Comeback Kid

by Steve Moore

  That was impossible to pull off, though, because I had a big, honking black eye.

  Carlos was the first to spot my shiner. Or at least he was the first to say something about it in a really loud voice.

  Good ol’ Carlos. At least he didn’t belch-speak the sentence, but it was almost just as loud.

  Both groups—guys and girls—gathered around me to check out my eye. But they weren’t concerned about things like, oh, whether I’d permanently lost my vision. They all had way more important questions.

  Dewey Taylor actually ran out of the cafeteria when he saw my black eye because it brought back gory memories of the time a baseball slammed into his face and smashed his nose sideways and gave him two black eyes.

  I tried to concoct a story that didn’t include the ceramic garden gnome, but before I could make up some kind of gigantic whopper, my date arrived.

  Stephanie Jennison wore a black dress and had on heels, which made her about two inches taller than me.

  She walked over and sort of leaned down for a close look at my black eye. I just stood there in silence with hands in my pockets and braced myself for what she might say in front of everybody.

  After a few seconds, Stephanie smiled and broke the ice.

  After that, everyone finally began pairing off with their dates.

  Joey had been asked to the dance by Liz Casey, the student body president. She had a gigantic crush on Joey ever since soccer season. Liz is very popular and a good student, but she has a speech habit that drives everyone at Spiro right out of their skulls:

  All of Liz’s sentences end in a question mark. No periods. No exclamation points. Just question marks.

  Carlos’s date was Jessica Whitehead, the school genius. She and Carlos sort of had “a thing” back in football season that didn’t last very long, but apparently they had decided to give it another shot. Things got off to a rocky start, though.

  I already mentioned that Ricky Schnauzer was the basketball team’s equipment manager. He’s very neat and organized. Everything about Ricky is impeccably planned. Perfectly timed. And his entrance to the Fall Dance with Becky O’Callahan was no exception.

  Ricky and Becky pulled up in front of school in a shiny black limousine. And it wasn’t driven by a mom or a dad or a sullen older brother. The driver was an actual professional chauffeur.

  At the very instant that the music in the cafeteria started and the spotlights turned on, the basketball team’s equipment manager and the best athlete at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School (with Nature’s Near-Perfect Smile) walked into the cafeteria.

  Side by side. Arm in arm. Ricky in a tuxedo—a tuxedo! Becky in a full-length formal dress.

  And their hair was perfect.

  Wow.

  In one well-planned instant, Ricky Schnauzer raised the bar impossibly high for every weak and useless guy with a date at the Spiro T. Agnew Middle School annual Fall Dance.

  CHAPTER 20

  Carlos and Jessica broke off their attempt to revive “a thing” about ten minutes into the Fall Dance. The hotshot school genius expected Carlos to bow to her every wish. But Carlos was a little confused about the whole Fall Dance concept.

  Meanwhile, Joey played hard to get.

  Stephanie and I got along pretty well, though. Maybe even really well, but don’t even make too much of that, okay?

  It’s not like we were “a thing.” But she was fun. Oh, and she smelled good. How did I know? Because we danced to a slow song.

  Quick Time-Out about Dancing

  I’m one of those people who have a hard time dancing.

  Fast dance or medium dance or slow dance. I pretty much just try to fake it. But the hardest to fake is a fast dance because it takes physical and mental coordination.

  I’ve already told you that, even though I’m a benchwarmer, I do have some skills that involve coordination. But dancing to a fast song is not one of them.

  I have Upbeat-O-Phobia, which is a morbid fear of dancing to a fast song.

  I’m not a total drooling dweeb dancer. So don’t even think that, okay? But I can’t dance to upbeat songs that require more than one of my muscle groups to move in coordination with the music.

  I always end up looking something like this:

  But I can handle a slow dance. It’s easy. You sort of just hang on to your partner and sway from side to side.

  By the way, it’s pretty much a strict rule that you don’t look directly at your partner during a slow dance. Look at the floor or the ceiling or the Mighty Plumbers mural on the wall. Look at anything other than your dance partner.

