The World's Greatest Underachiever Is the Ping-Pong Wizard

by Henry Winkler

  “Late again, I see,” Head Teacher Love said.

  “Oh no, sir, not late. I was at the dentist’s.” I tried to slide out the door so I could get to break. Head Teacher Love is not known for his short conversations.

  “Ah, oral hygiene. One of my favourite topics.”

  Please don’t say any more, Mr Love. I’m begging you.

  “Like I always say, good oral hygiene is what makes a man a man and a tooth a tooth,” he said. I could tell he was gearing up to repeat himself, like he always does.

  This time he surprised me, though. He didn’t repeat himself.

  “Is that a Ping-Pong bat you’re holding?” he asked.

  Before I even got a chance to say yes, he cleared his throat and went on. “I don’t mean to brag, but I am proud of the fact that I earned a merit badge for table tennis at Boy Scout Camp in Minnesota.”

  My foot was tapping. It felt like there was a train engine in it.

  “Sir, I am really fascinated by your summer in Minnesota, and I can’t wait to hear more about it. But it’s just that, right now, I’ve got to—”

  “Of course you’ve got to get to class. Education comes first at PS 87. Like I always say, education comes first at PS 87.” Bingo, there it was. The repeat!

  As I slipped out of the office and scooted down the hall, I could hear him talking to Mrs Crock.

  “Have I ever told you about my superior skill with a Ping-Pong bat?” I heard him ask.

  “Many times, Mr Love,” I heard her say with a sigh.

  I ran out of the double doors into the September sun that was heating up the playground, looking around for Frankie and Ashley. They were waiting in line for a turn on the handball court.

  “Hey, Zip,” Frankie said. “How’d it go with Dr C.? Did he do that close breathing thing again?”

  “Yeah, but this time I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could. Listen, Frankie, did you know that Dr Crumbworthy is a Ping-Pong player?”

  I’ll be honest. I was fishing around to see what his reaction would be when I mentioned the game. Obviously, he didn’t think much of it.

  “No kidding, dude. Did you know that my aunt Eleanor is a five-time shuffleboard champion? Maybe we should fix them up.”

  Frankie, one. Ping-Pong, zero.

  “I’m serious, Frankie. He plays with the Ping-Pong champion of Jamaica.”

  “No way!” Frankie laughed. “Jamaica has a Ping-Pong champion?”

  Frankie, two. Ping-Pong, still zero.

  “Nerd alert! Did somebody just say Ping-Pong? I wouldn’t play that game if you paid me.”

  It was McKelty, who had just finished his turn at handball.

  “Where did you come from, and who asked your opinion anyway?” Ashley said. She loves to speak her mind to McKelty.

  “No one has to ask me,” McKelty said. “It’s my opinion that Ping-Pong is for subhumans.”

  “Then you’re probably great at it,” Ashley said. Frankie cracked up.

  Ashweena, one. McKelty, zero.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” McKelty said. That’s the thing about McKelty. He gets jokes about a year after they’re said.

  “Ping-Pong doesn’t get much respect here,” Ashley said, “but my relatives back in China are really good at it.”

  “This is New York City, not China,” McKelty said. “China is all the way just past England.”

  “McKelty, don’t you know anything?” Ashley said.

  “I know one thing. The only people I’ve ever heard of who play Ping-Pong are senior citizens. And I don’t mean just grandparent-old. I mean old-old.”

  I decided then and there that McKelty would never find out that I played Ping-Pong. Thank goodness I had stashed my bat in my rucksack before I’d come out to the playground.

  “In fact, did you know that Dr Crumbworthy is a Ping-Pong nut? But when you have nine fingers, that’s all you can play,” McKelty continued.

  “I don’t think it’s nice to make fun of someone because he has a disability,” Ashley said. “I think it’s cool that he’s learned to handle all those sharp instruments when he’s missing a fingertip.”

  “Don’t remind me. I have to see him this afternoon after school,” McKelty said. “Got to keep the old chompers in shape.”

  How a guy can think that his chompers are in shape when they point in every direction on a compass is amazing to me.

