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by John David Anderson

  “No. But I bet Bench couldn’t get through four measures of Chopin’s Mazurka in A Minor either.”

  Wolf took out his phone again and started texting his parents for a ride. Deedee called his mom. Mine was already waiting for me in the parking lot. I could see the white Civic flashing its lights at me, like some kind of Morse code. She waved to the three of us as we walked closer.

  “We’re still on for tomorrow, right? At Wolf’s house?” Deedee asked as I opened the door. “You guys promised. I’ve got a whole new campaign lined up. There’s zombies and everything.”

  I assured Deedee that Ceric the Elf would not let his fellow adventurers down. Then I waved good-bye to Wolf, who gave me a nod. He was still looking at his phone, a huge grin on his face. Maybe it was too much popcorn and soda, or just the excitement from that last play, but my stomach was rolling.

  “So how was the game?” Mom asked as I buckled in.

  I thought about it for a moment. “We won,” I said, as if the fireworks didn’t give it away.

  “That’s good, right?” Apparently the tone of my voice was a little off.

  “Good? Oh. Yeah. It was a great game. Probably the best I’ve ever been to.”

  She looked at me, pressing me for more, but I just looked out the window. I didn’t tell her how Bench, the first friend I made in middle school, a kid she’d baked brownies for and taken to amusement parks—how he made the game-winning catch. I don’t know why. Maybe I felt like it was one of those had-to-be-there things. Or maybe because it wasn’t my moment and I didn’t feel like I could do it justice. I wasn’t a good enough poet to put it into words.

  Or maybe, like Wolf, I felt like this was the start of something. And I was nervous about what came next.

  Because things like this didn’t happen to guys like us.

  That night I dreamed I won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

  I have no idea what the Nobel Prize looks like, but in my dream it resembled the Stanley Cup, a glinting metal behemoth nearly twice my size with handles on the side. It had my name—my real name, Eric Voss—engraved along the base. I was the first middle school kid to ever win, absolutely unheard of, though that didn’t stop the two women in silver bikinis from kissing me on the cheek as they handed me the trophy.

  There, standing and sweating under the auditorium lights, I gave a speech. I thanked my dad for introducing me to Robert Frost and my mom for pretty much everything else. I thanked my friends for believing in me. Then I stood and waited for them to come up and carry me, to lift me on their shoulders and parade me through the audience and out into the lobby. I scanned the crowd, but I didn’t see the faces of anyone I knew.

  Instead all I could see were notes. A thousand blank squares of paper where heads should be, filling the auditorium in a sea of yellow.

  That’s when I spotted her. Rose. Standing in the balcony, dressed like usual in flannel and jeans. Hers was the only real face in the crowd. Her eyes seemed even brighter than the stage lights and her mouth was twisted into that punch-line smile. She looked completely normal, except for the pair of antlers that protruded from either side of her head, branching into fuzzy nubs.

  No one else seemed to notice the antlered girl standing in the balcony, the blank yellow faces staring straight ahead. I just stood there, paralyzed as she climbed up onto the ledge, standing on the edge in her giant bare feet. She spread her arms wide.

  “Catch me,” she said.

  And then she jumped.

  THE RULES

  BENCH’S FAVORITE COLOR WAS ORANGE.

  This is probably not something I should know. Maybe if we had been friends since kindergarten or were a couple of fourth graders swapping one of those secret-password journals you can find in the bargain section of the bookstore. But it’s not something that just came up naturally in conversation. Until I went into his bedroom for the first time and saw his tangerine walls and his blinding bright orange bedspread, making me wonder how he ever managed to get to sleep at night.

  I know other things about Bench. Things that even his parents probably don’t. Like he’s a little ashamed of his dad because Mr. Jones used to be a runner—track and cross-country—and now he carries a serious gut and can barely huff it a mile. I also know Bench is still terrified of letting his dad down, which is one of the reasons he tries so hard to get straight As and make it onto every team. I know that it takes him twice as long to get through a book as me. I know that he has an irrational fear of his teeth falling out due to the fact that when he was little, his grandmother’s dentures accidentally came loose and dropped into her potato soup. I know that he hates it whenever Deedee shouts, “For the Shire!” which is more often than necessary.

