by Rob Buyea
“Time for us to get going,” Mrs. Magenta announced from the front of the room. “Start to wrap things up.”
“You girls are playing with fire,” Agnes warned. “You shouldn’t get involved in their feud. There’s more to it than you know.”
“We’ll tread lightly,” Natalie said, “which is why they can’t know we’re onto them. Will you keep our secret?”
Now Agnes sighed. “I’m not sure I like it…but we’ll keep your secret—for now.”
“And if we see anything that might help you, we’ll let you know,” Eddie added, leaning forward. “We’ll be your insiders, working as your informants. How fun.”
“Sometimes you can be such a kid,” Agnes said.
“That’s what keeps me young. You won’t let me get a man, so I’ve got to do something.”
“Ugh!” Agnes groaned and rolled her eyes, but that wasn’t enough to get Natalie and me laughing or even cracking a smile now.
We said goodbye and made our way out to the bus. Natalie was feeling discouraged. It was clear this wasn’t going to be easy, and we didn’t need a crystal ball to see that. But the thing I couldn’t shake was what Agnes had said. “There’s more to it than you know.”
Come to find out, there was more than I knew about a lot of things. Seventh grade was a year of secrets and discoveries.
Our first trip back to the Senior Center was a whopping success. Everyone was happy and feeling good after seeing all our old friends again. The only one who seemed a little quiet was Natalie, but that was because she was busy thinking. I was thinking about something, too.
“What’s an onside kick?” I asked Gavin. “Coach said it’s a great way to start the game against Thomson High.”
“Do you know what a regular kickoff looks like?”
“No.”
“Then it’s too hard to explain,” Gavin said. “It’s complicated.”
“But I need to know these things if I’m going to be Stats Man.”
“Stats what?”
“Stats Man,” I said. “It was Coach’s idea. After I played chess against him, he told me I would be the perfect person to be in charge of keeping the statistics and analyzing the information for our team.”
“Really? He told you that?”
“Yessiree,” I said, sitting up tall, feeling important.
“And you want to do it?”
“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “I’m going to be the best at it.”
Gavin chuckled. “Then here’s what you need to do. You’ve got to start watching the preseason football games on TV and watching clips on the computer. You’ve got to learn the basics, and then I can help you understand the more complicated stuff. Think of it as your homework assignment.”
“I can do that,” I said. “You’ve got a deal.” We shook hands. This was going to be so much fun.
Our bus stopped in front of the school, and I hopped up and used the seat backs to swing myself down the aisle. When I got to the steps, I was feeling so excited that I jumped all the way over them, but that was a bad idea, because I ate dirt.
“Scott, what’re you doing?” Natalie yelled. She grabbed me under the arm and helped me to my feet. “Are you all right?”
I’d skinned my hands and knees, but I was fine. There was only a little blood. I brushed the sand off my legs and the pebbles from my palms. “I’m okay,” I said. “Guess I’m not good at sticking my landings like Randi.”
“No, you’re not,” Natalie agreed.
“Not the smartest thing I’ve seen you try,” Gavin said, stepping off the bus behind me. “Keep that up, and you’ll be on the injured list, forget the sideline.”
Natalie gave him a funny look because she didn’t know what he was talking about, but I did. “Never mind,” Gavin told her.
“Never mind,” I repeated.
She scowled at us. “We don’t have time for this nonsense. Let’s go.”
Boy, she meant business, and when Natalie meant business, there was no fooling around. She marched us over to a nearby grassy area at the side of the school, away from everyone else, where the other Recruits were already waiting for us.
“Okay, listen up,” she said. “After today one thing is obvious: helping Mrs. Magenta and Mrs. Woods fix their broken relationship is going to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. We can’t possibly get them together if they’re never visiting the Senior Center at the same time.”
“What’re we going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’m not about to give up because of one obstacle.”
“You don’t have to do this all by yourself, you know,” Trevor said. “We’re here to help. We can start thinking, too.”
Natalie stopped. She stood there looking at Trevor, but he was no match for her, so he was the first to look away. “Okay. You’re right,” she said. “If any of us comes up with an idea, we need to let each other know.”
“But how?” I asked. “How do I let everyone know if I have an idea?”
“Good point,” Natalie said. “Since not everyone owns a cell phone, I’ll need your home phone numbers.”
“My mom won’t let me have a phone because she says I’ll lose it like everything else,” I explained.
“And she’s probably right,” Natalie agreed.
“Why do you even need one?” I asked.
“Find me a lawyer who doesn’t have one,” she snapped.
I had to think about that.
“Now, as I was saying,” she continued, “I’ll need your home phone numbers. When I get to the office, I’ll make up an emergency phone tree. The document will tell each of us who to call if something comes up. I’ll pass it out the next time we meet. But remember, it’s for emergency purposes only.”
We took turns giving Natalie our numbers. This felt really important and secretive, and it got my brain fizzing. Then I got one of my best ideas. “There’s something else we need to do,” I urged.
The Recruits looked at me. “What now, dude?” Mark asked.
