“What do you think you’re doing, Tofer?”
“Playing lacrosse.”
“What exactly did I tell you to do, Tofer?”
“Uh, practice carrying the ball?”
“On the stick? By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Did I say anything about charging into somebody else and stealing her ball?”
I glanced at Sue Ann, who was wearing a big pout on her face. “No.”
“Take a lap,” the coach snapped and walked off. “With your ball and stick.”
Sue Ann started to snicker. “Baby,” I hissed at her.
The coach whirled. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Two laps.”
Ten minutes into my first lacrosse practice and I was ready to quit. Bad enough that I had to take the laps, but every couple steps the ball would bounce out of the stick pocket. The first two or three times I just picked up the ball and put it back in the pocket. Then I heard the coach’s voice booming across the field: “Scoop it with the stick, Tofer! Scoooop it!”
“Scoop you,” I whispered.
Next time the ball bounced out I tried to scoop it; instead I only knocked it farther away. When I finally caught up with it, I started beating it with the stick.
“Three laps, Tofer!”
Halfway through the third lap I was practically a cripple. Ice hockey was never like this. For the millionth time the ball bounced out; this time it hit my foot and went shooting off toward the sidewalk. I staggered after it, and next thing I knew I was tripping and falling flat on my face. I just lay there for a while, taking a rest and spitting out grass and waiting for boomer-voice to go, “Four laps, Tofer!” When I bothered to look for the ball, I saw it just a few feet away. There was a foot on it—a foot with a silver sandal, an anklet, green toenails. It was a long time before I looked up and finally, finally saw the girl from California.
Greg
Set of weights. Almost new (used 2½ months). 10-lb. dumbbells. Can of Pro/Gain (unopened). Back issues of “Muscles” and “Body Beautiful.” CHEAP.
I PUT the ad away and went downstairs to wait for my mom to come out of it. She looked dead on the sofa, her hands folded over her chest. I swear, every time I see her come out of it I think of a vampire rising out of a coffin.
I never believed in self-hypnosis until my mother actually learned it a couple of years ago. “If I don’t, I’ll never make it. I’m surviving” was what she said—whatever that means.
At first she said she was going to do it just for the summer, to “survive” having all us kids around all day. But when school started, she kept on doing it, every afternoon from 3:00 to 3:15. Now she “survives” till 3:30.
She came out of it at 3:30 on the dot. She didn’t seem in any big hurry to get up. She just stared at the ceiling for a while, not even blinking. I felt like an intruder in a tomb. I cleared my throat to let her know I was there. Her head turned, her eyes were staring straight at me, but somehow I still wasn’t sure she saw me.
“How do you get an ad in the Tradin’ Times?” I asked her.
She blinked. “Phone it in, I guess.”
I hung around. I wasn’t ready to leave.
She noticed. “Greg?”
“Huh?”
“Something the matter?”
“No, why?”
“Okay, never mind.”
Sometimes my mother infuriates me. Like, she never asks what’s the matter twice. I figured I’d give her another chance. “Guess you noticed the Sassoon shampoo’s gone.”
“I’ll get you more next time we shop.”
“I don’t mean that. I threw it out.”
“Oh.”
“Won’t need it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“No-Frills’ll be good enough.”
“Okay.”
Infuriating. Crazy mother. How many ninth-grade guys talk to their mothers about girl stuff? But this mother makes you want to. How? By not listening. And the more she doesn’t listen, the more you want to tell her.
She got up and headed for the kitchen. Okay, one last chance. “What’s for dinner?”
“Fish cakes.”
“Guess I won’t eat.”
“Thought you like fish cakes.”
“Lost my appetite.”
“Okay.”
“Just… lost it.”
“Fine.”
