by Mary Amato
I set down my tray, racking my brain for something to say when Langley borrows my spoon, blows on it, and hangs it on the end of his nose. It’s the kind of thing you do when you’re seven, but Langley makes it funny.
I throw a French fry at him. It hits the spoon, which goes flying across the table, and lands—no lie—in Ben’s pudding cup. Everybody laughs.
We spend the rest of the lunch period setting up targets, and Xander is in on it, which is cool.
Langley is great. He tells me that The Plague is going to watch the DC United game on Friday night, so if I make the team I should come, which would be sweet.
After lunch when I stop at my locker, Xander catches up with me on his own. He asks me which teachers I’ve got for each class, all casual. And then he asks how come I’m only in Summit science and he tells me how Summit history and English are so much better than the regular classes. “If you’re in Summit science, you should probably be in those,” he says. I’m not sure how to read it. Is he saying he wants me to be in his classes or that there must be something wrong with me if I’m not?
I pull out the book I need and he sees the cleats.
“Are those your cleats?” he asks.
“No. They’re my grandma’s.”
He laughs and starts walking away. “Hey,” he calls back. “A bunch of other really good kids are trying out today. Are you still planning on coming?”
I close my locker door. “Yep,” I say.
“Cool. Good luck!” He walks away.
He said good luck, so how come I’m not sure if he meant it?
During English, I finish my work early and crack open my science book to get a jump on my homework. Mr. Ferguson is the first teacher who has ever given homework that I actually don’t mind doing.
14.
MCCLOUD AND MUSGROVE
Next class is science. Xander acts all buddy-buddy when Langley is around, but I can feel this tension coming from him. I don’t think it’s my imagination. Sometimes my mom says, “I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” and I never really understood what she meant until now. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place with The Plague. If I try out for the team and don’t make it, I’ll be humiliated. But if I make it, I have this feeling that Xander will hate me. So what am I supposed to do?
“Ladies and Gentlemen, get out your Identification Notebooks, and do not get comfortable,” Mr. Ferguson says, putting his Irish cap on his little white Afro. “We shall be perambulating to the front of the school to embark upon an experiment in physics!” He pauses and steps toward me. “Will I be happily surprised today, Mr. Musgrove?”
I get out my homemade, bulldog-clipped Identification Notebook, and Xander laughs at it like What garbage bag did you find that in?
Mr. Ferguson nods. “That will suffice.”
“Um—if we’re doing physics are we done with fungi?” Mosquito Boy asks.
“Not in the slightest. David and Sam, please grab that bin of books. Come along. You’ll see.”
Off he goes.
“Perambulate this way,” Langley says, and does another funny walk.
I push Xander out of my mind and clown around with Langley on the way.
Mr. Ferguson taps the sidewalk with his walking stick. “Who would like to try lifting this piece of concrete?”
“Um, without any equipment?” Mosquito Boy asks. “That’s impossible.”
Langley goes into his bodybuilding routine again, which makes everybody laugh.
“Impossible for humans, perhaps,” Mr. Ferguson says. “But here’s a true story. In Russia, the sidewalks all around a large museum started to rise up. People wondered what was happening … gases from beneath the earth pushing up? Or some huge burrowing creature? And then some brave individuals worked up the courage to peek under the concrete, and what do you think they saw?”
I guess, “A giant mushroom.”
“Close, Mr. Musgrove! Not one giant mushroom, but ordinary little white—what we call button—mushrooms. The same kind you get in your grocery store. The building had been built on the grounds of an old horse stable, and so the earth underneath was rich with horse manure.”
“That is so gross,” Lydia says.
“Not if you’re a mushroom! Mushrooms are coprophilic. Who recalls reading what that means?”
Mosquito Boy raises his hand. “Coprophilic means having an affection for manure.”
Mr. Ferguson laughs. “Affection! Wonderful word choice!”
“That’s my new insult,” Langley says. “You are so coprophilic!”
