Lily nodded. “Oh… yeah. Ralph… Johnstonlyton.” She rocked on her heels.
“Have you heard of him?”
“No,” said Lily, “but then again, you know so much more about professional Stare-Eyes than I do.”
Katie could tell, miserably, that Choate was still listening in, but that things weren’t going too well. “Yeah,” she said nervously. “Ralph, um, Johnslyunton… ston… He’s the best.”
“Oh,” said Lily.
“I just love Stare-Eyes,” said Katie. “You know how I love to stare at things.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Lily. “You can just stare for hours sometimes.”
“Um,” whispered Katie, leaning close to her friend. “Now I’m maybe starting to sound a little brain-dead. Let’s go back to Ralph Johnslyuntonston.”
“I don’t think Choate’s listening anymore,” Lily whispered back. “And maybe next time you should make up a name that you can remember.”
Katie made a sour, sassy face at Lily. Lily made a sassy, sour face back. They glared at each other. They both tried not to smile. That didn’t last long. They started to laugh. Katie laughed so hard that she hit her shin on a railing and had to say, “Ow ow ow ow ow.”
At that point, some of Choate’s friends came along, wearing sweats, punching each other on the arm. They were yelling at each other, “Don’t kill my fresh, dude! You’re totally killing my fresh!”
“Choate, dude! What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” said Choate. “I’m just standing here waiting for the Delaware team. You think that’s their van?”
“Did you see those bugs?” said one of the boys. “Dude, that was sick.”
“I have this weird, bad feeling,” said another boy. “In my feeling parts. Like something bad is going to happen.”
Choate was still squinting into the parking lot. “That van has Delaware plates,” he said. “It must be them.”
The boys just had a chance to look over at the van before, with a crack, its door shot back. Eight pairs of white, boiled-onion eyes stared out from within.
It was already a cold day, but with a glimpse of those eyes, everyone standing there on the sidewalk felt an extra chill.
Slowly, one after another, the Delaware Champion Stare-Eyes Team crawled out of their van.
Their tracksuits flapped in the breeze.
3
They stood, arms crossed. The skin on their faces was tough, muscley, pearly. Their eyes looked nowhere in particular. Their mouths were confusing and lumpy, as if bristling with too many fangs. Their tracksuits identified them by number.
The driver and passenger doors opened, and a man and a woman stepped out and lined up beside their boys. The woman and the man also wore tracksuits, though instead of numbers, theirs said coach and team mom, and were emblazoned with the symbol of Delaware—the Blue Hen State. It was a wicked-looking blue chicken with a third eye bursting through its forehead—a chicken with twelve claws, all of which clutched instruments of death: daggers, swords, deep-fry baskets, meat tenderizers, and a snickersnee.
Eight players and two coaches stood in a line. Their breath came out of their mouths in clouds.
Mechanically, they began to walk toward the gym, toward Choate and his friends and Lily and Katie.
The Pelt boys stirred uneasily. Choate looked determined, however. He clearly wanted to be a good sport. He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Choate Brinsley. You must be the Delaware State Champion Stare-Eyes Team.”
The line of Delawarians halted. The boy Choate had approached glared at him, mouth open. His top said #1.
“You don’t have to answer him,” the coach instructed #1. He looked toward some trees and said, “That guy doesn’t even exist.”
“He’s going to fail, Daddy, isn’t he?” said the boy, his eyes flickering to the coach’s face. His lips were red, his mouth open, and his panting echoed in the uncomfortable silence.
“They’ll all fail,” said the coach.
Choate shifted from one foot to the other. He protested angrily, “I was—I was just trying to be friendly.”
“There is no friendship.” The coach reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. As he slid a stick out of the pack, he said to Choate, “Do you know what your insides look like?”
“No, sir,” said Choate.
“Do you know what my insides look like?”
“Don,” said the woman, coughing into a handkerchief, “of course he don’t know your insides.”
