Mascot

by Antony John

  Dedication

  To Brenda Kukay, Kirsten Shaw, and school librarians across

  Missouri—you’re rock stars in my book

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Double-Wide

  2. A Forceful Pair

  3. Math Problems

  4. The Dynamo

  5. The First Hour of the First Week of the Rest of My Life

  6. How to Ruin My Favorite Food

  7. PE Is Not My Friend

  8. Small Portions

  9. Pitching a Fit

  10. Doubling Down

  11. Reasons Not to Have a Little Sister

  12. Schooled by a Fourth Grader

  13. Dee-Dub Lacks Social Graces

  14. Fly Ball!

  15. I Am a Human Trash Can

  16. Spell Checker

  17. Running Isn’t Epic

  18. Annual Checkup

  19. Dessert Is Overrated

  20. Cups of Flour

  21. Fredbird Has Slimmed Down

  22. Girls Like the Dynamo

  23. The Beast Has a Soft Side

  24. Criminal Masterminds

  25. Don’t Litter

  26. The Riddle of Mr. Riggieri

  27. Monster Truck Speaks

  28. Good Principal, Bad Cop

  29. If Life Had Do-Overs

  30. One Is the Loneliest Number

  31. Building the Perfect Crib

  32. Dealing with Dynamo

  33. Even Crazy Kids Sometimes Make Sense

  34. Reuniting Riggieris

  35. Operation GMU

  36. Dee-Dub to the Rescue

  37. Face-Off

  38. Mr. Dillon’s Highlight Reel

  39. Home Runs

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Double-Wide

  The new kid is large. Taller than our homeroom teacher, Ms. Guthrie, and as wide as her desk. Okay, maybe not that wide, but he’s prime bully material.

  Believe me, I ought to know.

  “You must be Ruben,” Ms. Guthrie says.

  “That is correct,” he says. Then, before she can ask us to give him a warm Wellspring Middle School welcome, Ruben continues. “My full name is Ruben Spencer Hardesty. My family just moved here to St. Louis from Albuquerque. My hobbies are doing puzzle books and hacking the parental controls on my father’s laptop. I also like astronomy but not astrology, because they’re not the same thing at all, even though people get them mixed up. My parents say that sometimes I provide too much information.”

  “No kidding,” mutters Logan Montgomery, who until today was the biggest kid in seventh grade.

  “However,” continues Ruben, “I’ve been told that explaining my interests is the fastest way to find friends who are like me.”

  “Good luck with that,” snorts Logan.

  Usually Ms. Guthrie would give Logan a warning. Not this time, though. Right now, our teacher has this crazy frozen smile, like she’s auditioning to be the fifth face on Mount Rushmore. “Wow,” she says.

  She’s not the only one wearing a weird expression. Pretty much everyone looks confused by the new arrival with the tentlike, green polo shirt and heavily gelled hair.

  Not me, though. I’m starting to like Ruben. Because the way I see it, there are only two possible explanations for his little introduction.

  (1) He’s crazy.

  (2) He’s a total genius who knows that the new kid can get away with saying anything, so he’s putting on a show.

  Either way, he’s the center of attention right now, and that’s fine by me. At least it is until Ms. Guthrie points to the empty seat beside me and tells him, “You can sit over there.”

  Big kid with big mouth gets stuck next to snarky kid in wheelchair. Misfits unite!

  He trundles over to me and holds out his hand. “I’m Ruben.”

  “Noah Savino,” I say. I really don’t want to shake hands, not with everyone in class watching us, but Ruben’s just standing there like a waxwork figure. So I do it anyway.

  A snicker ripples through the room.

  “Ruben Spencer Hardesty, huh?” I say, trying to keep the focus on him. “That’s an impressive name.”

  His eyes seem to be fixed on my shoes. (Converse All Stars. Very retro.) “At my old school, everyone called me Double-Wide,” he says.

  I figure I misheard him. “Double-Wide?”