Mosquito Boy begins to argue with Mr. Ferguson about whether or not the story is true.
“Mushrooms are deceptively strong.” Mr. Ferguson makes a fist and pushes it up. “Hydraulic power. A mushroom called the shaggy mane has been known to break through asphalt and sometimes cement.” He shows us a photo and gives us a few more facts about the Coprinus comatus. And then he says, “Mr. Musgrove, are you paying attention?”
I show him my notes, and he nods his approval.
“Okay. Now it’s your turn. We’re going to do a little book research. And since the temperature is so delightful, I thought we could work out of doors.”
I love this guy.
He takes us to the back of the school again, where there’s grass and trees, and tells us to split into pairs and look through one of his mushroom books together. “Find a mushroom or fungi that you both agree is interesting. Make an entry for it in your Identification Notebooks and plan an interesting way to present your facts to the whole group—don’t just go like this.” He pretends to read a paragraph straight from a book. “Boring! You know what I mean? See how I used the concrete to illustrate how mushrooms are strong? Find a way to illustrate your fact. And mix it up. Work with someone other than your lab table partner.”
“Come on, Musgrove,” Langley says. “Let’s do this thing.”
I don’t even look at Xander, but I can tell he’s pissed, like there’s a law against Langley and me being friends.
Langley and I find a big tree to sit under. He cracks open the Field Guide to Mushrooms. “Which one should we pick? Listen to the names of some of these mushrooms: stinkhorn, puffball, hen of the woods, death cap, dead man’s fingers, witch’s butter, turkey tail …”
“I bet that’s what Mr. Ferguson named his kids,” I say. “Come here, little turkey tail, I have to change your diaper!”
Langley laughs and points out a picture of a shiitake mushroom. “My dad loves these things. They smell disgusting.”
“Let’s do the presentation like a news thing.” I grab a stick and pretend it’s a microphone. “Trev Musgrove, reporting live.” I pick up a pinecone and hold it up like a prop. “This is a stinkhorn mushroom. Fact: It is butt ugly. My analysis is that people should pay us to eat it. And now, back to you in the studio, Langley.”
“We should find something uglier for you to hold up.”
“A dog turd!” I start looking around for one, and we both crack up.
“Okay, here’s a good one.” He reads: “ ‘The Amanita virosa, otherwise known as the destroying angel, is a beautiful white mushroom, bearing a similar appearance to the white button mushroom commonly found in grocery stores. However, the destroying angel is deadly, containing a poison called amatoxin. Unfortunately symptoms don’t appear for five to twenty-four hours, after which time the toxins may have already damaged the liver and kidneys. The symptoms include vomiting, cramps, delirium, convulsions, and diarrhea.’ ”
The list strikes us both as funny. “I can see why Ferguson loves these things.”
Langley goes on. “ ‘As little as half a cap can result in death.’ ” He grabs the stick. “This is Langley McCloud in the studio. We are about to go live to Washington Hospital, where Dr. Mushroom McMusgrove has just completed a study on the deadly poisonous mushroom known as the destroying angel. Dr. McMusgrove, can you tell us the results?”
I take the stick. “Well, Langley, I have made an imp
ortant discovery.”
“What’s that, Doctor?”
“All my patients died.”
We plump up our routine with some fine fungal facts and practice it again. When we do it for everybody, the whole class laughs and Mr. Ferguson gives us an A on the spot.
Xander’s presentation with a kid named Nicolas would put a corpse to sleep and Xander knows it. As Nicolas drones on, Xander’s face keeps getting redder and redder, like he’s in the process of swallowing the Amanita embarrassia mushroom.
After class as we’re walking in, he mutters to Langley, “I’m never working with Nicolas again. I don’t know how he got into this program.”
“You should’ve picked Stephanie,” Langley says. “Hers rocked.”
“Hers was idiotic.”
