Earhart Middle loved the dodgeball tournament.
I liked it, too. From the sidelines. Where I could cheer others on. Where I was not the target of a rubber ball hurled eight hundred miles per hour straight at my gut.
“This year, we have something extra to get you fired up,” said Mr. Petrucelli. “Wesley, you want to step forward? We’ve got a special prize.”
The crowd roared.
I didn’t turn around to find out why. I’d seen as much of Wesley Banks as I ever wanted to, and I sure didn’t need to watch him hold up a prize for Mr. Petrucelli, like some game show assistant, a big hero just for carrying it into the gym, especially since, whatever it was, it was a prize I’d never win in my whole life, even if I entered the stupid dodgeball tournament, which I never would.
“Each year, everyone wants to be the Last Player Standing,” said Mr. Petrucelli.
Earhart Middle whooped and cheered.
“Everyone works hard to be that player,” said Mr. Petrucelli, “and usually the only prize is the pride of a job well done. But this year, to commemorate being named Earhart Middle’s most valuable player in both football and basketball, Wesley, out of his love for school—”
Oh, brother.
“—has generously purchased a prize with his own money, and is donating that prize for the Last Player Standing.”
The crowd went wild.
“Wesley will present this prize,” said Mr. Petrucelli, “after the championship game at the end of the carnival.”
Earhart Middle cheered again.
I shook my head and trundled my spotlight toward the electric plug in the corner. Mom and Beech had wrangled themselves out of the bleachers and were already there waiting for me.
My mother was giving me her sympathetic mom face. Which was just humiliating.
Beech was staring at the middle of the gym, that white, shaky look washed over his face. He kept staring like that, then turned to look at me. And his face just crumpled. Like a Kleenex.
I frowned, glanced over my shoulder . . .
. . . and stopped dead in my combat boots.
Wesley Banks stood in the center of the Amelia M. Earhart Middle School gymnasium, next to Mr. Petrucelli (with the Sundances, Luke Delgado and T.J. Hawkins, at his side, to make him look even more important, I guess). Just stood there . . .
. . . holding the helmet.
The gold batting helmet, with the red V starting at the top and whooshing back, like Iron Man.
The helmet from Bottenfield’s.
The helmet Beecher wanted so much, he was about to pass out.
And as Mr. Petrucelli droned on about how wonderful Wesley was, Wesley did something else entirely. He looked at me. Straight at me.
And smiled.
A mean, cold, hard smile.
Nobody else noticed. Mr. Petrucelli was still going on about how amazingly generous Wesley was and how, knowing Wesley and his amazing dodgeball skills, he’d probably end up winning the helmet back anyway, heh heh, and wouldn’t that be fitting? The bleacher crowd whooped and clapped. The cheerleaders bounced and cheered. The Kaleys gazed at Wesley like he was a rock star. I don’t know what Emma was doing. I couldn’t bear to look. But she probably thought Wesley was wonderful too. And then the band director whipped the pep band into a rousing rendition of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
And while all this was going on, while everyone was cheering the thoughtfulness and unselfishness that was Wesley Banks, middle school superhero, Wesley looked at me, then at Beecher, then held the batting helmet high to get the full effect of the gym lights glinting off the shiny red and gold—
—and laughed.
Fifteen
To: BassoonMaster
From: SuperTuck
Subject: One Goal
Noah, I finally figured out my New Year’s resolution. It will be the greatest thing I will ever achieve, and I’m going to do everything I can, and even some things I probably can’t, and not rest a single minute until I make it happen.
Tucker
To: SuperTuck
From: BassoonMaster
Re: One Goal
Tuck, congratulations. So what is it, this perfect resolution?
Noah
To: BassoonMaster
From: SuperTuck
Re: One Goal
I’m going to wipe that stupid, jerky, arrogant smirk off Wesley Banks’s face so completely, so thoroughly, no one will ever have to look at it again.
Tucker
To: SuperTuck
From: BassoonMaster
Re: One Goal
I’m in.
Noah
Sixteen
I’d never gone to the office to sign up for anything, and sure as heck not an athletic event.
So the next day, between classes, when I ambled into the Amelia M. Earhart Middle School office, trying to act like I knew what I was doing, it was a lie.
Luckily, Louise, our school secretary, spent every day of her life with middle school kids. She had a lot of experience with lies.
She watched for a few moments as I slunk around the office, giving the walls, doors, counter, a covert once-over, hoping the sign-up sheet was maybe taped up somewhere so I could casually add our team and get the heck out of there.
“Hey there, Tucker,” she finally said. “What can I do for you?”
“Um, well. I need to sign up for . . . something.”
“Would that something be”—she lowered her voice—“Last Player Standing?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “Yes, it would.”
Louise gave me a hard look. “Are you sure?”
Was she kidding? I was about to commit a bunch of nervous artists to a cutthroat dodgeball tournament where people like Wesley Banks would fire balls at their heads. And I hadn’t told them.
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”
“Okay, then.”
