Takedown

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

VIKING

Published by Penguin Group

Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2006 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

 

Copyright © Rich Wallace, 2006

All rights reserved

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eISBN : 978-1-101-11887-0

 

S.A. Set in Caslon 224 Book

 

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C
ould anything be harder than this? Donald sat with his back against the gymnasium wall, eyes shut and sweat streaming down his face. His legs hurt. His shoulders ached. His left foot was starting to cramp.

He opened one eye and looked at the clock on the wall: 4:27 P.M. Coach Mills had said practice would end at 5:15. Three minutes of rest and then forty-five minutes of drills.

There was an inch of water left in his bottle, and he sucked it right down. The water was warm but it quenched his thirst a little. The corner of his mouth stung where the bottle had touched it. He put a finger to his lip. When he pulled it away, there was a dot of red. He curled his tongue to that spot and tasted blood.

I’ll live,
he thought.

He felt a shoe against his leg—not quite a kick, but a rather hard nudge. Freddy Salinardi was standing there, looking down at him. Freddy was a muscular eighth-grader and one of the team captains. “Let’s go, wimp,” he said. “Nap time is over.”

Donald scrambled to his feet. Freddy called everybody wimps, at least all of the seventh-graders. This was the first day of practice, so the newcomers were getting tested by the veterans. Donald stepped toward the mat. Freddy was already hassling Mario and Kendrick, making them stand up, too.

What a jerk,
Donald thought, but he’d never say that out loud.

He had already started to figure things out. Coach worked the wrestlers hard but he was a nice guy, and he certainly seemed to know his stuff about the sport.

They’d learned some basic wrestling moves earlier in the session, but the past half hour had been all about conditioning. Jumping jacks, sit-ups, running in place. Donald knew this sport would be difficult, but he hadn’t envisioned anything like this.

Coach blew his whistle and quickly put the wrestlers in pairs. Donald winced when Coach lined him up with Tavo Rivera, one of the best eighth-graders. Tavo was the same size as Donald, but he was stronger and quicker.

“Wrestle!” Coach called.

Donald leaned back then lunged quickly forward, but Tavo easily sidestepped him and Donald stumbled to the mat. Tavo was on him in an instant, circling his thigh with one hand and lifting his ankle with the other. From there it was a matter of seconds until Donald was flat on his back, pinned.

Tavo was an experienced wrestler, thin with long, lean limbs and gappy teeth. He’d been a starter the previous year as a seventh-grader and now was one of the clear leaders of the team. He grinned at Donald as they got to their feet, but Donald just glared back.

“Let’s go!” Donald said, spitting out the words and lunging toward Tavo again. He’d show this guy how tough he was.

Within five minutes, Tavo had pinned him four times.

Coach Mills walked over and faced Donald.

“Know what you’re doing wrong?” Coach asked.

“Getting my butt kicked?” Donald said angrily.

“Yeah, you are. But why?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying as hard as I can.”

“Hard but not smart,” Coach said. “You’re giving away every move. Watch.”

Coach went into a staggered stance, one foot forward, knees bent, hands out in front.

“Here’s what
you
do.” Coach leaned back and then lunged, just as Donald had done. “When you lean back and wind up like that, you’re telling your opponent that you’re about to attack. There’s no surprise.”

Coach went back into his stance. Then he shot forward toward Tavo, head up and his body low. “Penetrate,” he said. “Take a big first step and really shoot in there toward your opponent.”

Donald kept glaring at Tavo, who kept grinning back with confidence. Tavo could tell how frustrated Donald was, and he knew that his year of wrestling experience was making a huge difference.

“Got it?” Coach asked.

“Yeah,” Donald said flatly.

“Then do it. There’s a lot more to winning than being stronger or faster than the other wrestler. Tavo weighs the same as you, but he’s outsmarting you by a mile.”

“I’m smart,” Donald mumbled.

“That’s nice,” Coach said sarcastically. “But it doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing yet.”

Donald and Tavo circled around each other, hands up and bodies leaning slightly forward. Tavo threw out a quick hand and Donald flinched, but Coach told him to stay low.

And quick as a flash Tavo was on him again, his hands locked behind Donald’s left knee. Donald felt himself being lifted, and Tavo’s shoulder was jamming into his ribs. He grabbed Tavo’s back with one hand and tried to unclench the grip with the other, but suddenly both feet were in the air. He hit the mat hard. In a matter of seconds he’d been pinned for the fifth time.

Tavo stood quickly and reached down to give Donald a hand. But Donald looked away and ignored the hand. “I don’t need your help,” he said.

“Oh, no?” Tavo grinned confidently.

“No. And you won’t be smiling when I knock you flat.”

“As if that’ll ever happen.”

Donald didn’t have a chance to reply. “Line up!” Coach called. “The fun starts now.”

Donald joined the others in a straight line against the wall.

“What now?” asked Mario, tugging on Donald’s scrawny arm.

Donald turned and shrugged. Mario was one of the few kids here who was shorter than Donald, but he was stockier, so they weighed about the same. His dark curly hair was matted to his forehead with sweat.

“Some new form of torture,” Donald whispered.

Coach was looking over the thirty or so wrestlers, sizing them up with a smug smile. He was young—three years earlier he’d still been wrestling for the college team at Montclair State—and had the build of a solid 140-pounder.

“Nobody said this would be easy, right?” Coach said. “You new guys are getting a taste of how tough this sport is. You can’t even
begin
to be a good wrestler until you get into shape. The whole key is conditioning. Without that, you’re nothing.”

Coach pointed to Kendrick, a quiet newcomer to Hudson City who sat next to Donald in English class. “What’s your favorite sport?” he asked.

Kendrick looked around and scrunched up his mouth before answering. “Wrestling?”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“A statement, I guess.”

“Good answer.”

Now Coach looked at Donald. “What’s your
least
favorite sport?”

Donald put a finger to his chest as he asked weakly, “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

At this point Donald could have said “wrestling” and he wouldn’t have been lying. But he said “track,” which would have been true any other time. His best friend Manny Ramos was a standout distance runner, but Donald had wanted no part of that sport, despite Manny’s frequent urging to join him at it.

Coach’s smile got broader. “That’s too bad,” he said, “because guess what? Wrestlers run their butts off.”

Coach made a circular motion with his hand. “Laps around the gym,” he said. “A nice steady pace. We’re not racing here, just staying in motion.”

There was a collective groan from the group, but all of them started jogging. The gym was small and the corners were tight, but the jogging did seem easier to Donald than all those calisthenics.

That changed in a hurry when Coach gave his next directive. “Every time I blow my whistle, I want you all to drop and give me five push-ups. Then pop up and get right back to the running. Start now.” And he blew his whistle.

Donald dropped with the others and managed the five push-ups, feeling the strain all the way from his shoulders down to his fingers.

Why am I doing this?
he wondered.

He kept wondering that for fifteen more minutes as they alternated running with push-ups. But when the session finally ended and he looked around at the exhausted wrestlers making their way to the locker room, he couldn’t help but feel more than a little bit proud to be one of them.

E
verything in the locker room was painted gray: the walls, the floor, even the lockers themselves. The only color in the room was a red poster with black lettering that read HUDSON CITY HORNETS. The room was small and was divided in two by a line of lockers in the center. Tradition had it that the eighth-graders were on one side of the wall of lockers and the seventh-graders on the other.