I don’t remember exactly when I stopped keeping count of how many people’s names I knew. It was somewhere in the three hundreds, and the total had to be even higher now.
The yearbooks made the biggest difference. I’d look at those little black-and-white pictures, and suddenly an image of someone I’d seen around school would pop into my head. And
poof
, I’d know another student.
I was kind of lagging behind on the sixth graders because they weren’t in the C Average yearbook. But Mrs. Donnelly had the elementary books as well. And there they were—the graduating fifth-grade class.
Rain would be proud. I used the memory technique she had learned from a college professor who’d passed through Garland in the early seventies. You find a connection between the name and something about the person. For example, Monique rhymes with streak, and she had a blond streak in her dark hair. Darryl was built like a huge barrel. But sometimes I had to be a little more creative. Seventh-grade Ron had a birthmark shaped like a crab, which made me think of the Crab Nebula. AstRONomy. It sounds difficult. But once your brain is used to working that way, it happens almost automatically.
For someone who grew up knowing only one person, suddenly knowing hundreds of them was a little intimidating. But I had to admit it was kind of wonderful too.
In Sophie’s opinion, studying old yearbooks was just another reason why I had to “get a life.” Of all the things she said to me, this was maybe the most baffling. How could I get a life when I was obviously already alive?
We were seeing less and less of each other, despite the fact that we were in the same house. Sophie’s driving test was in a week, so she never passed up a chance to practice with her mother. And she wasn’t watching TV with me anymore because
Trigonometry and Tears
had gone into reruns, which meant they were showing old stories that we’d already seen.
I thought it was fantastic, because it gave you another chance to notice things you might have missed the first time around.
She rolled her eyes at me. “We just saw this episode two weeks ago. Lashonda flunks home ec and gets caught lending Troy’s letter jacket to that college guy she’s been dating on the side.”
I wished she hadn’t said that, because I wanted to be surprised again, even though I knew it was going to happen.
But she’d been fairly upbeat lately. She was excited about her road test, and so happy with her bracelet. I was thrilled that I’d been able to do that for her.
The best thing about being eighth grade president was definitely the checks Mr. Kasigi had given me. It was funny—a money-obsessed world was the main reason Rain had dropped out and formed Garland. Yet, in my experience, money was really excellent, and every time I spent it, someone ended up smiling.
I was planning to mention it the next time Rain and I spoke on the telephone. Money could help hospitals and disaster victims and starving orphans. What was so terrible about it? Thanks to Mr. Kasigi’s checks, I was in a position to lend a hand. It was everything she had taught me to believe in.
Mr. Kasigi would be back from his conference next week. I couldn’t wait to show him how good I’d become at using money. Also, I needed some more checks. The first batch was almost finished.
He was going to be impressed.
C Average Middle School had three lunch periods of forty minutes each. On Wednesday, classes were canceled during that two-hour block so everyone could go to the football field.
Hugh explained it to me. “It’s a pep rally.”
“Pep?” I repeated.
“You know, cheering, excitement, rah, rah, rah. The whole school gets together to watch the players bonk helmets and beat their chests.”
“And that takes two hours?” I queried. I was getting better at understanding school customs, but this one didn’t make much sense to me.
“Not really,” Hugh admitted. “Most of that time is getting everybody in and out again. But it’s pretty intense. We play Rhinecliff on Saturday, and they’re our biggest rivals.”
“Over what?”
“Football, of course. And as the eighth grade president, you have an important role.”
Rain and I weren’t sports fans, what with the obsession over winning and losing. But I couldn’t disappoint everybody after they’d made me feel so welcome.
I followed Hugh into the mass migration of students heading out of the building at eleven fifteen. We were a noisy procession, with horns and cowbells and excited voices chanting rhyming cheers.
It was hard not to be swept up in it, even though I wasn’t sure what it was about. So much of school was like that—more a feeling than anything of substance.
“What’s my part in all this?” I asked Hugh.
He led me away from the crowd thundering onto the metal bleachers and into a low hut marked
LOCKER ROOMS
. We slipped through a door that said
VISITORS
.
Hugh plucked a set of large pads off a wall hook and placed them on my shoulders. “You’re going to be out there with the team.”
I was alarmed. “I don’t know how to do football.”
“Don’t worry,” he soothed me. “It isn’t a game. You just have to show your support for the team.”
As if on cue, the PA system crackled to life. “Faculty and students, give it up for your very own Claverage Condors!”
