Sidetracked

  But Sean Maurer’s dad was serious. He had a whistle around his neck. A terrible, screaming whistle. And he wore cowboy boots, which wouldn’t even be allowed if Mr. Hensarling was in charge.

  Sean’s dad put us in teams. Suddenly there were certain kids who were on your side and others who weren’t. It seemed like every two seconds everyone reversed course and ran the other way. It didn’t seem hard for Sean and his friends. Sean could even dribble the ball with one hand and motion some kind of directions to his friend Julian with the other. But I kept getting it wrong. It was so confusing. I stopped hoping that I’d get the ball and make a basket, and started hoping that I wouldn’t be noticed and I’d never have to touch the ball, ever again.

  So that one morning when I heard Sean’s dad yelling, “Joseph! Back on D! Back on D!” all I could think was What’s D? And why is he so mad? I stopped and turned and that was when Daniel Showalter crashed into me. And I found out that you can slide pretty far on those shiny gym floors—all the way to the bleachers, where I crashed into, and sort of under, the bottom one.

  Everybody stopped and looked over. I just stayed where I was, all crunched up, half under that bleacher, and I remember thinking that second grade is when sports aren’t fun anymore.

  Sean’s dad blew the whistle again and the game stopped and he came over and peered down at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Your parents here?”

  “I’m with him,” said my grandpa. From my position on the floor, he looked big. Bigger even than Sean’s dad. “Go back to your game, cowboy.”

  Sean’s dad didn’t answer. He blew the whistle, which shrieked in my ears, and motioned for all the kids to get back on the court.

  Grandpa was scratching his head and smiling down at me. I guess I looked comfortable enough under there.

  “What are you doing down there, Superhero?” He called me that even back then. It went back to when I was about three and insisted on wearing my Batman costume out to dinner.

  “I slid,” I answered. He put out his hand and pulled me up. “Can we go?” I asked.

  Grandpa shook his head. “You should sit back down with the team.”

  “I don’t like basketball,” I said.

  “I know,” said Grandpa. He was brushing the dust off my shorts. “Go sit next to Mr. Ball Hog there.” He motioned toward Sean.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Grandpa.

  “What did you call him?”

  “A ball hog. He doesn’t pass the ball. And you won’t have to sit next to him long. His dad’s going to put him back in the game.”

  “Can’t we just go home?” I asked.

  “The right thing to do is stay. You’re on a team, and quitting isn’t a good habit.”

  I listened to Grandpa and went to sit next to Sean. Grandpa was right. He went right back into the game.

  I never got any better at basketball, but it wasn’t so bad, because after a while, Sean’s dad pretty much left me on the bench. I could just sit and listen to everybody else’s sneakers squeak, and cover my ears when the whistle blew.

  The problem with cross country is there’s no bench. There’s no hiding and there’s no way to be bad enough that they tell you to sit down and watch.

  At least there’s the possibility of a PR. Today was so bad, it would be hard to get worse. Then again, if anybody could, it would be me. Maybe one day I’ll have a bigger goal, like actually being good at something. But I don’t see it happening anytime soon. For now, I’ll settle for not quitting. I think it’s about all the challenge I can handle.

  Chapter 19

  Science is usually one of my better classes. Wes is in it and so is Heather. Heather sits behind me, which is helpful because she clears her throat or kicks my chair when she sees that my attention is wandering. Also, there are labs at least once a week, so instead of just listening and writing stuff down, we can combine things in tubes and hope they explode.

  It’s Wednesday, and Mr. Hoolihan is late. Most of the kids are talking, sitting on the desks, and putting their feet on the chairs. A kid named Cody is keeping watch while Wes tries to open Mr. Hoolihan’s bottom desk drawer, to see if it’s true that he keeps a bottle of whiskey in there.

  My desk is in the front row, by the door. Heather is in her seat behind me and she’s doodling in her notebook.

  That’s when Charlie Kastner walks by. First he sees Cody. Then he sees Wes fiddling with Mr. Hoolihan’s desk. I guess it looks interesting, so he saunters in.

