“When?” Marcia sounded alarmed.
“Now.”
The others watched in silence as Ethan slowly walked over to where Lizzie was sitting, her notebook still open in her lap. He sat down on the curb next to her.
“Lizzie?”
She smiled up at him.
He plunged on. “The contest you won? The poetry contest? There isn’t any. It was all a fake. Alex and David and Marcia…” He hesitated. But if he was telling the truth, he was telling the whole truth. “And I—we thought it up as a trick to play on you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know you probably hate me now, and you should hate me. I hate myself. All I can say is, I’m sorry.”
Lizzie stared at him as if she didn’t understand what he was saying. Then she hid her face in her hands and began to cry. What was Ethan supposed to do now? He reached out awkwardly and put his hand on her arm. She shook it off and went on crying.
Ethan looked away, wanting to look anywhere but at Lizzie. Suddenly he saw Grace Gunderson, standing across the blacktop as she had that first day, watching the two of them. She couldn’t have overheard their conversation, but she could see that Lizzie was crying, and that Ethan was the one who had made her cry. So now she knew. Ethan wasn’t a scientist or a hero. He hadn’t won the science fair. He was just another mean sixth grader who had broken Lizzie Archer’s heart.
Fourteen
Ms. Romero read the names of all the science fair winners during morning announcements. Peter’s name was first. Ethan didn’t know any of the sixth-grade winners; he felt foolish for ever having dreamed he could be one of them. Ms. Romero also announced that report cards would be handed out at the end of the day. Great.
Lizzie didn’t speak to Ethan during science class. At least she lit the bunsen burner for the day’s experiment, as calmly as if she had been lighting bunsen burners all her life. Nobody called her Spazzie. But Ethan’s triumph over the bunsen burner was empty now.
He wanted to talk to Ms. Gunderson after class, to try to explain to her why Lizzie had been crying, but she was deep in conversation with Mr. O’Keefe. And, besides, what was there to say? The truth was as awful as anything that Ms. Gunderson could be imagining. And this was Ms. Gunderson’s last day at West Creek Middle School. Whatever she thought about Ethan now she would think about him forever.
Even in math class, during Peer-Assisted Learning, Lizzie didn’t speak to Ethan. Julius wouldn’t speak to him at lunch. Ethan had never known that simple silence could make someone so miserable.
In English class, Ms. Leeds assigned another book report. Then she said, with her usual big smile, “Boys and girls, I want to share some exciting news with you. Lizzie told me after class yesterday that one of her poems, ‘Snow Bird,’ has won first prize in a national writing contest!”
Ms. Leeds led the class in applause. Ethan sat frozen. If he could take back only one minute in his life, it would be the minute when he had agreed to go along with the contest scheme. Or maybe the minute when he had told Lizzie about it.
He looked at Lizzie. She wasn’t crying, but there was something in her face that was more terrible than tears.
“And,” Ms. Leeds went on, not seeming to notice Lizzie’s reaction to the first announcement, “I just found out that this same poem has won another prize. When Lizzie gave it to me last month, I nominated it for a poetry prize sponsored by the Young Readers Forum, and I got a letter in the mail today saying that it was one of only four poems in the state to be selected for publication.”
At first Lizzie’s face didn’t change. Then Ethan saw a wild hope come into her eyes as she gradually let herself believe that it was true.
Ms. Leeds led the class in a second round of applause. This time, Ethan clapped louder than anyone. He saw that David was clapping, too. Only Alex and Marcia weren’t clapping. So Lizzie had the last laugh. Her poems were good enough to be published and win a prize.
Ethan waited for Lizzie after class. He didn’t think she would listen to him, and he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. But he was going to try to make things right with her, anyway.
“Hey, Lizzie.” She stopped walking. “I just wanted to say that I think it’s really great, about your prize and all. I really do. And I really truly am sorry about—about the other thing. I felt bad about it right from the start, and I kept trying to tell you, really I did, but I—just couldn’t.”
Lizzie didn’t say anything.
Ethan plunged on desperately. “And, Lizzie, I really do like you. I—I’m glad you’re my Peer Partner in math.” Ethan couldn’t believe he was saying this.
Lizzie’s face finally melted into a smile, though there was a mischievous sparkle in her blue eyes. Ethan had never noticed how blue they were and how they lit up her whole small, freckled face.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I still like you. I still like you a lot.”
