Josh Baxter Levels Up

by Gavin Brown

  “Victory or death,” she growls.

  Everyone busts out laughing, and we all give Peter and Taniko encouragement as they get ready to play Mario Tennis—against a group from the girls’ tennis team.

  “Wiggler’s reach is unstoppable!” Peter shouts as he and Taniko crush the first set, using Peter’s clever strategy of having Wiggler stand at the front of the net and use his reach to smack everything back. It’s less funny five rounds later when the same two girls crush Peter and Chen in Splatoon.

  When we rotate around to the Tetris station, I learn an important lesson about Taniko. The whole time she plays she’s leaning forward, holding the controller in a death grip, and staring at the screen without blinking. The Tetris blocks are barely visible as she plays, just streaks of light flying down the screen.

  “You know, I think the reason she talks that fast is that she thinks that fast,” Peter says as the bricks dance in front of us.

  Maya showboats in Pokémon, and Peter and I throw down in NBA 2K but lose in FIFA Soccer. Some tiny redheaded kid bowls a perfect game, and Chen’s best effort isn’t that close. I realize as the other boy finishes out his flawless frames that Chen is the only one of us who hasn’t won at anything yet. When the final pins fall, he makes a face and crushes his empty soda cup, then jams it into the trash.

  At the end of the next game, a familiar voice comes from behind us. “I don’t know the first thing about how that Smack Brothers game works, but you two are like a typhoon partnered with a hurricane,” Ms. Pritchard says. It’s certainly true—Maya and I are embarrassingly good at Super Smash Bros.

  I glance over at the scoreboard when we sit down. Most of the teams have pretty mixed records. I swallow hard. With only two events to go, there are only two teams in the running: Our team, the Tap-Dancing Stormtroopers, and Footballistics, the team featuring the Mitten Monster. It’s a dead heat. And, somehow, after the upcoming Mario Kart game, football against the Footballistics is going to be our final event. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on the class committee arranged it that way for Schmittendorf.

  Chen appears to be playing through pure rage, determined not to let this be his third loss of the night. And while Chen is a pretty sick driver, drifting around the tracks like a pro, the thing with Mario Kart is there’s a lot of randomness. I check the scoreboard: The Footballistics have already won their seventh match of the Decathlon.

  People are looking at the scoreboard, and a lot are coming over to watch us, knowing that the only way the final event will matter is if Chen wins. I can hear the crowd behind me starting to chatter.

  By the end of the race, Chen is swaying side to side with each turn, like a little kid who hasn’t yet figured out that tilting your body doesn’t make the kart turn faster. Everyone in the crowd is yelling, but more from general excitement than caring one way or the other about the outcome. But Maya, Taniko, Peter, and I are jumping up and down and shouting like crazy people.

  In the final stretch, the other player draws a boost and pulls ahead. Chen only snags a stupid green shell. The four of us watching are completely deflated. But Taniko keeps yelling, so after a second the rest of us do, too.

  Chen waits until the very final curve, pulling closer with every passing second. Finally, only a few seconds from the finish line, he lets loose. The girl dodges out of the way wildly, and the distraction is enough to let Chen hit a jump, drift around a turn, and pull across the finish line first. We go nuts. It’s by far the most exciting seventh-place finish I’ve ever seen. But all he needed was to come out ahead, and he’s done it. The grin on his face when he turns around lights up the room.

  We rush up, crowding around Chen.

  “That was fantastic!”

  “You’re an ace, Chen, an ace!”

  “Oh my gosh that was amazing I can barely breathe!”

  The sigh of relief I let out lasts about a second before I feel the pressure bearing down. If Chen had lost, then my match would only be stressful because it’s against Mittens. Instead, the fate of the whole team is riding on me.

  “Okay, Josh,” Maya says as we walk in a clump over to the Madden station for the football showdown. “You just have to win this and we take the whole Decathlon.”

  “Yeah.” I swallow hard. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I know you can do this I know you can Josh go for it,” Taniko adds, then takes a breath and slows down. “We believe in you.”

