Fouling Out

by Gregory Walters

  Fouling

  Out

  GREGORY WALTERS

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Text copyright © 2008 Gregory Walters

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Walters, Gregory, 1964-

  Fouling out / written by Gregory Walters.

  ISBN 978-1-55143-714-9

  I. Title.

  PS8645.A49F68 2008 jC813’.6 C2007-907385-9

  First published in the United States, 2008

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007942401

  Summary: Faced with the realities of his friend Tom’s home life, Craig must determine the boundaries of their volatile friendship.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover and text design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover artwork by Margaret Lee

  Author photo by West Coast Photo

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, STN. B

  VICTORIA, BC CANADA

  V8R 6S4

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 468

  CUSTER, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  11 10 09 08 • 4 3 2 1

  For Doug, wherever he may be.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to my editor, Sarah Harvey, for patiently helping streamline my words. Less is more!

  I must also thank my dogs, Lincoln and Hoover. They are the ones that sacrificed the most. More than anything, they provided me with plenty of distractions when I simply needed to enjoy the moment.

  One

  Nothing much happens when you’re twelve. Too young to work, too young to run in the Olympics, too young to drop out of school. Of course, being “too young” has its advantages. I don’t have to go to work, and I don’t have to listen to oldies radio stations.

  The bad part is that you can really get in a rut at my age. With school at the center of everything, I don’t see how it can be any different. At least there’s summer to look forward to, but that’s not much of a consolation in October.

  I suppose anyone can be in a rut at any age. In fact, when you think about it, most people live pretty routine lives, but either they don’t even notice it or they don’t want to call attention to it. Nobody wants to admit he leads a dull predictable life, but I was never good at pretending. Being Craig Trilosky is a mundane existence. My teacher, Miss Chang, would kick up a big fuss over how great it is that I used the word mundane. She gets all excited about really dumb things. Unless you’re a brain who gets straight As, school’s just a place where teachers get to point out all the things you can’t do. Miss Chang’s not really like that, but it’s still early in the school year. She’ll end up being like the others. She may have noble intentions, but she’s got Tom and me to shatter all that. There isn’t a teacher on the planet who wouldn’t crack.

  You can’t get any more mundane than my family. I don’t think there could be a more boring group of people on Earth. My dad’s an executive for a big electronics company in Vancouver. I don’t know his exact title. It changes every month or so—manager, senior manager, vice president of this, vice president of that. I bet there’s even a vice president of job title creations. I don’t see why we have to “celebrate” each of his promotions. It never increases the amount of my allowance.

  Mom’s a professional volunteer. She works with Meals on Wheels, the Red Cross, the Easter Seals Society, AIDS Vancouver and the hospital. She used to be a nurse. I once asked her why she didn’t quit all the volunteering and take a paying job with some worthy cause, and she acted all hurt. Add that to the unwritten list of things that cannot be discussed in the Trilosky household.

  I guess it’s okay that she does that stuff. I just hate Thursday afternoons. That’s when she volunteers at my school. Usually she’s helping in the library, which is all right because I never go there, but sometimes she’s in the halls putting up notices on the bulletin boards or walking with some kindergartener. She has no idea how embarrassing it is having her at school. When my class sees her on the way to PE, everyone sings out, “Hi, Mrs. Trilosky,” just to make me turn red. She thinks they’re being friendly.

  My sister, Margo, is in grade eleven. She says it’s pretty hard and there’s a lot of homework. (I think someone forgot to tell Miss Chang that she’s teaching grade seven, not grade eleven.) Anyway, my sister’s all right. We used to fight all the time, but now she’s preoccupied with talking on the phone and text messaging. She’s got her own cell phone because my dad has fits about needing the landline for business calls, even though he’s got a cell phone and a Blackberry. I think talking on the phone’s boring and kinda gross. How do you know the person you’re talking to isn’t going to the bathroom in the middle of the call?

  My sister’s on the track team at school; I run with her on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sometimes I do a solo run on Sundays. It’s actually a lot of fun. You don’t have to depend on anyone else and you don’t have to worry about letting your team down. I like that part best. When it’s just me, I’m fine. The group stuff never seems to work out.

  I don’t really have a lot of friends at school. I spend too much time hanging out with Tom Hanrahan. When we moved here five years ago from Toronto, he was the first one to welcome me and ask if I wanted to play soccer after school. We’ve had a lot of good times, but he always gets me into big trouble. The vice principal, Mr. Skye, gets to see me at least once a week, and you should see the look on Mrs. Neuman’s face every time I walk by the library. It’s like she thinks I’m going to take a geography book and shelve it in the sports section. I’d go in and do it just to tee her off, but she’s so old I’m afraid she’d have a heart attack.

