by Tim Green
“I gotta get to class. You too.” Landon turned and walked away.
57
At lunch, Landon bought four cartons of milk before he entered the throng. He saw some faces he recognized from football: West and Furster presiding over a tableful of teammates, Nichols at the edge. He quickly turned away, knowing better than to sit with them, and found a table in the far corner where an odd-looking girl with pink-and-blue hair sat with two undersize boys, one with a glaring birthmark on his cheek, the other with glasses as thick as bulletproof glass. They stared at him, warning him away from their territory with dirty looks, so Landon sat at the far end of that table and began unpacking his brown bag. He’d only removed two of his four meatloaf-and-ketchup sandwiches before he detected movement from the other three kids.
Without a sound or a signal, they got up and left the table.
Landon bit down hard on his sandwich and forced himself to chew and swallow, chew and swallow, until everything was gone. In the dull roar around him, he neither looked nor tried to listen. He was just wadding up his last ball of cellophane when the bell rang and people began to scramble.
The hallways gave Landon a kind of relief because he could move in and out of people without giving them much of a chance to stare or poke fun at his ears or the way he spoke. He set his eyes on the floor, sat through a study hall, struggling with his math homework, and then practically skipped to gym class because he knew Brett would be waiting for him. After that, for the final two periods of the day, he’d have Genevieve and Megan to keep him company. And, as long as Skip wasn’t there, his first day of school might not be a total disaster. He didn’t even want to think about football practice.
That, he knew, would not be good.
58
The school day ended on an upswing. In the last two class periods, he sat happily between Megan and his sister in the front row. When the final bell rang, Brett was waiting for Landon and the girls at Landon’s locker.
“Hey,” Brett said, “where we going? Diner for some pie?”
Megan shrugged. “Everyone goes to the diner. Let’s do something else.”
“Häagen-Dazs?” Landon nearly burst with pride when they all agreed it was a great idea.
On their way outside, it didn’t seem to matter that Katy Buford sat on the steps with three heavily made-up girls trying their best to copy her by casting vicious looks their way.
“Hi, Katy.” Genevieve sounded as pleasant as the first day she arrived. “We’re going to Häagen-Dazs; want to join us?”
Katy was caught so far off guard, she could only snort and sputter. They’d reached the bottom of the steps, where the trees cast their shade, before Katy got a word out. “You wish!”
Genevieve spun on a dime, still smiling. “No, not really. Enjoy your little cat club. Who’s that? Lucinda Rayes? Isn’t she the girl you said you’d never invite to another sleepover because she destroyed your bathroom? Probably hard for you to tell one bad smell from another, though, right, Katy?”
Megan looked like she was trying not to laugh, but Brett guffawed, slapping his leg and growing bright with joy. “Classic crush!”
Katy took out her phone and pretended to be busy, but Landon could see that her back had stiffened and her face burned beneath the skin.
They kept on going down the sidewalk and took a right toward the center of town, with Brett on one end and Landon on the other. They talked about the teachers they liked best and worst—Edwards best and Mazella worst for Landon, Edwards and others for the rest.
“I think Mr. Mazella is a good teacher,” Genevieve said. “You should just ask him. I bet he’d help you, Landon. He just loves math is all. He gets excited.”
Landon was looking ahead to the Häagen-Dazs when Brett stopped in his tracks.
“Uh-oh,” Brett said with a weary sigh. “Here comes real trouble.”
59
Skip was sandwiched between Mike and Xander. They all wore tough-guy looks.
“Going for a little ice cream, kids?” Skip said it like ice cream was for babies.
“Hey, Skip. What’s up?” Brett stepped forward.
“Just get out of here, Brett,” Skip said. “This has got nothing to do with you. This is me and the dummy.” He nodded toward Landon.
“Mr. Sanders said no more fighting, Skip. Neither of us wants to get suspended.” Landon tried not to sound afraid, even though he was.