  And I know now that even though he never came out and said it, even though he always seemed cool about it, he never liked his nickname.

  Because let’s face it—nobody wants to spend their life just sitting around, waiting for their chance to get into the game.

  We were playing at Wolf’s this time.

  His dad was gone all weekend for a conference, which meant the house would be quiet for a change. We usually played at Deedee’s, but Wolf pointed out the injustice of making Deedee’s parents foot the bill for snacks every time. Everything they say about teenage boys and their appetites is true. We once polished off an entire family-sized pack of Oreos in one night. Forty-eight cookies, minus the crumbs on Mrs. Patel’s linoleum. Deedee was the only one who couldn’t keep his dozen down, scrambling for the toilet to make a deposit.

  These were the kinds of stories we kept to ourselves.

  I showed up to Wolf’s early, eager to get out of my own house and away from Mom, who was on the phone with the lawyer, discussing alimony. She and Dad never talked to each other directly. They would email or text if absolutely necessary. She had no problem yelling at her lawyer though, so I said I’d just bike the three miles to Wolf’s house. When I got there his mom was trying to finish raking the front yard before it got dark. Hardly any leaves had fallen yet, but Mrs. Thompson was finicky about her lawn. Every hedge perfectly trimmed. Every tree pruned. The grass had those diagonal mow lines that you usually only see on golf courses. She asked me how I was doing, how was school, the usual.

  She asked about Mom. She didn’t ask about Dad. Nobody ever asked about Dad.

  I had hoped that Wolf would be practicing so that I could listen, but I spotted him in the garage instead. He was working on a plastic model of the battleship Arizona—the one that you could still see sunk at Pearl Harbor. I could smell the glue from the doorway.

  Piano was Wolf’s passion, but he was almost as obsessed with those plastic kits. When he wasn’t stuck to his bench pounding out Beethoven, he was snapping pieces together, making sports cars and fighter jets that would take up the shelves in his bedroom—the ones that didn’t need to hold piano awards because those were all downstairs. He had Mustangs and F-15s and a German U-boat. He had a model of the Star Trek Enterprise and the Apollo lunar module. I remember the first time he showed me his room. It was like walking into a museum, with fighter planes hanging from the ceiling and an aircraft carrier (also called the Enterprise) extending past both sides of his dresser. I’d never built one of those kits before—I would have glued my fingers together. Besides, I didn’t have Wolf’s patience. The first time I accidentally broke something off I’d probably just toss the whole thing in the trash.

  “Deedee texted. He’s on his way,” Wolf said, sensing me standing there.

  I nodded and walked around the garage until I spotted Wolf’s brother’s moped, half covered in black tarp. Everybody’s known for something. Wolf’s older brother Simon was known for that bike. A TaoTao 150cc, cherry apple, given to him as a consolation prize the same time Wolf got the shiny black Baldwin sitting in the living room. Simon had just started middle school at the time, and Wolf said that everyone thought the moped was the coolest thing ever. Then Simon went to high school, with juniors and seniors who drove things on four w
heels that could actually hit the speed limit, and the moped suddenly wasn’t so cool anymore. Which explained why it sat in the corner of Wolf’s garage.

  “Your brother ever planning to sell this thing?” I asked.

  Wolf shook his head, fidgeted with a rudder. “Are you kidding? He still loves that bike. He says I can have it when I turn fourteen. Provided I give him a hundred bucks. He still lets me ride it sometimes, though. If I clean his room and put away his laundry.”

  I lifted the tarp a little. The bike looked like it was still in good shape. I’d probably clean Simon’s room for a chance to take it around the block. “Does he ever let you take it out on the highway? You know, open her up? Full throttle?” I didn’t even know if you could “open up” a moped.

  Wolf laughed. “Dude, full throttle on that thing is about fifty—and that’s if you’re going downhill. Uphill you still have to hop off and walk it.” He carefully put a radar dish in place, stepped back to admire his work. “Did you hear anything from Bench?”

