Josh Baxter Levels Up

by Gavin Brown

  “I’m sorry, guys.” He stops at the bottom of the stairs and stands there. No one says anything for a long moment.

  “Oh my gosh what happened?” Taniko finally bursts out, puncturing the silence.

  Chen shakes his head. “My dad says that you guys are distracting me from doing my work. All because I got one A-minus, and … and also I think he just doesn’t like you guys. It totally sucks. But I can’t practice with you anymore, I can’t be in the Decathlon, and I can’t work on building our game, either.”

  I wonder whether this has something to do with our earlier conversation, but I don’t say anything. I’m not a complete moron. And I’m not sure what game he’s talking about building, but this doesn’t seem like the time to ask.

  “My mom said I could stop by and tell you,” Chen continues. “She’s waiting in the car outside. My dad doesn’t even know I’m here—Mom said she won’t tell him.”

  “And I thought I had it bad,” I mutter.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Peter says, sounding sad for the first time I’ve seen yet. “What a pile of crap. That totally blows.”

  By the time Chen has climbed to the top of the stairs, Maya is fuming. Her hands are clenched and her face is scrunched up. “I can’t believe that. His dad is such a jerk.”

  “We should do something.” Taniko jumps up and starts pacing around the room. “We have to do something. Sneak him out, talk to his dad, something.”

  Peter shrugs. “Not much we can do. In the end, Chen always does whatever his parents say. He’s too scared to talk back to them. He just accepts it.”

  I stay quiet, not knowing what to say without revealing what I know. Did Chen really only confide in me? I guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to tell Peter, who has a tendency to do whatever he thinks is best without regard for what other people think.

  “I don’t know, guys.” Maya’s voice is brimming with frustration. “I don’t think we can do this. Josh can’t practice his sports games; we needed Chen for Splatoon and Mario Kart. And you don’t even care about practicing,” Maya says with a glare at Peter. “Let’s just quit it.”

  “Whatever,” Peter says, as he switches off the game that we’d been playing. “You take it so freaking seriously that all the fun is sucked out of it. It’s supposed to be about games and having a good time, not another thing to stress over. I get enough of that at school. Let’s forget the whole thing.”

  “Are you guys sure? You really want to give up?” Taniko looks heartbroken.

  I put my head in my hands. The anger in the room makes me feel encased in carbonite, unable to move or speak.

  “Come on, Taniko, let’s go work on our game design,” Maya says as she pulls on her coat and grabs her bag. “We’ve been slacking off on it anyway. See you tomorrow, Josh.” Maya throws a sad smile my way before stalking up the stairs.

  “See ya,” Taniko adds as she follows.

  “Bye,” I answer. My voice echoes through the empty basement.

  “Okay, great,” Peter says, his voice brimming with fake cheer. “Now that they’re gone we can play something fun that’s not on the stupid Decathlon list. Something with guns and rap music.”

  I don’t really feel like playing, but I also don’t want to be alone right now. So we spend the next hour and a half playing the violent games that my mom would never in a million years get me for Christmas. It doesn’t help a lot.

  Walking home that night as the sun sets and the sky goes dark, it feels like the lights are going out on my life, too. I tried so hard, and now all of my friends hate one another. All because I tried to get them to do the stupid Decathlon. What’s it even going to be like now, with no Chen and with Peter and Maya at each other’s throats? Do I even have friends, now that they no longer need me?

  Almost every hour that week I start to remember the milestones. I can’t stop thinking about them, each passing like a howling ghoul. And now I let them slide by, and don’t appreciate them.

  I’m supposed to withdraw us from the Decathlon since I was listed as the team contact, but I don’t bother. I don’t care. What does it matter if we’re still on the list? I’ll figure it out next week.

  Thanksgiving break is here, and on Thursday I try not to look at the clock, but I can’t help it. I stare at it when 1:42 hits.

