The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Which totally doesn’t make sense, but whatever. The pitcher is clearly nervous, because he has just given up three hits in a row, and now the largest kid in the universe is standing in the batter’s box. All the other kids and our fans are probably praying, “Come on, Garth! Please just get this one hit!”

  I know I am. If Garth wins the game, I will be saved from having to bat with everyone depending on me. But Garth hits a super-high pop-up in the infield that gets caught by the second baseman. When Scott limps up to the plate, several kids on our team actually groan out loud. Then it gets incredibly quiet as the pitcher winds up, except for the voice of Scott’s dad, who helpfully shouts, “Come on, Scott! Be a winner!” He doesn’t add for once, but the tone of his voice makes the meaning pretty clear.

  Scott swings super hard at three pitches in a row but never even makes contact with the ball. Great! Now I am up with the bases loaded and two outs. If I get on, we have a chance. If I get out, we lose. I crowd the plate as much as I possibly can—my toes are actually touching the white inside line of the batter’s box. I am leaning out so far over the plate that I feel like I might lose my balance and fall.

  I don’t swing at the first pitch, a called strike. I could have swung, but the pitch looked a bit low to me, and hitting a weak little grounder would be a sure way to lose us the game. The next three pitches are balls, which makes the count 3–1. According to all the wisdom of a hundred years of baseball, I should be in a perfect position to hit right now, because the pitcher can’t afford to walk me, which means his next pitch should be right down the middle. It is, but I don’t swing. I am just praying for ball four.

  The umpire looks at me with what I swear is disgust. “Come on, kid, swing the bat,” he mutters. This doesn’t seem promising.

  I hear my father in the stands say, “You can do this, Jord!”

  Sadly, he is wrong. The next pitch is completely out of the strike zone, so low that it hits the ground before it reaches the catcher. But I am convinced that the ump will call any pitch a strike at this point if I don’t swing, so I take a wild, lunging hack at the ball and miss by about six inches.

  Game over. On the way back to the dugout, I get booed by my own team. I do not enjoy it.

  Getting into the car, my father says, “It’s okay, you’ll get them next time!” He has no idea how right he is.

  * * *

  Every Monday at school, there is a group of boys who rush to gather together and discuss the skits from that week’s Saturday Night Live. We talk about what was funny, what was stupid, and what we would have done if we had been in charge of writing the script. Miss Tuff must have noticed our little get-togethers, because the Monday after my cartoon incident and the pathetic baseball game, she calls three of us up to her desk during silent-reading time. There’s Jonathan Marks, Joey Chablis, and me.

  “Boys,” she says, “I have an idea. How would you like to write a few skits of your own and then perform them for the class?”

  Jonathan, Joey, and I look at one another in amazement. How would we like it? She might as well have asked us how we would like a million bucks each, or unlimited pizza at lunch. This is too good to be true. I have spent my whole school career getting in trouble whenever I try to make the class laugh, and now Miss Tuff is asking us to make the class laugh as an assignment!

  We spend all our free time for the next week huddled in the janitor’s broom closet across the hall, frantically brainstorming and writing until we have three full skits, a song, and a pretend commercial. The closet is kind of dark and super damp. The mop bucket smells awful, like there is something dead floating in the water. And yet, I have never had a better time in school. By Friday, we are ready to perform for the class.

  We have written in a surprise for Miss Tuff, too. At lunch, we tell all our classmates that they will have a job to do during the last skit, and they get pretty psyched about it.

  The first skit goes great. Then we do our song. There has been a huge news story this week about how 273 people were killed in the crash of American Airlines Flight 191, making it the worst accident in the history of US air flight. The plane was a DC-10, and the newspapers say that DC-10s are the most dangerous aircraft in America.

  Clearly, this is a comedy goldmine.

  The song is modeled after John Denver’s hit “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

  We sing,

  “I’m flyin’ on a DC-10,

  Don’t know if I’ll be back again

  Depends on whether they inspected the plane!”