  He said it casual, like he didn’t care about the answer either way. Maybe he didn’t, but I doubted it. It had been my job to call Bench and make sure he knew about tonight. It was three hours before he called me back. “He said he couldn’t make it. He’s going out to dinner with his family to celebrate last night’s game.”

  “The catch,” Wolf said.

  “The catch,” I repeated.

  The catch had actually made the paper. Local sports page, local paper, and only a two-paragraph article, but Bench’s name was mentioned. A miraculous forty-yard catch and run by Jeremiah Jones, coming off the bench to seal the victory for the Falcons. I was sure his parents had already clipped it and framed it. I kept our copy of the sports section just in case.

  I sensed there was something else Wolf wanted to say about “the catch,” but instead he just screwed the cap back on the glue and began putting the rest of the unused pieces back in the box. The battleship was still only half finished. It was in need of more guns and a whole lot of paint, but it looked pretty good. Wolf’s work always did. “His loss,” Wolf said. “I’m sure we can tackle anything that pathetic excuse of a dungeon master throws at us.”

  “Just for that I’m adding more zombies.”

  We both turned. Deedee stood in the driveway, an overstuffed Avengers backpack threatening to topple him backward. “Your mom says that if we bag those leaves we get pizza.”

  I smiled and nodded. I’m not sure what Mr. Thompson’s problem was. Seemed to me like Mrs. Thompson knew the way straight to a man’s heart. We went out to bag leaves.

  Afterward Wolf’s mom ordered an extra-large pepperoni and promised to leave us alone for the rest of the evening, retreating to her bedroom to enjoy some “quiet time,” which Wolf translated for us as reading mystery novels and stalking people on Facebook. We thanked her for the pizza and promised not to break anything.

  “How’s it going?” I whispered to Wolf as his mother padded upstairs.

  “She’s been happy today,” Wolf said with a shrug. “I like it when they’re happy, even if it’s only one at a time.”

  I didn’t bother to say that with me it was always one at a time. He was right, though. A happy one was better than a miserable two. Most days.

  While we waited for the pizza, Deedee unzipped his pack and pulled out the library of manuals he’d brought, complete with maps and traps and cardboard tokens representing everything from zombie rats to vampire lords. He unloaded a small hoard of dice that skittered across the table. Wolf and I picked up a handful and challenged each other for the highest number. Deedee yelled at us to leave the dice alone. This wasn’t rock-paper-scissors, he told us. Dungeons & Dragons was serious business. I told him he should be extra thankful to have us as friends. Especially since he’d forgotten the Pringles.

  The doorbell rang. Deedee and I both looked at the clock. We had called for pizza only ten minutes ago.

  “Maybe Bench managed to weasel out of dinner,” I said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Deedee said.

  Wolf smiled as he stood up. From his seat, Deedee had the best angle on the front hall, and I watched his expression shift from curiosity to confusion. I spun around to see who was standing there, though I really should have guessed.

  “Greetings, oh dungeony ones,” Rose Holland called from the front door. “I come bearing gifts.”

  She held up a bag of Funyons and a two-liter of bargain-brand red cream soda and smiled. Deedee’s mouth hung open. I kept mine shut. Wolf took the snacks and gave Rose a hug, the second in two days that I’d seen. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” he said, escorting her into the kitchen.

  “You kidding? Hang out with three world-class geekazoids like you on a Saturday night? How could a girl say no?”

  I could think of approximately three hundred girls at Branton Middle School who would have. They actually wouldn’t have said no. They would have said, Are you kidding, or, Um, or Seriously? In fact I couldn’t think of a single other kid in the entire school who would have given the offer to sit around with the three of us and roll for saving throws a second’s thought. But Rose was obviously an exception.

  “Is that the pizza guy?” Wolf’s mom called down the stairs.

  There was a pause. Wolf looked at the two of us, as if he expected us to answer, but we were speechless.

  “No, Mom,” he called up. “It’s just a friend.”