  Then he sees me.

  NEWS FLASH to seventh-grade teachers: When you’re late, bad things happen.

  Charlie sits himself down on my desk. It’s not that big a desk. He fans himself with the flimsy hall pass that he’s somehow wrangled from one of his teachers. There’s a shredded hole in his jeans and a piece of blubbery thigh is poking through.

  “So, Friedman,” he says, shifting to make himself comfortable, “you’re having some trouble with the starting gun, huh? I hear it makes you cry like a little girl.”

  I don’t look up. Maybe I can wait him out. Mr. Hoolihan will be here soon. He’s got to be. “Too bad, Friedman,” says Charlie. “I thought a sissy sport like track would be just right for you.” He wiggles his fingers when he says “track,” like he’s sprinkling fairy dust or something. “I bet that’s what they told you in the Retards . . . I mean Resource Room.”

  Wes is still crouched down behind Mr. Hoolihan’s desk. I know he hears Charlie, but he stays where he is. I don’t blame him.

  “Maybe it’s time to try cheerleading,” Charlie goes on. “You thought about that? Or hockey? You can be the puck. Yeah, that’s an idea. You can be the PUCK.” He says “PUCK” really loud and right in my face, spraying me with spit.

  “We’re running cross country. And it isn’t a sissy sport,” says Heather. She’s still sitting at her desk.

  Charlie looks at Heather and stands up. He’s like a drooling hyena about to pounce on a field mouse when he suddenly catches sight of a nice, juicy zebra. He faces Heather and leans on her desk with a slanty grin. “Yeah? It’s not a sissy sport? You think Friedman here could play football, huh?”

  Heather stands up, too. She leans on her side of the desk and they’re practically nose to nose. She’s taking Charlie on, just like she did that day in soccer. I’m shaking my head at her vigorously and praying that Mr. Hoolihan will come in and send Charlie back to wherever he’s supposed to be.

  “Why would he want to?” she says. “The football team stinks.”

  Now Charlie straightens up. “What did you say?”

  “I said, your team stinks. Fairfield kicked your butts last week, your front line is weak right to left, and they’re running through your defense like you’re a bunch of old ladies. You’re oh-and-three. So maybe you should just shut up about who’s the sissy.”

  It’s totally quiet in the room. Wes’s mouth is hanging open. Everybody’s watching Charlie and Heather to see what will happen next.

  Charlie is quiet for a few seconds, but then he gets a different kind of grin on his face. More like a sneer. “You’ve hurt my feelings,” he says. “I think I’ll go tell my mom.” I don’t know what he’s getting at. Heather keeps staring and doesn’t move. “My mom loves me a lot. She comes to all my games to cheer for me. Too bad yours isn’t around—”

  I hardly know what’s happened, but all of a sudden Charlie Kastner is on the floor. I look at Heather and Heather’s face and Heather’s fist and realize that she’s punched him. Hard.

  That’s when Mr. Hoolihan makes his entrance. It isn’t difficult for him to figure out what happened with Charlie screaming, “She punched me! She punched me in the nose!” Besides, there are also about twenty witnesses. Heather looks like if Charlie took a step toward her she would punch him again, but Charlie is too busy bleeding all over the place to even try.

  Chairs are screeching as everybody backs away from the fight scene. I don�
��t know if it’s to avoid getting mixed up in the trouble or because nobody wants to get splattered with the blood that’s pouring out of Charlie’s nose.

  There’s a sink in the science room and a pile of those brown paper towels that seem to repel more liquid than they soak up. Mr. Hoolihan bunches up a handful and hands them to Charlie, but the blood pretty much bypasses them and drips all over the floor.

  “Frank,” says Mr. Hoolihan, “take him to the nurse.” He hands Frank some more paper towels. I almost laugh at Frank’s face as he looks from the wad of towels to Charlie’s spurting nose.

  Charlie stumbles up and out the door and Frank follows him. Then Mr. Hoolihan tells Heather to go to the principal. He really has no choice. She doesn’t argue, she just heads straight for the door without looking at anybody. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think somebody’s cheering for her from the back of the room.