  This is a huge hit with the class. We are on a roll, and the second skit goes great, too. All we have left is our commercial, followed by the secret-class-participation finale. The commercial is a parody of the popular Irish Spring soap commercial, which features a woman whistling at a man like she is admiring his looks. Then the man looks right at the camera and says, “Irish Spring—it gets you fresh and clean as a whistle!”

  Jonathan and I, who are both Jewish, have come up with a slightly different version. We have wrapped a bar of soap in plain white paper, and then decorated the outside with a big Star of David. Jonathan walks across the front of the room holding up the soap bar, and Joey whistles at him. Then Jonathan looks out over the class and says, “Jewish Spring—it’s kosher for Passover!”

  Everybody laughs at this line, and a feeling flows over me that I have never felt before. The class is cracking up over a joke I wrote, and I am not getting in trouble for it. When I look over at Miss Tuff, she is beaming with pride. I feel powerful! My words are controlling my class! I almost feel like I am getting away with something. This is what I want to do with my life.

  The last skit is even better. It has two things going on at once. I am pretending to be the teacher, and Jonathan and Joey, along with the rest of the kids in the room, are supposed to be my class. I start teaching a math lesson, but that is just an excuse for the real skit. Every time I call on a kid and ask for the answer to a problem I’ve written on the board, that student asks, “May I go to the bathroom?” Each time, I sigh and say, “Yes.”

  Within a few minutes, every kid in the class is gone, except for Jonathan, Joey, and me. I glance over at Miss Tuff, and see that she looks baffled and kind of concerned. I dismiss Jonathan to the bathroom. I dismiss Joey to the bathroom.

  Now it’s just Miss Tuff and me in the room. I turn to her, raise my hand, and ask, “May I go to the bathroom?”

  She must be dying to know what’s going on, but she doesn’t say that. She just tells me I can go, although she does follow me to the classroom door. As I step through the doorway into the hall—where everybody I’ve dismissed is crouching against the wall—the whole class breaks out in giggles.

  Miss Tuff sees what is going on, and after a second, she starts clapping.

  I am a star. No, better than that: I am a writer.

  B.J. and I have always shared books. I discovered comics first, when we were in first grade and my dad’s barber had Avengers #138 (Stranger in a Strange Man!) and Daredevil #112 (“Murder!” Cries the Mandrill!). B.J. got me into DC Comics last year, when he discovered the Legion of Super-Heroes. I lend him my science fiction novels, and he brings me piles of fantasy books. We spend hours on top of his bunk bed arguing over who would win in different battles. Would Shazam beat Thor? What would happen if Gandalf from Lord of the Rings fought Darth Vader? Could Saturn Girl from the Legion of Super-Heroes read Professor Xavier’s mind?

  These arguments get pretty heated. I once got sent home by B.J.’s mom when B.J. and I started wrestling to decide whether Superboy was stronger than Ultra Boy. The issue was very complicated, because we had a list of each hero’s powers, and we saw that Ultra Boy had invulnerability. We didn’t know what that was. We couldn’t even pronounce it. So when B.J. said Superboy was probably stronger than Ultra Boy, there was only one way to figure it out. I jumped on him and shouted, “Invability! I win!” He yelled, “Heat vision! You lose!” I got him in a headlock and shouted, “Invability beat
s heat vision!” He rolled over so he was on top of me and grunted, “Super breath!”

  Which has to be Superboy’s dumbest power, by the way.

  This went back and forth for a while, but eventually B.J. pushed me against the wall with his feet. I grabbed B.J.’s gold necklace, pulled on it, and screamed, “Invability!” B.J. pushed off from me so he was hanging halfway off the bed. Then his necklace broke and he fell.

  He wasn’t even hurt, but his mom was super mad! She said his necklace, which had the Hebrew symbol Chai on it for good luck, was a family heirloom, whatever that means. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in my mom’s car on the way home, getting yelled at by her, too.

  Apparently, super mad beats invability.

