No More Dead Dogs (13 page)

“Thanks.” She sniffed the glass like she was checking for poison, then drank thirstily.

“I sort of wouldn’t expect you to—you know—be here,” I commented, pouring her a refill.

“I’m president of the drama club,” she replied evenly. “Where they go, I go.” Her expression clearly said she would rather be having her teeth drilled.

I resisted an impulse to empty the pitcher over her head. Why did this girl have such a knack for pushing my buttons? “I was the most surprised guy in the world when I looked out the window this morning,” I defended myself. “I didn’t ask anybody to come.”

I started to walk away. I don’t know what made me turn again and say, “Well, anyway, thanks for helping.”

She looked kind of surprised. “You’re welcome.”

Good old Mom. She could always be counted on to roll with the punches. Just as the last leaf was getting bagged, she turned up with two giant platters of sandwiches.

It was perfect timing. The cast and crew of
Old Shep, My Pal
fell on the snack like starving sharks.

I perched on the edge of the picnic table, munching and kind of enjoying this unexpected feast. It was almost a party. Seated on the grass, the rakers were so focused on their food that all I could see was the tops of their heads. I recognized Trudi’s reddish mop, mostly by the bouncing that indicated that she was talking nonstop. Beside her, Rachel, dark and wavy, and then Vito’s unruly black curls, a sharp contrast to the cascading blond hair next to him.

I stared. Ridiculously straight and shiny—oh, no! It was Bedford’s most famous good hair day! What was Cavanaugh doing in
my
yard, eating
my
food, talking to
my
guests?

I marched over to my ex–best friend, grabbed a fistful of that good hair day, and pulled until the jerk was standing beside me.

“I was invited.” Cavanaugh beamed, freeing his hair from my grip. It floated down and settled around his head in perfect order. “Your mom said, ‘Are you hungry, Stevie?’ And you’d have been proud of me, Stupid Stupid. I was honest, just like you. I said yes.”

I glowered at him. “You’ve got no business busting in here on me and my friends—”

“Friends?!”
He started laughing so hard that he began to choke on his sandwich. I pounded him on the back because I didn’t want him to drop dead—at least, not on my picnic table.

“What a difference a year makes!” Cavanaugh snorted, catching his breath. “Last fall you were the hero, king of Bedford. Now you’re clown prince of the geeks.”

I saw red. “Listen, Steve—” Yes, I broke my own rule and admitted that this bum had a first name. “These guys have more character in their little fingers than all you Giants will ever have in your whole bodies! They know what it is to work hard on something that nobody cheers for, or thinks it’s cool to be part of. There are no trophies for what they do, but they do it anyway, and they give it all they’ve got! If the football team put in one-sixteenth the effort the drama club is putting into
Old Shep, My Pal
, then maybe you wouldn’t be in last place!”

You’d have to really know my ex–best friend to notice the millionth of a second when his perma-grin wavered. What everybody else saw was this friendly football player finishing his sandwich, giving me a familiar pat on the shoulder, and then heading home to get ready for the game that afternoon.

Rachel was looking at me in wide-eyed shock, which meant she was the only one who had overheard my blowup. I’m sure it confirmed what she already thought about me—that I was a bigmouthed jerk.

On Monday at lunch, I tapped lightly on the door of the athletic office in the gym. “Coach? Got a minute?”

Coach Wrigley was at his desk, remote control in hand. “Hi, Wallace. Come on in. Remember this?” He pointed to the screen.

I looked. It was the videotape of our locker room after the championship game last year. There I was with the rest of the guys, jumping up and down, pouring Gatorade all over ourselves. It was bedlam in there—us, the coaches, our parents, and all the fans who could cram themselves in the door.

After everything that had happened this year, it made me really uncomfortable. “How come you’re watching this, Coach?”

He laughed without humor. “I’m sure not going to get to tape a celebration like this anytime soon.”

