Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader (3 page)

At this point, Tony’s father would have driven his shoulder into his opponent’s backside and flattened him on the wrestling mat, but Tony wasn’t about to do that. Oh no, he thought, that would be too good for this guy. He’s given me nothing but misery since I met him. I think I’m gonna make fun of him like he did to me—

“Ow! Ow, ow! Ow,ow,ow,ow, ow!” Tony yelled rapidly as he felt intense pain grip his right ear and he dropped Judd’s leg with a thud onto the hallway floor.

“What is the meaning of all this?” Doris Dingledine, all four foot eleven inches of her, intoned in her deep and slightly operatic voice as she had Tony’s ear firmly in her grip. All the other students scattered like buckshot when she arrived on the scene because her reputation as a no-nonsense, hands-on enforcer had been passed along to each student from the preceding class. There was even the rumor that she once worked in an army tank factory tightening nuts with a wrench for eight hours a day and that’s how she got such force out of her relatively tiny arms and hands. There’s also the rumor that that’s how she got her big, booming voice. She had to be heard over the racket of the assembly line.

Miss Dingledine, nobody called her Doris — even her boss Principal Walter Richmond never dared to call her Doris, was officially the Dersee Elementary school secretary. Unofficially, she was also the school disciplinarian, a role that Principal Richmond gladly let her assume because he didn’t like conflict, he wanted everything to move smoothly and when everything moved smoothly, Principal Richmond was pleased.

“Well-l-l? I asked both of you boys a question and I expect an answer!” Miss Dingledine bellowed, as she stooped down, grasped Judd’s left ear and firmly lifted him onto his feet as if he weighed next to nothing.

Judd, like Tony, also snapped off a series of protests, although he went for the more formal, “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!”

Miss Dingledine, oblivious to the fact that neither one could answer her question even if they wanted to, made a harrumphing sound, turned with each boy in tow like a giant windmill and marched them down to the school office area, her high heels clickety-clacking in between their ows and ouches.

Chapter 4- The Counselor

Tisha Brady looked up from her desk and peered over her glasses as Miss Dingledine stuck her head around Tisha’s office door and asked whether she would have time to talk to two boys whom she had just caught fighting in the hallway.

Tisha frowned, stroked her long brown hair out of her eyes and said, “Fighting? A fistfight?”

“No, no, nothing like that, my dear. Let’s just say they were aggressively roughhousing until I stepped in and put an end to their tomfoolery. I’ve already leveled their punishment as you will notice by their reddened ears. But, I do think you should counsel them and discover what is at the root of their disagreement.”

Tisha nodded a tentative okay and smiled nervously as Miss Dingledine smartly turned on her heels and went to get the boys, clickety-clacking down the hall. Tisha quickly glanced at her wristwatch and mentally calculated how much time she would have to counsel them before having to leave for the pee wee football cheerleader tryouts. Tisha Brady was also the head cheerleading coach and tonight would determine the final makeup of her squad. She sighed and muttered to herself, “Oh, I just can’t be late, not tonight, it’s too important!”

Miss Dingledine herded the boys to Tisha’s office, rapped on the door twice, entered and introduced them to Tisha, “Miss Brady, this is Master Judd Judson and Master Tony Crowne the third,” enunciating with clarity and precision each syllable of her sentence as if she were an old-time stage actress rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. “They are all-l-l yours.” Miss Dingledine made a slight bow of her head, pivoted and clickety-clacked back to her desk in front of Principal Richmond’s office and promptly began shuffling papers.

Tisha looked back and forth at the boys sitting across from her in the two visitor chairs, sizing each one up physically before starting the counseling. Writing quick notes about their appearance would help her gain an insight to other parts of their personality, plus it would also give her the look of an authority figure and she would need that considering she was all of twenty-two years old.

She looked at Judd first, noting how big he was for being in the fifth grade, but almost on the verge of tears as he cradled his blond, crew cut head in his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair. “Hmm,” said Tisha aloud and wrote a few more lines in her file folder. She finished Judd’s physical profile by noting his apparent nervousness and how ill at ease he was behaving.

