“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I get my clothes at Second Time Around from now on?”
My mother smiled. “We’ll see.”
I said, “If he does make cheerleading, I hope he can find a used skirt there.”
My father gave a snort. The females glared.
My mother turned to Abby. “Speaking of gender issues, why did you ask your father about the number of square feet in an acre? Why not your mother?”
Abby had a yellow mustache from melted cheese. She looked stumped for a minute. “I think … I thought … acres was men’s stuff.”
“That kind of thinking,” said my mother, pointing her finger, “will make you a second-class citizen.”
Abby thought it over. She does that. Me, if grown-ups don’t make sense, I forget it. Why bother?
I said to my father, “First game is October eighth.” I should have stopped right there, but my mouth blabbered on: “Against Hillside East. Think you can make it?”
My father took a bite, took a sip of diet soda, blinked, sniffed, poured salt on his steak. He cleared his throat, but he didn’t speak. He nodded.
I wanted to kill myself. Why did I have to put him through that? All I had to do was mention the date, let it go at that. I punched myself under the table.
Abby was done thinking it over. She snapped her head and said, “Okay, Mom. So can I have a stamp, an envelope, and a piece of paper?”
“Ask your father,” she said. “He’s the stamp, envelope, and paper person.”
Abby giggled and threw up her arms. “I give up. I’ll never figure out this gender business.”
Even I had to laugh.
I don’t know how long we were there after the plates were empty. As I was getting up to go, Abby says, “Notice anything?”
We all looked at her. I sure wasn’t going to say it. My mother did: “What?”
Abby raised her arms and swung around with a grin as big as a hoagie roll. “We all ate a meal together!”
I headed off. The living room was getting dark. I twirled my finger. “Whoopee. Just like a real family.”
14
SEPTEMBER 13
First day of practice. I couldn’t wait to put the pads on. But first we had business with Webb.
Yesterday Mike said to me, “Do you believe we been in school this long and didn’t do anything to him yet?”
I nodded. “It’s unbelievable.”
“It’s a disgrace.”
“We gotta do something.”
“Before he starts thinking he’s safe.”
“Tomorrow.”
All last year we tormented Webb. Mostly little stuff, like messing with his locker or his clothes or his books. Like something would be missing, then mysteriously show up the next day or week. Or he would wonder why everybody was pinching him till he discovered the PINCH ME sign on the back of his shirt.
He’s so dumb. He never figures out who’s doing it. He never gets mad at us. In fact he never gets mad at anybody. Day after day, his chippy chirpy perky self. What a moron.
So we thought about it yesterday and did it today. In last period, geography.
Mike brought the mustard in one of those squeeze dispensers. He slipped it to me before class. I had the seat behind Webb.
Mike went to work as soon as Webb came in. Today’s button read HUG A TREE. “How ya doin’, Spider? What’s up, dude?” Giving him the dipsy-doodle handshake, loosening him up. That’s how we wanted him—loose, relaxed. Because this year we noticed he has a new routine: lots of times right in class he makes himself at home and pries off his sneakers.
We didn’t have to wait long. About ten minutes into class, off comes the right sneaker. Mike nods. I take out the mustard, shake it, lean down, and give it a good long shot right into that baby.
Before I have a chance to straighten up, off comes the other supermarket beauty. Squirt, squirt—like it was a foot-long hot dog.
From then on, every other minute I would duck down: squirt, squirt. In between my duties, I noticed that today’s subject was erosion. I even heard the teacher mention the wind in North Dakota.
I kept squirting till the spout blew yellow bubbles. Then I unscrewed the top, reached in with the eraser end of my pencil, scooped out the rest of the mustard, and painted the sneaker tongues and laces.
The class was ending. We watched as Webb’s white socks started feeling for the sneakers. They found them. They started to slip in. They stopped. The bell rang.
We barely made it out the door before we cracked up. We went down the hall a ways and waited for him to come out. He was the last one. He just came out and walked on up the hall like nothing ever happened—except his socks were now yellow, and the supermarket beauties were in his hand.
If laughing was hazardous to your health, I’d be in intensive care right now.
15
I love the way I look in shoulder pads. I mean, I’m big to start with, and when I put those things on, it’s like I’m wide as a bus.
Deluca caught me looking in the locker-room mirror. “Keep looking, man, you’re still ugly.”
“I ain’t ugly, I’m scary. I’m scaring myself.” I shrugged. My shoulders moved like small mountains.
“That’s what I’m saying. You’re so ugly, you’re scary. You’re gonna score a touchdown every time you get the ball because nobody is gonna want to touch you.”
“’Least I don’t smell like you,” I said. “Other teams get a whiff of you, they’ll all faint and we’ll win by forfeit.”
“You’re so ugly, when you were born the doctor smacked your face instead of your butt.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
By now we were walking across the parking lot to the football field. We had our helmets on. I shoved him. He shoved me. I punched him. He punched me.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
We plowed into each other, colliding shoulder pads. We butted helmets like bighorn sheep. We grunted. We growled.
