by Rob Buyea
“It’s a really good idea, Trevor,” Scott said, “like the one you had about collecting stuff for my grandpa after his house burned down.”
I was in complete agreement. I’d heard that boys change during adolescence, but ever since the CSAs, Trevor had shown what one might call a complete turnaround. It was actually quite astonishing, but I was not to be distracted. Let me be clear: the best aspect of Trevor’s proposal was the fact that it had the potential to give everyone else something to do so I could focus on mending a certain mother-daughter relationship.
“Our bus is here,” Mrs. Magenta announced.
I reviewed the day’s plan in my head. There were three objectives: (1) observe carefully, especially the two parties involved, and especially when together, (2) collect more information, and (3) get Mrs. Magenta and Mrs. Woods together.
“I’m excited to see Agnes and Eddie,” Randi said after we took our seats on the bus.
“Me too,” I said. Objective number four: spend time visiting with Agnes and Eddie.
The bus pulled out of the school lot, setting my plan in motion.
GOALS
Resolve the strained relationship between Mrs. Woods and Mrs. Magenta.
Keep our plan secret, which requires keeping Scott and the rest of the Recruits quiet—but mainly Scott.
I took my seat on the bus, and Scott slid in next to me. This was it. We were off to the Senior Center. “I hope Coach remembers me,” I said.
“He will,” Scott promised, making it sound like a no-brainer. “Junior was telling him about Valentine and his tire target last week.”
“Who’s Junior?”
“I am!” Scott squealed. “Coach gave me a nickname, too!”
I shook my head and laughed. It was just like Scott to get wound up over a nickname. “Well, Junior, even though I wasn’t sure if we’d get to visit today, I came prepared.” I patted my bag. “I have a special memory surprise for Coach and a couple of different poetry books, in case he wants me to read to him.”
“What’s the surprise?”
“Can’t tell you. You’ll have to wait and see.” Scott scowled. I also had Clifford’s Manners, but I didn’t bother trying to explain that to him.
A few minutes later our bus stopped outside the front entrance. “We’re here!” Scott cried. “Let’s go!”
The kid’s enthusiasm was contagious. That was one of the things I liked most about him. He had all of us excited. We bounded off the bus.
It had been a while since we’d last visited as a group, but Director Ruggelli was cool and didn’t hold us up with any big reintroduction. All she said was, “Welcome back. Your friends are eager to see you.”
We followed her into the Community Hall, where we were greeted by lots of smiles and waves. I smiled and waved back, but after a quick glance around the place, I saw that Coach wasn’t there. Scott had told me his grandpa and Coach had become best buds and that more than likely we’d find them playing a game of chess in Coach’s room, so that was where we headed.
“Told you,” Scott whispered when we got there and peeked inside.
“Your grandpa gets to keep Smoky here now?” I asked him after spotting the gray cat on his grandfather’s lap.
“Yup. My mom took care of that.”
“Nice.”
“Ready?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t help it. I was nervous. What if Coach doesn’t remember me? Is this how Woods and Magenta feel every day?
“Don’t worry,” Scott said. “Coach knows who you are. And if he doesn’t, we’ll remind him.”
I swallowed. “Okay. Let’s go.”
In we went, the brave one—Scott—followed by the chicken—me. That wasn’t how things were supposed to be for a football player, but that was how it was. Scott was our Most Valuable Player.
“Scott!” his grandpa hollered, looking up from his game.
“Hi, Grandpa. Hi, Coach.”
“Hello there, Valentine,” Grandpa said. “Nice to see you again.”
Scott’s grandfather knew my real name. Was he just trying to help Coach remember me? I sure appreciated that. “Hello, sir,” I said. “It’s good to be back.” I looked at Coach. “Hey, Coach.”
Coach’s eyes narrowed on me. Did he remember? I wasn’t taking any chances. I put my bag down and reached inside. Once I found what I was looking for, I straightened, took a deep breath, walked over, and handed my surprise to him. Scott’s trick of using memory objects to help Coach out mighta been his all-time most brilliant idea.
Coach turned the kicking tee over in his hands. He held it up and studied it. “You’ve got to be ready for anything, Valentine, and we will be. You can count on that,” he promised. He was just beginning to pick up steam. “We’re going to catch Thomson High sleeping. We’re going to start the game with an onside kick.”
Coach got out of his chair and started pacing the room, gesturing with his hands and getting into it as he spoke. “We’ll line up normal and then shift left when our kicker moves toward the ball. They won’t have time to react. One high bounce, and the ball will be ours!” he shouted. Coach swung his arm low as he got near the chessboard, sending pieces flying across the room.
“Nice one,” Grandpa ribbed.
“Ah, be quiet,” Coach said. “You were losing anyway. I did you a favor.”
“You brought a Clifford book!” Scott cried.
He’d gone in my bag when I wasn’t looking. “Never mind,” I said, grabbing the book from him. “My sister musta put that in there without me knowing.”
“Read it,” Coach said, sitting back down in his chair.
“You want him to read Clifford?” Scott asked.
