Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment (19 page)

I had jumped higher than I knew I could. My heel crashed into his face.
Crunch
.

Khal collapsed. “Aaah!” He covered his nose and mouth with both hands and curled in on himself. Blood poured down his arms. It was all over the front of his
do bok
and on the gym floor. And it didn't seem to be slowing down.

I reached out to help him up. He jerked away, moaning.

“Oh, man, I'm sorry, Khal. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It'll be all right.”

The head referee nudged me out of the way. He and Khal's dad lifted Khal and walked him to an empty chair at the judges' table.

Everything in the gym had stopped. The bleachers were silent. All eyes were on the main ring.

I stood frozen, staring at the bright red puddle at my feet. A corner judge came over with a towel. “I'll do it,” I said and kneeled to wipe up my friend's blood.

I kept my distance while they worked on getting Khal's nose to stop bleeding. Khal swiped at his eyes, but it was obvious he was crying.

Dad said something to Mr. Jones, then motioned for me to come over. Was he angry? What would he say? No doubt Mr. Jones was mad at me. And Khalfani, too.

What had happened? Why hadn't I pulled back?

“His nose is probably broken.” Dad peered at me, his eyes two slits. “What were you thinking?
Were
you thinking?”

I couldn't even begin to tell Dad all that was going on in my head when I'd delivered that kick.

“We'll talk about this later,” Dad said gruffly. “His dad's taking him to the ER.”

“Can I go with them?” I asked.

Dad shook his head. “You need to stay here. Support the others from your
dojang
.”

“But I want to go!” My chest throbbed as if I'd been the one who'd gotten kicked. The stinging behind my eyes came up on me so fast I didn't have time to blink the water away. I turned my back to make sure no one saw. “It was an accident,” I mumbled. My plan had been to prove I was tough, and here I was, crying like a complete chump.

The head judge called Dad over. Mom came up and put her arm around me. “You okay?”

I planted my face in her shoulder. I didn't care if it wasn't the brown-stripe-warrior thing to do.

When I looked up, Khal and his dad were walking toward the exit.

Dad came back to where Mom and I stood. “The ref says technically Khal forfeits. You advance to the next round, but with a strong warning.”

Mom's forehead crinkled. “Sam, I don't—”

“It's Brendan's decision.” Dad waited for my response.

“I don't want to.”

Dad's face was still as stone. He walked over to the head ref to tell him I was done.

I strode past the bleachers and headed outside. Morgan called my name, but I kept on walking. I pushed through the front doors of the Y into the bright, cool air. Khal's dad and stepmom helped him into the front of their silver Mercedes. Dori climbed into the back. When she saw me out the rear window, she stuck out her tongue.

I blinked and squinted against the sunlight, harsh even with the solid cloud cover, and stood there shivering, long after they had driven away.

I called Khal first thing Sunday morning to see how he was, but his stepmom said he didn't feel like coming to the phone. I told her six times how sorry I was. “Will you tell him?” I asked. “That I'm sorry.”

“He should probably hear that from you, don't you think?” Mrs. Jones said. Her voice snipped like the lab scissors we'd been using in Mr. H's class to dissect sheep eyes. “You'll see him on Monday.”

My family had gone to Shari's after the tournament as planned, but as far as I was concerned there wasn't much to celebrate. I'd laughed a little when Gladys told Grandpa Ed about the time she got invited onto the stage at a Tina Turner tribute concert, but other than that I'd stayed quiet.

Mom must have been able to tell I was still worked up about the whole thing. She came into my room
Sunday night and asked if I'd gotten to talk to Khal. When I said no, she told me not to worry, that it would get worked out eventually. I said, “I know,” but I wasn't sure how, especially if my best friend wouldn't talk to me.

Khal showed up to school the next day with a huge bandage sort of like an X over his nose. His puffy eyelids made him look sleepy and he had dark bruises under both eyes.

I started to walk up to him to ask how he was doing, but he just glared and stepped around me. I glanced at the kids goofing off at their lockers, bit the side of my cheek, and kept on going.

After homeroom, a group huddled around Khal, wanting to know what had happened. The rest of the week, everywhere I went I heard kids calling out things like “There goes Jackie Chan!” and “Don't hurt me, Jackie!” Someone must have told an older brother or sister, because even some of the seventh and eighth graders started calling me Jackie when they saw me coming into school.

The one person who wasn't saying anything to me was Khalfani, my
former
best friend.

Morgan was encouraging. “It's not like you meant to do it,” she said on our way to Mr. Hammond's class.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.

“
Did
you?” We stopped outside the room.

“No!” I bit the side of my cheek again. A bump had formed where I'd been chewing on it all morning.

“I'm sorry. I knew that.” She looked at me sheepishly. “He's still your best friend, isn't he?”