“Well, ours was the best,” Langley says. “Amanita virosa. You eat. You die.” He goes into a slow-motion death sequence, grabbing all the girls on the way in.
“Give him mouth-to-mouth!” I yell out, and all the girls start screaming and laughing and pushing him away.
15.
TRYOUTS
Here’s my plan. Just mind my own business. Go to tryouts and do my best.
In P.E., I’m not in either Xander’s or Langley’s group, which is good. I focus on trying to stay positive and loose.
“You trying out for the Toilers?” Juan asks.
When I tell him I’m trying out for an MCS Elite team after school, I can tell he’s impressed.
“Second place last year in Division One,” I say. “They need a striker to get to first place.”
“Lucky,” Juan says. “You’re solid. You’re going to make it.”
I take that in and hold on to it. I can do this thing if I don’t tense up.
Langley catches me at dismissal and invites me to walk with them. Like I said, around Langley, Xander is okay. He whips out his cell phone and texts Ben while we’re walking. Three blocks from the school, Langley heads up a driveway to the biggest house on the street. “Let’s stop and get something to drink,” he says.
A Merry Maids van is parked in front. The front lawn is perfect. A big yard of green grass. The door isn’t locked, so we just walk in. Two women are just leaving, loaded with cleaning supplies.
“Perfect timing,” Langley says.
The whole house feels refrigerated and smells like lemons. It’s more like a picture of a house than a real house. There is a piano and pictures in silver frames on it. Something smelling like roast beef is cooking, and my stomach wants to scream.
“It’s me and Xander,” Langley calls out. “And somebody new.”
“Take off your shoes,” a voice calls back. “Everything was just cleaned.”
The carpeting is smooshy and soft and white, and I glance back, hoping not to see any dirty footprints coming from me.
Through large glass doors, I can see the backyard, complete with a tree house and soccer goals and balls everywhere.
We walk into the kitchen, and his mom is there at a computer, typing really fast. She’s got red wavy hair, just like Langley. “Eat something healthful,” she says without looking up. Then she realizes that she hasn’t met me so she stops and introduces herself and tells me to make myself at home and then she goes back to her work. The refrigerator is huge and metallic with ice-water delivery right from the door. Langley flings open a closet, revealing shelves and shelves, full of food. Like a grocery store.
“What do you want?” Langley asks.
I don’t know what I should say. I want everything. Before I can pick, a little red-haired girl runs in and punches Langley on the side just as he is taking a long drink.
“Hey, that hurt, you coprophilic fungus!” Langley wipes the water off his chin and grabs her in a headlock.
“What’d you call me?” the girl asks.
“A manure-loving mushroom.”
“Yuck.”
“Her name is Emma,” the mom calls out.
“Hey, our teacher said moms are like fungi,” Langley says.
Before his mom can respond, footsteps come down the stairs behind them and Emma starts to squeal. A man’s voice booms: “Fee, Fi, Fo, Foy. I smell the blood of a girl and boy.”
Langley rolls his eyes. “He does this every day.”
The door opens and Langley’s dad walks in. He is tall and has this square chin and looks like a guy on a shaving commercial. “I knew I smelled children!” he says, scooping up Emma and flipping her upside down. “Hey, Langley. Hey, Xander. Ah, this must be the soccer player.”
Langley introduces me, and his dad says that he’ll watch tryouts because he needs a break from work.
My mom always says that just because you’ve got a nice house doesn’t mean you’ve got a nice family. Langley has both.
Langley grabs a bag with his cleats and shin guards and fills up water bottles for me, Xander, and himself. His dad leads the way. I haven’t taken anything from the closet and now it’s too late. I am so hungry I feel like taking a bite out of the door on the way out.
Buckingham Park is five blocks away—it’s a big park with a soccer field, a playground for little kids, and even a pool. Xander and Langley are talking about the team and arguing about who has the best skills, and I’m giving myself an internal pep talk when I notice the mushrooms. Three of them. Crazy big. Each one is tall with a perfect domed cap about the size of a cantaloupe that’s been cut in half. They’re bizarre and magical-looking, like maybe they’re homes for little elves or fairies.
