Kickoff! (3 page)

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 about 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!”

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.

“Yeah, Boomer. He's disrespecting me.”

“Want me to teach him a lesson for you?”

“Nah, that's okay. I'll teach him myself—out on the practice field. What's your name, shrimp? Is it Wimpy?”

“No, it's Ronde.”

“Ron-day?”
Bryce said, snorting. “What kind of a name is that?”

“A weird one,” said Boomer.

Bryce snorted again. “Too weird for me. I'm gonna call you Wimpy instead.”

Ronde had taken about enough of this. “It's not a weird name,” he insisted. “No weirder than yours.”

Bryce seemed stunned for a minute. Then his face grew red with anger, and he started toward Ronde. “Okay, that's it! I don't take any noise from seventh graders.”

Boomer held his friend back. “Easy, Bryce. Take it outside, like you said. Settle it on the field.”

“Right,” said Bryce, backing down slowly. “That's right.” To Ronde, he added, “You're dead meat, Wimpy.”

Just at that moment, Tiki walked into the locker room.

“Whoa!” said Boomer. “Lookie, lookie, there's two of 'em!”

“Yeah,” said Bryce, flashing an evil grin. “One for me, and one for you.”

Tiki looked at them, then at Ronde. “What's up?” he asked.

“We eat seventh graders for lunch,” said Bryce.

Ronde's heart was pounding in his chest and echoing in his ears. Visions of Beat the Seventh Graders Day floated back into his head. Wasn't that supposed to be tomorrow, not today?

“Okay, Shrimpy and Wimpy. Get ready to get knocked flat on your behinds,” said Bryce.

“Hey!” came a loud voice from behind Tiki and Ronde. “Cut it out, you turkeys. These guys might wind up being your teammates.”

Ronde turned around. A tall, dark-haired boy on crutches, with a cast on his left leg, stood in the doorway.

“Yeah, right,” said Boomer. “Like these two flyweights would ever make the team.”

“Leave them alone,” said the boy on crutches. “They've got enough on their minds today.”