“Soon you’re gonna know both,” said the coach. “’Cause we’re gonna yank you open and then eat you alive.” He stepped closer to Choate. Choate stumbled backward. The coach said, “Stare-Eyes ain’t no game for Little Timmy Timid. Stare-Eyes goes to the strong.”
“We’re already men, aren’t we, Daddy?” said #1.
“You’re all my little men. You sweat like men. You stare like men.” The coach started walking for the gym doors. “Let’s go.”
But Katie Mulligan was in their way. She stood in the middle of the path, fuming. “Hey!” she said. “Hey! I don’t believe you people! Choate was just trying to be nice!”
“You have a friend,” said the coach to Choate. “A girl friend.”
Katie said, “He was trying to welcome you to our town!”
“It’s a little lady. The captain of Pelt Varsity Stare-Eyes has to be protected by a little girl.”
“She’s a tiny thing,” said #1. He smiled with ragged teeth.
At this, for some reason, all of them began to laugh. “He has a girl to protect him,” said another.
“He has a girl to help him. A little girl.”
“Yeah, a girl.” They laughed harder.
“I’m not little!” protested Katie. She looked to Team Mom for some kind of support against the pack of boys.
The woman, however, was smiling at her own team’s #1 with a mixture of adoration and cruelty. “Look at him,” she said. “He’s a regular monster.”
“Come on,” said Lily quietly, taking Katie’s arm. “We should go in and get some seats.”
“Another girl to protect you, kid?” said one of the boys to Choate.
The team laughed even louder. It didn’t sound like real laughter, but like fake laughter for a mean show on television about poison and busting glass.
Choate looked at them angrily. Then he said to his friends, “Let’s go,” and they walked away toward the side door.
Abruptly the Delaware team stopped laughing. There were ten of them, all staring at Katie. She inched backward.
Lily said quietly, “Come on.” She took Katie’s arm again and led her off.
The Delaware team stood in a row behind them, faces expressionless, staring.
4
The gymnasium was full. Families were bustling on the risers, toddlers clomping up and down the steps. Parents sipped coffee from Thermoses, and kids from the band sold candy bars to fund more tubas. The photographer from the Pelt Observer wandered up and down the court, her camera swaying around her neck.
Katie and Lily made their way through the crowd. Katie exclaimed angrily, “I can’t wait to see those stuck-up jerks from Delaware get what’s coming to them during the match.”
Lily knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. The competition would be fierce.
Choate and his friends were talking by the door at the back of the court.
“Just a sec. I’m going to go talk to Choate,” said Katie. “He must be feeling really bad.”
“Are you sure you want to?” said Lily.
“I’m his fan. I should be there for him.”
“He, um, wasn’t so nice the last time you talked to him.”
“He didn’t know me. Now he sees I care.”
Katie walked up to Choate and said, “I can’t believe them, can you?” She jerked her thumb at the door. “They were acting like the vice-regents of the galaxy. And it’s just a stupid Stare-Eyes contest.”
Choa
te stepped toward her.
“I just can’t believe them!” Katie said again.
Choate crossed his arms. He uncrossed them.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but you”—he poked her with his finger—“stay away from me.”
Katie blanched. “What?”
“I don’t need a girl to protect me.”
“No, wait—”
“I said I don’t need a girl to protect me.”
“I was trying to—”
“Go away and play with your dolls,” said Choate. “And your playhouse and your dolls’ Jet Ski.”
One of his friends said, “She probably has a complete crush on you.”
“‘Oh, Choate,’” said another boy in a high-pitched voice, curling his hair around his finger, “‘I’ll stare into your eyes any time.’”
Katie made some sound that started with a W, mainly, but she was starting to cry, so it was hard to make out exactly. Lily went over to her and pulled her away.
“Look, she’s crying,” said one of Choate’s friends. “The little girl’s crying.”
Katie turned her face away so the fluorescent light wouldn’t glimmer on her tears. Lily put her arm around her friend and led her toward the stands. Lily felt sick in the pit of her stomach.
