Tangerine (19 page)

The coach took the photographer's bag and dumped it on the ground. She said, "Uh-huh. And who would that be?"

Mr. Donnelly flipped back a few pages in his notebook. "A girl named Maya and a girl named Shandra? They're both supposed to make the All-County Boys' Team?"

When Dolly heard this she yelled over, "Hey, Shandra! They want to talk to you, girl!"

Shandra had been focused on the shooters all this time. When she heard Dolly she looked over, puzzled. Then she spotted the
Tangerine Times
van and the long-haired guy with his camera. A look of terror came over her face. She spun around on her heels and sprinted away—right out of the goal, across the field, across the bus lanes, and into the school. Everybody stopped what they were doing and watched her go.

Now that there was no one in goal, Victor walked up to the photographer and announced, "You must be here to interview me. I'm Victor Guzman, the captain of the first-place Tangerine Middle School War Eagles. How do you do?"

The guy looked over at Mr. Donnelly. Then he said, "Excuse me," and tried to get around Victor. But Victor blocked him and added, "You'll probably want to get some action shots of me before you do anything else."

The photographer stared at him dumbly. Then he stepped back and lined up a picture of Victor, who struck a pose and smiled. The camera flashed, and Victor added, "That's Victor Guzman. You know how to spell that?
G-U-Z-M-A-N.
Don't you go spelling my name wrong, or I'll have to mess you up."

Hernando, Tino, and Mano crowded in front of the photographer next, telling him their names and demanding that he take their pictures. The guy looked over at Mr. Donnelly, who signaled at him to go ahead and do it. Mr. Donnelly said, "Look, Betty, I'm sorry for disrupting your practice. Can I just get the last names of the girls?"

The coach still wasn't looking at him. And she still was not happy. "This is more disruptive than you could know, Mr. Donnelly. If you want to run a picture of our team, you should show Victor. He's our captain."

Mr. Donnelly replied, "But he's not news, Coach. Having girls on your team is news."

"Not really. I've had girls on this team for five years. Why is it suddenly news?"

Mr. Donnelly held up his hands to explain, and the coach looked at them. "You're the first-place team in the county. You have the top scorer in the county. And she's a girl."

The coach nodded. "All right. Fair enough. Her name is Maya Pandhi.
P-A-N-D-H-I.
"

He wrote this down. "Great. And what about Shandra?"

"You never mind about Shandra. She doesn't want any part of newspapers or publicity, so that's the way it's gonna be."

Mr. Donnelly nodded. "OK. I'll certainly respect her wishes."

They shook hands again. The guy with the long hair saw this and broke away from the boys. He grabbed his bag, climbed up into the driver's seat of the van, and the two of them drove back the way they came.

Betty Bright watched them go, then walked slowly across the field and into the school. Victor sat down, so the rest of us did, too. Finally the coach and Shandra came walking out. By the time Shandra was back in goal to start the scrimmage, we had lost about twenty minutes of practice time.

Like I said, that all happened yesterday. This morning I looked in the
Tangerine Times,
in the back of the sports section. There was no article about our team, but there was a photo. The wrong photo. It was a photo of Nita Shirali with the caption, "Maya Pandhi Leads All Scorers in Tangerine County."

Good going, Mom.

I'm in classes with Theresa, Tino, Maya, Nita, and Henry D. all day. Now Joey has joined that group.

The first and last periods of the day, science and language arts, do cross-curricular projects together. That means that we do a science-type project in science class, and we write about it in language arts class. I came in at the tail end of the last project, so all I could do was sit and listen to kids read their reports. They were really good.

Now we're starting a new cross-curricular project. Mrs. Potter passed out a project sheet that describes what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to do it, and how we're supposed to present it to the class. At the top of the project sheet, it says:

Science/Language Arts Cross-Curricular Project

Broad topic—Florida agriculture

Narrow topic—an agricultural product that is native to this area of Florida

Your topic—??????

Mrs. Potter gave us twenty-four hours to form our own groups of four to six kids. After that she would form new groups out of "the leftovers," as she called them.

I was looking over the project sheet with Joey when I saw Tino walking back toward us. He stopped at Henry D.'s desk and said, "Yo, Henry D. You want to be in a group with Theresa and me? We got a hot idea."

Henry D., whose real name is Henry Dilkes, is a quiet country boy, always polite. He said, "Thank you. I'd be pleased to."

Tino bumped his fist down on top of Henry's and started back toward his desk. I called out to him, "Hey, Tino! What about me and Joey? Can we be in your group?"

Tino stopped and looked at me, surprised. He thought a minute and said, "Yeah. Why not? But it's our group. You got that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure."

He returned to his seat and Joey said to me, "What did you do that for?"

"Do what? We gotta get in a group, right? I don't want to be a leftover."

"So why don't we form our own group?"

"With who? We need four to six people."

"With anybody. Anybody but him." He shot an angry look at Tino.

"C'mon, man. Henry's nice. Super nice. So is Theresa. And Tino's OK, when he's by himself."

Joey shook his head. He didn't believe me. "That guy's bad news. I don't need this. I don't need this at all."

"Hey, this isn't soccer practice, it's science class. You're an ace in science, right?"

Joey glared at me. "What are you saying, that I stink in soccer?"

"No. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that this is different. This is something that you're really good at."

Joey finally agreed, doubtfully. "All right. All right."

"Good. This'll give you another kind of chance with people. You know? A chance to get in with some of the people from the team."