She pulled a clipboard from her desk drawer and carried it to the counter.
“That batting helmet sure is drumming up a lot of interest this year.” She licked her fingers and riffled through a stack of papers at the back of the clipboard. “Everybody’s sure Wesley will win it back.” She gave me a sly wink. “It might be nice if everybody’s wrong. Oh, here we are.”
She slipped out a sheet of pink paper and handed it to me.
“Your official team roster,” she said. “It has to be turned in in a couple weeks.”
She set the clipboard on the counter and tapped her fingernail on the top page.
“This is the sign-up sheet. Mr. P. needs an idea of how many teams we’ll have so he can start working on the tournament bracket.”
I nodded, shoved the pink paper in my pocket, and pulled the clipboard toward me. A few teams had already signed up. Wesley’s team, of course—the Backcourt Bombers. And the wrestling team—Total Takedown. Even the band—Beethoven’s Blitz. And one team called the Checkmates. Had to be Chess Club, which gave me hope. I mean, the chess kids were probably less athletic than the art kids, if that was possible.
I took Louise’s pen, squared the clipboard on the counter, and scrawled three words.
Coach Wilder paced up and down the aisles of his health classroom, firing off facts about one of his favorite subjects: first aid, or, as he called it, Saving Someone’s Life After They’ve Done Something Stupid.
Everyone else flipped open their health notebooks so they could take notes. I opened my notebook too. Then I dug the pink roster out of my pocket and smoothed it flat against my thigh. I shot a covert look around the room to make sure no one was watching.
For the first time, I realized that all of Art Club was in my health class—Spencer, Martin, Gretchen, Gretchen’s friend Olivia who did charcoal drawings and always had black smudges on her face, everyone. Spencer had given me a little wave and a chin lift when I slipped into the room. His chin wouldn’t have been nearly as friendly if it knew what it was in for.
I held my pencil over my notebook, like I was
probably going to scribble down a note any minute now, and stealthily read the paper in my lap.
Twelve? Plus alternates?
I slumped back in my desk chair. I’d thought about a lot of things: Pain. Fear. Art Club’s combined physical ability, which equaled zero. But fourteen players? I hadn’t thought about that.
I was right back where I started: trying to scrounge up new members.
I sighed and slid my finger to the bottom of the page:
That would be the easy part. If I managed to rustle up that many new Art Club members, Mrs. Frazee would be so happy, she’d sign anything.
Seventeen
The bell rang. I trudged out of health class, dumped my notebook in my locker, and jostled my way through the packed hall toward Art Club.
Art Club, where we still only had nine members, needed five more in a couple of weeks, and I had no idea where to find them.
I rounded the corner to the electives hallway—
—and got smacked in the face by the bulletin board. The former Art Club bulletin board, which was now plastered with girls’ basketball stuff. Team photos. Team rosters. Team articles from the Wheaton Daily Journal. And that twangy bent metal piece? No longer a problem. They’d covered it with a tournament bracket so no one could see it.
And they hadn’t stopped there.
The bulletin board had sort of exploded with construction paper cutouts—Win!, Rebound!, Go, Fighting Aviators!—blanketing the wall around it. They’d even stuck one right over the light switch and the name plaque next to the art room door that said Mrs. Frazee.
That was just plain rude. How could they think their homemade construction-paper We’re #1 (which was a total lie in the first place) was more important than a safely lit hallway or the name of a highly respected member of our middle school faculty?
It wasn’t just rude. It was selfish. It was snotty. It was—it was—wrong.
I glanced around. Made sure nobody was watching.
Then slid my fingers under the cutout and popped the tape loose.
I stood there for a minute, paper basketball in my hand, trying not to look like a middle school criminal. I sidled down the hall, found an empty spot on the other side of the bulletin board, and casually pasted the cutout back up.
I stepped back to make sure it looked like it was supposed to be there.
And standing there, gazing at the cutouts and the pictures, I think I actually smiled. The Kaleys would probably screech and rip their whole bulletin board down if they knew this, but they’d just given me an idea.
A great idea.
A genius idea.
An idea that would get us twelve players and two to spare.
When I got home to the Batcave (a.k.a. my bedroom) I unzipped my backpack and slid out the fresh new stack of Bristol board I’d gotten from Mrs. Frazee’s Cabinet of Wonders (a.k.a. the art supply closet).
I’d left the Batcave door open, and the blare of the cartoon channel drifted in from the living room.
“Beech?” I hollered.
No reason he couldn’t hang out in the Batcave and annoy me for a while if he wanted. I was feeling pumped enough that I could take it.
“Beech?”
No answer. Which I pretty much expected. With the Batmobile blasting through our TV set at approximately ten million decibels, he couldn’t hear me even if he wanted to.
And these days, it seemed he didn’t much want to.
I swung back around to my desk. Art Club needed members. Members with stamina. Members with agility and accurate throwing arms. Members who would fearlessly enter a dodgeball tournament . . . and win. Members who could beat Wesley Banks and his smirky, smarmy smile.