Katie wiped her eyes with her wrist. “I’m so stupid,” she said. “So completely stupid.”
“It’s not you who’s stupid,” said Lily. “You just tried—”
Katie shook her head and marched forward.
The two girls climbed the bleachers. Adults were shaking hands and slapping each other on the back. A former Pelt Stare-Eyes champion back from college for the weekend was entertaining a bunch of guys with stories of the good old days: brave hearts, dry corneas, and battles to the death.
Choate and his friends were still watching the two girls. They were sniggering at Katie’s tears and thinking they were very top dogs.
It was at this point that Jasper came out of the locker room, wearing a space-age uniform involving tubing and silver sparkles. He had a pinny on over it. His eyelids still sagged from the lead weights attached to them.
It was not one of his best moments.
“Hello, chums,” he said to his teammates. “How do you fancy this new suit?”
Choate and his friends regarded Jasper balefully. “Jasper, dude,” one choked.
“Observe,” said Jasper. He pressed a button on the suit. “Ever tire, during a match, of the hours spent sitting on hard folding chairs? This hydraulic, cushionized Stare-Eyes suit with inflatable rump is just the thing.” As he was speaking, the rear of his suit grew like a muffin in the oven. “Compete in comfort. And with a built-in catheter in case you’re caught short and can’t scramble in time to a water closet, this—”
“What’s a water closet?” asked a team member.
“Why, a W.C. A toilet,” explained Jasper cheerily, his suit’s rump swelling. It was huge.
“Okay, Jas,” said Choate. “Okay. That’s great. That’s really great, but the other team might see you. Why don’t you…” He looked carefully over his shoulder. “The other team is… They’re real jerks, and I don’t want…”
“It’s simple as daisies to slip a pinny on over my pressurized Stare-Eyes suit! Look, chums, team pinnies! I made them for everyone.”
“Get him out of here, dude,” Choate muttered. “Before they see the stupid clothes.”
“Jasper,” said Choate’s bud Giles, “come on. You need to get into some shorts.”
“But this suit—”
Giles shoved Jasper back through the swinging door into the locker room.
Jasper’s clanging voice came through the door. “But I want to see the other team.”
The door thudded against Giles’s foot. Giles held it shut fast.
“Let me out!” Jasper protested. “This is not mannerly!”
In a whisper, Giles complained to Choate, “Jasper is so hopelessly weird. Why does he have to be so weird? And hopeless?”
Choate Brinsley wearily rubbed his face, grimacing and stretching out his eyeholes. He scratched his head. “We are screwed,” he said. “Completely. Jasper’s the only one who might have a chance. And he’s wearing dumb pants that…” Choate couldn’t bear to say it. So he just repeated, “We are screwed.”
A hundred feet away, Katie and Lily sat on the top bleacher. Lily inspected her friend to see how she was doing. Katie was crouched over her knees, picking with one hand at the other, trying not to look over at Choate. “Are you okay?” asked Lily.
“There’s no way to make my skin hidden enough,” said Katie.
Lily really didn’t know what to say to this. She didn’t know how to deal with Katie’s romantic crises. She sat, wishing she had the instinct of the right thing to say.
“You can’t worry about him,” said Lily. “If he doesn’t like you, then he’s not good enough for you.”
“I hate him and I hate myself for liking him.”
“Don’t hate anyone,” said Lily.
Katie put her head down on her arms. For a while, it stayed there. Then she raised it. “I’m going to call my mom,” Katie said. “I’m going to ask her to turn around and pick me up.” She took out her cell phone. “You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “You should stay and see Jasper.”
Lily nodded. This was an important match, and Jasper would be hurt if none of his friends were watching him from the stands.
Katie dialed her mom.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
At the sound of her mother’s voice, Katie broke down and couldn’t answer.
“You sound upset.”
Katie wiped her face. She said, “It doesn’t matter. At all. Could you come pick me up?”
“Is the game over?”