“This is a top-secret mission, so we need to make a pact. Otherwise we might not succeed,” I explained.
“What kind of pact?” Trevor asked next.
“A blood brother and blood sister pact.” I wiped the blood from my knee onto my hand and held it out.
“Whoa, dude,” Mark said.
“Absolutely not!” Natalie cried. “That is the most disgusting and unsanitary thing I have ever seen.”
“Calm down, Kurtsman,” Gavin said.
“The blood pact will unite us and make us stronger,” I explained. “It’s necessary.”
“No way,” Natalie objected.
My shoulders sagged. “Without it we’ll fail.”
“Scott, you’re the only one bleeding,” Trevor said. “So how about we use our spit instead. That’s still part of the body.”
“It might not be as strong, but I think it’ll work,” I said.
That was all it took. The guys didn’t hesitate. Trevor spit on his hand, and then so did Gavin and Mark. And once they did, Randi followed. She did it the best. I bet that was because she had to spit on her hands all the time at gymnastics.
“C’mon, Kurtsman,” Gavin said. “You’re the last one.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. C’mon.”
“Close your eyes, and it won’t be that bad,” Randi said. “You can do it.”
“I can’t believe this,” Natalie whined. She turned her hand over and did the wimpiest spit in the history of the world. It dangled from her lips like a spider’s web, and then it swung back and stuck to her chin. “Eww!” she shrieked.
“Dude, that’s nasty,” Mark teased.
“Now you look like a football player and not any fancy lawyer,” Gavin joked.
“Eww!” she shrieked again.
“Natalie, it’s okay,” Randi said, trying to calm her down.
Trevor grasped Natalie’s wrist and helped her wipe the spit from her face onto her palm.
“Hands in,” I shouted.
Natalie squeezed her eyes shut and stuck her hand into the middle with the rest of ours. We took turns mushing our spits together.
“Eww,” Natalie whined.
“Team on three,” I said. “One. Two. Three.”
“Team!” we shouted.
That sealed it. We were bound together for eternity. I don’t want to brag, but the pact was a good thing, because we really needed each other in the months ahead.
The ride to gymnastics was a quiet one. Not because Mom and I couldn’t talk to each other like before, but because I was busy thinking. There was this tiny nagging thought that had been bothering me, and after seeing Eddie and Agnes, it started bothering me even more.
A hypocrite is a person who says one thing and does another. Not like saying you’ll be right home, and then running errands instead. More like a person who lectures during the day about nutrition and how late-night snacking is unhealthy, but then spends the evening on the couch with a bag of chips, watching TV. That’s being a hypocrite. That’s not the kind of person I wanted to be, or the kind of person I liked. But I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe Mrs. Woods was one.
At our parent-teacher conference the previous year, Mrs. Woods had told Jane that she was putting too much pressure on me and that it was going to ruin our relationship. It was true, but come to find out, Mrs. Woods had done no better with her own daughter, Mrs. Magenta. At least my mom had apologized and we were supertight now. That was more than Mrs. Woods could say.
Eddie had told us there was more to their story than we knew. Well, I wanted to know the rest of it, because I hoped it would make me feel different about my old teacher. I didn’t like feeling this way about Mrs. Woods.
“You’re quiet today,” Mom said.
“Busy thinking, I guess.”
“Yeah. About what?”
“Nothing, really.”
Mom laughed. “I know how that goes. If you decide you want to talk about nothing, let me know.”
I smiled. I’d done enough thinking for now, so I reached out and turned up the radio. Next thing I knew, Mom and I broke into the best car karaoke ever. We sang for the rest of the ride, belting all the way until Mom stopped in front of the gym.
“If gymnastics doesn’t work out, maybe you and I will become the next big mother-daughter duo,” she said.
I laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Better hope gymnastics works out,” I said. “We didn’t sound that good.”
Mom chuckled. “Love you. Have a good workout.” I hopped out of the car and ran inside while Mom left to run a couple of errands.
Practice was all about getting ready for Regionals, which was only a few weeks away. I had my routines down, so I was just working on perfecting every nitpicky detail. The only exception was on vault, where Coach Andrea was helping me with a new skill—one with increased difficulty. If I could master it in time for the competition, I’d have a better chance at getting a higher score.
“Okay, Randi. You’ve got this,” she encouraged from the side, where she stood ready as my spotter.
I pulled in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then I sprang out of my stance, attacking the runway.
“That’s it!” Coach Andrea cheered. “Don’t slow down.”
Over and over again I sprinted down the runway and exploded off the springboard. I worked and worked at my new maneuver. I felt great. Coach Andrea was even more pumped than I was. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the other gymnasts’ faces when they see you flying and twisting through the air.”
What I didn’t know then was that my new skill wasn’t going to only launch me through the air. It was also going to catapult my destiny—and Mom’s—in a whole new direction.
The second I got home from the Senior Center, I went straight to the computer. I had homework to do. I planted my butt in the chair and got started researching football.
