When Life Gives You O.J. (11 page)

“Ewwww!” I said, wiping my hands on my shorts. And my
shirt. And the grass. Attila licked his slobbery lips, clearly hungry for another taste of O.J.

The first couple of days of The Zelly Treatment went by in a blur, which was sort of good. Every time I checked the mail, my missing-Allie pangs would start, but then the dogs would distract me. And juggling my pack got easier when I didn’t have to walk Attila anymore, and even more so when the Stanleys came back from their camp, although I was sorry to see Bridget go. Having her stay with us was almost like having my own dog, since she slept on my bed and everything. Although the truth was she slept so much it was a little like having a super-cuddly stuffed animal that needed to be walked.

When Mr. Stanley came to pick Bridget up, he pulled out his wallet and handed me two twenty-dollar bills. My eyes must have gotten big or something because he said, “It’s okay, you earned it. Thanks for taking care of our little girl.”

Still, I wasn’t sure I should keep it. It was a lot of money, and I had only walked Bridget for two and a half days. Apparently, my mom agreed. “Forty dollars?” she said when I told her. “Zelly, you have to give Mr. Stanley his money back. They were only gone a day!”

“Two days, actually. Almost three.”

“Still, that’s much too much money.”

“I know, okay? Besides, I wasn’t doing it for the money. I love Bridget.”

My mom smiled. “She’s very sweet. I’m going to miss having her around.”

“You are?!”

“Zelly, don’t get any ideas,” warned my mom.

“I’m not! It’s just I really can’t wait until I have my own dog.”

My mom sighed. “I know,” she said. I waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.

“How much longer is this going to take?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“How much longer is
what
going to take?”

I almost didn’t want to say it, for fear of jinxing things. But she looked genuinely confused, so I said, real quiet, “O.J.”

“What about O.J.?”

“Well, you know how I’ve been walking him, feeding him, cleaning up after him—everything? Plus walking all the other dogs too.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well …”

“Zelly?” My mom looked concerned. “Did Ace promise that if you did all those things, something specific would happen?”

“Not … exactly.”

“That’s a relief. I was starting to get worried. Ace gets a little, well, carried away sometimes. You know what I mean?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. Look, Zelly, I think your father and I have been pretty clear about this. We know you really, really want a dog
and we think it’s great that you’re practicing for it if that day comes. But that’s not up to you. Or Ace, no matter what he’s told you.”

If that day comes
, I thought.
Story of my life
. Somehow
that day
never seemed to come for me, even when anyone could see that it was time. Last fall, in New York, my friend Lena’s mom let her get her ears pierced because Lena had to have one of her baby teeth pulled, even though she had said Lena would have to wait until she was eleven. If my mom said eleven, it would be eleven no matter what, even if I had to get
all
my baby teeth pulled.

Of course, when it comes to pierced ears, my mom doesn’t say eleven. She says
twelve
. And when it comes to a dog, she doesn’t even give me an age. I just get
if that day comes
.

Which sounds a whole lot like
never
to me.

“So much for upping the ante,” I told Jeremy.

We were on our bikes, riding over to the tennis courts. With all the dog walking, I hadn’t seen him for days, so I had to catch him up on the whole O.J. situation, which seemed to be going nowhere faster than ever.

When we stopped at a traffic light, Jeremy suggested, “Maybe you need to add something else. Did you ever ask them about volunteering at the animal shelter?”

“Yes,” I said. “But you have to do an orientation, so we haven’t actually gone yet. Although I’m having second thoughts, since, if I go, I’m just going to want to adopt everything, and you know that’s just never going to happen.”

“That’s what I thought too,” said Jeremy pointedly. He chimed his bike bell for emphasis.

“How exactly did you earn that bike?”

Jeremy raised his eyebrows. “Trust me,” he said. “It was harder than dragging O.J. around, that’s for sure.”

“Oh yeah? What did you do?”

The light turned green. Jeremy hopped on his bike and pushed off, calling, “Race you!”

“No fair!” I yelled, jumping on my bike and pedaling hard to catch up. We rode in silence, neck and neck, through the darkened campus, past the tall dorm buildings, gliding down the final hill to the tennis courts with Jeremy just barely keeping his lead.

I would’ve kept bugging him to tell me how he got his bike, but when we reached the courts, I forgot all about it. It was the first time we’d gone there to play at night, which took some convincing on both of our parts. My parents were worried about bike safety, which was why we both ended up with reflective tape on our shoes, racket bags, and helmets. And Jeremy’s parents were also worried about other kinds of safety, which is why after some pleading my mom agreed to call and reassure them. And which is why we each had been loaned a cell phone to use in case of an emergency. Don’t even get me started on what age they think I’ll have to be to get my own phone.

Just as I had expected, it was really cool to be out on our own at night. The courts were lit from above by big lights, while everything around them was in shadow, dusky and still. The old soda machine didn’t look quite so old because it was glowing, while the rest of the area was dark.

I walked out onto the court like I was stepping onstage
and struck a pose—ball in one hand, racket in the other—in the spotlight. The ball bounced up and down, its shadow stretching and shrinking dramatically. My racket swatted jerkily at the ball, fluttering through the intense brightness like the moths hovering around the lights. When it connected, the ball shot forward, and I stumbled back, excitement washing over me. And surprise, because I still hadn’t figured out how to consistently swing with my eyes open.

Occasionally, the ball would set off toward the net, though more often it would arc skyward, like a shooting star. However, somewhere along the line, by practicing a few mornings here and there with Jeremy, I had gotten a little less awful at tennis. I had started to be able to swing the racket without missing the ball completely and sometimes even hit it at such an angle that it didn’t go off in some crazy direction. When I did it right, the ball made this nice satisfying sound, sometimes
FWOK!
and sometimes louder, like
THONCK!

