The Nose from Jupiter (5 page)

“Prudence kicked her!” Victor pointed his finger. Nick nodded his head so vigorously his glasses slipped.

“Did
you
see?” Mr. Stern asked Miss Scathely, who had hurried over from the sidelines.

“No. There were too many other people in the way.”

Mr. Stern frowned his gym teacher’s frown. “Well, Prudence? What happened?”

Prudence stared at him, as if he were an insect and she a can of Raid. “She fell down.”

Mary added, “Her whole darn team’s been falling down
all darn game.” Only she didn’t say darn. She laughed until she coughed, and then spat vigorously onto the grass.

“Watch your language, Mary.” Teachers love an issue they can hang on to.

“Sure, sure.” Mary turned away.

Miranda hop-jogged across the field. I ran after her. She was steaming, but not at Prudence. She was mad at herself. “I might have known she’d try something like this. I should never have let that… that female dog get so close to me,” she said. Miranda doesn’t swear.

“Why don’t you tell Stern that she kicked you in the ankle? He’ll believe you, and Prudence will get sent off. What do you call that – red flagged?”

“Red carded.” She smiled. Her smile was twisted, like her ankle.

“Whatever.”

“Oh Alan.” Miranda likes me but she’s not always sympathetic. “What good would that do? I don’t want to whine to the teacher because some kid is mean to me. The best thing to do is to beat her. That’s what she can’t stand. Let’s win the game, Alan.”

The sun looked out for a second; the day got almost warm. The other Commodores were milling around helplessly. Every now and then they looked over at us. Mr. Stern was blowing his whistle, ready to start the second half.

“How do you feel?” I asked. “Seriously. Can you play at all?”

“Seriously, not too good. I can kick the ball, but I can’t run after it very fast.”

“And you think we ought to win the game against the Cougars without you? Is that the best plan?”

She nodded wearily. I wondered what the second-best plan might be. Without Miranda, we had as much chance as an ant at a tap dance class.

The whistle blew to start the second half. Cougars’ ball. Mary tapped it across the circle to Larry.

And then, without warning, another player made his presence felt.

–
Look out, Larry!
shrieked Norbert at the top of his voice.

Up to Me

Larry fell for it. He looked over his shoulder, stumbled, and inadvertently kicked the ball to me. Before I knew quite what was going on, I was running downfield, giving the ball little nudges with my feet as I went so that it stayed ahead of me, but within reach.

–
This
, said Norbert excitedly,
is called dribbling the ball On Jupiter we practice this all the time.

“I’ve seen kids do it in European TV commercials,” I said, panting a little. “Italy, I think it was.”

–
Italy must be a lot like Jupiter.

“I don’t think so,” I said. Mind you, I’ve never been.

Heavy footsteps pounded behind me. “I’m going to kill you, Dingwall!” Gary shouted.

–
How? You going to breathe all over us?

“Shut up, Norbert.” Gary is pretty mean, and he’s a lot bigger than I am.

“Who said that? Was that you, Dingwall?”

“No,” I panted. “It wasn’t me. I think your breath is great.”

What a coward I am, and of course it never pays to be a coward. Gary thought I was kidding, and let out a roar of rage. I heard his footsteps getting louder and louder. Panic-stricken, I kicked the ball. I tried to kick it straight downfield, but it went off the side of my foot by accident. I ran as hard as I could toward the near sidelines because that’s where Miss Scathely was. She was cheering. I looked over my shoulder. Gary wasn’t following me anymore. He was running after Nick, who had a clear shot on goal. Somehow my errant kick had turned out to be a great pass.

Gary was exhausted from all his shouting and chasing. He had just enough strength to tackle Nick from behind. Mr. Stern blew his whistle and gave Nick a free kick. You know what a free kick is, where the other team stands away from the ball, making a human wall to block the shot. I must say, when Mary and Gary and Larry and Prudence linked arms and stood shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to head (Prudence is a lot shorter than the others), I didn’t see how Nick could get the ball by them. Especially as they kept staring right at him, with their mean bully eyes. He’s a nervous and sensitive guy, Nick – an artist. Those aliens he draws may have superior technology on their side, but they sure look frightened. He straightened his glasses, took a deep breath, and ran up to the ball.

–
Look, Gary, there’s money in the grass. A dollar, I think. Beside your foot!
Norbert sounded excited. Gary couldn’t tell where the voice came from. He bent over, and because his arms were still linked to Larry’s and Mary’s, they were forced to bend over too. Nick let fly just as their heads came down. The ball flew over them like a horse clearing a difficult jump. The goalie, Barry, was distracted too. He was staring down at Gary’s foot. The ball trickled by him into the net.

2-2.

