The Dream Weaver

by Reina Luz Alegre

  “I’m going to try out for baseball in the fall. I might not be able to do bowling anymore if the schedules conflict,” Tyler blurted, looking at Patrick. “But if I can’t make it, then you’ll have Zoey as my replacement!” He turned to Zoey and winked. “Just giving you one more reason to feel good about staying, since guilt seems to work with you. Patrick’s probably going to need you on the team.”

  Zoey smiled.

  “So, no more guilt about staying, okay?” Patrick asked Zoey, in his trademark solemn tone.

  “No more guilt,” she said, and meant it.

  “And no more gutter balls?” he added hopefully.

  “Patrick!” Tyler, Lacey, and Isa shouted in unison.

  “You’re being very insensitive,” Lacey informed him.

  “No more gutter balls,” Zoey agreed.

  15

  On her next turn, Zoey walked up to the foul line with a tightness in her belly that meant a full-blown stomachache was only one worried thought away. She felt at peace with all the Dad stuff, but the morning’s winning momentum was still broken. If Zoey could choose to be anywhere in the world at that second, she’d be scarfing down a pint of cookie dough ice cream alone in her room, or kicking around a soccer ball by herself on an empty field. Instead of standing in front of all these people waiting to see if she rolled another gutter ball. Maybe even hoping that she would.

  She glanced behind her and spotted José and Toni-Ann holding hands and leaning on the air hockey table. They flashed her thumbs-up signs, pumped their fists, and hollered, “Go, Zoey!” and “You got this!” She smiled at them, then heard her friends shouting “Zoey!” behind her. Poppy joined in. Then so did her friends’ parents. Pretty soon the entire bowling center was chanting her name. Everyone except the Lightning Strikers, who eyed the crowd warily and watched Zoey with sour expressions. She almost laughed out loud at Eric’s reddening cheeks and the way his eyes and mouth were all drawing in toward the middle of his face, like his nose was calling them home.

  Taking a deep breath, Zoey tried to tune everyone else out and focus. All she needed to think about in this moment was not rolling a gutter ball. She stared down the lane at the bowling pins so long that they started to look like tiny ghosts. Zoey blinked and squinted at them, trying to visualize a strike. Unfortunately, the image refused to come. But the pins did sort of blend together, reminding Zoey of beads on a bracelet. She thumbed the bracelet Lacey had made her for good luck. Knock one down, and the rest of the chain will follow.

  She touched the azabache pinned to the bottom of her shirt for luck too, tucked one leg behind the other, and flung the Earth Ball with all her might. It flew down the lane, gliding with a graceful ferocity that made Zoey think of the speed skaters she’d seen compete in the last Winter Olympics. Her ball crashed straight through the pins. Eight toppled over.

  Eight!

  She spun around and launched into a spontaneous touchdown dance without thinking about whether she looked awkward. Then Zoey rolled a spare. Patrick jumped up from his chair in excitement. Lacey and Isa wrapped Zoey in a bear hug, and Tyler gave her a high-five.

  The Curve Breakers’ momentum was back.

  The Lightning Strikers, though, at least as far as Zoey knew, hadn’t dealt with any family crises today, and therefore, had never lost their momentum. They were playing best two out of three games, and, thanks to Zoey’s spare and Isa’s strikes, the Curve Breakers managed to win the second game. But by a single point. The third game was going to be close.

  Zoey could tell Eric was worried because he got meaner with every throw.

  “You hold that ball like it’s a baby,” Eric jeered, trying to break Tyler’s concentration in the first frame. “Actually, you look like you’re the baby when you hold it like that. Wah, wah. Poor Ty-Ty. Is your diaper wet? Wah, wah,” Eric mimed a crying baby, and his teammates all guffawed. Tyler’s best release was his two-handed one. To Zoey’s untrained eye, it did look like an uncoordinated toddler chucking a toy on the floor (not that she planned on telling Tyler that). But it was effective. Tyler always knocked down at least seven pins with the move.

  “How is it that Eric is so nice one minute, helping us fix everything yesterday, and now he’s being so mean?” Zoey whispered to Isa. “He’s like two different people.”

