“Hey hey,” said a male voice, distracting the three of them. A large male hand emerged from one side of Ronnie’s waist, and Chet was standing behind her. “Hey, Babe, I’ve been looking all over for you.” He smiled down at Mikey and Margalo, who remained seated, staring up at him, a little stupefied. Had he heard what they were saying?
Stupefied seemed to be what Chet liked. His smile got lazy, sure of itself. “I haven’t met these friends of yours, Ronnie.”
Ronnie had recovered quickly enough to say, with a toss of her head that made her ponytail brush against his neck, “Margalo Epps. Mikey Elsinger.”
Chet was handsome, with dark, thick eyebrows, and he did have a great smile, also sky blue eyes and broad shoulders; and he was tall, already over six feet. He ignored Margalo but said to Mikey, “You got tossed off the tennis team. Am I right? Mark was grousing.”
Mikey smiled right up at him. “Call me Michelle.”
“Michelle? That’s your real name, right?”
“Yeah.” Mikey continued smiling, You are in big trouble. Even she could figure out what Chet was thinking. He was thinking, There goes another one. He didn’t know anything about Mikey.
“So, what are you girls getting up to?” Chet asked, pulling Ronnie in close to him.
Ronnie looked at Margalo. Mikey looked at Margalo.
Margalo looked at Chet and discovered that she had the answer. “Ronnie wants us to tutor Louis.” She looked at Ronnie. “Because her family is so upset about him flunking the year.” She looked at Mikey. “Mikey will do the Math”—and then she turned back to Chet—“and I’ll do English. If he passes those two, he can make up Science and Social Studies in summer school.”
“Why would I agree to tutor Louis?” Mikey demanded, not having yet figured out what Margalo was up to now. “He’s stupid and he doesn’t want to learn anything. It would be a total waste of my time.”
Margalo said to Chet, “I, on the other hand, think we could do it.”
“Why doesn’t Louis ask them himself, Babe?” Chet asked Ronnie.
“He hates us,” Margalo explained.
“You’re right about that,” Mikey said. “And it’s mutual.”
“That’s going to be part of the fun,” Margalo said.
“I don’t get it,” Chet said.
By now Mikey and Ronnie did. Ronnie said, “I was just about to go find Louis and tell him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Chet said. “I haven’t laid eyes on you all morning.”
Ronnie looked up into his face with the soft-eyed look he was hoping to see.
“I really miss you when I don’t see you all morning, Babe,” Chet said. “She’s made my senior year just great, just about perfect,” he said, apparently speaking to Mikey and Margalo, but still looking at Ronnie.
To get the conversation off of this topic, Mikey said, “I don’t think Louis can get caught up. There’s only thirty-nine days left—less, counting the exam period.”
“Where’s your fighting spirit, Michelle?” teased Chet.
Mikey smiled again. You’re about to find out, you no-good ratfink lunchpail bum. “He’s been flunking Math since the second marking period. That’s November.”
“I bet we can do it,” Margalo argued, keeping the conversation focused. Their only hope to successfully attack Chet was the element of surprise. “I bet when we get through with Louis, he’ll pass both English and Math.”
Mikey played along. “How much? C’mon, Margalo, put your money where your mouth is. How much will you bet?”
Margalo hesitated, thought about it, looked at Chet as if about to ask his advice, but just as he was about to offer it, she said, “A nickel.”
“Done,” said Mikey, and she held out her hand. Margalo took it in hers and they shook, like wrestlers at the start of a match only they knew was fixed.
“Tell Louis we want to see him at lunch tomorrow,” Margalo said to Ronnie.
“You let them tell you what to do like that, Babe?”
“Let us do the explaining,” Margalo advised Ronnie.
– 18 –
But Not Everybody Gets It
Mr. Wolsowski was waiting for Mikey at the end of school, behind the desk in his classroom with its shelves full of books—class sets of novels and dictionaries, anthologies of poetry and essays—and its literary posters—Shakespeare, of course, surrounded by his most famous quotes; a time line showing major world events and when writers lived, from Homer to Toni Morrison; the movie poster for A Room with a View. Mr. Wolsowski had his windows wide-open, so he was using one of the dictionaries to weigh down his pile of papers.
