“Get outa my chair!”
Chapter 6
BEET LITERATURE
“May I try the herring-stuffed ravioli?” my mom asked the Boss. I sat squeezed between the two of them, our backs to the wall of the restaurant. As the large plate passed in front of me I noticed the ravioli was gray and wet. My mom took a bite. “This is the worst meal I’ve ever tasted!” she shouted. The Boss gave me an evil look. “Help,” I tried to shout, but nothing came out. My mom took another bite and gagged. “It’s awful!” This time the Boss grabbed his fork and . . .
I awoke so suddenly that it took me a few seconds to realize I was safe in my bed. My heart was beating fast. It was pitch black and the house was silent. I guessed it was a few hours before dawn. After a minute I began to relax and forget about the dream . . .
Relax? Safe in my bed? Who was I kidding?
Yesterday’s meeting with the Boss shot through my brain. I immediately craned my neck to glance out the bedroom window, half-expecting that Cheese guy’s big face to be peering back at me. There was no one there but I realized that these new people in my life were no dream. I had watched enough old movies with my dad to know that someone like the Boss could be more dangerous than any schoolyard bully from my past. Just the kind of thought a coward like me needs in the middle of the night.
Later, at breakfast, I was still nervous and jumped when my mom shut the silverware drawer. My dad smiled, folded his paper, and looked at me. “Rodney, it’s totally normal to be excited.” His eyes twinkled.
I put down the piece of buttered toast I was about to bite and swallowed nervously. My dad and I viewed the world rather differently. The fact that Penny was smirking did little to ease the tension.
“Why should I be excited?” I asked.
“It’s Friday,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“And tomorrow’s Saturday,” he continued.
I was getting impatient. “And the day after that is Sunday. I know how it works.”
He speared a sausage off a plate in the middle of the table. “You realize what Saturday is, don’t you?” Was he just talking about enjoying the weekend? I doubted it. I took a sip of orange juice. “Don’t you remember? Tomorrow is your first football game.”
I almost spit the juice in his face. Game tomorrow? I had been so caught up with Mama’s Restaurant and Trevor’s love life and trying to win back Jessica that I had forgotten about the game. I wasn’t ready to play an actual football game!
“You’d better finish your toast,” my dad said, interrupting my panic. “You need to start carb-loading. Also drink lots of water. I can’t wait to see you play. I bet the whole town is going to be there.”
“Everyone will be watching you,” Penny added, her devious grin widening. “Rishi’s made sure of that.”
“That’s right. You’ll be the star,” my dad said, missing my sister’s attempt to elevate my panic level. She was doing a great job.
“I have your jersey all ready for you,” my mom added. “It’s folded over there.” I looked at the black jersey with the gold numbers. I could feel my heart beating harder.
“Number twenty-eight, just like Curtis Martin,” my dad said proudly. Curtis Martin was my dad’s all-time favorite New York Jet.
It was all too real. I was going to be on the big stage. Ready to blow it in front of everyone. I grabbed my stomach. “I don’t feel so good.”
“That’s just butterflies. You step on the field tomorrow and all your problems will vanish.”
My stomach twisted again. Butterflies? More like giant vultures!
“Can you pass the sausages?” my mom asked my dad.
As the large plate moved in front of me I suddenly remembered last night’s dream. I couldn’t take it anymore and bolted from the kitchen. The last thing I heard was my dad tell her, “Look at him practice sprinting. That boy is a born football star.”
Josh and I walked into school from the bus and I realized that I didn’t know which problem to worry about first. Just a couple of days ago I thought my life had taken a turn for the better. Lurking disasters were part of my past, I had told myself. Yeah, right! Now I was so overwhelmed that I walked straight to my locker, making no attempt to talk to Josie about Trevor. I didn’t even want to talk to Jessica about me. Girls would have to wait. I was taking some books out when Rishi stuck his head around the open locker door. “You’re going to have to take care of the back basement hallway.”
I had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care. “Not now, Rishi.”
As usual, he ignored me and went right on talking. “I’ve already covered the front of the building, the gym, and two stairwells, not to mention half the telephone poles in town.”
He thrust a roll of masking tape and some flyers into my hands. I glanced at the papers. EAT AT MAMA’S—HOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST BORSCHT PARMESAN.
“World’s best?”
“Rodney, don’t get bogged down by the details. We’re building excitement.”
“What’s borscht anyway?” I asked, looking at a gross picture.
“I don’t know. I Googled it last night. It’s something made with beets.”
Josh had joined us. “I can beats things up,” he shouted, denting the locker with a punch.
Rishi turned to him. “I read another interesting fact about beets last night. One that you might appreciate.”
Josh cocked his head.
“Apparently, if you eat enough beets, your poop turns red.”
It was a rare moment when Josh grasped a concept immediately. “Red poop!” he yelled. He clapped his hands together and laughed and laughed. Eventually he gained control of himself and, turning around, noticed a group of girls walking our way. “Guess what I learned?” he asked them.
The five stopped and stared. “What?” one asked.
Josh proudly announced his new fact. Four of the girls let out a simultaneous “Ewwwwwwww!” and hurriedly walked on, but one lingered. It was Wendy Whizowitz. I didn’t know her too well but I knew she was considered to be the smartest girl in Garrettsville Middle School. She was also the tallest . . . just about the same height as Josh.
“Interesting,” she observed, before asking, “Did you read my paper on cow chips and their impact on homesteaders, or do you just find the large intestine fascinating like me?”
Josh managed a nod. I caught an elbow from Rishi.
“Yes,” Wendy continued, “as I suspected. Of course, it’s really an interesting point you bring up. If a beet can have that kind of effect on the digestive tract, are there other underlying benefits in the process? Maybe we could do an experiment. We could create a colon health breakthrough and publish our findings. Would you like to be my coauthor?”
Josh managed another nod.
“Nice. I’m Wendy Whizowitz. I know you’re Josh Dumbrowski. I’ll be at your game tomorrow. I was going to spend the day reading Moby-Dick again—”
“Hahaha,” Josh interrupted.
“You find Herman Melville humorous too? So many people miss the subtle comedy in his prose. Want to walk me to my first class? We can talk beets and nineteenth century lit.”
Josh shot Rishi and me a puzzled look before heading off with her. Rishi smiled. “Maybe Wendy’s got a friend for you, too, Rodney.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I need.” I looked at the flyers in my hand. “Listen, Rishi, I’ve got too much going on right now. I can’t get involved with this restaurant thing.”
“Hey, I know you’re busy. Big day tomorrow and all that.” For once he sounded reasonable—which lasted for about a second. “Don’t worry,” he continued, “I’ve got you covered. I already have a reporter from the Akron Beacon Journal assigned to do a write-up on the game. I sent him several photos of you to use in the spread.”
“Photos? What photos?”
“Who’s the best cameraman you know? Hey, I also sent him one that your mom showed me from Camp Wy-Mee. You know, the one of you in a dress.”
“What?” I wanted to strangle him.
“We need to emphasize your playful side. You can come across very serious sometimes.”
“Rishi,” I began to growl.
“See? You’re doing it now. Anyway, you made a deal to work for the Boss. After history class you pass the back basement hallway on the way to music. Just hang three of them down there. Make sure they’re eye level. Do you like the graphic? I had trouble finding a good picture of borscht.”
I glanced again. “It looks like a bucket of vomit. How’s that going to build excitement? It’s more likely to scare people away.”
Rishi frowned. “I’m not an artist. It’s all we got. Anyway, can you hang them?”
“Okay,” I finally agreed. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
Rishi smiled. “Let’s hope they’re not serving beets.”