  “People are complicated,” Isa said. “They’re not all good or all bad. They have their moments. Eric goes to our school, and I’ve seen him flip from cool to nasty in a second. Like, he organized a donation drive to provide turkeys to homeless families on Thanksgiving. But then, he also tried to stick Tyler’s head in the toilet right before winter break.”

  “That’s horrible! Gross. Poor Tyler,” she said, eyeing Tyler as he adjusted his thick glasses, ran a hand through his messy hair, and tucked in his shirt. She hated Eric for picking on her sweet, nerdy friend.

  “Poor Eric,” Isa said, laughing. “Tyler’s a black belt in karate and has been taking Krav Maga classes since he was five. Luckily, Eric was too embarrassed to admit Tyler walloped him, or they would’ve both gotten suspended. Maybe even arrested. Eric walked around with a black eye for two weeks. Haha. He hasn’t tried to give anyone else a swirlie in the bathroom since. Oh look, Tyler’s about to bowl.”

  The girls watched Tyler confidently approach the foul line.

  “I’m going to pretend this ball is your head, Eric,” Tyler called over his shoulder, and crouching low to the ground, flung his ball two-handed down the lane.

  Seven pins.

  No one clapped. No one said anything at all. You could hear a text message pop onto the screen of a phone at the very back of the bowling alley. That’s how focused everyone was on the match. The pressure turned Zoey’s insides to acid, and it wasn’t even her turn to bowl yet!

  Tyler jumped up and down a couple of times, which Zoey had noticed was what he did when he wanted to concentrate. Then, more swiftly than she’d ever seen him move before, he picked up his ball from the return, jogged up to the approach, and sent his ball sailing one-handed down the lane. It hooked beautifully into the three remaining pins, earning a spare. Pumping his fist in the air, Tyler swaggered back to the bench. The crowd burst into cheers before quieting again.

  The next Lightning Striker to bowl was Eric. He got a spare too and smirked knowingly at his teammates. Zoey wondered why he was so cocky. It was early yet and anybody’s game. Her stomach was in knots.

  “Are you nervous too?” she whispered to Isa.

  “A little. But I feel good about our chances. It helps that we practiced here so much, thanks to you and Poppy. I know these lanes well, and that helps me calculate my angles better. The Lightning Strikers are loud and obnoxious, but they don’t have the home field advantage,” Isa whispered back.

  “Also, I have a trick.” Isa lowered her voice even further. The citrine stud in her ear twinkled like it knew her secret.

  “What is it?” Zoey said, wondering for the millionth time how her friends could be so cool and sparkly under pressure. Why must she always be the one to feel anxious?

  Isa looked around to make sure no one was listening.

  “Okay, I pretend for a few seconds while I’m picking up my ball that the lane I’m about to approach is the red carpet before the Oscars.” She closed her eyes and held up her arms. “I’m wearing a chiffon mermaid gown in a deeply stunning forest green. It has long sleeves, a high neck, an open back, and flattering ruching at the sides. All those people in the crowd, even the fans here for the Strikers, are my admiring fans, and I’m favorite for best actress.” Isa’s arms fell back down by her sides. She smiled sheepishly at Zoey. “Maybe a little delusional, but pretending I’m somewhere else makes competing more fun and less stressful.”

  Zoey giggled. “I thought you were going to give me a physics formula for determining the ball’s velocity or something.”

  “The math and science are important. But sometimes—” she leaned in closer to make sure only Zoey could hear, as Tyler had just pl
opped down in the chair across from their bench “—I just want to dream up something fabulous,” she said solemnly.

  With that, she left Zoey and Tyler and sashayed to the rack to select her favorite red ball. She rolled a strike so easily that Zoey jumped about a foot in the air when she heard the pins fall heavily to the ground. The audience went wild for Isa, and Zoey laughed, picturing the throng of mostly parents and siblings watching and snapping pics on their phones from the arcade as paparazzi and photojournalists with big, professional cameras waiting to ask Isa about her Academy Award–nominated film. Indeed, when Isa spun around to find her family in the crowd, she gave them a regal wave and a smile that reminded Zoey of an actress about to be interviewed before an awards show.

  When the seventh of ten frames—and Zoey’s last turn to bowl for the day—arrived, the Curve Breakers were behind in points.

