Losers, Inc.

by Claudia Mills

  “Very nice, Lizzie!” Ms. Gunderson said. “One of these days, when your poems are published, we’re all going to remember this moment and say, ‘We knew her when.’”

  “Actually,” Lizzie said, and stopped. “Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’m just so excited that I have to tell somebody. My poem? The one on the display? It just won a prize. In a contest. For the whole country. The letter came yesterday.”

  Behind Ethan, Marcia giggled. Ethan didn’t think Lizzie heard her. He felt choked, suffocated, as if his tie were strangling him. He had been too much of a coward to tell her, too much of a coward to stop the others, and now it was too late.

  “Congratulations!” Ms. Gunderson said. “That is splendid news, Lizzie! All right, who’s next? Marcia, what do you and Susan have for us?”

  Half a dozen other groups presented their projects—none of them as good as Ethan’s, in his honest opinion—and then Ms. Gunderson turned to Julius.

  “Julius?”

  Ethan gave Julius an encouraging smile. This should be as proud a moment for Julius as it had been for him, for everybody else. But Julius looked anything but proud. And as soon as Ethan looked at Julius’s display, he could see why.

  As Peter would have said, Julius’s display was a mess. He could have had a great project. It was certainly more original than Alex and David’s, less strange than Lizzie’s. And everybody loved ice cream. But Julius should have arranged his data into a graph. He should have typed his labels on the computer. He should have had somebody take photographs of one of the tasting sessions. He should have done something that showed some effort.

  “Regular ice cream or fat-free ice cream: Which tastes better?” Julius read from an index card in the flat, monotonous voice he used for book reports. “My hypothesis was: Regular ice cream tastes better. Ten people tasted my samples. They all said that regular ice cream tastes better. So regular ice cream tastes better.” Then he put his card away.

  “Did you bring any ice cream for people to taste at the science fair?” David asked.

  “No,” Julius said, grinning for the first time that morning. Ethan felt better.

  “The way Ethan brought balls for us to bounce?”

  Julius’s grin disappeared. Ethan felt worse.

  “Do we have anyone left?” Ms. Gunderson asked. “No? Then let’s go back to class. Good luck this afternoon, everyone!”

  * * *

  All afternoon classes were canceled for the science fair. Hundreds of students and dozens of teachers filled the gym, plus any parents who didn’t have to work that day—and the judges.

  Ethan’s display attracted more attention than any of the other sixth-grade displays nearby. Over and over again he bounced his demonstration balls and explained his results. His was definitely the most popular display with the students. And several of his teachers lingered, too. Even Mr. Grotient took a turn bouncing the basketball. He looked a bit like a basketball himself, with a black-and-white bow tie painted on one side.

  “By the way, Ethan,” he said in a low voice as he handed the ball back to Ethan, “I’m in the process of grading last week’s math tests, and I must say you did very well.”

  Ethan was surprised, but not very surprised. The test had been the easiest one Mr. Grotient had given all year.

  “That test was my toughest yet,” Mr. Grotient said, straightening his bow tie, which didn’t need straightening. “I think we have Peer-Assisted Learning to thank for this, don’t you?”

  The Lizard! Well, that could be. Ethan usually understood a problem better after Lizzie explained it. If only he hadn’t agreed to go along with the contest scam. If only he hadn’t been the one who had told her to apply. If only the contest were a real one that she had really won.

  “May I have a turn?” someone else asked. Ethan turned off his guilty thoughts about Lizzie. And Julius.

  The judges finally came to Ethan’s display around two-thirty—a man and a woman, each carrying a clipboard. By now Ethan had explained his project so many times to so many people that any trace of nervousness was gone. He looked them in the eyes as he answered their questions, the way Peter had told him to do. When they were done, he thanked them and shook their hands. He felt as if he were Peter, making a successful, game-saving free throw in front of a gym packed with cheering fans. Maybe he would be a scientist someday.

  The judges moved on to Marcia’s display. Julius would be next.

  With the judges’ visit behind him, Ethan could leave his booth now and walk around for a bit. He acted as if he were just strolling aimlessly about, but he stopped by Julius’s display.

