Lucky Cap

by Patrick Jennings

I noticed Misa peeking at me. She blushed, then looked away. Her friends all went, “Ooooh!” Then they busted into high-pitched squeals.

  Uh-oh. I was cute all right. I wasn’t sure how much I hated it, though. Or if I hated it.

  Kai stumbled up then, in his newborn-coltish way.

  “Hey, Enz. What’s up?” he said, setting his tray across from mine and starting to sit down.

  Chase and Lance stared at him.

  “Who’s this, Enzo?” Lance asked with a smirk. “Friend of yours?”

  I started to answer, but I didn’t know how. I should have said, “Yeah, what about it?” But I felt ashamed. I wasn’t proud of feeling this, but there was no denying I didn’t want them to know Kai was my best friend. Or had been.

  “I’m Kai,” Kai said, and stuck out his hand, like he wanted five or something.

  Lance’s smirk grew. He looked at Kai’s palm like it was the last thing in the world he’d ever consider coming into contact with.

  “Oops,” Kai said, pretending he was embarrassed. “Forgot to say ‘Simon says,’ didn’t I? Simon says, give me five.”

  Lance raised an eyebrow. “Still no, dude.”

  “Simon says, don’t shake, then,” Kai said. He waited a couple seconds, then pulled his hand back and chirped, “Thanks!”

  I leaned across the table toward him. “Enzo says, knock it off, Kai,” I said.

  “You didn’t say ‘Simon says,’ so I have to keep it up.”

  “I mean it, Kai…,” I growled.

  “Simon says, don’t hear my voice!” he said loudly. “Burn! You all heard me!” He laughed again, then dipped his corn dog into his mustard and stuffed it into his goofy mouth.

  “Hey, do you know this guy, Enzo?” Chase asked.

  “We went to Tuolomne together,” I said.

  “We’ve been best friends since first grade!” Kai said through his food. Fortunately, the corn dog muffled what he said.

  “I’m done eating,” I said, and stood up. “Let’s go.”

  “Me, too,” said Chase.

  “What about your friend, Enzo?” Lance said, poking his thumb at Kai.

  “Yeah!” Kai said, swallowing hard to clear his mouth. “I just got here!”

  “Exactly,” I said under my breath, loud enough for only Chase to hear.

  Again, I felt bad, but what was I going to do? It wasn’t my fault Kai was a dork, that he hadn’t changed like I had.

  Chase nudged me with his shoulder and snorted. He was laughing at Kai. And it made me feel worse.

  I caught Lance staring me down, watching me squirm. He was loving it. Luckily, Chase didn’t notice.

  We walked away, into the Student Commons, an area with a bunch of couches and chairs and a high wall of windows looking out onto the parking lot. Lots of kids were in there, gabbing and checking everyone else out. Most of them looked older than us. I didn’t see any familiar faces.

  Till I saw my sister Lupe’s painted face. She was chattering away with a gaggle of girls. She saw me, too, then turned away like she hadn’t. She snubbed me, in other words, just like I had snubbed Kai. It didn’t feel good.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said to Chase.

  Stan had no playground, of course. No kickball field. Not even hoops. I guess that meant by sixth grade you were supposed to have given up on fun stuff like that. Some kids had formed hacky sack circles, but most stood around, talking. A few kids had wandered off alone, with their lunches and their books. I guessed these were kids new to town or losers: kids with no old friends, kids who’d made no new friends that day, kids who never made friends.

  I was relieved I’d attracted two new cool friends already. I wasn’t sure if I should count Lance as a friend, but I knew that he’d at least try to hang out with me as long as Chase did. And Chase definitely liked me. Plus I’d been nominated class president. And girls were staring at me and whispering. Whether or not all that was good, it sure beat sitting alone on bleachers, nibbling a PB&J or reading a book and trying to pretend it didn’t bother you that you were alone.

  And then I spotted Kai by himself on the bleachers. He was now eating a sandwich and jabbing at his cell phone. He wasn’t calling anyone; he was playing a game. Probably Tetris. That was his favorite. He played it all the time. To me, trying to get all those boxes to fit together felt more like cleaning the garage than playing a game. I was glad he was too absorbed to see me.

