Mascot

by Antony John

  For a moment, I feel a smile forming on my lips. But then I remember that he’s gone, and the smile fades away. I can’t bring Dad back. But I’ll do whatever I can to keep his seat empty.

  I’m early to my PT appointment—got to keep the insurance people happy!—but I’m still mad as heck.

  Luckily, Angelica is working with another patient, so I sneak off to the bathroom. This is a clever strategy for me because bathroom breaks aren’t exactly super quick. If I play my cards right, I can burn through several minutes of my session without having to move a muscle—well, except for the malfunctioning ones in my butt.

  Unfortunately, the door is locked. I hope whoever’s inside hurries up. If Angelica sees me, the game’s up.

  I hear the toilet being flushed. The squeak of rubber tires against tile. Shouldn’t be long now.

  Then the person inside starts . . . rapping.

  “Watch me now. Enjoy the show.

  People love the Dynamo.

  Give it up. Just let it go.

  No one beats the Dynamo.”

  Unbelievable. Even the bathroom isn’t safe from him anymore. And don’t get me started on Dynamo’s voice—he sounds like he’s sucked on ten helium balloons.

  Anyway, what’s he doing here? He was supposed to have PT yesterday. If I’d known he was going to move his appointment too, I might’ve skipped my birthday dinner for a chance to enjoy PT in peace.

  Dynamo emerges from the bathroom and stops dead. “It’s my mascot!” he exclaims. “Didn’t want to miss this week’s episode of The Dynamo Show, huh?”

  I roll my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “You. The way you watch me all the time, it’s like you’re my mascot. Hey, I get it—you like what you see, right?” He nods to himself. “Everybody likes watching the Dynamo.”

  I ought to say something, but really, where would I start? He’s clearly crazy.

  He’s also blocking the toilet door. I nudge him with my wheelchair, but he doesn’t take the hint.

  “I guess some kids are just born to lead,” he says, tapping his chest. “Others are born to watch.”

  “Okay, for one thing,” I say, “you are not a leader. You’re a fourth grader. For another thing, mascots don’t watch anyone. That’s cheerleaders, you moron.”

  “Right. Cheerleaders,” he says like it was his idea all along. “But you’re way too ugly to be one of them. And I ought to know, ’cause my sister’s on Team Fredbird.”

  “Team what?”

  “Fredbird. She’s a cheerleader for the Cardinals.”

  Dynamo is certifiably insane. It’s like he thinks that just saying something out loud makes it true. Next he’ll be telling me that his dad is the team manager. Worst of all, both of our PTs have seen us now, and they’re listening to every word. So why don’t they call him on his lies?

  “You don’t believe me,” says Dynamo. “Whatever. Just ask my girlfriend. She’ll tell you.”

  We’re back to the imaginary girlfriend again.

  “Oh, I get it,” he continues. “You’re jealous. What can I say? Girls like the Dynamo.”

  Talking to Dynamo is like talking to Makayla—words fly right back, just faster and multiplied. I’m already exhausted, and I haven’t even begun my session yet.

  My spiky-haired nemesis turns his wheelchair around and speeds into the waiting arms of his PT. Anyone would think he actually likes suffering through round after round with the weight-supporting harness.

  Meanwhile, Angelica walks up to me and sits on her haunches. “Have a nice chat?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “It reminds me how lucky I am not to have a younger brother.”

  “Hmm. Doesn’t mean Dynamo isn’t right.”

  I feel my chest tighten. “You don’t actually believe that stuff he’s saying, do you?”

  “About you being his mascot?” She shrugs. “You do spend a lot of time watching him.”

  “I’m not watching him—”

  “Noah . . .” Sighing, she takes both my hands in hers. “I think you’re hiding how you really feel, like a mascot behind a mask. And sooner or later, you’re going to have to take it off.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Once you show us the real Noah Savino, we can help you get on with the rest of your life. Do you understand?”

