The Magickers (5 page)

WHAM! Hit and hit hard, Jason tumbled. He felt a sickening crunch in his ankle that did not stop until his body screeched to a halt on the grass. He sprawled, heart pounding and leg screaming in pain. Sam bent over him. “Oh, man!”

Jason writhed on the ground. The hot, heavy smell of another body hit him.

“Little body check,” Canby noted. “Didn't you see me coming?” The chunky boy stood up, smirking. Divots of grass and dirt fell from his body.

All Jason could do was grab his leg and try not to cry.

“Canby!” yelled the coach. “You're not supposed to tackle the runners!”

“Oh, yeah?” Canby looked down at Jason, who tried to sit up and then lay flat with a groan. “He wasn't in the drill?”

“You know he wasn't!” Sam stood nose-to-nose—well, nose-to-chest—with Canby.

Canby looked at Sam. “Prove it.” He backed off as the coach reached Jason.

“Come on, son, get up! Walk it off. Let's go.”

Jason rolled to his side. He tried to get up. He put all he had into it. “I can't!”

His ankle shot lightning bolts of pain through him, and all he could manage was to kneel there, holding onto his right ankle, hot tears at the corner of his eyes. He shook his head, gasping for words.

The coach bent over him. “Sit back and let's have a look, then.” He probed Jason's ankle thoroughly, each examination bringing gasps and grunts of pain from Jason. The coach squeezed Jason's shoulder. “That's a pretty bad sprain. I'd say soccer season is over. Might have some ligament damage. Anyone at home who can come pick you up?”

“Shoot,” Sam muttered. “There goes everything.”

A shadow fell over Jason as he began to recite his stepmother's cell phone number. Martin Brinkford looked down and smiled thinly, his slender face hardly even heated from the run. “I had you beat anyway.”

The coach looked up sharply. Brinkford pulled his face into a concerned expression. “We'll have to match up again. There'll be tryouts for winter league. I'd like to beat your butt fairly.”

“Brinkford!” the coach snapped. Brinkford shrugged.

“Yeah. I'll see you then.” Jason stared into the other's face, the sheer pain of the ankle gone for a moment. Brinkford and Canby drifted away as the coach got an answer on the cellular phone and even Jason, sitting on the ground, could hear Joanna's brisk and excited responses. He was not to be moved. She'd be right there to pick him up.

“Oh, man,” repeated Sam, his face wrinkled with worry and upset. “Tough luck.”

Tough luck. Crystal ball or not. . . . Was there any other kind?

3

J
OANNA frowned, then quickly relaxed her face as though worried she might create a line there. “I thought you said no tackling?”

“Well, it wasn't a tackle, exactly.”

She put a glass of milk on the kitchen table and stood to watch as Jason fooled a bit more with his air splints. “Then what was it?”

“Not like a football full-body tackle. It was a sliding tackle. Like . . . hmm . . . when a runner in baseball slides into base and takes out the second baseman? They can knock you off your feet, and that's what he did to me.” He could only be thankful they hadn't gone through this dialogue at the Emergency Room.

“But this is soccer, dear.”

“I know, but . . .”

She looked at him, one eyebrow perfectly arched.

Jason inhaled. “You're right. But this is a soccer move, only I wasn't in the drill with him and never saw him coming. I was in a running trial. Sam waved at me. I thought he was trying to get me to run faster.” He sighed.

“That sprain can be worse than a break.” Joanna set a plate in front of him, heaped with potato chips and a freshly made tuna salad sandwich on fluffy white bread. “You're going to have to wear that splint for a few weeks. You're going to need care and watching.” She sighed.

“I'll be careful.”

“Once it heals, you can think about soccer in the fall.”

“You'll let me try out again?” He remembered to shut his mouth before she asked him to. His jaws ached with the surprise, though.

Joanna smiled. “Well, if they have to carry you out on a stretcher a second time, I think we're going to have to find a new sport. But, yes, William and I think sports build character. However, this leaves us with a quandary.”

