The League

by Thatcher Heldring

  “Oh, no reason,” said Francis, leaning on his club. “I was just thinking if you needed any ideas I’d tell you about this new company that’s about to go public. Normally, I wouldn’t advise taking a big position on one stock, but it might be the perfect move. In your case, I mean.”

  The club almost slipped out of my hand. What was Francis doing? Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut like he promised? And how had I ended up being friends with the only fourteen-year-old on the planet who paid attention to the stock market?

  “In my case?” Dad asked. “What do you mean?”

  Francis seemed to realize his mistake and started backpedaling. “Oh, I mean, just because you’re kind of a gambler.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Dad, losing interest in the conversation. “Hey, Wyatt,” he called. “Let ’er rip. There’s a group behind us.”

  Doing my best to swing without letting the club fly out of my hands, I hacked at the ball, knocking it a hundred yards straight as an arrow.

  “Good enough,” said Dad.

  We shouldered our bags and started hiking up the fairway. Dad veered toward me. “Everything okay?” he asked. “You seem a little distracted.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “Just thirsty.”

  “Well, it’s great being out here with you,” he said, putting his arm around me. “You’re turning into a real golfer.”

  “I am?”

  Dad laughed. “Yeah, you’re on the second hole and you’re already thinking about the clubhouse.”

  That afternoon Francis and I went to see Invasion Earth 2 3D.

  “Two for I E Two Three-D,” Francis said.

  “Two?” I asked as Francis paid for the tickets.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s on me. I won a few bets with my dad on the course this morning.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks. That’s really cool.”

  “No problem,” Francis said. “Just don’t try to hold my hand or anything.”

  “You need to get over yourself,” I said as we waited in the lobby. “You’re not even my type.”

  That made Francis crack up.

  We were still standing around waiting for our theater to start seating people when Francis turned white. “Oh no,” he said.

  I felt a thick arm wrap around my neck. The head-lock lasted only a second before I was free. I heard a familiar laugh behind me and turned around to see Spencer Randle, Planet, and Ox.

  “Guess who?” said Spencer.

  “Looks like two Idiots and a Moron to me,” I said.

  “Idiots rule,” said Planet.

  “Then why are we winning?” Spencer asked.

  Planet poked his finger at Spencer. “It’s not because of you.”

  “Shut up,” said Spencer. “I’ll drop you right here like I did yesterday.”

  “You mean right before I tackled you?” I asked.

  Ox and Planet lost it, which made Spencer shove them both at the same time. All three guys stumbled into a display for a movie called Will You Be My Dragon?

  I looked over at Francis, who was hanging back, gripping his ticket in his hands. “Relax,” I told him. “They’re cool.”

  “Um, that’s Spencer Randle,” Francis said. “The guy who wanted to destroy you.”

  “Okay, look,” I said, pulling Francis aside. “There’s something I haven’t told you. I’ve kind of been playing football this summer.”

  “Where?” Francis asked. “With who?”

  “In the park,” I replied, starting to feel like I was talking to my mom. “With Spencer and some other guys.”

  “Why?” Francis asked.

  “Because I want to. Because it’s fun and I’m actually pretty good at it.” A few feet away, Ox body-slammed Planet into the wall. “But you can’t tell anybody.”

  “There’s a lot about you I can’t tell anyone,” Francis said, sounding annoyed and suspicious at the same time.

  “Please don’t make a big deal out of it, Francis. It’s just football. It’s not like we’re robbing banks.”

  “Okay,” said Francis. “I won’t tell anyone you’re playing the world’s dumbest sport with the world’s biggest boneheads.”

  That was all I wanted to hear. I didn’t need Francis’s approval. I just had to know he wouldn’t talk.

  Planet, Ox, and Spencer finished wrestling. Planet looked up at the big screen. “Oh man, Octosaur starts in two minutes. We better go now. I want a good seat. In the middle.”

  Spencer pointed at Planet’s gut. “Don’t you mean you want two seats?” he said.