Running feet clattered in the hall outside. The field exploded with cheers. Even more deafening was the metallic boom of thousands of feet on the bleachers. A band was playing, but it was barely audible over the crowd noise.
“Am I late?” I asked anxiously.
“No,” Hugh replied, “you’re going to be right on time.” He eased a yellow football jersey over my head and began tucking my hair under a matching helmet.
“Maybe I need a bigger hat,” I suggested.
“Maybe you need a haircut,” he countered, cramming the bulky headgear into place.
A faceguard lowered itself into my field of vision. I felt like I was peering out from behind a fence.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked.
“Definitely.”
For an instant, I thought he looked kind of sad. I was concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“When is everything ever okay with me?” he complained. “Now get out there and make the school proud.” He pointed me through the doorway, which led down a concrete tunnel and onto the field.
The crowd noise swelled to a deafening crescendo. But you know how cheers sound friendly? This was different—angrier. Mean, even. I scanned the bleachers and saw a sea of hostile faces staring straight at me.
But I was here to support our team. I started walking toward the players just as they started toward me—and began to pick up speed. I could feel the ground shake as they reached a full-on stampede.
It was then that I made a startling discovery. They were all dressed in football uniforms like I was, but their jerseys were blue and red, not yellow like mine. I peered down at my chest and read, upside down, a single word:
RHINECLIFF
.
Why was I dressed as the other team?
The Rhinecliff game always cranked school spirit up to fever pitch, and the pep rally proved it. When that guy in the Rhinecliff jersey stepped onto the turf, the whole place went nuts. Sure, we understood that it wasn’t a real Rhinecliff Raider who had wandered into our stadium. But every single player knew exactly what was supposed to come next.
By the time Zach yelled, “Get him!” most of us were already up to full speed.
I wasn’t the fastest guy on the Condors. But I was the best tackler, and I was determined to get there first. I let the roar of the crowd fill me like rocket fuel, powering me past my teammates.
I swear—it never once crossed my mind to wonder who this kid was, this hero who was ready to be plowed down by the entire squad just to put on a good show. Whoever it was, it had to be a good athlete who could take a big hit.
The instant I made contact, I realized I was dead wrong. It was like tackling a punter. No, a punter’s little sister. It was the worst feeling I ever had.
I tried to roll off, screaming at the others, “Stop!”
Too late. They were already airborne, coming in like a wave of guided missiles. I can’t even describe the crunch. It wasn’t pleasant for me either, because I was at the bottom. I can only imagine how it must have been for a skinny nonathlete who had no business setting foot on a gridiron. A bomb blast, an earthquake.
The crowd was in a frenzy, howling every time another Condor piled on.
Suddenly, the coaches were there, reaching into the tangle of arms and legs, pulling off bodies and tossing them aside. I heard Coach Pulaski bellowing, “What’s the matter with you people? What was that all about?”
I jumped up and stared at him. “Wait a minute! That wasn’t planned?”
The coach didn’t answer. He was too busy getting the helmet off the guy in the Rhinecliff jersey.
About thirty pounds of hair spilled out onto the turf. Eleven hundred screaming, cheering kids went suddenly silent at the sight of the eighth grade president stretched out, dazed, on the grass.
I dropped to my knees beside him. “Cap, are you okay?”
Cap reached up and brushed at a clump of mud that had penetrated his faceguard. He started to say something, but it came out a low gurgle.
The coach and one of the trainers hauled Cap to his feet. Supporting him, one on each side, they began walking him back to the school building and the nurse’s office. There was a smattering of applause like they give injured players at sporting events. But not much. Everybody was too shocked.
Before leaving the field, Coach Pulaski turned back to the team. “Nobody moves. Not a muscle. You hear me?”
They hustled Cap away. He was taking the occasional step, but if they hadn’t been holding him up, he would have been flat on his face for sure.
Still silent, the crowd began to file out in an orderly fashion. They fell in line behind Cap and the coaches, like mourners in a funeral procession. There was none of the rowdiness and high spirits from before. Cap’s injury had sucked all the pep out of this rally.
I looked at my teammates, moving from face to face, not sure if I was upset or just confused. “What happened? Why was Cap in that uniform?”
“I guess he volunteered,” offered our kicker.
“Volunteered for what? That wasn’t supposed to be part of the rally. The coaches knew nothing about it.”
“Maybe Cap did the whole thing on his own,” suggested Zach. “He’s a bit of a nut job. Even you have to admit he’s not Joe Average.”
