“You all love this place so much?” asked Linton.
The crowd roared their approval.
“Then put your money where your mouth is!” The corners of Linton’s mouth curled into a dollar-sign-esque sneer. He looked like he was ready to make an arrangement.
One that definitely would be skewed in his favor.
“Here’s the deal, Slamdown Town. I got one week to keep the arena operating before the investors walk. If it were just on me, I’d keep scamming you suckers—er—fans for the rest of my esteemed life.”
Linton looked around, his demeanor serious. “In order to keep Slamdown Town open, we need butts in every seat. And I mean every seat. Those are the very clear and highly unreasonable, if you ask me, terms I’ve been given. If every seat in this arena is filled by the end of next week’s championship match, then you win. And also, I win, because more butts equals more money. So . . . everybody wins! But we all know that ain’t happening. This arena hasn’t been filled to capacity in years. Why would it happen now?”
No one, not even Screech, had a response for that. Ollie knew Linton had set the bar high. Too high. And yet, Slamdown Town’s very survival depended on meeting that bar.
“Well? What do you all say? You want to fight my battles for me? I mean, are we in this together as a team and symbolic—emphasis on ‘symbolic’—family?”
The people in the arena roared louder than they ever had, as if their life depended on it.
Linton grinned. “Well, that’s settled. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have perfectly legitimate offshore bank accounts to look over in my office.”
Linton waved off the crowd and walked away. Ollie couldn’t believe that Linton would so easily dangle the future of Slamdown Town like that. If the arena were in his hands, he would never let it close.
He sat there, alone.
In one afternoon, he had earned his shot against Werewrestler. He had also let his best friend down. His older brother still seemingly hated his guts no matter what he did. He’d discovered that his favorite place in the entire world was going to close.
And apart from the impossible task of somehow filling every seat in the arena, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
CHAPTER 35
Ollie figured that the fact Slamdown Town was going to close next Saturday would have been enough to make Tamiko speak with him again.
But he quickly discovered he was wrong.
He had reached out to Tamiko multiple times since the announcement. She never responded. So that Monday, he resolved to talk to her directly. She couldn’t ignore him if he was standing right in front of her. Sure, she might be mad at him. But the arena was closing.
She had to realize that nothing was bigger than that.
He looked for her on the morning bus ride to school. She sat all the way in the back. Her face was fixed firmly on her phone.
She didn’t even look at him when he approached.
“Can I sit here?” he asked.
She shrugged. Ollie took that for a yes. He sat down next to her.
Her tapping seemed to have more force behind it than usual.
“So, I guess you were busy this weekend?”
The faint sound of in-game battle music was the only answer he got.
“Yeah, that’s okay. I figured you were. Since you didn’t respond to me and stuff.”
“Do you want something, Ollie?” she asked in an annoyed tone. She continued to stare at her phone rather than face him. “I’m a little busy digging for treasure.”
“Yes, I want something. Slamdown Town is going to close. We’ve gotta do something about it,” he answered. A bit sharper than he’d intended.
But that finally got her attention. Tamiko smashed the Pause button on her game and turned to face him. He had seen her look like this in the past, but she had never looked at him this way before. It was the way she looked at Hollis when he walked into a room.
Annoyed.
“What can we do about it?” snapped Tamiko.
“Well, I was thinking that maybe Big Chew could—”
She cut him off.
“See? Right there. You’re back to Big Chew again.”
The other students turned around to stare at the two friends as they argued. He could feel their eyes on them. He hated the feeling of being the center of attention.
But he hated the way Tamiko was acting even more.
He lowered his voice. “Seriously. Unless you have a better idea that you haven’t told me about, you have to know that Big Chew is our best shot at saving the arena, right?”
“What good is saving the arena if I won’t have a friend to watch wrestling with?” said Tamiko.
His cheeks burned with a mix of guilt and anger. “Look, I said sorry. Like, a thousand times. What more do you want?”
“I want my friend back.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere!”
“Oh, yeah? Show me what’s in your pocket.”
Ollie paused. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the bubble gum.
“As long as you still have that, you’ll never really be back.”
She returned her attention to her phone. Ollie couldn’t believe she would just sit there and do nothing while the fate of wrestling hung in the balance.
“Fine,” he retorted. “I’ll do it myself.”
He stormed off to find another seat.
He and Tamiko didn’t say another word to each other that whole day. He was furious. And disappointed. And a mishmash of uncomfortable feelings that made him feel slightly sick to his stomach. She was supposed to be his manager. She was supposed to be his friend.
If she won’t save wrestling, then I will, thought Ollie.
After all, he had beaten Gorgeous Gordon Gussett. And Silvertongue. And Barbell Bill. Compared to all that, saving Slamdown Town would be a piece of cake.
Only, it wasn’t. Ollie could not think of a single plan or idea or crazy scheme that might prevent the arena from shutting down. The day dragged on with no solutions.
How was he supposed to single-handedly fill every seat in the arena?
Later that evening at the dinner table, Ollie pushed his food around his plate. Even Hollis, who usually had two helpings (he was a growing boy, after all), didn’t eat much.
