Sidetracked

by Diana Harmon Asher

  I don’t say anything, but Wes calls back, “It’s track, you moron. And it’s not a girls’ team.”

  The “moron” part doesn’t even seem to register with Charlie. Maybe that’s because now his eyes are fixed on Heather. “Hey, he’s right!” he calls out merrily. “It’s not a girls’ team. Look who’s on it.” He points at Heather. She’s ignoring him, leaning on a big tree and stretching one leg out behind her. A few of Charlie’s other football friends have gathered around now and they’re laughing.

  “Hey you! Miss Hip Check! Come over here. We need a right tackle!”

  “Kastner!” calls out Coach Papasian. “Mind your own business.”

  “It is my business, Coach,” says Charlie. “I’m recruiting for the football team.”

  “Yeah, Coach, look at her. She could play linebacker!” says Zachary.

  “Yeah, linebacker,” calls Charlie. “Or tackle. So what do you say?”

  Heather stays perfectly calm. “I could,” she says, straightening up and staring back at Charlie, “except that I don’t like football. And besides, I’ve got a team.”

  It dawns on me that she means us.

  “Kastner!” calls out Coach Papasian. “One lap around the field!” At first, I think he’s punishing Charlie for tormenting us, but then he clarifies. “You’re holding up practice.”

  “Okay, okay,” says Charlie. But before he goes, he calls out to Heather, “Say hi to your dad for me.” It sounds like a taunt, but I don’t know why.

  Heather blinks, but she doesn’t say anything back. She just goes back to the tree and starts stretching again.

  The rest of us try to pretend nothing much happened. Heather is bending over, holding her ankles in a stretch. I go over nearby and try to reach mine, but I don’t get very far, barely past my knees.

  “He knows your dad?” I ask, hanging upside down.

  “Cloverdale,” she answers. Cloverdale is a golf club on the other side of town.

  “You belong there?”

  Heather lets out a noisy puff of air. “No. Charlie does. My dad works there.”

  “Does he teach golf?” I ask. The blood is rushing to my head. I’m getting dizzy.

  “No, he’s a horticulturist.” I guess even the fact that my cheeks are falling into my eyes doesn’t disguise the blank expression on my face. “He’s a plant expert,” she explains, “and a master gardener.”

  I don’t want to seem uninterested, but another minute of this and I might pass out. “How long are you going to stay upside down?” I ask. Heather touches her toes and straightens up, so I do, too. I think she wants to laugh at me, but she doesn’t. I appreciate that. Once my head stops spinning, I say, “So Cloverdale needs a plant expert?”

  “Are you kidding?” she says. “When we got here my dad found Pythium blight and basal rot in the turf, and slime mold all over the place.” This really doesn’t help my queasiness. “And bronze birch borer beetles in the trees.”

  “Bronze birch . . .”

  “Borer beetles. They’re really hard to get rid of.”

  “But your dad knows how?”

  “Well, yeah,” she says, like it’s a no-brainer. “He has a degree from the University of Maine.”

  Just then, one of the girls calls out, “Look! I think it’s our coach.”

  We both look in the direction she’s pointing. A figure is coming down the stairs. It’s hard to make out, because the sun is in our eyes, but it’s someone wearing sweats and sneakers. I’m not positive, but I think it’s a she. As the figure gets closer, I blink and blink because I’m sure I’m making it up. But when I look at Sanjit, he has the same unbelieving look, and Erica does, too.

  “Isn’t that the Resource Room lady?” says Brianne.

  “Holy moly,” says Sanjit.

  And I realize that there, dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, wearing bright white sneakers with pink laces and green soles, is our track coach: Mrs. T.

  Chapter 9

  I’m staring at those pink-laced sneakers and trying to wrap my head around Mrs. T being the coach. In a way, it makes sense. She’s practically a coach in the Resource Room, cheering us all on, coaxing us to do better. But she didn’t give any clue when she read the announcement that day, and it’s not like her to keep secrets. She’s never mentioned being an athlete or even liking sports. And it just doesn’t quite compute, seeing her like this—out in the wild, in sweats, with a whistle around her neck.