  That was the exact time Dad pulled the Christmas decorations out of the attic, so that Mom would be able to put them up over the weekend. He walked past me, breathing hard. Of course, I figured it was because he was climbing in and out of the attic and carrying heavy boxes. Maybe if I’d noticed, and said something …

  He made it to the garage before he collapsed. We all heard the crash, and I remember Mom running past me faster than I’ve ever seen her move in my life. It wasn’t fast enough.

  Two years later, and we’re sitting around another new Thanksgiving table, just the three of us. I’ve sometimes thought we should have bought a triangular table for the dining room, so we don’t have that one side of the table empty for every single meal together.

  Mom has cooked all the traditional Thanksgiving food. She tries to start a conversation a couple times, but we load up our plates with turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes in silence. I try not to look at them, and steadily eat. I’m not that hungry, but I don’t know what else to do.

  Finally we’re done. Mom puts her fork down really deliberately.

  “We made it another year,” she says. “There wasn’t much to give thanks for last year. But I want you kids to know that I’m so thankful you’re still with me. I don’t know how I would have gone on without you. I love you so much.”

  “Love you, too, Mom,” we both mutter in response.

  I look down at the final, sad pieces of turkey on my plate.

  Two years ago, Mom forgot about the oven when the ambulance came. The heat stayed on the whole time we were at the hospital, and when we finally got home at 2:00 a.m., the turkey was a charred pile of ashes.

  “I think we’re going to have a good year,” Mom says, brightening up a bit. “I can feel it.”

  “What? Really?” I ask. How could she say that at a time like this?

  “Yes, really. Things are getting better for us.”

  “Maybe a bit,” I answer. “But for how long? How soon before we have to move again? Before we have to go to a new school? Before you press ‘reset’ on our whole lives?”

  “Josh!” Lindsay says. I don’t care what she thinks.

  “I don’t think we’re going to … I didn’t want to …” Mom can’t quite figure out how to respond. I keep going.

  “Dad died, and everything fell apart.” I can feel anger surging in me. “Everything we’ve done since then has been wrong.”

  “Josh,” Mom says, her eyes pleading with me.

  “It’s been one disaster after another.” The wave crests.

  She looks at me, then finally stands up. “I’m going to go lie down for a bit. I’ll clean this up and put it away later.”

  She walks out of the room, her steps thudding in a slow rhythm down the hall.

  Lindsay and I sit in silence for several minutes, both picking at our food.

  “Did you really have to do that?”

  I look down at my plate. “Do what?”

  “I know you’re mad, but did you have to pick today to say it? Of all the days?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I answer, hanging my head. “I just—I don’t know.”

  Empty minutes pass. The sound of the neighbors talking and laughing as they get in the car to go to a movie filters through from outside.

  “Do you think Thanksgiving is always going to be this sad?” Lindsay says in a tiny voice. “Will we ever get back to normal?”

  “I dunno,” I answer, staring at the empty side of the table.

  Distantly, I can hear Mom’s door slam shut.

  “You’re doing okay,” I say, struggling for anything to fill the silence. “I mean, you have lots of friends and you’re doing well in school. Y
ou had them even last spring, and everything was perfect as soon as you got here. Everything always works out for you. You don’t have to struggle at all. It was almost like nothing ever happened … like you didn’t …” I trail off, realizing what I’m saying and seeing the stricken look on her face. “I’m sorry, I was trying to make you feel better, and … and …”

  Usually when I say something mean or jealous she freaks out at me, but she doesn’t this time. By all rights she should yell something horrible and storm off, after what I said.

  “Joshie,” she says, “it’s not like that. My friends—they don’t understand at all. I don’t think most of them even know. And they care about the stupidest things. I feel like half the time I’m faking it, pretending to laugh and smile while I’m still walking around with this hole in my chest.”

  “I’m sorry. Me, too,” I whisper. “And a couple things got screwed up, and now the friends I was starting to have … they all quit on me.”