Mikey went right up to the desk. Mr. Wolsowski put down his red pen—didn’t teachers do anything but grade papers?—and sat forward in his chair. “What’s the problem, Mikey?”
Mikey spoke carefully, making sure she was presenting the exact answer to this question. “Coach Sandy. She’s the tennis coach.”
“Sandy Delorme? But I don’t know her at all, I don’t—I’ve heard about her, though, she played pro tennis, didn’t she? But Mikey, you’re a good tennis player, so how can there be a problem? Didn’t Casey tell me—” Something about what Casey had told him made him not finish that sentence.
Mikey continued. “She threw me off the team, and now she’s thrown me out of tennis, that’s the exact problem. I’m the number one girl on the tennis ladder,” Mikey told him, in case he hadn’t heard or didn’t understand how bizarre what had happened was.
“Why would she do that?”
“Because of my line calls.”
“You were cheating? That doesn’t sound like you.”
Mikey shook her head. “Because I wouldn’t call balls out if I wasn’t sure.”
That got Mr. Wolsowski up out of his seat. He was getting worked up, Mikey could tell, and she took that for a good sign. The teacher went over to an open window and looked out.
“So I’m wondering, what can I do about it?” Mikey asked his back.
He turned around and smiled. But it wasn’t the confident, grown-up-about-to-take-charge smile she was hoping for. “I think your real question—here, this afternoon—is, What can I do about it? And the unfortunate truth is, I can’t do anything. Not really. I don’t have firsthand information to take to Mr. Robredo, even if I were convinced it was appropriate for me to go to him. For one thing. I mean, if it were Casey, then I might feel justified, and he might listen, but—Teachers are always hearing things about other teachers. Usually they’re not exactly accurate,” Mr. Wolsowski said. “Gossip, complaints. Or things get blown out of proportion. Or it’s a one-sided version that distorts the facts.”
Mikey nodded. She could see that. She hadn’t thought of it, but she could see it. “Then, what can I do?”
He shook his head, he didn’t know. He took off his glasses and polished them with a tissue. “Sports aren’t a metaphor for life,” he announced, as if she had been trying to convince him that they were. “Especially, team sports aren’t.”
“But then, maybe tennis is, because you play one against one. Or two against two at the most if it’s doubles.”
“That’s if life’s about winning. If the correct metaphor for life is beating somebody else to get a prize only one person can have,” Mr. Wolsowski said, polishing away.
“But only one person can come in first,” Mikey pointed out. “Or one team.”
“That only matters if life only has one kind of prize,” Mr. Wolsowski said. “Maybe golf works as a metaphor.”
“Golf’s not a sport,” Mikey told him.
He looked at her, surprised. Then he put his glasses back on and looked at her some more. “But it is. Don’t underestimate what you don’t know anything about, Mikey.”
“Okay,” Mikey said. She wasn’t here to argue with Mr. Wolsowski. She was here to get his help. “What can I do? About Coach Sandy,” she reminded him, in case he had lost track of what they were talking about.
“I honestly don’t know. I
wish I could help you, I do—”
“I believe you,” Mikey assured him.
“But I can’t. Have you talked to Mrs. Smallwood?”
“The guidance counselor? She doesn’t even know who I am.”
“The counselor can deal with things teachers aren’t supposed to, or aren’t skilled with, or aren’t trained in. I’m your academic adviser, and—you know—she might know you. This far into the year.”
“The year’s almost over.”
“I know.”
“There are only thirty-nine days left. Thirty-nine school days, I mean.”
“That, I didn’t know. I am sorry not to . . .” His voice drifted off and he started polishing his glasses again.
“Yeah, me too,” Mikey said. She stood looking at him, not moving. He went back to his desk and started piling papers into file folders and file folders into a canvas carryall. Mikey kept on waiting.
