Kickoff! Read online

  He bumped into the girl in front of him when she stopped at the door to the second floor. “Sorry,” he said, glancing up at her.

  She clicked her tongue, rolled her eyes, and said, “Watch where you’re going, stupid.”

  Tiki felt like a complete idiot! Why did he have to bump into that girl? And why did she have to be so mean about it? Was everybody in this school going to be as mean as her?

  He felt like running right back down the stairs and outside, back into the beautiful September morning. But he knew he couldn’t.

  He found room 208, and headed straight for the back of the classroom, where he zoned in on the last available empty seat. Tiki was determined to sit in the back of the class, where he could hide from the teacher’s gaze whenever he didn’t know the answer to a question. He usually knew—but just hated to be wrong.

  But before he could reach the seat, another boy bumped him out of the way and plunked himself down in it!

  Tiki turned around and checked out the rest of the seats. He quickly grabbed one in the third row—as far from the teacher’s desk as he could get. Tiki promised himself that when this class was over, he’d run like the wind to get to his next classroom, so he’d have plenty of time to find a seat in the back row.

  His math teacher, Mr. Vaughn, was incredibly boring. He spoke in a monotone, and never smiled.

  And the math was hard! Whenever Mr. Vaughn talked about algebra, Tiki got so confused it felt like his eyes were crossing.

  Pretty soon, Tiki found himself feeling sleepy. He wasn’t used to getting up so early in the morning—he and Ronde had set their alarm for six thirty to get to school by seven thirty—and he hadn’t slept well besides, what with all those nightmares about school. Tiki had to keep stopping himself from nodding off, to avoid making a fool of himself.

  Maybe it was the big breakfast Mom made us, he thought. Big meals always had a way of making him sleepy. Or maybe it was just that Mr. Vaughn was so boring!

  Tiki couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. When it finally did, he took off at full speed, running down the hallway and dodging the other kids in his way. He held his book bag like a football, and pretended he was the great Walter Payton, dodging defenders as he raced for the end zone.

  “Hey! Watch it!” yelled one kid after Tiki passed him by, nearly knocking him into the wall.

  “Slow down there!” called a teacher who was acting as hall monitor. Tiki did, but only for a minute.

  He got to history class just in time to grab a seat in the back row, all the way in the corner. Then he took a minute to catch his breath as the other seats began to fill up.

  The front rows were taken up by the brainy kids—most of them girls—who always raised their hands for every question. Tiki didn’t care. It seemed to him that they were less interested in learning new things than they were in showing off what they already knew.

  Tiki usually knew the right answers, no matter what the class. But he almost never raised his hand. He didn’t want to risk being wrong. If you were wrong, everybody thought you were stupid. Even if they didn’t laugh in class, they would behind your back.

  History class wound up being not too bad—it was his favorite subject, after all, and the teacher was a nice lady, Ms. Walker, who didn’t give them any homework because it was the first day of school. But Tiki could tell that once things got going, she’d be giving out plenty of work.

  As soon as the bell rang, he did another magnificent job of open-field running to get to science class, and grabbed another prized seat in the back row. The class slowly filled with kids—hey, there was Adam! Tiki’s mood started to brighten. He’d always liked science—and whoever the teacher was, he or she had to be better than Mr. Vaughn!

  The late bell rang, and a second later, the teacher walked in. He had a beard that was starting to go gray, and a shock of dark hair on top of his head that went in all directions. “Hello, everyone,” he said. “My name is Sam Wheeler, but you can call me . . . Mr. Wheeler.”

  The kids laughed, and Tiki started to relax. Mr. Wheeler had a sense of humor, and that could only be good.

  “First, I want everyone to stand up,” Mr. Wheeler said. When the kids were all standing, he continued, “Okay, everyone in the two back rows, switch seats with the two front rows.”

  A loud groan went up from all the kids in the rows he’d mentioned. “I’ve found that it’s best to get the slackers up front right away,” said Mr. Wheeler. “That way, they can’t get away with sleeping through class! And you kids in the front, take a break, will you? I already know you know the answers.”