  Once they’re gone, Mr. Hoolihan covers the blood on the floor with about six inches of paper towels. He tries to get us to focus on the difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks, but it’s like the whole class has ADD. Everybody’s talking and whispering. As soon as one corner of the room stops, another corner starts.

  My mind is jumping all over the place: I’m hoping that Heather isn’t in too much trouble. I’m wondering how Charlie knew about the starting gun. I’m thinking that whatever he said must have hurt her really badly. Mostly, I’m trying to imagine what it would feel like to have the courage to do what Heather did.

  Behind me, I hear Wes’s voice. I guess he’s thinking the same thing. “That,” he says, “was awesome.”

  Chapter 20

  Heather isn’t in school the next day. The word is that she’s been suspended. Charlie isn’t in school, either. The word is that he’s black and blue and suspended. I’ve never known a suspended person. Now I know two.

  I feel at least partly to blame. If I’d been able to stand up for myself, Heather wouldn’t have gotten involved, she wouldn’t have punched Charlie, and today she’d be running in the JFK meet with the rest of the team.

  It rained last night, the kind of rain that drums on the roof and pulls the leaves off the trees and makes my mom say she’s glad we don’t have a dog. When the rain slowed down, a blast of cold air came in, like instant winter. It’s still misting a little and now we’re glad we have our gigantic Lakeview Leopards sweats.

  As the bus pulls up, Wes and Sammy are dueling with their oversize sweatshirt arms, swatting each other with the cuffs. Mark grabs the ends of Sanjit’s sleeves and crosses and pulls them behind him, so Sanjit’s arms are wrapped around his body.

  “Take me to your leader,” says Sanjit, and Mark leads him onto the bus.

  The rest of the boys follow and then the girls. We take seats and wait for Coach T. I’m sitting by myself.

  “It’s not fair that Heather has to miss the meet,” says Sammy.

  It’s not like I was thinking about Heather, exactly, but it’s one of those times when I have a general feeling that something’s wrong, and as soon as I hear her name, I realize that’s what it is.

  “Yeah, and Charlie gets to play,” says Mark.

  “What?” says Sanjit, wriggling his sleeves free. “How does that work?”

  “Charlie’s game is on Saturday so his suspension is up,” says Mark.

  “That’s not fair,” says Erica. She was sitting toward the back, but now she moves up to join the conversation.

  “What started it, anyway?” asks Brianne.

  Wes scoots up in his seat, ready to tell everything. “Well, first, Charlie was giving Joseph a hard time about the starting gun,” he says.

  There it is, I’m thinking. It’s all my fault. Now everybody’s going to hate me and blame me for everything. But instead, Sanjit just says, “What a lowlife,” and the others all start talking over each other.

  “How did he know?” asks Teresa.

  “Yeah, who even told him about that?” says Brianne.

  “We were the only ones there,” says Sammy.

  Then I hear a little squeak from Victoria. She’s been quiet all this time, her chin tucked into her chest, her arms folded, with about two feet of extra sweatshirt arm drooping on either side of her. She adds a sniff to the squeak and then a frown and then she picks up her elbows and digs them back down into her body and says, “It was me.”

  Suddenly, all the talking stops and everybody’s looking at Victoria. “I was so stupid,” she says, and she’s starting to cry. “Charlie was with Zachary and Zachary’s so cute and everything.”

  “Muy guapo,” says Teresa, nodding. Sammy scowls.

  “They asked me how the meet went and I said okay. Then they asked me how Heather did and how Joseph did and I told them what happened with the starting gun. I knew when I said it I shouldn’t have.” Victoria is wiping her eyes with the two feet of extra sweatshirt sleeve and Teresa is patting her on the shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Joseph,” says Victoria, turning to me. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you, it was just kind of funny and I didn’t think . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I say, because I’ve been made fun of about ten thousand times, but this is the first time ever that anybody’s apologized. “Really. It’s okay.”

  “I’m never talking to those idiots again,” says Victoria. All the girls nod. So does Sammy.