There was a strange pause. Joey finally said, "I'm not on the team anymore."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Since when?"

"I turned in my uniform this morning."

I looked at him, but he wouldn't look back. I finally said, "That's it? You're just not on the team anymore, and that's it?"

Joey tightened up. "Yeah. That's it. So what? What's it to you?"

"It's nothing to me. I just don't understand. I thought you wanted to play soccer."

"Well, I don't. Not here, anyway." He finally looked at me. "Not anywhere. I'm gonna play football when I get to high school. You understand that?"

I understood. I said, "OK," and I was willing to leave it right there.

But Joey wasn't. He was practically snarling now. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," and he gestured around the room. "I let you talk me into coming to this dump." I suddenly became aware of the other kids around us as he went on. "This place is like darkest Africa. Like the Amazon jungle. Like we're learning to live among the natives here."

I took in the ugliness of Joey's words, and I saw, for the first time, how different he was from me—different parents, different friends, different brother. The speaker came on, and the gong sounded. I had to say something, so I muttered, "I'm sorry you feel like that," and headed out, without him, into the crowded hallway.

There's something I forgot to record here about Joey's first day at Tangerine Middle School. Or maybe I didn't forget. Maybe I just wanted to block it out. But after what he said yesterday, I can't. The scene came back to me today on the way home.

It was last Monday. I was sitting in homeroom. Suddenly Joey walked in and handed Ms. Pollard a pass. He was all by himself—no Theresa to show him around, like I had hoped. Ms. Pollard told him to take a seat, so he came back and sat next to me. He was all smiles, and he said something like, "Hey! So far, so good."

I said, "Where's Theresa?"

"Who?"

"Theresa. Theresa Cruz. I told you to ask for her as a guide."

"Oh yeah. She's back in the office. I saw her there."

"What? Is she guiding somebody else today?"

"Nah. I just said I didn't need it. What do I need a guide dog for?"

"A guide dog? You're calling Theresa a guide dog?"

Joey laughed. "C'mon, man. Lighten up. What?—Do you think she's good-looking?"

I thought about that. "Yeah. I guess I do."

Joey still had that cocky smile plastered on his face. "Then you've been here too long."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just shook my head. I finally said, "I gotta tell you, you're comin' in here with the wrong attitude."

"Hey, what's the big deal? I got here OK without a guide, right? You'd have to be blind to get lost in this place."

"Oh, is that right? So now you're calling me blind?"

"No, I'm not calling you blind—"

"You're calling Theresa a dog?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that she's not my type."

The bell rang for first period. All I had time to say was, "Don't do this. Don't come in here with attitude."

Like I said, that scene came back to me today. We had our first meeting for the science project. Each group of kids pulled their desks together; the leftover kids then got put into their own groups. Joey and I pulled our desks into a circle with Henry D., Theresa, and Tino. I was surprised when Theresa, not Tino, took charge of the meeting. And it was obvious that she had done this sort of thing before.

Theresa began by reading the assignment aloud: "To research and present information about an agricultural product that is native to this area of Florida." Then she passed out a glossy one-page ad with a picture of a citrus tree laden with fruit. "When we heard this assignment, Tino and I knew right away what we were going to write about. I just gave you all an advertisement for an agricultural product that was developed by our brother, Luis. It's a new variety of citrus that he has named the Golden Dawn tangerine.

"This tangerine is seedless, very juicy, and very resistant to cold weather, which makes it perfect for this area. Luis thinks it could even return this area to its former prominence as the tangerine capital of the world. He just got it registered with the state this year as a new variety. Now he is starting to market it to citrus growers in Florida, California, and Mexico. So our report is going to be called 'The Golden Dawn Tangerine.'"

Theresa passed out sheets of paper that had our report title typed across the top. She said, "What we want to do today is divide up the research part of the project. Tino and I will concentrate on Luis's invention and what he had to do to register it with the state. Somebody else can do the history of the citrus industry in this area. Henry, we thought you could do that part. You know—When did citrus growing start here? What are the types of trees that grow best here? That kind of thing." Henry D. nodded and jotted something down. Then Theresa turned to me. "Somebody else could do basic research on what a tangerine is and how it is grown. We thought that you and your friend could handle that." I nodded. Theresa added, "Any questions?"

Henry D. said, "Excuse me. How long did it take for your brother to invent this tangerine?"

Tino answered. "His whole life. I can't remember a time when Luis wasn't working on this. And I don't know if Theresa made this clear or not, but this is really a big deal. It's like inventing a new kind of medicine or something. Luis is going to be famous for doing this."

Theresa said, "Luis is real interested in helping us, too. He'll answer questions and he'll show us how it's all done. We figure we'll get all this research in. Then we'll have an organizational meeting, probably with Luis. Then each group can write its section of the report, and give it to me, and I'll type it all up."

Joey interrupted her. "Just put it all on a disk and give it to me. I'll run it off on the laserjet at home."

Theresa looked away. She seemed flustered. She said, "We don't have a computer. We use a typewriter."

Tino snapped at him, "You got a problem with that, Tuna?"

Joey stared him down. "No, I don't have a problem with that. I guess I got a problem with you."

"Yeah? You gonna have a big problem with me! Bigger than you know, chump."

I felt I had to head this off, so I said, "C'mon, you guys. Forget this."

"Shut up!" Tino snarled, his eyes still locked on Joey's.

"Joey," I said. "It's Tino's group, right? We agreed to that when we joined."