  Whoa, thought Tiki, as he shuffled miserably up to the front row. This guy must be some kind of mind reader.

  Mr. Wheeler started talking about the topics they’d be covering that year in Science. But the whole time he was talking, he kept scanning the class. He had the face of a hawk, or an eagle—yeah, that was it, Tiki thought. An eagle—that nose, those eyes . . . Mr. Wheeler could have been the school mascot!

  His eyes drilled right into you. Tiki was terrified of those eyes—especially after Mr. Wheeler spotted Adam whispering to the kid next to him. Mr. Wheeler crumpled a piece of paper into a hard little ball, raised his right hand, and fired!

  The paper ball hit Adam right between the shoulders. “Hey! Pay attention!” Mr. Wheeler said.

  Adam turned around, his face beet red. The whole class laughed their heads off. It wasn’t like anyone thought it was so funny, Tiki figured—they were just relieved it wasn’t them.

  “I’m not here for my health,” said Mr. Wheeler, scanning the class again with those eagle eyes. “I’m here for you—so don’t disrespect me.” Then he went back to teaching.

  The day’s lesson was about the planets of the solar system. Tiki had always dreamed of being an astronaut, and normally, he would have been very interested. But for some reason—and in spite of his fear of Mr. Wheeler—Tiki soon found himself fighting the urge to sleep.

  He checked his watch—it was only ten thirty, but he’d already been in school for three whole hours! More important, he’d been up since six thirty in the morning.

  Waves of exhaustion washed over him, and he had to keep willing himself to keep his eyes open. He wondered if Ronde was going through the same thing. He wondered what football tryouts would be like that afternoon. He wondered . . .

  Suddenly he felt something hard hit him on the head!

  Tiki sprang to attention. The whole class was looking at him, laughing! He reached up and felt the top of his head, then looked on top of his desk. There was a crumpled-up ball of paper on it.

  Oh, no!

  “Did I say to pay attention, or didn’t I?” Mr. Wheeler asked Tiki.

  “Yes,” Tiki murmured.

  “What? I can’t hear you!”

  “Yes, sir!” More nervous laughter from the class, glad it wasn’t them.

  “I won’t tolerate disrespect. Get it through your heads right now, people. All right; let’s get on with—”

  Mercifully, the bell rang, and it was time for lunch. Not a moment too soon, either. Tiki rushed out of the room and ran for the cafeteria as if his life depended on it.

  This was turning out to be the worst day of his whole entire life.

  • • •

  Ronde was in a panic. Here he was in his last class before lunch, math—always his best subject—and he had no idea what the teacher was talking about!

  He thought back to sixth grade, when Miss Johnson had first introduced them to algebra. He hadn’t really understood it. Why hadn’t he raised his hand back then to ask her to explain?

  Ronde knew why he hadn’t—because everyone would have laughed at him. But if only he’d taken that chance in sixth grade, he wouldn’t have been so lost now!

  If only somebody else would raise their hand and ask Ms. Black to go over it again! But nobody did. And no way was Ronde going to raise his hand and admit he had no clue!

  He was sure all the other kids already knew abou
t algebra. He could tell, by the questions the brainy kids in the front row asked. He was sitting up front too—right in the middle of them—but keeping his hand firmly down.

  The first day of school hadn’t been so bad until now. He’d gotten through almost the whole morning without any awful stuff happening, and lunch was coming up. If he could just get through the next ten minutes without messing up, he could relax for almost a whole hour. He’d see Tiki; they’d sit together and compare notes, and everything would feel normal again.

  And then, after a few more classes . . . football tryouts!

  Ronde couldn’t wait. He was so excited about it, he’d almost forgotten about Beat the Seventh Graders Day.

  Almost.

  “Hello? Earth to Ronde?”

  It was Ms. Black, calling his name!

  Ronde came to instant attention. “Um, could you repeat the question?”

  “What? For the fourth time?”

  The whole class exploded into laughter. Ronde felt like sliding down under his desk, and staying there forever.