  “So, then what happened?” asks Mark. “With Heather and Charlie?”

  “Then he started saying something about Heather’s mom,” says Wes.

  “Her mom?” repeats Teresa.

  “Something about her not being around.”

  Now everybody starts talking over each other again.

  “That’s mean,” says Sanjit.

  “Her mom’s not here?” asks Erica.

  “That’s so sad,” says Brianne.

  “Maybe something happened to her,” says Mark.

  “Poor Heather,” adds Erica.

  As they all talk, I’m mad at myself all over again. Why didn’t I ever ask her? It was right there on her emergency sheet, and I never said anything. And why didn’t I stand up to Charlie? None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me.

  Everybody’s talking about Heather and Charlie and guessing about Heather’s mother, until Coach T steps onto the bus and everything gets quiet. “Everybody okay?” she asks. We nod in unison and she looks around, a little puzzled, but then she says, “Then fasten your seatbelts. We’re off to JFK.”

  As we bump along, Victoria frees her hand from her sleeve and wipes her last tear with a flick of her ring finger. Sanjit turns around to face me. “Have you talked to her?”

  “Who?”

  “Heather.”

  “No,” I say. “Why?”

  “Because, you’re, like, friends, right?”

  The word takes me by surprise. “Sort of,” I say. If I am, I must be a really bad one. The kind who doesn’t ask about something as big as not having your mother around. The kind who lets somebody else fight his battles.

  I guess I’m looking pretty glum, because after a couple of minutes, Coach T comes over and sits next to me. “Joseph,” she says.

  “Coach T,” I answer.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “How are you?”

  “I’m a little sad about Heather,” she says. “I wish she were here.”

  I nod. “Me, too.”

  She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Will you be able to concentrate on the race? Do you think you can do that?”

  It’s not an easy question. My mind doesn’t always cooperate when I try to keep it on one thing.

  “Can you try?”

  “Yes,” I say, because that’s an easier question.

  Then Coach reaches into her pocket and pulls something out. “You know, Heather and I talked about you, after the last race.”

  “You did?”

  “We both had the same idea. Something that might help you with the starting gun. Here.” She hands me a packet of squishy
little pillows. They’re shaped like bullets and they’re a light green color that I don’t quite trust.

  “They’re earplugs,” she says, in case I hadn’t figured it out.

  I stare at them and squeeze the package a few times. I think about the starting gun and flinch a little, just remembering it. I feel funny, though—kind of guilty. “Is this cheating?” I ask Coach.

  “Why?”

  “Because nobody else is using them.”

  “Nobody else needs them,” she answers. “If they did, they could use them, too.” She gives me another tap on the shoulder, and goes back to her seat.

  I open the package and try putting one in my ear. It pops out and lands in the grubby rubberized bus aisle. I take out another one and try again, and again the puffy little pellet pops out.

  “My brother plays in a band and my dad makes him use those,” says Brianne, who’s a couple seats away. “You have to push them way in.”

  I put one in each ear and push hard.

  Brianne keeps talking, but her voice sounds tiny now. It’s like I’m hearing her through a marshmallow. “My little sister found one and put it up her nose and my mom had to use tweezers to get it out.”

  “Wow,” I say, and I scare myself, because it sounds like I’m yelling into my own ears.

  I pull the plugs out and it’s like coming up from underwater. The bus engine roars and everyone’s voices clang in my ears. Then the bus bounces around a corner and turns in to the JFK driveway.

  “I’ve got to pee,” says Wes to nobody in particular as the bus sighs to a stop.

  “Later, Wes,” says Coach T, looking at her watch. “You need to walk the course. Go. Go!” We all pile out and there’s a JFK kid who’s waiting to show us the course. We follow him to the starting line, which is around the school building, across a field, and up some stairs. Then he shows us the course, which is mostly through the woods. It’s still wet from last night’s rain, and the trees drip cold water on our heads and shoulders. I stay to the side of the trail and use the tree roots like stepping-stones. After the woods there’s a paved walkway that we’ll run to get to the finish. I check for worms, but the path seems clear.