Abby makes herself comfy on my bed, which tells me she’s not planning on leaving anytime soon. I prepare to guard myself against fierce questioning.
“So, you heard me playing the violin, right?” She tucks her dark blond hair behind her ear. “What did you think?”
My body relaxes. I am more than happy to abandon the potato conversation.
I sit next to her on the bed and wink. “I think I need to invest in some noise-canceling headphones.” Abby’s talented, but she’s been practicing so much lately that even Mom has suggested she play in the garage. One can only handle so many renditions of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Abby pouts. She clearly didn’t think my joke was funny.
“Come on.” I nudge her shoulder. “It’s just…I don’t know. Maybe you should play some different songs every now and then.”
Abby buries her head in my pillow and screams something indecipherable. Note to self: Wash that pillowcase.
“You okay?” I ask.
She finishes off a couple of short screaming bursts into the pillow and then calmly lifts her head. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I’m quitting the violin.”
I shake my head. “You know I was just kidding. Don’t quit because I’m a jerk.”
“It’s not because of that.” She falls back into my mattress. “I’m just not good anymore.”
“You sound good to me.”
“No, I don’t. I stink! No matter how hard I practice for the chair tests, I can’t get past the third stand. The third stand! Do you know how humiliating that is?” She flings herself off the bed and face-flops onto the beanbag.
“You’ll do better next time,” I say. “It’s not that big a deal.” If only the most embarrassing thing I had to worry about were a seat in an orchestra.
“You don’t understand,” she says. “Back in LA, I was the best in the whole class. Now I know that I was only good because everyone at Wilson stank.”
“They didn’t stink.”
“Yes, they did. You should see the people here. Brielle Mendoza is first chair. She started violin lessons when she was six, and she’s already playing ‘Orange Blossom Special.’ I’ll never beat that.”
I’m not sure what to say. I guess it would be hard to feel like no matter how much you practiced, it didn’t make a difference. What if after all my mascot training, I still blow it tomorrow?
At least I’ll do better than if I never practiced at all.
I pick up a potato and dig at it with my fingernail. “Maybe the competition is good for you. Even if you’re not better than Brielle, you’re better than you used to be.”
“I guess.”
“Brielle’s helping you, in a way. If you’d stayed at Wilson, you wouldn’t have tried as hard.”
“True.”
I shrug. “Who knows? Moving here might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to your musical career.”
“Musical career?” She giggles. “I’m ten years old, you weirdo.”
“I can see the headlines now: ‘Abby Hardy, classical violinist—’ ”
“I want to fiddle!”
“Okay, okay. ‘World-famous fiddler! Performing at—’ ”
“Disneyland!”
“The happiest place on Earth.”
She sighs, sinking into the beanbag. “I still miss being the best.”
I laugh. Abby’s so competitive. I’d like to get her and Hunter’s sisters together for a game of Uno and see who survives.
Ding!
The doorbell rings. A few seconds later, Mom’s voice drifts up the stairs. “Did somebody order a package?”
My package for Jayla! Oh, blessed next-day shipping! “Whoa,” says Abby as I drop the potato and dash out the bedroom door. I gallop downstairs and rip open the box right in the entryway. It looks just like Hedwig, down to the dark spots on her snowy-white wings. It’s perfect. I’ll answer Jayla tomorrow.
Mom clears her throat behind me, and I slowly turn around.
“Why’d you order an owl?” She squints, hands on her hips. “You better not have used my credit card.”
Busted. I should’ve waited outside for the delivery truck. Or pretended I had no clue where the package came from and then convinced Mom to let me keep it anyway. So many rookie mistakes.
“Benjamin,” Mom says in a tone that could freeze water. “Explain.”
There’s one surefire way I can escape punishment. But is it really worth it?
“I…” I check to make sure Abby didn’t follow me down, and then I whisper, “I bought it for a girl.”
