“Did you talk to Wolf last night?” I asked. “Find out how his first day at Saint Stuffy’s went?”
Rose nodded, taking a bite of her peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, prime mouth-roof-spackling material. “Yeah,” she said through a mash of PBB, “he said it was all right. They have uniforms, apparently. And three times as much homework. And everyone knows everyone else, so it’s pretty obvious when you come in right in the middle of things.”
Rose would know. She was no stranger to starting over. “Did he make any new friends?”
“It’s only been one day, Frost,” Rose said. “But yeah. He said he met some nice people.”
“That’s good,” I said. And I meant it, though I felt an ache. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly, though that was part of it, having to share. I guess I wasn’t sure I wanted Wolf to have a whole new set of friends yet. I didn’t want him to forget about us. But I understood. You find your people. I wondered what they would call him. Maybe he’d try to pull off Amadeus this time. Or maybe he would just be Morgan. With us he would always be Wolf.
Rose punched my shoulder. Apparently I’d been staring off into space.
“Earth to Snowman. Come in, Snowman. Look, I made you something.”
She handed over a fish folded from an old math quiz that she’d aced. She was incredibly smart, Rose Holland. A total nerd. Pure tapioca. And she ate deadly, tree-studded kamikaze hills for breakfast. She was frankly kind of awesome. And I was a little surprised she still bothered to hang out with us.
“What is it this time?” I asked, taking the paper fish from her. Knowing Rose, it could be anything.
She shrugged.
“That’s the best part,” she said, smiling.
“Hey, we’re still on for this weekend, right?” Deedee asked. “I mean, I’ve got all new maps and everything.”
“Absolutely,” Rose said. Then she pointed to his tray and asked if she could have the rest of his pudding.
There’d been a rebellion.
At least that’s how Deedee put it. Of course he was prone to exaggeration, but in this case we cut him some slack. He was the master, after all. He’d done all the prep work. We were just along for the ride.
“The goblins are revolting,” he said in a comically deep voice that wasn’t supposed to be funny at all. “They have risen up against their masters and are now planning a takeover of the entire kingdom, the world of men”—he looked across the table—“and women included.”
“¡Viva la revolución!” I said, refusing to pass up a chance to tease the dungeon master about his limited Spanish.
“Charlene doesn’t do goblins,” Rose protested, twisting her little cardboard gnome around and around. We were all sitting at my scratched-up dining room table. Rose looked a little scrunched in one corner but it didn’t seem to bother her. “She considers them beneath her.”
“Swords don’t discriminate,” Deedee told her.
“Mine does,” she said.
“I find that hard to believe,” Wolf said.
Rose looked at Wolf and smiled. She reached for the bowl of chips—sour cream and onion—but he snatched it away from her. “Not until you promise to play fair,” he said. “No making up random powers that you don’t have, and no bullying Deedee into letting you reroll your dice just because you feel like it.”
“You’re such a downer,” Rose teased. “Since when does Wolf Thompson play by the rules?”
“It’s the school uniform,” I said. “Wearing khaki all day makes you tame.”
“Lay off the khaki,” Wolf warned. “I happen to look very good in slacks and polos. Besides. On Fridays we get to wear jeans.”
“You rebel!” Rose snarked. We joked about Wolf’s new, posh private school, but truthfully he seemed happy there and the rest of us were just jealous that it had an open campus and we still had to eat lunch in our obnoxious and odiferous cafeteria.
“Are we going to get started or what?” Deedee was getting impatient.
I nodded and poured us all a round of red cream soda, which had become the only beverage served in taverns across the five realms. Our little table was crowded with all of Deedee’s maps and guides and his towers of dice and the chips and our cups. We’d started switching houses every week and it was my turn to host. Kind of a shame, because Rose had a gigantic basement with an expensive-looking poker table that was perfect for dragon slaying, plus a gargantuan TV and a fridge full of soda in the garage. I lobbied to move D&D night to her house permanently, but she said her parents would never go for it. Her mom wasn’t much of a people person and didn’t like loud noises, and even from all the way in the basement she could hear Deedee’s groans whenever we set one of his minions on fire.
Noise wasn’t an issue with my mother. That’s another thing that made her cool. There were a lot of things, actually. She was in the kitchen only one room away, watching the oven, determined not to burn the homemade chocolate-chip cookies, and singing Janis Joplin so loud I almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring.
“Did you order pizza?” Deedee asked, hopeful.
I shook my head and got out of my seat, the three of them following me to the door, probably because they thought I was lying. Outside the living room window you could see the first Branton snow starting to fall, a crystalline blanket the color and consistency of soft wool. I saw the car parked in our driveway, headlights on, still running. I recognized it instantly and my stomach lurched as I opened the door.
“Hey, Frost.” Bench stood there in his BMS jacket, a cap pulled down to his eyebrows. He had his hands tucked in his pockets. “Hey, guys.”
Deedee said “hi” back. Wolf and Rose waved. I glanced nervously behind me toward the dining room, to see if you could spot the table from the doorway with all the dice and figures spread across it. I wondered who told him we were getting together at my place tonight, but then I saw the look on Deedee’s face and it was obvious. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I know you guys are busy.” Bench scratched his head underneath the rim of his cap; he did that when he was nervous. “I actually just came by to tell you the last football game of the season is next week,” he continued. “We’re only four and six, and I know you’re not really all into it, but Coach says I’ll probably get to start this time. . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s great.”
I meant it. It really was great. Bench wasn’t going to be “Bench” anymore. I’d have to find something else to call him. At least during football season.
“Yeah. So, you know. It’d be kinda cool if you could come.”
He was looking at all of us. Not just me.
“Sure,” I said, though I wasn’t sure at all.