  It’s important to keep some things to yourself. If Jamie Juarez could have kept his superfluous nipple a secret, I’m sure he would have. It would have saved him a lot of grief. Same goes for Katherine McKinney’s habit of chewing on her toenails or Daniel P.’s unfortunate long-standing history of bed-wetting that earned him the name P-Diddly. That’s what happens when people find out.

  Dungeons & Dragons was like that. Forget that half the kids in school probably went around slaying dragons and stashing loot on their PlayStations or iPads. It’s different when you actually have to roll the dice. It’s all about degrees. Mention you like to play board games and you’re probably okay. Break out the Monster Manual and start talking about the difference between fifth-edition and fourth-edition rule sets, you might as well give up on ever getting a date to the eighth-grade dance.

  That’s why I was a little surprised to see Rose at the door.

  Deedee pulled Wolf aside and the three of us had a quick huddle by the table.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Deedee explained. “You’re all at level seven. If she comes in now she’ll throw everything off balance. She’ll muck it all up.”

  It was a good excuse. Much better than saying that Wolf had crossed the line, inviting someone else into our game without permission, someone who probably knew nothing about constitution checks and critical hits. Someone we’d have to teach everything to. Lunch was one thing. This was different.

  “I don’t want to ruin your game,” Rose said, eavesdropping. “If it’s a problem, I can just sit and watch.”

  Sit and watch? Who in their right mind wants to sit and watch three guys play Dungeons & Dragons?

  “It’s not a problem,” Wolf said, breaking the huddle prematurely. “We’ll just bump up your stats a little. You’ll be fine. Right, Deedee?”

  Wolf and Deedee stared at each other. It was up to the dungeon master. It was Wolf’s house, but it was Deedee’s game. Wolf got to decide if she stayed. Deedee decided if she played. I was just glad neither of them was looking at me.

  “She’ll need to make a character,” Deedee sighed.

  Meaning that there were four of us playing, just like always. But not exactly.

  We took our seats around Wolf’s scarred kitchen table, Rose between Wolf and me but closer to him, and Deedee patiently explained the absolute least she had to know to get started while I poured myself a cup of the soda. “You’ll need to choose an avatar,” Deedee told her. He had a whole trove of little plastic figures. He picked out the tallest—an orc war chief, hulking and muscular, holdi
ng a giant ax. “Maybe this one?” he said.

  Rose rifled through the box. “Who is this little guy?” she asked, holding up a short, pudgy-looking figure about half the size of the one Deedee held.

  “That’s a gnome,” Deedee said. “They are good at making things.”

  “Like origami,” Wolf added.

  “I’ll be him, then,” Rose said. “What’s his name?”

  “You get to decide,” I told her. “You get to make up everything. Name. Profession. Backstory. All of it. It’s the best part about it, really.” At least I thought so. Of course, maybe that was just the poet talking.

  “So you’re saying I can pretty much be anything I want?”

  “Within reason,” Wolf said.

  “And within the roll of the dice,” Deedee added.

  “In that case,” she said, setting the tiny plastic gnome in front of her, “my name is Moose.”

  We all looked at each other. You could hear the carbonation popping in our cups. I was no stranger to tense silences. I’d once witnessed my mother yelling at my father in the middle of a Walgreens loud enough for everyone waiting at the pharmacy to hear, including the guy waiting in the drive-thru. The quiet that followed that incident wasn’t quite this awkward.

  Rose shrugged off our stares. “What? You think I’m going to let some stupid little nickname get to me? Screw that. My name is Moose Wrathbringer and I’m a spell-casting ninja with a history of carrying out covert assassinations for top-secret guilds. Or something.”

  “You can’t do that,” Deedee said. “You can’t be a spell-casting ninja. For starters you’re a gnome, and the stat requirements, plus the rules for multiclassing, prohibit you to—”

  He suddenly stopped talking, his mouth cinched tight, eyes bulging. Rose had reached out and taken his hand, just grabbed it from across the table. By the look on his face you’d know that no girl had ever held Deedee’s hand before. I watched his Adam’s apple jump like he’d swallowed a grasshopper.