  “Hi,” Ethan said.

  “Hi,” Julius said.

  Ethan looked again at Julius’s almost bare rectangle of poster board, with its crooked lettering squeezed too close to the top. It wasn’t fair that Ethan had had so much help from Peter, while Julius hadn’t gotten any help from anybody. Maybe Ethan should have worked with Julius, after all. Ethan wished that Julius could be sharing his moment of triumph instead of standing alone—hurt, jealous, abandoned.

  “When the judges come?” Ethan said awkwardly. “Well, Peter told me—it’s a good idea to look them in the eye when you talk to them. And thank them when they’re done. And, you know, shake their hands.”

  Julius didn’t say anything. But he didn’t look particularly grateful for Ethan’s suggestions.

  Ethan tried again. “It’s just that—they like enthusiasm, Peter said. They like it if you act enthusiastic.”

  “What if you’re not?” Julius asked. His voice was so hard and cold that Ethan took a step backward, as if Julius had hit him. “Maybe I’m not as good as you are at pretending to be something I’m not.”

  “It’s not pretending, not really,” Ethan said. He found himself becoming angry at Julius. It wasn’t pretending to try to do your best at something—though Ethan had the sudden, uncomfortable thought that he had been pretending to be nice to Lizzie, to be the kind, concerned friend Ms. Gunderson thought him to be. But as for the rest, he wasn’t pretending: He was really, genuinely trying to do his best.

  It was Julius’s own fault that he was such a loser. He didn’t have to be. At least he could have printed the title of his project neatly. How hard would it have been to do that?

  “You don’t have to be a loser, you know,” Ethan blurted out. “It’s like you try to be a loser.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be friends with a loser,” Julius shot back. He was shouting now, the way he had shouted at Ms. Leeds on the day of the book reports. That day he had been taking Ethan’s side, as Ethan’s best friend. Now the friendship was over.

  “Excuse me, boys.”

  The judges had arrived at Julius’s display. Ethan turned and walked away.

  Thirteen

  As he rode his bike home from school on the snowy streets, alone, Ethan’s thoughts bounced back and forth, as if some crazy Ping-Pong game were playing itself out in his head.

  Ping! He had had the best science fair project in the first-period class.

  Pong! He had had a terrible fight with his best friend and probably would never be friends with him again.

  Ping! He heard Grace Gunderson’s voice saying, “Oh, Ethan!” after he finished his practice presentation.

  Pong! He heard Lizzie’s voice saying, “My poem? The one on the display? It just won a prize.”

  At home, he watched some Looney Tunes on TV to try to settle down, but after a few commercials he turned them off and just lay on the family-room couch, staring at the ceiling.

  Would he win the science fair? The judges had definitely acted impressed by his project, but not as impressed as Ms. Gunderson or his classmates. Maybe the judges tried hard not to act too impressed.

  What if Ethan won for the sixth grade and Peter didn’t win for the eighth grade? After leaving Julius, Ethan had walked over to Peter’s booth in the eighth-grade section. Peter’s display had been perfect, and his experiment was so brilliant and compli
cated that Ethan couldn’t understand half of it. But Ethan had noticed that nobody was hanging around Peter’s booth the way kids had been hanging around his. Maybe the judges didn’t care whether your project had crowd appeal—but maybe they did. Ethan’s victory would be hollow if he couldn’t share it with Peter. He wished he were sharing it with Julius.

  He even wished he could share it with Lizzie. Lizzie. What would it be like to think you had won a contest and your dream had at last come true, and then find out that your victory—and the whole contest—was just a mean joke?

  At dinner, Ethan’s mother said, “So tell me all about the science fair! I want to hear every detail!”

  “It was all right,” Ethan said. The answer wasn’t very detailed, so he added, “The kids seemed to like my thing pretty well.”

  “I’ll say!” Peter took a big swig of milk to wash down a mouthful of meat loaf. “It was a mob scene over there.”