Skip made a show of looking around. “Yeah, which is why we’re standing on Pondfield Road instead of in the cafeteria. Sanders can’t touch me here, and you’re twice my size, so I can do whatever I have to do to protect myself.”
“Who’s gonna believe that?” Genevieve fired out.
Mike decided to get into the fray. “How about Xander’s dad? Chief of police.”
Brett shook his head. “Look, you guys don’t want to do this. Do you know how stupid you’re gonna look wearing your butts as hats?”
“What hats?” Skip narrowed his eyes at Brett. “What are you even talking about, Bell?”
Brett clenched his hands and took another step forward. “If you don’t get the heck out of here, I’m gonna kick your butts so hard, you’ll be wearing them for hats. Those hats.”
“There’s three of us.” Mike spat his words, but he wasn’t moving closer.
Brett snorted. “I only see about two. One for Skip and about a half each for you two clowns.”
Furster and West looked at Skip to see how he’d respond.
“Look, Brett, we’re teammates. This isn’t about you.”
“You’re right. We’re teammates,” Brett said. “All of us.”
“Not him.” Xander pointed at Landon.
“Yes, him,” Brett growled. “Last time I checked, he was on our team. And besides, he’s not the one who took your girlfriend, Skip.”
“I know he didn’t take my girlfriend. He’s like her big pet Wookiee.” Skip laughed with his friends. “That big dork isn’t gonna take my girlfriend.”
“Yeah,” Brett said quietly but with a hard edge, “’cause I did that.”
Skip’s eyes went from Brett to Megan, back and forth several times, before settling on Brett. With a blood-curdling yell, Skip launched himself.
60
Xander and Mike went for Landon.
Landon never found out how serious they were about it because neither of them got their hands on him. Genevieve stepped up and kicked them, hard and directly, right in their shins, just like that, one-two. They cried out and went down like bowling pins.
Brett was amazing.
When Skip got close, Brett hooked an arm under Skip’s, lifted, and flipped him to the side. Skip went down with a thud on the grass and then rolled into a tree, but he hopped up and came after Brett again. Every time he got close, Brett just sidestepped him, or tripped him, or spun him around and threw him to the ground. Before too long, Skip was out of breath and hunched over with a bloody nose.
When Genevieve went to give him a bonus kick, Brett scooped her up and spun her around. “Oh, no you don’t. None of that. He’s had enough, haven’t you, Skip?”
Skip only glared up at him and smeared the back of his hand with a bright swatch of blood from his nose as it dripped steadily into the grass.
“Yeah, he’s had enough.” Brett started to walk away. “Come on, guys. Let’s get some ice cream.”
Brett paused and they looked at him. “Come on.”
He turned again, and this time they followed. Landon made sure the girls were with them and the bad guys weren’t following before he relaxed enough to say, “Brett, what was that? Like, jujitsu?”
“Nah.” Brett waved a hand through the air. “Just wrestling.”
Landon shook his head. “How can you be so calm about it?”
“I’m not afraid of them, Landon. You were right. I could crush them.” Brett held the door for them all. “You could too. You just don’t know it.”
Genevieve chimed in, “That’s what I keep saying to
him.”
“Yeah, we gotta work on that, Landon.” They all sat down at a table in the corner before Brett turned to Megan. The way he looked at her, and she at him, gave Landon a jolt. He’d assumed Brett was kidding when he said he’d taken Megan from Skip.
“You okay?” Brett asked her.
“Yes. Thank you,” she said.
Then she put her head on Brett’s shoulder, breaking Landon’s heart.
61
Later, after their friends had gone home, it was just Landon and Genevieve by the pool.
“I told you not to go there, Landon.” Genevieve threw her hands in the air and did a can opener into the pool.
Landon sat at the table beneath the wide, green umbrella with his math homework spread out. Genevieve surfaced and he shouted at her, “I didn’t go there. I didn’t go anywhere!”