Mr. Wolsowski looked up from what he was doing. “You know what I think? I think reading is a metaphor for life. Because everybody can do it, and the more you work at it and think about it, the better you are at it, although there are some lucky people who just seem to be born knowing how to do it well. But that’s talent, and talent is a different situation. I’d say,” he concluded, “that if sports is a metaphor for anything, it’s a metaphor for war.”
“Not golf,” Mikey pointed out.
“Except, people die in wars.”
“There can’t be one-on-one wars, so not tennis, either,” Mikey told him. She waited some more, in case he had something useful to say, something not a metaphor.
He had filled his carryall, and he looked up at her again. “What do you want to have happen?”
“I want her fired,” Mikey said. As soon as she said it, she heard how impossible and unlikely that was. So she said, “Thank you, good-bye,” and went to the library to get a good start on her homework—since she no longer had to be on the tennis court but still had to wait for the late bus.
On the bus, after she told Margalo about her conversation with Mr. Wolsowski, she asked, “Is there any point in talking to Mrs. Smallwood, do you think?”
“If you’re not going to leave any stone unturned,” Margalo advised. “Any adult stone, that is.” Margalo was feeling that Mikey didn’t seem very interested in any thoughts she, Margalo, might have on the subject. And she did have a couple of ideas, including a couple of things that—based on her own experience—Mikey shouldn’t even think of trying.
“That means I have to get to school early again tomorrow,” Mikey groused. “At least when your money got stolen, that was fun. It was a mystery, at least.”
“And this is definitely not a mystery. This is just plain and simple human nature.”
“Do you think people are inherently bad?”
Margalo thought about that. Were all of the—how many? Seventy?—people on this bus rotten? And the bus driver, her too? Adults too? Was she willing to say that they were all bad? What did she mean by “bad,” anyway?
Mikey went on. “Everybody is self-interested, but that’s not really bad, is it?”
“Everybody, almost, in the whole world, on television and in the news, even parents, some teachers—everyone tells us this is the way things are, that’s the way to win the prizes.”
“What prizes do you mean?” asked Mikey, who had already had too many metaphors in her afternoon. “You mean like winning Wimbledon?”
“That’s one kind of prize.”
“But it’s not at all easy to win Wimbledon.”
Margalo continued her thinking out loud. “Besides, what’s wrong with wanting to have a comfortable life? Or with wanting to be admired for doing something well?”
“Does that mean you agree with Coach Sandy? That I should be making bad calls? Deliberately?” Mikey was staring at her, shocked.
Margalo didn’t get all that many chances to shock Mikey. “If I did, would you do it?”
“You wouldn’t,” Mikey decided.
“Anyway, that wasn’t at all what I meant. I just meant, maybe what’s bad is when you go too far. When, for example, you become a drug dealer to get money, or make a promise you know you can’t keep—or don’t plan to keep—to get elected, or—”
“Like the tobacco companies.”
“You don’t think it’s just the tobacco companies, do you?”
“Telling lies? Keeping important information a secret? No.”
This was all pretty depressing, and it depressed them for a few bouncing blocks. Then Mikey announced, “Nobody can make me live that way.”
“Nobody can make anybody do that, mostly,” Margalo pointed out. “They just make us want to. Or, want to choose to.”
“I’m not letting Coach Sandy do it to me.”
“Good,” Margalo said, and meant that, 100 percent. She didn’t know what she would do if Mikey started letting people make her do, or want, what they wanted her to do, or want. Or even started to pretend in order to fit in or get to play varsity tennis. Because this was, Margalo knew, her own personal particular danger. And there was another interesting idea.
She asked Mikey, “What do you think your personal particular danger is? The kind of mistake you’re likely to make,” she explained. “Or the kind of wrong thinking you are vulnerable to?”
“I’m going to see if Mrs. Smallwood will get Coach Sandy fired,” Mikey answered.