  Oh, and talking while slow dancing is frowned upon, so keep your mouth shut.

  Unless you feel like telling her that she smells good.

  Becky and Ricky danced to every song—fast, medium, and slow. They looked at each other while dancing. They talked to each other while dancing. And I’m not even making that up.

  It wasn’t like I was keeping track or anything. Maybe a little. But everyone else was keeping track, too.

  I know Becky pretty well. Joey, Carlos, Becky, and I hang out a lot. We’re teammates in school sports and we hang out at Goodfellow Stadium to watch professional sports. And, of course, Becky and I share a love of nature’s near-perfect food—Eskimo Pies!

  So I know that Becky would never dance with Ricky to every song unless it fried her burger. It didn’t matter to Becky that he was a finicky team equipment manager and not a hotshot athlete star of the Mighty Plumbers basketball team.

  And that is why everyone at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School likes Becky O’Callahan.

  Halfway through the Fall Dance, Jimmy Jimerino walked into the cafeteria along with a couple of members of his kiss-up posse. They didn’t have dates, but there were some other students there without dates so they didn’t have to stand around with hands in their pockets and not dance.

  Not that it mattered to Jimmy.

  In the last basketball game, he seemed to have overcome his hotshot entitlement attitude. But apparently, he had relapsed, because instead of asking a girl who did not have a date to dance, he asked Becky O’Callahan.

  Becky and Ricky were right in the middle of a conversation, but Jimmy didn’t care. He just walked up to Becky and said, “Let’s dance!”

  She wasn’t interested, though. Becky didn’t even respond. Instead, she took Ricky by the hand and led him out onto the dance floor.

  Jimmy watched them walk away, then shrugged and looked around the cafeteria. His next target was Stephanie, but my date didn’t even let him get close enough to ask her to dance.

  Jimmy walked toward her, flashing his hotshot smile. But Stephanie held up both of her hands, palms out like a traffic cop, and he made a quick U-turn.

  It wasn’t a good night for Jimmy. But he did manage to dance with one girl who had come to the Fall Dance with a date.

  Stephanie and I had a great time. Normally, I have a hard time talking to girls, but Stephanie and I talked the whole night except when one of us had to go to the restroom. In fact, we even broke a couple of rules when we danced to a slow song.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Mighty Plumbers’ next game was at D. B. Cooper Middle School, Home of the Leaping Lizards.

  Since it was an away game, the team members skipped last period and filed onto the van for the ride. Joey, Carlos, and I sat up front in the seats next to Coach because we assumed that Jimmy would hog the back seat.

  But Jimmy didn’t even show up for the van ride.

  Coach Earwax had the van driver wait in the parking lot just in case Jimmy was delayed by a teacher or he got dizzy and disoriented and couldn’t find the parking lot.

  After waiting about ten minutes, Coach told the van driver to close the doors, and we left for the game. When we arrived at D. B. Cooper Middle School, Jimmy was waiting for us. He had ridden to the game with his dad.

  Mr. Jimerino tried to talk to Coach Earwax when he got off the van, but Coach pretended to be digging for earwax with his
car key and walked past him without saying a word.

  I was pretty confident that I would get in the game against the Leaping Lizards. I had been doing all of the extra rebounding work in the backyard, throwing the ball against the hoop next to Mr. Verheyen’s super chill chickens.

  And in team practices, the hard work had paid off. I’d grabbed more rebounds than anyone else on the team, including Skinny Dennis. Coach Earwax even gave me pretty much the highest compliment a player can get from any coach in the entire world.

  I didn’t start the Leaping Lizards game, though. I didn’t even play for one second.

  The Leaping Lizards played what Coach called “small ball.” Their players weren’t very big, but they were speedy and shifty.

  On offense, they were constantly in motion and passed the ball to one another, around the key, until a player got wide open for a shot. And their quick hands on defense created turnovers.

  Skinny was about a foot taller than D. B. Cooper’s tallest player, but he was slower. He had a hard time keeping up with the small ballers. They buzzed around him like mosquitos.