  “Because I’m so big.”

  I can’t believe he just admitted that. Out loud. Next, he’ll be telling me he doesn’t believe in personal hygiene and that he likes to sacrifice bunny rabbits every full moon. Behind him, Ms. Guthrie glares at everyone—a warning to keep their mouths shut.

  “You’re not so big,” I say, trying to help him out.

  “Yes, I am. I’m taller than 99.3 percent of my peers, and I have a body mass index of 26.5, which means I’m obese.” He nods to himself. “So you can see, my nickname is backed up by objective data.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Please take a seat, Ruben,” says Ms. Guthrie, looking just as freaked out as I feel. “There’s space at Noah’s desk.”

  Actually, there are two spaces, and Double-Wide fills both of them. His nickname is quite accurate, it turns out.

  He places his book bag gently in his lap and turns to me. “You’re in a wheelchair.”

  I roll my eyes. “And you’re very observant. Got any other special skills?”

  “Well, I know pi to two hundred decimal places.”

  “That must come in handy.”

  He thinks about this. “Not very often.”

  “Shocker.”

  He nods. “So why are you in a wheelchair?”

  “Because I’m too lazy to walk.”

  “Will they let me have a wheelchair too?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Hmm.” He opens his bag and pulls out a Batman pencil case. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Batman pencil case. I wonder if he’s got a Disney lunch box in there too.

  He catches me gawking. “Cool, isn’t it?”

  “Uh . . .”

  Ms. Guthrie clears her throat. Double-Wide leans closer to me. “Looks like class is starting,” he stage whispers. “I guess we should concentrate now, Noah.”

  I could point out that this is homeroom, not class, but I don’t think it’d make any difference. Double-Wide seems to exist in his own world.

  One thing’s for certain, though. I was wrong when I said he was prime bully material. If anything, he’s prime bullying material.

  Again, I ought to know.

  2

  A Forceful Pair

  After homeroom, Double-Wide follows me to math. And I do mean follow. If we were side by side, we’d take up the entire hallway.

  He has a hard time keeping up. I could probably leave him behind, but I don’t want to be a jerk, so I ease off the throttle. And by throttle, I mean my arms. My upper body works well, but the lower half . . . Well, let’s just say that my wheelchair and I are pretty much inseparable.

  It could be worse, I guess. My chair is a good one: super lightweight aluminum, with adjustable-tension upholstery and high-pressure tires. If it were a car, it’d be a Corvette. But if it were a Corvette, it’d have an engine and then people would hear me coming and move out of my way—instead of what actually happens, which is that no one hears me coming at all. Even when I accidentally ram people from behind, I can’t seem to make them budge. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  It wasn’t always like this. On the first day of middle school last year, I walked into the building on my own two legs. I was even the starting catcher for one of the best Little League teams in St. Louis.
/>
  Then came the car accident. That was in April. By the time I woke up in St. Louis Children’s Hospital, my legs and brain weren’t on talking terms anymore and my internal organs had been rearranged. I spent the next two months as a guest at the twelfth-floor neurorehab center, along with six other kids whose luck was just as good as mine. It was almost July when I finally went home. A counselor told Mom it was important for me to establish routines, but all my old routines involved two parents. That first night, I heard Mom crying in her bedroom.

  See, Dad was in the car with me the day we crashed. He didn’t even make it to the hospital, though. Turns out, you don’t need to be a doctor to pronounce someone dead on the hard shoulder of an interstate highway.

  “Can you slow down?” says Double-Wide, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Sorry.” I drop from a slog to a crawl. “You doing all right?”

  “Great,” he wheezes.

  Note to self: Double-Wide is not a convincing liar.

  Logan Montgomery and his baseball posse come to a stop just ahead of us. They’re blocking the hallway, so I have to apply the brakes.

  For reasons I still don’t understand, I was a part of this group last year. (Hey, nobody’s perfect.) I guess we’d spent so much time playing ball together in the summer before sixth grade, it made sense to stick together in school too. But that all changed the day of the accident.