And I was going to find those members.
Yeah. I know. I’d already given it my best shot, and we saw how that turned out. But this was different. This was something I was actually good at. Something I could do.
Something I was born to do.
I sharpened my non-repro blue pencil to a crisp point and started to draw.
Eighteen
Noah and I crept down the dimly lit hall. I’d talked him into getting to school early again.
We were here on a covert ops mission. Packed in our arsenal: one comic book page, one heavy winter coat, one roll of Scotch tape.
We rounded the corner past the electives hall and stopped outside the lunchroom. I glanced around to make sure the hall was empty, then pulled my Beanboy page from its waterproof carrying case.
I’d chosen the location carefully. Earhart middle-schoolers packed into this hallway every day at noon, forming a disorganized line leading into the cafeteria. As they inched along, they’d have plenty of time to read the latest adventures of Beanboy.
Yes, “adventures.” Plural. This page was only the first.
Noah pulled off his gloves. “Approximately three hundred students attend Earhart Middle. Of those students, roughly one third participate in athletics, and another third in assorted clubs and academic teams. That leaves fully one third of the Earhart population—one hundred students—unassociated with any organized, school-related activity. Out of those, you only need five. Five of the one hundred remaining available students. That’s five percent.”
I could always count on Noah for an encouraging statistic.
I held my Beanboy page against the wall. As Earhart Middle moved through the lunch line, stomachs growling, they’d spot it. And read it. At first they’d probably wonder what it was and who put it up.
But a couple days later, they’d see another page, and another, till pretty soon they were caught up in Beanboy’s adventures. Every day at noon, they’d bolt for the cafeteria, but they wouldn’t be coming for the tater tots. They’d be coming to see what happened next. They’d want to know what impossible situation Madame Fury had put Beanboy in this time, and what cool thing Beanboy would do to escape. They’d want to see how the Art Club at Beanboy’s (a.k.a. Austin Peabody’s) high school would use their ingenious art tricks to help him.
And maybe they’d think Art Club could help them too. Maybe they’d want to be part of it.
Hopefully, people with physical agility and accurate throwing arms.
I held my Beanboy page in one hand, the roll of tape in the other. Noah casually moved in front of me. He unzipped his coat and made a big show of taking it off, his arms spread wide, hiding me behind it just in case one of the lunch ladies peeked out from the kitchen or the janitor rumbled past with her mop bucket.
(Although we could probably dodge the janitor without much trouble right now. She’d been hobbling around with a brace on her knee since winter break. We thought it was maybe something glamorous and exciting, like a skiing accident, but she said she slipped while she was trying to scrape ice off her car.)
I tore off a piece of Scotch tape and fixed my Beanboy page to the wall.
The bell rang for lunch. I bolted from math class into the mob of middle-schoolers. They talked, laughed, and crowded toward the cafeteria. I kept my head down and squeezed my way through.
Noah caught up with me outside the lunchroom. We were near the end of the line. I stretched, trying to see over the crowd, carefully counting the number of fellow Earhart students who stopped to read my comic book page.
It was easy to keep track of: zero. Not one person was gazing at the wall, stunned by the sheer awesomeness that was Beanboy.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned,” said Noah. “By the time lunch rolls around, people are starving. Too wiped out to read anything on a wall. Look—Gunnar Shoemaker’s nibbling his lunch card, and Martin Higby looks like he’s about to pass out from sheer hunger. But don’t worry. Eventually somebody’ll notice. Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow or something. And they’ll show their friends, and they’ll show their friends. It’ll catch on.”
I nodded. I hoped he was right.
We finally inched close enough so I could see the spot where I’d taped Beanboy.
Nobody was reading it.
Nobody
was ever going to read it.
They couldn’t.
My comic book page was gone.
Nineteen
Do you ever feel like the universe is working against you? Like no matter how hard you try, no matter how many genius ideas you come up with, no matter what you do to become a more respectable human being, the universe is never going to let it happen?
The next morning, Noah heaved open the thick metal door and we shuffled into Earhart Middle. The door clanked shut behind us. We stood there for a second in the sudden warmth to let Noah’s glasses unfog. I wiped my shoes on the big entry mat.
And found myself, once again, watching Wesley Banks. I didn’t mean to. But he was taller than everybody (well, almost everybody—Dillon Zawicki was taller, but Dillon spent so much time in detention, he wasn’t around to be tall very often), so even in a crowded hallway, Wesley wasn’t hard to spot. The whole boys’ basketball team was clotted around him—even guys who hardly ever played, like Owen Skeet and his buddy Curtis—apparently fascinated by the way he shoved his backpack into his locker.
I shook my head. Wesley Banks, supervillain in disguise, could be a rock star just by standing in a hallway.
I peeled off my gloves and shoved them in my coat pockets.
I’d spent yesterday afternoon hunting for my Beanboy page. I looked up and down the hall and under the tables in the cafeteria, in case it had torn loose and floated into some forgotten corner somewhere.
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