Katie said miserably, “No.”
Her mother listened to the silence for a second. Then she asked gently, “It’s that boy Choate, isn’t it, from the Stare-Eyes team?”
Katie said it was. “Yeah, Mom. I hate him.”
“Oh, honey,” said Mrs. Mulligan, crooning. “Oh, baby.” She sighed deeply, lovingly, across the miles. “How many times have I warned you, Kates, not to fall in love with anyone named like a prep school? I’m telling you, honey. The Choates, the Thayers, the Thatchers, the Ashtons—they’ll all just break your heart.”
Katie coughed and sniffled. “I know,” she gurgled.
“Oh, honey baby,” crooned Mrs. Mulligan, “little girl… I’m turning around. I’m turning around right now. How about I take you to the mall over in Decentville? Just you and me. A girls’ day out with the two of us. We’ll drive over to the mall, walk around, buy some things, and watch the terrifying emergence in the candle store of a giant ironclad worm released by seismic activity from its million years of dreamless sleep.”
“Mom,” said Katie, “I’m really not in the mood for a Horror Hollow encounter. I just want to go home.”
“Come on, darling. People have being saying that down near the old Peterson place there’s a scarecrow that walks in moonlight with a scythe, seeking a harvest of blood.”
“No, Mom,” said Katie. “I know you’re trying to help, but no.”
So Mrs. Mulligan headed back to the school, and Katie told Lily to enjoy the match and went out to the curb to wait for a ride home.
And it is a good thing that she left the gym, a good thing that she stood outside in the chilly autumn air—because if Katie hadn’t been out there on the curb waiting for her mother, she never would have seen what she saw, and the evil that had come to Pelt might well have—
But I’m sure you’re not interested in that.
5
You’re interested in the big match.
Ah, the sports novel. There is nothing I love so much as a good sports novel. Never mind that my own memory of sports is limited to rope burn and dodgeball bruises. Never mind that the height of my own athletic “participation” in middle school was having my shorts pulled do
wn in front of the girls while being forced to leap around and sing 1983’s hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
I guess, at this point, I should give you some statistics. Isn’t that how it goes in sports novels? You know, I tell you that some make-believe “Ricky” ran a 4.8-minute mile or that some imaginary junior quarterback named Chuck or Vat or Del Rosco completed 61.4 percent of his passes with five touchdowns and only two interceptions, and suddenly, like magic, you’re all whipped up in the thrill of the game—you can almost taste the orange slices, the sweat, the blood, and the refreshing tang of Lime-Chili Blast Glacier-Ade.
So here we go. The “stats” for the Pelt Varsity Stare-Eyes team were as follows:
Wow. I have absolutely no idea what those numbers mean, but I feel like I just ran a morning of wind sprints.
Coach Meyers, the town eye doctor, posted these stats on the locker-room wall in front of the team, except that on his copy, the letters got smaller and smaller toward the bottom of the chart.
“Can you read the line at the bottom of the chart, Frank?” Coach Meyers barked. “Can you read it?”
“M… I… N…”
“It’s your name, Frank! Your name is at the bottom of the list. You know who stays at the bottom? Catfish, Frank. Catfish stay at the bottom. They eat muck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I want to see some hustle out there. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Coach Meyers turned and slapped up another list. It stuck to the blackboard. It was the team from Delaware. “The Delaware team,” he said. “Easy to beat? No. Non. Nein. Nyet, my friends. They are multiple-time state champions. They are fierce and hectic as tigers. Let’s go over a few strategic points.” With his pointer, he rapped on the list of stats.
Jasper sat, dressed now in his regular uniform, preparing mentally for the big game. He wished he were wearing his hydraulic, cushionized Stare-Eyes suit. He was astonished his team members hadn’t thought it was as top-gun as he had. Still, despite their chaffing, he was determined to play his best game, to work with his fellow players, to stare, to win. He listened intently to Coach Meyers talk about each of the Delaware team’s players.