“Good shot, Nick. Now get back, everyone.” Miranda didn’t want to antagonize the Cougars. She wobbled back to our end. Nick followed, looking stunned and a bit apprehensive. Victor patted him on the back.

The Cougars were on the ground, linked together at the elbow.

–
You guys look like a charm bracelet!

“Norbert – quiet,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re going to make them mad!”

–
That
, he told me,
is the idea. If they’re mad, they’ll play badly.

“Is that how it works on Jupiter?” I was running back to our end as fast as I could. Safety in numbers. I heard the Cougars cursing me in the distance.

–
Actually, on Jupiter we all play nicely.

I shut my mouth and tried to concentrate on soccer. But it didn’t matter about my mouth. I couldn’t shut Norbert up. He kept making fun of the Cougars: their hair, their clothes, even their earrings and tattoos.

–
Who’s that supposed to be?
he shouted at Gary, who has an eagle on his forearm, just below the elbow. Actually it doesn’t look bad; somewhere between cool and repulsive. “Cost two hundred dollars,” he boasted, and it might have.

–
It looks like Donald Duck!
Norbert shouted.

Victor grabbed my arm. “Shut up,” he whispered. “Stop insulting the Cougars. They’ll kill you!”

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “It’s Norbert.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe he was right, but I caught an admiring glance from Miranda. “My hero!” the glance seemed to say. “My knight in armor! My champion!” She passed me the ball.

“Kick it downfield, Squeaky!” she called.

My Squeaky. Oh well. I kicked the ball as hard as I could.

The Cougars didn’t know what to think. They were sure it was me – which is what I was afraid of, and why I spent a lot of time near the referee – but, well, when Norbert talks my lips don’t move. It’s like I’m a ventriloquist, only of course I’m not in charge. I can’t make Norbert say what I want. You’d be closer to the truth if you said I was the dummy.

“You wait, Dingwall,” said Mary. “I’ll see you after school!”

I shivered with fear, and tried to tell her I was sorry and that it wasn’t my fault, but Norbert made a whistling noise.

–
I’ll wear a carnation
, he said. –
Just remember, I don’t kiss on the first date!

Even Larry laughed at that. Like I said, he’s not a real
bully. I stared at Miranda helplessly. She was laughing. “Way to tell her, Squeaky!” she called.

The game was deteriorating – a lot of pushing the ball back and forth in the center area. I didn’t mind. It was easy to keep close to Mr. Stern. Every now and then we’d work the ball to Miranda, and she’d boot it down the field a long way, and all the Cougars would chase after it.

Mr. Stern blew his whistle. “Last minute of play!” he called, looking at his watch. I dodged out of Prudence’s way – not the first time I’d had to do this. She’d been following me for most of the half, like a bloodhound on the trail of an escaping convict. Norbert’s insults were rattling her team. They were rattling her. His plan was working: the Cougars were playing badly. I was scared. I knew she’d get me sometime. For now I tried to keep her and Mr. Stern in my sight. She tried a blind-sided tackle while he was looking at his watch, but I edged away just in the nick of time.

Speaking of Nick, he was standing still, watching Gary and the ball get closer and closer. He might have been a bird watching a snake. I ran up to help.

–
Pussycats!
Norbert yelled at the top of his lungs. –
You’re not Cougars at all! You’re just little kitties!

Gary got so mad he stopped dribbling – that’s what he was doing – and shouted back. “Well, you’re not a Commodore, you’re just …” and then he stopped, because he couldn’t think of an appropriate insult. Mr. Stern laughed so hard his whistle fell out of his mouth. Good name, Commodores.

Meanwhile, Nick darted forward, took the ball away from Gary, and booted it down the field. Gary pushed Nick down, and we all raced after the ball. Guess who was there first? Not me. Not Gary. Not Prudence … she was right behind me. Not Nick, of course … he was on the ground. Not Mary … she was second. The first person on the ball was Miranda. She must have started running even before Nick kicked it. Anticipation, they call it – a very useful quality. The ball was in the corner. Miranda couldn’t dribble it anywhere with her bad ankle, so she waited until the rest of us got downfield, and then booted it right in front of the net – a high, looping, crossing pass.

I should have seen the danger coming, but I was too excited with the tie game and the last minute of play and the ball coming down, and all of us elbowing and shoving in front of the Cougars’ net. Barry the goalie was getting ready to jump and grab the ball before it landed. I was standing only a few feet away, right in front of the net. I didn’t see how I was going to get the ball, though, because Gary was between me and the net, and he’s almost a foot taller than I am. I looked around for support. Miranda was still in the corner, hopping on one foot. Victor was on the ground – Mary had knocked him down. Nick hadn’t arrived yet. It was all up to me. I crouched down, ready to leap up at the precise moment the ball would hit – and then, with my rear end sticking way out, I remembered Prudence. Behind me.

