I think of Shoshanna. I can only imagine how mad she must be.
“Don’t worry, Ms. DeLeo,” I say, surprised at how hard it is to keep my voice steady. “I’ll stay away.”
It bugs me, but what really bugs me is how much it bugs me. What do I care that a bunch of video dweebs don’t want me in their club?
I bring myself up short. Video dweebs—that’s what Aaron and Bear call them. As upset as I am, I’m not going to stoop low enough to use their words. I blame myself for the mess I’m in, but mostly I blame those two.
Speaking of Aaron and Bear, they’re acting like everything is beyond awesome between us. Funny—I found a way to give them a pass for a lot of rotten stuff, including maybe even stealing a war hero’s medal. But what I can’t forgive them for turns out to be something I did all by myself. I protected them because it was the way to protect myself.
The cost turned out to be one video club. Plus the way I feel every time Aaron or Bear refers to me as “our boy.”
I start taking weird detours through the halls just to avoid running into them.
My one consolation is this is a short day for me. Dad’s picking me up at eleven and taking me to my appointment with Dr. Nguyen, the sports medicine specialist. At least that spares me lunch at the football table. I won’t be eating with the video crowd anytime soon.
Is it possible to lose your appetite for an entire school year?
I spot Brendan a couple of times, but when he sees me, he quickly turns away. I catch a glimpse of Shoshanna, scorching me with a look that would melt titanium.
I don’t think Joel’s even at school.
Dr. Nguyen reenters the exam room and beams at me. “Well, young man, I’ve got good news and better news. The good news is you exhibit no lingering concussion symptoms, and you’re fit as a fiddle in every way. The better news is I’m signing the medical form authorizing you to return to the football team with no restrictions. Congratulations.”
Gee, what a surprise. Dad searched and searched and found a doctor who would clear a dead man to go out there and get tackled. And only sixty miles away.
As we drive home in “the ’Stang,” Dad rails against “brain-dead Cooperman,” who kept me off the gridiron for no real reason.
“Dr. Cooperman has a diploma from Harvard Medical School in his office,” I tell him. “I didn’t see a diploma on Dr. Nguyen’s wall.”
Dad snorts into the wheel. “Just because he isn’t one of those Ivy League snobs doesn’t mean he isn’t as legit as they come. This is great news, Champ! You’re back on the team!” His brow darkens. “And maybe those stumblebums will start winning again once you’re out there.”
“In three weeks,” I remind him. “School rules. One week of non-contact practice, then two weeks in full pads before I can play in a real game.”
“Just in time for a late-season playoff run,” Dad chortles.
I’m not that happy about my triumphant return to football, and it isn’t only because of Dr. Nguyen, who would have signed a paper certifying I was pregnant with triplets if my father had paid him enough. It’s not the medical part that bothers me—I know I’m fine. Dr. Cooperman pretty much said so himself.
I’m even interested in the game and excited to see if I can be as good as everybody says I used to be.
The part I don’t like is that football me is the old me, and I don’t want to be that guy anymore. Look how fast my pre-amnesia instincts kicked in the minute Aaron and Bear jammed me up yesterday.
But really, what choice do I have except the Hurricanes? I’m kicked out of video club, and I lost every one of the friends I made there.
“Things are finally turning around for you, Champ,” my father goes on.
“But maybe not the way I want them to,” I complain.
“Why? Because a bunch of sissies are ticked off at you?”
He doesn’t understand why the video club thing hurts so much. I’m not sure I understand it myself.
“It isn’t just the kids. Ms. DeLeo was the one who kicked me out.”
“Teachers,” Dad snorts. “They have to slap you on the wrist to make it look like they’re in charge. You’ll notice you’re not banned from the football team and neither are your buddies Aaron and Bear. When I played, I had the whole faculty wrapped around my little finger. Sure, they threw me a detention every now and then to make it look good. But after the state championship, I called the shots in that school.”