  Jimmy, Becky, Dewey, and Stephanie also struggled on defense. They hurried to keep up with the pace. But the hurrier they went, the behinder they got.

  The one bright moment was when Dewey blocked a shot and launched the basketball twenty-three rows up into the bleachers.

  The Spiro fans jumped up and cheered—even Mr. Jimerino. He risked breaking his disciplinary probation, but Mother T cut him some slack because it really was an excellent blocked shot.

  But the Leaping Lizards small-ballers jumped out to a ten-point lead in the first quarter.

  In a huddle on the sidelines before the start of the second quarter, Coach Earwax didn’t even draw mysterious diagrams on his little whiteboard. He just gave the team a short pep talk and repeated that quote from the ancient 1970s basketball coach.

  After the Mighty Plumbers starting five jogged out onto the court for the second quarter, Coach motioned for me to come over to him. I was hoping he was going to tell me to be ready to go in the game on a second’s notice, but that didn’t happen.

  Coach Earwax whispered in my ear.

  “Do that belly thingy. You know. The Rally Slide.”

  I would have preferred to have gone into the game to do my excellent rebound thing. But shortly after the second quarter started, I got up off the bench and did the Rally Slide.

  The Spiro fans went wild. (Except Mr. Jimerino, who was still all weirded out by the Rally Slide.)

  And when the Mighty Plumbers on the court saw the Rally Slide and heard the Spiro fans cheer, they busted loose.

  Becky stole an inbounds pass. Skinny scored an easy layup. Dewey blocked another shot twenty-three rows into the bleachers. Stephanie hit a three-pointer. And Jimmy?

  Well, Jimmy relapsed again.

  After Becky dished a pass to a wide-open Skinny for an easy score, Jimmy took over. Once again, it became the Jimmy Jimerino Show.

  Skinny, Becky, Dewey, and Stephanie were pretty much just bored bystanders. If basketball trunks had pockets, their hands would have been stuffed inside.

  Jimmy scored nearly every one of the Mighty Plumbers’ points and ignored nearly every one of the opportunities to pass the ball to a teammate who was wide open for an easy shot.

  Mr. Jimerino sat, tall and proud, in his bleacher seat and smiled.

  Joey, Carlos, and I sat on the bench and watched. We were even more bored than the starters playing with Jimmy. Our minds wandered.

  It was the perfect time to pull off one of our famous bench pranks to entertain ourselves and mess with the opposing team.

  Quick Time-Out about Bench Pranks

  One of our favorites is to prank-call the coach of the opposing team right in the middle of the game.

  It’s easy to get the coach’s cell-phone number. We just ask one of his or her players during warm-ups when everyone’s loosening up and trying to act all cool.

  If you play basketball, you know what I’m talking about. All the players strut around the court before the game, dribbling between their legs and trying to look like NBA prospects.

  So if I happen to meet an opposing player at half-court, there is an exchange of small talk that might go something like this:

  Me: “Hey.”

  Weak and useless opponent: “Hey. Where’d ya get that gnarly black eye?”

  Me: “Hockey fight.”

  Weak and useless opponent: “Cool.”

  Me: “Whaddaya play?”

  Weak and useless opponent: “Point guard.”

  Me: “Cool.”

  Weak and useless opponent: “Whaddaya play?”

  Me: “Rally Slider.”

  Weak and useless opponent: “Um . . .”

  Then I cleverly pry the number out of his weak and useless mind.

  Me: “What’s your coach’s private cell-phone number?”

  And they spill the beans every single time.

  Joey, Carlos, and I wait until a crucial moment of the game. Like maybe in the final seconds when the score is tied and the opposing coach is trying to think up a brilliant strategy.

  Carlos always makes the call because he can bottle up air in his gut and fake a deep adult voice. When the coach answers, Carlos says, “Congratulations! You’ve just won TEN MILLION DOLLARS!”

  . . . If the coach can answer one simple question: “Who was the inventor of dental floss?”

  It’s a brain stumper that momentarily distracts the coach from the crucial moment in the game.