I gave up and went upstairs. I had to talk to somebody. Had to. But who? My mother was useless. Valducci? Forget Valducci. He could never shut up or stay still long enough to listen. How do you talk to a jackhammer? Poff? I could talk to him about some things—sports, bodyweight (hard stuff)—but not something like girls (soft stuff). Poff is the maturest guy I know. He’s a man, really. Sometimes it startles me to see him heading into junior high school. Oh, Poff would listen, all right, and he might even say more than “Big rip,” but behind his eyes he would be losing respect for me. Girls, love—Poff is above those things.
I even thought of Leo Borlock. A lot of kids—mostly girls, actually—go to him for advice. But just the thought of Poff catching me coming out of Leo’s was enough to make me scratch that idea.
So what did I do? I took a shower, and as I looked up at the shower nozzle it seemed to say to me: Let it all out, kid. I’m listening to ya. “Y’know,” I said, “it doesn’t make things any better knowing she only moved over to Conestoga. Ten miles away might as well be Alaska, for all I can get there… And the crime of it is, I look a whole lot better than I did three months ago, when she saw me last.” I posed for the nozzle. “Right? I mean, if she didn’t like me before, she just might like me now, right? Because this is as good as I get…
“Okay, okay… so, say she saw me and she still didn’t like me. Okay, fine, at least I would’ve had my shot, right? That’s all I ever asked for. My shot. And the tragedy of it—want to hear the rock-bottom, cold-blooded, murderest tragedy of it? I’ll tellya: she was starting to like me.”
I decided to have dinner after all. Megamouth didn’t shut up the whole time: “What happened to Jennifer Wade?… Heard she moved.… Where’s the Sassoon?…”
“Megin, enough,” my mother snapped.
“May-gin,” my father sang across the table, “one of these days you’re gonna have yourself a boyfriend, and what are you going to say if Greg teases you like this?”
“I don’t care,” Megamouth said, and went on: “Who are those skinny muscles gonna impress now?… Bet she’s having a good time in Conestoga.… Lotsa cute boys over there in Conestoga.”
Finally my mother had had enough. “Go, Megin. Upstairs. Leave the table.”
Toddie cheered, but I was the one who stood up. “That’s okay,” I said. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. So happens I’m going out with Jennifer Wade”—I tapped my fork twice on the table—“Saturday night”—and I walked out.
Megin
SATURDAY NIGHT I stayed over at Sue Ann’s. We lay in the dark with her TV on—the picture, not the sound. The only sound was our voices.
“So,” she said, “when’re you going to tell me what you think?”
“Think about what?”
“You know. Her.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. Something. How can you see her and not say something?”
“I’m not.”
“Well, you’re thinking something. Tell me you’re not.”
“I’m not.”
She hit me with her pillow and we both laughed.
“Tell me what you think,” I said.
“I’ve been telling you all week long what I think.”
“Uh-uh. You been telling me things about her. Facts. Not what you think about her.”
She didn’t answer. The TV was showing a commercial. It looked funny without sound, this guy all happy and excited and hugging this lady. And then you saw why: she had gotten his shirt collar clean.
“Well?” I said.
/> Sue Ann reached over and took her good-luck monkey from me. “Well, I wonder if all the girls in California are like that.”
“That’s not thinking, that’s wondering.”
“You ever know anybody else from California?”
“I don’t think so. Michigan once.”
“That near California?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Megin?”
“Huh?”
“What do you think? About Californians, I mean. Are they all like that out there?”
“Nah.”
“No? How do you know?”
“Some of them wear blue toenail polish.”
We cracked up.
The silent TV was showing a lady in a body suit swinging on a high bar, then riding a horse, then playing tennis. Suddenly the screen was filled with this big box of Maxi Pads.
“Megin?”
“Huh?”
“You think they have virgins in California?”
“Of course they do, idiot. What about all the kindergarten girls out there?”
She grabbed her monkey back and started whipping on me. “I know! I know! I know!”
When the subject turns to sex, Sue Ann tends to get all fascinated and giggly, even hysterical. Me, I get mostly bored or disgusted.
