The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco (5 page)

Phillip surveyed the herd of sixth-graders. Most of the kids who weren’t making fun of him were bent over with laughter.

Coach blew his whistle.

“That’s enough,” he said. As if on cue, the bell rang, and the pack of howling children raced out of the gym.

They were all gone.

Phillip breathed a sigh of relief. Until he realized he was still twenty feet in the air and, like a cat stuck in a tree, afraid to climb down.

B
artholomew the Giant was three feet, eight inches tall. If he had called himself Bartholomew the Midget, people would have expected less of him. A short midget was nothing special, he used to explain, but a miniature giant was unique.

Phillip felt anything but special in the line at the Hardingtown County Courthouse. He was in the security area of the lobby. Aunt Veola had said to meet at the courthouse after school, but he had forgotten to ask her where. Would he be able to find her?

In front of him was a row of dark suits shuffling toward a metal detector. The guard stopped a man with a buzzing belt buckle.

“You can hide a pocketknife behind a belt buckle,” Phillip heard the guard explain in a serious voice as the man was made to remove it. The beltless man went through the detector. Did Phillip have anything metal on? He wasn’t sure.

A female construction worker in steel-toed boots was next to make the thing sing. The guard tapped on her shoes and heard the ping of the steel-toed tips. “You can hide a bullet
in a boot,” the guard said solemnly as the woman was made to strip to her socks.

Phillip stayed close to the man in front of him. The man removed his pocket change and keys. He placed them in a plastic box on a table. They entered the detector together. It went off. The man hopped out, leaving Phillip standing there.

“Hello, Phillip,” the guard said. “How was your day at school?”

“Aunt Veola?” asked Phillip, surprised to see her in a courthouse guard uniform. She wore a crisp white shirt with a shoulder patch that said
HARDINGTOWN COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
. Her black leather security belt held a walkie-talkie, a key chain, a leather pouch, a nightstick, and a half dozen other scary-looking things.

“You, over here,” Aunt Veola said gravely to the man in front of Phillip. She swept a handheld device over him.

“You can hide a razor blade behind your calf,” she explained in earnest.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said, stepping aside.

“And you,” she said to Phillip. “You need to go around the metal detector. Not through it.”

“Okay,” Phillip said, backing out and going around.

“Those darn things are loaded with radiation poisoning,” she confided. “Every time you pass through, you lose brain cells. Understand?”

“I guess,” Phillip said. He knew from his science studies that it probably wasn’t true, but he wanted to be polite.

“Do you want your fingers to turn black?”

“No,” he answered.

“Do you want your toes to fall off?”

“No,” he answered again.

“Go on, then,” she said. “Up to the snack bar, and wait for me there.”

She held out a crisp dollar bill. Phillip took the money and looked down the hallway for the snack-bar sign.

“Next one through,” he heard Aunt Veola say. A man in a blue suit stood still as a statue, staring at the ominous frame of the metal detector. “Let’s go,” she said impatiently. “What are you afraid of?”

Phillip headed to the snack bar for his after-school snack. It was a dingy little place with a dozen tables balanced on uneven legs and a long counter, which a young woman was wiping with a rag. Hanging behind her was a menu with prices.

For one dollar, Phillip could get a small bowl of soup, a grilled-cheese sandwich, or something called “the Dodgeballburger.” The woman at the counter explained to Phillip that the Dodgeballburger was a meatball with tomato sauce on a hamburger roll. Phillip chose a can of root beer from the cooler and a bag of chips.

The man behind the cash register was broad-shouldered. His skin was as close to pitch-black as Phillip had ever seen. He had thick muscles bulging out of his shirt and slightly graying hair. He wore cool sunglasses—the kind that have mirrors for lenses, so when you look at him you’re looking back at yourself. There was a tag pinned to his shirt that said
MY NAME IS
SAM, but after his
Hall Monitor
mistake, Phillip wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions.

“Hello,” the man said. “What do you have there?”

“A bag of chips,” said Phillip. The man hit a key on the cash register.

“Fifty cents,” the cash register said. Phillip smiled. He had never heard a talking cash register.

“What else do you have?”

“A can of root beer,” said Phillip. The man hit another key.

“Fifty cents,” the cash register said.

“Is that it?” the man asked.

“That’s all,” said Phillip.

“Your total is one dollar,” the cash register said. The man held out his hand, and Phillip placed the dollar bill in it. The man hit another key, and the drawer to the cash register opened.

“You have zero change,” the cash register said.

“That is so cool,” said Phillip.

“Have a nice day,” the man replied. Phillip looked around at the tables.

“Is there any ketchup?”

“What for?”

“My potato chips.”

“I’ll bring a bottle out.”

Phillip made himself comfortable at a table near a window. The chair made a squeak each time he leaned forward to sip his root beer.

“You know,” said the cashier, who was suddenly standing next to him holding a ketchup bottle, “you’re only the second person I’ve ever met who dips potato chips in ketchup. You wouldn’t happen to be related to Veola, would you?”

“She’s my aunt,” said Phillip.