“Then why are you sulking like that? You haven’t said a word since they left.” Genevieve popped up out of the pool and stood dripping on terrace stones until she swiped a towel off the chair next to Landon.
“Because multiplying fractions stinks!” He realized he was shouting.
Genevieve’s face turned sad, and she put a hand on his cheek, which he shrugged away. “I get it, Landon. She’s beautiful and she’s so nice.”
“I don’t care about all that.” Landon tried to focus on the problem in front of him. “Brett is my friend. My only friend. Even if I liked Megan, I’m not going to do anything stupid if my only friend likes her too.”
“I tried to warn you, Landon. I saw that look on your face. I saw you thinking about her like that and I told you, don’t do it.” Genevieve tossed that grenade at him, and then she bounced off the end of the board and did a swan dive, slipping into the water with barely a splash.
Landon tried to ignore her and instead focus on the fractions in front of him. Genevieve climbed out of the pool, wrapped herself in the towel, and sat down across the table from him. Sunshine poked pinpricks through the wide, green umbrella above. A slight breeze carried with it the ripe promise of fall.
Landon looked up and saw her staring at him. “I’m doing my homework.”
“You can’t blame anyone,” she said. “With people like Megan and Brett, it just happens. They’re together with a common cause and they realize they like each other. And their common cause is you, so you can’t feel that bad.”
“I. Am. Fine.” Landon banged a fist down on the glass tabletop, snapping the pencil in his hand. “Now see what you made me do?” He didn’t take it back, but he said, “How the heck can you multiply something and it gets smaller, huh? What’d Mom call that? An oxymoron? I’m an oxymoron. No, I’m a just plain moron.”
Genevieve stared at him for a moment. “You can’t blame yourself, either. I shouldn’t have said, ‘I warned you.’ Everyone’s in love with Megan. She’s gorgeous. She sweet. She’s smart. She and I are probably going to be co-captains of the soccer team. She’s got it all.”
Landon checked his answer against the key in the back of the book. He had 3/16; the book said the answer was 1/8. He scribbled and scratched at his answer, blotting it out until nothing remained but a horrible mess and a small hole in the homework sheet.
Genevieve got up and peeked over his shoulder. She tapped him. “You added the numerators. One plus two equals three, but you were supposed to multiply them. One times two equals two. Then two over sixteen reduces to one over eight. You’re close.”
Landon made an arrow on his paper and wrote in the correct number above sixteen: two. “Yup, just like me and Brett and Megan. There’s no room for three, just two.”
“That’s not true. There’s room for all of us: four friends.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hey.” Genevieve grabbed his cheeks. “I know that I’m the luckiest sister in the world. You’ve got so much, Landon. You’re just a late bloomer. When you come into your own, all kinds of things are going to happen.”
Landon wanted to cry. “I don’t know if that’s even true, but in the meantime, I feel like I need to make myself as small as I possibly can, and that’s not easy, Genevieve. It’s not easy at all. Look at me.”
“Well, stop making yourself small,” she said. “Stand up for yourself. Don’t worry if people notice you.”
He wanted to agree with her. Instead, he hugged his little sister, wishing he was half as strong as she was. “I gotta go get my stuff ready for practice.”
“I’ll help Dad with dinner,” she said. “I’m sure he needs it. He doesn’t get off that computer, you know? I wonder if Mom will make it home.”
Landon hesitated. “Do you think Brett was right? Do you think everything will be like . . . normal with Skip and everyone at practice tonight?”
“I think he gave them a lot to think about,” Genevieve said. “I think if Brett wants things to be like nothing happened, they’ll count themselves pretty darn lucky. Also, I think he and Megan being an item takes a lot of the pressure off of you.”
A spark of hope glowed in Landon’s heart. “Do you think that’s all it is? Him and her helping me?”
“No, Landon.” She shook her head sadly. “I think they’re just both nice and they like each other. Just enjoy being friends. They like you. We don’t need other friends if we’ve got Brett and Megan, and we can just be ourselves around them.”
