Benched (2 page)

Loop was scratched up, too.

Mr. Kane followed them to the office. Ben and Loop sat across from each other in folding chairs. They had to wait a long time.

Whenever Ben looked up, Loop was staring at him. Loop mouthed the word “jerk” several times and rubbed a fist into his palm when the secretary wasn’t looking. Ben wasn’t scared, but he was still angry.

When they finally got into the principal’s office, she said, “It seems that there’s been a lot of tension over four square lately.” She looked directly at Ben. “A lot of it has involved you.”

Ben nodded.

“Why is that?” she asked.

Ben jutted his thumb at Loop. “He said I slammed the ball when I didn’t.”

“That’s not what I care about,” Mrs. Nolan said. “I’ve had several reports of arguments, and now this fight. I don’t expect that from nine-year-olds. A game isn’t worth that kind of distress.”

Ben looked at the floor and chewed on his lip. Mrs. Nolan told them they’d be staying in
for recess for the rest of the week, and there’d be no four square for either of them for another week after that.

“Now both of you go wash up and get back to class,” she said. “Can I trust you to get along?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Loop said.

“Yes,” said Ben.

Loop walked ahead of Ben along the hallway. He stepped into the bathroom and let the door swing back at Ben. Ben caught it with his scraped-up arm and winced.

There were four sinks. Ben stood at the one farthest from Loop and pushed the soap dispenser, then carefully lathered his arm. He looked into the mirror to see what Loop was up to, but Loop was looking down at the sink.

Loop finished washing and shook his hands rapidly. Then he cleared his throat and pulled some paper towels out of the dispenser. As he
dried his hands, he leaned toward the mirror to inspect a tiny cut below his eye. “Maybe that wasn’t
quite
a slam,” he said.

Ben patted his own scrape with a paper towel. “Yeah, well, maybe I should have been ready for that first serve.”

“Then again,” Loop said, “it probably
was
a slam. Otherwise I would have returned it.” He turned to Ben and grinned. Then he threw the wad of wet paper towels at him.

Ben caught the wad and threw it back. It thumped against a metal trash can and fell to the floor.

“Now
that
was a slam,” Loop said.

Ben laughed. “What are we supposed to do all week with no recess? I’ll go nuts just sitting in the classroom.”

“Me too,” Loop said. “Three days of that.” He shook his head. “That’s what I call distress.”

—————

His mom’s car was in the driveway when Ben came home from school. She worked part-time at a bank. Ben arrived at the house before she did a couple of days a week, and he hadn’t expected her to be home today.

She was waiting in the kitchen as Ben walked in.

“Hi, Mom!” he said, trying to sound as
upbeat as he could. He walked past her and set his knapsack on the table.

“Come over here,” Mom said. She examined the scrape on Ben’s arm. Then she put her finger under Ben’s chin and tipped his head up. “I had a call from Mrs. Nolan this afternoon.”

Ben swallowed hard. He looked back down. “Oh,” he said.

“What’s the problem, mister? You know better than that.”

Ben shrugged. “It was nothing.”

“Principals don’t call parents about nothing,” Mom said. “And boys don’t get their clothing and skin cut up from nothing.… I thought Loop was your friend.”

“He is.”

“So why were you two fighting?”

Ben didn’t have an answer for that. He knew he’d been feeling rotten all morning. Surprisingly, he’d felt much better after the fight.

“No answer?” Mom asked.

“Nope.”

“Then you’d better spend the rest of the afternoon in your room,” she said. “You think
about why you were fighting. And think about why you shouldn’t.”

“I already spent the whole day thinking about it,” Ben said.

“Well, go think some more.”

Ben lay on his bed with a rubber ball, tossing it toward the ceiling with one hand and catching it with the other. He tried to get the ball as close to the ceiling as he could without actually hitting it.

Tired of that, he opened his dresser and took out the standings for the town soccer league.

Ben’s team—the Bobcats—would be playing the Tigers on Saturday. The Tigers had won the first time they’d met, back in the opening game of the season. Ben’s team had improved a lot since then, but they needed to keep winning. Only the first two teams in each division would qualify for the league play-offs.

Ben glanced out his window. The sun was still shining. He wished he was outside shooting baskets or kicking his soccer ball around the yard.

He heard a knock on his door.

“What?” Ben said sharply.

“It’s me.” It was Ben’s older brother, Larry, who was thirteen.

“Oh.”

Larry opened the door. “Heard you had a fight, knucklehead,” he said. “Let’s see that arm.”

Ben held it up. Larry whistled. “That’s a nasty scab,” he said. “I guess I’m the only one in this house who
hasn’t
been fighting lately.”

Larry laughed, but Ben didn’t think that was very funny. “What was that all about last night?” he asked softly.

Larry shook his head. “I don’t know. Mom and Dad were talking about the bills while I was watching TV. It wasn’t until after I went to bed that it got heated.”