  “Hey, Hank,” a little voice called from behind us. We all turned round to see Sam Chin, all three feet of him, running towards me holding his Ping-Pong bat.

  I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen him. I certainly didn’t want to tell McKelty that I was into Ping-Pong, and Frankie’s cool reaction to the topic was holding me back from telling him and Ashley, too. That was crazy, though. Everyone knows you can’t ignore a kindergartner who’s trying to get your attention.

  “You want to practise playing Ping-Pong with me against the wall?”

  McKelty grinned at me, showing his snaggly tan teeth. “You play Ping-Pong, Zip Butt?”

  “No way,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do, Hank,” Sam chimed in. “Remember last night!”

  “What’s the little dude talking about?” Frankie asked, giving me a funny look.

  “Hey, Sam, I just happen to have a fresh, chocolate Ding Dong that I traded a granola bar for,” I said. “It’s got your name written all over it.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah, come with me. I’ll show you.”

  I grabbed Sam’s hand and nearly pulled him right out of his shirt. I couldn’t get him away from that group fast enough. My heart was pounding. The last thing I wanted was for McKelty to discover my secret life as a Ping-Pong wizard. I’d hear about that for the rest of my life, and then some.

  “You’ve got to promise me, Sam, to never say that we play Ping-Pong together,” I whispered to him as I handed over the Ding Dong.

  “Why? Didn’t you have fun?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?”

  “You don’t like it when people make fun of you, right? And neither do I. Some kids are going to tease me if they find out I play Ping-Pong.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Well, that’s the way life is in the fifth grade.”

  “Then I think I’ll stay in kindergarten. Want to stay in kindergarten with me and Mason?”

  “Sometimes I wish I could, little guy. I really do.”

  About twenty minutes later, I was sitting in class copying my vocabulary words from the board to my notebook when it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

  “Oh no!” came flying out loud and clear before I got control of my brain and my mouth.

  Ms Adolf looked at me and headed down my aisle. “What’s the problem, Henry?”

  The problem was that I had just realized that Nick McKelty was going to be sitting in the dentist’s chair that afternoon. And what was going to flash in front of his eyes, in red letters, over and over again?

  CONGRATULATIONS TO HANK ZIPZER FOR EXPLORING THE EXCITEMENT OF PING-PONG.

  He would read that, and then my life as I knew it would be over.

  I had to erase those red letters before he saw them. But how?

  The answer was Joelle Adwin.

  “Psst, Joelle,” I whispered to her after Ms Adolf had gone back to the board. Joelle didn’t look up. I tore off the bottom of the paper that had my vocab words on it and scratched out a note.

  “Need to borrow your fone. Ugent,” I wrote.

  I folded the paper into a tiny wad and passed it to Luke Whitman, who had to pull two of his fingers out of his mouth before he could take the note. I’m sure the note was soggy from his spit when he passed it to Heather Payne. She looked at me and shook her head no, like she wasn’t going to pass it to Joelle. I shot her my best desperate look, the one where my mouth droops down and my eyes get half closed. That worked, because she passed the soggy wad to Joelle.<
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  Joelle was just starting to open it up when Ms Adolf turned from the board and made a beeline for her desk.

  “Joelle, perhaps you’d like to share this note with the entire class,” Ms Adolf said.

  “I don’t even know what it says,” Joelle said. “It’s kind of stuck together.”

  “Allow me to assist you,” Ms Adolf said, and very carefully peeled the note open with her grey fingernails. “And who is the author of this damp communication?” she asked.

  Three fingers all pointed in my direction: Joelle’s, Heather’s and Luke’s. Luke’s finger had a small wad of already-been-chewed Milky Way that he had finally managed to pry out of his back tooth.

  “Henry, the same rule applies in the fifth grade as it did in the fourth grade,” Ms Adolf snapped. “And that rule would be what?”

  “I know that, Ms Adolf. That rule would be to always use lined notebook paper, and not the kind with the skinny little lines.”

