Total Knockout (17 page)

I looked to Cooper, who was turning a darker shade of pink. “Why is your shirt tucked in? And you're wearing a belt.”

“We're going to a Rangers game,” he said. “The beer guy from Dad's restaurant hooked him up with box seats.”

Right on cue, Mrs. Nixon stood up and said, “Is Melanie coming up here, or are we picking her up on the way?”

Now it was my turn to flush, although I'm pretty sure it was a deep, angry shade of red. “Melanie?” I spat. I couldn't help myself. “You're taking Melanie to a baseball game?” I couldn't believe it. First my presidency, now my best friend? She was taking everything from me.

Cooper shrugged, not looking at me.

“On a Friday night, with your parents? What is this, a double date or something?” Cooper's face tensed up, and
Mr. Nixon said, “Son, we'll wait for you out in the car.”

Once they'd left, Cooper finally looked at me and said, “Yeah, so?”

“So?” I said. “So, is she, like, your girlfriend now or something?” I felt panicked—I wasn't in control of anything anymore, and I couldn't count on anyone.

“I don't know. Maybe,” Cooper said, his eyes back on his feet.

“Maybe? But . . .
why
?”

“I don't know. Because I like her,” he said. “She's cool. Look, it's no big deal. It's just a baseball game.”

“Since when does she like baseball? And it
is
a big deal. This is only the single worst day of my life.” Feeling a bit desperate, I said, “Look. I need you now, okay?” I instantly felt stupid for saying such an overly dramatic thing—even if it was true.

“I'm sorry, Loosh. Really. But I have plans.” It might have been okay if he'd ended it with that; instead he added, “Not everything I do has to involve you, you know.”

I felt like he had sucker punched me. “Fine,” I managed. “Have fun on your date.”

I ran all the way home, slamming our front door before the Nixons' car passed our house on its way to get Melanie.

I woke very early the next morning. It was still dark out. My bedside clock showed it was just after five o'clock. I'd had a horrible night, waking every so often feeling angry and anxious. I got out of bed, splashed water on my face, and tiptoed past Dad, asleep on the couch, and out the front door.

The air was brisk, and our street was eerily quiet. I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and walked quickly. I was wide awake.

I walked around to the side of the Nixons' house. Stepping carefully through a prickly bush, I crouched low and tapped on Cooper's window. There was no movement inside, so I tapped louder. Finally I heard him stumbling out of bed, and the blinds zipped up.

Cooper looked at me through half-open eyes for a moment—he probably thought he was still asleep.

“Wake up!” I said in a loud whisper.

He opened the window. “What time is it?”

“Come on,” I said, stepping back from the window and through the bush. “Meet me at the garage.”

Waiting outside the closed garage door, I didn't even notice the cold, even though my breath steamed out in front of my face. I concentrated on wrapping my hands, putting extra layers across the knuckles. Finally, the door rolled open, creaking along the way. Cooper switched on the light, then squinted against the brightness.

“It's Saturday,” he mumbled.

“Get your gear on,” I said, stepping inside.

“My hands.” He held out his wraps.

“You really need to learn to do this yourself. Pay attention this time.” As I wrapped Cooper's hands, I could still faintly smell last night's cologne, which made me wrap them a bit tighter than necessary.

“What's this about?” he asked.

“Blech,” I said. “Dragon breath.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, turning his face.

“There,” I said, finishing. “Come on, get your headgear on.”

“Okay, okay.”

I went to the automated timer and turned it on. His
feet seemed to robotically take him to the other side of the garage to his corner. I could tell he was still very groggy, and when the buzzer sounded, I went at him fast and hard. It took two hits to wake him up properly.

“Dang, Lucia!” he said angrily, as he ducked behind his gloves. I threw a jab to his cheek, but he blocked it. “What happened to not in the face?”

“New rules,” I said as I hit him with a one-two, landing a jab on his left shoulder.

“Fine then,” he said. He stepped away, his gloves still by his face, but he wasn't backing down. We kept our eyes on each other intensely, like we never had before, and circled the ring, hands up, each waiting to make the next strike. I shuffled in close to him, and threw my whole body into an uppercut, which he blocked. The buzzer went off. We eyed each other as we went to our corners.

“You sure you want these new rules?” he panted. Never taking my eyes off him, I nodded. “Fine then. You asked for it.”

When the buzzer went off again, we went at each other with equal speed. But before I could get my first punch out, Cooper popped me with a jab on my collarbone, making me stumble back a few paces. If I'd ever
doubted that he'd been holding back his full strength, I didn't now. In fact, I wasn't even sure that
this
was his full strength.

I went back at him swinging—he blocked most of my punches, and the more frustrated I got, the more wildly I swung. I kept my focus on his dark brown eyes and those stupid freckles, and I swung harder, barely noticing where the punches landed. Cooper came back and stunned me again in the chest, temporarily knocking the wind out of me.

When I caught my breath, I looked back at him, and all at once I saw Melanie, the vending machines, and even Ms. Jenkins. I blocked a punch that came dangerously close to my face. I wound up and threw a hard uppercut, clenching my fist tight and twisting my wrist at the last possible moment. It was the best punch I had ever thrown, and it landed right between his legs.