  “So,” she says, looking at all our confused faces, “I hope you’re ready to run.”

  “Wait, where’s our coach?” asks Wes.

  Mrs. T points to herself and smiles.

  “I mean the boys’ coach.”

  She looks over her shoulder and then points to herself again.

  “So, boys and girls are on the same team?” Teresa asks. She gives a sideways look at Sammy Small, who started running in place as soon as Mrs. T said “ready to run.”

  “In cross country we train together,” answers Mrs. T. “In most races you’ll run separately, but we’re all one big cozy team.”

  “What’s cross country?” asks Mark. “I thought this was track.”

  “There are three seasons,” explains Mrs. T, holding up three long fingers. “In the fall, we do cross country. In the winter, there’s track and field. You can do sprints, hurdles, distance running, or field events like long jump, high jump, and shot put.”

  “Here?” asks Sanjit, looking confused. “In winter? What if it snows?”

  “Don’t worry, Sanjit,” says Mrs. T, smiling. “We use an indoor track at the community college. In spring, we’re back here, outside, and we add even more events, like discus, and maybe even javelin.”

  When she mentions discus I look at Heather, giving her what I mean to be a friendly, approving, and slightly apologetic smile. I have a feeling it comes out more like a dorky, I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom face.

  “But what do you do in cross country?” asks Victoria.

  “We run!” says Mrs. T. “We run a course of about one and a half miles.”

  “One and a half miles?” says Wes.

  “Is she crazy?” mutters Teresa.

  “Loca,” Victoria says with a nod.

  “And the fun part is, we’ll have meets at different schools, and no two courses are the same.”

  Brianne slowly raises her hand. “What’s a meet?”

  “It’s a race,” answers Mrs. T. “I guess it’s called that because it’s where teams ‘meet’ to race. Good point, Brianne!” Brianne looks surprised that she made any point at all. “So!” Mrs. T claps her hands together. “I’ve mapped out our home course: twice around, starting by the field, going into the woods, up White Oak Lane, around the gym, and back. You’re going to love it!”

  None of us looks so sure.

  “Now, since this is a pilot program—”

  “Zzzzrooom,” goes Sammy. “Eh-eh-eh-eh.” He’s pretending to be a fighter pilot.

  “Thank you, Sammy. ‘Pilot’ as in brand-new.” She starts again. “Because this is a pilot program, we’ll be learning as we go. But the most exciting thing,” says Mrs. T, as if what she already said was exciting enough, “is that we get to hold the last meet, the league championship, here at Lakeview!” She holds both hands to her head, like it’s about to explode, this is so exciting. “So, any more questions?”

  “Are there cuts?” asks Sanjit.

  “Cuts?” Mrs. T looks confused.

  “If we don’t run fast enough, do we get cut from the team?” Erica explains. She hasn’t said much, but I guess she was listening all along.

  “All I ask is that you do your best. As long as you’re trying, you are a part of this team.”

  Victoria and Teresa give each other a soft high five.

  “Are there trophies?” Wes asks.

  “Some meets will give trophies to the top finishers; sometimes the top teams get medals. But what cross country is about, what I want you to strive for, every race, is a
PR.”

  “A what?” asks Sanjit.

  “A personal record. Some people call it a personal best, but I like the sound of ‘PR.’ It means, whatever you run today, you’re trying to do better tomorrow. You’re trying to do your best. Not anybody else’s, just yours.”

  “As long as there are trophies,” mutters Wes.

  Mrs. T tells us some things about schedules and attendance and days off, but it pretty much gets by me. I’m still going over that PR idea. It sounds like good news. Beating myself has to be a lot easier than trying to beat anybody else.

  “Do we get uniforms?” Sammy asks. I don’t think he’s really been listening, either. He probably does belong in the Resource Room.

  “Yes, Sammy, but we’re just getting started. You have to earn them. Now is everybody ready for a warm-up?” There’s not a peep. “Of course you are! We’ll start with two laps.” Brianne starts to raise her hand, but before she even asks, Mrs. T explains, “One lap is once around the track. So, we’re going twice around. Okay? Let’s go!”