Bench focused on Wolf standing in the doorway behind me. “How’s the new school? Good?”
“Yeah. It’s good,” Wolf said. “Things are all right.”
Bench nodded. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he looked relieved, like that was really the reason he stopped by. To ask that question and get that answer. The rest was just an excuse. He glanced back at his car, where his dad was waiting for him. “Okay then. I guess I’ll see you all around.”
He was halfway down the sidewalk when Rose called out to him. “Bench, hold up.”
She stepped outside, ignoring the snow that slushed beneath her feet, seeping into her purple socks. You could see her cloudy breath and Bench’s meeting in the cold as they faced each other. “I don’t know what you’ve got going on,” she said, “but we haven’t started playing yet. And judging by the number of manuals Deedee brought, it’s going to be epic. . . . That is, if it’s all right with everyone else.” She turned and looked in the doorway.
Deedee and I both looked at Wolf. It was my house. Rose’s offer. Deedee’s game. But we let Wolf make the call. After everything that had happened, it only seemed right.
Wolf shoved his own hands in his pockets, the cold air already pinking up his freckled cheeks.
“I think
we can make room,” he said.
And for a moment I pictured it, all five of us, crammed around the table somehow. Laughing and teasing and carrying on, snorting red pop and begging my mother for more cookies.
But I’m a sucker for a good image. I knew Bench’s answer already, even before Rose asked.
“Thanks. Maybe next time.”
Bench smiled, then walked to the edge of the driveway, put his hand on the car door, and stopped. In the amber glow of our porch light he looked older to me. A high school kid already even though high school was still half a year and forever away.
“No matter what happens,” he said, “keep your head up. Keep your eyes forward. . . .”
“And don’t let go,” Rose finished.
Bench nodded and got into his car. His father waved as he pulled away.
The four of us stood in the doorway with Rose at the front of our pack and watched, and I realized that, from here on out, it would always be maybe next time. Maybe we’d all go see him in his last middle school football game. Maybe only some of us would. Maybe just one. Maybe there’d be summer days where we’d happen to meet up at Freedom Park and kick the ball around (his ball this time), or just sit in the grass and talk about nothing in particular—favorite bands, lame movies, the usual. But it would never be just like it was before. Two roads and so on. I couldn’t predict the future any more than Deedee’s dice could.
All I knew for sure was that it was cold outside. And the goblins were coming. And the villagers were counting on a backstabbing thief, a passionate bard, and a ninja warrior princess named Moose to come and save them, which we were going to do whether Charlene the Freakin’ Crazy Sharp Sword That Will Cut Your Head Off If You Make Fun of Her wanted to or not.
And we would easily polish off both bottles of soda and all the chocolate-chip cookies. Then we would squeeze onto the couch afterward with a bag of cheese turds and settle in for a couple more episodes of Dr. Who. Just enough room for the four of us, shoulder to shoulder, packed tighter than the trees on Hirohito Hill, telling each other that everything was going to be all right.
Without even saying a word.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO WRITE IF NOT FOR THE dedication and support of so many people. Much praise goes to Jordan Brown, editor extraordinaire, for his wisdom, sensitivity, and artistic hand-holding. His patience and insight guided me through all seven hundred and forty-two drafts. To Deb Kovacs at Walden for continuing to believe I’ve got the chops to do this, and to Danielle Smith for helping to convince the rest of the world of the same. To everyone at HarperCollins: Katie Fitch and Amy Ryan, who designed the darned thing; Renée Cafiero and Christina MacDonald, who are continuously cleaning up my frustrating prose; Viana Siniscalchi, who frankly deserves more candy; and Alana Whitman and Caroline Sun, who somehow find a way to market my nutso ideas. To Rafael Mayoni, whose cover illustration looks exactly as I imagined it when I first started writing this book. Thanks also to Kate Jackson and Donna Bray for keeping me on the shelves. And to Zoey Peresman, whose insights and (good) nudges were immensely helpful during the revision process.
To my agent, Adams Literary, who does all the boring work so I can just frolic on the playground of my imagination every day.
To my parents, Wes and Shiela, and my wife, Alithea, for their unending support. And to my own kids, Nick and Isabella: thank you for being kind, for standing up for what’s right, and for reminding me that everything I say matters.
One last thing.
Growing up, I was short for my age. Short and smart (but not that smart) and scrawny and often alone. This was the eighties. The Dark Ages. Back when “nerd” was still an insult, but that wasn’t the worst thing I was called. The verbal bullying was steady, but I also remember being tripped, slammed into lockers, having things flicked at me. Once some kid put me in a choke hold until I passed out in the middle school parking lot. And yet I know I had it easier than many kids today.
Every day tens of thousands of kids stay home from school for fear of being bullied, but even that’s no escape. The teasing follows them on social media, in texts and in emails, in whispers that get back to them, because words are ghosts. You don’t have to go far to hear the kind of rhetoric that makes you wonder if the lessons we learn as kids ever stick with us as adults. Lessons about compassion and empathy, acceptance, and awareness. They aren’t that difficult to teach—provided we grown-ups make an effort to model them and think about what we say before we say it.
And to any young readers out there who might see a part of themselves somewhere in this book, who feel like sometimes the Gauntlet can’t be beat, just remember:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN DAVID ANDERSON is the author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Sidekicked, Minion, and The Dungeoneers. A dedicated root beer connoisseur and chocolate fiend, he lives with his wife, two kids, and perpetually whiny cat in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can visit him online at www.johndavidanderson.org.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY JOHN DAVID ANDERSON
Ms. Bixby’s Last Day
The Dungeoneers
Minion
Sidekicked
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Rafael Mayani
Cover design by Katie Fitch
COPYRIGHT
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POSTED. Copyright © 2017 by John David Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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