  “What about the judges? Do you think they liked it?” Ethan’s mother asked. Then, as if she was afraid she was putting too much pressure on Ethan to win, she said, “It’s wonderful that you could get the other kids interested like that. That speaks very well of your experiment. Wouldn’t you say so, honey?”

  Ethan’s father nodded.

  “I’ve forgotten—Peter, last year, how did they let you know you’d won?”

  “They called me.”

  “When?”

  “That evening. Like, at eight o’clock. Something like that.”

  All the Winfields looked at the large clock hung on the kitchen wall. It said seven-fifteen.

  “Guess what?” Ethan’s mother said then, too heartily. “Guess who had a good day at school today? Edison Blue. We always go outside after snack to play. Everyone except Edison. For the last two weeks or so, he’s been on strike. He simply refuses to go outside. I guess one of us could stuff him into his jacket and carry him out bodily, and try not to listen to his screams, but I decided not to force it. So every day, after snack, I offer Edison the chance to go outside, and every day he shouts, ‘No!’ and then while the rest of us play, he stands by the door, watching us until we come inside again.”

  Ethan tried not to listen to the ticking of the clock. He had never noticed before how loudly it ticked.

  “So today I asked Edison if he wanted to go outside with the rest of us, and he shouted ‘No!’ the way he always does, and I got the others ready, and we were heading outside when I heard this tremendous sob. I turned around, and it was coming from Edison. ‘You never let me go outside!’ he was wailing. ‘Why, Edison,’ I said, ‘do you want to go outside?’ ‘Uh-huh,’ he said, in this little, wounded, pathetic voice. And he put on his own jacket, and his own hat, and his own mittens, and ran outside and played happily for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Peter gave a thumb’s-up sign as the story ended. Ethan reached over and gave his mother a high five.

  The phone rang.

  No one got up from the table.

  On the second ring, Ethan’s mother said, “I’ll get it.”

  She picked up the receiver. “Hello?… Oh! … Yes, he’s right here.” Her voice had become suddenly gentle, and she didn’t look at Ethan as she said, “Peter, honey, it’s for you.”

  It could have been that same girl from school, Ashley somebody, who called Peter all the time, but Ethan knew it wasn’t. He knew it was the judges, calling to say that Peter had won the science fair. Peter had won, and Ethan hadn’t. It was the story of Ethan’s life.

  Ethan wanted to get up and leave the room, but he stayed in his seat, listening to Peter’s end of the conversation.

  “Yes … Thank you … Thank you … I know … Yes, he is … I’ll tell him that … Good night.”

  Peter hung up. He turned toward the table. “I won,” he said. His voice was flat. “Ethan, the judges asked me if you were my brother. They said they were very impressed by your energy and enthusiasm and by the originality of your project.”

  But not impressed enough for you to win.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Ethan’s mother said, “Oh, Peter, we’re thrilled for you. And, Ethan, the judges wouldn’t have said that to Peter if they didn’t mean it. Peter, tell us again what the judges said about Ethan.”

  When Peter didn’t say anything, their mother hurried on. “Energy and enthusiasm and originality. Boys, we’re so proud of both of you. This calls for a celebration. What can we do to celebrate?”

  Peter said, “We don’t need to celebrate. Really. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Of course it is,” his mother said.

  “I said it isn’t. I don’t want to.”

  Ethan knew that Peter was saying it for him. Why did Ethan have to have a brother who was the best in the school at everything—and was a wonderful brother, too? Peter had just won the science fair for the millionth year in a row, but they were all acting as if they were at a funeral. Peter’s strained face, his mother’s fake cheerfulness, his father’s pitying eyes were more than Ethan could bear.

  “Stop it!” Ethan suddenly shouted. “Just stop it! All of you!”

  He got up so quickly from the table that his chair tipped over. He stooped down to pick it up as the rest of them watched him in silence.

  “It’s not Peter’s fault that he won,” Ethan said, struggling to get his voice back under control. “And you don’t have to go on and on all the time about how wonderful we both are. It’s like, why do you have to compare people all the time? Peter’s Peter, and I’m me. I had fun doing my project, whether it won or not. And I know it was good. So I think we should have the party.”