  B.J. and I might get into some heated debates once in a while, but aside from being the smartest kid I know, he also has amazing taste. So one day, when he brings in a new book for me to read and says I have to drop everything and start it right away, I listen. The book is by an author I’ve never heard of named Susan Cooper, and it’s called The Dark Is Rising.

  Fantasy books always sound kind of stupid when you try to explain them. I know this because Lissa points it out to me often. So I will just say that this one is about a boy named Will Stanton, who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he has secret magical powers that set him apart from humanity. If he has the courage, wits, and honor to defeat a terrible, ancient threat, the world will be saved. If he doesn’t, we are all doomed.

  I like most fantasy books well enough, but The Dark Is Rising changes my life. I can’t stop reading it! I make my mom take me to the library right away to get the next three books. For two weeks, I feel like I am living three lives: I am a Jewish kid living in Staten Island, but I am also an English country boy who is also a magical being. Half my head is in New York City, but the other half is in Great Britain. Whenever I close my eyes, I am Will Stanton, wandering the back lanes of Buckinghamshire and the hills of Wales, facing evil horsemen and gigantic gray foxes, and hunting for magical weapons to use against the Dark.

  Will has exactly what I’ve always wanted. He is special and needed. And like the best kind of magic, reading his story gives me the strength to stop pulling my hair out. I mean, if Will Stanton doesn’t tear his hair out when a terrible, supernatural blizzard cuts his village off from the world, or when his mother falls down the basement steps and breaks her leg, or when his sister gets kidnapped by the awful Masters of the Dark, I figure I should be able to handle my worries without attacking my own head.

  I have tried hard to stop before, but I know this time, I’m stopping for good.

  When I finish reading the last book in the series, Silver on the Tree, I have a totally unheard-of reaction to it being over: I cry. I am so happy that Will and his friends have saved the world, but also completely crushed that our adventure together is over.

  This is what I want to write when I grow up. I want to write books that make other kids feel just like Will Stanton. I want other kids to know they are special and needed, too.

  * * *

  I am so special and needed that I get traded away from my own baseball team.

  No, it’s worse than that: I get given away by my own baseball team.

  At the game after my terrible bases-loaded strikeout, Lockwood Plumbing shows up at the field and finds that the other team, Behrins’ Bullets, has only six players. Mr. Dave offers to lend the other coach three of our players so the game doesn’t have to be canceled.

  Naturally, he picks his three worst guys: Garth, Scott, and me. Walking from our dugout across the field is the worst feeling in the world. I am super sad but also super mad. I feel like I am going to cry, but there is no freaking way I can show any sign of tears on this field. Garth turns to me on the bench, where the three of us are sitting all the way at one end, and says, “We have to win this game.”

  Heck yeah, we do.

  Nick the super-fastball pitcher is on the mound for our team—well, our old team. He hasn’t lost a single game all year, but when I step into the batter’s box in the third inning as the number-seven batter in the Behrins’ Bullets lineup, I realize I am not scared of him. First of all, even though he throws very hard, he only has one pitch. Second of all, I know he has great control, because he hasn’t walked or hit anybody all season. So I tell myself two things: I don’t have to be afraid, and I am not getting on base unless I hit the ball. I get the team’s first hit of the day with a grounder up the third-base line. Then I steal second base.

  Lockwood Plumbing scores a couple of runs, but Behrins’ Bullets starts hitting in the fifth inning. I come up to bat with a guy on second and two outs. Nick glares like he is absolutely furious at me—like I betrayed my own team by getting a hit. Well, tough. My team shouldn’t have dumped me.

  Garrett, the catcher, shouts to Nick, “Easy out!” On any other day, he would be right, but not today. I foul off the first pitch, and the second pitch is a called strike. But I know the third pitch is going to be right down the middle. I swing with all my might and connect!