For the first time, I say it out loud. “Aaron and Bear might not be my buddies anymore.”
“Aw, come on, Champ, don’t be that way.” He beams at me. “First that mess with the Weber kid, then the accident—it feels like it took forever to get the old Chase back. Don’t tell your mother, but I’m proud of the way you handled Joel. You made your statement, that’s for sure.”
I don’t bother to point out that I wasn’t making a statement with Joel. It looks more like my buddies Aaron and Bear were making a statement with me. And all it took was a sick imagination and a lot of fire extinguisher foam.
By the time we get back to Hiawassee, it’s two thirty—no sense bothering to go to school. Dad drops me off at home, making me promise to report to football practice with my newly signed medical form promptly at four. And I will—not because I want to, but because I’m too depressed to resist. Unhappiness sucks all the energy out of a guy.
Upstairs in my room, I gaze out the window at the shingles of the sloping roof. For a weird instant, I actually remember sitting out there when I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Or maybe it’s not a memory at all, but something I’m imagining because I’ve been told so many times that’s what I used to do.
On a wild impulse, I raise the window and swing a leg over the sash. Carefully—really carefully—I crawl out there. I’m expecting to be terrified after what happened. Actually, though, I’m pretty comfortable on the gently sloping shingles. It even feels familiar. It’s not a flashback exactly—still, it has to come from my lost past. I definitely haven’t been here lately. I swore to Mom that I’d never go out on the roof again.
But she’s at work now, and never is a long time.
To my amazement, my body arranges itself into the position I’m told I used to prefer—butt planted, knees bent, feet flat on the shingles. It’s a different kind of memory—muscle memory. Amnesia can’t touch it.
I understand why I liked it up here. It’s peaceful and private. The town is all around, but I’m above it, so nothing can reach me.
I see the school, and the football field I’ll be on in a couple of hours. Not far away, toward downtown, is the Portland Street Residence, where Mr. Solway lives. And there’s the park where we filmed Leaf Man. Just the thought of it brings the bowling ball back to my throat. That’s the last time I’m ever going to get to work on one of Brendan’s crazy videos.
Dad says the old Chase is back. I wanted that once. But right now the new Chase is the life I’d rather have.
And I’ve lost that too.
I must be the stupidest person in the history of the world.
I get straight As in school, but obviously that doesn’t mean anything. All it proves is I know how to study for a geography test. As a judge of character, I’m an F-minus.
I let that jerk, that Alpha Rat, dupe me into believing he was different, that he was a nice guy. Well, a leopard never changes his spots—and that goes double for a scheming lowlife like Chase Ambrose. Falling off a roof, having amnesia—big deal. It doesn’t mean you’re not a rotten person today just because you can’t remember being one yesterday.
I can’t even face my poor brother—and not just because his eye looks like it sustained a direct hit from a cannonball. It’s all my fault. I’m the one who told my parents that the coast was clear and it was safe for Joel to come home. And I ended up bringing him back into the same line of fire that almost broke his spirit last year. I could kick myself—except for the fact that my toes are pointing in the wrong direction. I can’t get any
thing right!
It isn’t just that Chase has gone back to his bullying ways. It’s that first he convinced everybody he was a new person. And we went for it, hook, line, and sinker—not just me, but the video club, the teachers, Dr. Fitzwallace, the whole school. That must have been his plan all along—to lull us into a false sense of security before pouncing one more time. What a plan it was—to ruin Brendan’s video, wreck the music room, attack Joel, and blame the whole thing on an imaginary fire. Chase was behind it from the very beginning. From a strategy standpoint, you almost have to admire it. It sure succeeded with flying colors. And Joel has the colors to prove it—black-and-blue, mostly.