  I’m not sure she’s really paying attention to me; she just continues. “And I can’t tell any of them, because they’ll freak out. I don’t want to be the one who makes things sad all the time. So I pretend along, like it’s all fine. And there’s no one I can talk to. Not even Mom—you see how she gets.” She gestures at Mom’s room.

  “Linds, you can talk to me,” I say. She doesn’t reply. “Look, I’m sorry. I was trying to say something nice. I just … you just seemed so strong. I spent all of last year playing games. I couldn’t face doing anything else, and when I finally realized I wanted to, I didn’t know how. I was jealous, I guess.”

  She smiles a bit.

  I shake my head. “So yeah, you can talk to me. Because I’m obviously so good at making you feel better.”

  It’s not really that funny, but we both start laughing.

  “I know you didn’t mean it,” she says after a minute. “I’ve … I’ve been taking any excuse to get out of this house. Sometimes I hang out with girls who annoy me, to be somewhere else. Even if it’s a new house, it’s still got all our old stuff in it. It’s still where Dad is supposed to be. He’s supposed to be here. He’s supposed to be here with us.”

  I blink. “He was the one who always told us family was supposed to stick together. Whenever you and I would fight, he’d make us say that. ‘We’re a family, and family stick together.’ And then he’s the one who didn’t stick with us. And Mom—she’s supposed to be the one supporting us.”

  “It’s not his fault. But it’s just the three of us now. And Mom …” She looks in the direction of Mom’s closed door. “This isn’t her fault. She lost something huge from her life. And she’s been trying so hard to make this work. You think she wanted to move again? I mean, I didn’t want to leave our last school, either. But down here was where she could get work.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “She’s doing this alone”—Lindsay cuts me off—“she’s trying to make this work.”

  I sit back in my chair. The Oracle is right, of course. Stupid Oracle, always knowing when I’m being an idiot. And having the nerve to point it out.

  “I was a real jerk.” The cold gravy is starting to solidify on my plate.

  “Yeah, you were.”

  “But you’re wrong about one thing.” I look up at her, trying to fake a determination I don’t quite feel. “She’s not doing this alone.”

  I barely sleep that night. I toss and turn for hours, and eventually drift off for a couple hours, but wake up again around dawn. I get up and walk downstairs, as the first rays of sunlight pierce through the empty house, and a new conviction fills my tired body.

  If you have something hard to do, the best time to start is now. That’s what he always told me.

  What does a hero do when the adventure gets tough? When it seems like no matter what you do, you can’t win? It’s simple: Work harder. Learn new tactics. Level up. Play to win.

  I spend a lot of time over the weekend thinking about what I really want. There are a lot of things about my life that could be better, but I put four big ones on the Wall of Heroes:

  I need to fix my math grades and earn my games back.

  I have to show Mom that I appreciate what she’s doing for us.

  I still want to complete in the Decathlon. Heck, I want to win it.

  I want to ask Maya to the holiday dance.

  They’re all pretty intimidating—to be honest, I don’t really know how to start with any of them. Especially asking Maya out. As usual, I wonder what my heroes would do in my situation.

  ASH KETCHUM would get over his fears and go for it.

  SOLID SNAKE wouldn’t be afraid, but would definitely go for it.

  HAN SOLO would act like he didn’t care, and then go for it anyway.

  SONIC THE HEDGEHOG would already be a blurred streak of going for it by the time you even asked him.

  LINK would travel back to the past and already have gone for it before you could even think of the idea of going for it.

  Strategic Assessment: Every hero that I admire would double down and work twice as hard to bring his friends back together and go after the girl. Stop thinking about this and go get to work.

  I’m not ready to give up on my friends, and on the quest we started together. I want to compete, to put in a good showing, and most important, to do it with them.

  Taniko seems like she’ll be the easiest to convince, so on Monday I find her after math class.

  “Hey,” I say, and she looks up and smiles.