  There are a few seconds when we all just stand there, but then Heather starts out. The other girls follow her and then Sammy sprints out to catch them.

  “Slow down!” calls Mrs. T. “Everybody, slow down! We’re warming up!” But nobody is listening. Wes and Mark scramble out behind Sammy, and the three of them race to pass the four girls. Sanjit and I bring up the rear.

  At first, I’m just enjoying the day. I look up at the sky. It looks bluer than ever next to the dark green of the maples. The air smells all sugary from the fresh mowed grass. Up ahead, a robin darts away when he sees me coming. The sun is shining like it’s still a summer afternoon, and the track feels warm, like it’s been soaking up heat for days and days just so it could push it back up to me. I like the idea that the track is here especially for this. It isn’t like running on a street, or running because you’re late, or running away. It’s running, just to run.

  I look down at the red, rubbery track and watch my feet flying along, left, right, left, right, even around the turns. The others are ahead of me, so I go faster, trying to catch up. It feels great, I feel fast and free . . . until I start to feel a little pain in my side. At first it’s like somebody’s pinching me near my ribs, and I can ignore it. But then it grows into a pain like somebody’s stabbing me with a butcher’s knife.

  I look around and see that everybody else is slowing down, too. A couple of the girls hold their sides, like they have the same pain, and then I almost trip over Sammy Small, who’s sitting in the middle lane, trying to catch his breath and rubbing his ribs the same way. I wonder if it’s possible that we all got appendicitis at the same time.

  By the time I hear Mrs. T’s whistle, we’re strewn around the track on our backs, sides, and faces, like a bunch of dead flies after a lethal dose of Raid. Except for Heather. She has her fingers laced together and her arms up high over her head and she’s bending side to side, looking like everything feels just great. In a few seconds I see a pair of white sneakers with pink laces and green soles next to me.

  I look up at Mrs. T. “Did I do something to make you want to kill me?” I ask.

  “It’s just a cramp,” she says. “Sometimes it’s called a stitch. You all went out way too fast. You’ll learn to pace yourself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were the coach?”

  Mrs. T puts her hand on her head, just like she does in the Resource Room. “I didn’t want you to do it for me. I wanted you to do it for yourself,” she says. Then she calls out, “Okay! Good start, everybody!”

  Looking around at the bodies sprawled around the track, I wonder what a bad start would be.

  “Everybody up. Let’s walk a lap and then one more time around.”

  My side still hurts, but I peel myself from the track and start to walk next to Mark. He doesn’t look much better than I do.

  Heather looks like she could happily run ten more laps. I think she’s going to give me some words of encouragement as she passes by, but instead she says, “Go home and have a banana.”

  I assume that’s some kind of put-down. You’d think I’d know them all by now, but there are always new ones.

  I finish walking my lap and then limp around one more time. By the time I get back over to Mrs. T, she’s handing out cards that say “Emergency Contacts” on top. I only hope I can finish filling it in before I become an emergency.

  The other kids fill in their blanks and crowd around Mrs. T. “Okay, great job, everybody,” she says, collecting their forms. “Tomorrow we’ll really get to work! Same time, same place!”

  Heather shoves her form in my hand. “Give this to her, okay? I want to do a couple more while I’m still warmed up.” She starts to run. Again.

  I’m the last to finish my emergency form, which is no surprise. There’s nothing to write on but my knee. It looks like I’ve filled it in on a bumper car ride, but somehow I’ve managed to fit in information for CONTACT 1, my mom, and CONTACT 2, my dad. I glance at Heather’s form. She’s filled in: CONTACT 1: Michael Konstantinidis. If that were my name, I’d still be in first grade, trying to fit it all in a worksheet space, but she’s written it perfectly straight and neat. Relationship to student: father. She’s put his work number and his cell number. CONTACT 2 is blank.

  As everybody gathers their stuff and heads off, I limp over toward Mrs. T. I hand her my form and Heather’s. “Good job, Joseph,” she says, patting me on the shoulder.

  I go back to where I left my things and pick up my backpack. It feels extra heavy, and I remember that Get in Shape, Boys! is in there, the teens on the cover probably snickering at my condition.