Looking at Tony, she saw the complete opposite of Judd. Tony was sitting upright, his hands folded in his lap, his dark eyes were alertly scanning Tisha’s office and he didn’t seem to be the least bit tense, he seemed, she thought, confident and intelligent. Tony was several inches shorter than Judd, she noted and his black, curly hair was a bit unruly, probably due to the fight. Both boys looked in good health, wore presentable clothes and appeared to be well-mannered. Well, Tisha thought, it’s getting late, best get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Judd, I—”

At the sound of his name, Judd screamed, shot out of his chair like a human cannonball and flew out of Tisha’s office in a dead run, arms and legs pumping for maximum speed. Tony glanced at Miss Brady, who still had her mouth open— pronouncing the last d in Judd, then he looked out the office door at the manic figure of Judd dashing through the school office area.

Tony’s eyes widened, he pursed his lips, let out a low whistle of amazement and said, “Wow! That had to be the best open-field tackle I’ve ever seen!”

“What?
Tackle
? Who? Where? What are you talking about—”

Just then, Miss Dingledine appeared in the doorway with an out-of-breath Judd, escorted him to the chair and plopped him down like a twenty-year veteran cop would plop his perp into a seat.

“Miss Dingledine, how did you… you know… how did you—” Tisha stammered.

“I grew up with five brothers. The first sibling to the dinner table received the largest portion. I was always the smallest; therefore I had to be the toughest. Oh, and I
always
ate the largest portion.” Miss Dingledine’s eyes sparkled at her last sentence, she then straightened her floral-print dress that was slightly askew, re-arranged her hairdo and marched out of the office, not clickety-clacking, but more of a clickety-thud, clickety-thud, because she lost one shoe in tackling Judd.

Tisha cleared her throat and said, “Okay, well, that was exciting, I guess. Um, Judd, why did you run away?”

Judd, considerably calmer than he was 5 minutes ago, drew a deep breath, looked down at his shoes and said, “Well, bein’ a new kid at school and all, I got kinda scairt and everythin’ and the only thing I could think of doin’ was runnin’. So I ran.”

“I see. So, do you feel better now? You’re not going to run away again, are you?”

“No, ma’am. That lady tackled me hard! I’m gonna sit right here!”

Tony threw a hand up to his mouth, muffled a laugh that tried to escape and looked in every direction but Judd’s.

“Okay, let’s get back to why you two are sitting in my office. Who wants to start? Tony?”

Tony, thinking swiftly, feigned a coughing spell and made a pointing motion toward Judd. He couldn’t talk if he wanted to, he was still laughing on the inside from Judd’s last remark.

“I’ll get back to you in a second, then. Judd? What about you? Why were you and Tony fighting?”

“Fightin’?” Judd asked innocently, his pale-blue eyes watering slightly at Miss Brady's accusation. “Why, we weren’t fightin’. We just accidentally ran into each other in the hallway. Ant, that’s Tony’s nickname, fell down, then he got up and ran towards me so I had to get out of his way. He must’ve slipped or somethin’ ‘cause he ran into the lockers and fell down again. I tried to help him up and then we got all tangled up with my leg in his arms and me hoppin’ around. And then…and then I lost my balance and fell down myself. The next thing I know that lady’s got my ear in a death grip and I didn’t do nuthin’! I was just tryin’ to be friendly and all to Ant. Like I said I’m new here and I want to make friends!” Judd started to breathe hard and was rocking in his chair again.

“Okay, okay, take it easy Judd. Take some deep breaths and calm down. Deep breaths. Nice and slow.” Tisha’s soothing voice worked wonders on Judd’s frame of mind and he soon returned to normal.

Wow, Tony thought, Judd really thinks we weren’t fighting? Could it be I’ve misunderstood him all this time?

“Well Tony, or do you prefer Ant—”

Tony cut off Miss Brady in mid-sentence with a forceful, but tactful, “No, I prefer to be called Tony. I was called Ant when I was little, but now since I’m grown up I don’t want to be called by that name anymore.”