It works. Mom’s eyes light up, and then her anger transforms into intense curiosity. “A girl? What’s her name?”
“Jayla.”
“Is she in your classes?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she like?”
“Moooooom.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“No! It’s just for a dance. It’s not a big deal.”
Abby yells from upstairs, “A dance?”
Oh brother.
Abby joins us, and she and Mom ooh and aah over the owl’s fluffiness. Part of me wants to go hide in the closet and not come out until they go to bed.
At least they help me work on my answer. Mom digs some scarlet and gold ribbon out of her craft box, and Abby helps with the wording of the letter. It’s nice that they care, but they definitely tend to overdo things. They’ll probably expect me to give a full play-by-play of Jayla’s reaction tomorrow.
This owl better be worth it.
11
All That and a Bag of Chips
There’s nothing as tense as the last sixty seconds of the school day. Everyone grips their binder and perches on the edge of their seat like an Olympian runner waiting for the gunshot.
But when the final bell rings on Wednesday, I calmly pack my binder. I even throw in a “Thanks for the lesson” to my history teacher, Mr. Ziegler, just for kicks. Today I’m in no rush.
I loiter outside the classroom door, occasionally peeking around the corner to watch the lockers. Still no sign of Jayla. Any minute now.
My answer to the dance is all set up in Jayla’s locker, and I want to see her reaction. Earlier today I found Paris in the halls and asked if she could do some locker-code sleuthing for me. “You want Jayla’s combo?” She winked and smacked her gum. “It’s ten-eighteen-two.” Either Paris has a weird obsession with finding out everyone’s locker code, or that’s just the type of thing girls tell each other.
Then, during history, I “went to the bathroom.” I had to ask like three times since Mr. Ziegler annoyingly didn’t believe I needed to go. Once he caved, I grabbed the items from my locker, opened Jayla’s locker, and set everything up.
Jayla’s voice comes from around the corner. I spy from down the hall as she approaches her locker with Paris, enters her code, and cranks open the door. Crammed into the locker is the giant stuffed Hedwig.
Jayla gasps. “Aww! It’s so cute!”
“Oh, no fair!” Paris says.
Jayla wrestles Hedwig out of the locker, and the note taped to her beak drops to the floor. Jayla picks it up and reads: “ ‘Jayla, I’m glad to be your “Chosen One.” Can’t wait to go to the dance with you.’ ”
“How sweet,” Paris says with a tinge of jealousy in her voice. “Duke answered me by throwing me a paper airplane during math class that said, ‘Yes.’ ”
Everything’s going as planned. Next I’ll go up and surprise her. I sweep my hands through my hair and turn the corner.
“It’s random he got me an owl, though,” Jayla says.
I stop in my tracks.
She reexamines the note. “Nothing in the note says anything about an owl. I thought people usually answered with a pun,
or something clever.”
“Yeah,” Paris agrees. “Maybe he just likes owls.”
I blink. Did I hear correctly? Come on, Jayla, the note says I’m the “Chosen One”! Like Harry! That’s Hedwig the owl! I even burned the corners of the letter to make it look old and drew a lightning scar at the top. Have I entered some alternate universe where J. K. Rowling was never born?
I have to get out of here before they catch me spying. I creep back to the corner.
And then I sneeze. Because sneezes insist on coming at the worst times.
“Ben, is that you?” Jayla pokes her head out from behind Hedwig.
“Oh hey.” I reluctantly walk up to them. “Uh, so, you like the owl?”
She hugs it tight to her chest. “I love it!”
I cough. “It’s Hedwig, by the way. You know, from Harry Potter.”
“Oh right,” she says with a confused look on her face.
“Harry Potter’s for nerds!” pipes up Paris. Not eager to get on my good side, this one.
“Guess I’m a nerd,” I say with a grin, unable to think of a witty comeback on the spot. I should’ve said something clever like You must be a Slytherin, but she caught me off guard.