  “So, Noah,” drawls Logan, “how’s the weather down there?” He flashes a smug grin.

  Did I mention I’m happy to be out of his posse? Yeah, that’s why. And this isn’t even a new joke for Logan. He tried it out on the first day of seventh grade, three weeks ago, and it wasn’t funny then either.

  “Bet you get a great view of everyone’s butt from that seat, huh?” he continues, displaying the full range of his comic genius.

  Logan (and his fast-growing facial hair) clearly has a whole bunch of insults lined up and ready to go, and everyone is tuned in, listening. But before he can let the next one fly, Double-Wide crouches beside me.

  “You know what, Noah?” says Double-Wide. “He’s right. You really do have a good view of people’s butts.”

  Logan isn’t expecting this—heck, no one is expecting this—and it throws him off his game. He’s probably wondering if Double-Wide is making fun of him, which must feel weird because that’s Logan’s specialty. Personally, I think my new companion is just doing what comes naturally: sharing whatever random thought is on his mind.

  “Yeah,” says Logan. “I mean . . . whatever.”

  As Logan lumbers away, two of my former Little League teammates, Justin and Carlos, nod their heads at me. I think they’re about to say something too. But when they notice the rest of the team leaving without them, they hurry off. I can’t say I blame them—none of us knows what to say to each other anymore.

  The hallway traffic begins to flow again. Slowly. As we navigate the crowd, several students sneak peeks at me, the kid in the Corvette wheelchair, but their eyes drift to Double-Wide too. In his own special way, he stands out just as much as me.

  It’s nice to share the limelight for a change, although I’m not sure that Double-Wide notices the funny looks we’re getting. I’m kind of envious.

  Once we reach cruising speed—about one mile per hour, by my estimate—Double-Wide asks, “Do you know Newton’s second law?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know Newton’s second law.”

  “Well, it states that force equals mass times acceleration. Since you have the extra weight of a wheelchair and I’m the size of a tank, our combined masses are necessarily greater than anyone around us. So as long as we accelerate at the same speed as everyone else in the hallway, our force is clearly much greater.”

  I look around. One, we are not moving at the same speed as everyone else. Two, I don’t think anyone is watching us and thinking, Wow, what a forceful pair!

  But so what? Ever since the accident, people have been trying to convince me that my glass is half full, but Double-Wide is the first person who sounds like he really means it.

  I could do with a little honesty for a change.

  3

  Math Problems

  Alyssa Choo perches on the edge of my desk and crosses her legs. “Hi, Ruben,” she says, waving at Double-Wide. “I’m Alyssa.”

  Double-Wide looks confused. “Do I know you?”

  “We’re in the same homeroom.”

  “Oh. It’s nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand and they shake, which almost never happened at Wellspring Middle School until today. “Please, call me Double-Wide.”

  “O-okay,” she says, producing her own version of Ms. Guthrie’s freaked-out smile.

  Alyssa and I have known each other since first grade. We used to ride the bus together in elementary school. No matter how early I got to the stop, Alyssa would already be waiting, her hair tied back in pigtails and her nose in a book. She still reads plenty, but she’s grown up a lot too. And I’m not just talking about her height.

  “Noah,” she says, “are you staring at my boobs?”

  I look up sharply. “What? No!”

  “I think you were,” says Double-Wide helpfully. “However, that’s mostly because they fall precisely at your line of sight.”

  Alyssa’s face is all twisted up, like she’s getting a whiff of stink bomb. “So you’re saying it’s my fault?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “More or less,” says Double-Wide.

  My face is burning with the power of a thousand suns.

  “I guess I’ll sit down, then,” she says. She slides onto the chair across the aisle from me and folds her arms across her chest. “Better?”

  We’re level now, and I’m looking directly at her face. “Better,” I say.

  I mean it too.