I grabbed a lashing monkey leg. “Sue Ann, I’m warning ya, I’ll pull it off.”
She let go. She was panting. “Okay—c’mon, Megin, you know what I mean. What do you think?”
“How should I know? Did you see me go to California to count the virgins?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Anyway, you don’t even know what a virgin is.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Okay”—I called her bluff—“tell me.”
“You tell me.”
“I asked you first.”
“For me to know and you to find out.”
“Right, Sue Ann. I’ll bet you know. You don’t even know what a lip lock is.”
“A what?” she squeaked.
I started to howl.
She smashed a pillow into my face. “Quiet! My parents are asleep.”
We shut up for a while and watched the TV. Then, with her face all ghosty in the tube glow, Sue Ann said, “Think Zoe is?”
I had been wondering myself, but hearing Sue Ann come out with it made the whole idea sound ridiculous. “Man, she’s only in seventh grade.”
“Yeah, but Megin”—she turned to me so that her face was half glow, half dark—“that girl might be in seventh grade, but she’s no seventh-grader. Know what I mean?” I knew, and I didn’t especially want to know, and I didn’t especially want to keep talking about this. But Sue Ann wasn’t ready to quit. “They mature faster in California, kids do.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, they do.”
“How do you know?”
“She said. Zoe.”
“She spoke to you?”
“I sort of overheard.”
“What are you anyway, her groupie?”
Sue Ann was on her knees in front of me now, like an excited puppy dog. “I couldn’t hear what she was saying because I was too far back, y’know? But Chrissie Blalong and Jeannette O’Brien and Peggy Russo were in there close, and you should’ve seen their faces when she told them stuff.”
“I’ll bet you asked them what.”
“I did! I did! I asked Peggy.”
“You’re gross.”
“Megin,”—she edged closer, whispering, “girls get their periods in fifth grade out there. Some even fourth!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah.”
“Yeah. No kiddin’. She’s had her period for years.”
“Just what I always wanted to know.” I reached out and flicked off the TV. “I’m going to sleep.” I threw her monkey at her and lay down.
After about a minute, her voice came through the darkness. “And she worships Halley’s comet.”
“Who’s what?”
“Halley’s comet. You know, the big comet that’s coming? We heard about it in school?”
“Worships it?”
“Yeah.”
“A comet.”
“Yeah, Halley’s. She says it’ll start being visible in the sky pretty soon, and then things are really gonna happen.”
“That so.”
“I don’t mean I believe all that. I’m just saying about her.”
“Good night.”
“ ’Night.”
Sure enough, another minute and out of the darkness: “So what do you think now, Megin? About her being a virgin, huh?… huh?…”
I made my breathing loud and slow to pretend I was asleep.
Greg
CRAZY. Here it was, Saturday night, and I was leaving the house to go on a date I didn’t really have with Jennifer Wade. I’d have to stay out date-late and make sure not to bump into any of my family. All because I let Megamouth badger me into lying.
When I met up with Poff and Valducci, I steered them away from the mall. I figured that was the one place where I might bump into Megamouth; plus, my father’s Sears was there.
“So where?” said Valducci.
“How about the dollar movies?” I suggested.
“No way,” said Poff.
“Why not?” I said. “What’s playing?”
“Bambi.”
“Hey!” piped Valducci, “sounds good. I hear the deer gets it. Maybe a high-kick to the Adam’s apple.” He hopped onto a stone wall in front of a lawn and high-kicked a dead twig from a tree. “Chakkah! Bambi Meets Bruce Lee!”
Poff just shook his head and kept walking.
We couldn’t decide where to go, so we went to McDonald’s to think it over. Must have been a bad night for making decisions—half the school was there.
“Let’s eat in the parking lot,” I suggested after we got our food.
“No way, José,” said Valducci. “We gonna sit in style.”
He dived into the mob, disappeared, and next thing we knew there was an earsplitting whistle and Valducci’s hand waving above the heads. When we got to him, he was at a booth where two ninth-grade girls were sitting, Anita Liuto and Sara Bellamy. We all knew each other a little.