We even got into a nice little back-and-forth thing there for a while, with Jeremy hitting it at the wall, then me returning it to the wall, then Jeremy, then me, then Jeremy, then—

“Hey! Hey, ZELLY!”

I turned, missing the ball entirely. The voice seemed to be coming from over by the soda machine, where three blobs stood in the shadows. The blobs moved away from the soda machine and toward the tennis courts. Jeremy looked over at me. I could tell he was thinking about the cell phones.

“Friends of yours?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure.

Just then, out of the shadows stepped Nicky Benoit, along with two other boys from my class, Jack DiPace and Devin Douglas, who were standing a little behind him. Nicky had something in his hand, which he was holding palm up, but I couldn’t see what it was.

“Hey, Zelly, what’s up?” Nicky asked.

“Nothing much,” I said, trying to play it cool. I was glad Nicky wasn’t calling me Smelly Fried Egg, but I knew there had to be a reason. Clearly, Nicky wanted something.

“Got any money?” he asked. Bingo. “I got pennies, but the stupid machine won’t take them.”

“No,” I said truthfully, feeling a little relieved.

“How ’bout you?” Nicky demanded of Jeremy.

“Nope,” said Jeremy. But he had one hand on his shorts pocket. It seemed pretty clear to me that he had brought some money with him. He usually did.

“Aw, c’mon,” whined Nicky. “I’m thirsty. Are you telling me that
neither
of you has a lousy quarter?”

“That’s right,” I said, trying to sound firm and wishing he would just leave. I was glad he was on the other side of the wire cage.

“Aw, man!” complained Nicky. “C’mon, I’ll pay you back.”

“Sorry,” I said, my heart pounding. Nicky muttered something and stalked back to the soda machine.

“You wanna …,” said Jeremy.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I put the balls back into the can while
Jeremy zipped his racket into its carrying bag and slung it over one shoulder. prince, the bag said on one side in big black letters. As we left the courts, Nicky was pounding on the side of the soda machine with his fists. Jack was kneeling down and sticking his arm up inside of it while Devin tried to rock the machine in place. None of it seemed to be working.

“STUPID PIECE OF—!” There was a crash as Nicky jumped up and karate-kicked the soda machine hard, making me jump and walk faster. We had just reached our bikes when—

“Hey, where are you going? Yoo-hoo, SMELLY FRIED EGG! Are you and your widdle PWINCE afwaid?”

“Just keep walking,” I told Jeremy, knocking my kickstand out of the way and shoving my bike toward the road. Jeremy pushed his bike too, a little behind me.

“Oh, Pwincesssssss!!!!”

“Why don’t you leave her alone?” Oh no. Jeremy had stopped walking. He had turned and was yelling back.
Very
bad idea.

“Jeremy!” I whispered urgently. Nicky and the other boys had rounded the side of the tennis courts and were coming toward us.

“Oh my!” said Nicky in a fake high voice, charging forward. “The PWINCE is standing up for his pwincess.” He switched back to his usual gruff voice. “Yo, Prince Charming! I’ve got something for you!”

Nicky raised his arm behind his head while the other two
boys laughed loudly, “Bwaah haa haa haa!” My heart began to pound, fast. Something awful was about to happen.

I didn’t stop to find out what it was, though.

“Jeremy, come ON!” I yelled, hopping onto my bike seat and pedaling frantically. Hoping Jeremy was right behind me.

When I got to the dorms, I coasted to a stop under a streetlamp and tried to catch my breath. In a moment, Jeremy came into view.

“Are you okay?” he called.

“Yeah, I guess. You?”

“I’m fine,” said Jeremy. He stopped, untucked his shirt, and shook the hem. He leaned over and ran his hands through his hair.

Ping, ping, ping
. One by one, pebbles fell from his clothes and hair.
Wait, not pebbles
, I realized, looking at the ground.
Pennies
.

“What the—?!”

“I know,” said Jeremy.
Ping
went one last penny. “Classic, right?”

“Classic?!”
I said.

“Yeah. Bullies love to throw stuff. Pennies, balls, you know. Pudding, on occasion.” He smiled feebly. “Seth says I’m a bully magnet.”

“Jeremy, this isn’t funny.”

“Of course not! But what do you want me to do?”

“I dunno. We can’t let him get away with that.”

Jeremy studied me. “You can try to show bullies they don’t
bother you, but you can’t actually make them change. It’s true,” he added. “My dad does research on this stuff.”

“Yeah, but …,” I said, tempted to argue back but not wanting to defend Nicky. Besides, maybe Jeremy was right. I thought of all the mean things I’d seen Nicky do. Nicky calling me names my first day at school. Nicky putting thumbtacks on Kristin Garrett’s chair. Nicky scrambling to the top of the climbing structure with Kirk Bowman’s watermelon Blow Pop and taking one long, cruel lick before chucking it onto the wood chips below. Nicky had spent a lot of time in the principal’s office on account of his behavior. It didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference.

Jeremy got back on his bike and motioned for me to follow him. Slowly we retraced our route through the darkened campus. Our bike race on the same path seemed like it had taken place a century before.

At my house, I said goodbye to Jeremy and went to park my bike in my garage. When I came out, there was Jeremy, still standing with his bike.

“Just so you know, I’m not saying it’s okay,” said Jeremy quietly.

“I know,” I told him. But before I could say anything else, Jeremy chimed his bike bell and zoomed away, racing down the block, the streetlight bouncing off the reflective tape on his sneakers.