The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco (7 page)

#2—Go back to Aunt Veola’s house, jump into bed, hide under the covers, and refuse to go to school, after which a truant officer would lock him in jail, where he would be forced to eat cockroaches to survive.

#3—Run away.

It was time to pack his bags. Phillip heard his stomach rumble. Before he left, he would go to the snack bar for something to eat.

The snack bar was crowded and smelled like the Sauerkraut Bagel special. Phillip sat at a table to wait the line out. The salt-and-pepper shakers on the table seemed to stare at him. He picked them up and thought about the secret signal. Even if he told Sam what had happened, there was nothing a blind man could do. There was nothing anyone could do. Phillip was all alone. He put the shakers down, grabbed a bag of potato chips and a root beer, and got in line.

“Good morning,” said Sam.

“Morning,” Phillip answered. He made his voice sound lower, like a man’s voice.

“No school today, Phillip?” Sam asked.

“I’m on a field trip,” he answered, surprised Sam recognized him.

“By yourself?”

“The other kids are downstairs,” Phillip lied.

“I see,” said Sam.

No, you don’t, thought Phillip bitterly.

“What are you having today?” Sam asked.

Phillip always ordered a bag of chips and a root beer. “The usual,” he said.

Sam pressed his cash register. “Fifty cents,” said the cash register.

Phillip noticed a box full of candy bars next to the cash register.

“Your total,” said the cash register, “is one dollar.”

He handed Sam a dollar while he slipped a candy bar into his pocket. He scooped up the chips and root beer and went to his usual table. Phillip watched Sam work with the young woman behind the counter and ring up customer orders.

A sheriff came in. While he waited for his food, he removed his hat. Sam touched a spot on the sheriff’s head. Phillip felt the stolen candy bar burning in his pocket. Did they make prisoner uniforms in junior sizes?

Phillip was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Sam walk over.

“You forgot ketchup,” he said, plunking down a half-used bottle.

“Thanks,” said Phillip.

Sam sat down.

“Did you see the sheriff?” he asked.

Phillip nodded. “I mean, yes.”

“Got a lump on his head courtesy of some bank robber. Says the thief got his start in crime stealing candy bars.”

A chip seemed to stick in Phillip’s throat. He took a hard swig of root beer.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

Phillip took the candy bar out of his pocket and slid it across the table into Sam’s hand.

“How did you know?” Phillip asked.

“I may be blind, but I’m not stupid.”

Phillip made a puzzled sound.

“Beverly saw you do it,” Sam said.

Phillip glanced over at the counter. Beverly, the young woman who worked with Sam, was scraping mayonnaise out of a jar. If Phillip had been as flexible as Angela the
Amazing Acrobat, he would have kicked himself. Why was he so stupid? He hung his head and rubbed his sore eyes.

“Are you going to turn me in?” Phillip asked.

“Which table is the sheriff at?” Sam replied.

W
hen a trapeze artist falls into the net at the end of the show, he must land flat on his back in the center of the net. Otherwise, he can hurt himself.

Phillip felt like he was falling from a trapeze so high he couldn’t even see if there was a net.

“Please don’t turn me in,” he begged Sam. “I’ll make it up.”

After a long silence, Sam said, “Okay. How about you answer some questions?”

“About what?”

“About why you ditched school today.”

“Ditched?”

“Cut class. Played hooky. Went truant,” explained Sam. “What’s the reason you aren’t in school?”

“I don’t know,” said Phillip.

“You wouldn’t be running away from home, by any chance?”

“Maybe.”

“Let me guess. No one understands you. You feel different.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“It’s natural for a new kid to feel he doesn’t fit in.”

“You don’t understand,” said Phillip. “I’m not just a new kid. I really am different.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How are you different?”

“Before I came to Hardingtown, my life was a two-ring circus.”

“You mean a three-ring circus,” said Sam. “The expression is: ‘My life is like a three-ring circus.’”

“No, I really mean it. Two rings. The Windy Van Hooten Circus is a two-ring circus.”

“For real?”

“For real,” said Phillip. “My parents are circus people.”

“Awesome,” said Sam.

Phillip leaned in and raised his voice a measured notch.

“You don’t understand,” Phillip said. “My dad is Leo Laugh-a-Lot. He wears a rainbow wig and a flower pin that squirts water. His signature gag is trying to stuff more than six clowns into a telephone booth. They never fit.”

“That’s funny,” said Sam.

“No, it’s not. Know what else? My mom is the fat lady. Not
a
fat lady,
the
fat lady. She wears polka-dot dresses as big as tents. Her neck is thicker than my waist. Do you know how much you have to weigh to be the fat lady at the circus?”

“How much?” said Sam, waiting for the punch line.

“It’s not a joke. They call our family the Stupendous Stanislaws,” he concluded miserably.

“Let me get this straight,” Sam said. “Instead of working boring jobs like my parents, your folks are in show business. Your dad laughs and plays all day, and your mom gets paid for sitting and eating goodies?” Sam raised his shoulders and spread his arms out. “You don’t think that’s cool?”

“If coming from a circus family is so cool, why did B.B.’s friends laugh at me?”

“Because they don’t know what cool is,” said Sam.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Phillip said.

“What is?”

“Dodgeball,” said Phillip. “Dodgeball is the worst.”

“You mean the game?”

“It’s not a game. It’s target practice for B.B. Tyson.”

“The same B.B. whose friends laughed at you?”

“She’s the reason I got this,” Phillip said. He held up his bandaged wrist.

“Got what?” asked Sam.

“I sprained my wrist yesterday. Playing dodgeball. B.B. hit Shawn O’Malley, who fell on me, and I sprained my wrist.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about dodgeball,” said Sam. “If you have a sprained wrist you won’t be able to play for two or three weeks.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Sure. Have the school nurse write you a note.”

