The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco

by Janice Repka

  Uncle Felix’s lips rested so little, Phillip wondered if he talked in his sleep.

  “Huh?” Phillip asked.

  “I know you’re probably nervous about starting school this morning. But let your wise old uncle set your mind at ease.” He cocked his finger and pointed it at Phillip like a water pistol. “You’re going to have a great first day.”

  Phillip sighed. “I hope so.”

  “I know so,” said Uncle Felix. “I remember my first day of fifth grade like it was yesterday. One of the best days of my life.”

  “You mean sixth grade,” said Phillip.

  “No. I mean fifth grade. My first day of sixth grade was a complete disaster.”

  “But I’m going into sixth grade,” said Phillip.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Uncle Felix. “I forgot.” He passed Phillip the box of cereal. “Better eat. Don’t want your stomach grumbling all morning.”

  Phillip sprinkled cereal into his bowl while Uncle Felix recited the list of vitamins and minerals the box promised in every serving. The tiny, hard balls pounded against the ceramic with clinking sounds. He poured in milk and watched the balls floating. Phillip always lost his appetite when he was worried about something. But he didn’t want to make stomach noises.

  “Go on,” said Uncle Felix, “fill ’er up.”

  Phillip forced the spoon into his mouth and chewed. The cereal was too sweet, and the milk tasted like it was about to go bad.

  “Haven’t thought of my first day of sixth grade in a long time,” said Uncle Felix. “Everything that could go wrong did. First, I wore the wrong clothes. Completely out of style.”

  Phillip looked at his blue jeans and plain gray T-shirt. Was he dressed okay? His ears felt warmer, like they always did when he got nervous or upset.

  “Then, I lost my lunch money and had to borrow from the office.”

  Phillip thought about a hole he had in the pocket of his jeans. Which side had he put his money into? He took a paper napkin from a holder on the table and wiped his sweaty forehead.

  “Then, when I got to science class, there was this horrible smell, and I threw up all over the science teacher.”

  Phillip dropped his spoon. It whopped into his bowl, sending milk splattering. His ears were so hot they felt sunburned.

  “I have to go,” Phillip said, darting from his chair. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “Good idea,” said Uncle Felix. “You’ll get detention if you’re late.”

  Phillip rushed to the front door.

  “If you ever need to talk about your worries again…” Uncle Felix called after him. Phillip was out the door before he could hear anything more.

  As soon as he got down the hill, he felt better. The walk to school gave him a chance to cool down. Aunt Veola had written him directions to Hardingtown Middle School and he found it with ease. But once he was close up, the three-story brick building seemed huge and intimidating.

  The inside was even worse. It was a maze of halls and classrooms. The “map” the office woman gave him did not show the floor plan. It only listed subjects and numbers. Phillip wondered what the numbers meant.

  A bell rang and children hurried into classrooms. Then it was quiet. Phillip crept down the hall peering into each window. The rooms were large. So were the students. Everything seemed huge, except him.

  “Hey, you,” a deep voice boomed.

  Phillip swung around so quickly he practically knocked the voice over. It belonged to a lanky girl with shoulder-length black hair. She was wearing khaki pants and a red T-shirt with a big checkmark at the top. A faded blue sash hung from her left shoulder to her right hip.

  “Get to class,” she said.

  Phillip froze. The girl took a step closer.

  “I said, get to class.”

  Phillip looked at the classroom to his left and the one to his right. Either one had to be better than staying in the hall.

  “Give me your schedule,” the girl snapped.

  “My what?” Phillip asked.

  “Your schedule,” she repeated. “Your class schedule.”

  “You mean my map?” he asked, holding the paper up. The girl snatched it.

  “First Period, English,” she read. “Room 209. It’s over there.”

  “Thank you, Hall,” Phillip said.

  “What did you call me?” she asked. Phillip looked at the name patch sewn on her blue sash. The end of it was curled inward so that he could not read the entire thing.