  Angelica has been giving me pep talks ever since we started working together, and I’ve managed to ignore almost all of them. But it’s hard to ignore someone who’s holding your hands and staring right at you. Plus, something feels different today. I’m tired of hearing about how I’m letting myself down. I’m angry that Dynamo thinks he owns me, and I hate that Makayla played me for an idiot. And most of all, I’m sick of all the lying—Mr. Dillon pretending to be Fredbird, and Mom acting like she might believe him.

  Maybe I should tell Angelica the truth, for a change. How I’ve been afraid to try too hard or say out loud what I want in case I can’t make it happen. How I figure it’s better not to get my hopes up at all than to risk losing hope altogether. How I get that nothing’s guaranteed with a spinal injury, and no two people heal exactly the same way, and some people never really heal at all. How I’m scared that’s what’ll happen to me.

  “What are you thinking about, Noah?” Angelica asks gently.

  I’m thinking that if I can’t turn things around, the insurance will stop paying for PT and I’ll never get better. I’ll just get older, and heavier, and harder for Mom to handle. Who will she call on when she can’t manage me by herself? What will my life look like then?

  “Noah?”

  I take a deep breath and meet her eyes. “I’m thinking . . . you’re right.”

  Angelica nods, but she doesn’t say anything for several moments. “Okay, then,” she says finally. “Let’s see how those exercises are coming.”

  I wheel over to the mat with her. Then, working side by side with my PT, I do something I’ve never done before.

  Exactly what I’m told.

  23

  The Beast Has a Soft Side

  Mrs. Friendly is wearing her official CrossFit competition vest with “THE BEAST” written in block letters across her muscular upper back. If you ask me, Sam “THE BEAST” Friendly isn’t very imaginative as nicknames go. I think she should change it to Sam “I’M NOT VERY” Friendly. She probably wouldn’t go for that, though. Mrs. Friendly’s sense of humor is not as developed as her biceps.

  I’m halfway around the gym, warming up my own pathetic biceps and triceps and all those other upper arm muscles I never knew existed, when she blows her whistle. Everyone grinds to a halt.

  “What are you doing, Savino?” she barks.

  “Uh . . . I uh . . .” I give her a vacant smile, but The Beast is not easily calmed. “I’m . . . rolling?”

  “And why are you rolling?”

  “Because I . . . you know . . . my legs don’t work.” This really shouldn’t be news to her. It’s not like I’ve been faking it.

  “And so you roll,” she says, nodding to herself. “And that’s what I like to see, people. Savino’s giving it everything. Ask yourself: ‘Am I outworking Savino?’”

  I hate being singled out. Even a teacher as unfriendly as Mrs. Friendly ought to know that she shouldn’t draw attention to my disability. It’s why teachers are given sensitivity training. It doesn’t matter that she’s trying to compliment me—it’s a reminder that I’m different from everyone else.

  Like I need reminding.

  She strides over to Logan. “How about you, Montgomery? Are you outworking Savino?”

  Logan is massaging his left knee. “My leg still hurts,” he says.

  “Your . . . leg . . . still . . . hurts,” she repeats like the words don’t make sense. “And why does your leg hurt?”

  “Because Alyssa threw a baseball at me. You were there! You saw it!”

  Mrs. Friendly cocks an eyebrow. “Is that correct, Choo? Were you aiming for Montgomery?”

  “No!” says Alyssa. “I pitc
hed to him. He was inadequately prepared for a bouncer, and so the ball became momentarily embedded around his kneecap.”

  “She hit me!” cries Logan.

  Complaining is probably not the best approach to take with a teacher who calls herself The Beast. “Rumor has it you played an entire baseball game this past weekend,” Mrs. Friendly says.

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “That was against other boys,” Alyssa points out. “He probably didn’t need to work as hard against weaker opposition.”

  Logan’s face is bright red. “Just wait until the rematch. You are going down!”

  “Like last time? Oh, no, wait—that was you who crumpled into a heap.”

  As entertaining as it is to watch Alyssa humiliate Logan, it’s also giving us a free time-out. Mrs. Friendly doesn’t like free time-outs. Mrs. Friendly likes to inflict pain, so she blows her whistle. “Montgomery and Choo—ten more laps. The rest of you, take a break.”