  “Hey Josh what’s up? How have you been? Did you have a good vacation?” Sometimes I wish I could record what she says with my phone and play it back at normal human speed.

  I swallow. I hate asking for things, especially if it might make someone feel uncomfortable. But I’ve committed to doing this, in front of every hero I care about.

  “The Decathlon,” I force myself to say. “I think we should still do it.”

  “You know I want to,” she answers, looking down at her notebook. “But we need Chen. And, honestly, Peter and Maya need to stop fighting. I can’t deal with it. Too much stress.”

  I nod. “I know. But … if Chen would come back? If Peter and Maya could work it out?”

  She shrugs. “If you can get them, sure. But it’s not gonna happen.”

  I smile, trying to pretend I’m actually confident. “I think we can do it.”

  “Really?” She actually looks like she believes in me, which feels kind of weird and unfamiliar. “If you can pull it off, you know I’m in.”

  “Great,” I say. I realize I’m sliding into manipulative territory here, but it’s for a good cause, so I go for it. “Also, can you mention to Chen that you would be really impressed if he pushed back against his parents?”

  Taniko laughs. “Josh, you’re a bit diabolical. Okay, I’ll try it.”

  “And one more thing,” I say.

  Taniko raises an eyebrow. “Sure, what’s up?”

  “Can you help me with the math test next week? I mean, really help me. There are a bunch of things that I really don’t get. I think I missed a few units with all my moving last year.”

  “Of course I will! It will be fun! I’ll bring my colored pens to draw you lots of diagrams!”

  It’s the first time in my life that I’ll study for a math exam more than a day before the test. And I’m dreading it already.

  Chen is the next stop on this quest line. I know there isn’t much I can do without getting him on board. He and I have science together, which is right next to the cafeteria, so usually we get through the line together and almost always get to the table a few minutes before everyone else. Yesterday, Maya and Taniko went off to sit at another table. Things have been pretty chilly between Peter and Maya.

  “So what gives with your dad?” I ask as the lunch lady drops burgers that are totally made from real beef on our plates.

  “I dunno, he thinks my friends are distracting me from schoolwork. He doesn’t want me to have a life. And he thinks video g
ames are a waste of time.” He shrugs, and we walk over to our usual table.

  I have a suspicion. “Is that really it? That’s the whole reason?”

  “Okay, okay,” Chen says, shaking his head. “They found … I wrote something stupid about Taniko in a notebook, and my dad happened to see it. And all he cares about is that she’s not a ‘nice Chinese girl.’ Which is ridiculous, because he complains about racism all the time! But he also thinks I’m too young to hang out with girls. So he says I’m not supposed to hang out with her.”

  I sit back. I don’t have an easy solution for this one. There’s not some object I can fetch for him or monster I can defeat. Attacking his dad with lightning magic is not really a viable option.

  He looks off into the distance for a long moment, and I wonder if I should leave.

  But finally I see his jaw set, and he looks back at me. “I have to do something, or this crap will continue forever. I’ll talk to my mom first, and see if she’ll help me.”

  Peter joins us a minute later, but the girls don’t show for a second day in a row. I do notice Taniko and Chen talking at Chen’s locker at the end of the day. I look away and walk past like I’m late for something, afraid that Chen will see me and think that I sent her.

  When we meet up to study after school that day, Taniko doesn’t mention anything, and I don’t ask her about it. No, there are plenty of distractions in the form of charts, graphs, and equations. She uses her fistful of pens to write the terms of equations in different colors, which is pretty clever. I’ll have to see if Mom will buy some pens for me.

  Taniko is a good teacher, and it almost makes math fun. Emphasis on the almost.

  At 5:30 Mom picks me up. She has to go to her other job after, so this is probably the only time I’ll have to talk to her alone for a couple days.

  We need to talk, but it’s hard to start. And that means the time has to be now.

  “Mom,” I say. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  She glances over at me. “What’s up, Josh?”