He filled his hand with the enormous sandwich. Someone at one of her many club meetings must have told her about growing appetites. He tried not to wolf it down while he thought of worrisome things.

Alicia had been remarkably quiet. She assembled some carrot sticks on her plate into what looked like a Chinese symbol. Carefully, she picked all around it till, suddenly aware that she was being watched, she looked up, blinked, then smiled.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?” Joanna answered as she sat down with a bowl heaped with salad greens and a sprinkling of dressing. Dozer was evidently off at one of his late meetings. She straightened the country gingham place mat, smiling brightly at her daughter.

“Did Jason screw everything up?”

Jason looked from one to the other. Why did he suddenly feel guilty? “I didn't mean to.” His ankle throbbed in agreement. He crunched some chips to avoid saying anything else. His mouth filled with a burst of salt and potato flavor.

“I know, dear, and I know you're going to miss Sam all summer. Anyway, Mrs. Cowling phoned. She asked to come over.”

“She did? What for?”

“She heard about your leg. She has something to discuss with us.” And Joanna made a slight face which meant the subject was closed for the moment. Curious, he devoured the last half of his sandwich, under which he found a haystack of carrot sticks as well. Munching, he sat back in his chair, his foot propped up on the spare chair. His air-filled soft splints were nothing less than radical looking, and in a day or two he could wear shoes again. In the meantime, he got to wear sandals a week before anyone else at school, until classes let out for the summer. It was poor compensation for having his summer ruined, though.

“Mo-om,” prompted Alicia. “Am I still going or not?”

Joanna jumped up and went to her daughter, hugging her. “Of course you're going!” She squeezed Alicia tightly. “The summer in Colorado at film camp! You're going to have such fun and learn so many things!”

Jason watched them. A mixture of feelings went through him. He sat silently for a moment, thinking. Camp had sounded neat. It really had. Playing soccer every day, doing camp stuff with Sam. Belonging in a certain place, day in and day out, without wondering if he was only there 'cause the others were just so darned polite!

He shifted in his chair. Something crinkled in his jeans pocket and he drew it out.
You may have already won
. . . He looked at the scrap of paper. How had that gotten there? It seemed to migrate through his clothing without any help from him! He buried it before Alicia could notice.

“And, of course, William and I have plans.” Joanna frowned slightly. “That is, Jason, if we can find a place for you. Mrs. Canby offered, you know, to make amends by watching you for the summer. Now, her husband is a big supplier for William, but I don't trust that boy. He has always had a kind of mean look. Squinty eyes. So, I thanked her and said no. You don't mind, do you?”

Jason snorted. He almost inhaled his milk. Neither Canby nor Brinkford had made the team because of “bad sportsmanship” in the tackle on Jason, which the two had evidently planned. Alicia watched him as he put a napkin to his face and coughed. When his nose and throat seemed to have settled down, he said, “No, that's fine. So now what? What do I do?”

“I know you don't want to go to Grandma's, but most camps are already filled. We haven't much of a choice.” Joanna's voice trailed off, and she looked at him thoughtfully.

It was torture. Like having your toenails pulled off one at a time, watching Joanna ponder. Were they going to send him to geekville or retirement city? Because it was obvious he was getting sent off
somewhere.

Both looked at him now. Alicia seemed to have finished building whatever it was she was building with her food instead of eating it.

Jason stared at his plate as if Mrs. Cowling's crystal ball rested there and could give him a hint of what was going on. He waited hopefully. His eyes blurred and for a moment, the barest moment, he thought he could see the gleaming eye of that midnight crow looking up at him. He blinked and stared hard at the shiny porcelain plate, littered with bread crust crumbs and a broken potato chip. The image, if it had been there at all, was gone.

“There is an alternative to staying with Grandma McIntire, but it's last minute and you'll be on your own, not going with Sam. I don't think you'd like it, but I'm open to what Mrs. Cowling has to suggest.”

He waited to hear more, his curiosity roused. What had Mrs. Cowling said?

Alicia wrinkled her nose. “C'mom, Mom.” She squirmed impatiently.

Joanna tapped her butter knife on the table. “Did Jason make fun of your camp?”