“Ollie, why aren’t you eating?” asked his mom. “Beets are good for digestion. And you know the rules. You gotta finish all your vegetables.”
“I’m just tired,” he lied.
Instead of focusing on the nutritional value of beets, Ollie’s attention focused solely on a drawing he was making. The words Save Slamdown Town were written on top of the page. Underneath, the beginnings of a sketch took shape. A half-finished Big Chew stood in front of the Slamdown Town Arena entrance. But Ollie felt that Big Chew was out of place. Something wasn’t right.
He started to erase Big Chew. Before he could finish, an overwhelming feeling of helplessness washed over him. The drawing wasn’t good enough to save Slamdown Town. And in that moment, he felt like the drawing would never be good enough. Why would any drawing ever be? Plus, he’d never be able to put up enough posters completely on his own anyway. So instead of adding anything, Ollie tossed the pencil down.
He went back to pushing beets around his plate.
His mom looked at her two moping boys with a raised brow. “Such serious faces. You know we’re all going to be okay, right? No matter what happens with the arena.”
“Yeah, right,” muttered Hollis. Ollie knew Hollis had taken the news hard when his brother hadn’t even bothered to catch him in a headlock since the announcement. In fact, Hollis had barely said two words to Ollie since Saturday. Ollie was grateful; he was in no mood to deal with his brother’s bullying on top of everything else going on.
“Now, come on, none of that,” started his mom.
“But what are we gonna do without Slamdown Town? Wrestling is my whole reason for existence,” moaned Hollis.
If only his eighth-grade
friends could hear him now, thought Ollie.
“You both are far more than just wrestling,” said their mom as she shook her head. “I know how many good memories we all have there. But when it closes—”
“If it closes,” interjected Ollie.
A weak smile spread over his mom’s face. “Right. If it closes, we’ll still have each other. Wrestling’s been a big part of this family, but if it goes away, we’ll still have our family.”
Will we? thought Ollie as he glanced over at Hollis. Without wrestling, he and Hollis would have nothing in common anymore.
“But what about your job?” asked Ollie.
He thought he saw a shimmer of doubt spread over his mom’s face, if only for a second. But if so, she was quick to hide it.
“I’ll just take on more clients,” she said without any doubt. “I’ve been meaning to save this town from the evils of nonregulation daily exercise. Everything will work out.” She paused. “Get it? ‘Work out.’ That’s a little personal-trainer humor to lighten the mood.”
Ollie laughed a little, mostly to make his mom feel better, and pushed his plate away. Beet juice splashed all over his drawing. But he didn’t even bother cleaning it up.
“Can I be excused, please?” asked Ollie.
He didn’t want to listen to how life would be after Slamdown Town closed. Not when he was too busy trying to brainstorm ways to save it—and failing, it seemed.
His mom’s face scrunched up with concern, but she nodded. Ollie scooped up his plate and the beet-stained drawing. He placed the plate in the sink. Then, without a second thought, he crumpled up the drawing and tossed it right into the trash.
He trudged upstairs, closed the door, and flopped down onto his bed.
Taking the championship belt back from Werewrestler was supposed to be the goal. And he’d just scored the match.
But now he needed to somehow stop an unbeaten champion and fill every seat in the arena. Problem was, he was just a kid. A kid with magic gum in his back pocket.
He heard a knock. The door swung open, and his mom poked her head in.
“Requesting permission to enter the ring—er—room?” she asked.
He shrugged and she stepped inside. She closed the door and took a seat next to him. Normally, she would have commented about how his bed was unmade, or how he’d left his dirty clothes strewn about the room, or the hundred other household rules he’d broken.
But instead, she overlooked the infractions and sat in silence.
“So I know that when I’m overwhelmed, I like to talk it out to make sure I have everything in order,” said his mom after a moment. “That and a vigorous cardio session work wonders for the stress and the glutes.”
“Why won’t Tamiko help me? I already apologized. What more does she want from me?” he blurted out. He hadn’t meant to ask, but the question had been boiling inside him since their fight.
“Oh, you’re fighting with Tamiko?” his mom asked in surprise. “I thought you two were the unbreakable tag team. You both have practically been inseparable since the day you met.”
They had been. But then again, so had Ollie and Hollis. And that hadn’t turned out well. Were he and Tamiko doomed to the same fate?
“I don’t know what else to do,” admitted Ollie.
“Well, what is Tamiko saying about everything?”
“She keeps saying I’m not there for her or something.”
“Time out,” interrupted his mom as she reflexively made a time-out symbol with her hands. “Have you been there for her, Ollie?”
He sat up. “Of course. I’ve always been there for her.”
His mom arched her brow. The way she was looking at him made Ollie feel like she could see right through him. And even as he had said it, Ollie knew that ever since he’d become Big Chew, he’d been there less and less for Tamiko.
Ollie sighed. “But, okay . . . Let’s say there was this other me. Not me, of course. But, like, an older, bigger me with crazy long hair.”
His mom laughed. “All right. Let’s say there is this other you. Who definitely is not you,” she clarified with a smile. “What has this other, long-haired you got going on?”