Ethan never would have guessed that he would be relieved to find out that Lizzie Archer still liked him a lot. But right now he was, however many more poems she was going to write about him in her notebook.
At the close of eighth period, everyone returned to homeroom to get report cards. Ethan glanced quickly at his to see if there was anything on it that he needed to worry about showing his parents. Then he looked at it again. For the first time in his life, he had gotten three A’s: one in science, one in math, and one in English. His work in English hadn’t been that great: Ms. Leeds must have been trying to apologize to him for her accusation. But he had definitely done good work in science and math, thanks to Grace Gunderson—and to Lizzie.
* * *
Ethan hadn’t planned on riding by Ms. Gunderson’s apartment on his way home from school. But after he had ridden through the park, and past his old elementary school, and past the public library, his bike seemed to find its own way to the Meadows apartment complex on Alfalfa Lane. Ethan checked: The silver Honda wasn’t there. He parked his bike and looked around for a place where he could watch the entrance to Apartment H16 without being seen. There was a playground on the far side of the apartment lot. He could hang out there for a while and duck behind the climbing equipment if he saw her coming.
At the playground there was only one other kid, another big kid, sitting alone on one of the swings. The kid looked up as Ethan approached him. It was Julius.
To Ethan’s relief, Julius grinned at him shamefacedly. “You, too?”
Ethan returned the grin and sat down on the swing next to him. “Uh-huh,” he admitted.
“Her last day,” Julius said, his voice appropriately funereal.
“I know.”
For the next few moments, neither one spoke. Then Julius said, “I get it now. It was all because of Grace—the science fair project, and the book report, and the tie, and everything.”
“Sort of,” Ethan said. Even as he said it, he knew it was only partly true. At first he had wanted to win the science fair for Grace Gunderson, but in the end he had wanted to win it for himself. “I didn’t win, though.”
“You should have. I thought for sure you were going to.”
“But I didn’t.” Ethan hesitated. “So can I still be vice president of Losers, Inc.?”
Julius looked down at the ground. “Nah,” he said. “You’re not a real, true, genuine loser. Not anymore.”
“You know what?” Ethan said. “Neither are you.”
“My science fair project stank.”
“You wanted it to stink.”
For some reason, Ethan was reminded right then of Edison Blue. Edison had made it sound as if it were someone else’s fault that he never went outside to play, but the only person who had ever stopped Edison from playing was Edison himself. Some are born losers. Some achieve losing. That had been Julius—and it had been Ethan, too.
He and Julius weren’t losers. Neither was Lizzie. Ethan had a sudden thought. “You know who the real losers are? Alex and Marcia. They’re not even sorry about what we did to Lizzie. I am, and David is, too. But th
ey’re not.”
“Did Lizzie find out about the contest yet?”
“I told her.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. It’s like—I had to. I should’ve done it sooner. You were right, I was a creep, even though I tried to pretend I wasn’t.”
Julius looked relieved. “I knew you’d tell her. I didn’t think you were the type to keep on going along with something mean.”
The two friends grinned at each other, then both sat scuffing their feet in the icy gravel beneath the swings.
“Ethan. Julius.”
At the sound of his name, spoken in that voice, Ethan looked up. Grace Gunderson was walking toward them across the playground. The wind blew her hair around her like a golden cloak.
It was too preposterous for them to have just happened to show up twice at her doorstep. This time they could hardly pretend they had been riding by.
“We came to—we wanted to say goodbye,” Ethan said. “We didn’t really get to say goodbye in class today. We just wanted to say—we’re going to miss you.”
“Oh, Ethan, I’m going to miss you, too. And you, Julius. Both of you.”
It wasn’t exactly the right answer, but hearing it made Ethan feel better, anyway. Ms. Gunderson settled herself into the third swing, the one next to Ethan.
There was still something Ethan had to tell her. He wished he didn’t have to do it in front of Julius, but he didn’t know if there would ever be another moment like this.
“About Lizzie?” he began.
Ms. Gunderson gently shook her head. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Ethan.”
“Yes I do.” He couldn’t bear that she would leave not knowing the truth about him, liking him for something he wasn’t. He gave Julius an anguished look. Julius mumbled something and stood up and walked over to the other edge of the playground. He sat down on one of the seesaws.