I wish I could take my video project and flush it down the toilet. I’d rather lose all that time and throw away the best work I’ve ever done than have anything linking my name to Chase Ambrose. Compared to what’s happened to my brother, the National Video Journalism Contest is about as meaningful as counting snowflakes in a blizzard. That’s another reason to hate myself—that I would let my ambition to win a lousy contest make me so blind. I never should have allowed myself to be pushed into partnering up with Chase no matter what Brendan and Ms. DeLeo said. I don’t care that the project is on a really great and interesting guy. It wouldn’t make any difference if we got an interview with all the signers of the Declaration of Independence, brought back to life and re-formed into a boy band. It just isn’t worth it.
For the smartest kid in school, Brendan’s even dumber than I am. He’s got it in his thick head that there’s a chance Chase might be innocent.
“I don’t know, Shoshanna,” he insists. “It was Aaron and Bear who busted up the shoot. Chase could have been trying to stop them.”
“Oh, sure,” I return. “And he just happened to show up at exactly the right moment.”
“He didn’t ‘show up,’” he argues. “I sent Kimberly to get him.”
“Joel said you didn’t send her for Chase; they did.”
“There was a lot going on,” he admits. “It’s hard to remember. I think they sent her first, and then I did.”
“Why couldn’t you go yourself?”
“Because I was stuck in the tuba,” he replies, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Happens to everyone, right?
“Listen,” I tell him. “My poor brother has a Technicolor face, courtesy of the guy you say ‘might’ be innocent.”
“That could have been an accident—a tug-of-war with the fire extinguisher. Maybe Chase was trying to protect Joel.”
I roll my eyes. “Let him protect somebody else. When it came time to lie his way out of the blame, he was right there with Aaron and Bear. That’s all the proof I need.”
“I know what it looks like,” he agrees reluctantly. “But doesn’t Chase deserve the benefit of the doubt?”
“Listen,” I challenge. “If what you say is true, then Aaron and Bear set him up and nearly got him kicked out of school. And where is he this very minute? At football practice with the same Aaron and Bear, who should be his worst enemies. What does that tell you?”
“Well, it’s not like he can come to video club anymore—”
“And in the cafeteria,” I persist, “who does he eat lunch with? The football team.”
“We won’t let him at our table.”
“We’re protecting Joel. That’s the real meaning of protection—not cold-cocking someone with a fire extinguisher. I’m so mad at that jerk, and you should be too. He’s like a cobra. He lured us in until we trusted him. Then he struck. And now he’s slithered back to his old life as if nothing ever happened. Joel may be the one who’s bleeding, but the attack was on all of us.”
And he agrees. Brendan knows I’m right, however much he wants to convince himself that Chase is innocent. The whole club knows that we’re better off without a guy like that.
So how come his name keeps popping up again and again at our meetings?
“That camera work looks a little shaky. You’ve got to keep it smooth, like Chase …”
“Yeah, that’s a cool shot. It was Chase’s idea to film it worm’s-eye view …”
“The kid’s a mumbler, but you can hear the audio clearly because Chase lay on the floor and held the microphone just out of frame …”
“Can we please stop talking about Chase Ambrose?” I explode. “He’s not a god—he’s just a person, and a lousy person at that! He belongs on the football team with the other muscle-heads. Actually, he belongs chained to a slab of concrete at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, but I’ll take the football team if it gets him away from us.”
Joel has been silent throughout all this. Now he speaks up. “Am I the only one who’s noticed that video club has gotten kind of lousy?”
“What are you saying?” I demand.
He shrugs. “We all watched Warrior. It’s fantastic. Nobody’s doing that kind of work anymore—”
I’m furious. “You think that’s because we don’t have him?”
My brother looks at me with his one good eye. “Just because I hate Chase Ambrose doesn’t mean I fall to pieces every time someone mentions his name. Go ahead. Talk about him. I can handle it. This isn’t last year. No matter what, I’m not going to be ‘chased’ out of town again.”
We slap him on the back and pound his shoulder. A few of us even cheer. It almost reminds me of the football team, although I’d never admit it. Ms. DeLeo gives him a big hug.
