A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions (21 page)

I
would have thought that a moment alone, to use the restroom, wash my hands, slap some cold water on my face, and sort through my thoughts, would have helped me figure out how the
heck to deal with all this.

It didn't.

Sometimes, I guess, the answers in life didn't come; you just
had to make a decision and deal with the consequences. I hated
those kinds of moments. Made me crave cupcakes.

I decided to do the only thing that made sense: call Mrs.
Applebee. I figured taking a moment to check up on Q might
help me settle my brain, so I turned on my cell phone and started to dial.

Crud. Inside the bathroom, I had no bars.

I stepped out of the restroom, looking at the screen of my phone, and
boom!
crashed into someone.

My father, to be exact.

“I just need to know one thing,” he said, before I'd even had a chance to realize who it was. “Is it okay that I came?”

“What?” I said, disoriented. “How did you get back here?”

Suddenly, Marty appeared.

“Tell him it's not okay, Maureen,” my brother insisted. “Tell him it's not okay to abandon his family for his kids' entire lives and then randomly show up one day and think everything gets to be golly-gee-freakin' swell.”

“That's not how I am showing up, Marty,” my father said.

“That
is
how you are showing up,
Michael
,” my brother said. “And we all wish that you'd just disappear. Again. For good.”

“Tell you what,” my father answered. “If Maureen says she wants me to go, I'll leave right now and never come back.” He turned to me. “Say the word, Maureen, and I am gone.”

“G'head, Maureen, tell him,” Marty said. “Tell him to buzz off.”

I…I couldn't open my mouth.

“Three minutes until we're back live,” the stage manager barked as he cruised past. I looked across at my team standing fifteen feet away. Kiki waved at me to get a move on.

“Just tell him, Maureen,” my brother insisted.

“I really can't do this right now,” I said. The tension between my dad and my brother was scaring me.

“You have to do this right now,” my dad told me. “I'm sorry, Maureen, but you must. I want to be here for you. I know tonight is important, and if I am ever going to be a part of your life, I need to be at things like this.” My father put his hand under my chin and raised my face so he could look me in the eye, his voice growing tender and soft. “I know that now, Maureen. It's what I mean by filling holes. But if you tell me to go, well…I will.”

“Go!” said Marty.

“Where's Mom and Ashley?” I asked.

“This isn't about them, Maureen,” my dad answered. “This is about the fact that you only get one father in this world.”

“Or you don't get one,” Marty added, nastiness in his tone.

Anger flashed across my father's eyes. Clearly, he'd had just about enough of Marty's commentary.

“The question is, Maureen,” he said, “do you want your father to be a part of your life, or do you want your father to leave and never come back?”

“Ninety seconds,” called the stage manager.

“Maureen, I'm telling you, if he stays, I am outta here,” Marty warned in an ominous voice. What did that even mean, I wondered. Was Marty talking about running away?

Just then, Beanpole walked up. “Sorry to interrupt, Mo, but they need us now.” She lowered her voice to a whisper so Kiki couldn't hear her. “Please tell me we're not going to forfeit.”

“It's a simple question, Maureen,” my father said. “Do you want me to stay, or do you want me to go?”

I gulped.

“I need an answer, dimps. I need an answer right now.”

Again with the “dimps.” What was with that nickname anyway? I mean, it's not like I had any dimples or anything.

“Thirty seconds,” the stage manager called.

“Dimps, the ball is in your court. What's your answer?”

“Like, I know I'm supposed to just accept the universe as it is, but this is unacceptable,” Beanpole said.

My father, my brother, Beanpole, the ThreePees, everyone was looking at me, all wanting something. All waiting. Seeing their eyes on me like that, feeling the pressure, well, it made me snap, and suddenly I realized something that I didn't know why I'd never realized before.

There comes a time in a kid's life when people will ask you for stuff that you just can't give them.

“Well, you're not getting an answer now,
Dad
,” I said. “You're not getting an answer right now at all.” I could feel my blood turning hot. “I mean, you just show up out of nowhere and think that my world has to immediately stop and revolve around you. Well, guess what? It doesn't. That's your answer. Do what you want.”

Marty smiled as if he had just won a big victory.

“And you need to stop dragging me into the middle of this,” I said, scowling at Marty. “You've got serious issues, dude. How many times did I try to talk to you about this stuff—and
now
you want to talk? So not fair.”

I started to walk away, but not without a parting shot. “The two of you,
sheesh,
you must be related.”

I left Marty and my father to work it out by themselves. After all, I had other things to deal with.

“So we're forfeiting, right?” Kiki said as I approached, Beanpole following.

“Of course we are,” Brattany said, answering the question for me.

A silence came over Beanpole.

Sofes simply twirled her hair and looked down at the floor.

“Shut up, Kiki,” I said. “Really, just shut up for once. Sofes,” I declared, “you're going out there.”

“I am? On TV?”

“She is?” Brattany said.

“Yes, she is,” I replied.

“But—” said Kiki.

I thrust my hand at Kiki's face. “I said, shut up. I am the captain, and my decision is that Sophia O'Reilly is going to go out there and represent our school.”

Sofes raised her eyes and stared at me. They were big and blue and hopeful and scared. “You think I can do it?” she asked.

“I don't know, Sofes. But I do know that quitting is for cowards.” I glared at Kiki. “And Aardvarks may be a lot of things, but we are not cowards. Go out there and do your best.”

“Yeah,” Beanpole said, perkicized by my attitude. “I mean, do you know how much bravery it takes to stick your nose into an anthill? And think about all those red ants they deal with; that takes even more bravery.”