  “Let’s go back inside,” I said to Chase.

  He laughed.

  My next class was social studies. Lance was in it, as was Iris, Misa (the blonde who was peeking at me), and Kai. When me and Lance walked in, there weren’t any two seats together, so we split up. This didn’t bother either of us.

  Kai eagerly pointed to a seat beside him where he’d set his backpack, and was whisper-chanting, “Enz! Enz! Enz!” I pretended not to notice. I saw a seat open next to Iris, but she still had that smug look on her face from the last time I saw her. There was an open seat in front of Misa, but I didn’t want her behind me, staring at me and whispering all period. So I kept going and took a seat in the back of the room. It wasn’t till I sat down that I realized the kid with the bow tie from the lunch line was sitting in the desk beside me.

  “Hello, Enzo,” he said.

  I nodded at him.

  “Maybe you don’t remember me,” he went on. “Giovanni Gordillo. My friends call me Gio. I’m the kid you defended in the lunch line today. The one who is running for class president against you? The one who is going to win, too, I’m afraid.”

  The kid just beamed at me. What was with him anyway? Didn’t he know where he was? And whose idea was the bow tie? And the slicked-down hair with the part that exposed half an inch of scalp?

  “Your name is short for something, I suspect,” he said. “Are you Italian, by chance? My grand-parents emigrated from Italy…”

  “Excuse me, Gio,” I said, and stood up and moved over a couple rows. I’d had to shun my best friend for being a dork. I wasn’t going to let an even dorkier kid attach himself to me like some sort of dork barnacle.

  Kai, who was now a few seats in front of me, twisted around and was hissing and snapping his fingers, trying to get my attention. Lance was looking back and forth between Kai and me, and grinning. I knew what that meant: he was going to try to use Kai to ruin my standing with Chase.

  Misa kept sneaking little peaks at me over her shoulder and blushing. Iris was looking over her shoulder at me, too—and down her nose.

  I ignored all of them. I didn’t like being a creep, but I told myself it wasn’t my fault. Middle school did not reward people for basic human decency. In middle school, it was survival of the fittest. And I was pretty fit.

  I had to remember that it was I who had been given the cap, and with it came great responsibilities. Owning the cap meant I needed to model excellence and attain glory. I could not let Kai drag me down. I couldn’t let anyone do that. I had the cap. Greatness was my destiny.

  My last class of the day was science, taught by a Ms. Savjani. I had six teachers and five of them were female. Story of my life. I mean, come on!

  Chase was in Savjani’s class, too, and afterward he suggested we go to the skate park.

  “Do you have a board?” he asked.

  I was so glad he asked. Did I have a board? I had a cutting-edge Kap “anti-gravity” board, which Evan called “spring-loaded, for extra pop.” The deck was razor-thin and light as air, and the logo and graphics looked as if they were part of the wood, not painted on. I could imagine his face when I showed it to him.

  But I played it cool.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I have a board.”

  Lance walked up.

  “You guys going to b-ball tryouts?” he asked.

  I groaned. I wanted to show Chase my board. I wouldn’t mind showing Lance, either.

  “What? You don’t play b-ball, Lorenzo? What do you play? Boring old baseball?”

  I thought about my basketball gear: my Kap
shoes, jerseys, shorts, socks. I had a ball signed by Kobe Bryant.

  “No, I play,” I said. “But Chase and I were just heading to the skate park.”

  That lit Lance up.

  “Yeah, well, tryouts are now,” he said to Chase, “so if you want to make the team…”

  Chase nodded his head. “Yeah, I do.” He looked at me. “We can go to the skate park any time, Enz. Right now, let’s go show the Killer what we got.”

  It just so happened that some of what I got, I got from real, live NBA b-ballers: tips from pros in L.A., Frisco, Portland, and Seattle. Yeah, I wanted to show the Killer—and Chase and Lance and everybody—what I had learned from them.

  But I decided to hide my eagerness. Be cool.

  “All right,” I said, and Chase brought up his fist for a bump. I bumped it. “Let’s show him what we got.”