  The prank victims rarely even make a guess, although one coach actually answered “LeBron James,” which probably isn’t correct.

  Unfortunately, the three Benchkateers couldn’t pull off that prank even though I had cleverly pried the coach’s private cell number out of a weak and useless Leaping Lizards player.

  When Carlos called the number, it went direct to voice mail.

  Derp!

  The three Benchkateers sat on our rear ends for the rest of the game and drank Gatorade for no reason because we’d done exactly nothing to deplete our vital body fluids.

  Jimmy (er, the Mighty Plumbers) creamed the Leaping Lizards small-ballers by about forty points. After many close calls and epic comebacks, we had somehow achieved a perfect record for the season, with one game remaining. If we won, Spiro would be in the championship game against the top team from the other division in our league.

  Everyone except Jimmy got on the van for the ride back to Spiro T. Agnew Middle School. Coach Earwax and the entire team watched Jimmy and his dad get into their car and drive out of the parking lot.

  Joey and I saw Coach Earwax scribble something in his top-secret clipboard. Joey craned his neck, trying to see what he’d written, but Coach flipped the clipboard upside down and stashed it in his bag.

  During the trip back to Spiro, Skinny stood up and started a chant:

  “Undefeated! Undefeated! Undefeated!”

  Everyone on the van joined in the chant—even the van driver.

  I wondered if our perfect-record chant would jinx us—like in baseball when a pitcher has a no-hitter going and no one can mention it out loud or it’ll ruin everything.

  I was sitting next to Coach Earwax, so I asked him about the jinx. Coach yanked a few nose hairs out of a nostril (another of his gross habits). Then he told me that basketball is immune to baseball superstitions.

  With one exception.

  “In baseball, they have inside-out Rally Caps. It works just like your amazing Rally Slide!”

  I had a feeling I would be sitting on the bench in the upcoming games. Ready in an instant to play my crucial team role if the Mighty Plumbers need to regain the Big Mo.

  Um, derp.

  CHAPTER 22

  The next day, I got back to practicing rebounds.

  I went into the backyard and was about to throw my basketball repeatedly against the backboard so that I could become a lean, mean rebounding machine.

  Before I e
ven made one throw, I was interrupted by a familiar but annoying commotion.

  My psychotic poodle, Frenchy, was pawing frantically at the sliding-glass door. He had emerged from his “doghouse” underneath my bed because his bladder was about to explode. He needed to get outside in a hurry.

  I let Frenchy out into the backyard, but that just caused another commotion.

  Frenchy bolted to the grass next to our pond to do his business. Cleo, my pet duck who thinks she is a dog, waddled out of the pond and tried to make out with Frenchy even though she doesn’t even have lips.

  Cleo is head over webbed feet in love with Frenchy. Unfortunately, she doesn’t exactly fry Frenchy’s burger. Not even close.

  Frenchy is pretty much a cranky hermit, unless he wants food or water or access to the backyard to do his business.

  The two pets got into a beak/snout lovers’ quarrel.

  I had to set my basketball down and go break it up.

  Cleo jumped back into the pond and pouted, which is really hard to do if you don’t have lips. Frenchy went back into the house, crawled underneath my bed, and did whatever psychotic poodles do when they’re all alone.

  I picked up the basketball and launched into my rebounding drill. Toss and rebound. Toss and rebound. Toss and rebound.

  It was getting dark, but I kept going. I needed to get better so that I could earn my way into the lineup. (And I knew it would motivate Mr. Verheyen’s super-chill chickens next door to crank out more delicious eggs.)

  My dad came out into the backyard and told me to come inside because dinner was ready. He asked me why I had moved the backboard next to Mr. Verheyen’s fence.

  I told him that I’d moved the backboard away from Mrs. Smoot’s hoard of demented cats because she’d called the police.

  After Dad got over a laughing fit, he asked why I was out of breath and soaked in corrosive middle-schooler sweat. (I don’t think he was worried about the sweat damaging any nearby structures, though. He was just curious.)