That should have been enough for me. It always had been before. The word of Zach Powers. He was the guy who convinced me I wasn’t as stupid as I think I probably am. Before Zach, school was pure torture for me. Imagine spending 180 days a year in a place that’s designed to take everything you’re not good at and make it important. Zach rewrote those rules for me. School had nothing to do with learning and knowing and getting the right answers. School was about sports and girls and fun and being popular, because you’re good at sports, hang out with the right girls, and have a lot of fun.
But Zach had gotten so weird lately on the subject of Cap, how could I trust what he was saying? There was something about this disaster that just didn’t add up.
I was still chewing on it when Coach Pulaski burst back upon us, his face a thundercloud.
“If there’s one thing I tried to teach you besides the fundamentals of football, it’s to use your head for something more than a place to put your helmet! What in God’s name were you thinking?”
“Honest, Coach,” protested one of the receivers. “We didn’t know it was Cap.”
Pulaski’s eyes bulged. “But you knew it was
somebody
! Why would you think it’s
ever
okay for twenty guys to pile on some poor kid like he’s a tackling dummy? And not just for
his
sake! What about your own? You risk your bones, your knees, any chance of playing in high school—and for what? To beat up on a jersey that once belonged to Rhinecliff?”
“Is Cap going to be okay?” I asked in a small voice.
“Probably—no thanks to you. For crying out loud, Pennyfield, I haven’t seen you run that hard all season! Now, I’ve got to ask you—all of you: who put that boy up to playing kamikaze?”
I studied my cleats, and everybody else studied theirs.
“Come on,” prodded the coach. “Somebody had to know about this.” Again, dead silence. “Fine, don’t tell me. But this isn’t over. When Mr. Kasigi gets back, he’s going to ask you these same questions and probably a lot more. I’m disgusted with every last one of you!”
We changed and went back to class, but there was no escaping the events of the pep rally. The whole school had been there to see what happened, and no one could talk about anything else. What went wrong? What did the team know, and when did they know it? Was Cap going to be all right?
The speculation got wilder every minute. One rumor actually had it that Cap might take revenge on the team by running us over with a school bus.
“Come on!” I exploded. “There’s no revenge! It was an accident!”
Naomi was beyond furious. “Oh, sure, twenty guys
accidentally
jumped on him.”
“Okay, that part was on purpose,” I admitted. “But we didn’t mean for it to be Cap. We didn’t mean for it to be
anybody.
It was a stunt—like the guy in the jersey was Rhinecliff.”
“Some stunt,” she snapped. “Cap has never played football. You could have put him in the hospital!”
“Calm down,” soothed Lena. “He isn’t in any hospital. The word is he’s still at school, and he’s going to his afternoon classes. Limping a little, but not really hurt.”
When Lena used the phrase “the word is,” you could take it to the bank. She knew
everybody.
It was like she had her own private network of spies.
I heaved a sigh of relief. I’d been the first to hit Cap, after all. The shame brought sudden tears to my eyes.
Lena stuck her finger in my face. “Don’t you dare start blubbering on me. None of this was your fault. It was Winkleman.”
I was blown away. “
Hugh
Winkleman?”
“Phil saw him in the office getting bawled out for it.” None of us were Winkleman fans, but I couldn’t believe Hugh would do anything to hurt Cap. Cap was the closest thing he had to a friend. Not to mention that the wuss didn’t have the guts to hurt a fly—not unless someone else was pulling his strings.
I had a haunting vision from lunch yesterday. Hugh at a corner table, deep in conversation with Zach. Those two were worst enemies. Yet they had been hunched over that table almost like they were—plotting something?
Zach was the captain of the Condors. He knew about the pep rally. He knew the locker room setup and the longtime rivalry with Rhinecliff. And he had a grudge against Cap that was growing bigger every minute….
I guess I must have looked like the Incredible Hulk—sickly green and bursting out of my shirt in sheer rage. My own best friend, the guy I admired so much that I tried to be just like him—
“Darryl, what’s wrong?” Lena asked in alarm.
Without answering, I raced down the hall toward Zach’s locker, each stride longer than the last. How many times had I gone there to be his sidekick and his yes-man, to tell him what he wanted to hear? Well, he wasn’t going to want to hear this!
It was class change, so the corridor was crowded. I kept on moving. There was no point being a linebacker if you couldn’t clear a path with your shoulder.
If I’d doubted Zach’s guilt, the expression on his face when he saw me gave it all away. He knew I knew.
“You!”
I accused. “You did that to Cap! You couldn’t fight your own battles! You had to use the whole football team as a weapon!”