  “Hall,” he said.

  “Are you trying to be a wise guy?”

  “No. Your name tag says Hall. Isn’t that your name?” The girl glanced down at her sash and swept the drooping patch back.

  Hall Monitor.

  “My name,” she said, “is B.B. Tyson. And, for your information, nobody makes fun of B.B. Tyson.” She held the schedule out and let it drop to the floor. “Get to class.” B.B. turned and stomped off.

  Phillip scooped up the paper and raced to room 209. Once he got settled in his seat, his breathing returned to normal. He noticed the kids raised their hands before speaking. They also handed one another papers rolled into triangles. Mr. Morton, a thin-haired man with a long beard, was talking and holding up books they would be required to read.

  He took a piece of squeaky chalk and wrote on the board: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Groans were heard, although Phillip, who had already read the novel, was pleased. When his mom tutored him, he read one piece of classical literature each week. Reading was his favorite subject.

  By the end of class, the churning in Phillip’s stomach was gone. The kid behind him told Phillip how to find his next classroom. The class after that, he found on his own.

  At lunch, someone asked what school he went to before. Phillip didn’t want the kids to know about his circus past, so he only said he had a tutor. A group of kids in polo shirts let him sit with them. They talked about preparatory academies. They asked him what it was like to have a private tutor. He said it was lonely, especially since he had no brothers or sisters. After that, Phillip mostly ate his watery spaghetti, nodded, and smiled.

  In geography, Phillip raised his hand when a teacher asked where was Walla Walla. He knew the answer was the state of Washington because the Windy Van Hooten Circus had been there. But the teacher had called on the girl sitting in front of him.

  Phillip checked his schedule. His last class was gym. What was gym? There was no classroom number listed. Phillip turned down a new hallway. He saw double doors. The glass in the doors was covered in wire netting. Above the doors it said GYMNASIUM. Phillip looked inside. It was like a circus arena without the tent. In the center was a performing area. Basketball hoops hung from the sides. A knotted rope spilled down from the ceiling in the corner. Boys and girls sat on the bleachers that lined the walls. Phillip went in and sat with them.

  A man wearing a black baseball cap was in front of the crowd. He had a dimpled chin and a silver whistle that hung from a string around his neck. When he blew the whistle to quiet the crowd, Phillip half expected to see clowns ride unicycles onto the floor. The man introduced himself as the coach and told them they would have gym class every Monday. He talked about gym clothes and teamwork and pushing hard. He had a clipboard. Each time he said something, he would raise his clipboard and make a mark. After he was done, he asked if there were questions. Phillip thought about asking why the gym smelled like dirty socks when everyone had their shoes on but decided against it.

  Coach looked at his watch.

  “We still have fifteen minutes. Let’s play a little dodgeball,” he said. “Count off.”

  Phillip heard the kids around him. “One.” “Two.” “One.” “Two,” they said. When the kid next to him said, “One,” Phillip said, “Two.”

  “Ones on the left. Twos on the right,” said Coach. The group split in half, and the kids went to opposite sides of the gym. Coach placed three balls along a line in the middle of the gym. The stiff, inflatable ba
lls were made of the kind of hard, grooved rubber that looked like it could remove skin at high speeds.

  Coach blew his whistle.

  Kids from both sides ran to grab the balls. One kid tumbled head over heels as another beat him to a ball. The kid who got the ball cocked his tongue and threw the ball over the line at the other team. To Phillip, the players looked like clowns chasing one another around the circus ring, throwing custard pies.

  A kid jumped with both feet as a ball whizzed past ankle-high. His teammate grabbed the ball and sent it zooming back. A petite girl with a ponytail took it in the side and splattered onto the floor.

  “You’re out,” Coach yelled. The girl crawled to the bleachers. The boy who threw the ball chuckled.

