Fighting Chance

by B K Stevens

  “Ms. Nguyen?” I said. “She’s my English teacher.”

  “That’s right—Nguyen. I met her four or five times—so friendly, so sweet. Let’s see. Who else should you talk to?”

  After Mrs. Dolby rattled off more names, Graciana closed her notebook. “Thank you. You gave us some wonderful stories. Would you mind if Berk takes a picture of you? He’ll use his cell phone camera.”

  Mrs. Dolby shifted around in her chair, patting her hair into place. “Pictures—I don’t know. I’m sure my eyes are still puffy from crying. But Randy had a really nice snapshot of the two of us—he kept it in his kitchen. We can go get it.” She rummaged in a shiny red box until she found the right key. “I haven’t opened his door since it happened. His parents called, and I said I’d pack up his things for them, but I haven’t had the heart to begin. It’ll be easier to go in there for the first time with all of you with me.”

  It wasn’t so easy. Coach’s living room was a mess—drawers pulled out of his desk and dumped on the floor, books everywhere, cushions stripped off the couch. Bureau drawers in the bedroom had been dumped out, too, and storage boxes emptied. As we walked through the apartment, Mrs. Dolby kept saying, “Goodness!” and pressing her hands against her cheeks. Finally, she wandered back to the living room and sank onto the couch.

  “A burglar!” she said. “And I didn’t even know! I didn’t hear a thing!”

  Berk pulled back the curtain in a large window. “The glass is broken, and the screen’s sliced from the frame. That’s how he got in. You’d better call the police.”

  Mrs. Dolby nodded, looking numb. “Will you stay until they come? It’s silly—the burglar’s obviously gone—but I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Of course we’ll stay,” Graciana said. “This must be so upsetting, Mrs. Dolby.”

  “It is. And why would someone burglarize Randy’s apartment but not take anything from my house? I have so many pretty things!”

  Maybe. I don’t know how many burglars would steal a clock with a mermaid curled around it. But Coach wasn’t rich, either. What did he have that’d attract a burglar? “Can you tell what’s missing?” I asked.

  She looked around. “Well, Randy had a laptop computer. I don’t see that. Or his briefcase. But Randy just kept books in that, and notes and things—why would anybody take that? And his television’s still here, his espresso maker—why didn’t the burglar take those?”

  Good questions. I picked up a notepad from the floor. No, not a clue, just a grocery list, decorated with doodles of fish and two flowering trees and dinosaurs.

  Before long, two uniformed officers arrived; five minutes later, Lieutenant Hill, the detective we’d talked to yesterday, showed up too. He didn’t look happy to see us.

  “We shouldn’t have this many people at a crime scene,” he said. “You kids—come outside with me.”

  Graciana gave Mrs. Dolby an index card. “Thank you for the delicious cookies, Mrs. Dolby, and for giving us so much information. Here’s my phone number in case you’d like to get in touch about the bake sale, or about anything else.”

  Mrs. Dolby nodded, hugging each of us. We followed Lieutenant Hill to the front porch, and he stood facing us, leaning his back against the railing. “What’s this about a bake sale?”

  “We want to start a scholarship named after Coach Colson,” Berk said. “We’re having a bake sale to raise money.”

  Hill nodded. “Fine. Have all the bake sales you want.” He pointed at Graciana. “You said she gave you information. About what?”

  “About Coach Colson,” Graciana said. “I’m the editor of the school newspaper, and we’re putting together a memorial issue about him.”

  He thought that over for a minute. “If it’s just stories about how nice he was, okay. But don’t start digging for dirt, getting people stirred up over nothing. Did you scare Mrs. Dolby with that garbage you tried to sell me yesterday? All that crazy talk about murder?”

  “We didn’t say anything about the tournament,” I said. “But what we told you wasn’t garbage, Lieutenant. We wish you’d take it more seriously.”

  He stepped closer to me and folded his arms across his chest—not a threatening move, but it felt like he was crowding me. “And I wish you’d stop telling me how to do my job. Who the hell do you three think you are, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys? This isn’t some game. You’re messing with people’s lives. I spent a long time talking to Davis yesterday. Nobody’s sorrier about the accident than he is. And you tried to get the poor guy charged with murder.”