“Let’s say that this other me also has an awesome best friend. But this me, the tall, big one, he’s got this really cool shot at making his dream come true. Because he’s so big and strong, he can make it happen. And his awesome best friend is totally helping, too. But then everything gets really complicated and being that guy, that cool, awesome, strong guy who could win it all, seems to be the problem. What should he do?”
Ollie bit his lip. He knew his mom could help steer him in the right direction.
“Seems to me like this other you is missing the point,” said his mom after a moment.
“He is?”
His mom nodded. “This other you, the one you keep saying is the big, strong one. You really like that other you, don’t you?”
“I really do! Or would, I mean,” he added hurriedly.
“I bet you look at that other you and you think that having all those imaginary muscles makes him strong.”
“Super strong. Like you,” shouted Ollie.
His mom flexed her arms. “I’ll admit, that’s pretty strong. This other you doesn’t skip leg day. Or arm day. Or any other day, if he’s the same as me. But this other you isn’t the strong one, Ollie.” She pointed at his chest. “You are.”
Ollie rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mom. You know I can’t even beat Hollis anymore.”
“Who said strength is all about muscles? Did muscles help save Barbell Bill on Saturday?” asked his mom.
Ollie hadn’t considered that. “No, I guess not.”
“Silvertongue is able to go toe-to-toe in the ring with wrestlers twice her size. Do you think she’s weak?”
“Not one bit.” Ollie knew firsthand that Silvertongue was anything but weak.
“And it only took one dirty hit to stop me, the Brash Banshee, from holding on to the belt. My muscles didn’t save me then, did they?”
Ollie chewed on that. Maybe he was putting too much faith in Big Chew’s colossal body to win out.
“This other you may appear to be stronger, but that’s only on the outside. The Ollie I know is strong in lots of ways. You’re passionate and dedicated and admittedly not great at cleaning your room or doing your homework,” she observed. But her eyes held no hard edge when he looked up at her. “But most of all, you, Ollie Evander, are loyal. You’ve always been part of a tag team. Sure, you’ve changed up who with—”
“That was Hollis’s decision, not mine,” insisted Ollie.
“Trust me, I know,” said his mom. “And that’s what I’m saying. You always stick to one rule: Be a good friend. So why would you start breaking that rule now? I don’t think any dream is worth that.”
When she put it like that, Ollie found it hard to disagree.
His mom scooted up closer to Ollie on the bed. “You know, when I stopped being the Brash Banshee for good, all everybody kept telling me was how I had been robbed from winning the belt.”
“But you were,” pointed out Ollie.
She nodded. “I sure was. An illegal targeting of the funny bone with a portable seating device is well outside the guidelines. But turns out, it may have been the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“But why?” Ollie asked, shocked. He shook his head. The thought that Werewrestler cheating to steal the championship belt was the best thing that ever happened to his mom threatened to make his mind into mush.
“Losing that match meant I could be true to who I was. Who I really was,” she answered. “Beneath the Brash Banshee, I was me. Not the other way around.”
He considered that. And realized he had broken that rule with Tamiko. A lot.
“And you know what? I found I kinda liked being a ref. In fact, I loved it! The Brash Banshee wasn’t really me.” She nudged Ollie playfully. “I’m more of a rule-keeper than a rule-breaker. If you hadn’t notic
ed.”
He giggled. They sat for a moment in silence.
“I just want to save the arena. But I don’t know how,” he admitted.
His mom pulled him into a big hug.
“I know, Ollie. I know,” she said. “But don’t think you have to somehow do that alone. Because, honestly, you never have done it alone, and that’s where your strength comes from.”
For one moment, Ollie allowed himself to be just an eleven-year-old kid getting a hug from his mom—a kid who didn’t have to worry about wrestling for a title belt or getting butts in seats in order to save an arena. Or repairing his friendship with his best friend.
He hugged his mom back. Then he felt much better.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said. He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I don’t know how I’m going fix all this. But I’m going to.”
“Good,” she answered with a smile. “And I know you’re going to work just as hard at saving the arena as cleaning your room back to acceptable health-code standards.”
CHAPTER 36
Later that night, Ollie paced his room. His confidence had returned after talking with his mom, but even with that renewed passion, he was no closer to figuring out how to save Slamdown Town.
A knock at the door drew his attention. The voice that shouted from the other side of the door stopped him in his tracks.
“Yo, Ollie. Open up,” demanded Hollis.
Ollie considered leaving the door closed. Didn’t Hollis know that this was no time for messing around? Slamdown Town hung in the balance!
But Ollie knew that Hollis could overpower him if he were left out there. So Ollie dragged himself over to the door.
As slowly as possible, he opened the door. His brother slouched on the other side. Hollis looked like he would rather be anywhere else. His arms were folded tightly across his chest as he refused to even look at Ollie. So why in the world was he here then?
“What do you want, Hollis?” Whatever his brother had in store, Ollie figured it was best to get it over with quickly so he could go back to saving the arena.
Slamdown Town Page 18