  It reminded Phillip of the time his dad had given him the unicycle. As soon as he managed to balance himself, the clowns began chasing him, throwing pies. He hid from them on the trapeze platform for hours, until Bartholomew the Giant finally came and helped him down. Phillip still had nightmares about clowns throwing pies, trying to land one on his kisser. Nothing frightened him more than the thought of lemon meringue stuck in his nostrils. Until now.

  Each time a kid got hit, Coach yelled, “Out!” and pointed. The kid who got hit would have to sit on the bleachers. Phillip could practically see the whipped cream streaming down their humiliated faces. He could hardly believe that kids with balls were purposely aiming at ones without them.

  Whap! A boy standing near the line got it in the gut.

  Whack! A girl who had turned to run got it in the back.

  A ball zipped so close to Phillip, he could hear the air scream. The girl next to him twisted to avoid a low ball. She slipped, and the ball hit her as she lay on the ground. A circular red spot formed on her exposed back thigh before she staggered away.

  Phillip had lost three-quarters of his team. Fewer kids meant more balls thrown his way. He caught a glimpse of the clock. Maybe he could survive until the bell. He backed himself into the far corner.

  “Get the new kid,” a familiar voice yelled. It was B.B. Tyson, the hall monitor. She lobbed a screamer right at him. It barely missed. There was no place to go. Phillip’s head brushed against the rope hanging from the ceiling. He jumped for the rope, grabbed the end, and began yanking himself up as fast as he could. B.B. unleashed another screamer at him.

  “Get him!” she hollered. A ball zoomed by as he climbed. The rope swung, making him harder to hit. Closer to the ceiling, the balls dropped short of him. He was safe.

  “Hey, Tarzan,” yelled B.B. She tossed her ball and beat her chest.

  “AhhhAhhAhhhaaaa!” she roared.

  “It’s George of the Jungle,” another kid shouted.

  Phillip surveyed the herd of sixth-graders. Most of the kids who weren’t making fun of him were bent over with laughter.

  Coach blew his whistle.

  “That’s enough,” he said. As if on cue, the bell rang, and the pack of howling children raced out of the gym.

  They were all gone.

  Phillip breathed a sigh of relief. Until he realized he was still twenty feet in the air and, like a cat stuck in a tree, afraid to climb down.

  Bartholomew the Giant was three feet, eight inches tall. If he had called himself Bartholomew the Midget, people would have expected less of him. A short midget was nothing special, he used to explain, but a miniature giant was unique.

  Phillip felt anything but special in the line at the Hardingtown County Courthouse. He was in the security area of the lobby. Aunt Veola had said to meet at the courthouse after school, but he had forgotten to ask her where. Would he be able to find her?

  In front of him was a row of dark suits shuffling toward a metal detector. The guard stopped a man with a buzzing belt buckle.

  “You can hide a pocketknife behind a belt buckle,” Phillip heard the guard explain in a serious voice as the man was made to remove it. The beltless man went through the detector. Did Phillip have anything metal on? He wasn’t sure.

  A female construction worker in steel-toed boots was next to make the thing sing. The guard tapped on her shoes and heard the ping of the steel-toed tips. “You can hide a bullet in a boot,” the guard said solemnly as the woman was made to strip to her socks.

  Phillip stayed close to the man in front of him. The man removed his pocket change and keys. He placed them in a plastic box on a table. They entered the detector together. It went off. The man hopped out, leaving Phillip standing there.

  “Hello, Phillip,” the guard said. “How was your day at school?”

  “Aunt Veola?” asked Phillip, surprised to see her in a courthouse guard uniform. She wore a crisp white shirt with a shoulder patch that said HARDINGTOWN COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. Her black leather security belt held a walkie-talkie, a key chain, a leather pouch, a nightstick, and a half dozen other scary-looking things.

  “You, over here,” Aunt Veola said gravely to the man in front of Phillip. She swept a handheld device over him.

  “You can hide a razor blade behind your calf,” she explained in earnest.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the man said, stepping aside.

  “And you,” she said to Phillip. “You need to go around the metal detector. Not through it.”