  Wait, what? Mrs. Friendly has never shortened our workout before. Sometimes, she acts like she’s about to take pity on us, but then doubles the punishment as if she’s afraid she’s getting soft. Does this mean The Beast actually is getting soft?

  Grimacing, Logan hobbles around the gym as Alyssa glides by smiling. The rest of my class is smiling too . . . even Logan’s teammates, although they try to hide it whenever he looks over.

  Justin, my former teammate, eyes my wheelchair. “You’re getting quicker on that, Noah,” he says.

  “Quicker than us, anyway,” adds Carlos.

  I flick the tires. “Gotta love wheels.”

  They laugh, which feels surprisingly good. Apart from Logan, no one on the baseball team has said much to me since school started.

  “How’s the rehab going?” Carlos asks.

  “Better,” I say. “The insurance company won’t keep paying for therapy if they don’t see results, so I figured I should get off my butt and work harder.”

  “You’re on your butt now,” Justin says.

  This time, I laugh too.

  Alyssa finishes her laps before Logan and heads over to us. She’s not even out of breath. “You all right, Noah?” she asks. “Your face is all scrunched up.”

  “Oh.” I try to relax. “I’m, uh, trying to move my left foot.”

  “The insurance people are going to stop his rehab if he doesn’t get better,” explains Carlos.

  I think he likes having the inside scoop. But that’s not exactly what I told him, and it’s definitely not a helpful thing to pass along to Alyssa.

  She bites her lip. “That’s awful.”

  “Not if I can give them results,” I say, focusing all my energy on my foot.

  “You should’ve told me.”

  “Should’ve told you what?” asks Dee-Dub, joining us.

  “Noah might not be allowed to keep going to rehab anymore,” says Alyssa.

  That’s not accurate either, and everyone is quiet now. I think they want to believe that rehab is a miracle cure, just like I did when I first started. Would they understand if I told them how complicated it really is? How even now, with every ounce of energy focused on my foot, I can’t make anything happen?

  “I’m serious,” murmurs Alyssa. “I could’ve helped. I could’ve—” She stops suddenly, and her mouth hangs open. “Uh, Noah? Your foot’s moving.”

  My heart skips a beat. I try to follow her eyes, but it’s impossible to see my feet without leaning way forward, and I don’t want to topple over. “Seriously? It moved?”

  “Yeah,” she says, nodding furiously. “It really did!”

  As I try again, Dee-Dub studies my sneaker like it’s a cross between a rare flower and an unsolvable equation. “She’s right,” he says. “Your foot’s definitely moving.”

  For a few seconds, there’s stunned silence. Then Justin and Carlos bump fists, and Dee-Dub holds out his hand for me to shake, and Alyssa starts tearing up. I feel like I’m going to cry too. I can’t cry, not here, not now, but if I can move my foot, maybe one day I really will move my legs. And if I can move my legs, maybe I’ll be able to walk around the gym. I’ll probably never run, and Dee-Dub will look like an Olympic sprinter compared to me, but still . . . we’re running different races.

  I feel like I did when I used to play baseball. The adrenaline rush of calling a pitch on a full count. The excitement of throwing out a runner caught stealing a base. The celebrations after every victory.

  I haven’t felt like this in months.

  A few yards away, Mrs. Friendly signals for me to join her. I race over and stop beside her.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “I just moved my foot!”

  “Score one for Team Savino!” She gives me a high five. “Hey, look I . . . I’m sorry I singled you out just now. I got excited.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard The Beast apologize before. “It’s okay. I’m pretty excited too.”

  “I can see that.” She rolls her neck, eyes fixed on Logan still circling the gym. “You know, I talked to your mom at the beginning of the school year. Asked her if she wanted me to make you work. You probably hate me for it, right?”

  “I used to. But not anymore.”

  She gives a triumphant little fist pump. “Excellent!”

  The Beast blows her whistle as Logan staggers across the line, his left foot dragging along the floor. “All right, people,” she snaps. “We’ve got work to do.”