  “I love you either way, man,” Chen says. “And hey, if you lose, then I’m still the big hero.”

  “Jerk,” Taniko says, grinning as she punches him in the arm.

  “The hopes and dreams of nerds everywhere are riding on you, dude,” Peter says with a grin. “So it’s not like there’s pressure or anything.”

  That makes me laugh for a second, and I almost feel like I can do it. But their expectations are like a thousand tons of steel pressing down on my shoulders.

  At least now I’m a player. What I do or don’t do matters. I’m ready to face this.

  As we reach the station, Mittens is already there, holding the controllers. He gives me a mocking smile, holding out mine.

  I reach out to take it, and as he hands it over, he speaks quietly.

  “I’m going to destroy you. I don’t lose. And I especially don’t lose at football.”

  I look him in the eye, ignoring the piece of gum that’s been stuck to the underside of the controller and is now attached to my hand.

  I look him straight in the eye. “Good luck, and have fun,” I say. I calmly wipe the gum off my hand with a napkin, clean the controller, and sit down. Mr. Ramirez comes over, standing in between us like it’s a boxing match.

  “This game must be played properly,” Mr. Ramirez says. “I believe this is the first time that the final two teams have competed together in the final match. Fascinating.”

  “For the Decathlon we were only playing to halftime,” Ms. Pritchard says, “but since this is the deciding match, Mr. Ramirez suggests that we play the full game. Would that be okay for you?”

  I shrug. Mittens nods, and I’m pretty sure I hear him mutter something to one of his friends about having more time to embarrass me. Of course, the teachers are busy explaining to the people watching that we’re playing a full game, and don’t notice.

  We select our teams, and before I know it Mittens hits “start” and is kicking off. It’s game on.

  At first, no one is really paying much attention to us, other than the two teams and a couple of girls who have crushes on Mittens.

  “Crush the creep!” one of his football buddies walks over and starts yelling when Mittens scores the first touchdown.

  “Yeah, show him how the real game is played!” another one shouts.

  But when I make one back, the chattering in the crowd behind us stops.

  As the score stays close and we hit halftime, people are actually starting to cheer for us. Peter comes up behind me, slaps me on the back, and hands me a soda. “I can’t believe you’re doing it!” he exclaims. “Beat him. The whole school is watching. He will absolutely flip.”

  “Yeah, no pressure,” I grumble. “And no danger to my personal safety.”

  “You let me take care of that. Just play.”

  Before the second half starts, Mittens glares over at me. “I’ve been messing with you,” he says, leering like a jackal. “Now I’m going to tear you apart.”

  I shrug. “So if you lose, you’re going to say you played badly on purpose? I’m sure everyone will believe you.” It feels great to talk back to him, but I can feel the controller shaking in my hands as I kick off to start the second half.

  “Mittens can’t miss!” a girl cheers, when he’s ahead by eight points.

  “Sweep out the creep!” someone yells, but a second later the lead is down to three points.

  And as I close the gap, I can even hear a few other people cheering for me. I actually screw up and run the ball into a trap after I hear some voice I don’t know yell “G
o Josh,” and actually sound like he means it. But I rally and make the first down.

  I glance over and the Mitten Monster has a dark look on his face. Big veins are standing out on his neck, and it looks like he’s about to snap his controller in two.

  When I execute a tricky lateral play, he actually growls like an angry bulldog. “What are you doing, Creep? That’s not football. Stop cheating.”

  I bear down, but he’s good. While he’s playing a traditional conservative strategy, I’m sending my guys on crazy plays to sack his quarterback and intercept passes that would never work in real football, taking advantage of the game system. The truth is, both methods work pretty well. And he seems to play even better when furious.

  The crowd is going totally wild, shouting as I match him touchdown for touchdown and interception for interception. When I take the lead for the first time, I can hear my teammates being joined by a bunch of other kids in cheering. I glance back and see that everyone in the whole place has finished their games and come to watch our extended final. Even the teachers and Mr. Alpert are there. The Frost Giant clearly has the best view, towering over everyone. The teachers aren’t cheering for either side, though Ms. Pritchard seems to be grinning despite herself.

