Snitch (3 page)

It was Seth whose face blushed now, but he wasn’t embarrassed. He was pissed. I had heard Seth was the kind of guy who could go from zero to mad in about one second, and
that
getting Seth upset could be downright dangerous, but Johnny-boy being Johnny-boy didn’t or couldn’t back off. He kept right on smiling and mouthing and pointing until finally Seth had it.

Seth
did
a final check
on
Miss Applebee
who still
,
hopelessly explaining positive and negative values
, had her back to the class
. That’s when he stood on his chair, shot a death stare at Johnny-boy, and saluted him with both of his middle fingers straight up in the air.

The whole class exploded in laughte
r and couldn’t and didn’t stop until
Mrs. Mathews from next door
came
in
and got
us under control.

The game that night was set to start at
7:30
,
right after the cheerleaders did the little dance they had been practicing. We were set to play
the
Nolanville
Cougars
,
which was going to be a hard game. The year before
,
half of the Cougars played for us, the Jameson Tigers, but since our town is growing so fast, they had to open another new high school, and our school got divided up. Now, half of the football,
basketb
all
,
and track team
s
play for the Cougars against us instead of with us. It’s pretty crum
m
y, but that’s what happened.

It does make for some good games
,
though.

The Cougars have a great offense team in basketball. It’s their defense that’s weak. And that’s why we were going to win that night. Besides that, our team is strong: Johnny-boy may be fast with the joke, but he is even
quicker
on his feet
.
T
hat’s why he’s an outstanding point guard.

Ben, he’s small and quick. His real name is Benito Rodriquez, but we always call him Ben Romeo. He jokes he got his good looks from his mother and his speed from his great grandfather who ran
across the
border
from Mexico to the U
.
S
.
and back again without getting caught. I’m not sure what Ben’s family history
really
is, but I know one thing: Ben is the fastest thing on any basketball court I have ever seen. He can snag a rebound or drive a ball around any defense. And he never seems to get tired. No other team has a wing like Ben.

Seth is what you would call the adventurous type. He can see an opening before anyone else does, and if there isn’t an opening
,
he can fake a pass or a drive and end up in a place no one thought he would try to get to. He plays center like a mad man.

Sizzle’s real name is Arthur
Sizmowski
, but no one calls him that. He has made some unbelievable, amazing shots that everyone talks about the next day, but he’s only good for a shot or two the whole game. The rest of his shots are air balls, rim balls, and crazy passes that no one can catch. I guess that’s where he gets his name; he’s like a hot steak on the grill. When he’s hot
,
he’s hot
, and
then he just…sizzles out. We love Sizzle, but he warms the bench most of our games and plays an unbelievable point guard the rest.

Charlie is plain scary. When he gets his brain set on something, there’s no changing
it on
or off the court. He’s one of the strangest guys I know, and truthfully I don’t care to know him that well. He’s always
around, but he doesn’t say much. He and Seth are tight, but I mostly stay out of his way. Coach uses him as a second string wing when he needs one of us to sit out.

Wes and Me?
We are the brawn. Not much can get past my six
-
foot frame, and if it does, Wes takes over.
You can imagine, nothing stops Wes.
He’s not as fast as I am, but he’s like a
huge
,
solid
,
impassable wall. With
him playing post and me playing wing,
we are a force to be reckoned with.

We may only be a bunch of ninth graders on a
freshman
team, but we work as a
great team
and I was looking forward to tonight. Heck, pretty cheerleaders, basketball, and a chance to be the school hero. What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, what I wasn’t looking for was the mood Coach Masters was in. “Rodriguez,
Oppenhauser
, Palmer, Sizzle, Jenkins, and Biggman. Get in here!” he roared.

Coach usually roared, so I wasn’t too worried as we all sat on the hard locker room benches in front of our lockers. Coach stormed in from his office and turned to us, his forehead folded in anger.

“What in the Sam-hill were you guys thinking today in math class?” He paced back and forth in front of us shaking his head. “Did you enjoy
your nasty little game
,
trying to make a substitute cry? Was that fun for you?”

“We didn’t make her cry,” Johnny offered.

Coach stopped
his pacing to glare
at Johnny. “Are you ever going to learn to shut that mouth of yours?”

Johnny looked around for support and began to work his mouth as if to speak.

“Now would be a good time to start,” Coach warned
.
Johnny shut his mouth.

“Coach?”
Sizzle said, raising his hand a little, but the coach didn’t or chose not to hear him.

“Did it make you feel good? Did it make you feel like real men?” Coach Mas
ters
glared at each of us with disgust. “You made her cry. She almost went home at lunch.” He shook his head. “The poor girl went to school for four years to try and help you kids, and you took it all away from her in one hour. What a bunch of crap.”

I stared at the floor, worry creeping in. Coach wasn’t one to cuss and he had already said “Sam-hill and crap.” In the locker room, when he wasn’t around, we said way more than that, but for Coach that was big stuff. We were all in trouble, and we knew it.

