"Tyson . . .," I snarled, "you're gonna pay for this!"
"Get out of my face," he grunted and tried to leave, but I grabbed him by his shirt, and as he struggled, I dragged him through the hall.
"Leave me alone, you moron! You idiot! You butt head!"
I didn't say anything. Not yet. Not until I had him in a place where no one would hear us.
I dragged him down the hall, and shoved him in the school phone booth, closing the door behind us. He struggled, and I shook him so hard that he began to look like one of those marionettes he had up on his wall.
"Listen up, and listen good," I said. "I know what you've been doing, and you're not going to get away with it."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he screamed. I put my hand over his mouth so he couldn't scream. He bit it, and I pushed him back so hard that the telephone receiver went flying off the hook. I could hear the dial tone.
"If you scream one more time, slimeball, I'm gonna hit you so hard your next of kin will feel it, too!" That shut him up. "I said, I know what you've been doing. I know you're trying to frame us, and I think it really stinks. I think ;you stink, slimeball, and I'm telling you right now that if there's one more prank, if another 'unbeatable' gets hurt, you're gonna have all seven of us in the club coming down on you so hard you won't know what hit you!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he screamed.
"Shut up! You know exactly what I'm talking about. You told Greene about our club, and now you're trying to get us all in trouble. Why did you tell Greene, anyway? Couldn't you have left well enough alone?"
"All right!" he said. "I admit I told Greene, but I didn't do anything else!"
"Liar!" I said.
"And I didn't do it to be mean! Now leave me alone!"
"Then why did you tell him?"
He didn't answer me.
"WHY DID YOU TELL HIM?" I pushed him. The door to the phone booth flew open, and Tyson flew out, falling to the ground. "Why did you tell him?" I screamed. He didn't answer. He got up and ran down the hall as quickly as he could. I watched him run, brimming with anger. I couldn't remember having ever hated anyone as much; not even Austin.
Then I began to yell, hoping everyone left in school heard me.
"Bed wetter!" I yelled. "Bed wetter! Tyson pees in his bed!" It echoed through the halls and the sound lingered long after Tyson had burst through the school's front doors.
I shouldn't have gone to track practice that day. I should have just run home and buried myself in my homework—or better yet, buried myself in my pillow and hidden like an ostrich until this whole thing passed over. That's what I should have done, hut I didn't. Instead, I ran out to the field to be with the track team, and that was a mistake, because, as everyone knows, bad luck comes in threes. First on that fateful day came the fish tank, then Vera's bike, and then came the nastiest run-in I ever had with Austin Pace.
By the time I arrived at practice, Austin was leading the stretching exercises, and Coach Shuler was nowhere to be seen. I was about ten minutes late, and it was never good to be late for practice.
"Well, lookie here," said Austin. "The Gopher finally decided to show up!"
"Hi, Gopher," said Martin Bricker. Kids didn't even say it to be mean anymore. They just said it like it was my name.
"Give me twenty push-ups for being late, Gopher." I dropped and gave him twenty. When I was done, Austin had the whole team sit down, as he opened a large carton that was on the ground.
"Here are our team uniforms," he said. Everyone was pleased to hear that, and for a few minutes I was glad I had decided to go to practice that day. "Coach Shuler will be out in a minute with the team sweats."
Austin opened the box, and began to hand them out. "Miller," he said, tossing Greg Miller his top and matching shorts. This was the first year that the team actually got new sweats and uniforms that had each kid's name on them. Some said it was because the track team deserved it, but most knew it was because Austin's father had made a big donation to the team.
"Bricker!" yelled Austin, as he tossed Martin's shirt and shorts to him. I waited patiently, and he finally got around to mine.
"Mercer," he said, throwing me my uniform. It felt good to hold the brand-new uniform of the team; that smooth feel of the light, colorful material, and that new smell it had. It reminded me that our first meet was coming up soon, and I could hardly wait! My times were getting better, and although they weren't quite as fast as Austin's, they were pretty good. Now, to make it complete, I had a uniform with my name on it. I felt like a real runner, and for a minute it made me forget about my other troubles.