  But the next time I try one of my tricks, Mittens counters perfectly.

  “That’s enough of your crap, Creep,” he hisses. “I’ve got you.”

  The crowd goes quiet as he scores a touchdown and a field goal, with only a couple minutes to go. I’m spooked. He’s figured out a bunch of my plays, and I basically have this last possession to score.

  The crowd response is mixed as I scramble my team down the field. “Let’s go Josh, let’s go Josh, let’s go Josh!” I can hear Taniko yelling over the crowd.

  “Come on, Josh!” I hear one familiar voice. “You can do it!” comes another one, echoing from the back of the room. It’s Lindsay and Mom. And in that moment, I feel like Dad’s there, too. This is exactly the situation he would get into, and then come up with some crazy play to send me into the kitchen to wear his oversized dish gloves and scrub the casserole dish.

  I get so close, and people can sense when I run up against a wall. Nothing I’m doing is working. And the clock counts down. I only have one play left. I have to choose: try for a field goal and send the game into overtime, or try one last play to take the win.

  Football coaches and armchair quarterbacks will tell you that you always go for the field goal here. And I know that. Mittens, of course, knows football just as well as I do. And he has real experience. He’s seen this situation from both sides, and you always go for the field goal.

  I glance over at him. He’s grinning. He knows the situation—if he can block the field goal, he’ll win. If I make it, then the game will go into overtime and he’ll have another chance to beat me. And he has been figuring out my plays, one by one. Everything I’m trying runs up against a counter. He’s shutting me down, and I’m not really in great practice.

  I set my team up for the field goal as the clock counts down. I can see him nodding out of the corner of my eye as he prepares to go all out for the block.

  Then comes the snap, the lateral, the coverage, the pump fake, the handoff, and a bunch of football terms you might or might not know. The I-don’t-know-football summary is this: When all the moves are done, my kicker is running into the end zone with the ball while Mittens is still trying to figure out what happened.

  Touchdown. Game over. The kids behind me explode, and I can even hear the teachers cheering. Kids who’ve never looked twice at me in the hallway are chanting my name. But others are yelling things like “cheater” and “that’s not football!”

  Mittens stands up slowly. His face is flushed as red as a stop sign.

  I expect him to jump at me. I tense, ready for fists to fly. But he gives me a curt nod and puts the controller down.

  Then I hear a deep voice roaring above the rest. “That’s not how you play the game. That’s a load of crap!”

  Schmittendorf’s dad is pushing his way through the crowd. The giant Mitten Monster glares at me, then at his son. It’s like that moment at the end of what you thought was the final boss battle, when the wall collapses and there’s an even bigger one waiting for you.

  “This is not acceptable!” he growls.

  “Dad, chill out,” Mittens mutters, turning away.

  “No, this is ridiculous. You’re a football star. How could you lose to this twerp?” He glares at me. “And what was that, kid? Hacker tricks? Cheat codes?” The veins on Mr. Schmittendorf’s neck stand out the same way his son’s do, but even redder and darker.

  “Dad, please. Stop,” Mittens says a bit louder. A complete silence has fallen on the rest of the crowd.

  “Are you really going to allow this?” The Massive Mitten Mammoth turns to Mr. Ramirez now. “That sort of play is allowed? From the kid who made us lose against Lancaster?”

  Mittens grabs his dad by the arm. “Dad, he won. I lost. Get over it. Can’t I lose at something, just once? Can’t you let this one thing go?”

  Father turns on son, a tornado of rage. “Don’t tell me what to do! Be a loser, then. Just another loser. I always knew it. And now you’re a loser who’s going to walk home.”

  Mittens’s dad stalks off, the crowd pulling back as he kicks a trash can, slams the gym door closed, and disappears into the night.

  Silence reigns.

  “Don’t worry, Henry, I’ll give you a ride home,” the gentle voice of the Enchantress finally says.

  “Thanks, Ms. Pritchard,” Schmittendorf answers glumly.