  A few people in the class started to laugh. I wasn’t trying to be funny, though, because once I accidentally bought a whole pack of the skinny-lined paper and I almost went blind trying to write letters small enough to fit into them.

  “The rule that was in my mind, Henry, was that we do not pass notes in class.”

  “Oh, I was going to say that one next.”

  She looked down at the note and read it again, then gave me what you’d have to call a pretty harsh look that shot right through her glasses. I’m surprised the lenses didn’t crack. If this was a cartoon, they would have. But my life is all too real, because the next sentence out of her mouth was—

  “And for your information, young man, urgent has an r, and phone starts with a ph and not an f.”

  “I’ve made a mental note of that, Ms Adolf.”

  The entire class was splitting a gut, and if she wasn’t angry enough before, let me just say that that did it.

  “Why don’t you take your note to Mr Love’s office so he can see how you’re spending precious class time.”

  Oh no, she’s sending me to the head teacher’s office and it’s only the fourth day of the fifth grade.

  Wait a minute, Hank! Mr Love’s office is just inside the attendance office. And what’s in the attendance office, you ask?

  A phone.

  That’s right. Sitting smack in the middle of Mrs Crock’s desk.

  I ran all the way down three flights of stairs, down the long corridor and burst into the attendance office, skidding to a stop right in front of Mrs Crock’s desk.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute why I’m here,” I panted, “but before that, can I use your phone right away? It’s an emergency.”

  Mrs Crock pushed the phone over to me, and I picked up the receiver. It was at that moment that I realized I had no idea what Dr Crumbworthy’s phone number was.

  “May I call directory enquiries?” I asked Mrs Crock.

  “Hank, this phone is for emergencies only, not for social calls.”

  “But this is important.”

  “I’m sorry, Hank. If it were up to me, I’d let you, but this is a firm school rule.”

  Just then, Mr Love walked out of his office and spotted me.

  “Well, Mr Zipzer, I see you’ve been sent to my office already,” he said. “Starting the school year off on the wrong foot will definitely involve your other foot as well. So I suggest you walk them right into my office and take a seat. I believe you’re well acquainted with the chair.”

  I’ve spent so much time in that chair, I swear the shape of my butt is imprinted on it.

  “Mr Love, am I right in guessing that if I asked you if I could make a phone call first, you’d probably say no?”

  “How right you are,” he said.

  The rest of the day remained completely phoneless. It wasn’t until Papa Pete came to pick me up after school that I was able to get in contact with Dr Crumbworthy. Papa Pete let me use his mobile phone. He’s the kind of guy who knows that when you say you have to make an important call, you just have to do it, no questions asked.

  “Dr Crumbworthy,” I said, after his assistant, Paula, put me on hold and made me listen to a country-western song for the looongest two minutes of my life.

  “What’s so important, Hank?” he asked.

  “You’ve got to erase that Ping-Pong item about me from your news flashy thingamajig.”

  “Why? You were so proud of it just a few hours ago.”

  “Because Nick McKelty thinks Ping-Pong is for subhumans and he’s called me enough names in my life and I don’t need him to call me subhuman too.”

  “Nick McKelty? He’s sitting with his father in my waiting room right now.”

  “Please, Dr Crumbworthy, I beg you. Hang up right now and erase it. I’ll floss my teeth five times a day, I promise.”

  “Now that’s what I call a deal,” Dr Crumbworthy said. “Don’t you worry, Hank. I’ll take care of it right away.”

  “Thanks a million trillion,” I said.

  Phew, that was close. As I clicked off the phone and handed it back to Papa Pete, he gave me a curious look. “What was that all about?” he asked.

  Boy, that was a big question.

  We left school and walked down 78th Street towards Broadway. Papa Pete was quiet, which meant he was waiting for my answer.

  “I could really go for a slice of pizza,” I said, trying to fill the silence.

  “Let’s go to Harvey’s. Afterwards, I thought you might want to go and hit some balls at the Ping-Pong Emporium.”

  “I think I’ll get the white pizza with spinach and garlic,” I said, trying to avoid the Ping-Pong topic.