“Hey,” went Valducci, “Anita and Sara just invited us to sit with them.”
Obviously this was news to the girls. They shot should-we looks at each other, followed by it’s-okay-with-me-if-it’s-okay-with-you looks. A good thing, because Valducci had already slid in next to Anita. Which wasn’t surprising. Anita is Italian (Valducci loves Italian girls), and she was the prettier one.
I saw what was coming. Right away I plopped down next to Valducci. He was in tight enough to Anita that I had more than half a butt of seat room. I hated to stick Poff with Sara Bellamy, but you know the old saying: All’s fair in love, war, and booth-sitting.
In a way, I was thankful for Valducci. Without his mouth there would have been total silence at the table. He opened with “So, where you girls headin’ for tonight?”
The girls said they didn’t know. They had been thinking about the dollar movies, until they heard Bambi was playing.
Valducci got this shocked look on his face. “You mean you thought it was just Bambi? The plain old regular Bambi?”
The girls nodded, a little confused.
“Oh jeez.” Valducci wagged his head and slapped the table; two french fries toppled from Anita’s bag. “Didn’t you know? It’s a remake. Y’know, like they did a remake of King Kong?” The girls were shifting their eyes from him to each other. “Well, that’s what they did with Bambi. It’s the remake, not the old Walt Disney cartoon. They made this mechanical deer, y’know, like they made the shark in Jaws? Only this time the deer is the father, Big Bambi, and he’s bigger than a moose, and he’s really p-o’ed because Bambi Junior got shot. So he stalks the guys that did it all the way back to the city.”
By now Anita was coming straight on with a dirty look, so Valducci laughed. “Okay, I was just kidding. It’s not like that. Big Bambi doesn’t go stalking anybody. What happens is, he gets rabies and he bloats all up—”
“Sara,” Anita snorted, “you ready to go?”
Valducci put up his hands. “No—wait—wait. Honest, here’s what really happens. Big Bambi grows old, see, and he becomes the world’s first dirty old deer, and he goes around—”
“Sara!”
“No—wait—wait! He takes up karate, see, and every time he sees a hunter, he kicks the rifle out of his hands, and then—look—see”—he took a long french fry from Anita’s bag and laid it across two soda cups—“every rifle he gets, he brings up his hoof and—chakkah!” Valducci chopped the french fry clean in half. “So,” he said, looking all serious, “where you girls headin’ for tonight?”
The girls couldn’t help it—they were cracking up. They couldn’t get their sodas up their straws without choking. And even Poff. He was rolling his eyes to the ceiling with this faint smirk on his lips—which for Poff is roaring, foot-stomping laughter.
Somehow, in the middle of all this, Valducci managed to herd me and Poff into the men’s room.
“Okay,” he said, “I got Anita. Who wants Sara?”
Poff grabbed my hand and shook it. “Congratulations.” He headed for the door.
“Hey!” I called.
“Football. Eagles and Bears on TV. I’m goin’ home.”
So there I was, supposed to be out with Jennifer Wade, wanting to be out with Jennifer Wade, thinking and dreaming of Jennifer Wade—and stuck with Sara Bellamy.
Back at the booth, Valducci says, “You girls wanna go bowling?”
The girls discussed it with their eyes. Anita shrugged and took a last pull on her soda. “Okay.”
We were halfway to Abbott Lanes when I said my first words of the night to Sara: “You bowl much?”
“Once in a while,” she said. “You?”
“Not much,” I said.
Actually, I’d never bowled in my whole life. I mean, I went to bowling alleys a few times, but not to bowl.
When we got a lane, Valducci took charge and wrote out the score sheet. He made teams; him and Anita, me and Sara. I didn’t think much of it till I looked up. There, right above us, was this big screen with our score sheet projected onto it. There were our names, side by side, for all the world to see: