Strange Country Day (3 page)

I saw her eyebrows rise slightly as she wrote.

As in the guy who beat up a bunch of ninth graders on Fresh Meet Friday?

Ninth graders, plural? Great. Now the rumors were getting out of hand.

Self-defense. And it was one ninth grader.

Not bad.

Then I probably shouldn’t be talking to you.

Good response, Sophi With Just an “I.”

I promise, I’m not dangerous,
I wrote.

I swear she smiled at me, but I couldn’t tell because we saw Old Man Crowley glare at us.

I spent the rest of the period trying to learn, but I was mostly in a daze. In what felt like seconds later, the bell rang.

We both got up at the same time. She looked at me with her head cocked slightly. “Nice to meet you on paper, Alex.”

“Yeah.” My mouth was completely dry.

I was rooted to the spot as I watched her walk away, her earrings jangling as she ran a hand through her hair. Wow.

Another classroom door opened further down the hall and out lumbered Flab. Instinctually, I flung myself back into Crowley’s classroom and peeked out. He spotted Sophi and, to my dismay, slung his beefy arm around her and laid a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

I turned away. I didn’t have time to think about it as the first bell rang. I had another class to run to or I’d be late again.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about Sophi. I had no experience with girls, and now I was sitting next to one who kind of flirted with me. Did she just think I was a dork who could help her get good grades? And what was with Flab?

Gym was my final class and it was run by the school’s head football coach, Marcellus Schmick.

Schmick was famous at Strange, a no-nonsense Southerner recently paid a hefty sum to turn the football team into a world-class squad. It was also in his contract to supervise gym, but he didn’t pay much attention. While we played soccer or dodgeball on the football field, all he did was sit in his personal golf cart with his initials on the canopy, his feet up, diagramming in a giant playbook.

“Gentlemen, today I’m gonna have you play flag football. Y’all know the rules: no extra points, no tacklin’, and no flag guardin’. No kickin’ off, just throw to the other team. I’ll be right here with my playbook. When the whistle blows, game over.” He stared at us through mirrored sunglasses and pointed at the two most athletic-looking kids in the group. “You. You. Captains. Choose ‘em up.”

Football! Finally, something that didn’t involve projectiles being thrown at my head. I hoped no one wanted to play quarterback so I could show off the skills I’d been practicing in the backyard with my robot. Of course, everyone always wants to play quarterback.

The captains began choosing teams. I figured I’d get picked last, so I began spacing out and running through the route tree in my head. Fly is the one where you run straight ahead. Post is five or ten steps and a cut diagonally in the middle of the field toward the goalposts. “The skinny kid.” I snapped out of it and saw one of them point at me. I looked at Coach Schmick, but he was lost in his playbook. As I made my way behind the blond kid who’d chosen me, I looked over my shoulder to see who was left. And there was Dex.

I hadn’t even seen him at the beginning of class. In fact, I didn’t think he was in my gym class at all. Dressed in a shirt that was a size too big, he shrugged at me. I responded with a small wave. It was good to see one familiar face. I watched as the captains picked everyone but Dex. The blond kid ended up having the final pick. “Shoot. Come on, shorty,” he said disappointedly to Dex, who happily bounded over to my side as we attached our blue flags around our waists.

The game started as our captain threw off to the other team.

I spent the next forty-five minutes trying my hardest to prove myself. Just something to get me noticed if Coach would look up from his book. And I did get noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.

Every time a bigger kid got a handoff, he’d plow over me before I could reach his flag. I was taller than most of the opposing receivers but didn’t have the speed to match. The opposing quarterback began picking me apart wherever I was on the field. And that was in addition to the embarrassment of trying to grab a flag and having your hand grab something else. I found myself apologizing for one gaff or another on nearly every play.

Offense wasn’t much better. I tried telling Blondie to put me in at quarterback, but he waved me off and said, “Just try not to mess up every play.” Great, thanks.

Dex was, surprisingly, pretty good. He was running circles around everyone with amazing speed, but no one threw him the ball. I spent most of my time on offense trying to get open, but nothing worked. I kept looking over at Coach Schmick to see if he was watching me get destroyed, but he never looked up. Thank goodness.