  The crowd stays nearly dead quiet.

  “I’m sorry about that, Josh,” Mittens says, staring at the ground. Finally, he looks up at me. “Good game. That was a clever play.”

  “It could have gone either way there. Good game,” I reply, and stick my hand out to shake.

  I’m worried I might end up with another blob of chewing gum, but I can handle it. This is a lesson my dad taught me, from the first time we were playing video games together, or knock hockey and foosball in our old basement. When you win, you don’t gloat. When you lose, you don’t sulk. You say “good game,” shake hands, and move on to the next game. Or go do the dishes, if Dad suckered you in again.

  We shake in the awkward hush, and he turns and disappears into the crowd.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Mr. Ramirez says loudly. “Congratulations to the Tap-Dancing Stormtroopers! That’s it for the Decathlon.”

  “Enjoy the pizza that the PTA provided, and get home safe,” Ms. Pritchard adds.

  The pizza party is a blur. A lot of people congratulate us, but just as many are glaring at us. It’s as if Mittens having his dad freak out is somehow my fault.

  Finally, outside in the parking lot, I get a hug from each of my teammates. The whole experience has left me dizzy, like I’ve had a cartoon anvil dropped on my head.

  “You guys were amazing,” Maya says.

  “So were you,” Peter answers. “We were unstoppable.”

  “I’m so glad we did this,” Chen adds. “The look on their faces—I had no idea I could be so happy.”

  Taniko’s mouth is going up and down, but no words are coming out. I think she’s trying to say things so fast that her brain has short-circuited her mouth and is casting her thoughts directly out into the ether at psychic frequencies.

  “Guys, thanks for giving this a shot,” I say, trying to pretend that my voice isn’t a bit choked with emotions. “Mom, I guess we have to go now?”

  “Hah!” she says. “After a victory like that? No way! How about instead, the Tap-Dancing Stormtroopers let me buy them all ice cream?”

  There are exactly zero objections to her suggestion.

  Ten minutes of complicated carpooling later, we’re all sitting together in the ice cream shop. I order something with chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, and chocolate sprinkles.

  “Guys, that was an amazing night,” Maya says, raisin
g her organic grass-fed vanilla yogurt for a toast.

  “Thanks for helping me stand up to my dad,” Chen says as we clink ice cream glasses. “He’s still barely talking to me, but he’ll get over it.”

  “And we crushed Schmittendorf. I almost kind of feel bad for him,” Peter says with a rogue’s snicker.

  “Yeah, the Mitten Monster has his own troubles, I guess,” I say. “That doesn’t excuse his being a jerk, though.”

  “Mitten Monster? Is that what you call him?” Maya asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “He’s a giant mitten, and throws tiny mittens at you …” I realize that I’m reaching for my bag, and the notebook is halfway out. I freeze.

  “What’ve you got there, Josh?” Peter asks. It’s too late to back out now.

  “Show the class,” Maya says in a playful voice.

  “Show it, show it!” Chen chants. They can sense my awkwardness and, like good friends, are piling on. I’ll never understand why that’s a thing, but it definitely is.

  I reluctantly put the sketchbook on the table and flip through it, trying to mentally note which pages to make absolutely sure not to show them.

  “Here,” I say, laying it down open to a full-page sketch of the Mitten Monster in all his fingerless glory. “There he is, and there are the deadly mittens he throws at you.”

  “Who is that?” Taniko asks, peering at the page. “Is that … Peter?”

  She’s right. I forgot about that bit. A tiny Peter the Rogue is slashing at the Mitten Monster’s quilted armor with a glowing magic axe.

  Before I can react, Chen grabs the notebook.

  “I’ve got to be in here somewhere,” he says, furiously flipping through the pages. I lunge for it, nearly knocking over my ice cream, but Peter grabs my arms in a bear hug.

  “There’s Taniko and me,” Maya says with a chortle. “We look cute!”

  “Finally!” Chen adds, when he flips to a portrait of himself throwing a lightning bolt, with The Mage written under it in fancy letters.