  Lance looked pleased, like he hoped he would mop the floor with me.

  I was looking forward to disappointing him.

  I’d never tried out for a school team before. There were tons of guys there wanting to make the cut. A lot of guys were not going to. Would I be one of them? I didn’t think so. Not only was I in great shape and coached by the best in the game, I had the cap. I was unbeatable.

  Basketball’s a tough game. A player’s in almost constant motion: running, dribbling, jumping, shooting, passing, rebounding, defending. You have to have strength, coordination, skill, and endurance. Some of the guys who were trying out had better jump shots or layups. Some were better ball handlers. But nobody outlasted me. I didn’t dog a single drill.

  This seemed to tick Lance off, which made him screw up a lot. I made a point of swiping the ball away from him whenever I could, especially when I sensed a coach watching. I even drew a couple of offensive fouls from him, which wasn’t hard. He’s pretty offensive.

  Chase played pretty well, though he had a tendency to telegraph his moves. His fakes were a joke. I could have blocked most of his shots, stolen most of his passes, and beaten him to the basket any time I wanted. Instead, I avoided him. I didn’t want to make him look bad. I didn’t want him blaming me when he got cut, which I figured he would.

  At the end of tryouts, Killer really ran us hard. We had to run from the baseline to every single painted line on the floor and back. Because the gym was used for so many different games, there were probably a hundred lines. Guys dropped like flies, wheezing and coughing. My lungs felt like they were on fire. My leg muscles turned to jelly. But I finished with my head up. Lance and Chase finished, too, then collapsed onto their knees.

  We wouldn’t know who’d made the team till the next day when they posted the names, but as I pulled on my cap in the locker room, I was pretty sure “Enzo Harpold” would be on that list.

  “You still want to hit the skate park?” I asked Chase as we stepped outside in our street clothes, our hair all wet.

  “Are you crazy?” Chase laughed. “No way! I’m exhausted, dude!”

  “I’m still up for it,” I said, though I was totally exhausted, too, and the last thing I wanted to do was more exercise. In other words, I was bluffing.

  Lance glared at me. “Count me out, for sure. You coming, Chase?”

  “Which way you going?” Chase asked me.

  Oh, yeah. I forgot. Home. I had to get home. And the bus had left ages ago. And home was far away.

  I nodded in the opposite direction they were going.

  “All right, then,” Chase said. “Catch you tomorrow, Enzo. I bet you’ll be on Killer’s list.”

  Lance grumbled, “Yeah, right,” under his breath.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I bet you will be, too”—I glanced at Lance—“Chase.”

  Lance faked a smile, then erased it. “Come on, dude,” he said, bumping Chase’s shoulder with his own.

  They walked away, smacking each other around like guys do.

  I was alone. And a long way from home.

  I took out my cell. An empty battery symbol flashed a few times, then the phone went dark again.

  I adjusted my cap and started walking.

  8. Slam Dunk

  Usually I get home from the first day of school exhausted, depressed, bitter, and dreading the hundreds of school days ahead of me. But even after the long walk, I was in a pretty upbeat mood.

  Mom, on the other hand, was a basket case.

  “Where have you been?” she screeched when I walked through the door. She threw her arms around me and squeezed and kissed me desperately, as if I’d just run out of a burning building or something.

  “You weren’t on the bus,” Lupe chimed in. She was sitting on the new flowery, pink couch, and making the universally recognized face for I got you so busted!

  When Mom finally released me, and my blood started circulating again, I told her about basketball tryouts, then I spilled the whole day’s events in one big rush of words. (Who cares about being cool around your mom?) She shrieked with joy and congratulations.

  “I am not surprised,” she said. “My strong, handsome, intelligent boy!”

  Then she hugged the life out of me again.

  Lupe fumed on the couch. Obviously, Miss Perfect had hoped I would fall flat on my face at Stan. Ha! Take that, Lupe!