  Before I head home, I look over at the track. Heather is still running. Another two laps, or even three. And she’s not even breathing hard.

  Chapter 10

  There’s good news when I get home from school. Grandpa’s back.

  He’s sitting in the den, in the chair he likes best, a big leather recliner, listening to some people singing opera.

  I give him a hug, and the recliner rocks us both like it’s hugging us, too. “What was jail like?” I ask.

  “A step up from that Sundown place, if you ask me,” he says.

  “Sunshine,” Mom says, coming in from the kitchen. She hands him some coffee and I take a seat on the sofa. “Sunshine Senior Living.”

  “Everybody’s over seventy-five,” says Grandpa. “Trust me: it’s Sundown.”

  “I’m just glad you’re back,” Mom says, “after your unfortunate night out.” Grandpa looks at me and winks.

  “What did you do, anyway?” I ask.

  “Nothing. I did nothing that a free man in a free country shouldn’t be able to do. I took a walk and went to Caesar’s.”

  “Dad, you were with a group,” Mom says. She’s picking up the dishes that Grandpa has left around the den. “You can’t just walk away without telling them.”

  “Those people move like clams. Everybody’s got a cane, or one of those strollers.”

  “Walkers,” my mother says, with a sigh.

  “It takes them half an hour just to get off the bus. Three little steps, you’d think they were coming down Mount Everest. And,” he says, shaking his head, “they dropped us at some second-rate casino with nasty bar girls and stale peanuts. I like Caesar’s.”

  My mother sighs again and adds a cereal bowl and a cup to her pile.

  “Then all of a sudden the police are after me,” Grandpa continues. “Like I’m Bugsy Siegel or something.”

  “Everyone was looking for you, Dad. They thought you were lost.”

  “Lost. I’m a grown man. I can take care of myself. Those Sundown people, they’re a bunch of bubbies. Always nudging. ‘Mr. Schatzkis, time for breakfast.’ ‘Mr. Schatzkis, time for lunch.’”

  My mother sits down on the coffee table and speaks gently to him. “Remember, Dad, when you were on your own, last year after Mom died. You weren’t eating . . .”

  Grandpa waves his hand
like he’s brushing away a fly. “I was eating,” he says. “I ate less. It’s boring eating by yourself. And I was sad. Can you blame me for being sad?”

  “Of course not,” says Mom. She has on her trying-to-be-patient voice. “But that’s why we didn’t want you to be alone. You didn’t want to live here with us . . .”

  “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

  “So we thought you’d be better off at Sunshine. And you agreed.”

  Grandpa gives a little grunt.

  “It’s not a nursing home, for goodness’ sake,” Mom goes on, “it’s a beautiful senior living residence. It’s got a nine-hole golf course.”

  “I don’t play golf. And I didn’t know it was run by crazy people who lock you up for taking a walk!”

  “They called the police to find you,” says Mom, getting up. “They were worried. And you were the one who requested the jail cell.”

  “I’m at the police station, I want a place to lie down,” answers Grandpa.

  “So you got what you asked for,” Mom says, the stack of dishes rattling in her hands. “Now do us a favor and stay here with us. I work most days, and Joseph can use the company.” She marches off to the kitchen. “And this time, I don’t need an argument.” I hear her drop the dishes into the sink with a clank.

  Grandpa winces and looks at me. “She has a point about the jail cell part, but don’t tell her I said so,” he whispers.

  The people on the radio have finished singing, and he motions for me to come over next to him. I sit on the chair’s puffy arm and he ruffles my hair, which is all sweaty.

  “What’ve you been up to? Playing ball?” he asks.

  “Running,” I answer. “Cross country.”

  “What country are you crossing?”

  “None, Grandpa. It’s the name of the sport. Cross country running.”

  “Well,” he says, “are you fast?”

  “No. I’m terrible. But Mrs. T says I’ll get better. She’s the coach, and also my Resource Room teacher.”

  A man on the radio is telling us what comes next, but Grandpa clicks it off with the remote. “Resource Room. That’s because your attention drifts?”