  The classroom door opens, and our math teacher, Mr. Kostas, strides in. He seems to have an extra bounce in his step as he hands out today’s warm-up work sheet.

  I read the title—“Comparing Data: Numbers that actually mean something!”—and realize why he’s excited. He’s asking us to calculate the batting average of ten St. Louis Cardinals baseball players. Mr. Kostas is a big fan of “real-world mathematics,” as he likes to tell us. All the time.

  “Noah,” he says before he’s even made it back to his desk. “Perhaps you can explain to us what a batting average is.”

  There are three columns on the work sheet. The first is titled “at-bats.” The second says “hits.” The last column, which is blank, is headed “average.” I don’t think anyone needs me to explain anything. Certainly not Double-Wide, who immediately begins filling in answers.

  “Noah?” continues Mr. Kostas encouragingly. “Since you’re something of a baseball expert, I thought . . .”

  I flush red. I am definitely not a baseball expert. Anymore. I also don’t like being called on. So I stare at the sheet, keep quiet, and wait for him to ask someone else instead.

  “I’ll give you a clue,” he says helpfully. “You divide one number by the other number. Do you know which way around it is?”

  Everyone in the class goes quiet. Mr. Kostas is a good teacher, but why can’t he just let it go? It’s obvious that he feels as uncomfortable as I do. He looks like a cheerleader smiling bravely when the game is out of reach.

  I want to shrink into my seat, but that’s hard to do in a wheelchair, even one with adjustable-tension upholstery.

  Alyssa raises her hand. “Uh, Mr. Kostas?”

  “Yes, Alyssa!” Mr. Kostas latches on to her voice like a drowning man grasping a life preserver.

  “I was wondering,” she says, eyes fixed on the work sheet. “Are Major League Baseball statistics really the best we can do in a twenty-first-century coeducational classroom?”

  Mr. Kostas looks like he’s trying to translate her question into English. “Do you, uh, have a problem with baseball?”

  “Not with the sport, no. Actually, I like it. But I’m sure you’re aware there a
ren’t any female players in Major League Baseball.”

  “Well, yes. That’s obvious—”

  “Or female managers.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Or female umpires.”

  Mr. Kostas is turning various shades of red. “Maybe you can change that, Ms. Choo.”

  Two rows back, Logan belly laughs. He’s always been the best pitcher and batter for my old Little League team, so he’s the real expert on all things baseball. His dad even coaches the team.

  “Is something funny, Logan?” demands Mr. Kostas.

  “No,” says Logan, pretending to be shocked. “What could be funny about Alyssa becoming a professional baseball player?”

  He turns to my former teammates, inviting them to laugh too. After a moment, they nod their heads like brainless bobblehead dolls.

  “I think,” says Alyssa, “that it would be more inclusive to use different data from now on. Like, say, number of roses per vase or cups of milk to flour in different sizes of cake.”

  Double-Wide looks up from his work sheet. “I agree. My father buys roses, and I like cake.”

  “No kidding,” says Logan.

  Mr. Kostas gives Logan a hard stare. “Fine,” he tells Alyssa. “Everyone, please hand your work sheets back. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think that math is sexist.”

  Everyone gratefully passes the work sheets to the front. All except for Double-Wide.

  “Hey, Double-Wide,” I whisper. “You need to stop.”

  It’s like he doesn’t hear me. All the other sheets are in now, and kids are peering over to see what he’s doing. Maybe he’s covering the page in graffiti. Or drawing a baseball bat, or—

  Suddenly, he drops his pencil and holds up the sheet. Even flutters it gently like he’s impatient for Mr. Kostas to collect it. I take a good long look at it, which is how I discover that, while we were debating whether to use baseball statistics in math, he just worked out ten batting averages without using a calculator.

  Mr. Kostas adds this sheet to the pile like it’s no different from any other. A part of me wants to point out that Double-Wide just completed the whole work sheet, but I’m not sure that drawing even more attention to my new supersized friend is the best idea. So I keep quiet.