  We stopped at Harvey’s, which was right on our way. I got a slice of the white pizza with a 7UP and Papa Pete got pepperoni with a root beer. We walked the three blocks up to 81st Street in silence, just enjoying our pizza and sipping our drinks.

  Papa Pete waited until I had finished my pizza slice before he spoke again. “I’m waiting,” he said.

  “I know you are, Papa Pete,” I answered. “This Ping-Pong thing has got pretty complicated all of a sudden. Nick McKelty thinks only old people and subhuman nerds play Ping-Pong.”

  “Which is why you wanted your dentist to keep it a secret.”

  Boy, Papa Pete is good at figuring things out. He’d put the whole thing together just like that.

  “I get teased enough,” I said, “I don’t need more.”

  “No one needs to be teased,” Papa Pete said. “But you can’t keep what you do a secret. Especially if you enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, and there’s something else too,” I said. “I feel kind of bad saying this.”

  “Better out than in,” Papa Pete said. “Let it rip.”

  “I haven’t even told Frankie or Ashley that I’m playing Ping-Pong,” I said. “I was going to, but now I don’t want to.”

  “Because you’re ashamed?”

  “Well, I kind of hinted to Frankie that I was thinking of taking it up.”

  “And?”

  “And he compared it to his aunt Eleanor playing shuffleboard.”

  “Frankie’s your friend, Hankie. He’ll learn to respect what you choose to do.”

  “There’s something else. I keep thinking that if I tell Ashley and Frankie, then they’ll want to play too.”

  “And that wouldn’t be fun?”

  “It’s just that they’re both such good athletes. They’d pick up a bat and be great and leave me in the dust. I’d like something that I’m good at all by myself.”

  Papa Pete nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Does it make me a terrible person for thinking these things?”

  “No, it just makes you a person.”

  “So would it be all right to keep my secret Ping-Pong life a secret for a while?”

  “That’s up to you, Hankie. My lips are sealed.”

  By then, we had reached the Ping-Pong Emporium. Papa Pete held the door open for me. As I went inside, I was hit by a chorus of “Hi,
Hank.” There they all were: Winston Chin, Sammy Chin, Maurice and Niko, the guy in the wheelchair. They’d all remembered my name.

  And not only that, they were asking if I wanted to play. They weren’t telling me to take a knee and put on my game face and sit on the bench or wait my turn or set up the cones. They were just asking me to play.

  I waved to them all, got out my bat, and joined a rally going on at one of the tables.

  Wow, suddenly I know why everybody loves to play sports.

  It’s fun.

  For the next week and a half, Papa Pete picked me up every day after school and we raced directly to the Ping-Pong Emporium. OK, the truth is, we didn’t race directly there, we stopped first at Harvey’s to get a slice of pizza. But understand, this wasn’t just your regular social slice of pizza. We were fuelling up for a workout. When you play Ping-Pong, you need energy and focus and reflexes. It just so happens that pizza gives you all those things. And it tastes great too.

  As each day passed, I got better and better. I didn’t notice it at first. I was just trying to hit the ball back and forth and feel like one of the guys. I played with Papa Pete and Sammy Chin. They were both so patient when I kept hitting the ball off the table. Everyone taught me something different. Mr Chin, who said I could call him Winston, showed me footwork so I wouldn’t keep getting my feet tangled up in a knot. And we worked on the Three Cs – concentration, control and confidence. Maurice showed me how to hold the ball when you serve so your opponent can’t see it coming. Niko taught me how to watch the ball so you can predict where it’s going before it even gets there. He had to learn that early on since he plays from a wheelchair.

  One day, and I can’t tell you if it was the seventh or eighth day after I’d started playing, I suddenly realized that I was getting the rhythm of the game. I could just feel it. Ping-Pong is all about rhythm.

  Ping. Winston Chin hits the ball to me. Pong. It whizzes past my ear.

  Ping. He hits it again. Pong. I go for it, but all I see is air.

  Ping. Another ball whizzing toward me.

  Pong. I get a bat to it but hit it into the net.