Not one ball was thrown my way, even in goal line situations where I knew all anyone had to do was toss up a ball over the head of my defender. Given my height advantage, I could have come down with it easily. Play after play, I was ignored. So was Dex. I could feel this anger building up inside me bit by bit.

With my team down by a few touchdowns (no thanks to blown coverage by yours truly) and with about two minutes left in class, I had hit the tipping point. “I’m QB!” I announced to whoever would listen. Everyone groaned and protested, but I told them, “Just one play, okay?” Eyes rolled in unison.

I turned to Dex and mouthed, “Go. Long.” He nodded. We lined up, with most of the kids on both sides looking apathetic. No one cared since it was the end of class, the end of the school day, and the game was already decided. But this was my chance. I felt myself get nervous as I began the play. That’s when I noticed Coach Schmick strolling over with a whistle in his mouth. All that nervousness turned into total fear. The football coach was watching me. He hadn’t looked at us once all game long and now here he was, staring at me.

That’s when it hit me. For the second time that day. Marshmallows. Blurriness. Water running through my veins.

Squeeeeeeeee

I stumbled back and heard myself yell, “Set-
HUT
!”

My eyes re-focused, and I could see that nobody was doing anything, except for Dex. He was darting down the field as fast as I’ve ever seen anyone run. I felt myself automatically go through the motions. Right hand with football by my ear. Follow through with hips on the release. Let go.

I heard Coach’s whistle start to blow to signal the end of class, but he stopped mid-tweet as the pass sliced through the air. It was a perfect spiral. I couldn’t believe it myself as I watched it fly. To my horror, I had thrown it at least twenty yards past Dex. But he streaked toward the little orange cones that delineated our endzone. The ball was definitely headed way over his head and out of bounds.

That’s when Dex did something shocking. Still in stride, he crouched down and leapt up. He looked like a much smaller version of Michael Jordan, going higher and higher for what seemed like forever. At the top of his jump, which must have been at least ten feet in the air, he reached out and the ball landed right in his hands. As if he had wings to help him, he floated down and hit the ground nimbly on two feet, just inside the back of the endzone.

No one moved. I turned to see Coach Schmick’s reaction. The whistle had dropped out of his mouth, which remained open. I heard someone scoff, “Lucky.” That’s when Coach snapped into action. “Game over. Hit the showers! You!” He pointed at me. “And you!” Then at Dex. “Come here!”

I walked up to him slowly as Dex, looking smug, bounded over.

He peered down through those opaque shades, and what came out of his mouth next blew me away.

“Gentlemen,” he began in the quietest voice I’d heard out of him yet. “Let’s talk football.”

WHAP!

That’s the sound of a twenty-three-pound object as it hit the floor of the locker room. Assistant Head Coach Jerry Carson had just handed me the team’s playbook, and I dropped it on the clammy concrete in my shock at its heaviness. Carson was tasked with teaching me the ins and outs of quarterbacking. He had a haircut and a build that made him look like he’d just retired from the Marines. He gave me a dirty look and pointed at me to pick it up. “Ptuiac, I don’t ever want to see you treat the playbook like that again. You have to respect it. It’s your baby. And I expect you to have it memorized by next Friday.”

I quickly changed into my pads and uniform in front of a gleaming locker. Everyone else had a nameplate on top of his locker (
So that’s where all the donor money goes
, I thought); I figured I would get one if I worked my way from being “on trial” to a place on the team.

I took a deep breath, grabbed my helmet, and walked out. Right before the exit, there was a bathroom with a row of mirrors. I stepped inside, turned, and stared at myself. Sure, I was swimming in my pads and uniform, but I was Peyton Manning. Actually, more like Peyton’s backup’s backup. Or a member of the practice squad. But all those years playing in my friends’ backyards after school had paid off. I wonder what they’d say if they could see me now.