  “Oh, it’s just the new girl,” Eric scoffed loudly to his teammates. “I bet she rolls another gutter ball.”

  “Gutter ball. Gutter ball. Gutter ball,” the Lightning Strikers chanted. A few crowd members joined in.

  “Seriously?” Zoey muttered, looking up in wonder to see which adults would actually boo a kid.

  She spotted Eric’s dad, the contractor, and Aiden’s brother, standing with their hands clenched into fists, right behind the bar separating the lanes from the audience.

  “Figures,” she said to herself, inhaling, squaring her shoulders and scooping up her bowling ball.

  “Gutter ball! Gutter ball! Gutter ball!” The chanting grew louder.

  San Alejo. San Alejo. San Alejo. The Spanish words popped out of nowhere into Zoey’s head. She didn’t know what they meant, but remembered her mother saying them a lot as she cleaned the house to get rid of germs the year both she and José had nonstop fevers, sore throats, and runny noses. She thought it had something to do with banishing negative energy, and she made a mental note to Google the translation after the tournament.

  San Alejo. San Alejo. San Alejo. Zoey heard her mother repeat it over and over in her head, and it had a calming effect on her. Her mother was here with her in spirit, she could feel it.

  Zoey silently willed herself and her Earth Ball to go for the gold. She planted herself a few steps behind the foul line.

  “Go, Zoey! Go, Zoey! Go, Zoey!” The Curve Breakers broke into a cheer to counter the relentless drum of “Gutter ball!”

  Zoey tried to imagine the gleaming wooden lane ahead was a red carpet, like Isa, but the image didn’t work for her. The idea of being a famous celebrity on TV only made her more nervous. She stared down at the brown and green swirls that conjured land masses against the sapphire blue overall hue of her bowling ball. Wisps of white paint glossed over all the other colors, reminding Zoey of the photos she’d seen in science class of Earth taken from space. The world was in her hands. She had stood up to Dad. She had convinced Poppy to host the championship. She could fling a little ball onto some wood.

  Taking a deep breath, Zoey got into position and released the ball as hard as she could. It rolled right along the edge, and for a second, Zoey thought it had listened to the Lightning Strikers and planned to detour into the gutter. But no, at the last second it hooked toward the center and knocked over six pins.

  Zoey exhaled and prepared to go again, musing at how the entire bowling center seemed to scream as the ball left her hands, but by some odd unspoken protocol, no one dared breathe in the pause between throws. Never mind. She used the silence to tune everyone and everything else out.

  There was just Zoey and the ball in Gonzo’s, her family’s Gonzo’s. This wasn’t some fancy, formal championship center, this was the happy, familiar place where she’d vacationed every summer when Mami was alive. She remembered how her mother had taught her to bowl here by placing the ball on the floor and gently rolling it off with two hands.

  And with that memory in mind, Zoey rolled her ball toward the remaining pins.

  And knocked them all down.

  Another spare.

  The majority of the crowd went wild. Home field advantage indeed, Zoey thought contentedly, remembering Isa’s words as she trotted victoriously back to her team, expecting them to congratulate her.

  Instead, they were all staring up at the monitor above their heads with grouchy expressions. Zoey’s stomach plummeted to the floor. Oh no. She’d messed up. Maybe if she’d pretended she was on the Oscars red carpet she would have bowled a strike. And she needed that prize money to help Poppy. Every little bit counted. Why had she been thinking all that nonsense about holding the world in her hands?

  “I’m so sorry. I really tried my best,” Zoey said, trying to look each of her teammates in the eye. But none of them would meet her gaze.

  “What?” Lacey said, turning toward her.

  “I’m so sorry that I didn’t roll a strike. I know you guys were counting on me to put in my absolute best performance, and I only made a spare. But I thought that wasn’t so bad, you know?”

  “We’re not mad at you,” Lacey said.

  “Oh. Then what’s wrong? Why does everyone look so mad? And what is Patrick writing?” He was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper, while Tyler pressed buttons on his phone with equal furor.

  “They’re adding up our score. Isa did the math in her head. Patrick’s doing it now by hand, and Tyler’s using the calculator on his phone. The scorer isn’t marking enough points for our spares.”

  “What?”