“Coach?”
Sizzle interrupted again.

“What?!
What do you want?” Coach exploded, little bits of spit flying through the air.

“I…um…I wasn’t in math. I missed the first part of the day.”

“Really?”
Coach suddenly looked hopeful. “Then that’s the answer. Sizzle, you’re starting tonight.”

“What
?
!”
Seth said jumping up.

“Sit your little spoiled, entitled butt back down on that bench,” Coach ordered. “Because I want to tell you how I was hauled in after lunch today to explain to the principal why the names the sub left today belonged to MY TEAM! How MY TEAM humiliated a substitute teacher so much that Mrs. Mathews had to come in to settle things down. I had to explain to your principal why MY TEAM should even be allowed to play tonight
– MY TEAM,
which is supposed to set the standards for this school and be the leaders of this school. MY TEAM
,
who will spend this game
,
which we should have won, by the way
,
warming
the bench, writing apology letters to Miss Applebee
,
instead of tearing up the court and taking home the win.”

Coach
stopped shouting and spitting. His voice dropped dangerously low
.
“Do you know what you have done to our record with this stupid
prank? You have put us one game behind everyone else in the district for the whole season
, because without you playing, we are
going to lose
!
”

No one said anything. We knew we had a shot at the division championship this year, and we were too busy trying to figure out how we had screwed that up before we even got on the court to play.

Seth’s voice broke the silence.

“You can’t bench us.”
He half whispered
,
half spoke so intensely, little goose bumps broke out and danced up my back
.
N
o one ever talked to Coach in that tone of voice. I shot a warning look at Johnny who, for once, was not smiling.

We could hear Seth trying to control his temper, his breathing loud and tense. “The varsity coaches are watching tonight. You can’t do this.”

“I’m
not the one doing it,” Coach glared back at Seth. “The principal is. Mr. Perkins gave me two choices: benching or expulsion. Which one would
you
prefer?”

For a moment, no one moved
, e
ven Seth.

“My father won’t allow this to happen,” Seth warned.

“Your father has nothing to say about this.
Your
father, above all people.
You, in fact, I couldn’t save.
You
,
Biggman,
are not even playing tonight.”

Seth abruptly stood up and kicked the locker in front of him before stomping away. We were silent, glued to our seats. I couldn’t take my eyes off the dent Seth’s anger had permanently left behind on some
poor random
locker that just happened to be in his way. At that moment I guessed what I had heard about Seth’s temper was probably true.

Coach broke the silence.

“The rest of you, suit up and glue your butts to the bench out front. You can use the time to write a letter and figure out how you’ll explain
your
benching to your parents. I’ll be out in a minute.”

We left the locker room,
Coach
, and Seth behind.

“Andy, what’s going on? What did you guys do in Math?” Sizzle asked.

“We screwed up,” I answered.

“Why couldn’t Coach save Seth?”

“I don’t know,” I answered
—
even
though
I thought I did. It had to do with two
middle
fingers raised in the air and one snitch.

And even though Seth had only been at our school a few months, I knew him
well enough to guarantee th
e
snitch would pay.

Of course
,
we lost the game, and
of course,
the next day’s hallway gossip ranged from blaming Mrs. Mathews to the
pimply,
shy kid in the front row who always sucked up to Mr.
Leason
.

Of course
,
our entire team was miserable, but no one talked.

Of course, no one blamed Seth. His little finger dance earned him two days of suspension, but being Seth, instead of being labeled a jerk
,
he became a kind of Jameson ninth grade hero who had been unfairly ratted out. I listened to all the hallway talk, but I had my own theory
about
who told. I had a feeling I knew who to blame: the one girl who always was the first to blame me.
The one girl who made me
annoying
ly
uncomfortable for no reason at all.
The one
girl
who had the most amazing red hair and beautiful face but looked at me through angry, slit emerald green eyes most days: Liz.

Math class wasn’t exactly fun either. Mr.
Leason
came back the next day
ready to assassinate anyone who moved sideways or whispered to their neighbor. It turned out Miss Applebee was some teacher’s niece or granddaughter or something, and she gave a full report on our class’
antics. Mr.
Leason
paid us back with a lecture on the polite treatment of a substitute, a promise to call parents of any names listed, and a pop quiz
on
slope
,
which he
promised
to count double.

I was wrong about one thing: there did come a point in my life where someone asked me to figure out slope. I was right about another: I had no idea how to do it. Anyway, on top of worrying about the punishment I figured I would get at home, I failed the quiz.

“Andy, is it true about Seth?” Ben asked me in the hallway. “Is he suspended for a week?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know much of anything. Ask Charlie. Those two are tight.”

“You don’t have to ask anybody,” Johnny bragged. “I got the scoop. It’s more like two days
.
” Johnny threw his pencil in the air, attempting to pierce a ceiling tile with its point.