“If Valentine’s sister wanted me to hear it, it must be good.”
“C’mon, Scott,” Grandpa said, walking to the door. “Let’s give Valentine and Coach time to visit. I need your help with Smoky’s litter box.”
After hearing that, I think Scott woulda preferred listening to me read Clifford, but he didn’t have a choice. “Okay,” he grumbled.
I started reading. It didn’t take long before I got to that terrible sentence, and when I did, I stopped. I didn’t know what to do.
“What’d you stop for?” Coach barked. “Keep reading.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“The next sentence bothers me.”
“Bothers you? Let me hear it.”
I swallowed. “ ‘He smiles when he loses,’ ” I read.
“You don’t like that?” Coach asked.
“No,” I mumbled. Suddenly it felt silly.
“Me neither!” Coach hollered. “Sportsmanship is important, Valentine, but people today are confused about it. Somewhere along the line that award stopped going to winners, and now it’s only ever handed out to the teams that are good at losing. Bunch of baloney, if you ask me.”
I loved Coach! I knew he’d hate that sentence.
“I’m not saying sportsmanship doesn’t matter, Valentine. It does. You want to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. But make no mistake about it, if you’ve worked hard and given your all, then losing hurts. Bad. I hate losing more than I love winning. But, Valentine, it’s how we carry ourselves in defeat, how we rise after failure, that tells it all. Because that’s when character is revealed.”
I needed to think about Coach’s words, so I didn’t say anything right away, and Coach let me be quiet. He knew I’d say something when I was ready.
“I’ve been working hard,” I said. “My dad helped me hang a tire in our backyard, so now I have a target for practice.”
“The good old-fashioned tire, huh? That has helped train many of the great ones. How do you use it?”
I told Coach what I’d been doing, and then he ex
plained a couple of other drills that I could add.
“You know what I like about you, Valentine? You’re coachable. You know when to listen. Now grab another book and do some more reading.”
Football talk was over, but that was okay ’cause Coach had given me plenty to think about. I grabbed my Kwame Alexander book. I was rapping out one of his poems when Mrs. Magenta showed up a bit later.
“Hi, boys. How’s it going?” she asked. I watched her walk over and place her hand on Coach’s shoulder. I held my breath, hoping for Coach to remember her, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s going good,” I said.
“Well, I’m afraid it’s time for us to go. I’ll meet you out front.” She patted Coach’s shoulder and left, but not before I saw the sadness in her eyes.
I packed my things and said goodbye, but Coach didn’t say anything. He sat there with a blank face. I wondered where he was, ’cause it sure wasn’t there in the room with me. Seeing him glossed-over like that scared me. And it got me thinking. Even though Coach had agreed with me, Randi was right, I was being ridiculous. How could I get all worked up over a silly sentence when Coach was struggling with losing something way more important than any football game? Like I told you, I still had a lot to learn about losing.
I was relieved when Mrs. Magenta’s program finally kicked into gear, because it gave me something to do so I wasn’t stuck worrying about my parents getting divorced and about crossing paths with my brother. I was fine with returning to the Senior Center, but I can’t say I was excited. Gavin had become great buddies with Coach, Natalie and Randi had Agnes and Eddie, and Scott had his grandpa, but Mark and I didn’t have anyone like that. Maybe that was why the idea of a project had popped into my head. Mrs. Magenta and Scott seemed to like that, so it was a start. We just needed to find a project.
When we got to the Senior Center, I had Mark hang back with me. We didn’t rush off to the Community Hall with everyone else. We waited so we could talk to Mrs. Ruggelli.
“I’ve got something you can do for me,” she said after I’d finished explaining.
“Really?” I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to upgrade our TV system, but I don’t know the first thing about that stuff. Do you?”
Mark and I looked at each other and then back at Mrs. Ruggelli. “We’re not pros,” I said, “but I think we can figure it out. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Great,” she said. “How about I show you our old system and you can start making plans. Maybe we can go shopping next week?”
Mark and I glanced at each other again, and we both shrugged. “Sounds good,” I said.
Mrs. Ruggelli didn’t waste any more time. She headed to the TV room. The lounge, they called it. “This is it,” she said.
“Dude, you weren’t kidding. This is in desperate need of an upgrade,” Mark said.
I elbowed him, and Mrs. Ruggelli laughed.
“Sorry,” Mark said. “I mean ‘dudette.’ ”
She laughed some more.
We hadn’t ever seen this room before because we always spent our time in the Community Hall. It was a nice, large space, but Mark was right. The entertainment system needed serious work. We checked it out, and Mark lost it.
“Mrs. Ruggelli, this equipment is from the dinosaur era.”
“I know,” she said.
I stood there, taking it all in, assessing the situation. I stared at the ridiculous fat-back TV. It was beyond ugly and looked like it weighed a ton. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Next to the TV there was a VCR. Not even a DVD player, and there were no speakers of any kind.
“Can the old people hear this when they sit in the back?” I asked Mrs. Ruggelli.