I felt my forehead wrinkle even as I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” It was time to change the subject. “Our report is due next Monday. Do you want to come over this Saturday to finish it? You could stay for dinner.” I had already checked with Mom.

Morgan practically vibrated—I guessed from excitement—like a quartz crystal in a watch. “Definitely! I'm sure my parents will say yes.” The bell rang and we hurried to our seats.

Whoa
, I thought, realizing what I had just done. Gladys could never find out.

Saturday, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror trying to get my hair to lie down. Maybe Dad's pomade would help. I snuck into Mom and Dad's bathroom. I couldn't find the pomade, but I found Dad's bottle of cologne.

Excalibur?

Dad was in the living room watching a football game. Mom was busy in the kitchen. I unscrewed the cap on the dark brown bottle and took a whiff. Not bad. I double-checked to make sure no one was around, then splashed a little in my palms and slapped my face, like I'd seen Dad do. I sniffed my pits. Better to be safe than sorry. I dabbed some under each arm.

I went to my room to see what my lizard was up to. He was totally chill. Just hanging out on his vine. I wished I could be that relaxed, but my insides were
jumping around like the contestants on this dance show Khal and I used to watch on BET … back when we were friends. “Turn on the charm for me tonight, okay, Einstein? Let her hold you without turning brown. Impress her with your dewlap. You know, that kind of stuff.” Einstein stared off into the distance, not paying any attention to me at all.

When the doorbell rang, I took my time. I didn't want to look too much in a rush. I took the stairs slowly, ran my hand over my hair one more time, and pulled open the door.

Morgan waved to her dad, who waved back and then drove away. “Hi,” she said. She smiled.

“Hi.” Something was different.

“Umm … were you planning to let me in? It's kind of cold out here. Not to mention it's raining.”

“Oh. Right.” I stepped back and she came inside, toting her backpack. “Where are your braces?” I asked, finally realizing why she looked different.

“Gone!” Morgan beamed, except now the only thing that sparkled were her white teeth. “I've been counting the days for the last two months—basically since school started.”

Dad yelled from the living room. “Brendan, shut the door! We're getting a draft up here.”

I shut the door while Morgan took off her shoes. Her teeth looked … nice. But I didn't say so because
compliments can be tricky. I'd learned that from listening to Dad compliment Mom.

If I said I liked the change, then she might think I didn't like the way her teeth looked before, but honestly, I'd never thought at all about her teeth—only her glittery braces. But now that I could see her teeth, I thought they were nice—straight and perfectly spaced, not too big or too small, like polished pieces of squared-off chalcedony.

She sniffed the air. “What's that smell?”

“My mom's making pizza.”

Her nose wrinkled and she shook her head. “It's spicy, but not like pepperoni. More like perfume.”

Uh-oh
. The cologne. I jammed my elbows into my sides and shrugged as best I could with my arms glued to my body.

“It's not a bad smell.…”

I turned with stiff arms and took the stairs two at a time, trying to get away from Morgan's nose.

“Hi, Morgan,” Mom called.

Morgan followed me into the kitchen. She waved at Dad as we went by. “Hello, Mr. Buckley,” she said.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you. Hi, Mrs. Buckley.”

Mom held out a platter of veggies with hummus dip. “I made a snack to hold you over until dinner.”

Morgan took a celery stick. I passed. I just wanted
to get to work on our report—and get away from my parents.

Morgan crunched her celery, then ran her tongue over her teeth. “Wow! Nothing for the strings to get stuck in. It feels so weird!” She leaned against the counter as if she planned to stay for a while.

Mom pushed the dough this way and that on the pizza pan. “So, how are things going for you at Eastmont? Do you miss being homeschooled?” Mom asked.

“Not really … although I guess being in public school is kind of hard sometimes.”

Morgan thought something about school was hard? I had just been about to go scrub off the cologne, but now I was curious to hear what else Morgan would say.

“How so?” Mom asked.

“Don't tell my parents this … I don't want them to have any reason to pull me out, because I want to be there, I really do … but sometimes—maybe a lot of the time—I don't feel like I fit in.”

“That
is
hard. Why don't you feel like you fit in?”

“I'm a geek!”

At least she knew it.

Mom laughed. “I don't know about—”

“No, I am. And it doesn't even really bother me.”

Wow—she didn't
mind
being a geek?

“When kids start talking about popular bands or songs or TV shows, I have no idea what they're talking
about. Sometimes I laugh and nod as if I do, but I don't, and I don't like being fake like that.”

“Have you made many friends? Surely there must be some other girls who don't care whether you know about that stuff.”

“Honestly?” Morgan paused. She stared at the back of Mom's head. “Brendan is my best friend.”

What
? Had she just said what I thought she'd said? I gulped. Blood pulsed in my ears.