  “Isa caught the glitch because she’d been keeping track of the score in her head—and she glanced up at the monitor a couple of minutes ago and realized we’re two points behind where we should be, before counting your spare. And we’ve had exactly two spares before yours.”

  Tyler looked up grimly. “Isa’s math is right.”

  Patrick stood up and beckoned to the Lightning Strikers.

  “Eric, we need a time-out.”

  “Why? You want to forfeit? Getting cold feet because you know you’re going to lose?” Eric snickered.

  “No. There’s a problem with the computer. It’s not counting spares right.”

  “Oh yeah?” Eric asked, a shadow passing over his face. His tone sounded a little too innocent to Zoey’s ears.

  “You guys had a spare a few frames ago too. Did it count yours correctly?” Zoey asked, suddenly suspicious.

  Isa glanced up at the scoreboard and did the math ridiculously fast in her head.

  “It did,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “So the glitch is only happening on our score?” Tyler asked.

  “Your score looks fine to me. Don’t be sour losers,” Eric said, shrugging them off.

  “The expression is ‘sore losers,’ ” Isa retorted.

  Eric rolled his eyes at her. “Okay, genius, whatever you say.”

  “If you think I’m a genius, then why don’t you trust my math?” Isa shot back.

  Aiden walked up to the group huddled around the ball return between their two lanes before Eric could answer. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Eric said. “We’re going to keep playing.”

  “I want Mr. Martin to check it out,” Patrick said.

  “I thought Mr. Martin was dead?” Zoey whispered to Lacey.

  “The one they’re talking about is his son, who took over running the championship when his dad died last year. He’s over there,” Lacey said, inclining her head. Zoey glanced at where Lacey was pointing and spotted a man with sparse silver hair who looked to be about a hundred years old himself, dozing in a folding chair in the corner of the alley.

  “Him?” Zoey asked, her stomach tying itself back into the knot that had finally come untangled after the pressure of her last turn was over.

  “Yup. Technically, he’s in charge. This summer tournament is totally independent of other leagues and tournaments. Mr. Martin Senior—the dead one—wanted to do his own thing without worrying about official league guidelines and stuff. Like, there are
no appeals or higher authorities, or even line judges because of the sensor. Everything is done by computer, and the only human with any real power to decide something like whether there was cheating is Mr. Martin Junior,” Lacey explained. “It’s not looking good for us,” she finished worriedly.

  Zoey frowned and tuned back to the conversation Patrick and the others were having with Eric and Aiden.

  “If you go bother Mr. Martin about this, then my dad’s going to have to send Zoey’s grandpa a big bill for all the free work he put into this place yesterday. I heard him complaining this morning about how much the time cost him,” Eric said.

  “What? That’s not fair! It was understood that everyone was volunteering for free so that we could hold the championship here today like we originally planned!” Zoey was incensed. “Plus, it’s not like your dad bought any special supplies. He just used the tools he already had to help fix stuff!”

  “Yeah, but he’s a contractor. He didn’t sign anything agreeing that he didn’t expect to be paid. Poppy accepted the labor. At least a few hundred dollars’ worth, maybe even a few thousand. My dad’s a high-end contractor. He did some work recently for Lacey’s parents. Enjoying that shiny new kitchen? Maybe you could make me some cookies.” Eric winked at Lacey, who scowled back at him. She balled her fists, and Zoey could tell she wanted nothing more than to punch Eric in the face.

  Lacey wasn’t the only one. Zoey dug her own fists deep into the pockets of her jeans.

  “I am not baking you cookies!” Lacey spit.

  Eric and Aiden laughed. The crowd was starting to get restless. A few people called out, demanding that someone take their turn. Poppy suddenly appeared at Zoey’s side.

  “What’s going on? Why you stop playing?” he asked.

  “Was the scoreboard damaged at all during the storm?” Lacey asked him.

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t see anyone touch it.”

  “Dylan, go bowl,” Eric barked at one of his teammates. Poppy headed back to the audience.

  Suddenly, Zoey remembered seeing Zach at the scoreboard yesterday. How strange he’d been about his phone. She turned to Aiden and glared. “Your brother rigged the scorer when he was ‘fixing’ it, didn’t he?” she said, making air quotes.