“The poem on Lizzie’s science fair project? The one that won a prize in a contest? It didn’t really. Well, it did really, but not that contest, a different contest. The first contest was all a fake. Alex and Marcia set it up, and I went along because they were all making this big thing about how Lizzie liked me. And so this morning, when she was crying, it was because—they were all going to tell her, so I did.”
At first Ms. Gunderson didn’t say anything. Then she said, in a voice so low that Ethan had to strain to hear it, “That wasn’t an easy thing for you to do, to try to right a wrong you’d committed. It sounds to me like a pretty brave thing to do. It was pretty brave of you to tell me now.”
Ms. Gunderson put her finger to her lips, to silence Ethan’s protest.
“And, Ethan, I want you to know that I was hoping, really hoping, that your project would be selected for the regional science fair. Were you very disappointed?”
“Not really,” Ethan lied.
“I just want you to know, for what it’s worth, that I think you are a remarkable young man.”
“But I’m not.” The words burst out of Ethan. “My brother’s the one who’s remarkable, not me. Peter Winfield. He was one of the three eighth graders who won the science fair this year. He wins every year. He’s the one who’s really remarkable, not me.”
“I don’t know your brother,” Ms. Gunderson said. She was looking so intently at Ethan that he had to drop his eyes. “I only know you. Whatever he is—and I’m sure he’s remarkable, too, if you say he is—it doesn’t change the truth about what you are.”
Ethan made himself look at her. She was holding her windblown hair back from her face with one hand. He would remember her that way for the rest of his life.
Across the parking lot, Julius still sat waiting. Ethan saw him balanced awkwardly on the small seesaw, his long legs sticking out at an impossible angle. Watching him, Ethan felt a pang of loyalty and love for his former-loser friend.
He took a deep breath. There was one more thing he needed to say. “When the rest of us were mean to Lizzie? Julius was the only one who wasn’t.”
Ms. Gunderson smiled at him again. “Julius is a great kid,” she agreed. She waved to Julius across the playground, and he rejoined them. Then she got up from the swing.
“Both of you, stop by sometime and tell me how you’re doing, all right? Promise?” For a moment, Ethan thought she was going to kiss them—a teacherly kiss, not a loverly kiss—but she didn’t. “When I get my first real teaching job, I only hope I have students as wonderful as the two of you.”
She turned to go. Both boys watched her as she walked away.
“Man,” Julius said, “what I’d give to be ten years older.”
“And a foot taller,” Ethan said.
* * *
At home, for the first time in weeks, Ethan measured himself. Four feet eleven! He had grown a whole half inch! But that wasn’t all. He had gotten three A’s on his report card. He had done a great science project, even if it hadn’t won the science fair. He had read all 422 pages of A Tale of Two Cities. He had lost his best friend and gotten him back again. He had loved. He had been loved.
He had been trying all year to prove to the world that life was unfair. But right now life didn’t seem unfair. It seemed pretty wonderful.
He heard Peter at the front door.
“Hey,” he said as Peter came into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Peter said.
“There’s a message on the board. Mom’s going to be late. Parent-teacher conferences. Mr. and Mrs. Blue.”
“Should we fix something for dinner?”
“Sure,” Ethan said. “How about we try another cake?”
Peter shook his head admiringly. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope,” Ethan said. He started flipping through a cookbook. “This time let’s make one that’s edible. Like—here’s one that sounds good—double-chocolate fudge cake.”
Peter draped his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair. Ethan tied on his dad’s big apron.
“Move over, Betty Crocker,” Ethan said. “Here we come!”
Also by Claudia Mills
Dinah Forever
Copyright © 1997 by Claudia Mills
All rights reserved
Published simultaneously in Canada by HarperCollinsCanadaLtd
First edition, 1997
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mills, Claudia.
Losers, Inc. / Claudia Mills. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Although he knows that his efforts to impress a beautiful student teacher and outdo his perfect older brother jeopardize his status in the losers’ club that he and his best friend have started, twelve-year-old Ethan realizes that he no longer wants to be a loser.
ISBN 0-374-34661-5
[1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Self-perception—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Brothers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M63963Lo 1997
[Fic]—dc20
96-30922
eISBN 9781466852860
First eBook edition: August 2013
Losers, Inc. Page 10