Boy Toy (12 page)

Rachel was playing softball now, and for the first time the Three Musketeers were divided. (We called ourselves the Four Musketeers when Michelle was around, but by unspoken agreement between the athletes, we shifted to Three when discussing sports, which Michelle avoided.) The girls' softball field was near our practice field, though, so Zik and I would sneak over whenever we could to watch. We'd tease Rachel about her bizarre (to us) underhanded wind-up and delivery, but in pri vate we agreed that she was the best of the players we'd seen. We missed having her play baseball—even though she'd usually ended up on an opposing team, she was fun to practice with and play against.

Now, her reassignment to the depths of girls' softball was as much evidence as my sudden growth spurt that we were, inevitably, growing up.

History was my favorite subject that year, and not just because Mrs. Sherman was so much fun to look at. We were being taught all kinds of cool stuff—the Black Plague, the Crusades, stuff like that. Disease, death, brutal warfare—throw in some sex and music and you would have hit the jackpot.

Mrs. Sherman had, two weeks into the year, suddenly dowdied herself down. Zik and I talked about it on the bus for a while, trying to figure out why she'd foregone the clingy skirts and filmy blouses for heavier dresses and slacks and sweaters. Sure, it was getting cooler out, but it wasn't
cold
yet. She was still beautiful, her eyes warm and almost too intense for her face, her single dimple showing up whenever she smiled, and those lips...

But her body was becoming more and more of a mystery.

"Maybe she's pregnant," Zik said one day on the bus.

I hadn't even thought of that. I didn't even realize she was married. Or, rather, it hadn't firmly locked into my brain that she was married. We called her "Mrs. Sherman," so of course we knew that she was married, but the home lives of teachers were, at our age, purely theoretical constructs. Evidence pointed to their existence, but we had no concrete proof.

"Maybe." For some reason, I didn't like the idea of her being pregnant. I couldn't explain it, so I didn't say it.

"That would be awesome," Zik said. "I remember when my aunt was pregnant." He cupped his hands in front of his chest. "Huge, man!
Huge!
"

We laughed over that until some eighth-grader behind us told us to shut up, and then we just reduced ourselves to giggles.

As Fall Ball wrapped up, parent-teacher conferences kicked in. Mom and Dad went together back then. I had to go, too, since there would be no one to watch me at home. By now Mom had been working at Lake Eliot College for two months, but they weren't about to give me free rein in the house all day, so I ended up grumbling and complaining in the back seat on the way to school on a day that was
supposed
to be a vacation for me.

I sat in the back of each classroom as Mom and Dad held hushed conversations with my teachers up at their desks. Mom did most of the talking.

They spent the most time with Mrs. Sherman, who had dressed up that day, wearing a sleek gray skirt suit. From my position in the back of the room, I had a terrific view of her legs. It was intoxicating; I thought I might pass out.

On the way home, while Dad drove, Mom turned to me. "All of your teachers say you're doing very well."

"I know." And I did. I couldn't figure out the point of these conferences; I had an A in every class. The Streak was only three years old at that point, but I was still pretty confident.

"I don't know about these things," Mom said to Dad, echoing my thoughts. "They never have anything to say except, 'He's a great student. He's a good kid.' I'm starting to feel weird about it."

"You feel weird hearing good things about your kid?" Dad asked.

Mom sighed. "No. Don't you notice how they look at you? Like 'Are you so egotistical you have to come here to hear me gush about your son?'"

"I think you're overthinking this."

"Maybe you're underthinking it," Mom said.

Dad grunted. Mom turned back to me. "So, josh, who's your favorite teacher?"

It was no contest; history was just too cool a class. "Mrs. Sherman."

Mom laughed. "Yeah, I bet," she said.

Dad chuckled like he knew a secret. "Well, that's one thing we don't have to worry about, I guess," and Mom snorted more laughter.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Nothing, honey. Don't worry about it."

Seventh grade was also the year I got
really
sick and tired of stuff like that from my parents. "No." I leaned forward, straining against the seat belt. "Come on, Mom. What did he mean?"

"Nothing."

"Dad?"

"It's an adult thing." One of Dad's favorite phrases back then.

"Come on, you guys!" My voice cracked there, which ruined what I was about to say, which was "I'm almost an adult!" So I tried a different tactic instead. "It's not nice to talk about me like that while I'm right here."

Mom and Dad shared a glance.

"We just..." Mom hesitated, thinking. "All we meant was that it makes sense that you like Mrs. Sherman, because she likes you."

Huh? In a kid's lexicon,
like
can mean many things and is used as a substitute for
lust after
and
love,
as in: "I like her. I mean, I
like
like her." Even suffering from a brand of puppy love, I knew that Mrs. Sherman didn't
like
like me.

"She said that you're her best student, but she was worried at first because you look so much older and more mature than most of the other kids. She thought you had been held back a year and she couldn't figure out why you were in the advanced class. So she was relieved when you turned out to be a smart kid. What did she call him, Bill?"

"'My little historian,'" Dad said, without missing a beat.

Her little historian? From their reactions, my parents clearly thought it was cute, but I was horrified. It sounded like I was a doll or an action figure.

"I like history," I told them stubbornly, because they seemed to find the idea of me being a historian funny. And even though I didn't like being a doll, I liked amusing my parents even less.

"I'm sure, honey," Mom said, but she said it in the same tone that she'd said, "Yeah, I bet."

No one expected the snow.

Flakes hit early on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving when I was on the bus. The weather report, though, said that the big stuff wouldn't come until later that night.