  With a chorus of sighs, my classmates await the next batch of punishment. I do too, although I’m not sighing. I want to get started again. I want to see what I can do.

  I’ve got a race to win.

  24

  Criminal Masterminds

  Dee-Dub invites me around to his house on Friday evening. He lives a couple miles away near Tower Grove Park, in a three-story brick house that’s even older than mine.

  He answers the front door and helps me bump up the step into the house. The hardwood floors are shiny, and there are three squares of paint in different shades of beige on the wall beside us. If Mr. and Mrs. Hardesty are decorating, they must be planning to stick around St. Louis for a while, which means Dee-Dub will too. This makes me very happy.

  Dee-Dub leads me into the dining room, where an impressive telescope stands by a window.

  “Stargazing’s not so good in St. Louis,” he says, following my eyes. “Too much light pollution. New Mexico had amazing skies, especially outside Albuquerque.”

  Talking about amazing, his computer station is gigantic. Sprawling across one corner of the room is a desktop tower with about eighty fans and a monitor that’s larger than our TV. There are even speakers mounted against the wall. Dee-Dub could probably take over NASA with this gear. Maybe he already has.

  “I built it myself,” he says. “Mom doesn’t like me wearing headphones because she says it’s hard to get through to me. So I added an amplifier and surround-sound system instead. That way I can just drown her out.”

  I’ve been told that honesty is the best policy, but Dee-Dub’s mom is standing in the kitchen doorway watching us. “I heard that,” she tells him.

  “That’s okay,” he says. “You’re allowed to listen in.”

  In my house, this would count as snarky or disrespectful, but I don’t think Dee-Dub is trying to be either. He’s just being honest, even if that includes telling me about the insanely loud speakers designed to block out his parents’ voices.

  With a deep sigh, Mrs. Hardesty leaves the room.

  “I . . . uh . . . need to say sorry,” Dee-Dub mumbles. “For getting angry at you in math.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  “On Tuesday, remember? You called me the name of a famous Austrian physicist.”

  “Oh, you mean Einst—” I stop myself just in time. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I never should’ve gotten angry.” He furrows his brows. “I’m supposed to count to ten. I have deep-breathing exercises too.”

  I t
hink I might be pulling a Ms. Guthrie Mount Rushmore face. Or Mom’s Did-that-smell-come-from-Noah-or-the-dog? face. “It’s okay,” I say. “Honestly, I won’t say that name ever again. Well, except maybe when I get to high school physics. But can I ask you something?”

  “You just did.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Right. But seriously . . . why are you okay being called Dee-Dub and not, you know, a famous scientist?”

  “Because Einstein was an actual living person,” he says like it’s obvious. “I am clearly not Albert Einstein. But I am definitely twice as wide as the average seventh grader. So one name is accurate, and the other isn’t. You see?”

  I remember what he said about his nickname being based on “objective data.” Since he’s not literally Einstein, I guess this makes sense to him. All the same, I feel like he’s keeping something from me. So I wait. I want him to be honest with me, but I won’t force it. I know what it’s like to have people pushing you to be something you’re not ready to be.

  He takes a seat in front of the computer and stares at his hands, fingers knitted tightly together. “And, well . . . ,” he continues, “when people used to call me that name, it was like they were saying that math is all I’ve got.”

  “You’re really good at it.”

  “So?” He bites his thumbnail. “I saw this movie once about a violin prodigy. She was playing solo with professional orchestras when she was twelve. So everyone figured that’s what she’d always do: play the violin. Because it would be such a waste of her talent if she didn’t, you know?”

  I wait for the rest of the story. Then it hits me. “Are you saying you don’t actually like math?”

  “No! I love it. I just think it would be cool to surprise people. Like the way you did in PE when you moved your foot.”

  “Oh. Well, we could easily do that!” I press the brakes on my wheelchair. “If anyone at school knew how well you swing a baseball bat, they’d be amazed.”

  “Mr. Riggieri thinks I have power to spare,” he says proudly.