Cool Beans

by Lisa Harkrader

  Kaley C. seemed stunned. She lost focus for a second as she watched Emma leave the court.

  And—bam—Dillon hammered her with a dodgeball.

  And just like that, they were down to one. One player—Kaley T.—against five Artful Dodgers.

  I clenched my fists. We had this. We could do it.

  But Kaley T. was just as determined we couldn’t.

  “I am not letting a bunch of loser dweebs beat me,” she growled.

  She bared her teeth like a cornered tiger and started bombarding us.

  Owen went down.

  Then Gretchen.

  Then me.

  I trudged to our jail.

  Only two Artful Dodgers left: Spencer and Dillon.

  Which was okay. Great, in fact. If we could only have two players, those were the two I’d want: the kid who threw like a cannon and the kid who was impossible to hit.

  Spencer did his thing: dodging and scooping. And Dillon did his: snatching up the balls Spencer scooped to him and firing them—BAM, BAM, BAM—at Kaley.

  I have to give Kaley T. credit. She dodged. She weaved. She kept out of the line of fire for longer than I thought she would.

  But then Dillon had her. He did. Kaley leaned over to snatch up a ball, and in that split second, he hurled his own dodgeball. Like a rocket, it shot across the gym.

  Smack.

  Slammed into her knee—

  Yes!

  —then popped up.

  Popped straight up, almost in slow motion.

  Kaley dropped her own ball and reached for it. Reached for it and gathered it in. Tripped and fell backwards, and I thought for sure the ball would bounce loose. But it didn’t. She held on to it, clasped it against her chest as she went down. It was a catch. A fair catch. She’d caught Dillon’s dodgeball.

  “Out!” called the ref.

  Dillon stood there, mouth open, before shaking his head and trudging toward our jail.

  And now it was just Kaley T. . . . against Spencer. And his jumble of knees and elbows. And his hand-knitted vest.

  And his total lack of throwing skill.

  Spencer dodged and darted, bobbed and bounced. Kaley threw. And threw. And threw.

  Missed every time, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone. Spencer threw too. He had to. Each team had to throw at least every ten seconds, and Spencer was the only player our team had left.

  Kaley was getting tired, I could tell. Tired of watching Spencer jump around. Tired of her throws completely missing. Tired of not winning the game already.

  She hauled back and fired again.

  Hard.

  Too hard.

  The throw was high.

  Kaley T. knew it the minute she released the ball. She scrambled to fire off another one before Spencer could catch it.

  Spencer hadn’t caught another single ball during the whole tournament, but he didn’t let that stop him.

  “I goooooot iiiiiiit,” he called as he careened about the gym, vest flapping, trying to keep a bead on the ball.

  Our jail rose to its toes, fists clenched, watching him.

  The ball dropped. Thumped against his chest. And thumped right out again. Spencer scrambled. Pulled it back in. Tried to cradle it against his chest, but it got tangled in his knitted vest. One sneaker twisted under him and Spencer went down. Tumbled backwards, landed with a thud, butt first. The ball popped loose—

  —and dropped into his lap.

  Spencer clamped his arms down over it.

  “Out!” called the ref. “Game over.”

  I whooped and threw my fist in the air. “Way to go, Spencer!”

  “WHAT?” Kaley T. stormed toward the ref. “That’s not fair! Did you see his stupid vest? He should be—”

  I didn’t hear the rest. The Artful Dodgers had erupted from our jail. Swarmed Spencer. Pulled him to his feet. Mrs. Frazee clapped and jangled. Coach Wilder allowed himself a low, tight fist pump and a sharp “Yeah!” as he paced along the sideline. Our end of the bleachers cheered. Even some of the Basketball Blast fans clapped, and someone from their side yelled, “Nice catch, dude!” Which made Spencer’s eyes pop wide, and he started dancing in a little circle. Noah jumped up and down, waving the clipboard. Even Sam stood up. Noah grabbed her wrist so that at least her arm could jump up and down with him, and she didn’t stop him.

  Then one voice rose above the roar, clear and bright, like a shiny silver bell: “Great game, Tucker!”