After history class, my head hurt as I pondered the list of horrors facing me. For about the hundredth time in my life I thought about running away to some faraway place, only I knew that the first person I’d meet in Faraway Land would either be the town thug or some local evil mastermind. At least here in Garrettsville my enemies were familiar and after a year in Ohio I was learning the good places to hide out. In fact, this quiet back basement hallway seemed like an ideal location.
I hung the first flyer above a clogged, dirty water fountain. I figured that anyone who’d drink from it might actually enjoy Mama’s disgusting food. I moved along, sticking up another flyer about twenty feet down the hall. I was putting up the third flyer when I noticed some boy pull down the first one. “Hey!” I yelled.
He turned toward me and I immediately felt bad I had shouted at him. It was a quiet kid I’d noticed a few times around school. He was always drawing in a notebook and wore the same hooded sweatshirt every day. The first time I saw him he was sitting on the floor outside my history class leaning back against the lockers. I remember he glanced my way and I thought there was something sad about him. I had tried to say hello but he had quickly shifted his attention back to whatever he was drawing.
Now, in the basement, he stared at me for a moment before backing away, the flyer still in his hand. I decided not to say anything. Besides, maybe he enjoyed Russian-Italian food!
I continued down the hall, still thinking about the quiet kid. Just yesterday I had seen him getting teased by some students in Mr. Scab’s class. I was glad I hadn’t said anything mean just now. Anyway, it wasn’t his fault I was having a bad day.
And with that thought my day got a whole lot worse.
“Hanging out with the rats in the basement, Rat-bone?”
I looked up. It was my old enemy, Toby. I hadn’t seen him coming down the stairs at the end of the hall. “Land in any bushes lately?” I asked.
He gave me a big smile. “That’s right, keep joking. I’ve been waiting a long time for my revenge and the wait will soon be over. Real soon.” He chuckled.
I realized with horror that he actually looked happy, like a child about to open a birthday present. I had never seen him like this. Usually he just frowned. He turned and practically skipped into the basement gloom.
All through music class his words echoed in my head. On one hand, I doubted he would do anything. His brother Trevor was depending on me for dating advice and Josh and I were best buddies now. On the other hand, I knew Toby too well. He was the mastermind behind all my problems last year with Josh. Even worse, over the past few days I had noticed him hanging out with some pretty tough-looking kids. Was he about to set them loose on me? Had he talked his brother into crushing me on the football field tomorrow in front of all Garrettsville?
At lunch I sat down with Rishi and Slim but the image of a mysteriously happy Toby had ruined my appetite. I pushed my tray of greasy nachos in front of Slim. “Go ahead, you can have them.”
“Thanks!” he said, smiling, ready to attack the cheese-covered mush.
“Did you hang the flyers in the back hallway?” Rishi asked me.
Before I could respond I saw the kid with the gray sweatshirt slowly walking up to us. He always ate alone, so I was surprised to see him approaching our table. Was he actually going to say something? Maybe apologize for taking the flyer down? When he reached me he removed a piece of paper from his notebook and placed it on the table. It was the flyer, only he had sketched a perfect drawing on it of what I guessed was borscht parmesan. The drawing was in full color and looked as good as any painting I had seen in a museum back in New York City. You could even see steam rising from the food! It looked so good that it actually made me hungry. Slim whimpered as I took back my nachos.
Rishi, looking over my shoulder, shouted, “This is brilliant. Great job, Rodney, enlisting an artist to help us market the restaurant. I should have thought of it myself! Are you going to introduce me?”
“Uhh . . .” I faced the kid in the sweatshirt. “Hi, I’m Rodney. This is Rishi. My pouting friend over there is Slim.” Slim gave a little wave.
The kid looked scared but eventually managed a quiet, “I’m Pablo.”
“Pablo, I like that name. I like your work even more.” Rishi grabbed Pablo’s hand and started shaking it. “Come, sit with us. You drew that picture just this morning?”
Pablo nodded. “It took about ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes! Did you hear that, Rodney?”