  I’m tired of everyone thinking Tom and I are a team. Most parents around here have forbidden their kids to have anything to do with Tom. The Hanrahans are the source of endless gossip. People say Mrs. Hanrahan is a weak woman who can’t control her kids. Mr. Hanrahan showed up drunk at last year’s Christmas concert, and he was arrested a couple of years ago for getting in a fight with a police officer. Tom’s sister is supposedly deep into drugs, and he has two brothers, but no one has seen the oldest brother in years. The rumors about him are wild— most have something to do with prison. My parents don’t like me hanging out with Tom, but I can’t seem to connect with anyone else. I
want to hang out with other guys, but nobody will have anything to do with me because nobody likes Tom. I’m finally starting to feel that way too. I definitely need to get out of my rut.

  Two

  On the soggy soccer field at McKenna Park, Tom squishes a couple of wet worms and curses the fact that there are no slugs to be found.

  “Hey…who do you think I should go for?” he says. “Erin Patterson or Tracey Lin?”

  Why is he asking me for advice? Don’t they have to like you first? I stare off at a parked car to avoid eye contact. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, Erin’s cool ’cuz she’s tall and good at basketball and she knows players’ names and all, but Tracey’s got a real good smile. I mean, she must be the only girl in seventh grade who doesn’t have braces. Her teeth are perfect.”

  How can I argue with that? I’ve never examined Tracey’s teeth. I’ve never even thought about who wears braces.

  “Well, c’mon, stupid.” Tom flings a moist worm from a small stick and watches it sail several meters. “Who should I go for?”

  “Whoever you like best.” I sure hope the worms are already dead. They certainly aren’t meant to fly.

  “What kind of lame answer is that? I like them both so just tell me…Erin or Tracey?”

  “If I pick one of them, that would be it? That’s who you’d go after?”

  “Sure.”

  “I think you should make up your own mind.”

  “Stop trying to weasel your way out of it.” Tom crouches close to the ground, searching for his next victim. “You’re my friend so you have to decide.”

  A man and his bouncy beagle approach the parked car. Oh, please, save me! I need a getaway! “I don’t want to decide. I don’t like either of them.”

  “Don’tcha see? That’s perfect! That means you’re not biased. If you liked one of them, you’d tell me to go for the other one so you could have the one you liked.”

  “Who says you get who you want?”

  “Well…you can’t, but I can get either of them. Girls like me. I just gotta take my pick.”

  Wow! What planet is he living on? Where is he getting his information? All the girls think Tom is loud, disgusting and annoying. Come to think of it, that’s what everyone in school thinks—boy or girl. And I’m beginning to think they’re onto something.

  “Hurry up! Stop all your stupid thinking and just pick for me. You’re my friend, so you have to.”

  “Who says? Where’d that come from?”

  “From me!” Tom barks, sounding as exasperated as I feel. He zooms in on another worm, scoops it with the stick and lets it fly. Maybe I should start a Save the Worms campaign.

  “Well, what happens if I don’t pick for you? Then what?” He continues to stir up dirt, but comes up wormless. Maybe worms have some kind of high-frequency warning system we can’t hear. Maybe now the torture will stop—at least for the worms.

  “You have to pick or I’ll beat you up.”

  “Yeah, right. After you supposedly beat me up, do I still have to decide for you?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Pick. Tracey or Erin.” Tom drops the stick at his feet, giving up the hunt. I wish he’d give up on this girl-hunting thing too—or at least leave me out of it. I’m feeling like a hunting dog responsible for bringing some pitiful dead duck to his master. Hey, I think I just compared girls to ducks. Obviously, I’ve got my own dating dilemmas.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Tom shouts. “I told you to pick. Does Erin get to have me or is it gonna be Tracey?”

  That’s it. I’m tired of his nonsense. I don’t care. I want to move on and talk about something else before the whole Saturday afternoon gets away from me.

  “Fine, I’ll pick. Eenie meanie miney moe. Erin.”

  “Really? Why not Tracey?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” Tom picks up a rock and scans the sky. Great. He’s moving on to targetting birds. Yep, this is the guy all the girls want. Poor Erin. I really don’t have anything against her. Tom stops gazing at the sky and continues his interrogation. “Why’d you say Erin instead of Tracey?”

  “I don’t know. You told me to pick one, so I did.”

  “Yeah, but now you have to explain it.”

  “No, I don’t. You said you’d go after whichever one I picked. I picked and that’s that.” Tom searches the sky again. I really don’t want any bird to fly within target range, but it’d be a nice surprise if one somehow manages to poop on his head. He’s got it coming.

  “You can’t just pick and not explain. What’s wrong with Tracey?”

  Quick. Make up a flaw and get it over with.

  “She’s too giggly.”

  “I like her laugh. She laughs at things I say.”