We weren’t really mad at each other. It was all just part of football. Football, see, is a violent and emotional game. The more charged up you are, the better you play. It had been almost a year since we popped somebody. We kept smashing pads and butting helmets. We were ready to kill each other.
And then along came Schultz. He walked right between Mike and me, pushing us apart with his hands and saying, “Excuse me, girls.” I was on him like cheese on pizza. We went to the ground. I threw some punches, but all I got were sore knuckles from bouncing off his helmet. It was like fighting a clam. Then the coaches pulled us apart. They were laughing.
The line coach said, “I’d hate to be Hillside East, having to face you terrors.”
Coach Lattner said, “Guess we better get started while somebody’s still alive.” He blew his whistle. “Football team! Four laps! Go!”
Football season was officially started.
I ran alongside Mike. As we jogged around near the school, the cheerleaders were coming out. There was a ton of them. Nobody had been cut yet.
Two of them were at the water fountain outside the gym door: Webb and Jane Forbes. She was helping him wash out his sneakers.
16
On the way home we talked about it.
“I couldn’t believe it,” I said.
“Looks like she likes him,” said Mike.
I screeched. “Likes him? You’re crazy. No girl would like that oatburger.”
Mike grinned. “You’re just jealous, ’cause you like her.”
I laughed. “Me? You’re crazier than crazy. Why would I like that stuck-up bimbo?” I laughed some more.
As usual, we ordered pizza from my house. My mother told me that from now on I had to ask Abby if she wanted pizza too. As usual, she was in the backyard. She wanted some. I ordered two mediums to cover the three of us, both with pepperoni.
When they came, Abby took three slices and started picking off the pepperonis.
“What’re you doing?” I said.
She was stacking up the pepperonis like quarters on her plate. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“Since when?”
Mike sneered. “Since she started hanging out with Little Miss Webb.”
She looked at me all snooty. “I do not devour anything that has a face.”
“She’s even starting to sound like him,” Mike blubbered with his mouth full. “She’s getting weirder by the minute.”
“I never saw a pepperoni with a face,” I said. “What do you think, there’s little herds of them running around the ranch?”
“No,” said Mike, “they’re not ranch animals. They’re wild. You go hunting for them in the woods.”
I jumped in, “But only during pepperoni hunting season.”
“Right—or else you’re a pepperoni poacher!”
We cracked up.
Mike made like a rifleman. “You gotta get him with the first shot.”
“Right,” I howled, “because there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded bull pepperoni!”
“Bang!” went Mike.
By now we were rolling on the floor. Abby glared down at us.
“And after we shoot the wild pepperoni,” I sputtered, “we eat it!” I reached up to my sister’s plate, grabbed the stack of pepperoni slices, and shoved them into my mouth. “Like this.”
Abby got up. “You’re disgusting.” She took her plate outside.
A couple of minutes later we were eating our pizza in peace when Mike suddenly looks past me and says, “What’s that?”
“What?” I said.
He pointed. “I saw something move, like, go behind the refrigerator.”
I looked. “Probably a bug.” I just hoped it wasn’t a roach.
We went back to eating, and ten seconds later Mike jumps right out of his seat. “Yo!”
I whirled around, saw nothing.
“It ain’t no bug, man, unless it’s King Kong Bug.”
All of a sudden I wasn’t hungry. I felt a little cold. “Where’d it go?” I said.
“There.”
He was pointing to the corner of the kitchen.
“The wastebasket?”
“Yeah. Behind it, I think, or under it. I’ll tell you one thing, man.”
“What?” My voice wasn’t working right.
“It’s fast.”
I pulled my feet up to the rung of my chair.
Mike grabbed the broom. He stalked over toward the wastebasket, holding the broom handle out like a sword.
“What’re you gonna do?” I said.
“Flush him out.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Yeah.”
We were whispering.
He poked the basket. Nothing happened, except me scrunching up a little tighter. He poked again. Nothing.
“I think it’s gone,” I said.
He went on poking, and then with the tip of the broom handle, he shoved the basket away—and out it came. He was right, it was fast, a gray blur across the kitchen floor…
And then…then I was looking down at Abby, way down (why was she so short?), and she was looking straight up at me, her eyes wide, panting, saying, “What happened?”
“Huh?”
“What are you screaming about?”
“Who’s screaming?”
“And what are you doing up there? If Mommy knew you were on the kitchen table—”
I looked at my feet. She was right—I was standing on the kitchen table. How could that be?
I heard Mike’s voice: “A mouse.”
Abby clapped. “Wow—where?”
“Mouse, my butt,” I said. “That was a rat.” I lowered myself to a seat on the edge of the table. My feet stayed off the floor.
Mike held his fingers a couple of inches apart. “It was a mouse.”
Abby sneered, “My big brave brother, Crrrash Coogan, is afraid of mice.”
I could have killed her. “Not afraid. Don’t like. I just don’t like them. There’s a difference.”
Nobody was listening. Abby was all over Mike. “So? Come on. Where’d it go?”
Mike nodded toward the dining room. “In there.”
Abby was through the doorway quicker than the rodent.