  Peter didn’t say anything. Ethan knew he didn’t want a party, not when it wasn’t for his brother, too.

  “Come on.” Ethan felt as if he was begging Peter.

  “Okay,” Peter finally said, in a voice Ethan could hardly hear.

  “Ethan, I didn’t mean—I never meant—” his mother started to say.

  “I know,” Ethan said, cutting her off. “It’s okay. Hey, how about pizza Saturday night, with everything on it—shoot the works.”

  “Pizza it is,” his dad said. His mother, with tears in her eyes, turned away.

  Peter didn’t say anything more until they were heading up the stairs together to their rooms.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, turning back to look at Ethan, “you did have a good project. You had a great project.”

  Ethan thought back to the afternoon he and Peter had spent bouncing the balls, to Ms. Gunderson’s praise that morning, to the crowds of kids hanging around his exhibit all afternoon.

  “It was great,” he said. “I hope I can think of something as terrific as that for next year.”

  * * *

  At school the next morning, Ethan stood alone, watching Alex and David and some of the other guys shoot baskets. Twenty feet from him, Julius stood alone, watching them, too. Across the blacktop, Lizzie sat alone, scribbling in her notebook. They formed three points of a triangle, a triangle of losers.

  Right that minute, though, Lizzie didn’t look like a loser. A small smile played about her mouth. She gazed up thoughtfully at the gray, gloomy sky as if searching for poetic inspiration in the low, snow-threatening clouds. Maybe she was thinking about her next award-winning poem. Had she gone out last night with her parents to celebrate her first prize in the National Poetry Writing Contest?

  Ethan couldn’t stand it. Whatever else he did in his life, he had to do something about the contest, if it wasn’t already too late. He caught David’s eye and formed his hands into a T. David tossed the basketball to another kid and came over to where Ethan was standing.

  “What’s up?”

  “This contest thing,” Ethan said before he could change his mind. “You guys haven’t told Lizzie about it yet, have you? I mean, that it’s all fake?”

  David shook his head. “She just got the prize letter two days ago.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Ethan said desperately.
“I don’t think we should tell her.” He had wanted to tell her before, so she wouldn’t fall for the joke, but now that she had fallen for it, he couldn’t bear the thought of her disappointment.

  “It’s like, why not let her go on thinking she won something? At this point, telling her—it’s too mean.”

  Ethan had expected David to look disgusted, but he looked almost relieved. “Yeah. I was thinking kind of the same thing. But don’t we have to tell her? I mean, she’s going to find out, anyway, sooner or later. Some teacher or somebody will try to look the contest up and find out that it doesn’t exist.”

  Ethan scanned the blacktop. He saw Marcia talking to Alex by the bike racks and waved them over. Then he made himself repeat his speech. It came out easier the second time, but right away he could tell that it wasn’t going to work as well on these two as it had on David.

  “You do like Lizzie,” Marcia said, her eyes sparkling with satisfaction. Ethan could practically see her plotting how best to use this knowledge to her own advantage.

  No I don’t, Ethan was about to say automatically. But it was too much of a lie. It wasn’t that he was in love with Lizzie, the way she was with him, the way he was with Ms. Gunderson. But he did like her. She was smart. She was more talented than all the rest of them put together. She was even pretty, in her own odd kind of way.

  Ethan took a deep breath. “What if I do?” Anyway, whether or not he liked Lizzie wasn’t the issue right now. “Telling her—it’s just too mean, that’s all.”

  “We wouldn’t want to be mean to Ethan’s girlfriend, would we?” Alex asked.

  “Look,” Marcia said, as if patiently explaining a simple fact to a small child. “We have to tell her. It’d be meaner not to, in a way. We can’t let her think it’s for real. She’s not a great poet. She might as well face the truth. Somebody has to help her face it.”

  The tone of false concern for Lizzie in Marcia’s voice made Ethan sick. “You’re really going to tell her?” he demanded.

  “Somebody has to,” Marcia said.

  Ethan took a deep breath. “Then I’m going to do it.”