Big Mouth (18 page)

Getting up and over the crowded bench was pretty tough thanks to my stiff, sore muscles. Tater was cool enough to let me shove and heave against his shoulder, though, so eventually I was free. I must’ve looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, all bent over and limping to the head.
Stupid training.
I was tired of being stiff, tired of being in pain, tired of being stuffed and thirsty and starving and cranky and dizzy and everything else. Training sucked.

A few feet away from the loo, I got cut off by a bunch of ninth grade girls. They didn’t even acknowledge me stumbling backward. Apparently that was the girls’ bathroom crossing, and I had wandered into their path. Silly me.

I waited impatiently as they strolled along. Finally there was a break in the line, and I dodged through it toward the guys’ bathroom—and nearly tripped over Shane in his wheelchair.

He glared up at me. “Watch where you’re going, Tub Enuff!”

Are you kidding me? You’re in a wheelchair. What’re you gonna do, bite me in the stomach?
I stepped around him.

He grabbed my arm. “Don’t ignore me,
scrub.
”

That’s it!
“Let go!” I yanked my arm up and it slipped out between his thumb and fingers, just like Captain Quixote did with the T’larian emperor in the “Quixote Strikes Back” episode. My muscles screamed in pain, but I was free.

I stormed stiffly into the bathroom, nearly knocking over a surprised Finn.

“Hey!” he protested.

“Don’t start with me,” I snapped. “What’s a guy gotta do around here to take a pee in peace?”

The Finn paused, and I could almost picture his fist flying into my face. But at the sound of Shane’s whiny call from outside, he turned and left. Lucky for him.

I stomped to the urinals on the other side of the room. They were empty, and there weren’t any feet visible under the stalls. Finally, a moment to myself.

Only that moment stretched into forever.
Stupid water training.

The urinal’s white porcelain was covered with marking pens of every color. There were phone numbers, shout-outs, cuss-outs, even poems.
Jeez, does anyone take a piss around here without a pen?
The stall doors behind me, which I could see in the face-level mirror, were totally scrawled-over with
GO, MUSTARD!
in yellow highlighter. I guess even the Mustard Taggers had to answer the call of nature.

When I finally got back out in the cafeteria, the ninth grade ladies were filing back out of the girls’ room.
Gee, what timing. Maybe later I’ll get lucky and step off the curb in front of a truck. No, wait, I already feel like I’ve been run over.
I waited for the girls to pass, nearly screaming with impatience at all their strolling and giggling and girl-hugging.

Aw, screw it.
I turned on my heel—
ow
—and headed out the other exit. I’d just take the long way around to the stadium. Given Gardo’s pickle surprise, I wasn’t in much of a hurry to see surprise number two.

“I am
not
jogging at lunchtime.”

Gardo and I were standing on the straightaway part of the dirt track that surrounded the football field. He had his sweatshirt on, with his hood up over a wool ski cap that was so low on his forehead, he had to tilt his head back to see me. The sun was high and warm, though the breeze was cool, thank goodness. There was no one else in the entire stadium to witness us here, but that didn’t make it any better. No witnesses were necessary because I’d be showing up to algebra class dripping with sweat, wheezing, coughing, and limping from yet another calf cramp.
Exercise feels good, my butt.

“We don’t have time for a jog,” I continued. “The bell rings in six minutes.”

“Then we’ll do six minutes of walking. We wouldn’t be here now if you’d been here this morning.” Gardo did a quick leg lunge to each side. “Put up your hood.”

I put up my white hood but refused to lunge. “We can’t do this now. We’ll get all sweaty, and I don’t want to be all sweaty for the rest of school.”

“Jeez, you can be such a girl sometimes. Here.” He fished my black Galactic Warriors T-shirt out of his gym bag and tossed it at me. “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”

I held it away from me like it had maggots on it. I was
not
going to put that on. It shrank the first time my mom washed it, I couldn’t even get it down over my gut. That’s why I said he could keep it. How much humiliation could a guy take?

“Fine, don’t put it on. Let’s go.” He started walking away from me down the track. “Shermie, remember our coach rule. What I say goes…so
go!
”

Stupid coach rule.
I followed after him, the Hunchback of Del Heiny Junior 13.
Ow. Ow. Ow
…

“Good,” he said, falling back to me. “We’re not doing anything insane, just getting our legs moving. This will work out the stiffness.”

I grumbled out of principle, but I had a feeling he was right about the working-out-the-stiffness thing. When I rode my bike home after racing to Gardo’s wrestling practice the other day, my muscles had felt a lot better. Kind of loose and lean. But then, my wobbly legs after that sprint to the gym were nothing compared to this post-jogging agony.

We reached the first curve on the track.

“The best thing for stiffness is stretching the muscles,” Gardo said. “Otherwise, day two stiffness is worse than day one.”

That
made me pick up the pace. “Worse” was not a word I wanted to hear.

I glanced at my watch. “Four minutes till the bell.”

“That’s fine. We’ll just finish this lap. After school, I want you down here doing three more laps. That’ll be a mile of walking. I have practice, so you’ll have to do it without me. Got it?”

“Yes, Coach,” I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Yes, Coach,” I said louder.

“Promise?”

“I promise! Jeez, relax.”

We walked the far straightaway in silence. I was less hunchback-y on that side of the track, and my calf felt a lot looser than it had when I’d flipped myself out of bed earlier. A bead of sweat trickled down my back. Thank goodness Gardo said we could dump the plastic wrap from our regimen. Even he’d had to admit that Coach Hunt’s Gut Wrap sucked.

