles,” Ryan said, “but you’re standing in front of the TV. This may come as a shocker, but I can’t see through you.”
“Read this,” she said, pointing to her phone. “It’s from Spencer.”
“All right,” Ryan sighed. “Anything to get you to move over.” He looked at her phone and read the text. “‘Hey, you. Congrats on a great tennis match today.’” Ryan just stared at Charlie. “And this is the reason you are interrupting one of the greatest animated series ever to be on television?” he asked.
“Read the rest of it,” Charlie said.
“No. I’m over this game.”
“Okay, Sammie, you read it.”
I took the phone and read the rest of the text.
“‘I was hoping that you could go with me to the football game at Santa Monica High next Friday. What do you say? Spencer.’ You see?” I squealed. “I told you he was a decent guy. I knew he’d be on your side.”
Charlie jumped up and down like a jack-in-the-box and I joined right in. Poor Ryan. He just sat there shaking his head and moaning about how he got sisters instead of brothers. But secretly, I think he was happy for Charlie. I know I was.
I wasn’t allowed to go visit Oscar for the first five days after his operation. It was a very complicated surgery involving tendons and bones and other painful-sounding stuff. At first, they put him in a brace and he had to stay really still. But then they took off the brace and put his leg in a cast. That kept everything in just the right position to heal, which meant he was allowed to move around a little and have visitors. He told Alicia that I was the first person he wanted to see. That was all I needed to hear. We got Candido to drop us off at the hospital while he went to the drug store to get supplies Oscar would need when he was ready to come home.
That gave us half an hour alone with Oscar. I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. Like the lobby. You’d think the lobby of a children’s hospital would be a depressing place. But not this one. It was filled with mosaics of superheroes and colorful planets. There were toys everywhere, and little kids sitting with their parents doing puzzles and reading books. We walked through the lobby and made our way to the elevator. Oscar was on the fourth floor. When the elevator stopped on the third floor, a little boy sitting on a black gurney was wheeled in by a nurse. He was wearing Batman pajamas.
“Hi. This is my Batmobile,” he said. “I drive it all over the hospital.”
“Do you know a boy named Oscar?” I asked. “He has a big cast on his leg.”
“Sure,” he said. “He’s funny. He has a Batmobile, too.”
When we got off the elevator on the fourth floor, he waved good-bye and said to say hi to Oscar. We made our way down the long hall to Oscar’s room—407A. I pushed the door open and peeked inside, bracing myself in case Oscar looked really sick or pale or pained. But what I saw was nothing. The bed was empty, and there was no Oscar to be found.
“I’ll go to the nurse’s station and check on his room number,” Alicia said. “Maybe they moved him. You wait here.”
She left and I sat down on the edge of the green plastic chair and waited. There were drawings of superheroes taped to the wall, including a beautiful one of the Human Torch with orange and yellow flames decorating the edges of the paper. Yeah, this had to be Oscar’s room. Suddenly, I heard his voice coming down the hall.
“Woo-hoo,” he was shouting. “Watch me fly!”
Within seconds, the door to Room 407A burst open and Oscar came rolling in. He was sitting up on a black gurney, just like the one the little boy had, and being pushed by a nurse. Oscar’s leg was in a big cast, from the middle of his thigh all the way down to his toes.
“Sammie!” he yelled. “Look, Doug. It’s my girlfriend, Sammie. Didn’t I tell you she was beautiful?”
Wait a minute. Did he say girlfriend?
The nurse smiled at me. “You picked yourself a real live wire,” he said. “Oscar is keeping us all in stitches.”
“No, it’s me who has stitches,” Oscar said.
Doug cracked up. “What’d I tell you?” he said. “Oscar’s one great kid. How long have you guys known each other?”
“About two weeks,” Oscar said. “I call her mi corazón.”
“Well, you did once,” I corrected him.
“He’s a real Romeo,” Doug said to Oscar, giving him that boy-thing playful punch in the arm. “How about if I go get you two lovebirds a snack from the kitchen?”
“Red Jell-O,” Oscar said, nodding. “It tastes like strawberries,” he said to me.
“Can I get you one, Sammie?” Doug asked.
“Sure. That’d be great. Thank you.”
“Don’t you move, partner,” Doug said to Oscar as he put the brakes on his gurney and checked to make sure his leg was comfortable. “You wait right there until I get back.”
“No worries.” Oscar laughed. “I’m just going to sit here and look at mi corazón.” He was really embarrassing me.
When Doug left, I reached into my backpack and brought out a tin with a
picture of Iron Man on it. I handed it to him.
“GoGo made you cookies,” I said. “She said you should eat them to give you superhealing powers.”
He popped the tin open and shoved one of the cookies into his mouth.
“Delicioso,” he said. “I feel better already.”
“I have something else for you.” I took out an envelope addressed to him and handed it over. He gave it right back to me.
“You read it to me, Sammie. It’s hard for me to read in English.”
I opened the envelope and read.
“‘Dear Oscar, I am so happy you were able to get your leg fixed after all. Please come visit me in the Governor’s Mansion as soon as you recover. All the best to you, Governor Diane Corday.’”
Oscar’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
“She wrote this letter to me? The president of California?”
“She’s the governor … and yes, she wrote it to you and had it dropped off at the beach club.”
“But I am just a boy from El Salvador,” Oscar said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why would such an important person write to me?”
“Because you’re pretty cool,” I said.
“And you are pretty beautiful,” he answered.
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never had a boy like me before. And I for sure had never had any boy tell me he thought I was beautiful. It felt pretty great, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next. So I got a serious look on my face and said, “Oscar, you have to stop that.” But the voice inside me was saying, oh please, don’t stop!
I thought he was going to fall off his gurney when I handed him the last present I brought. It was a copy of Los Angeles magazine, and guess whose picture was on the cover?
I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t Lauren Wadsworth’s.
The magazine had published a story about Oscar, the kid from San Francisco Gotera who came to America to get his leg fixed. It was called “Oscar Bermudez: A Real Life Superhero.”