The first thing I looked up was the kickoff. It was easy to find information because the kickoff is the first play in every game. After watching several video clips, I noticed that the guys on the field didn’t have to line up exactly the same every time. There were different ways of doing it. I ran to my room and found an old notebook so that I could begin taking notes. Since I was watching highlight videos, I also saw that the person catching the ball ran it back all the way for a touchdown. So I didn’t study only the kicking part but the return part, too.
Once I was satisfied with my knowledge of the kickoff and kick return, I looked up Coach’s special play—the onside kick. The runbacks for touchdowns were exciting, but these onside kick things were full of suspense. In this play, instead of being blasted deep, the ball was kicked across the ground, soccer-style, and you never knew which way it was going to bounce. Guys from both teams would go sprinting and jumping and diving to get it, because whoever came up with the ball got to keep it. What I noticed after studying several of these clips was that these plays always occurred late in the game, when there was very little time left. Coach was talking about doing this on the very first play. Now I understood why he’d said that we would catch Thomson High sleeping. I took more notes, and then I began studying other highlight plays. This was loads of fun.
“Scott, time for dinner,” Mom called.
“Okay, be right there.” I’d come across a play called the flea flicker. The weird name made me curious, so I started the video. The quarterback handed the ball off to his running back in a normal way, but after running forward a few steps, the running back stopped and pitched the ball back to the quarterback, who then threw a deep pass down the field. The idea was to trick the defense into thinking it was a run play, so that your wide receiver could sprint past everybody and be left wide open for the pass.
“Scott!” Mom called again.
“Coming!” I yelled. I shut down the computer and hustled into the dining room.
“What were you doing?” Mom asked.
“Studying the flea flicker,” I said.
“Mrs. Harris does the booger flicker!” Mickey exclaimed.
“Ha ha!” Dad and I laughed.
“Excuse me?” Mom said.
“Mrs. Harris does the booger flicker,” Mickey repeated.
“Mrs. Harris, your pre-K teacher?” Mom asked.
“Yup.”
“I could see that,” Dad said.
“Roger!” Mom snapped, giving him the look, which made me laugh more. “I hesitate to ask, but what exactly is the booger flicker?” Mom said.
“Mrs. Harris picks her nose when she thinks no one is watching,” Mickey explained, “but I always see her. And then she inspects the booger ball on the tip of her finger like this”—Mickey demonstrated—“and then she flicks it across the room at one of the kids. Like this.” More demonstrating.
“Ohmigoodness!” Mom cried.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Dad said. “She is kind of gross. I’m more surprised that she doesn’t eat it.”
“Roger!” Mom snapped again. “You’re not to repeat that, Mickey. Mrs. Harris is a nice woman.”
Mickey had already had me cracking up, but then I laughed even harder when Dad got in trouble.
“Scott, why don’t you tell us about the flea flicker,” Mom suggested.
I wasn’t convinced that she really wanted to know about it, but I was eager to explain the play. I moved the peas and carrots around on my plate, lining them up in position. This was perfect because I didn’t like my vegetables anyway. I designated two carrots to be my quarterback and running back. Then I demonstrated how the flea flicker worked, using a pea to be the football. When I tossed the
pea (football) back to the quarterback so he could throw it deep, I loaded it up on my spoon and told Mickey to catch.
He opened up wide, and I launched the pea. It flew from my spoon before Mom could say anything, and stuck in Mickey’s nostril.
“Ah!” he squealed.
“Let’s see that booger flicker now,” Dad teased.
“I don’t think so,” Mom warned. She reached over and plucked my pea from Mickey’s nose. “Honestly. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what dinner would be like with daughters at my table instead of crazy boys.”
“Girls are gross,” Mickey said.
“It’d be boring,” I added.
Mom chuckled. “You’re probably right,” she said.
“That was a fascinating demonstration, Scott, but what I’d like to know is why you were watching this football stuff to begin with,” Dad said, turning serious.
I sat up straight. “Because I’m going to be the stats man for this year’s football team.”
“Really?” Mom said. “And where did you come up with that idea?”
“Coach told me I was the perfect kid for the job after I played him in chess.”
Mom and Dad exchanged looks.
“You’re the fat man?” Mickey asked, confused.
“No, the stats man,” I repeated. “I’m the guy on the sideline keeping track of all the plays and what happens on them. Coach said I’ll be good at analyzing the information and helping the coaches make decisions.”
“Sounds like a terrific idea to me,” Mom said. “It’ll be fun going to your football games this fall.”
“Don’t worry, Mickey. They have snacks there,” I said.
“Cupcakes?”
“Maybe.”
“Yum!”
“Better keep studying so you can do a good job and impress the coach with how much you know,” Dad said.
“I will.” That was going to be no trouble at all. With my photographic memory I could remember stuff after reading it once. I was going to be the best stats man.
“Gavin, guess what? Guess what?” Scott yelled, running to me as soon as I got out of Dad’s truck. He was hopping up and down with excitement. The kid was really wound up, but then again, when wasn’t he?