I couldn't wait to try on the shirt, so although it was a bit chilly, I took off my shirt and was about to try the new one on, when I caught a glimpse of the bright red name written across the back.
IT SAID GOPHER.
I sat there for a few moments, letting it sink in. Gopher. My team shirt said Gopher.
"Austin," I said. "This better not be mine." I threw it back at his face, waiting to see what he would say. He caught it, and looked at it.
"Nope.Gopher. That's you." He threw it back at me. I clenched my hands into fists, and gritted my teeth.
"It says Gopher?" asked one of the seventh graders. "Let me see, let me see!" He grabbed it, and I grabbed it back.
"My name is Mercer, not Gopher!" I threw the shirt at Austin's face again. He caught it.
"Didn't you want Gopher on your shirt? That's how everyone knows you." He threw it back in my face.
"No!" I said. I would never wear it. Never.
"Well, it's too late," said Austin. "The shirts and sweats have already been made up."
"That's written on my sweats, too?"
"Of course."
That did it. I dropped the shirt, and lunged at him. How could he do that? Not only did he humiliate me, but he was trying to force me to humiliate myself by wearing that word on my shirt. I swung my fist, missing his face by less than an inch. I swung again, but by then a dozen hands were on me, holding me back. "Let go of me!" I screamed, but the team just held me and wouldn't let me get a clear shot at Austin. I struggled and kicked but they wouldn't let me go.
"Look at him," somebody yelled. "He's fighting like Tyson fights!" That only made me struggle harder. Then, out of nowhere, Coach Shuler appeared and pulled me out of the hands of the others, shaking me so hard that my brain rattled.
"What do you think you're doing, Jared? Stop it! Stop it now!" My head hurt from the shake-up, and my arms went limp. "This is a team, Jared," he said, "and you had better remember that. You don't start fights with your team captain. I don't care what your differences are, you don't fight with him."
"But . . ."
"Did you hear me? I said that you don't fight with Austin. Is that clear?"
I stood there, catching my breath. I wouldn't give him as much as a nod. "He put 'Gopher' on my uniform!"
The coach turned to Austin, and Austin shrugged.
"Honest mistake," Austin said.
"We'll settle this after practice," said the coach. That's when Austin came up to me.
"Now, c'mon," said Austin, holding out his hand to shake. "Let's forget about this whole thing, all right?"
I looked at his hand. I have to admit, I almost did it. I thought about shaking Austin's hand and eating my pride for the sake of the team, but then he said, "C'mon, be a good gopher, and forget about it."
My hands clenched into fists again. I wouldn't shake his hand after that—I wouldn't even stand in the same field with him. I picked up my backpack, shoved my disgusting gopher shirt into it, and I walked. The coach tried to follow, so I ran. I ran to the edge of the field, and kept running, putting as much distance between me and Austin Pace as I could. A moment later I realized that someone was running with me.
"I saw the whole thing." It was Cheryl. "I think it was awful. Austin's a real creep."
Great! The last thing I wanted was for Cheryl to sec Austin humiliate me.
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"Jared," called the coach, "let's talk about this." But I ignored him.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked her.
"I came to tell you that Vera is all right. She bumped her head, but she'll be all right."
It was good to hear, but it didn't make me feel any better. I ducked through a hole in the fence and into the woods. Cheryl followed. I kept running through the trees, getting scratches on my arms from branches, but still that anger wouldn't leave.
"Jared, slow down," said Cheryl. "I can't keep up with you!"
I stopped. We were far from the field now.
"You know what?" I said. "I hope Tyson was watching and gets Austin next. I hope Tyson pulls a terrible trick so mean that Austin never gets over it, that's what I hope!"
Cheryl looked at me kind of strange. "You really want that?" she asked.
I thought for a moment, catching my breath. "I don't know what I want." It was true. I didn't know how I felt, or what I wanted. I didn't even know who to hate anymore: Austin, Tyson, the Shadow Club, or maybe just myself for allowing all this to happen.