  Why hadn’t he been paying attention? Why hadn’t he raised his hand once, just to show her he was listening? Sure, he might have given the wrong answer, but any answer would have been better than none at all!

  Now he looked like a complete idiot.

  “Very well—what is the square root of one hundred forty-four?” Ms. Black asked.

  “Um . . .” Ronde tried to remember how to do square roots. He used to know. But it had been a long summer, and now he couldn’t recall. “Three?” he guessed.

  The teacher made a “tsk” sound with her tongue. “Somebody else. Yes, Norman?”

  Norman had been holding his hand up the whole time, going “Ooo! Ooo!” Now he smirked at Ronde and said, “Twelve.”

  “That’s right,” Ms. Black said. “Very good, Norman. Now, Ronde, I want you to review pages 133 to 135 in your math book tonight. In fact, all of you had better review it—there’ll be a quiz on it later this week.”

  A groan went up from the class. “Thanks a lot, Ronde,” said the kid next to him. “Thanks a billion jillion.”

  Ronde headed to lunch feeling totally bummed. But before he entered the cafeteria, he took a deep breath, and tried to act like everything was normal. Just in case Tiki’d had a great morning, Ronde didn’t want to look like a loser by telling his brother how badly things had gone.

  He spotted Tiki, standing in the lunch line. “Hey, what’s up?” Ronde greeted him.

  “Hey,” Tiki said. “How’s it going?”

  “Great. Great,” Ronde said. “You?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  By this time, a bunch of other kids had gathered around the brothers. “Hey, check this out!” said a boy Ronde recognized from English class—a real pain by the name of Kelvin. “I’m seein’ double!”

  “Me too!” said another boy, obviously a friend of Kelvin’s. “It’s the attack of the clones!”

  “Yaaaa!!” The two boys started pretending to freak out. Everyone around them laughed, while Tiki and Ronde just stood there, taking it.

  “Help! They’re multiplying! Aaaahh!!”

  Tiki and Ronde picked out their food, paid for it, and headed for a table over in the corner—as far away from Kelvin and his obnoxious buddies as they could get.

  “This food looks like crud,” Tiki said, checking out his plate. “What’d you get?”

  “Welsh Rarebit—whatever that is. You?”

  “Macaroni Surprise—whatever that is.”

  “What is a ‘rarebit,’ anyway? Some kind of rabbit?”

  “Beats me.”

  Ronde smelled his food and made a face. “Man. We should’ve asked Mom to make us sandwiches.”

  “Yeah. She makes the best ones.”

  They picked slowly at their food, making faces. Tiki wished their mom hadn’t made them be in different classes. He was sure that none of that bad stuff would have happened if Ronde’d been there with him.

  Taking another bite of this “mystery meat,” Ronde looked up and spotted Norman coming toward them.

  Ronde spat the meat back out into his dish. “Oh, no,” he said under his breath.

  “What?” Tiki asked.

  “Incoming.”

  “Hey, Ronde!” Norman greeted him. “Wait, hold on. Which one of you is—don’t tell me. You’re identical twins!”

  “Bingo,” said Ronde. He hated it when people did this. They weren’t identical in everything after all—Tiki was more serious and Ronde liked to joke around more. And they argued about who was the better athlete.

  “Wait, but which one’s Ronde?”

  “Me.”

  “I’m Tiki. Nice to meet you.”

  “Man, this is so cool,” said Norman, not even seeing Tiki’s outstretched hand. “Hey, do you guys ever pretend to, like, be each other? You know, like, take each other’s tests and stuff?”

  “Not really,” Tiki said.

  “’Cause you could cheat really easy and get away with it.”

  “You gonna sit down?” Ronde asked, ignoring his suggestion.

  “No, thanks—I’m sitting with my friends. You know, from last year.”

  “Okay—check you out later, then.”

  “Yeah. Hey, if you’re not gonna cheat, you really ought to do some serious studying, Ronde. Otherwise, we’re all gonna be in trouble.”

  “I don’t cheat,” Ronde said.

  “Me neither,” said Tiki.