“I think Harry Potter’s kind of cool,” says Jayla, but her tone doesn’t have me convinced. “I saw a couple of those movies.”
I almost dive into my classic rant about how the movies can’t compare with the books, but considering my audience, it wouldn’t be worth it.
I say that I’ll see them later and then pass the bike racks before heading home, in case Ellie’s waiting for me. No luck. During sixth period I texted her to wait up, but I probably took too long to show. Or maybe she’s annoyed that I still haven’t bought that game-day shirt she keeps bugging me about. Or maybe she doesn’t care about walking home with me anymore. That last option bothers me the most of all.
I walk home alone and, two hours later, return for the basketball game. I reenact Operation: Mascot Transformation, determined to make it go more smoothly this time around. When I get to the janitor’s closet, I set aside the surrounding mops and brooms before dressing, so I won’t knock them over. Then I take out the Febreze I brought from home and spray it inside the headpiece. Now it smells like tropical mist (on a potato-farming island, granted, but at least it’s an improvement). And then there’s my most brilliant idea yet: a mini portable fan. I found it in the basement in one of our unpacked junk boxes. But it is junk no more. This baby will save me from drowning in a lake of my own sweat. I turn it on and duct-tape it to the inside of the helmet. The breeze feels almost like a day at the beach. Perfect.
Before the game, I stand at the entryway to the gym and hold my hand up to every single person who comes in. If they don’t high-five me, I go ahead and high-five their stubborn little arms, with an occasional high five to the face for the particularly dismissive ones.
Maybe I’ve just been sniffing so much Febreze that my brain has stopped functioning correctly, but being a mascot suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. The mesh screen in front of my eyes is like magic. I can see people who can’t see me back. I stand two feet in front of people from my classes, and they have no idea it’s me slapping their hand, or their arm, or their face. I’m like a fly on the wall, except with no buzzing and, hopefully, a longer life span.
Tonight we’re playing the Alta Heights Fire Ants, a team we’re expected to beat. Not many people show up—maybe fifty tops, half the crowd of last Friday. Not everyone has as much school spirit as Wyatt, the ex-mascot. He waves his crutches from the front row with a smile so big that the gleam off his braces could blind the players.
Unlike Hamilton, Alta Heights is a school no one thinks much about. They have nothing to admire and nothing to hate, kind of like vanilla yogurt. And get this—they don’t even have a mascot! That’s how lukewarm they are about their sports teams.
The tinny whistle calls the teams to center court for the jump ball, and the game is on. Instead of retreating to my wooden bench, I walk up the bleachers and sit next to a mom, dad, and son like I just happen to be a part of their family. The kid, who’s probably four years old, gawks at me as if I’m Santa Claus himself.
He tugs his mom’s sleeve. “Mom, look at that!”
The woman eyes me suspiciously, like I’m a kidnapper in disguise. “Looks like the Spud wanted to sit by you.”
The boy pokes a finger into my suit. “I like him, Mom.”
I laugh and ruffle the kid’s hair. It’s nice to see I’ve already made a fan.
Our team is off to a great start, but the applause is polite and pathetic. It’s like the crowd thinks they’re watching golf instead of basketball.
Coach would want me to bring out some energy. Didn’t he say “mascot” means “lucky charm” in French? Or was it German? Either way, I better get up and lucky-charm the heck out of this place.
Mascots have no shame, I repeat to myself, and then I stand on the bench and cup my hand to my invisible spud ear. Amazingly, the cheers crescendo. I raise the roof, and they grow even louder. What kind of magic is this? I feel the power! I almost break out into dance, but I think it would be bad form to distract from the actual game.
Near the end of the first quarter, the Fire Ants call their first time-out, score 14–10, Spuds. We’ve stayed ahead the whole game, but only by a basket or two. If I can get some more momentum going, it might be enough to push us further ahead.
As the teams huddle on the court, I bust out the moves I practiced yesterday. I moonwalk across the floor, and the fans in the front rows clap. Then I break out my new signature move.
