Slugfest, p.12
Slugfest, page 12
The feeling doesn’t come though. It actually bugs me at first. I don’t want to sympathize with this creep. He should learn to take the bitter with the sweet like everybody else. But the more he talks—the more desperate he becomes—the more I start to see what’s happened to him. The high school coaches used Yash to strengthen the JV sports teams. But when Yash suddenly needed an eighth-grade PE credit, Coach Basil and Principal Carmichael and the superintendent threw him under the bus. Even then, Yash took the heat for their mistake, giving up his summer and his chance to work out with the Comets. And the minute another quarterback came along, Coach Basil dumped Yash and went with the new guy. It’s unforgivable to treat anybody like that.
What do I say to him? What can I say? “I’m really, really sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
He nods his gloomy appreciation. “You know the worst part? Nate doesn’t even belong on the Comets. Bella confirmed it—he lives in Forsberg. He faked his address so he could sign up for Clarington schools—his dad’s idea.”
“Well, there you go!” I exclaim. “That’s your ticket. Once they find out he’s ineligible, you’re back in.”
“I don’t want it that way,” he says stoutly. “I want to earn it.”
“So how can you earn it?” I probe.
He shakes his head sadly. “That’s just it. I can’t. I can’t go to the JV workouts because I’m stuck in summer school. The only other place would be the citywide seven-on-seven flag football tournament. And I can’t be in that because I haven’t got a team.”
When the idea comes to me, it’s so ridiculous, so flat-out bad, that it makes me laugh aloud just for thinking it.
“Thanks a lot,” he growls. “I’m thrilled to hear that my life falling apart is so funny to you.”
“No—sorry—I didn’t mean—” But I’m still laughing as I picture Kaden taking a football in the stomach; Jesse throwing a wobbly pass; Fiona signaling a touchdown when she wouldn’t know one from the black holes she and Kaden are studying for investigative journalism. “It’s just that—you do have a team.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” he demands. “I’m off the team! The summer workouts are the prep for the tournament, and I’m locked out of those!”
“I’m not talking about that team! I’m talking about your team—the kids who are out there practicing for you when you’re not even there with them!”
His ears practically stand at attention. “The slugs? I mean, they’re nice kids, but they’re—you know—them! They’re not athletes; they’re—whatever it says under athlete in the opposites book!”
“You don’t have to win the tournament,” I reason. “You just have to be in it. It’s an audition for you—an audition for the job you shouldn’t have had to audition for in the first place.”
A dim light goes on behind his eyes. He doesn’t like the idea, but for the first time, he seems to be thinking it over.
“Okay, they’re not stars,” I concede. “But look at the progress they’ve made already. It’s more than two weeks till the tournament. Think how much better they could get when they know what they’re training for. And”—I’m still not sure why I add this last part; it’s possible that my mouth works faster than my brain—“you’ll have me.”
“Seriously?” He’s hooked now. “You’d join this team?”
Real talk: I’m still off sports. I’m not changing my mind about that. That’s why I’ve steered clear of these un-football workouts, even when everyone else was jumping on board. And I still believe that the whole world doesn’t have to fall in line to make life more pleasant for Yash the superjock. But how can I volunteer the others for something I’m not willing to do myself?
Besides, I have to admit it’s kind of flattering how much he brightens at the thought of me being involved. “I’ll join your team,” I confirm.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Not for you,” I say quickly. “I’m doing it because you got a bum rap over something that wasn’t your fault.”
He smiles so wide that I have to keep myself from crowing “April fools!” and storming away. Plus, it’s August.
My summer is taking another unexpected twist—this one into a flag football tournament with a team of PE rejects. I’d like to see the Beach Boys write a song about that.
Here’s the part I can’t believe: Arnie Yashenko is getting his way again—and I’m the one who’s making it happen.
19
Jesse Darrowick
My beautiful toilet ban is circling the bowl.
#NoToiletsNoKidding isn’t trending on social media. No one’s commenting about it. No posts, no likes, no tags. Not a peep.
“I can’t figure it out!” I complain. “If someone told you a whole town made toilets illegal, wouldn’t you at least want to say how bad that is? Of course you would! And what do I get? Crickets! Like people think that’s just fine!
“They don’t think it’s fine,” Cleo tells me, rolling her eyes. “They’re not posting because they know it’s a goof.”
Our whole PEE class is on the football field, running drills. We’re not helping Yash train anymore. That’s so last week. We’re a real team now, practicing for the tournament. I know that sounds like a bigger joke than anything I could come up with, but it’s as serious as a heart attack.
“Yeah, well, I believe,” I tell Cleo.
“In what? Toilets?”
“In comedy. It’s going to work. It just needs a little more time.”
In regular flag football everybody wears a belt with dangling ribbons attached by Velcro. When someone grabs your “flag,” you’re tackled. But since we don’t have real belts yet, we have to use strips of bathroom tissue tucked into our pockets. There’s a joke in there somewhere.
On windy days like today, toilet paper blows all over the field. Always eager to help, Kaden takes off after it. He’s really improved fitness-wise—but not enough to catch a single square.