  Norman shrugged. “Hey, it was just a suggestion. I cheat all the time, and no one ever knows. How do you think I knew the answer today?”

  Ronde was stunned. “You really—?”

  “Nah, I knew the answer. I was just messing with you. I mean, square roots? Honestly, that is so sixth grade. You embarrassed yourself today. No, wait, let me correct that—you embarrassed all of us. Hit the books, will ya?”

  “Yeah, I’ll . . . I’ll do that,” Ronde said, wishing he could punch Norman right in his big, loud mouth.

  “Hey, man—don’t talk to my brother like that!” Tiki said. “Ronde, what’s he talking about?”

  “Nothing,” Ronde said. “Don’t listen to—”

  But he was too late. Norman was already telling Tiki the whole story of Ronde’s terrible moment.

  Tiki nodded, his face serious. “Wow,” he said. “Mmm, that’s rough.”

  After Norman had gone, Tiki looked at Ronde and said, “Hey, man, things were tough for me, too.”

  “They were?” Ronde felt badly for Tiki, but he was also relieved in a way. It was good to know he wasn’t the only one who was having a hard time.

  “Yeah, man,” Tiki said. “I got hit in the head by a ball of crumpled-up paper.”

  “No lie?”

  “I totally did. Even worse, my teacher was the one who threw it!”

  “Come on.”

  “No lie.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m telling you! He’s got a good arm, too. It came fast!” He rubbed the top of his head, frowning.

  “That’s pretty bad,” Ronde said. “But it’s not as bad as the whole class laughing at you.”

  “You think they didn’t laugh at me?”

  Ronde sighed. “Man, I’ll tell you—junior high is hard.”

  ”Mad hard.”

  “Any time you raise your hand, you can get in big trouble.”

  “I didn’t even raise mine, and I still got creamed!” said Tiki.

  “I’m never gonna raise my hand,” said Ronde.

  “Me neither. Man, I sure hope it gets better from here on out.”

  “I hear that.”

  Tiki touched fists with him. “I can’t wait for football tryouts.”

  Ronde nodded, smiling for the first time in hours. “Me neither—it’s gonna rock, baby!”

  CHAPTER THREE

&nb
sp; TAKE THE FIELD

  * * *

  RONDE GOT THROUGH HIS AFTERNOON CLASSES OKAY. In music, everyone was busy learning a really corny song called “It’s a Small, Small World,” which kept repeating the same words over and over.

  And in Spanish, everyone was a beginner like him. He learned how to say “yo no sé”—“I don’t know”—something he figured would come in handy if the Spanish teacher ever called on him to answer a question.

  Still, he was determined never to raise his hand again in any class, unless he was absolutely, positively sure he knew the answer. Being wrong was way too painful—it made you look stupid in front of everybody, and it just made it harder to raise your hand next time.

  Ronde made his way to the locker room, weaving through the crowd of kids heading for the exits. Football, at last, he thought. Finally! Tiki would be there, and so would all his friends from Mews Hill—Chris, Jason, Adam, Paco . . .

  Ronde was sure he and Tiki would impress the coaches. They were both natural athletes, and football was their best sport by far. They’d been standouts in Peewee League, and they would be standouts here, too.

  At least, that’s what Ronde thought—until he stepped into the locker room and got his first close-up look at the kids who were already on the team. As they changed into their well-worn Hidden Valley Eagles practice jerseys, these eighth and ninth graders looked gigantic—they had to be twice Ronde’s size!

  He looked around for Tiki, or anyone else he knew. Where were they all, anyway? What was keeping them?

  “Hey, shrimp!” one of the big kids called out.

  Ronde pretended not to hear. He put his book bag down and opened a locker to see if it was empty.

  “Hey! Tiny! You hear me calling you? Turn around, baby face!”

  Ronde turned around as he was ordered, and pointed to his own chest. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you,” said the enormous boy wearing the number fifty-two. He had a face pocked with pimples, and a mean look in his beady little eyes. “You see any other shrimps around here?”

  “This kid giving you trouble, Bryce?” asked another humongous boy, this one wearing the number fifty-three.