Instead, by ten o' clock or so, someone shouted, "Look at that!"

The soccer field was visible from Mr. Tunney's classroom. We couldn't see the turf at all. Snow had drifted up to half the height of the goals.

"Holy crap!" someone else said with all the fervor a seventh-grader can muster.

"That's enough of that!" Mr. Tunney said sharply, but by now twenty twelve-year-olds had gotten up and begun to congregate at the window.

"That's enough!" he said again, coming over to the window to shoo us back into our seats. "It's just snow; you've seen it before. Back to your seats."

Just as Mr. Tunney managed to get us back to our seats, the PA crackled and Mrs. Cameron, the principal, told us that schools were closing early. A cheer went up and Mr. Tunney threw his hands up in defeat.

***

I've thought about this next part a lot, and I'm still not entirely sure about it. I know that the storm ended up getting caught between two fronts and just kept spinning over our area, dumping more and more snow by the minute. I have vivid memories of watching the news that night, the weatherman gesturing clockwise over an image of the storm clouds as they spun like a pottery wheel.

I understand the storm just fine. I
don't
understand how I missed my bus.

We had to get to our lockers and pack up. The halls were a bustle of activity, kids shouting and laughing, teachers trying to ride herd on the whole thing. The PA would blare to life at random intervals, announcing this bus or that bus had arrived at this or that spot on the parking circle. I filled up my backpack and headed outside.

Snow swirled around me, thick like dust in a shaft of light. I was scared and thrilled at the same time. It was like being caught in a whirlwind. My heart pounded with excitement. I thought of snowballs, snow forts, snowmen.

Crunching the three inches of white powder under my feet, I made my way to the spot where my bus usually waited. But something was wrong—the kids getting on weren't kids who lived near me. And when I looked up into the bus, the driver was a stranger.

I backed up a step. The bus number was wrong.

I walked down the line of buses, looking for number 481. Nothing.

Well, OK, I figured. It's snowing. The roads are bad. It's just running late or backed up somewhere.

I fought against the press of kids heading for their buses until I was back in school. The PA announced that bus 10 was ready at the end of the parking circle.

I was waiting for 481, which, by some strange coincidence, was my batting average in sixth grade, the previous year. I had gone 26 for 54 with five doubles and two triples. What annoyed me, though, is that I
know
I could have broken .500 that year. Just one more hit—one more lousy hit—would have put me at .500. Two more hits would have been...

I did the math in my head: .519. Wow! Two more hits. Just two hits! If I'd been left in a couple more games and gotten, say, five more at bats ... I would have easily hit two or three times, no question. That would have made me ... Let's see ... that would have made me 29 for 59 ... which is only a .493 average, which is still higher than .481. Coach should have let me play those extra innings. If I'd played, say,
ten
more at bats and hit half the time, I'd be at ... 31 for 64, which is ... not much better. So I'd need to hit more than half the time, which I could have done, especially late in the season, when I was really into my swing. I went 4 for 4 in the last game of the season, 2 for 3 before that, 2 for 2 before
that
...

That was when I realized how quiet the hall had gotten. There was no one else there. I looked around. Maybe everyone was clustered around the door?

No. No one there.

What was going on? I wasn't the only kid on my bus! There had to be other kids here, even if my bus was the last one.

Maybe everyone was outside. Maybe I'd missed the announcement for my bus!

I ran outside, bursting through the doors into the swirling chaos of the storm. The snow was easily four inches deep now, and I almost lost my footing as I stepped into it.

The parking circle was empty except for slushy gray ruts carved into the snow by the tires and exhaust fumes of departed buses.

Maybe my bus was on its way? Maybe...

No. Even as a desperate seventh-grader, I knew that was wishful thinking. I'd missed the bus, plain and simple.

What could I do now? Could I walk home? I was pretty sure I could walk the distance—I was in good shape, after all—but I wasn't sure
how
to get home. Especially on foot. And the snow made the prospect all the more daunting. How high would it get by the time I got home?

I allowed myself a few seconds of panic, standing in the snow, alone in the whole wide world as far as I could tell. How would I get home? Would my parents be coming home early, trying to figure out where I was? What was going to happen to me?

I went back into school. It was so strange and so quiet in there, every footstep echoing off the lockers like the sounds monster feet make in movies.

A wall clock told me that it was just a little bit past twelve-thirty. There still had to be
someone
here, right?

I made my way through the corridors. It felt like being in a haunted house, only one with flickering fluorescent lights. The classrooms were all closed and dark. I tried a door—it was locked.

I walked faster. There had to be
someone—

Just then, I turned a corner into the main lobby. Across the way, I saw the lights of the office.

In the office were the school secretary, the principal, and Mrs. Sherman, who was bundled up in a heavy coat and wool hat, tugging on a pair of very red leather gloves. "—like two years ago," she was saying. The secretary was pretty much ignoring her, typing on her keyboard.

"Um, excuse me?"

It was like I'd pulled a pistol and shouted, "No one move!" All three of them froze and turned to look at me.

Mrs. Sherman was the first to speak: "Josh, what are you
doing
here?"

"My bus isn't—"

"We called all of the buses," the secretary said with a little snappish edge to her voice. "All of them."

"Which bus are you?" the principal asked. "Four eighty-one."

"That was one of the first ones we called," the secretary said. "Didn't you hear it?"

Now I was getting pissed. How was this my fault? "I went to the stop, but it wasn't there."

"We
announced
it," she said again, as if that would reverse time and put me on the bus. "We had different stops for them all because they were ... Oh, who cares?" And she turned to look helplessly at the principal.