"Hey," said Cheryl, taking my hand, "whadaya say you come over to my house and we make chocolate shakes like we used to?"
I put my normal shirt back on and reluctantly said,
"OK."
She put her arms around my neck and kissed me. "Things'll be OK," she said. I wanted to believe it, so I kissed her again. Then, with my arm around her shoulder, we went off to her house.
Used to be, drinking a chocolate shake would make any problem disappear, but even as I sat there in Cheryl's living room, watching TV and filling up on chocolate shakes, I knew that it would take a whole lot more to solve these problems.
The Next Victim
MORNING CAME AFTER a lousy night of nightmares—dreams about my parents turning into gophers, dreams about being stepped on by a sixty-foot-tall Austin Pace in huge white Aeropeds, dreams about being trapped in a fish tank that was about to explode. Nasty stuff. I woke up with a headache.
My parents could tell that something was bugging me, but when they asked what it was, I didn't tell them about the pranks and about Tyson. I simply told them, as I always did, that Austin Pace was the problem.
"Him again?" said my father, before he left for work. "Don't worry about him. Austin Paces are a dime a dozen, but there's only one Jared Mercer." He smiled and mussed up my hair with his hand, which I used to like, before I discovered the importance of the hairbrush.
"Don't let him get to you," said my mom, which was easy to say, but hard to live by.
"Dad . . . ," I said, as he was about to leave. For a splitsecond I felt like telling both of them everything about the Shadow Club, what we did, how we were being framed— everything—but no. What kind of club president would I be if I told my parents?
"Forget it," I said. "See you tonight."
My father left, and I went off to school. If I could have told them, it could have ended right there, but I guess I just didn't have sense enough to do that. I had to get sense knocked into me the hard way.
As I crossed the field on my way to school that Friday morning, I saw Austin running his morning laps in his Aeropeds, as he did every stupid little morning of his stupid little life. I wouldn't look at him. I looked up, I looked down, I looked at the grass, the sky, the bleachers—anything but Austin. And because I was so intent on not looking at him, I ended up tripping over some sharp, jagged rocks sticking out of the ground in the middle of the field.
Wonderful, I thought. Now Austin will laugh at me for tripping over my own feet. He didn't, though. He kept on running and ignored me. I got off the field as fast as I could without making it look like I was hurrying.
As I entered the school, it began to hit me that there were only two unbeatables left to be hit by Tyson: Austin and Rebecca. That's when Cheryl came up to me.
"There you are," she said. "I've been looking all over for you." She looked at my hands. "What happened to you?" she asked.
I looked at them. They were scratched up a bit from when I had fallen in the field. "I tripped. That's all."
"I've been on Tyson patrol," she said. "I think the whole club should take shifts watching him."
"Where is he?"
"I haven't seen him yet," she said.
That's when something clicked inside my head. Something dark and scary began to come into clear focus. It began slowly. First I looked at my hands again, at the scratches. Those rocks I had tripped over weren't there the day before; they couldn't have been. What were such sharp rocks doing buried in the middle of the field anyway? The middle of the field! Oh no! Oh no! No!
Cheryl must have seen it in my eyes. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"Austin!" I yelled. "We have to stop Austin!" I turned and ran, sprinting down the hall, knocking down kids and teachers, running at my top speed to the exit. Far behind me I could hear Cheryl calling my name, but I didn't have time to stop. I may have already been too late.
I burst through the double doors, knocking down two kids. "Austin!" I screamed as I ran, for as well as I knew that those rocks hadn't been there the day before, I also knew that Austin sprinted across the center of the oval field once every single day—BAREFOOT! Everyone knew he did it, but I was the only one who knew about the rocks; only I could stop him!
I ran out from between the bleachers in time to see Austin race across the grass, barefoot, leaving his Aeropeds far behind as he headed toward the rocks. Of all of the mixed-up feelings inside of me, one thing was certain; I wanted with all my heart to stop Austin from running through that minefield of razor-sharp stones!
"Austin!" I screamed. "Austin, stop!" but he wouldn't; he would never stop in the middle of a race. I ran through the grass to try to catch him, but I wasn't fast enough, I just wasn't fast enough! All I could do was watch as he hit the rocks.