  Graciana folded her arms, too, and took a step toward Hill. “If ‘that poor guy’ killed Coach Colson on purpose, he committed murder. And now we know Coach’s apartment got burglarized on the same day he was killed. You really think that’s a coincidence?”

  “Yeah, I do. Life’s full of coincidences. Usually, they don’t add up to a damn thing. Maybe you’ll figure that out when you grow up. This was an ordinary, everyday burglary. So go organize your bake sales and have fun with your little club. But don’t scare old ladies with crazy talk, and don’t start thinking you’re Woodward and Bernstein.” He turned his back on us and walked into the house.

  We got into the car and drove in silence for several minutes. Then Berk spoke up. “Woodward and Bernstein?”

  “Washington Post reporters,” Graciana said. “They helped uncover the truth about Watergate, back in the seventies. God! I couldn’t stand how sarcastic Hill was. And where does some cop get the right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my newspaper?”

  Her newspaper. Some people might think it’s the school’s newspaper. But like Derrick said, Graciana’s the take-charge type. “Maybe you should check with Mr. Bixby, though,” I said, “and ask if it’s okay to do a memorial issue.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll call him tonight, but I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. Honoring a teacher who died at a school event—how could he object?”

  “So we’re really doing this memorial issue?” Berk asked. “Okay. I liked listening to Mrs. Dolby’s stories about Coach. But she didn’t say anything that could help us figure out what happened.”

  “It’s too soon to know what information might be relevant, or how facts might fit together,” Graciana said. “It certainly could be relevant that somebody burglarized Coach’s apartment, left behind things that could be fenced, but took his papers. And we learned interesting things about him. For example, I wouldn’t have expected him to read The Bell Jar.”

  “Yeah, you seemed surprised by that,” I said. “You’ve read that book? What’s it about?”

  “It’s hard to sum it up in a sentence or two, but I’d say, among other things, it’s a portrait of depression, and of the search for identity. The protagonist’s very intelligent, but she has trouble finding a direction for her life, and she feels stifled by the limited choices available to women at the time.”

  Definitely a chick book, I thought. I wouldn’t have expected Coach to read it, either. “Maybe it’s because of Ms. Nguyen,” I said. “Mrs. Dolby hinted she and Coach might’ve been involved. And Ms. Nguyen teaches English. I can see her liking that book. Maybe Coach wanted to read it so they could discuss it.”

  “So we should talk to Ms. Nguyen,” Berk said. “If Coach had a problem, he might’ve told her. What about the other people Mrs. Dolby mentioned?”

  We spent the rest of the drive talking about that. All the time, I kept thinking about what we were up against. Bobby Davis had warned me to back off, and he could kill with nothing but his hands and feet. Lieutenant Hill saw us as a bunch of stupid kids who would just get in his way, and our parents didn’t know what we were doing and wouldn’t be happy if they did.

  Too many people against us—trying to find the truth about what happened to Coach was probably a really, really bad idea, especially since we didn’t seem to be making much progress.But
I couldn’t give up. Not yet.

  Six

  On Monday morning, Cassie bounced into the kitchen. “Bonjour, mon frère!” she said. “Comment allez-vous?”

  I looked up from my cornflakes. “What?”

  Cassie opened the refrigerator and stood hand on hip, scouting out possibilities. She’s borderline gawky, with long, wispy light orange hair and too many freckles. “It means, ‘Hello, my brother! How are you?’ Yesterday, Mom and Dad and I decided we should all learn French.”

  Naturally that’s something they’d decide we should do. I bet they all thought it sounded like the most fun ever. “Why? Are we moving to Paris?”

  “No, silly. But we realized I’m taking Latin, you’re taking Spanish, Mom took Italian, and Dad took German, but not one of us has taken French! Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m stunned.”