I nodded. I smiled. I noticed a slight smile begin to form on Pablo’s face.
Rishi said, “Pablo, do you think you could do some more food drawings for me?”
The next thing I knew, Rishi and Pablo were deep in conversation. It was hard to catch everything they were talking about, especially since Pablo spoke so quietly, but I did hear him say something about converting the image to a digital file and I could tell Rishi really liked that.
“Pablo,” Rishi said, grinning, putting his hand on the kid’s shoulder, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Then he looked around. “Hey, where’s the flyer?”
Josh was holding the drawing to his face and sniffing it. In all the excitement I hadn’t seen him walk over to us. “What are you doing?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he stuck his tongue out and started licking the picture. A stream of drool fell from his mouth to the floor.
“You’ll have to pardon our friend . . . ,” Rishi started to tell Pablo, but it was too late. The sight of a drooling giant towering over the table was too much for him.
“Where’d he go?” Slim asked.
I pointed to a shaking gray hoodie in the corner of the cafeteria.
“Don’t worry,” Rishi remarked, “I’m sure we’ll be seeing quite a bit of Pablo. In fact, Rodney, you’ll be seeing him tomorrow.”
“Huh? What are you up to, Rishi?”
“I just hired him to sketch your first touchdown! I wonder if the Akron Beacon Journal uses freelance artists. . . .”
Slim must have noticed my face turn white as I remembered the game. “Can I?” he asked.
“Take them!” I shouted. With all the vultures flying around my stomach, the last thing I needed was a pile of soggy nachos.
Chapter 7
MY FIRST BIG GAME
My dad was right about the whole town coming down. The stands were packed. Half the crowd wore black for Garrettsville, the other half blue for Streetsboro. Black and blue. Not a promising sign. My stomach tightened and I glanced at the four porta-potties behind the end zone. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to make any sudden visits.
I decided to turn my mind to more pleasant thoughts and tried to pick out a familiar face or two in the stands. The first one I spotted was the Boss. Not so pleasant. He was flanked by Cheese and Willy. All three wore dark sunglasses and mean expressions. The
seats around them were empty, as if everyone felt their menacing presence.
Everyone except one kid. I watched as Rishi walked right up to the three toughest guys in the bleachers with a big smile on his face. He blabbed to the Boss for a couple of minutes and showed him something on his iPad. The Boss removed his sunglasses, stared at what Rishi was showing him, and eventually nodded approval. Rishi immediately took out his phone and was about to sit down when Willy gestured for him to beat it.
I figured I had about another minute before the game started so I scanned the crowd one last time. I spotted my parents and Penny. My mom waved. My dad looked proud. Penny stuck out her tongue. To their left I noticed Kayla and Jessica. Kayla saw me and also stuck out her tongue. This was getting ridiculous. At least Jessica made a little smile before flipping her blond hair and staring off. Two rows in back of them sat my former principal, Mr. Feebletop. He wore a New York Mets hat and gave me a big thumbs-up. I also noticed that Wendy Whizowitz had come out to support Josh, which was nice, except her head was buried in a book. Dave, Slim, and Greg sat nearby. Below all of them, under the bleachers where no one could spot him, sat Pablo. I gave him a little wave and was happy to see a hand pop out of his gray sweatshirt and wave back. In fact, seeing him and my other friends and my family gave me a feeling of relief.
Until Coach Laimbardi approached from the sideline and I remembered I was about to play my first big game in front of everyone I knew.
“Good to see you boys so excited,” he said. He was either joking or blind because the team was staring at the ground in silence. He continued, “I’ve been waiting for a day like this for several years. Who else is ready to go win a football game?”
Hector coughed, AJ whimpered, and Joe dejectedly kicked his cleat, trying to dislodge some caked mud.
“That’s the spirit!” Laimbardi continued. I began to realize he was serious. He took a step closer to us and stared into our eyes. “You know our game plan, right? The one that almost guarantees victory?”
Revenge of the Bully Page 5