We rounded the final bend on the track. I was breathing a little harder than normal, but not a lot. It felt kind of good, actually, cleansing even. This was way better than jogging. I could do this again. The empty stadium was kind of peaceful, truth be told.

Another bead of sweat slipped down my temple. A movement on the school’s roof caught my eye, a large bird or something. I whipped my head up for a better look and caught the sun hard in my eyes. The world went suddenly hazy and I stumbled.

“Whoa!” Gardo caught me. “What was that?”

I made sure my feet were firmly under me before I answered. “I don’t know. I just got a little dizzy, that’s all.” I shook my head, making the dizziness worse. “Let me just stand here a minute.”

“You need water. Here.” He pulled a small water bottle out of the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Drink half of it.”

I drank half of the water, and it worked wonders. Almost immediately, the dizziness was gone. I gave back the bottle. “Just thirsty, I guess.”

“You’ll get used to it.” He put the bottle back in his pocket. Part of me wanted to rip it right back out and run for my life. “I’ve been rationing my water since tryouts. It’s not so bad now, I’m only dizzy in the morning, after laying down all night. Be glad you don’t have to wrestle for two hours every morning and afternoon on top of all the other training.”

Amen to that.

“I could get used to this walking stuff, though. Look.” I did half a squat and stretched to my left and to my right. Not bad. The muscles were sore, but they weren’t so stiff.

We walked the last stretch of track, reaching his gym bag just as the first bell rang. When he picked up the bag, a ring of keys fell out into the dirt.

“Shoot,” he said. “I forgot to give Coach his keys back this morning.”

“What are you doing with his keys?”

He smiled mischievously. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“Funny.”

He shrugged. “Trust me, Shermie, you don’t want to know.”

I pictured him fetching a box full of Gut Wrap supplies and Gardo Glasses and who knew what else from Hunt’s desk. “I think you’re right.”

“I know I’m right.”

We headed up the stairs quicker than I would’ve liked, but we only had two or three minutes before the second bell. In a few hours I had to be back here, finishing up my three laps. And who knew, a walk might be kind of nice after sitting down and stiffening up for the next few hours. Maybe I’d even stretch before my laps; that would probably make me feel even looser. I’d miss my bus, but that was no big deal, I’d just catch the city bus. It was always running between school and the mall. And I’d be sure to go to the electronics store on level two during my Scoops break to buy another alarm clock. I couldn’t miss two mornings in a row with Gardo. He’d definitely have me doing the bleachers then.

Or worse, he might quit on me. And I couldn’t risk losing Gardo, too.

When I walked into the football stadium after school, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was packed. Runners were sprinting around the dirt track, the Black Cherry Heirloom flag team was twirling purple flags in the visitors’ end zone, cheerleaders were jumping and shaking purple pom-poms and tossing each other around in the middle of the field, and there was even a woman pushing a triple-wide stroller around the track with three matching boys strapped in it. What was up? That place should’ve been deserted. When the last bell of the day rang, most Plums I knew fled school like it was on fire. This was crazy.

I sat down in the home team bleachers to figure out what to do. Gardo wanted me to go down there and huff and puff my way around the track, but doing that in front of all these people would kill the Thuff Enuff rep in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t want me to ruin my rep, now would he? Besides, I had about as much energy for working out as a turnip.

Rapid footsteps came down the stairs to my left, then stopped suddenly. I glanced up to find Mad Max surveying the field and breathing heavily. She was wearing powder-yellow sweatpants and a matching zip-up sweatshirt and sweatband.

“Ms. Maxwell? What are you doing here?”

“Sherman, hello!
Phew.
” She dropped onto the wooden slat next to me and jerked her thumb back at the stairs. “I do laps every other afternoon. Keeps me sane.”

“Sane” was not the word I would have used for someone who ran steps voluntarily. An angry, hungry growl rumbled from my belly. I coughed to cover it up.

She studied the activity on the field below. “Did they drop anyone yet?”

“Who?”

“The cheerleaders. Someone eats turf at least once a practice.”

“Ms. Maxwell!”

“Oh, don’t worry, Sherman, those girls are like rubber; they bounce back up like nothing happened.” She kicked her shoe up on the bench just below ours to tighten her shoelace. “Cheerleaders are amazing athletes. They don’t get the credit they deserve.”

I shrugged. “Jumping around with short skirts and pom-poms doesn’t help them there.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does.”

We watched the cheerleaders for a moment. A short girl with a long blond ponytail did a bunch of somersaults in front of a pyramid of six other cheerleaders. Just as she cleared the pyramid, another small girl flew up like a firework from behind the stack, kicking her legs into splits and touching her toes before landing on the ground with her two feet solidly together. Half a second later, the pyramid collapsed, with cheerleaders rolling in every direction, then hopping up and clapping and cheering like their team just won the Super Bowl. Then they stopped on a dime, dropped their clapping hands and smiles, and got to work on another pyramid, stepping on each other’s hands and thighs and backs, completely serious and intense as they did it.

“That one who just did the somersaults,” I said, pointing, “she’s a Scoops-a-Million regular. Rocky Road, two scoops on a triple-dipped waffle cone, hot fudge, whipped cream, no nuts but two cherries. Every other night, at least. You’d never know it.”