“Um, I think aardvarks eat mostly termites,” I said to Beanpole.

“They eat ants, too,” she replied confidently. “And locusts and wild cucumber plants and—”

“The point is that they are not quitters,” I said, interrupting Beanpole before she relayed to me the entire nutritional regimen of every North American beast with a snout. “Sofes,” I commanded, “prepare for victory!”

Just then, Beanpole started to chant.

“We're the Aardvarks,

The mighty, mighty Aardvarks!

We're the Aardvarks,

The mighty, mighty Aardvarks!”

A smile crossed Sofes's face, and I could see her confidence starting to rise.

“We're the Aardvarks,

The mighty, mighty Aardvarks!”

“Positions, please,” called the stage manager.

“G-o-o-o-o-o, Aardvarks!”

Beanpole leaped high into the air. “Yay!” she screamed.

“One word,” said Kiki, a disgusted look on her face.

“What's that?” asked Brattany, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Laughingstock.”

Kiki quietly walked onto the stage and assumed her position at our table. Wynston grinned as Kiki approached, smiling ear to ear. Kiki, her head down, couldn't even muster the strength to acknowledge Wynston's smirk, which was, of course, the biggest acknowledgment of all.

Once again, Wynston Haimes would beat Kiki Masters. This thought, to Wynston, was clearly mouthwatering.

And to Kiki it was clearly unbearable.

The rest of us took our places at the table: Brattany, shoulders slumped; Beanpole, practically jumping out of her skin; Sofes, jittery and nervous; and me, well, I don't know what I was—angry, hyped up, frightened, ready to take on the world, ready to go crawl under my covers and start gulping down microwaved sticky buns. The buzz of all the action had clouded my brainial processing organism.

“Well, it's been a zestfully zesty competition so far, a roller coaster among roller coasters, and now the final finality comes down to this.” Bingo paused for dramatic effect as the control-booth guy pushed every button left at his disposal. But he was clearly out of gas. Hardly a swirl of rainbow shimmers remained in the poor fellow.

“Step into the Circle of Inquiry, little Aardvark,” Bingo instructed. “This one's for all the marbles.”

“She's going to nail it,” Beanpole whispered. “I just know it.”

“The category is Science,” Bingo said, holding up the final blue note card.

“Oh no, not Science,” Brattany commented, lowering her head. “That's her worst subject of all.”

“Here comes an egg the size of a watermelon,” Kiki stated.

“Nice attitude,” Beanpole said. “Like, way to support your team.”

“I'm just being a realist, Beanpole,” Kiki said. “You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks. Me and Maureen are optimists.” She smiled at me. “It's the only way to be at one with the universe, anyway. You can do it, Sofes!” Beanpole cried. “You can do it!”

Was I really an optimist? I mean, if that was true, I was probably the most negative optimist in the history of civilization.

“Grover Park,

Not stupid,

Smart!

Grover Park,

Not stupid,

Smart!

G-o-o-o-o-o, Sophia!”

“Quiet, please,” Miss Terrier instructed, speaking into her microphone. “Quiet, everyone.”

“And the question is…

“Of the 117 known elements in the periodic table of chemical elements, hydrogen is the most abundant in the universe. Oxygen is the third most abundant in the universe. Of the remaining 115, which element in the periodic table is second most abundant?”

Oh, my goodness, I thought, that isn't a question; that's a nuclear bomb.

We'd hardly even covered the periodic table while studying.

All eyes were on Sofes, her face projected on the auditorium screens.

She bit her lip and tried to concentrate.

“Well, hmm, let's see.…”

Suddenly, my cell phone buzzed. Of course, it was supposed to be turned off, but I had turned it on in the bathroom, then jammed it in my pocket and totally forgotten about it. Thank goodness it was set on vibrate.

I ignored the call. Had to. I mean, this was way too intense a moment to answer the phone, and besides, who in the world would…

Oh, no. It was probably Mrs. Applebee, with information about Q. I had to answer.

But I couldn't. Not onstage.

But I had to.

But I couldn't.

“And your response is, Sophia?” Bingo asked.

Sofes, twirling her hair, biting her lip, continued to think. Bingo tried to be patient, but he couldn't wait all day. With each tick of the forty-five-second clock, the pressure grew. My phone buzzed some more.

“Sophia, I need an answer.”

“Um,” Sofes said, stalling for time, “can I have a definition, please?”

Bingo laughed. “I'm sorry, little Aardvark. They only do that in spelling bees,” he said to her with a toothy smile. The audience chuckled, and big grins spread across the faces of Wynston and the girls from Saint Dianne's. Victory was almost theirs. “And your answer is…”

The clock approached eight seconds. My phone stopped vibrating. I'd missed the call.

“Sophia, your time is…”

“Well…” Sofes said, realizing she had to say something or else miss the question entirely. She began to speak, figuring that any kind of answer was better than saying nothing at all. “Since you mentioned the periodic table, you have to have a chair for the table, right? So that's my answer,” she reasoned. “The element is the periodic chair.”

The periodic chair?

Wynston was the first to blurt out a laugh. Then the rest of the girls from Saint Dianne's giggled, too.

Then Bingo, then the audience. A moment later, laughter filled the entire room.

“I'm sorry, little Aardvark, the answer is helium.”

Sofes hung her head.

“And we've got ourselves a CHAMPION! Let's hear it for the Strikers from Saint Dianne's.”

The crowd roared. Music began to play, and an explosion of confetti, streamers, and balloons fell from the roof. Sofes, her spirit crushed, moped back to our table as multicolored ribbons, glitter, and sparkles fell on our heads.