First his left foot fell onto them, and it broke his perfect stride. He tried to keep his balance, and that's when his right foot came down on them. He slid, and then an instant later he was flying through the air, forced head over heels by the tremendous speed of his own body.
I went to him and almost had to turn away from what I saw. It was horrible. Austin had hit the worst of the rocks in the worst of ways. The soles of both his feet had been gashed open, and his left foot seemed twisted in a nasty position.
Austin saw them and began to scream. "No! No! My feet!" He yelled, "My feet, my feet, my feet!" over and over again. I could see the pain was just beginning to set in. I knelt before him. There was blood everywhere, and I didn't know what to do.
"My feet, my feet! No! Not my feet! Anything but my feet!"
I took off my shirt and pressed it against one foot, to hold back the bleeding, and he yelled, "Ow! My ankle! It's broken! My ankle's broken! My ankle! My ankle!"
I didn't know much about broken ankles, but something definitely did look wrong. His foot was twisted real funny, and whenever I tried to move it he shrieked. It was beginning to puff up and turn blue.
"No! Not my feet!" he cried.
My shirt began to turn red.
"It's all right," I said, even though I knew it wasn't all right. "You'll be fine."
Then he looked at me, and I'm pretty sure that was the first time he realized it was me helping him.
"Gopher!" he said. "My feet . . . My feet!"
By now other kids began to gather around, and teachers were running out from the school.
"Give me a shirt," I demanded, and three kids tossed me their shirts. I pressed one of them to Austin's other foot.
"My feet," he mumbled, through his tears.
"You'll be all right."
"No! No, you don't understand!" he cried. "My father wants me to go to the Olympics. I have to go. He's counting on me. I have to. I have to run." Austin's face was getting redder and redder from his tears. "I've been training for years. Years! Next year I'm getting a private coach. My feet! I can't run if my feet are . . ." He looked down at them. "No!
What will I do? What will I do? What will I tell my father? He'll kill me! My ankle! It hurts! He'll kill me! What will I do?" Austin broke down and just cried like a baby, until it almost made me cry.
In a moment, Mr. Diller, our principal, came and carried Austin to the nurse's office. I was about to follow, but first I ran to the tip of the oval, picked up Austin's Aeropeds, and brought them along.
Whatever Austin had done to me in the past, whatever humiliation he had ever rubbed my nose in, he didn't deserve this. He was Olympics-bound; running was his life. It wasn't my life. For me running was something I could do that I liked doing, but for Austin, it was even more important. His feet would need stitches, but worse than that, his ankle would take months to heal. Who knew how long it would be till he could run again, if ever.
Sure, now I was fastest on the team, but all at once I didn't care anymore. Believe it or not, I cared more about Austin's feet.
I followed Austin and Mr. Diller to the nurse's office and watched as they tended to Austin's feet, until they shut the door. Still, I could hear his sobs. I stood there for at least five minutes, without realizing I had no shirt on. My shirt was ruined now, but there was another shirt in my backpack; my track team gopher shirt. I put it on, and sat outside the door. Soon Cheryl showed up, and the nurse suggested that I go to class, but I refused. I let Cheryl go, and I waited.
Finally the nurse let me in the office to keep Austin company while she called his parents. Inside, it smelled like alcohol and blood. Austin's feet were all wrapped up now; the white gauze was the same color as his Aeropeds. They had splinted the broken one. I still held his Aeropeds, and I placed them on the chair next to him.
"Thanks for helping me, Jared," he said, his eyes still a bit wet. I smiled. It was the first time he'd called me Jared all year.
"It's OK," I said. "I'm sorry about what happened."
He swallowed. "I guess I've been a real snot to you," he said.
"Yeah," I admitted. "It's OK, though."
"I guess it's because I'm real competitive, you know. My father says it's good to be competitive. I don't know. I guess all these years you were the only one who came close to being as fast as me. It scared me. It was like if one person could come close to beating me, then I wasn't good enough for the Olympics."