  I stopped. Glanced around the gym. It was Emma. She’d come out of the Blast’s jail and was standing on the sidelines near midcourt, where Kaley T. was still nose to nose with the ref, whining about Spencer’s catch.

  Emma beamed her mind-jamming smile on me. Gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck in the championship!” she called out.

  I nodded. And stood there in the middle of the gym—in the middle of the leaping, whooping, group-hugging Artful Dodgers—woozy from pure joy, till somebody slapped me a high-five.

  I blinked. Dragged my attention back to earth.

  Spencer stood in front of me, bouncing from foot to foot, his high-five still waving in the air.

  “I told you this was my lucky vest!” he shouted.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Lucky!”

  And before I could turn around again to see if Emma was still watching, Dillon came thundering up. Came thundering up and leaped. Dillon Zawicki. Leaped right at me. It wasn’t till he hit me that I realized we were doing a chest bump. It was a chest bump with a Sherman tank.

  He chest-bumped the wind out of me. Chest-bumped my T-shirt right into my skin. Chest-bumped me to the floor.

  I lay on my back on the cold, hard wood, gasping.

  “Got our bulletin board back.” He reached down with one enormous ball-throwing hand and pulled me up. “Now we go after the helmet.”

  Thirty-six

  I stood at the edge of the gym floor, waiting, my heart threatening to pound right through my chest. The Artful Dodgers huddled around me. We were supposed to be warming up, but mostly we were wiping our sweaty palms against our shiny sports shorts.

  Talking, laughing clumps of Earhart middle-schoolers and parents had filled the bleachers. The rumble of voices swelled to fill every space in the gym. The gym floor quivered beneath our feet with the noise.

  I tried to push my pounding heart back into my chest.

  This was it. This was the championship. And just so nobody would forget, Mr. Petrucelli had wheeled in a table and set it up along the sideline at midcourt.

  “Our presentation table,” he’d said.

  He draped it with a slick red tablecloth, and on it, he placed the helmet.

  The red and gold batting helmet.

  The prize for the Last Player Standing.

  He’d gotten the Audiovisual Club to set up the lighting so that two spotlights shone directly on the helmet, and now it sat there, in the center of the table, all by itself, glittering under the hot, bright lights.

  Audiovisual Club had stuck around, hanging with Noah. I figured it was because Mr. Petrucelli needed them to turn off the spotlights afterward.

  Until I heard the first glimmer of music. It started low, so low I doubt the rumbling herd in the gym even noticed it at first. It grew louder—gradually—till by the time the crowd realized what they were hearing, it had become part of the very air around them.

  I blinked in surprise and glanced back at Noah. He nodded and gave me a thumbs-up. So did Audiovisual Club.

  Because this was no cheery dodgeball warm-up music. This was darker, with a thundering beat. It was the music from the assembly. The music Noah and Coach Wilder had put together. The tortured superhero music.

  The sound swelled. Voices dwindled as the crowd stopped talking and began listening. Then—

  BAM!

  —the music stopped.

  The gym went black.

  Silence echoed through the dark.

  And when the lights blazed back on, there we were, the Artful Dodgers, lined up on our sid
e of the court, fierce in our snug black caps.

  The Backcourt Bombers faced us across the court, eyes wide. Even Wesley looked a little surprised. And maybe impressed.

  He recovered quickly, of course. He cut a look at the Sundances.

  “What? Was that supposed to scare us?” he said. “Ooooo. I’m just shivering with fear.”

  And they all laughed like maniacs, like it was the most hysterical thing they’d ever heard. They swaggered and strutted, too, just so everyone would know how completely fearless they were.

  But I saw it. For a fraction of a sliver of a nanosecond, Wesley Banks had been surprised.

  And impressed.

  And maybe, in that tiny instant, worried.

  Both teams waited behind their end lines. Our hands had to be touching the cool cinder block wall.

  I took a deep breath and glanced at our side of the packed bleachers. Mom, Beecher, and Sam’s grandpa sat in the front row again. And Emma sat right behind them. On our side. The Artful Dodgers’ side. For a second I even thought I saw Caveman. Which was weird. He never left his shop. But it must’ve been the glare of the spotlights or something, because when I tried to find him again, he wasn’t there.