  “Us, too!” The sarcasm had zipped past her. She squinted into the refrigerator. “Cottage cheese! I can have cottage cheese! With peaches! Want some cottage cheese with peaches?”

  “No, thanks.” In the morning, I don’t even like to think about cottage cheese.

  She eased a knife into a peach, carving out one cautious slice. “So I found an online list of Fun French Phrases.” She looked up shyly. “I made you a copy. Want to practice at breakfast?”

  Little Miss Take-Charge, I thought. “I’m not really up for learning French.”

  “Oh, come on. It’d be fun, and it’s something we could do together.”

  “I’ve got too much other stuff going on. Should I pick you up after school, or do you have Special Chorus?”

  Now she really lit into the peach, bringing the knife down hard and fast against the pit. “I’m not in Special Chorus anymore. Yeah, I’d like a ride.”

  “You dropped Special Chorus?” The music teacher had started it this spring, and Cassie had gone nuts about being one of the twelve girls picked. They were learning madrigals and other extra-fancy songs to perform at nursing homes and stuff, and there’s nothing Cassie likes better than getting up in front of people and showing off. “How come?”

  “Because it’s dumb.” She dumped cottage cheese on her plate. “And I’ve got other stuff going on, too.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry I asked. We leave in twenty minutes. All right?”

  She bit her lip, then turned to me with a big smile. “C’est bien!”

  I guess that meant yes.

  ***

  In homeroom, the teacher handed me a note: Go to the Guidance Center. So the school had decided to help us cope.

  The Guidance Center’s got a room set up for small groups: whiteboard, round table, posters with inspirational sayings and pictures of people climbing mountains and crossing finish lines. Mr. Quinn had written five words on the whiteboard in big red letters: DENIAL, ANGER, BARGAINING, DEPRESSION, ACCEPTANCE. I was the last martial arts club member to slump into a chair.

  Mr. Quinn graduated with Ridgecrest High’s first senior class, twenty-five years ago, so he must be about forty-three. He’s in great shape, though. Every year, at the student-faculty basketball fundraiser, he makes us sweat for every point. Right after college, he came straight back to Ridgecrest to be guidance counselor—it’s the only job he’s ever had. A few years after that, he married Ms. Quinn, and they’ve both worked here ever since. Sometimes, he jokes about feeling like he never graduated, like he can never escape. But you can tell he thinks going to Ridgecrest High was the best thing that ever happened to him, and it’s the best thing that’ll ever happen to us, too.

  He walked up to the whiteboard, doing a big sigh, jerking his shoulders back on the inhale, drooping them forward on the exhale. “This is a sad day for Ridgecrest High,” he said. “Mr. Colson was a dedicated teacher, a great coach. I was proud to call him my friend. So I thought we should get together to help you understand your feelings.”

  He picked up his note cards and pointed to the big red words. “When you lose somebody, you go through stages of grief. There’s nothing wrong with these feelings. They’re part of the process. The goal? Moving from denial to acceptance. What do you think denial means?”

  Damn, I thought. Will we have to talk about all five of these? This didn’t have anything to do with the feelings I was having. It felt like some gimmick guidance counselors use to make kids open up. If he’d just given us a chance to talk, fine. But Mr. Quinn always complicates things. He has to break feelings down into steps, and he can’t talk to us without a stack of note cards in his hands.

  I hunched forward, staring at my folded hands. If I looked up, he might call on me. Finally, Joseph raised his hand. He’s an awful nice guy. He always cooperates with teachers, even when they want us to do something dumb.

  “Does it mean,” he said, “when sad things happen, people try to not believe, because believing makes too much hurt?”

  “Nailed it! My man!” Mr. Quinn held up his hand for a high five. Wincing, Joseph gave him one. Like I said, he’s an awful nice guy.

  “So that’s denial,” Mr. Quinn said, looking all happy because we were communicating so well. “Did you feel denial after the accident? I sure did. I kept thinking, ‘He can’t have passed away! The paramedics will save him!’ It’s natural to have those feelings. But we gotta get past them. There was an accident, Mr. Colson passed away, and we’ve gotta accept those facts. Next comes anger. Who felt anger Saturday?”