“They
never
fight,” Ben said.

“Everybody does. You just don’t notice it much because adults fight quietly.” Larry smiled. “Unlike you.”

Ben scowled. “That was nothing. Me and Loop get mad at each other all the time. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“I know. But take some advice: If you’re going to get in a fistfight, do it on the grass.”

Ben twisted his arm so he could look at his scrape again. Most of it had started to scab up, but there were still a few scratches that were raw. “There isn’t any grass on the playground,” he said.

“You could have walked ten feet to the field.”

“Sometimes you can’t delay it.”

“Why not?” Larry asked.

“A teacher would have seen what was happening and broken it up. Loop shoved me. What else was I supposed to do?”

Larry shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He sat on the edge of Ben’s bed and picked up the ball. He threw it to Ben, who tossed it toward the ceiling again.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about last night,” Larry said. “Mom and Dad were just working something out, I guess. I heard them say something about credit cards.”

“They sure were loud about it.”

Larry stood up. “Yeah,” he said. He put his
hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn it. “I’ve never heard them yell that much. But like I said, I wouldn’t worry about it any more than I would about your elbow. Things like that usually heal pretty fast. Then you forget about it and start over.”

—————

Ben stared into his cereal bowl on Saturday morning. The flakes were soggy, so he just stirred them around in the milk.

“You’d better eat,” Mom said. “You’ll have no energy for the game if you don’t.”

“Can I have something else?” Ben asked quietly. His parents had been arguing again and he had no appetite.

“You could have a banana.”

Ben had tried not to listen last night. The argument had something to do with money again. They hadn’t been yelling this time, but he could tell from their tone that they didn’t agree at all.

“Your father will drive you to the game,” Mom said.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I’d like to, but I have to work at the bank this morning,” Mom said, patting Ben on the shoulder.

“You never work on Saturdays.”

Mom frowned. “I’ll be working one Saturday each month, starting today.”

Dad was quiet in the car on the way to the field. He chewed on his lip and looked straight ahead. Ben tried to think about soccer. This was a huge game for the Bobcats.

Ben was late. Both teams were already on the field, with the Tigers in their orange shirts
warming up near one goal and the Bobcats at the other, in blue. Ben slammed the car door and sprinted to join his teammates.

Just as he reached them, the referee blew his whistle. “Line up,” he called.

“Where’ve you been?” Coach Patty asked Ben. “I’ve already set the lineup.”

Ben winced. He’d be on the sideline for the start of the game. Usually he’d be at the field at least an hour before a game, but today he’d been moving too slowly. The tension at home was a big distraction.

He knew that he needed to run. Getting into a game or just working hard on his own always seemed to make him feel better.

But Ben stood next to Shayna on the sideline and watched. Shayna was Coach Patty’s daughter, but she didn’t play any more than anyone else. Ben was glad that the coach treated everyone equally.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and found Loop there beaming. Loop patted himself on the chest. “Guess who’s in first place,” he said.

“You guys?”

“Yep. Four straight wins. Not bad, huh?”

Ben shrugged. Loop’s team, the Falcons, had been in last place a few weeks before, but they were the hottest team in the league.

“We’ve been moving up, too,” Ben said. “If we win this one, we’ll be in second in our division.”

“I don’t think so,” Loop said. “The Sharks tied the Rabbits. Nobody thought that would happen.”

Ben was surprised, too. The Rabbits were in first place in the Bobcats’ division, and Ben had assumed they’d rout the Sharks this morning. The Bobcats were third, behind the Sharks.

“I guess anything can happen,” Ben said.
He gulped. The Bobcats would be playing the Rabbits next week. Then they’d finish the season against the Sharks. Two very tough games ahead. That made winning today’s game even more important.

Midway through the first half, Coach sent Ben in at forward, replacing Erin. The action had been intense, but neither team had been able to set up a good shot.

These guys are tired
, Ben thought.
I’m fresh
. He was sure he could take advantage of that.

But he stumbled the first time he touched the ball, and a few minutes later he passed the ball directly to one of the Tigers. Everyone else was warmed up and into the swing of the game. Ben was playing terribly.

He sprinted toward the player he’d mistakenly passed to, desperate to get the ball back. The kid was circling toward the opposite sideline, moving quickly.

Ben darted over and the Tiger tipped his shoulder, shielding the ball with his body. Ben slid hard, extending his foot between the kid’s legs and knocking the ball loose. The kid tripped over Ben’s leg and went down. Ben climbed to his feet and ran after the ball.

The whistle blew and the referee pointed at Ben. “That’s an illegal tackle,” he said. “Tigers’ ball. Direct kick.”

Ben frowned and jogged back on defense. The field was dry today, and a cool breeze was blowing toward the Bobcats’ goal.

The kick went deep into the Bobcats’ end of the field, and players scrambled for the ball. A hard shot went directly at Jordan, who was playing goalie. He caught it and punted the ball away.