Talk about being vulnerable. You know those Second-World-War movies in the North Atlantic? Well, at that
moment I felt like a munitions ship with a U-boat on my tail, and then Prudence launched her torpedo. Wow. Her right boot, with all her strength behind it, hit me right in the…well, let’s say in the stern.

Explosion! Next thing I knew I was flying into the air –up, up and over Larry’s head – so that when the ball came down it hit me first.

–
No it hit me first.

Norbert has a point. It hit him first.

–
It hurt! I had to go to the back room for a cold cloth.

The ball bounced off Norbert and hit the inside of the goalpost and then, as Mr. Stern blew his whistle to end the game, it hit the back of the net.

3-2.

The intramural championship was ours. We’d get a team trophy and individual ribbons at the next school assembly. Nick and Victor were slapping me on the back. Miss Scathely was jumping up and down on the sidelines. And then, best of all but kind of embarrassing, Miranda hobbled over and kissed me in front of everybody.

–
No, she kissed
me.

My seat still hurt, but it was worth it.

The Cougars slouched away to lick their wounds…actually, to get some more gum before the bell rang. Lunch hour was almost over. Time to change. I was chilly and dirty, and a bit scared of what might happen after school.

Remember the first time you did something you knew was wrong: stayed out too late on purpose, looked at a
movie or magazine you weren’t supposed to, used your milk money to buy candy, smoked a cigarette, or said a really bad word out loud? And then you held your breath, waiting for the sky to fall?

That’s how I felt. I’d insulted the Cougars…actually, Norbert had, but they didn’t know that. As far as they were concerned, I was guilty. I was the one they were going to obliterate.

The afternoon passed as in a dream. Miss Scathely handed out jellybeans to all the team members, and beamed whenever she looked at one of us.

Mr. Duschene, the math teacher, didn’t beam. He didn’t hand out jellybeans either. He handed out detentions.

“Express the number forty-eight in base six, Dingwall,” he said. I stared at him. Heaven knows what I was thinking about.

“Why would I want to do that, sir?” I asked. The class tittered.

Mr. Duschene frowned. “Because I asked you to, Dingwall,” he said.

Victor sits behind me in math. “A hundred and twenty,” he whispered. Victor’s good at math. His answer might well have been right. It sounded ridiculous, but then a lot of math does sound ridiculous. I didn’t understand about the different bases, and how ten is really just a placeholder, so that sometimes six is ten, and sometimes eight is ten, and sometimes twelve is ten.

“Would it help if I told you that thirty-six is a hundred, Dingwall?” Mr. Duschene said.

“Is it?”

“In this case – yes.”

I felt like Alice in Wonderland. “Then I’ll tell you, sir–it’s no good to me at all.”

“Come on, Dingwall. You don’t usually waste our time with smart answers. Do you understand that thirty-six is a hundred?”

“But sir, a few minutes ago you showed us that sixty-four was a hundred.”

“Yes.”

“And before that…before that
nine
was a hundred.”

“Yes.” He smiled that math teacher’s smile – superior, but tolerant – more in pity than in anger. It wasn’t my fault I was stupid. “Any number can be a hundred, Dingwall. In base two, four is a hundred.”

“Oh.”

Where was something you could count on? Where were the constants in life? Who said numbers can’t lie? Here was a hundred, a plain and simple concept, easy to understand – a dollar was a hundred pennies, a sprint was a hundred meters – and this simple number becomes as slippery as a piece of soap. All over the place. And just when you got used to its changing size – there, it’s sixty-four – you find out it’s really thirty-six. Or eighty-one. Or four. I felt betrayed by something I’d trusted. I was reminded of the day I came home to find that Dad didn’t live with us anymore. Something I thought was forever, something I hadn’t really thought of as present, was suddenly absent. And my life was changed forever.

My dad … a hundred…what next?

“So in base two, a dollar is really worth four cents? And Donovan Bailey runs the four-meter dash? Is that right, sir?” The class tittered again. “And that song – ’A hundred bottles of beer on the wall’ – has got only four verses? It’s just crazy, sir.” I put my head in my hands.

From somewhere behind me came Nick’s voice. “Way to go, Squeaky!”

The class laughed out loud. I turned to glare at Nick. This wasn’t Norbert talking. This was me.

“You can stay after school tonight, Dingwall,” said Mr. Duschene. “For a hundred minutes…in base five. You see if you can work it out.”

Mr. Stern shook my hand in gym class. “I’m so glad you guys won today,” he said to Victor and Nick and Dylan and me. “A very special guest is coming to our next assembly. An old alumnus…probably our most famous alumnus. He’ll present the trophy. I wouldn’t want him thinking the Cougars are representative of the best this school has to offer today.”