  “No. She just laughs at you. It’s nothing personal. She laughs at everyone and everything. Like I said, too giggly.”

  Tom throws the rock into empty sky. Thank God for short attention spans. He looks straight at me again. I can see he hasn’t given up the stupid girl thing. “Tracey Lin’s got a nice giggle.”

  “Whatever. Go after her then.”

  “I can’t. You picked Erin.”

  “Yep, I did. Too bad. Decision’s final.” I get up and start walking across the park. Sometimes no one’s gonna save you. Sometimes you have to save yourself.

  “What about Taryn McCloskey?” Tom calls out, rushing up behind me, smacking his basketball from hand to hand. “Should I go for Erin or Taryn?”

  At this moment, I feel like even the flying worms are luckier than me.

  Three

  A couple of minutes before dismissal, everyone scrambles to gather all their homework materials while Miss Chang talks above the din, instructing us to fill out our planners, and recapping her advice about tonight’s assignments. There’s no time to groan about her unreasonable expectations or to interrupt her and attempt to renegotiate the load. The countdown to freedom is on.

  It is always a race out the door, and Tom always wins. I have to be at least Top Five or he greets me outside with a punch to the shoulder and some griping about how I’m blowing his whole afternoon.

  Where is my writing notebook? How can something I’d been using only an hour ago sink to the bottom of my desk? I pull out a dozen things before it surfaces. Out of the corner of my eye, I sense Tom glaring at me. As I stuff everything else back in my desk, the bell rings.

  “Tom, Craig…I need to see you.” Miss Chang’s voice is loud enough that there’s no way to pretend we haven’t heard. Tom lets out a huge sigh and drops his backpack so everyone else has to dodge the unexpected addition to the obstacle course.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he mutters, passing me and approaching her desk. As I follow, my brain replays the day’s events and tries to figure out where I committed a noticeable offence.

  “It’s your math tests,” she begins. “Your scores are rather low.”

  Tom laughs. “Well, duh. Check your files. We’re not real brains.”

  Miss Chang doesn’t snap at Tom about showing some respect. Instead she says, “I know you can both do better. I think if we go over the concepts for a few days after school, you’ll—”

  Tom yelps. “You gotta be kidding! You want me to do more math? On my own time? Why don’t you just cut off a couple of my fingers?”

  Miss Chang’s forehead creases, but she doesn’t flinch. “I really think—”

  “Do we hafta stay?”

  “No, but—”

  “We’re outta here. C’mon, Craig.”

  For the first time in my life, I think about how a teacher feels. I guess I always knew teachers had feelings, but the only ones I ever notice are pretty basic. “Mr. Osmond’s mad.” “Miss Ogilvy was really nice today.” “Wow! Is Skye ever grumpy!”

  Miss Chang had offered to give me a second chance. She thinks I’m capable of doing better. She’s even willing to give up a chunk of her after-school time to
help me.

  And I walked out.

  I can’t blame Tom. Sure, he did all the talking and he decided to walk out, but I didn’t have to follow. Why did Miss Chang talk to us together? If it had been just me, I’d have stayed.

  Does she really believe I can do better? Or was it just a con job to get me to do more work? I’ve never done well in math—not even on a single math test. Maybe I should tell her. Why should she beat her head against a wall? I’ve taken dozens of math tests in my life. She’s only graded one of mine so far.

  Still, if Miss Chang thinks I can do better, maybe I can.

  The world looks different at six in the morning. Quiet and still. Had I really set my alarm that early? I always get these wild ideas late at night about what I’m going to do the next day. Come morning, I dismiss my plans with a quick, “Ha! Who are you kidding?!”

  Getting up an hour earlier than usual is crazy. I somehow manage to turn off the alarm and then drift in and out of a not very restful doze.

  As I toss and turn, I smash my elbow against the headboard. If there’s a funny bone in there, it doesn’t have an early morning sense of humor.

  The pain requires me to sit up in bed and gingerly hold my wounded arm. Stupid headboard. Who was the idiot who invented such a ridiculous piece of furniture? If it hadn’t been there…Okay, the wall would’ve been just as bad.

  There’s nothing more annoying than losing an argument with yourself.

  Still in pain and thoroughly disgusted, I get out of bed and head for the shower. 6:23 AM. I must be crazy!

  I arrive at school at 7:58, an hour before the start of classes. The halls are empty except for a couple of teachers casually chatting about some TV show. They almost sound like normal people. It’s absolutely creepy.

  I startle Miss Chang when I walk into the classroom. She’s already writing directions on the board.

  “Craig! Have you checked your watch today?” Miss Chang asks. She sounds far too cheery.

  “I was wondering if you could help me in math.”

  Without hesitation, she moves to a clean part of the board and begins writing a fraction problem. Oh, God. No! What was I thinking?!