Maybe I can stop beating myself up for getting Mom and Dad to bring him home from Melton. The very worst happened and he’s okay.
I look at my “little” brother, fourteen minutes younger than me.
He’s growing up.
At football practice, when everybody else is laboring under a ton of equipment, and you’re breezing through the drills in shorts and a T-shirt, you’re not the most popular guy on the field. All around me, the gridiron resounds with crunching tackles, oofs, and grunts of pain, but I’m immune to that. No contact for the first week of my comeback—middle school rules.
My teammates manage to see to it that I suffer just the same. Around the Gatorade bucket, no drink in my hand makes it as far as my mouth. It’s pretty clear the other players have determined that I’m not going to get so much as a sip as long as my special treatment holds up. Every time I’ve got a full cup, someone manages to jostle my elbow until the contents spill down my leg and into my cleats. It’s been going on for three days now. I’m borderline dehydrated, and when I walk, my wet pants create squishing noises.
“Hey, Pink!” Coach Davenport calls, referring to the fruit punch color of my lower body. “Get out there and catch some passes!”
I have no memory of what practice is supposed to be like. But I don’t complain about the treatment, and focus on doing my job. I guess playing football is like riding a bicycle. You never really forget how. I run hard, and after a couple of days, the cuts and jukes come back to me—more muscle memory. I make a few good grabs, and I can feel the guys’ attitudes thawing a little.
“Nice catch, captain,” Landon tells me with a slap where my shoulder pad would be if I was wearing one.
I guess I’m still the captain. I didn’t forfeit that by having amnesia.
“Yeah, good to have you back,” adds Joey in a tone that could almost be interpreted as friendly.
I try to turn this development to my advantage. “Can I have a drink now?”
He laughs. “Bathroom’s in the field house, newbie.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Pretty soon I’m in there, bent over the sink, guzzling water from the tap. It’s better than drinking out of the toilet, which is probably what Joey had in mind.
It takes a while, but Landon finally explains that this is standard procedure for anyone who’s on non-contact. As soon as I’m getting tackled like everybody else, my Gatorade privileges will be restored.
Football.
Here’s a surprise: I like it. That means everything didn’t change when I fell on my head. It proves that you can be an
athlete and a video club kid at the same time. Not in my case, obviously. Video club invited me to get lost. But it’s possible to be both. I have no idea why more people don’t do it. Maybe it’s because the jocks will never find out if they enjoy doing something artsy because they’ll never try it. And the arts kids feel the same way about sports.
In spite of everything that’s happened, I’m getting the hang of most of the Hurricanes. They’re a rowdy crew, and sometimes the physical nature of the game spills over into the way they treat other kids—which is definitely not right. But they’re giving me a chance, which is more than I can say for video club these days. I’m starting to see how I could have been friends with the players.
With two exceptions.
Aaron and Bear finally have what they wanted: My name is mud with my new friends and I’m back on the team. But if they expect us to be the Three Musketeers again, they can forget it. They couldn’t stand to see me making a life for myself that didn’t include them, so they wrecked it for me—and in the process, they managed to retarget poor Joel, who hasn’t even been home for two weeks yet. And that’s not including the way they treat the residents at Portland Street. But the last straw was when they cornered me so I had no choice but to lie to Dr. Fitzwallace to protect the three of us. Aaron’s always lecturing me about friendship. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
I don’t talk to them. I don’t stretch next to them. In the locker room, I sit so far away from them that I’m practically out in the hall. When we’re on the practice field for the same drill, they get no chatter from me. Not even any eye contact.
The other Hurricanes have started to notice, but they think it’s funny. Aaron and Bear don’t. And how much do I care about hurting their delicate feelings? Well, you could fit that inside the nucleus of a carbon atom.
On Friday, Coach Davenport runs us through a quick workout. The Hurricanes have a night game tomorrow, and he wants everybody fresh but sharp. Since I won’t be playing, he keeps me out on the field while the others clatter into the locker room.