  Nobody spoke. I stared at my hands harder.

  “Matt?” he said. “Did you feel anger after the accident?”

  I should’ve come up with a sentence that’d make him leave me alone, so he’d call on somebody else to make up crap about bargaining. But I felt too fed up.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m still angry. Maybe that’s partly because of this process or whatever, but it’s also because I know—I know—it wasn’t an accident. And Lieutenant Hill won’t listen to us, and Davis will probably get away with murder. That makes me angry.”

  Mr. Quinn shuffled through his note cards. “I heard some of you felt it wasn’t an accident. That’s okay. It’s natural. Now, though, I want you to look at those feelings carefully—and honestly. Aren’t they a form of denial?”

  “No,” Berk said. “And it’s not just feelings. We saw—”

  Mr. Quinn held up a hand. “Berk, calm down. I’ll tell you a story. Fifteen years ago, my wife had a miscarriage. How do you think I felt?”

  Suzette raised her hand. “Sad?”

  Mr. Quinn beamed. It was the answer he’d wanted. “Not at first. First, I felt angry. I convinced myself it must’ve been the doctor’s fault. Now, I think I purposely made myself angry. Do you know why?”

  He turned to the whiteboard and tapped the fourth red word. “Depression. I didn’t want to go there. It’s scary. Feeling angry is easier than feeling miserable. Once I admitted the miscarriage was nobody’s fault, that’s how I did feel. But that’s the only way to get to acceptance.” He smiled. “Now, my wife and I have two healthy girls. We couldn’t be happier. I want you to be happy, too. First, though, you have to accept the truth. Bad things happen sometimes—no reason, nobody’s fault. That’s why life’s hard.”

  “Sometimes that’s why life’s hard.” Graciana was staring at her hands, just like I was. “But sometimes it’s hard because people do bad things on purpose. Sometimes, it is somebody’s fault. We want to know which kind of hard thing this is.”

  Mr. Quinn pulled his lower lip in over his teeth. “You know what, Graciana? I bet, deep down, you already know it was an accident. You can’t face that yet, because then you’d have to face depression. It’s easier to distract yourself by thinking somebody’s guilty. But you’ll never reach acceptance that way.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s move on.”

  He wrote THE FUTURE on the whiteboard. “We can’t change the past. Let’s list constructive things you can do to
help yourselves heal. Derrick?”

  Derrick blinked. “Matt says we should have a bake sale and start a scholarship named after Coach.”

  “Fantastic!” Mr. Quinn wrote BAKE SALE on the board in huge purple letters. “Any other constructive ideas? Graciana?”

  Her face looked like solid stone. “We’re doing a memorial issue of the school newspaper to honor Coach Colson. Matt and Berk are helping, and I hope the rest of you will, too.”

  Mr. Quinn didn’t write anything on the board. “With final exams six weeks away, beginning a time-consuming project might not be smart. You know what would be smart? Exercise! Martial arts are a great way to get exercise. I know—during college, I got a black belt in karate. Who wants to keep taking martial arts?”

  I hadn’t thought about that since Saturday. It’s not like I’ve always wanted to be a ninja or something. I got interested in martial arts last year when Coach got his black belt. Now, maybe it’d feel too sad to keep going.

  I glanced around the table. Derrick’s hand shot up. Then Berk, Joseph, and Graciana raised their hands, too. So I raised mine. That’s when Suzette raised hers.

  “Great!” Mr. Quinn said. “I’d love to advise your club, but my wife thinks I do too much extra stuff for the school already. So I made a list of martial arts schools in town.”

  Of course he’d made a list—alphabetical, with illustrations. Like I said, he complicates everything. When I got my copy, one name jumped out. Eye of the Tiger Martial Arts—Aaron Roth, Master. I thought of the judge who’d said Davis deliberately kicked Coach in the armpit and throat. Hadn’t another judge called him Aaron? “Eye of the Tiger school might be okay,” I said. “I think Aaron Roth was a judge at the tournament. He seemed nice.”