Eventually, a custodian always comes out to give us those pointed sticks for picking up paper trash. Well, Stuart and Sarah think that’s just great. Next thing we know, Yash and Cleo have to break up a swordfight before somebody gets shish-kebabbed.
It isn’t just chaos. We’re practicing too—and improving, I guess. Yash is watching us, scribbling on a notepad. Once, when he sets it down on a bench to get some water, I scramble over to see what he’s writing. There, on the dirt-smudged page, is his scouting report on his players.
FIONA: Compact. Quick feet.
STUART: Hands like a bear trap.
SARAH: Usain Bolt with a ponytail.
ARABELLA: Stick to snapping.
JESSE: Stronger than he looks.
CLEO: Needs to learn the game. Otherwise, she can do ANYTHING!
KADEN:
There’s nothing for Kaden, and I think I understand why. Yash is trying to figure out how to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. And Kaden—well, he’s a nice guy, but he’s all weaknesses.
In the tournament, we’ll be up against real teams that have practiced and played together for a long time. We’re going to lose a million to nothing. As much as I tell myself that’s going to be funny too, I’m having trouble making myself believe it. Comedy is my jam, but nobody wants to be a punch line.
There’s just one thing our team is missing: a name.
“It doesn’t have to be brilliant,” Yash tells us. “We just need something to put on the form when we register for the tournament.”
“We could be the Toilets,” I suggest. Anything to help draw attention to my failing hashtag.
“Be serious,” Sarah counters. “If we have a good name, maybe we’ll live up to it. What do you think of the Flyers?”
“Bor-ing,” Stuart sings out.
“How about the Tachyons?” Kaden ventures. “They’re the fastest-moving particles in the universe.”
It turns into sort of a debate, which means we actually think of ourselves as a team. It goes on for a while, until the final vote comes from Fiona in a voice so soft that we almost miss it.
“Don’t we already have a name? We’re Slugfest, right?”
“That’s an insult,” Cleo declares. “Just because everybody calls us slugs doesn’t mean we have to go along with it.”
But somehow, it just speaks to me. “It’s perfect,” I decide. “It’s us.”
We take a vote. The count is 7–0, with Cleo abstaining.
When the registration goes in, we’re Slugfest.
Sometimes, practice runs late and we miss the bus home. Luckily, I’ve got Keith. He’s always willing to give me a ride in the hotel courtesy van.
On Thursday, I’m standing with Arabella, who’s waiting for her mom to pick her up, when the minibus pulls around the main drive.
When I climb aboard, my brother is looking beyond me—out at Arabella.
“Hey,” he calls. “How’s the knee?”
She waves. “Better, thanks.”
I notice that Arabella has a small Band-Aid on her left knee.
“What was that about?” I ask Keith as we drive off.
“I see her around a lot,” he replies. “She scraped her knee, so I gave her and her boyfriend a ride to CVS so they could get first aid supplies.”
“Wait—wait! Back up! Arabella has a boyfriend?”
“You know the guy. Real athlete—he rides that fancy bike around town. Remember when I took you over to the high school to watch football practice? He’s the quarterback.”
“You mean Nate?”
He shrugs. “Nice kid. My route takes me by the school a lot. Those two—they’re always together.”
Well, you don’t give a guy like me this kind of juicy inside information without expecting me to make a joke out of it. The next day at school, every time I see Arabella in the hall, I sing a different love song under my breath. I keep it mumbly enough that she can’t hear my actual words, but she definitely notices something’s up. At first, she just frowns at me, but as it continues, she stops in bewildered annoyance, struggling to figure out what’s going on.
“‘You’ve got me singing love songs, love songs, love songs . . .’”
“‘Love is in the air . . .’”
“‘There’s no love like your love . . .’”
By the end of the day, I’ve got her so rattled that she grabs my wrist and spins me around. “All right, let’s have it!”
“Let’s have what?”
“You’ve been humming at me all day. Obviously, you’ve got something to say—and it better not be about toilets!”
Arguing with Arabella is like getting in a fistfight with the heavyweight champ, but I’m in no mood to back down. She knows Nate is stealing Yash’s job on the Comets. Why is she dating the enemy?
“What are you going to do?” I sneer. “Sic your boyfriend on me?”
Her face turns the color of oatmeal, but she tries to bluster it through. “What boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend!”
“Keith saw you two together!” I shoot back. “He told me you and Nate have been hanging out around the high school.”
Her reporter’s toughness crumples. “He’s not my boyfriend. Or maybe he is. I like him a lot—”
“He’s cheating Yash out of his spot on the Comets,” I interrupt.
“It’s not his fault,” she insists. “His dad is making him play for the Comets because Forsberg doesn’t have a good football program.”
“Forsberg? What’s Forsberg got to do with it?” I put two and two together—Nate on his bike, sprinting down County Road 14. “Clarington’s next superstar doesn’t even live in Clarington?”
“You can’t spread it around!” she pleads.
“Yash deserves to know.”
“He already knows,” she assures me. “I told him.”
I have to say it. “That’s pretty rich. The whole world—including Yash—has to keep a secret for your boyfriend. But you’re going to expose Mrs. Finnerty. Where’s the fairness in that?”