  “Keep talking and I’ll make you my seat,” Planet shot back. “And I had a burrito for breakfast.”

  “All right, all right,” Spencer said. “Let’s go in.” He looked at me. “You coming?”

  “We’re seeing I E Two Three-D,” Francis said.

  “You’re seeing what?” Ox asked. “I pee on you?”

  “Invasion Earth Two Three-D,” I said. “It’s about aliens, and they—”

  Spencer cut me off. “Octosaur is better. I’m talking about a T. rex with eight legs that can shoot ink out of his butt. It’s the most awesome thing that ever lived.”

  “You have to admit, it does sound pretty awesome,” I said to Francis.

  “I thought we were seeing Invasion Earth,” Francis said. “Besides, Octosaur is rated R. We could get in trouble.”

  I looked over at the entrance to the theaters. Planet and Spencer had run ahead to get good seats. Ox waved at me and Francis. “Hey, ladies, are you coming or not?”

  “They don’t even check what movie you’re going to,” I said, getting impatient. I didn’t understand why Francis had to be so stubborn. It wasn’t like Invasion Earth was showing for only one day. “They just care if you have a ticket.”

  “You can see Octosaur if you want,” Francis snapped. “I bought a ticket to Invasion Earth and that’s what I’m seeing.”

  I watched Francis march away, but I didn’t follow him. I had better things to do than sit next to someone who had to have it his way all the time.

  “Wait up,” I called to Ox. “I’m coming.”

  Octosaur must have been longer than Invasion Earth, because there was no sign of Francis when I came out of the theater. I felt a little guilty about not seeing the movie with him, especially since he’d paid for my ticket. But I did what I’d wanted to do. Being in the League of Pain was about more than just showing up to play football. It was also about being a part of the group. Francis couldn’t see that because he never took any chances or tried to make new friends. If he did, he’d understand why I went to see Octosaur instead of IE23D. Also, I bet if it had been the other way around and Francis had changed his mind, he would have expected me to follow him.

  After the movie, I went with Planet and Ox to Pilchuck Market, where I bought a bag of potato chips. Spencer had left the theater on his own, saying he had something to take care of. I smiled, remembering when I had been the something he had to take care of. Now here I was hanging out with two guys who were even bigger than Spencer.

  Planet was standing in the candy aisle, begging Ox to buy him a candy bar.

  “Buy your own,” said Ox. “I only have enough for one.”

  “I would buy my own, but I spent my money paying for your extra-large soda, remember?”

  “Fine,” said Ox, looking around the store. “You want a candy bar, I’ll get you a candy bar.”

  Then, right before my eyes, Ox grabbed two candy bars from the rack and casually slipped one into his pocket before taking the second candy bar to the counter. It all happened in a split second. The next thing I knew, we were back outside the store.

  At first I couldn’t believe what I’d seen. I had never watched anybody steal right in front of my eyes. For a moment, I was tempted to tell Planet and Ox that shoplifting wasn’t my idea of a good time. But that seemed exactly like something Francis would do. So I decided not to judge them before I got to know them.

  “How’d
you know you wouldn’t get caught?” I asked Ox.

  Ox took the candy bar from his pocket and tossed it to Planet. He pointed at the clerk back inside the store. “Once he sees you’re buying something, he doesn’t pay attention to anything else you’re doing,” he explained. “He’s too excited to get his hands on the money.”

  Planet ripped off a chunk of the candy bar with his teeth. “His fault for being so greedy.” He started laughing as bits of chocolate flew from his mouth and landed on Ox’s shirt.

  That made me and Planet laugh too. It felt a bit funny to be laughing right after watching someone commit a crime, but I figured Ox had a point. What was the big deal about one candy bar? After all, if it was cool for Brian Braun to get into a movie without paying, why shouldn’t it be cool to get a snack without paying?

  “So you’re in eighth grade?” Ox asked when we had all calmed down.

  “I was in eighth grade. I’ll be in ninth grade when school starts. What grade are you in?”