  “Okay,” Phillip said, backing out and going around.

  “Those darn things are loaded with radiation poisoning,” she confided. “Every time you pass through, you lose brain cells. Understand?”

  “I guess,” Phillip said. He knew from his science studies that it probably wasn’t true, but he wanted to be polite.

  “Do you want your fingers to turn black?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Do you want your toes to fall off?”

  “No,” he answered again.

  “Go on, then,” she said. “Up to the snack bar, and wait for me there.”

  She held out a crisp dollar bill. Phillip took the money and looked down the hallway for the snack-bar sign.

  “Next one through,” he heard Aunt Veola say. A man in a blue suit stood still as a statue, staring at the ominous frame of the metal detector. “Let’s go,” she said impatiently. “What are you afraid of?”

  Phillip headed to the snack bar for his after-school snack. It was a dingy little place with a dozen tables balanced on uneven legs and a long counter, which a young woman was wiping with a rag. Hanging behind her was a menu with prices.

  For one dollar, Phillip could get a small bowl of soup, a grilled-cheese sandwich, or something called “the Dodgeballburger.” The woman at the counter explained to Phillip that the Dodgeballburger was a meatball with tomato sauce on a hamburger roll. Phillip chose a can of root beer from the cooler and a bag of chips.

  The man behind the cash register was broad-shouldered. His skin was as close to pitch-black as Phillip had ever seen. He had thick muscles bulging out of his shirt and slightly graying hair. He wore cool sunglasses—the kind that have mirrors for lenses, so when you look at him you’re looking back at yourself. There was a tag pinned to his shirt that said MY NAME IS SAM, but after his Hall Monitor mistake, Phillip wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions.

  “Hello,” the man said. “What do you have there?”

  “A bag of chips,” said Phillip. The man hit a key on the cash register.

  “Fifty cents,” the cash register said. Phillip smiled. He had never heard a talking cash register.

  “What else do you have?”

  “A can of root beer,” said Phillip. The man hit another key.

  “Fifty cents,” the cash register said.

  “Is that it?” the man asked.

  “That’s all,” said Phillip.

  “Your total is one dollar,” the cash register said. The man held out his hand, and Phillip placed the dollar bill in it. The man hit another key, and the drawer to the cash register opened.

  “You have zero change,” the cash register said.

  “That is so cool,” said Phillip.

  “Have a
nice day,” the man replied. Phillip looked around at the tables.

  “Is there any ketchup?”

  “What for?”

  “My potato chips.”

  “I’ll bring a bottle out.”

  Phillip made himself comfortable at a table near a window. The chair made a squeak each time he leaned forward to sip his root beer.

  “You know,” said the cashier, who was suddenly standing next to him holding a ketchup bottle, “you’re only the second person I’ve ever met who dips potato chips in ketchup. You wouldn’t happen to be related to Veola, would you?”

  “She’s my aunt,” said Phillip.

  “So you’re Veola’s nephew. She told me you were coming to live with her. My name is Sam.” He held out his hand. Phillip shook it, like Aunt Veola had shaken his.

  “I’m Phillip.”

  “You seem kind of down in the dumps, Phillip.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Your tone of voice.”

  “I had a rough day,” Phillip admitted.

  “Sounds like the new-kid blues. It’s hard to get used to a strange new place,” said Sam. “Especially Hardingtown.”

  “Does everybody in Hardingtown play dodgeball?” Phillip asked.

  “They don’t call it the tuna-fish capital of the world,” said Sam. He went back to his cash register and rang up a smiling woman’s order. He chatted with the customers as he worked, and they returned his friendliness. He seemed like the kind of guy you could talk to. When Sam was done, he came back to Phillip’s table, the smell of Dodgeballburgers still clinging to his shirt.

  “Can I ask you a question, Sam?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When you were a kid, did you ever feel like you were…” Phillip searched for the right words. “…like you were different?”