“So you’re Veola’s nephew. She told me you were coming to live with her. My name is Sam.” He held out his hand. Phillip shook it, like Aunt Veola had shaken his.

“I’m Phillip.”

“You seem kind of down in the dumps, Phillip.”

“How did you know that?”

“Your tone of voice.”

“I had a rough day,” Phillip admitted.

“Sounds like the new-kid blues. It’s hard to get used to a strange new place,” said Sam. “Especially Hardingtown.”

“Does everybody in Hardingtown play dodgeball?” Phillip asked.

“They don’t call it the tuna-fish capital of the world,” said Sam. He went back to his cash register and rang up a smiling woman’s order. He chatted with the customers as he worked, and they returned his friendliness. He seemed like the kind of guy you could talk to. When Sam was done, he came back to Phillip’s table, the smell of Dodgeballburgers still clinging to his shirt.

“Can I ask you a question, Sam?”

“Go ahead.”

“When you were a kid, did you ever feel like you were…” Phillip searched for the right words. “…like you were different?”

“Sure. We’re all different,” said Sam. “That’s what makes us so much alike.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Phillip.

“Yes, it does. Look at you and me. We’re about a world apart. We don’t look alike. We don’t sound alike. We don’t act alike. But already we’re friends.”

“I guess,” said Phillip.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Sam said. “Anytime you need someone to share your problems with, you come see me. Anytime I need someone to share my problems with, I’ll come see you.”

Phillip could hardly imagine how this strong, dark man with the confident smile could ever need him for anything.
Still, the thought that he had made a friend did make him feel better. So what if Sam wasn’t a kid his own age? Sam was cool.

“Should we have a secret handshake?” Phillip asked.

“How about a secret signal. A sound of some sort?” suggested Sam.

Phillip liked the idea. He was used to signals. The Windy Van Hooten Circus band would play John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” whenever they wanted to warn the circus workers that something was wrong. Phillip picked up the salt and pepper shakers and banged them together.

Clink.

“That’s good,” said Sam. “Anytime you need to talk, you give the signal and I’ll come over.”

Phillip had a friend. He could hardly wait to tell Aunt Veola. During the car ride home, she wanted to hear about his day. He told her he had played his first dodgeball game. He skipped the part about climbing the rope and getting stuck and the janitor bringing a ladder. Then he told her he had made a friend who looked like he would be good at sports. Maybe he could give Phillip tips on dodgeball.

“What’s the boy’s name?” she asked.

“He’s not a boy,” Phillip explained. “I met him at the courthouse. His name is Sam.”

“Sam what?”

“I don’t know his last name,” said Phillip.

“The only Sam I know who works in the courthouse is Sam Phoenix. He’s the cashier at the snack bar,” she said. “But Sam couldn’t give anyone tips on how to dodge balls.”

“Why not?” Phillip asked.

Aunt Veola replied, “Sam Phoenix is blind.”

L
ions are not smart and are easily distracted. When a lion is about to attack, the trainer will crack his whip. When it hears the noise, the lion will forget what it was thinking and will not attack.

The next day, Phillip smiled at anyone who looked his way. He hoped that if he distracted his classmates with his friendly personality, they would forget that he was a complete idiot in gym class. It was not working.

“B.B. is going to murder you for that Tarzan stunt,” a kid warned. “She doesn’t like to lose.”

“I didn’t make her lose,” Phillip said.

“You made it a tie. If there’s anybody not out on the other team when the bell rings, it’s a tie. B.B. hates ties.”

The week was a blur. Phillip got up, dressed, and went to classes. After school, he went to the cafeteria and ordered a root beer and chips and did his homework. All he could think about was how to survive his next dodgeball game.

Suddenly, it was Monday.

“If I were you,” a smaller kid told him, “I’d lie down and let her hit me.”

“That way you get it over with,” agreed another kid.

Phillip thought about it. “I couldn’t do that,” he decided.

“Then you’re gonna get creamed,” the smaller kid said. Phillip imagined a banana-cream dodgeball speeding toward him.

“Look on the bright side,” said the other kid. “It couldn’t be any worse.”

The bell rang and Phillip went to lunch. Today’s menu was meat loaf. Phillip tried to eat as much as he could, but he wasn’t hungry. He was so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice when he approached the table where B.B. and her friends were sitting. Suddenly, Phillip tripped. His tray full of leftover food flew up.

Crrrashhhh!!!

Wrinkled peas and bits of syrupy meat loaf rained down on B.B. Tyson and her friends. Globs of sticky brown meat clung to B.B’s hair. A piece of smelly garlic bread perched on her left ear.

“Stanislaw!” B.B. screamed. A gooey pea skied down her nose and fell off the tip. “You’d better start shopping for a tombstone.”

Fifth period came and went too soon. Everyone knew B.B. would be trying to whack him in gym. The whole school was placing bets on how long he would last. Phillip marched to gym class as if in a funeral procession. Should he climb the rope again? In the gym, Phillip saw the rope had been tied up and off to the side, out of reach.