Alicia's mouth snapped shut, and she sank back in her chair. Her bottom lip pouted out silently.

He shifted in his chair. “I don't want to stay with Grandma.”

“It would kill two birds with one stone. She always gets terribly lonely when her nurse takes her vacation, and it would be nice to have someone there. And you have to have someplace to go. I don't want to cancel our plans, this is . . . well, it's our honeymoon. We delayed it, but now it's all planned and paid for.” Joanna blushed faintly as she put her napkin to her lips.

“But Grandma . . . She's . . . she's dotty!”

“Eccentric,” corrected Joanna. Behind her mother, Alicia rolled her eyes and mouthed, “D'oh.” He pretended he hadn't seen her.

“She won't take cable television because she's afraid they're spying on her. The only thing she can still cook is Jell-o and I'm sick and tired of that. I have to mow and trim the lawn twice a week—”

“She has fast-growing grass. And that's only a tiny area around her little home.” Joanna patted his hand. “I know she has strange ideas, but she's very fond of you. You need to try, Jason, to think of all of us as your family. Sometimes, I don't think you do.”

He stared at the table. Sometimes, he didn't. Sometimes, he didn't think they thought of him as anything other than a guest. A guest they were now trying to pawn off, very politely.

“There is a swimming pool there,” Joanna said helpfully.

“I have to have a special pass to use it. They don't like kids there. Right, Alicia?”

“It's a retirement park. They have lots of rules.” Alicia shrugged. “You've got to go somewhere. Maybe you could make money mowing the other lawns.”

“Nearly everyone else has gravel.” He stared at her. She was being no help at all. What did she care? She had
her
wish for the summer. He could feel the corner of his mouth turn into a surly curve as he opened it to protest again when the doorbell rang.

Joanna got up quickly. “That must be Mrs. Cowling now. Come into the living room with us. Alicia, clear the table.”

He wrinkled his nose at her as he trailed his stepmother from the room. At least he didn't have kitchen duty.

His English teacher came into the house in a flourish of peacock-blue fabric. She hugged both of them and took up residence on the edge of the couch, a wide smile shining from ear to ear. “How's the ankle?” She watched as he sat down and propped his foot on the coffee table. Joanna smiled at Mrs. Cowling.

Jason looked around, found the ottoman and used that instead. “It hurts,” he admitted. “I have to take some Tylenol every couple of hours. It'll be better tomorrow.”

“Broken? That is a splint?”

“Bad sprain. That's really to keep some pressure on it and to keep me from twisting it more. I even have to wear it at night.” Jason looked at it proudly.

“Good idea.” Mrs. Cowling settled her long, sweeping blouse about her. “I am sorry you were hurt.”

He shrugged. “It's all right.”

“All may not be lost.” She took a deep breath and spoke to his stepmother. “As you know, the school participates in the statewide Imagination Celebration. I like to assign essays. Other classes do skits, artwork, and so on. It all goes on display at the mall. But, of course, you know that. You were there for the ribbons and things.” She gave Jason a proud glance.

Jason fought off a blush and sat straighter in his chair. Mrs. Cowling had been ten times prouder of him than either Joanna or the Dozer. Alicia had had a dance recital for that same celebration. She had a gold trophy sitting somewhere in her bedroom.

“Jason, a gentleman by the name of Gavan Rainwater wrote the school. He was very impressed by your essay, it appears, and he's sent in an offer of a scholarship to his camp. I confirmed it yesterday as soon as I heard about your accident. I have brochures—information—all right here. I looked into it. They are new, but they have references. I mentioned it to your mother when I called to come over, and she said it was your decision.” Mrs. Cowling dipped into her rather large purse and produced a handful of colorful papers.

“Camp Ravenwyng?” noted Joanna thoughtfully. She spread a brochure open. “They don't mind taking him with that ankle?”

“Oh, no. This is a creativity and leadership camp, although there're activities of all kinds.” Mrs. Cowling watched Jason.

“I'm not going to be crippled
all
summer. Maybe I can still go to soccer camp in a few weeks?”