  “We’re both in tenth grade,” Planet answered.

  “Do you like high school?”

  “Definitely,” said Ox. “It kicks middle school’s butt. There’s a lot more people to hang out with, for one thing.”

  “And you can go off campus for lunch,” Planet added.

  Spencer would like that, I thought.

  We hung around Pilchuck Market for a long time while Planet and Ox told me all about high school. They even promised to make sure nobody gave me a hard time. “Idiots have to look out for Idiots,” Ox said.

  Later that night, I was in my room wearing a pair of shorts when Mom cruised by carrying a basket of laundry. “Anything to wash?” she asked, poking her head in the doorway.

  “Just these,” I said, tossing Mom the mostly clean golf clothes I had been changing in and out of like Superman. Only instead of using a phone booth, I’d been hiding behind large trees.

  Squinting, Mom took a few steps toward me. “Wyatt,” she said, “what’s that bruise on your thigh? Did you get that playing golf?”

  “What bruise?”

  “Honey, I’m your mother and a nurse. You can’t walk in this house with a bruise without me noticing. Now tell me how that happened.”

  “I got hit by a cart,” I said.

  “You got hit by a cart?”

  “Well, I mean, I hit the cart. I wasn’t watching where I was going and I walked right into it.”

  “You must have been walking pretty fast,” said Mom, examining the bruise more closely.

  “Mom, stop looking at my leg,” I said, pulling my shorts down so they covered my thigh. “It’s fine. It’s just a bruise.”

  “Maybe you should ice it,” she said.

  “If it was going to swell, it would be swollen already. You should know that,” I said.

  “You’re right,” Mom said, smiling. “I guess it’s hard to be a mother and a nurse at the same time. I’ll leave you alone. But if it starts to hurt, let me know. We’ve got some ibuprofen in the bathroom.”

  “Deal,” I said, escorting her to my door.

  At first, I was pleased with myself for wriggling out of another jam, but as I tried to fall asleep, I felt more and more restless. Up until that night, I had been sleeping soundly. Tackle football on a rocky field with guys twice my size trying to bury me was enough to wear me out. Now the ache wasn’t in my thigh, my hand, or my ribs. It was in my head. Every time I pictured Mom, Dad, Francis, or whoever else I had deceived, my brain throbbed just a little bit. And there were still ten days left until the Fourth of July.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Will you pass the butter?” I asked Kate on Wednesday morning.

  We were wolfing down breakfast before Dad came downstairs to drive her to the golf course.

  Handing over the butter, Kate asked in a whisper, “Are you getting excited?”

  “About the butter?”

  “No!” she said, shaking her head rapidly. “About the Fourth of July. Remember, your date with Evan?”

  “It’s not a date,” I said. “It’s just a bunch of people sitting on a hill watching fireworks.”

  “Like who?” she asked.

  “Like people you don’t know who work at the pool with Evan.”

  “You mean Brian and Ashley?”

  “How do you know about Brian?”

  “My friend Caitlin from golf is Ashley’s sister, which makes me and Brian practically related,” Kate explained as she took a glass from the cupboard. “Plus, duh, everyone knows Brian Braun is the best football player ever from Pilchuck.”

  She paused to pour herself a glass of juice. “Anyway, Caitlin told me Brian lives next door to them and he and Ashley have been friends forever. Now they’ll probably never break up. But if they do, one of them will probably have to move because it’ll be totally awkward.”

  I took all this in and decided that it was definitely good news. Brian was out of the way, and if Evan was looking for another football player to be the man of her dreams, all she had to do was walk next door. So what if I had to put up with a little guilt now and then? It was worth it.

  Dad came into the kitchen just as Kate and I were finishing. “Ready, pumpkin?” he asked her.

  “Ready, squash,” said Kate, following Dad to the front door.

  “You sure you don’t want a ride?” Dad asked me a minute later in the driveway, where Aaron and I were getting on our bikes.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “Okay,” he replied. “But I’ll see you at the golf course at four o’clock.”