“That’s kind of what I need to talk about,” I admitted. “The guys all hate me. I’m almost getting used to that. I wanted to know if you hate me, too.”

He paused the tape, and I couldn’t help noticing Cavanaugh in the background, looking pretty sulky amid all that joy. Even the championship was a disappointment if he couldn’t be the hero. I was probably witnessing, frozen on the screen, the very instant that he had become my ex–best friend.

“Hate you?” The coach turned in his chair to face me. “Don’t be stupid. Why would I hate you?”

“For not writing that book review to get back on the team. And then for quitting.”

He heaved a heavy sigh. “Look, kid, I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t rather have you on the Giants.”

I frowned. “I couldn’t make the difference between winning and losing.”

“We lost by forty-seven points last weekend,” Coach Wrigley said grimly. “Jerry Rice couldn’t make the difference.” He smiled. “No, you don’t have great football skills. But there’s something about you, Wallace—maybe that famous honesty. It brings out the best in people. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re having that effect on the people in the drama club. When the tickets go on sale for
Old Shep, My Pal
, I’ll be the first one in line.”

I grinned. “It may not be good, but I can guarantee that it won’t be boring.”

He looked past me, and I realized there was someone standing behind me in the doorway.

“Coach?” I heard Rick’s voice. “If you happen to see Wallace, could you give him—” I turned around, and he fell silent.

“Give me what?” I asked.

In reply, he dropped a large carton at my feet. “I’m not talking to you,” he said stiffly. “I’m not even talking to you enough to tell you I’m not talking to you.”

“Lighten up, Falconi,” groaned the coach.

I looked in the box. It contained everything I’d ever given or loaned Rick—every sweatshirt, baseball cap, CD, even the twenty-three back issues of
Sports Illustrated
from the subscription I’d bought him for his thirteenth birthday.

I picked up the last item in the box, a football. “This isn’t mine,” I commented.

“Tell Wallace that’s the game ball from last Saturday,” Rick said to Coach Wrigley. “The other team didn’t want it. They said playing us was like beating up on a kindergarten class. And since it’s
all his fault
, we voted to give it to him.”

The coach snatched the ball away from me. “I’m going to keep this ball right here in the office as a reminder of the 2000 team—not the only Giants who ever lost, but the only ones who tried to blame their troubles on anybody but themselves!”

Rick glared at me. “I’m being nice compared to the rest of the team! They think you’re a rat-fink! And all because of some seventh-grade girl!”

“It’s not true,” I defended myself lamely.

“Cavanaugh was right!” Rick blasted me. “All that honesty stuff was a load of hooey! The guys are ready to kill you, man! You should have seen Feather when he saw the
Standard
! He was red as a cucumber!”

Somehow I didn’t feel like laughing.

Enter…
MR. FOGELMAN

MEMO: Don’t forget to tell Jane about the Dead Mangoes.

“Aaaaaaah!”

As I was plugging in my electric keyboard, I heard my wife scream.

I ran to the front hall. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Jane was cowering behind the ficus tree. “There’s a burglar outside!”

I was shocked. “Where?”

Gingerly, she eased aside the curtain in the narrow window beside the door. There on our front step stood a tall, skinny, black-jacketed teenager with his hair hanging in his face.

“Oh,” I laughed. “That’s not a burglar. That’s the Void!” She was amazed. “You’re
expecting
this person?”

“His real name is Myron,” I explained. “But he hates it when you call him that.” I threw open the door and ushered the boy inside. “We have a doorbell,” I informed him. “It makes it easier for us to know you’re there.”

The Void shook his head until his beady eyes peeked out at us. “Owen and Joey said meet
at
your house, not
in
it.”

“Owen and Joey?” Jane turned to face me. “Exactly how many teenagers are coming here tonight?”

Before I could answer, an ancient, rusty van screeched into the driveway, horn blasting. Out jumped the Quick brothers.

“Hey, Mr. F.!” called Owen. “Ready for rehearsal?”

This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to break the news to Jane.