  “Both teams ready?” said the ref.

  She blew her whistle, and we shot like rockets across the court.

  We snatched up dodgeballs. Shoveled them back to our throwers—Owen and Olivia, and me. But mainly Dillon.

  Dillon could hold three dodgeballs in his left hand while throwing with his right hand and—BAM, BAM, BAM—pounding the Backcourt Bombers.

  He picked two of them off right away.

  But a couple of our scoopers went down too. One of them was Martin, who really took one for the team. From the first second of the opening rush, the Bombers had made it clear they were gunning for Owen and Curtis. Trying to take them out for being traitors to the basketball team.

  It made zero sense, since Wesley had already cut them from his dodgeball roster. But I guess in Wesley’s world, they were still supposed to be loyal and sit in the bleachers and cheer the Bombers on, even though he wouldn’t put them on the team.

  The Bombers pummeled Owen and Curtis, who did a good job of dodging their throws.

  Curtis, one of our catchers, even caught one right at his feet, sending one of their players to jail.

  But just as Owen fired one off, Wesley threw. Threw a missile. Threw it right at Owen, who was still off balance and didn’t see it coming.

  Martin saw. He dove in front of Owen. Dove between Owen and the missile Wesley had just let loose. He tried to catch it and he did get a hand on it. But the ball shot through his arms and slammed into his chest.

  “Out!” cried the ref.

  Martin nodded and picked himself up off the gym floor.

  “That’s okay,” he said as he trotted toward our jail. “At least Owen’s still in there throwing.”

  While the Bombers were bombing Owen and Curtis, Dillon was able to pick off a couple of their players. I hit one too. Gretchen almost got one—Wesley. Yeah. Gretchen of the woven artistic belts almost hit Wesley Banks.

  That’s when I remembered that morning at the Atomic Flapjack, when Beecher had pressed his hands together into a little point to demonstrate Wesley’s meanness.

  Wesley was focused now. Focused on his wedge of mean—Owen and Curtis—and not paying much attention to anything else. And the rest of the team was following their leader.

  They were bigger than us (well, except for Dillon). And stronger than us (except Dillon). And faster. And more athletic. And had bigger muscles (except Dillon). And they were filling our jail faster than we were filling theirs.

  But we had an advantage too. We could catch them off-guard while they were focused on their wedge of mean.

  I ran past Dillon. “Wesley,” I said. “Not paying attention.”

  Dillon nodded. “Yep.”

  Gym shoes squeaked against the wood floor. Balls thudded against legs, stomachs, cinder block walls. The crowd in the bleachers clapped and cheered, and the sounds echoed through our barn of a gym.

  We picked off another Bomber. And another.

  And they picked off a couple Artful Dodgers.

  Both teams dwindled. The jails filled.

  Till suddenly there were six of us: Wesley and the Sundances against me, Dillon, and Spencer.

  “Don’t worry,” Spencer yelled as he darted past. “Think of me as cannon fodder. You guys do your thing. I’ll draw all the fire toward me. We can win this.”

  “You hear that?” Wesley laughed his cold, hard laugh. “Scrawny little loser thinks he’s going to win.”

  Luke laughed too. T.J. let out a feeble “heh heh.”

  But that game-winning catch against Kaley T. had given Spencer confidence.

  “You’re going down, Banks,” he said, his bony elbows flying all cockeyed, his gangly legs pumping across the floor. “We took out almost your whole team already, and we’ll take you out, too.”

  He dodged and weaved as only Spencer could. Lucky stocking cap bobbing on his head, lucky knitted vest flying behind him, Spencer charged to center court, batted the dead balls back to me and Dillon. He shielded us, running zigzag across the court, drawing fire, as Dillon and I started throwing—bam, bam, bam—like a pair of crazed pitching machines.

  But I saw Wesley glance at the Sundances, and suddenly all three of them were throwing at Spencer. Trying to pick him off for his trash talk, I guess.

  Spencer did a good job of dodging. And Dillon and I tried to cover him with throws. But with three of them pelting him with ball after ball, he couldn’t sustain it. He dodged T.J.’s throw. Then Luke’s. But Wesley’s blindsided him. Slammed him right in the back as he turned, and this time his vest couldn’t save him.