“And who are we?” Landon made a crazy face and wiggled his fingers.
They laughed and went inside together.
After dinner, Landon’s dad dropped him at football practice. Landon did his thing with the water and the running, never taking his helmet off, and Brett was right. It was like nothing had happened. It made the whole first day of school seem like some dream, or a TV show that Landon had seen and not been a part of.
Landon got to math class early the second day of school, and before class started he politely explained to Mr. Mazella that he needed to see what he was saying to fully understand. Mr. Mazella not only told him it wasn’t a problem, he also instructed Landon to remind him if he forgot, by simply rapping on his desk. So Genevieve had been right about him.
When he saw Skip or his buddies in the hallway, even though his stomach knotted up waiting for something to happen, nothing did. That didn’t mean Landon could shake the sense that they were planning something, because he couldn’t. His instincts told him the feud was far from over, but he also had to admit that he might just be paranoid after a lifetime of problems with other kids.
At lunch, he ate alone again. He could handle that, though. It took him nearly the entire period to finish everything anyway, and Landon didn’t need a ton of friends. He just needed people not to be mean.
After day two ended without a hitch, he dared to hope that life in Bronxville—with Genevieve, Brett, and Megan to rely on—might shape into something that he’d never experienced before.
But the very next day, he came out of the bathroom right before gym class to find Mike leaning against a locker, watching him. Landon looked around. There were only a dozen or so students in the hall because the first bell for the next period had already rung, so it wasn’t hard to pick out Xander loitering outside a classroom also, pretending to be tying his shoe. Landon stiffened, immediately sensing trouble.
He started down the hall away from Xander, hugging the lockers on the opposite side of the hallway from Mike. The coach’s son didn’t move, but his eye, peering out from beneath his dark flopping hair, locked on Landon, and he wore an evil smile. Landon glanced back. Xander was on the move now, heading his way. Landon picked up his pace, glancing back and forth between the two of them and expecting Skip Dreyfus to pop out up ahead of him at any moment to cut him off. The other kids in the hall seemed to sense trouble too. Landon was aware of their nervous looks and their rush to get out of the area.
As Landon passed the spot where Mike leaned with his arms folded like a tough guy, he hurried his pace and glanced nervously ahead. Two more steps and he’d reach open hallway. He could run if he had
to.
He had nearly made it past when Mike lunged.
62
Landon bolted.
His arms flailed. He looked back and saw Skip, Mike, and Xander together now, snarling. He surged ahead, tripped, and spilled himself and his backpack onto the floor.
He twisted around in a panic, face burning with shame, and saw them not upon him but howling with laughter, slapping one another on the back as they backed away down the hall.
It was just a joke to them, scaring him. Landon’s face burned as he clambered to his feet. Skip and Xander dipped into a classroom and Mike hurried down the hall. The second bell rang.
Late for gym, Landon got a stern warning from the teacher before he could even explain.
63
Friday evening’s pregame practice was a dress rehearsal for their opening game on Sunday. Landon wore his game uniform with pride. The black pants glistened like wet tar and the orange-and-black jersey was bold as a Bengal tiger. Practice wasn’t really much of anything. They didn’t run and they didn’t hit. The only thing they did was line up in positions on the various squads and team units they’d be using in the game.
There were punt teams and kickoff teams and other special teams Landon had nothing to do with. Then there were different squads for offense and defense—first string, second, and third. Landon lined up at right tackle on offense and left end on defense, both third string, which was actually a ragtag bunch of leftovers from the second string squad and the most inept players on the team, guys like Timmy Nichols. Still, Landon felt proud to be included. It was like he did have a position, like he was a real player.
But the third string was whisked on and off the field like an annoying afterthought. Landon watched the first team replace them and walk through a series of important plays. As each starter strove to show the coaches he’d mastered his job, Landon couldn’t help feeling left out. That’s what third string was, basically. Left out.