“We have to turn the volume all the way up,” she said, “and even then half of them can’t hear it, but they don’t complain. Guess they’re used to it by now.”
“We’re going to make this better,” I said. “A lot better. I think we should get surround sound.”
“That’d be wonderful. Thank you, boys.”
“We haven’t done anything yet,” Mark said. “Thank us when we’re done—if we haven’t blown the place up.”
Mrs. Ruggelli’s eyes got big like she was legit worried, but she relaxed after I shoved Mark and told her not to listen to him.
“I should go and check on things in the Community Hall,” she said. “I’ll leave you two alone so you can make a shopping list.”
And that was just what we did. We spent the rest of our visit taking notes and researching different systems on the lounge computer—which was also a fat-back and way outdated. Brian was an expert at all things tech. He’d had a flat-screen and surround sound speakers in his bedroom at home. When he used to let me play video games with him, it felt like we were in a movie theater. Maybe if I’d been older when he’d hooked it all up, I could’ve helped and learned, but Brian had never wanted me around. Back then I was the annoying little twerp—the mistake—who wanted to dress like him, talk like him, and do everything like him. Now, with the way it stood, I didn’t know if I wanted to see him—but sometimes in life, things are out of our hands.
Natalie and I walked over to the table where Agnes and Eddie were seated.
“Hello, ladies,” Natalie said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Ha!” Eddie scoffed. “ ‘Ladies’! Did you hear that, Agnes? She called us ‘ladies.’ ”
I’d missed these two. I was already giggling, and I hadn’t even sat down yet.
“Must you always be so formal, Miss Natalie?” Agnes asked.
“Natalie’s always serious,” I said.
“That serious face of yours is going to give you wrinkles worse than mine,” Agnes warned.
“What she needs is a boyfriend,” Eddie remarked. “Playing a little kissy face would give her something to smile about, and then those scowl lines would disappear.”
“Edna!” Agnes snapped. “For heaven’s sake, the girls just got here and you’re already starting in on them. Behave yourself, or they won’t want to visit anymore.”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to cross Agnes, but Eddie’s naughtiness was one of the things I liked best about visiting. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Natalie admit the same thing.
“Well,” Natalie said. “I don’t know much about playing kissy face, but I did bring a new game for us to try. Dominoes.”
“Oh, I like that one,” Agnes said.
“Whoever loses needs to kiss a boy,” Eddie teased.
I tried holding it in, but my laughter escaped.
“Don’t encourage her,” Agnes said, glaring at me.
I bit the insides of my cheeks, but then Eddie made a face, mocking Agnes, and the laughter came out again. At least this time Natalie was laughing with me. Poor Agnes just shook her head, which made us laugh harder.
We dumped the dominoes onto the table and got them flipped facedown. Then we picked out our bricks and got started. Dominoes is a good game because you can continue visiting and having conversation when it isn’t your turn. Eddie and Agnes filled us in on all the gossip at the Senior Center, which took more than a while, and then Natalie told them all about my state meet and upcoming Regionals.
“That’s quite the accomplishment, Miss Randi,” Agnes said.
“Thank you.”
“When I was your age, I was pretty good at hopscotch and jumping rope,” Eddie said, “but my favorite thing to play was kissy face.”
“Ugh!” Agnes groaned. “You never stop.”
I was laughing again, but Natalie wasn’t. Not this time. She’d done a lot of talking, but she wasn’t listening. Her mind was elsewhere.
“Heavens, child, who or what do you keep looking for?” Agnes asked. She’d noticed how Natal
ie kept glancing around the hall.
“Cute boys, of course,” Eddie couldn’t help but blurt out. I was beginning to think loose lips was something she and Scott had in common.
“Hush!” Agnes scolded. “That’s enough.” She turned back to Natalie. “How about it, Miss Kurtsman? Who’re you searching for?”
Natalie sighed. “Our old teacher, Mrs. Woods,” she said.
“You won’t see Pearl here now,” Agnes said.
“She’s never here the same time as her daughter,” Eddie added.
Our heads jerked. Natalie and I stared at each other, wide-eyed. “Wait. You know about them and Coach?” Natalie asked.
“We might be old, but we’re not off our rockers yet,” Eddie said. “We know everything that’s going on around this joint. How else are we supposed to run the place?”
“Must be that you girls didn’t know,” Agnes said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be so surprised.”
“We just learned,” I said.
“And we need to keep that a secret,” Natalie urged. “We can’t let them know that we know, so please don’t tell.”
“You’re up to something,” Eddie said. “I like it.”
“Please don’t tell,” Natalie pleaded.
“Eddie’s right, you’re up to something,” Agnes said. “I need to know what it is before I make you any promises.”
Natalie looked at me again, but all I could do was shrug. What choice did we have? We had to let them in on our plan.
“We intend to fix their broken relationship,” Natalie explained.
“When pigs fly,” Eddie scoffed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Natalie shot back, her voice rising.
“Listen, I know all about getting the boys to love you,” Eddie said, “but making those two women like each other again is going to take more than shaking hips and batting eyelashes. You’re going to need a miracle.”