“He’s doing the Mashed Potato!” yells an old woman in the third row. She and her husband have a good chuckle over that. They might be the only two in the whole crowd who’ve been alive long enough to understand the reference.
During the next time-out, I channel the energy of Chi-tan the Otter: I slide to the left, slide to the right, crisscross my feet, and turn. I body roll, but it probably just looks like I’m convulsing. And those are all the moves I can remember.
Knowing I can’t repeat myself now that people are actually watching, I resort to one of the few dances I know by heart, and one I’ve mastered over the years: the “Macarena.” Apparently, people think a potato shaking its hips is hilarious, because when I get to the “Heyyy, Macarena” part, I get lots of laughs—and not the mean You’re a loser laughs, but the good-natured Would you look at that laughs. It’s all in the tone.
By halftime, we’re six points ahead. Time to check another item off my Mascotting Ideas list: start the wave.
While the cheerleaders do their routine, I run to one end of the bleachers, crouch to the floor, and pop up with my hands above my head. The fans catch on, rising in their seats one after another as the wave ripples down the stands.
I run across the bottom of the bleachers, following the wave, and start it up again on the other side. As I turn to run back to my starting point, I notice Ellie and Hunter up in the top left corner. I tip my head back to get a better look. Ellie is wearing a nice maroon-colored shirt that I’ve never seen her wear before. Beside her, Hunter hops on the bench, totally out of sync with the wave. They must have come in late, because I would’ve definitely face-fived them if I’d seen them walk in.
Anyway, all these thoughts pass through my head as I’m running back for the wave, and before I know it, I trip over my own feet and am diving toward the floor. Leaning my head back while running in a potato helmet was not my brightest idea.
I flop to the court and find myself bowling-ball rolling toward the cheerleaders. They’re stacked on top of each other like a human deck of cards. I steamroll into the girl at the corner, and her elbows buckle, causing the whole pyramid to collapse. Down they come like bowling pins—bowling pins that can squeal, anyway.
Jayla tumbles on top of me from the seco
nd row. It might even be romantic if I weren’t in a potato suit.
“Agh! Stupid potato!” she yells. I’m speechless.
Paris, the cherry on top of the cheerleader sundae, takes the hardest hit. “You klutz!” she cries out, rubbing her backside.
The crowd, meanwhile, is having a field day, hooting and hollering with gigantic grins on their faces. Some hold out their phones to record the aftermath of the spill. You’d think everyone would hate me for ruining the cheer pyramid, but apparently no one can resist a good mascot fail.
The cheerleading coach double-checks that none of the girls injured themselves, and the second half begins with high momentum. The Spuds stretch their lead, and the final buzzer rings with a score of 78–59, Spuds, a total landslide. As the fans exit, I stand near the doorway, this time not forcing high fives on everyone, but rather receiving them from my adoring fans.
“Yeah, buddy!” says a guy from my math class. He pounds my fist as he heads out.
“You rock, potato dude!” says a girl I’ve never met.
Man, it feels good to finally be appreciated.
Ellie and Hunter are hanging out at the bottom of the bleachers. What do they think of Mr. Spud?
It’d be too easy to go mess with them. Swing Ellie’s braid or something.
I sneak up behind her, but right as I’m reaching for her hair, up walks Cole the Elf. I back off.
He wipes sweat off his forehead. “Hey, Ellie! What’s up?”
“Hey!” I can tell she’s smiling from her voice. “You were great tonight.”
As a matter of fact, Cole was not “great.” He made probably three or four baskets the whole game.
“Thanks.” Cole shoves his floppy hair out of his face. “It was a good game.”
So he’s not even going to own up to the fact that he stank? Okay, then.
Ellie shoots me a wary glance, and I realize how weird I must look standing motionless and staring at them. I wander off to high-five a couple of girls from my science class while straining to eavesdrop.
My Life as a Potato Page 7