“What do I do after that?”

“Let’s worry about that in two or three weeks.”

“Okay,” agreed Phillip.

He finished his bag of chips and crinkled the bag.

“Here, give it to me,” said Sam. “Watch this.”

Sam shot the crumpled paper into a corner, where it landed dead center into an open trash can.

“Sam,” said Phillip, “I’m sorry about the candy bar.”

“I know,” said Sam. He went back to the counter, where a man with an expandable folder was waiting on a Dodgeballburger.

The next gym class, Phillip handed Coach the nurse’s note
and climbed to the top of the bleachers. Made to watch the other kids get hit, he wasn’t alone for long. A thin girl with a red face huffed her way up next to him. Slowly they were joined by others still feeling the sting of the ball.

On the floor, two of the tough kids were battling like they were firing grenades. One of them raced from a screamer smack into the wall. Coach stopped the game to make sure the boy was still alive, then had Shawn O’Malley help him to the bleachers.

“You should go to the nurse’s office,” Phillip said.

“Shut up,” said the tough guy, still teetering as he sat.

“It’s not right,” Phillip said.

“What?” asked Shawn.

“Kids shouldn’t be allowed to purposely hit each other. Somebody ought to do something.”

“That’ll be the day,” said Shawn.

“Dream on,” said the girl with the red face.

“You’ll get used to it,” a boy holding his side explained to Phillip. “That’s all you can do.”

Phillip didn’t want to get used to it. It’s not fair, he thought. Whenever something happened in the circus that seemed unfair, he would talk about it with his mom. If it was important enough, she would discuss it with the other circus performers. Then they would hold a circus meeting to debate and vote on a solution. If the vote was a tie, the governor of the circus would make the decision. Whether it was the wrong kind of net for a dangerous stunt or a bigger lion picking on a smaller one, at least somebody tried to resolve the problem.

Unfairness had always made Phillip sick to his stomach. At dinner that night, he had no appetite. By lunch the next
day, he still wasn’t hungry. Phillip went to clean his locker. Two boys saw him and raced over.

“Hey, did you hear what happened?” asked one.

“A couple of stampeding elephants escaped from a traveling circus,” explained the other. Phillip dropped his math book. Stampeding elephants could crush cars, knock down buildings, trample people, not to mention the poop problems.

“Yeah,” said the first kid. “The cops found them in the public swimming pool with their trunks down.” The boys laughed.

“Get it? Elephant trunks, swim trunks. With their
trunks
down,” said one.

“You should have seen the expression on your face,” said the other.

Phillip watched them gallop down the hallway, punching each other’s arms until they disappeared around a corner. He picked up his math book and returned it to his locker, wondering if he still even wanted to be a “regular” boy. Then he grabbed a bunch of papers from the top shelf and began sorting.

“What grade are you in?” asked a girl who had crept up behind him. It was Carmen, a tanned-skin, dark-haired sixth-grader, wearing stylish black jeans and a glittery shirt. She was one of B.B.’s friends. Why was she talking to him?

“I’m in sixth,” he answered.

“Good. Then you can sign this,” she told him, holding out a paper on a clipboard and a strawberry-scented pen.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A petition.”

“What’s a petition?”

“How can you not know what a petition is? What was your job at the circus? Court jester?”

“Court jesters,” Phillip said, “are medieval entertainers.”

“Whatever,” she said, flipping back her thick, wavy locks. “Look, do you want ice cream in the cafeteria?”

“I guess,” he said.

“Then sign this.”

Phillip took the clipboard and began to read. It said:

The form was typed, except the part about serving ice cream, which was written in long hand. Underneath it was line after line of student signatures.

“You mean if I sign this, the school will start serving ice cream?”

“Don’t be a moron,” the girl said, taking the signed paper back from him. “I need to collect one hundred signatures before I can turn it in to the office.”

Phillip thought about kids sitting in the cafeteria licking double-dip ice-cream cones, all because of the petition he signed. After school, at the courthouse, he told Sam about it.

“Can anyone petition to change anything at school?” asked Sam.

“I guess,” said Phillip.

“What about dodgeball?”

“You can’t stop dodgeball with a piece of paper,” said Phillip.

“Maybe not stop it completely,” Sam said. “But you could petition for a second sport option for kids who don’t like dodgeball.”

“I don’t know,” said Phillip. Hadn’t he already stirred up enough trouble? Wasn’t it better to keep quiet if you wanted to fit in?

“I’ll bet plenty of kids dislike playing dodgeball as much as you,” said Sam. “It would mean a lot to them.”

Phillip knew scads of kids who didn’t like dodgeball. The bleachers were full of them at game’s end. It would feel great if he could do something to help those kids.

“But why me?” asked Phillip.

“Don’t ask yourself why it should be you,” said Sam. “Ask yourself why it shouldn’t.”

Phillip thought about it. If Carmen could petition about ice cream, why couldn’t he petition about dodgeball? Then he remembered why. Phillip could see B.B. and her gang closing in on him with their dodgeballs cocked and ready to fire.

“B.B. Tyson will kill me if she finds out I’m petitioning against her favorite sport,” he said.

“You don’t know, do you?” asked Sam.

Phillip played with the pull tab on his soda-pop can. “Know what?” he asked.

“There’s a story they tell in Hardingtown,” said Sam. “An old but true story, about an overweight girl who was lonely and wanted to make friends.” Sam settled back in his chair and crossed his arms. Phillip leaned in to listen.

“She wanted to try out for the dodgeball team,” Sam continued. “But she was overweight; she was an easy target. So she tried out for the Dodgeball Cheerleading Squad instead.
At first, they laughed because she was too fat. But she was so incredibly strong she could easily toss the lighter cheerleaders up.”