The next day—Wednesday, April 21, by most reckonings; day thirty-eight on Mikey’s personal calendar—Mikey once again came to school early. This time she went to the guidance offices, which were next to the health room. All of the doors on this corridor were open, and Mrs. Smallwood’s was the first she came to. Mrs. Smallwood, who was in fact smaller than average, sat behind her desk reading an open file. She wore a blazer and a white shirt, and her narrow office had no room for posters, only a tall bookcase and a tall file cabinet. She looked up when Mikey knocked on the doorframe.
“Have a seat,” Mrs. Smallwood said, indicating the two chairs facing her desk. Mrs. Smallwood was an organized-looking person, her hair cut short and tidy, the nails on her folded hands also short and tidy, her features tidy on her face. She smiled understandingly and asked, “Would I be correct in thinking that you are Michelle Elsinger?”
“Mikey,” Mikey corrected her. “I hate Michelle, but I want to talk to you about—”
“One minute.” The counselor stood up, revealing that below her blazer she was wearing a straight khaki skirt and low heels, making her tidy from head to toe. She went to her filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer to extract a folder. Returning to her seat, she opened the folder and took out a pad of lined paper and a pen. Now she was ready to listen. “What can I do for you?”
“I want to know, if . . . if Coach Sandy threw me off the tennis team and there was no good reason for it, what I can do about it.”
“Coach Delorme? There will have been some reason.”
“I said no good reason. She wants me to call balls out even if I’m not sure they are, that’s the reason, because I won’t do that. Another reason is I asked her what to do if I thought people were cheating on their calls, and she said, When in Rome.”
“Those exact words?”
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do is exactly what she said.”
Mrs. Smallwood stared thoughtfully at Mikey. Her eyes were light brown, hazel. Then she started to write on the pad. Mikey waited. After a few lines of writing Mrs. Smallwood put her pen down again. She picked up a pair of glasses and put them on, then leaned back in her chair to stare right into Mikey’s eyes.
Hunh? But Mikey looked right back at the guidance counselor, and waited.
“That must make you angry,” Mrs. Smallwood said.
“Well, yeah.”
“What do you think the other side of the story is, though? Most stories have two sides.”
“Stories have as many sides as there are people in them,” Mikey pointed out.
“Yes, well, this stor
y has two people in it. You and Coach Delorme. I always like to hear both sides.”
Mikey thought she could make a good guess about what was going on in Coach Sandy’s mind. “She wants to win, and she thinks if other people are doing it, why shouldn’t her team?” She thought a little more, but that was all the mind reading she could manage.
“I understand how serious this is for you,” Mrs. Smallwood said sympathetically.
It wasn’t understanding that Mikey was looking for. She waited.
“But I hope you understand that compared with some of the problems some of your schoolmates have to face, yours is a relatively minor one.” At the expression on Mikey’s face she specified, “Addictions, abuses, criminal charges—or even social problems, the way a person looks . . .” And at Mikey’s expression she proved her point specifically. “Your classmate Hadrian Klenk, for example, last fall, think of what life was like for him.”
Mikey pointed out, “But we did something about that. What I want to know is, what can I do about Coach Sandy? What if you told her what I came to tell you, so she’d know that you knew about it?”
“I can’t accuse a teacher, not without evidence. I wonder, Mikey—You might not know how many times every day a student will come to me, or to one of the other counselors, with a complaint about a teacher. If I told every teacher every time any student had a complaint . . . I wouldn’t have time to do anything else. I wouldn’t have time to do any of the important things I need to do, to help people who really need help.”
Mikey nodded. She could see that, and she agreed with the counselor’s choice of priorities. “I’m not asking you to do anything for me,” she said. “Just tell me what—”
“Students complaining about teachers, and vice versa,” Mrs. Smallwood went on.
Did the whole world know Latin? Mikey was even happier that she was taking Spanish.
“You might be interested in some of the things that have been said about you,” Mrs. Smallwood said, tapping the file folder with the fingers of her left hand, where a wedding band glowed gold.