Her jaw stiffens. “That’s totally different.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a bright red folder. The cover reads, in block letters, THE PEOPLE VS. TAMARA FINNERTY.
She hands it to me, and I flip through it. I don’t much like what Arabella is doing, but no one can accuse her of not working hard. It’s fifteen pages long. She’s even printed a PDF of the list of certified teachers from the state education website, marking the alphabetical spot where Tamara Finnerty is missing. There are endless stories from our PEE class, telling about things Mrs. Finnerty did that no real gym teacher would have.
. . . and when newcomb ball became too much like real sports, the accused took us to the teachers’ lounge, where we baked sourdough biscuits to eat with her homemade guava preserves . . .
I hand the folder back to her, suddenly exhausted. All I can think to say is, “A lot of kids are going to miss out on a lot of really great cookies because of this.”
“Fairness is more important than cookies,” she pronounces, and heads off in the direction of room 122.
We all knew this moment would be coming, but I’m still shocked when I realize it’s here: Arabella handing in her project. If Ms. Landkammer signs off on it, the next stop is the superintendent’s office.
I could try to stop her, but how? By blocking the door? She’ll just leave and come back later. Toss her folder down the sewer? She’ll print another copy.
I feel helpless, useless. When something really bad is happening, you don’t want a clown. You want somebody who takes action. And let’s face it, that’s not me.
But I know the right person to talk to.
20
Arnie Yashenko
I tuck the ball in the crook of my arm and run full throttle, nothing but daylight between me and the end zone. The wind is whistling through the bars of my faceguard, the crowd noise in my ears, football glory looming closer with each bite of my cleats into the turf.
I never see the stainless steel cart until it rolls out in front of me, and I plow into it at top speed. The impact is devastating, sending baking products flying in all directions. Cookies, brownies, muffins, popovers, scones . . .
When my phone starts to vibrate, I lurch awake and gaze bleary-eyed at the screen. Jesse.
“What’s up?”
The news is not good. “Arabella handed in her project after school today.”
My dream collision with Finnerty’s greatest hits pops like a soap bubble as reality sets in. I thought I’d bought us enough time with Arabella so we could graduate from middle school before the Finnerty situation blew up in our faces.
Two of Jesse’s words ring a bell in my head. “After school,” I repeat. “Are you sure about that?”
“I saw her at the end of ninth p eriod,” he confirms.
A stirring of hope comes over me. “Landkammer left school at lunch. I saw her check out in the office and head to the parking lot. Which means . . .”
Jesse clues in. “Bella’s project is just sitting on the desk until Monday!”
An idea is taking shape in my mind, although I have no way of knowing whether it’s a good idea or the worst one ever. I immediately think of Cleo. She’ll have good advice. She’s a lot more levelheaded than I am—which means she beats Jesse by a country mile.
We get her on a three-way FaceTime call.
Cleo blames me. “I warned you that the Bella situation was going to rise up and bite you! I don’t like to say I told you so—”
Oh, please. She loves to say “I told you so.”
“Fine, it’s my fault. The question is: Should we sneak into school and swipe that project off Landkammer’s desk before it costs us our P-E-E credit?”
Her first impulse is a definite no. But slowly, she begins to come around to our plan. “And not because of your stupid credit,” she adds. “We have to do this because Mrs. Finnerty will be heartbroken if she’s accused of being unqualified.”
I don’t care if we’re doing it because of fake news and the Illuminati, so long as it happens. “The problem is how do we get into the school?” I muse. “It’s locked up for the weekend.”
Jesse chuckles indulgently. “You guys are so innocent. Any prank master can tell you that no school is ever totally locked. There are too many doors and windows. Somebody always forgets something.”
Why am I surprised? In his long career as a comedian-in-his-own-mind, Jesse Darrowick has learned every trick in the book.
The plan is set. Keith is already on his way in the minibus to provide transportation. The rest will be up to us.
The courtesy shuttle scoops me first, and we swing by to get Cleo. We ask Keith to drop us off on the street rather than the school’s circular drive. There could still be custodians in the building, and we don’t want to attract attention.
“You’re on your own on the way home, guys,” he tells us. “Orthodontists convention coming to town. Airport runs all night.”
We can’t even think that far ahead. Getting to Arabella’s project is our only priority.
It’s dark now, and the school is at one-third lighting, so the windows are dim.
“All right, Jesse,” I say. “You’re the big expert. What do we do?”
First we circle the building, trying all the doors. No luck. Then we test some ground-floor windows without results. But when we start examining the upper floor, we get lucky on the first try. The west-side boys’ bathroom window is slightly ajar.
The only one of us small enough to wiggle in through the frame is Cleo.
She refuses. “I’m not going in there! It’s the boys’ room.”
“It’s night,” I reason. “The school’s closed. Nobody will ever know.”
“I’ll know,” she replies, her face twisted in disgust.
So the two of them boost me up, and I go in. It’s a tight squeeze, and I scrape most of the skin off my left side against the window frame. Thanks, Cleo.
I poke my head out the bathroom door and look around. The dimly lit hallway is clear, but I can make out a radio playing in the distance. That means at least one custodian is still working. I have to be careful.