Judd wheeled his head around toward Tony and uttered a loud, “Huh? I thought you liked bein’ called Ant? That’s what all the other kids told me, ‘Call him Ant,’ they said, ‘That’s his nickname.’ So that’s what I did. I called ya Ant. Boy, am I dumb!” Judd covered his face with his hands and rubbed it in an up and down motion while letting out a big sigh.

Tony, now feeling sorry for Judd, tried his best to cheer him up. “Aw, you’re not dumb. Those other kids know I don’t like that name anymore. Since you’re new around here, they were trying to play a trick on both of us. Just call me Tony from now on and we’ll be friends!”

Judd’s face lit up as if someone told him that all the presents under the Christmas tree were his, “Really? Really? All right! You’re my first friend in Dersee! We’ll do everything together! Haw-har, haw-har, haw-har!” Judd shot out of his chair again, yet this time he grabbed Tony, gave him a bear hug and pranced around with him in Tisha’s office as if he was celebrating a touchdown.

Judd was squeezing Tony so hard in his joyful dance that Tony’s eyes were rolling into the back of his head and his body was going limp.

Tisha, noticing Tony’s predicament, cupped her hands in front of her mouth and in her best calming voice said, “Judd, oh Judd! Put Tony down now. I’ve got a few more questions and then you may leave.”

Once again, Tisha’s soothing voice had a positive effect on Judd and he released his grip enough for Tony’s blood to start flowing back to his head. As Judd happily sat Tony back into his chair, Tony groggily looked up at Tisha and silently mouthed a big ‘Thank you’ to her.

“Let’s start with you Judd. What do you want to be when you grow up? Have you thought about that yet or not?”

Judd, still elated from Tony declaring them friends, giggled and said, “Oh, I wanna be just like Coach Tiny and play in the NFL and have my own restaurant where I can eat anythin’ I want, when I want and not have to do the dishes! And Tony can be one of my waiters! Haw-har, haw-har!”

“Oh, I see, well, there’s no better role model than Coach Tiny.” Tisha smiled a little bit and wrote Judd’s answer in his manila folder. Looking over at Tony and seeing that the color had come back into his face, she asked, “And Tony, what about you? Do you have any idea what you would like to be when you grow up?”

“Aw, I don’t know for sure, but my parents are lawyers, so I might want to be a lawyer someday. I like football a lot, so I was thinking of being a football coach like Tiny, but I’d want to coach in the big leagues and not just in the pee wees. What I’d really like to do now is to be a detective.”

“A police detective? That's an interesting career choice. Why do you want to be a detective?”

“Well, at school the other day Detective
Boo—aw, I can’t pronounce his name—but he’s
from the police department, gave a talk about being a detective and he said a good detective should be honest, have integrity, good judgment, be smart and be able to notice little things that other people don’t notice. That sounded really cool to me because I think I have all those characteristics that he talked about.”

Tisha thought Tony was being a little boastful and asked with a slight smirk, “Oh? What little things do you notice, Tony? Can you give me an example?”

Tony glanced around Tisha’s office and said, “You’ve got that certificate of hypnosis therapy on the wall that’s lower than the picture of you as a cheerleader in college; seems like you’re more proud of being a cheerleader than a counselor.” Tony swung his eyes around the office again and said, “You’re not married ‘cause you don’t have a ring on your finger, but you’re thinkin’ of getting married ‘cause you’ve got a picture of you and a guy on your desk and most people don’t really have those kind of pictures on their desks unless they really, really like those people.” Tony grinned and asked, “How did I do?”

“Oh, oh, fine, fine, you did very well. Ahem. Yes, ah—oh! Look at the time. My, I’ve got an appointment I have to keep so we’ll end our discussion here. You two are dismissed. Have a good day!”

After leaving Tisha Brady’s office and waving a tentative good-bye to the steely-eyed Miss Dingledine, Tony and Judd burst out of the Dersee Elementary school’s front door, spilling out onto Adena Avenue and heading for home for a bite to eat and then to football practice.

“Hey Ant—Naw, sorry, I meant Tony! Hey Tony, do ya wanna walk to practice together? I’m still not sure how to get around this town very well.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem. Where do you live?”