  Okay, so the ball rolls about eleven feet up the first-base line and dies. But still, Nick hasn’t struck me out. The catcher pops up from his crouch, grabs the ball, and throws it to first, but his throw is super high. It bangs off the far edge of the wooden frame of the Behrins’ Bullets dugout and keeps going into the outfield. I take off for second base and slide just as the throw from right field sails over the shortstop’s head. As I pop up, the third baseman runs into short left field to get the ball, and I realize there’s nobody to cover third. I take off again. Just as I slide into third, the pitcher realizes what’s going on and charges over. The third baseman throws the ball right to the base, but the pitcher isn’t there yet, and it flies over me and bangs off the fence of the Lockwood Plumbing dugout.

  I head for home plate, where Garrett is crouched, ready to catch the ball and also hurt me. I slide between his legs as the throw gets to him. I hit him so hard he drops the ball. He still tags me on the side of the head really hard just because he can, but I don’t care. I get up before he does, step over his legs, and practically glide back to the dugout. Everybody there is jumping up and down. It’s 2–2, and I have just come the closest I ever will to hitting a home run. As Scott limps past me to bat, we smile at each other. Garth is swinging two bats in the on-deck circle. I reach up, slap him on the shoulder, and say, “You’re gonna hit a homer.” He laughs, but I am totally serious.

  Nick is so rattled, he walks Scott.

  Garth looks into the dugout, where I am up on my feet with everybody else, screaming and shaking the fence. We make eye contact, and I can see it. Garth has already gotten banished by his own team. He has nothing left to lose, and he’s mad. He really is going to hit a home run!

  And he does.

  On the very first pitch, he absolutely creams the ball out over the right fielder’s head. Our home field doesn’t have an outfield fence. The grass just ends maybe twenty feet past where the outfielders usually stand. In right field, that’s where a deep, mucky swamp starts. In three years of playing right field, I have never seen a ball roll into the swamp.

  Garth’s shot gets there on the fly. The right fielder wades in to retrieve it.

  Garth chugs up the baseline as fast as he can, which isn’t saying much. It does mean he nearly catches up to Scott between second and third, though. I look into the outfield and see that the right fielder has found the ball. He hurls it to the second baseman, who makes a perfect relay throw home.

  Scott crosses the plate while the ball is still in the air, but Garrett catches it when Garth is still a couple of steps away. All he has to do is tag Garth and hold on to the ball to keep the game tied up. But this is Garth we are talking about. He’s like six feet tall and two hundred pounds, and he is charging down the line like an enraged bull.

  Garrett steps aside and tries to tag Garth’s back. He misses. Both dugouts erupt. The Lockwood Plumbing players are calling Garth a traitor. The Behrins’
Bullets guys are all waiting in line to give Garth high fives. When he gets to me, we hug.

  “Told ya,” I say.

  Our new team scores another couple of runs in the sixth, and we become the first team to beat Lockwood Plumbing in a game started by Nick. At the end, we line up to shake hands. I have to admit, that is kind of awkward for Garth, Scott, and me, now that everyone on Lockwood Plumbing except Pete wants to kill us.

  When I get to Pete, he raises one eyebrow and says, “Really?”

  Okay, even Pete wants to kill us a little.

  June is weird. On the one hand, we have an awesome Field Day, I am the rabbi at a wedding, and my mom brings me home an awesome surprise! On the other hand, the world almost ends again.

  My mom has been having all kinds of problems with her new car. It makes alarming noises, it stalls at random times, and no matter how many times Sam and Nick fix it, nothing helps for long. My parents have been saying the car is a lemon, which seems to be like a bad egg but with wheels. This has made driving very adventurous already, but then things get a lot worse.

  I guess some country called Iran, which has a lot of oil, had a revolution. Now they aren’t making oil, or they aren’t selling oil, or we aren’t buying their oil—I don’t exactly understand what’s going on, but my dad says this could mean the end of civilization. For me, what it means is that there’s a sudden gasoline shortage in Staten Island. It gets so bad that the whole city of New York makes a crazy rule that people can only buy gas for their cars every other day. If your car’s license plates end in an odd number, you can buy on the odd-numbered days of the month. If it ends in an even number, you can buy on the even-numbered days. But this doesn’t solve the crisis, because so many people line up every day that the gas stations all run out of fuel by noon or so.