The last few days had been stressful for a myriad of reasons. After my miraculous throw and Dex’s even more amazing catch, Coach Schmick marched Dex and me to his spacious, trophy-filled office in the athletic center and informed us we both had serious potential. Because we were seventh graders and he didn’t know much about us beyond the throw and catch we completed, he invited us to work with the team for a couple of weeks, and then he’d see if there was a place for us. Under his guidance and coaching, he said, if we measured up, we’d be molded into All-State players with the potential of being recruited by a college. It seemed a little weird to think of Dex or me playing college ball, but who says no to that? We told him we’d talk to our parents to get permission, to which he responded, “I’ll come to your houses to chat if necessary.”

Convincing my parents was a different story.

“ … And now he wants me to join the football team, possibly for good!”

This had easily been the most amazing day of my life. A girl had acknowledged my presence, even though she was dating a jerk who wanted me permanently bruised, I’d thrown a long touchdown pass to someone who could be my new friend, and now the school’s million-dollar football coach personally invited me to play for him. I was really excited.

My parents didn’t show even a little bit of excitement. Nothing.

“I don’t know,” Dad said, glancing over at Mom. “You could get hurt.”

My mom sat there, thinking it over.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. They wanted me to make friends, to fit in, to do well in school.

“Here’s our deal, Alex,” Mom said. “The first time we see an unsatisfactory grade from you, you’re off the team.” I was thrilled, but I noticed Dad frowning, as if she was going against his wishes. “And you
must
be careful,” she added.

“Thank you thank you thank you! I will! I mean, Coach said I’d be their third quarterback, so I’m going to be working hard to develop in practice, but it’s still amazing. I get a jersey and a helmet, and he says he’s going to mold me into an amazing quarterback, and Dex is joining too … ”

“Who’s Dex?” Dad asked.

“Remember, I told you I threw that pass and this really short kid jumped up really, really high to catch it, even though I overthrew it? That’s him,” I replied.

“How high would you say he jumped?”

“I don’t know. It was just amazing. I’ve never seen someone jump like that.”

“And you said he looked like some kind of animal?” Dad said.

I didn’t say anything about an animal.

Mom intervened. “Alex, I think you have homework to do,” she said, giving my father a look that told him to keep quiet.

But I had similar questions for Dex. I asked him after gym class that day how he jumped that high. He shrugged at me and answered, “I’ve always been able to do that.”

On Monday, I decided I would still sit next to Sophi so I could tell her my big news. But before I made it through the door, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Who do you think it was?

“C’mere,” Flab said as he put a beefy arm around me and led me a few steps away to a stairwell near the classroom. He stood over me and glanced around before speaking in hushed tones.

“You’re lucky I don’t do something worse to you right now,” he said. “I heard you were talking to Sophi.”

I was too nervous to respond. He figured that out quickly and smiled at me. That was the last thing I expected.

“Hey, that’s cool. You can sit next to her or whatever. But she’s my girlfriend. And let’s face it, guys like me”—he pointed to his protruding stomach— “don’t usually get girls like her. So instead of making up for that little incident from Fresh Meet Friday, you’re going to do me a solid and stay away from her outside of that classroom.”

The bell rang. Flab’s expression turned serious. “I mean it.”

Days later, I jogged up a few steps and headed through the tunnel that led to the field. Everyone was warming up, throwing around footballs, stretching, and joking around. Warm-up would begin in a few minutes, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I spotted Dex standing off to the side by himself. He looked like a little kid compared to the gargantuan ninth graders. I jogged up to him.

“You ready?”

He turned to me and shook his head slowly.

“Why not?”

Before he could answer, someone grabbed the front of his jersey. The very next moment, Dex was up in the air, courtesy of Flab.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” His voice rasped like a car driving on gravel.

Dex struggled to get out of his grip. “I’m … on … the team!”

“Put him down!” I protested.

“On the team? In that case … ” he brought Dex down so they were face-to-face. “I know a few of your teammates who are looking for a new tackling dummy that’s exactly your size.”

A whistle blew behind him. “Flab! Hey!” Thanks, Coach Carson. “Next time I see you pull a trick like that, you’re running suicides for the rest of the day!”