Mr. Ferguson said that we’d start to notice mushrooms in unexpected places, and he was right.
“Guess what,” I say. “We’re perambulating toward some fungi!”
Xander and Langley both look up. I’m perambulating faster so I can take a closer look, but then Xander takes a few jogging steps forward and kicks the cap off each one. Bam. Bam. Bam.
“I’m telling Mr. Fungus on you,” Langley says.
There’s two more mushrooms farther ahead, and I’m imagining the little elves inside gearing up to try and defend themselves from the Evil Destroyer, but Xander kicks them to pieces, too.
I know they’re just mushrooms, but the wreckage makes me sad.
My mom says I came home once from Head Start all excited because I got a book of nursery rhymes that I was allowed to keep, but when she read the one about how nobody could put Humpty Dumpty back together, I got so upset I wouldn’t look at the book again.
What can I say? I’m a sensitive guy.
“Let the games begin!” Xander calls out to a bunch of guys. They are sitting on a grassy slope, putting on their cleats, none of them familiar from school. They all start joking with Xander and Langley. I sit down to gear up. Everybody has matching red Nike backpacks and matching soccer socks. I don’t have soccer socks, which is embarrassing, and the cleats are much tighter than they were in the store.
Xander is showing off his new cleats. The coach—long dark hair in a ponytail—is talking to other parents who are introducing the kids who are trying out, asking what teams their kids were on last year. Langley’s dad waits until the coach is done talking to the other parents, then he introduces me.
The sun feels like a spotlight, so hot I could burst into flames.
“What position do you play, lad?” Coach Evan asks. I like his British accent.
I remember Langley saying that they needed a striker, so I say, “Striker.”
“What team did you play on last season?”
I tell him that I moved around last year, and he drops it.
As he puts us through warm-ups and drills, I try to focus on whatever I have to do so that I won’t think about how nervous I am and how much the cleats are already hurting my feet. Then he splits us into teams for a scrimmage.
I’m assigned to be a striker on Xander’s team. Langley is playing the same position for the opposing team.
As soon as the ball is in, Xander is all over the field. Every time he gets the ball, he tries to score on his own.
&
nbsp; “I’m open,” I shout, but Xander won’t pass.
I try not to get angry, try to stay focused and ready in case the ball comes my way. Come on, Xander. Play fair.
Xander scores twice.
My feet begin to blister.
The coach blows the whistle and changes the positions of several players. He switches me over to the team Langley is on and asks him to play midfielder.
It’s 2–0, Xander’s team. I start with the ball for my new team. I pass it to one of our other guys. Xander steals it and tries to run for the goal, faking out two players along the way. Xander is about to make another move, but Langley steals it, passes the ball to me, and I’m dead center mid-field. I make a turn with the ball and head to the goal. I see my chance and take a shot. The keeper dives, but it hits the post and it ricochets in. 2–1.
Xander’s team starts with the ball. Their forward passes it back and they have possession.
A minute later Langley gets the ball again and makes a crisp pass to our right wing. The winger tries to make a pass, but Xander is right there to intercept. I go shoulder to shoulder and push him off the ball.
“Foul!” Xander cries. “He totally elbowed me.”
“I’ll make the calls,” Coach Evan says. “Keep playing.”
I pass the ball.
“It was a foul.” Xander won’t let it go. He’s not even going for the ball. It’s like he wants to start World War III.
The striker on Xander’s team calls out, “Xander, keep playing.”
Langley makes this funny face and whispers to me, “I don’t know what’s biting his butt.”
We split up. I make a run and Langley sends a through ball. I run past the last defender and now it’s just me and the goalie. I pull the ball sharply to the left and lose the keeper. It is a clear-cut path to glory. I’m about to get my second goal.
Langley calls out, “Man on!”