  So there we were. Two of us against three of them. Dillon and I looked at each other. And nodded. We were outnumbered. But we weren’t beaten.

  Without Spencer, I had to do double duty: scoop balls to Dillon and fire off shots in between, leaving Dillon free to just throw. I flew around the court, dodging and scooping with such intensity that at some point I lost my snug black hat.

  It was a good system. And it worked. For a while.

  But then Dillon ran out of balls. I passed one to him and as he grabbed for it, Wesley threw.

  The ball came hard and fast. A total line drive.

  Dillon turned. His eyes locked onto the ball. He lunged. And as he dove out of the way, the back of his foot came up.

  The ball grazed across the heel of his new tennis shoe. Barely. Barely touched him. Didn’t even change the direction of the ball.

  But it was enough.

  “Out!”

  I blinked. That was it.

  Now it was just me.

  Thirty-seven

  Me . . .

  . . . against Wesley and Luke and T.J.

  From the sidelines, Coach Wilder clapped his hands. “You got this,” he hollered.

  Mrs. Frazee threw a jangly arm in the air. “Remember your performance art!” she called. “Now you have to play all the parts!”

  “The little dude,” Dillon said as he plodded toward our jail. “We’re doing this for the little dude. Sam loves that kid. So do this thing.”

  Yeah. I caught the gleam of the red and gold helmet under the spotlights. Let’s do this thing.

  I thundered across the gym floor, plucking up balls. Mrs. Frazee was right. I had to play all the parts. I had to scoop and catch and throw. And I couldn’t catch the Bombers off-guard, because now their wedge of mean was zeroed in on me, and only me.

  Our jail had erupted, cheering, jumping, pumping their fists.

  The whole gym was cheering. Screaming, stomping their feet against the bleachers—middle-schoolers, parents, my mom, Sam’s grandpa, Emma. Probably more were screaming for the Bombers, screaming for them to finish me off. But the Artful Dodgers side was loud too. The gym walls seemed to swell from the noise. It thundered in my ears till I could barely hea
r my own hammering heartbeat.

  Then one voice cut through the roar: “Do it, Tut! Do it!”

  As I fired off a throw, I glanced at the front row. At my goober of a brother, his pillowcase cape tucked into his shirt, his chubby fist swinging in the air.

  “Do it!” he yelled again.

  Laughter rippled through the bleachers. From people who thought he was cute.

  Wesley laughed too. But not because he thought Beecher was cute.

  “Yeah, do it, Tut,” he yelled across the court at me.

  I scooped up another ball, dodged a throw from T.J., and fired.

  “Oooo. Nice throw, Tut,” yelled Wesley. “Almost got me, Tut.”

  That was Wesley, focused so hard on his little wedge of mean, he didn’t notice what was going on around him.

  Because those people sitting close to Beech? The ones who thought he was cute?

  They started watching Wesley, and not because they thought he was a superhero. Every time Wesley called me Tut, more people started watching. And cheering.

  For me.

  I snatched up two balls. Dodged across the floor in Spencer’s famous zigzag, watching for my opportunity.

  Luke threw. I jumped out of the way. And before I had even landed on both feet again, before Luke could recover, I whipped off a shot. Caught him completely off balance.

  Wham!

  Hit him in the shin. “Out!” called the ref.

  “Tut!” yelled the crowd. “Tut!” They started slow, then picked up steam, like a freight train. “Tut! Tut! Tut! TUT!”

  They didn’t say it like Wesley did. They didn’t say it mean. They said it like . . . a cheer. And not just the Artful Dodgers side of the bleachers. Everybody.

  When Wesley first heard them yell “Tut,” he thought they were yelling for him. He thought they were on his side, using his words to spur him on. He even lifted his chin toward the crowd in acknowledgment.

  That’s when he realized they weren’t cheering for him.

  “Tut! Tut! Tut! TUT!” They clapped their hands and stomped their feet in rhythm with the cheer.

  I scooped and dodged and scooped in rhythm with the crowd.

  I was getting into it now, feeling confident. I could do this thing. I scooped up a ball and fired it sidearm at T.J. in one smooth motion.