  “You will?”

  “That’s when camp ends, right?”

  “Ah, yep.”

  “Well, the golf tournament is only a week away and I need to practice. I thought we could play a few holes together. Maybe you can give me some pointers.”

  I froze. I couldn’t think fast enough. My mind was jammed up.

  “Is something wrong?” Dad asked.

  “He’s just too excited to speak,” Aaron said.

  Dad looked me in the eye. “Is that it, Wyatt?”

  I managed to nod. “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “Great,” Dad said as he got into his car. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Meet me by the first hole.”

  “Block it out,” Aaron said after Dad had driven away. “There’s nothing you can do about it now, so forget about it and think football. We need to beat the Morons today.”

  I did my best to put golf out of my mind. I figured I’d have plenty of time to make it to the golf course by four o’clock.

  As soon as the game started, football was the only thing in the world. All I had to do was get open and wait for José to hit me, just like he’d done last Friday.

  Except it wasn’t that easy.

  “Do you know what this is?” Julian asked the first time we had the ball. He curled his fingers and thumb together to make a zero with his right hand.

  “The size of your brain?” I said.

  “This is how many times you’re going to catch the ball today.”

  “Just try and stop me.”

  That was just what Julian did. He stuck to me like superglue. It wasn’t too difficult, since José didn’t call any plays for me.

  When he did, Spencer always watched me out of the corner of his eye while he did his ten-Mississippi count.

  We had a chance to win the game, but our final drive stalled at midfield when we couldn’t get two completions.

  After the game, I overheard my teammates complaining. “We can’t move the ball unless everyone on the team is a threat,” I heard Ox say to José.

  I knew he was talking about me.

  “I know,” José said. “I’ll come up with something for tomorrow.”

  “At least we’re playing good D,” said Aaron.

  That started a conversation about defense. I would have stayed to listen, but I had to get up to the golf course so I could practice before meeting Dad.

  It was a little after three when I lock
ed my bike in front of the main entrance to the Pilchuck Golf and Tennis Club. Golfers in carts rolled past me on their way to the first tee, while other people sat on the deck soaking up the sunshine. Besides the sound of balls being smacked on the driving range, it was as quiet as a library. Maybe a nice place to visit, I thought, walking to the clubhouse to check out golf clubs, but I needed more noise and action.

  Inside the clubhouse, I went to the counter, where a lady in a plaid sweater was folding shirts. Her name tag said Jo.

  It was the woman I’d spoken to on the phone the day I called to say I wasn’t coming to golf camp.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously, like I didn’t belong.

  “Yeah, um, can I go to the driving range?”

  “You need to be a member,” Jo explained sternly. “Are you a member?”

  “My dad is. His name is Alan Parker.”

  As soon as I mentioned Dad’s name, Jo gave me a wide smile. “Are you Wyatt?”

  I was glad to see Jo was warming up to me, but I hoped she and Dad weren’t too tight. What if she asked him about space camp? I decided to answer cautiously. “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Wyatt,” Jo said. “How is your dad? He hasn’t been around much lately.”

  “He’s been busy with work.”

  “And tell me, how is space camp?”

  “Space camp is, um, out of this world,” I said, figuring a little humor would keep Jo from asking too many questions.

  Jo thought that was hilarious. “The driving range is right through there,” she said, pointing out the glass door. “You can borrow a club. Just take a bucket of balls and choose any tee you want.”

  I found a tee far away from everyone else and set up a ball. I gripped the three-wood like Dad had showed me. Bringing the club back, I drove it forward, swiveling my hips as I swung—right over the ball. I tried again and the head of the club bumped the ball off the tee.

  By the time the bucket was empty, I was getting them in the air. I wasn’t hitting anything two hundred yards like Francis, but it would be good enough to impress Dad.

  I had hit about half the balls in my second bucket when Dad arrived. “Jo told me I’d find you here,” he said.