17
She was still searching when Mike left. She didn’t stop until my father came home. As he closed the door behind him, she mouthed silently to me: Don’t tell.
“There’s a rodent loose in the house,” I told him. “Might even be a rat.”
Abby threw her ugliest face at me. “It’s a mouse.”
My father frowned. “Just what I need. You saw it?”
“Yeah, in the kitchen. Ran in here somewhere.”
He looked around as if he thought it was going to come out and take a bow. Abby ran up the stairs. He let out a long breath. “Well, tell your mother to get a trap.”
“Better get more than one,” I said.
He nodded. The front door opened. My mother was home. She heard my father say, “We have a mouse.” She sagged, just like he had when I told him.
I notice that sag a lot. It almost always happens when they come home from work. I’ll say something, or Abby will, and they sag. It’s a total, major sag: cheeks, shoulders, even voice (except the eyeballs, they roll upward). It’s like they’ve just barely been making it through the day and they finally get home and one little word from us—sometimes it’s just a question, like “Do you know where my Frisbee is?”—and bam, they’re crushed. Sag city. Sometimes I wish we could turn the day upside down so that their main time at home would be in the morning, before they get all worn out. I’ll tell you, at the end of a day it doesn’t take much to crush a parent.
My mother sighed. “Get a trap.”
“Me?” said my father.
“You’re the male. You’re supposed to be the hunter.” She sagged toward the kitchen. She stopped. She pointed down at my football laundry bag. “No.”
“No what?” I said.
She was still looking and pointing down. “You know what. All last year you kept leaving that smelly thing here. It’s not going to happen this year. Not even once. Pick it up, get it out of here.”
I guess I didn’t move fast enough.
“Now.”
“All right.” I snatched it up.
“Thank you,” she said and dragged herself off.
I followed my dad into his office. It’s a little room in the back. Sometimes he goes right on working there half the night. “Remember that kid, Schultz?” I said. “I told you about? Said he was going to bust me?”
He took stuff from his briefcase. “Did he?”
I sneered. “Hah. We had a fight before practice even started. They had to pull us apart.”
“And?”
“And I got him good later. We ran some drills, and twice I plowed him into the ground. I was awesome!”
He looked up. He laughed. He reached out and mussed my hair. “That’s my Crash.”
I kind of felt like sticking around, but I figured I better not press my luck. I backed on out. “Can’t wait for that first game,” I said. “October eighth.”
“Go get ’em, Crasher,” he said. He was rooting in his desk.
I lugged my football bag upstairs. Our upper hallway is different from most people’s. It’s like an art gallery. My mother used to be a painter. Some of her paintings are hanging on the walls between the bedrooms.
One of the paintings is me. You’d never know it because I was less than a year old when she did it. I’m lying on my stomach with a diaper on, looking up with this toothless grin, probably already thinking what I’m going to do when I get my first football helmet.
It’s a stupid picture, actually. Something like that should be kept private. Everybody who sees it laughs. I usually don’t even look at it. This time I did. On the glass that covered it, some mysterious unknown person had crayoned a mustache right above my toothless grin. I put spit on my finger and rubbe
d it off.
18
OCTOBER 8
We creamed Hillside East 45—13. I scored six touchdowns.
The first one was the best. It was the very first play of the game. Brill, the quarterback, called, “I Twenty-two Right.” That means he hands off to me and I run over right tackle. Which was fine with me, because right tackle is where Mike Deluca plays on offense. Coming out of the huddle, Mike bumps me and says, “Let’s do it.”
Usually a simple, safe play like this is supposed to get the team’s feet wet, maybe gain a couple yards. That’s probably all Brill had in mind. He doesn’t know me and Mike.
I took the handoff, slanted right, kept my head up, watching for the hole—there it was. Mike was shoving the Hillside tackle halfway to China. I blasted through, and there was the Hillside linebacker. Somebody was supposed to pick him up, but nobody did. I stiff-armed him. The stiff-arm almost always works early in a game. Players don’t expect it. Most runners never use it. I hit him smack in the face mask with the heel of my hand. His eyes went gaga, his head snapped back.
I was clear for a second. Somebody had hold of my free hand, the one without the ball. I started swinging around, spinning with my arm out, trying to shake the kid. He was whirling around like a carnival ride. On the third spin he went flying off into two of his teammates.
Now there was nothing between me and the goal line but the safety. I love safeties. They’re usually small and fast and shifty. They expect you to try to outrun or outjuke them. I swear, I almost burst out laughing right there when I saw the safety’s face as he realized I wasn’t going left, I wasn’t going right, I was coming straight at him, like there was a bull’s-eye on his nose. I plowed him under and streaked the last forty yards to paydirt.
My own teammates almost killed me in the end zone, mobbing me, burying me under a pile of bodies, like they never saw a touchdown before. They carried me off the field on their shoulders. The ride was bumpy, but the view was great.
The cheerleaders were going crazy, including Webb. That’s right—the Happy Little Surprise made it. He’s a cheerleader. Same sweater and shoes as the girls. At least he didn’t have a skirt on. It was one of the eeriest and uncomfortablest feelings I ever had, watching a boy lead cheers for me.