  Dinner wasn’t ready, so I headed to the laundry room, took my sweaty gym clothes out of my duffel, dumped them in a hamper, then climbed the stairs to my two-toned room. The walls were still bare. I had decided not to rehang my old posters and stuff. Instead, I’d hang the new Kap stuff from the trip, including the real prize: an autographed, full-color, life-size photo of LeBron James, slam-dunking. I so looked forward to the day when I could slam dunk. I imagined it was at least a couple years off.

  I took off my cap and set it on my dresser, visor pointing back at me. It was a bit worn, a little dirtier and sweatier. But its bill was still flat.

  “Thanks, buddy,” I said to it.

  I ate a big dinner: three of my mom’s beef empanadas, some carrot onion salad, and two bowls of ice cream for dessert. Probably because of the tryouts. And the walk home.

  I hadn’t gotten any homework, so I watched an A’s game with my dad. He asked how my first day of middle school went.

  “The rules are ridiculous,” I said. “The bus ride stinks. Lupe was a total snob to me.” I paused. “But it was pretty good.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I met a couple guys. Chase and Lance. One of them is pretty cool. Lance is out to get me.”

  “Already?”

  “I think he thinks I’m trying to be Chase’s new best friend.”

  “Are you?”

  “I just met him. He’s okay.”

  “And Kai?”

  I sighed. “Kai still acts like a fourth grader.”

  “You guys have been friends an awful long time.”

  “Yeah, but this is middle school, Dad. There’s a lot more guys to choose from.”

  Dad looked at me like a dad, like he knew everything about being a boy, because he’d been there, and there wasn’t anything I could be thinking or feeling that he hadn’t already thought and felt, and that he could easily set me straight and tell me exactly what I should do in order not to screw up, but he wasn’t going to do that, because I had to figure stuff out for myself. He probably thought his being quiet right then did me more good than offering advice. But I wouldn’t have minded the advice.

  “Did you tell everyone about the trip?” he asked.

  “Not very much,” I said. “I want to make it last. And I don’t want to sound too braggy. That’ll turn people off.”

  Dad nodded. “I see.”

  We watched the game awhile, then I asked, “How’s Evan? How’s the job?”

  “Good,” Dad said. “Evan seems pleased with my work, at least.”

  “Of course he is. He thinks you’re great.”

  “If you say so. I feel old down there. It’s not the same as it was at G&W.”

  Duh! I thought. What was wrong with him?

  A
fter the game, as he got up to leave, he patted my shoulder and said, “Good luck tomorrow with the team. And with the election.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But, hey, don’t mention my running for class president to Evan, okay?”

  I made the team. All hail the cap!

  Chase made it, too, which was kind of a surprise. I think he got picked because he tried so hard. Coach Keller gave him an A for effort.

  And Lance? He got cut. I wasn’t exactly crushed.

  I also cleared the general election for class president on Friday. The top five vote getters would move on to the run-off election, in October. I was one of them. Chase wasn’t. Neither was Giovanni.

  All the candidates—including those for vice president, secretary, and treasurer—started campaigning, which mostly meant making and hanging posters and banners. Kyla, the girl in my homeroom who nominated me, volunteered to be my campaign manager, and got some of her friends to help her. It was fine by me. At least I didn’t have to make any stupid posters or banners.

  They came up with catchy slogans like:

  ELECT ENZO!

  ENZ FOR PREZ!

  ENZO FOR PREZIDENZO!

  THE ENZ JUSTIFIES THE MEANS!

  Chase said Kyla worked so hard for me because she liked me, and a rumor to that effect started bouncing around the halls. Kyla instructed me not to deny the rumors. She told me to say, “No comment.” She said rumors were publicity, and all publicity was good. But I thought she probably had a different agenda. Like Chase said, she liked me. I didn’t like her back, of course. I just wanted to win the election. I guess I was using her. Wasn’t that what politicians did?

  One of my opponents challenged me to a debate. Kyla advised against it.

  “You don’t win school elections because of your positions on school issues,” she told me.

  “No? What do we win on?”

  She just blushed, and said, “Cuteness.”

  Again, I went along. I didn’t want to debate anybody. I wasn’t really sure what my positions even were.

  I got pretty excited as the election grew near. I enjoyed competition. I liked winning. And I figured I would win. With the cap, how could I lose?