MEMO: Better late than never.

“I joined a band,” I confessed. “I’m a Mango.”

She goggled. “A
what
?”

“A Mango.”

“
Dead
Mango,” the Void amended.

Joey looked around. “Cool house,” he commented. “Kind of clean-air, suburbia, seventies, Brady Bunch, home sweet home.”

Jane glared at me. “Well, I’ll leave you
children
alone to have your fun. Don’t be too loud. You know how Mrs. Vendome complains.”

“Oh, no problem,” I called. “We’re just trying to put together a few songs for
Old Shep, My Pal.
We won’t be using amplifiers.”

“Uh-huh.” She sounded disgusted as she disappeared up the stairs.

“Ooh, Mr. F., that doesn’t sound good,” Joey whispered. “You could take a lesson from Wallace when it comes to dealing with women. Trudi treats him with
respect.
”

I smiled instead of taking it personally. It was all in response to my latest memo.

MEMO: Mellow out.

So I was mellowing. I think it was having a positive effect on me. One afternoon Trudi Davis looked at me in shock and blurted, “You’re young!”

I laughed. “I’m twenty-nine. How old did you think I was?”

She shrugged. “I always thought you were, like, fifty or something. Frowning gives you wrinkles. And those
suits
you wore. No offense, but the dodo is extinct, and so are your ties.”

Dressing more casually was something I started when I joined the band. But I felt so much more comfortable that I decided to include it under “mellow out.”

Even around Wallace Wallace, I vowed to stay mellow if it killed me. And I found that he wasn’t such a rotten kid after all.

Wallace taught me a lesson: if you force the students to fit into the play, it’ll come out lifeless and boring. But if you mold the
play
to showcase the talents of the
students
, the sky’s the limit.

True, our play was going to be a little out of the ordinary, but it was worth it. I’d never seen kids work so hard.

That’s not to say we didn’t have problems: rain through a busted skylight warped our set of the Lamont home into a canoe; five days before the performance, Old Shep’s remote-control car died mysteriously; in the middle of everything, Leo and his family up and moved to California, so I had to recruit a new Mr. Lamont.

The list was endless—burnt-out spotlights, a wasp infestation, a twenty-four-hour flu, a locker room toilet that flooded out the gym floor.

“Football players have it easy by comparison” was Wallace’s comment. “To be a drama nerd, you have to be a wizard, too!”

“Also a carpenter,” I put in. “And a plumber, an exterminator, and an electrician.”

“
And
a doctor!” Rachel came racing over. “Leticia’s throwing up in the change room.”

I didn’t panic. Panicking wasn’t mellow. And anyway, the problems seemed to bring out the best in those kids.

MEMO: When things start falling into place, get out of the way; it’s a happy avalanche.

Kelly Ramone and the set designers figured out a way to make it look like it was raining onstage for the thunderstorm in Scene Four. They lowered strands of Christmas tinsel from the curtain tracks while our lighting people bathed everything in blue. The effect was remarkable.

Wallace recruited the Old Shep dancers, last-minute volunteers from Mrs. Vasquez’s eighth-grade advanced movement class, to add to our musical numbers. Owen and the Void wired extra speakers into the sound system so our live performance would be coming at the audience from all directions. The rebuilt Lamont house turned out to be a masterpiece, with a real working door, and even a little dog door for the title character of our play.

MEMO: Update Dr. Chechik on recent changes.

I wasn’t bragging; I was
warning
the poor man. He might not be as mellow as I was. With rehearsals closed, no one had the slightest idea what we were up to in the gym. Crazy rumors about us buzzed all over the school, and even in the faculty lounge.

I thought back to the time my play opened in New York. There were cast parties and press conferences and hoopla, but still I never felt
this
special.

“Sold out?!” I repeated. “How can it be sold out? We haven’t even printed the tickets yet!”

“Oh, that was my idea,” Trudi confided. “When people hear ‘sold out,’ they beg to come.”