At first he didn't make a sound—he just doubled over, the veins in his neck bulging, his gloved hands covering himself. He fell to his knees, then let out a howl that I was sure would wake up the whole neighborhood. I stood over him, panting, knowing I should apologize.

Cooper rested one gloved hand on the cement floor of the garage and took deep breaths. “You okay?” I asked
through hard breathing. He panted, trying to suck in air through labored breaths. I thought of Henry's breathing exercises.

Cooper slowly pushed himself up off the floor. He stood up straight and, with utter calmness, looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Go home.”

I tried to laugh it off. “Come on, Coop. Don't be a wimp. It was an accident.”

He tore his gloves off with his teeth, then threw them to the ground. “It wasn't and you know it.” As he took off his headgear, he said, “I really am sorry about the presidency. I'm sorry I wasn't at your beck and call last night. But I have a life, you know. And I'm tired of being your punching bag.”

“My punching bag? Oh, that's real original. Did Melanie tell you to say that? You know, Cooper, she may like you now but give it two weeks, she'll be over you, just like she gets over everything else. You can't hold her attention.”

I knew I'd gone too far. Cooper looked stunned for a moment, then he turned around, flipped off the light, and pushed the button to close the garage door. When he slammed the door behind him, I heard him lock it. I had to duck to get out before the garage doors closed
me in, and when they connected with the driveway, the neighborhood was once again quiet. The sky had brightened slightly, but it was a gray morning, and the air felt heavy, like rain.

BLUE JAYS . . .
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

Life Without Latham
BY NICOLE JEFFRIES

It's week two of Melanie O'Hare's reign as Angus's student council president and welcome changes are already being felt.

Her first order of business was to fix the disastrous mistake made by disgraced president Lucia Latham, those unpopular vending machines. The machines have now been completely restocked with new items, including organic but delicious popcorn, granola bars, and even low-fat candy. Said Ms. O'Hare, “It was totally clear that everyone wanted a change in them. I mean, all you had to do was read the signs.” Ms.
O'Hare was referring to the vandalism often found on Ms. Latham's machines.

And, unlike her predecessor, Ms. O'Hare was quick to give credit where credit was due. “The whole idea was Cooper's,” she said of Cooper Nixon, the council's secretary. “Once he suggested changing out the foods, we were all like, Duh. I can't believe we didn't think of it sooner.”

The best part of this change is that the food is actually good—the very quality missing from Ms. Latham's idea of healthy fare. Furthermore, the items are selling.

“The spicy pita chips are so good,” said seventh grader Cara Weaver, through a mouthful of that very food. “I could eat them every day.”

Indeed, the items are selling. And this time around, the entire student council is getting into the act of promoting these wonderful new products. Says treasurer Jared Hensley, “We're
doing a drawing to drive even more people to the machines to help make up for lost revenue,” he explained. “Like, a local movie theater will donate tickets, then we'll secretly mark one of the machine's items. Whoever gets that food, wins!”

So, what's up next for this new student council? As announced by Ms. Jenkins, they'll be raising money for the football team, which needs new warm-up suits due to the unseasonably cold weather and unusually large number of players this year. And how will this new regime raise the funds?

“It's a bit of a surprise,” teases Ms. O'Hare, looking striking in an emerald green knitted beret. “Let's just say I'm putting a whole new twist on the term ‘bake sale.'”

More food choices from the new council? Somehow we think there's not a bad apple in this whole bunch.

I went through the days like a robot, not wanting to face anyone, talk to anyone, or deal with anyone. It was all a hazy memory, like a dream you only remember bits and pieces of.

Cooper had stopped me in the halls after I low-blowed him. He hadn't called me and I hadn't called him. As I walked toward third-period U.S. history, I passed him at his locker. I could barely look at him, much less talk to him, and once I walked by, he yelled, for everyone to hear, “All you have to do is say you're sorry!”

Cooper would always forgive me, I knew that much. But even though I really was sorry for hitting him, I was still having a hard time forgiving him. Why didn't he think I was cool? Did he know how it made me feel when he said that about Melanie? By not telling me, I felt like he was lying to me. And why, I wondered more
and more, usually late at night before I fell asleep, didn't he think I was worthy of putting cologne on for, or tucking in his shirt and wearing a belt for?

I couldn't bring myself to face him. Not yet. And after reading in the school paper about all the brilliant ideas the new council was having (and stealing—like Jared ever had an original idea of his own), I was at a brand-new, all-time low. Why hadn't Cooper thought up the food-exchange idea when I was in office? I guess I wasn't an inspiring leader.

I'd tried to tell Mom about what happened. I thought she'd be logical, tell me that mistakes happen but that it's how you recover from them that really matters. But I didn't get a pep speech from her like I hoped.

“What do you want me to say, Lucia?” she asked one Sunday afternoon as she clipped coupons from the paper. “You made a huge error in judgment. Now you have to accept the consequences.”

She looked at me with eyebrows raised, and I said, “How about, ‘Everything will be okay?' How about, ‘You're not a bad person and this will all blow over?' How can you be so harsh?”

She sighed and put down her scissors. “I'm sorry, honey. I know you're going through a rough time, but
we all are.” She tried to smile when she said, “We're all in this together.”