He played dumb. “What are you babbling about? I didn’t do anything to Cap. It was Winkleman! Haven’t you heard? It’s all over the school.”
“And who put him up to it?” I ranted. “I know it’s you! I saw you two planning it in the cafeteria!”
“You’re delusional!” It was classic Zach—the sneering, superior put-down tone that he used on other people, but never on me. “You’re just feeling guilty because you’re the one who hit him!”
“We
all
hit him!” I said hotly.
“But who got there first? You practically broke your neck doing it. No way were you going to be denied the pleasure of planting your helmet right between those numbers.”
The fact that he was one hundred percent right made me that much madder. I was so pumped with rage that I didn’t notice Cap himself joining the spectators around us.
Zach wasn’t done yet. “To be honest, I’m kind of impressed, Darryl. I never knew you could get that kind of speed out of that fat caboose of yours.”
And I snapped. Totally. Zach was smarter than I was, and I was never going to win this argument using just my mouth. It was time for my knuckles to take over.
Honest—I didn’t even know Cap was there. I didn’t recognize the voice that said, “Violence is not the answer.” All I felt was my fist slamming into something about eighteen inches closer than its intended receiver.
When the burning haze cleared from my eyes, the first person I saw was Zach, untouched and laughing at me. Down at my feet lay Cap, out cold, his nose gushing blood like a geyser.
“Not again! No!” I whimpered, horror-struck.
The hall just about exploded with agitated chatter. The news spread like wildfire that the eighth grade president was down again.
Zach was practically hysterical. “That’s the second time today that you’ve decked this kid. You’re building a great relationship. If you get any closer, you’ll probably kill him!”
The reality of what I’d done overpowered even the desire to shut Zach’s big mouth. I hauled Cap off the floor. “Help me!” I bawled at the crowd.
A couple of sixth graders rushed up to support Cap on the other side. We hustled him through the maze of gawkers. I noticed he was starting to come around, because he was mumbling about peace and nonviolence.
His breathing blew pink bubbles in the torrent of blood that was still pouring from his nose.
I was so flustered that it never even occurred to me to lie when Nurse Myerson asked what happened.
“You were in a fight?” she demanded.
“Not with Cap! I was trying to punch someone else, but his face got in the way! It was all because of nonviolence!”
“I can see that,” she said coldly.
But her attention was on Cap, so I got sent to wait for her in the principal’s office. I sat there through the final period of the day, not even agonizing over what “I’ll deal with you later” might mean. Whatever happened to me, I definitely had it coming.
The rest of the school seemed to think so too, because I got a lot of dirty looks as I stewed there in full view behind the glass. The condemned man on public display—the guy who had KOed Cap, and tackled him before that.
The worst part was that I liked Cap now. Sure, I’d been awful to him. But that had been back in the days when we’d made him president as a joke and sent him wandering after fake press conferences and stolen his shoes while he was meditating. Back when Zach had been calling the shots. What a bunch of jerks we’d been, firing spitballs at a kid just because his hippie hair made a big target.
And in spite of everything we threw at him, Cap never fell apart, or ratted us out, or even got mad. For weeks it had been open season on the eighth grade president, but he hung in there. That’s what first brought me around to admire the guy. I didn’t care that he could drive a bus or plan a dance. Cap Anderson was
quality.
I didn’t see that before. I saw it now. Yet now was when I’d really hurt him.
I was never going to forgive myself.
The bell rang, but Nurse Myerson still hadn’t appeared. The halls filled with students packing up for the day. Through the main doors, I could see the fleet of yellow buses coming up the circular drive. And there, between the third and fourth—
An ambulance.
No. It couldn’t be. Not for Cap. There was no siren. It was driving normal speed, taking its turn in the queue. Still—what would an ambulance be doing in a line of school buses?
The answer rounded the corner ten feet in front of me. It was Nurse Myerson, escorting a shaky, blood-spattered Cap toward the front door. The crowd parted to let them through. Outside, kids waiting to board their buses formed an aisle that led to the rear of the EMS unit.
I didn’t care how much trouble I was in. I raced out of the office and blasted through the double doors. The scene was eerie. All eyes were on Cap, but no one was saying a word—not a peep, not even a whisper. The only sounds were the idling engines and the flapping of the flag on the pole.
I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Cap, I’m sorry! It was an accident! Both times!”
I was too late. Nurse Myerson helped him up into the ambulance, and the greatest eighth grade president we ever had was gone.