I knew! It was gym!
Kids take gym from kindergarten on up. There must be something in the way Stoneybrook teachers conduct the boys’ gym classes that made boys think they could do anything they pleased. It was a pretty clear connection. The teachers encourage them to play as if winning were the most important thing in the world. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but something in the way they teach the boys gym was encouraging them to be incredible twerps.
But what about the little boys? They weren’t taking gym yet. They must have been under the influence of the older boys. The little guys couldn’t help but pick it up.
As farfetched as this theory might sound, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The most revolting subject on earth — gym — would naturally produce the most revolting people on earth — boys.
Girls take gym, of course. But it isn’t the same. Most girls didn’t seem to me to be as serious about gym as boys were. There’s probably only one girls sports event for every five the boys have. Take something like basketball: The girls have a team. But only a few kids and one or two parents come to the games. When the boys’ team has a game, the benches are full.
That makes boys feel they’re more important. And feeling more important must make them obnoxious.
I was glad that, at least, this wasn’t a worldwide syndrome. Stoneybrook was simply the worst offender. That left some hope. When I was older, I could move to some place (like Australia or Kentucky) where the boys act more like human beings.
I pondered these things as the cookies baked and the boys helped me clean up the kitchen. When the cookies were done we let them cool a moment, just long enough to pour ourselves big glasses of milk. Then James looked at the clock and saw that it was time for a movie he wanted to watch on TV. It was Return of the Master Killer, one of those martial arts movies. We took our cookies and milk into the den and turned on the movie.
It was time for me to worry again. My brothers love these fighting movies, too. The minute one comes on, they’re up, kicking, shouting, karate-chopping the air, right along with the guys in the movie. One of my brothers (usually Nicky or Byron) always gets hurt before the movie ends.
But I was in luck again. The Hobart boys were crazy about the movie, but they showed their enthusiasm by shouting things like: “Good one!” “Go, get him!” “All right!” Not by knocking over lamps and belting one another in the mouth as my brothers would have done.
We were an hour into the movie when Ben came home. “Return of the Master Killer, huh?” he said, standing in the doorway. “I like this one, but not as much as A Slice of Death. That’s my favorite.”
“Master Killer is way better,” James disagreed.
“I smell cookies,” Ben observed.
“Should we give him his special cookie?” I asked the guys.
“You can give it to him,” said Mathew, his eyes glued to the screen.
Ben and I walked into the kitchen and I gave him his B cookie.
“It looks like the monsters weren’t being too bad for you,” said Ben as he bit into the cookie.
“Bad?” I cried. “They’re wonderful. You’re so lucky.”
Ben laughed. “It must be you. They’re not always so wonderful.”
“Whenever I see them, they are. They’re angels!”
“Ha!” Ben hooted. “They may look like angels, but believe me, they’re not.”
“I don’t believe you,” I insisted. “I would give anything to trade brothers with you.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I’m serious. I would.”
“You’d be sorry.” Ben laughed.
“You’re the one who would be sorry. If you got my brothers it would be like a bomb hit your house. You know what they’re like.”
“They’re not so terrible,” said Ben, reaching for another cookie.
“Not so terrible!” I shrieked. “How can you say that?”
Ben just laughed.
“Ben,” I said, “what’s gym like in Australia?”
He looked at me, surprised. “I don’t know. Kind of like it is here. In my school we only had it once a week, though.”
“See! I knew it!” I cried.
“Knew what?”
“Nothing. Nothing. It’s just a theory I’m working on,” I told him.
“Speaking of gym,” he said seriously. “Did that detention notice ever come to your house?”
I nodded. “I grabbed it before anyone saw it. I have another one in my pocket right now. I got it out of the mailbox before I came over today. In the nick of time, too. My mother came outside and saw me looking through the mail. Luckily I had just stuck the letter in my jacket pocket. It was a close call.”
“Mal, why don’t you just play volleyball? It’s better than lying to your parents,” Ben said with a sigh.
“I’m not lying to them,” I protested.
Ben cocked his head and looked at me like he wasn’t buying my excuse.
“I’m not! I’m just sparing them from being upset.”
“Well, do what you like,” he said. “But I think there’s going to be trouble if they find out. Besides that, once you get on bad terms with a teacher, he — or she — can make your life miserable. And, the mark is going to appear on your report card. What are you going to say when your parents ask why you failed gym?”
I turned pale. Fail gym! I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve never failed a subject in my life. Would I have to go to summer school? For gym? What a perfect way to ruin a summer.
“Gosh, I hadn’t thought about all that,” I admitted, slumping onto a kitchen chair, my head in my hands. “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“Sure. Well, I think about you a lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Okay,” I said. “Monday I’m going to play volleyball.”
“Good,” said Ben, smiling. “I think that’s a great idea.”
I sighed. “I’ll try, anyhow.”
On Monday I entered gym class with the very best of intentions. Really. I did.
“Are you going to play?” Jessi gasped as I walked out toward my teammates.
“Yes,” I replied, chin up, eyes straight ahead.
“Good for you,” she said. “You’ll be great.”
“Thanks, but I’ll settle for being alive when this is over.”
With an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Jessi ran off to her team.
“To what do we owe this honor?” asked Helen Gallway as I tied on my pinny.
I gave her a tight little smile and said nothing.
Robbie Mara exchanged a quick glance with another boy on the team, Noah Fein. Noah rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “We’re doomed,” he muttered.
I really couldn’t blame my teammates for not being thrilled about my return. I think they may actually have won a couple of games while I was on the bleachers. But I couldn’t worry about that. I was supposed to play, and I was going to play. That’s all there was to it.
Ms. Walden noticed me, but she didn’t say anything. Soon Mr. De Young blew his whistle and the game started. I don’t know if it was intentional, but the girl serving on the other side gave me a break. She didn’t send the ball directly to me. I was able to get away with looking like I was paying attention, hoping lightly on the balls of my feet with my hands half up in the air as if I were prepared to — even hoping to — slap the ball at any moment. (Truthfully, my hands were poised to cover my head in case the ball came flying at it. But no one else had to know that.)
If the game had continued that way, everything would have been fine. But it didn’t.
Chris Brooks came up to serve for the other team. He looked at me and remembered the one bright idea he’d probably ever had in his life. (I imagined him thinking in caveman talk: “Hit ball to Mallory. Win game.”)
In minutes, I felt like a character in a video game, one who has to keep darting and leaping to avoid being pulverized by
some cosmic blast. Chris pounded serve after serve directly at me. I wanted to return the ball, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry, it just goes against human nature — at least my human nature — not to duck when a flying object is heading straight at you.
It was so demoralizing! It wasn’t fair that I was under attack like this. The grunts and groans of my teammates didn’t help. I felt bad enough about being such a clod. Having to deal with their annoyance just made me feel worse. I was sorry I was letting them down. But they could have had a little sympathy for what I was going through. They weren’t being bombarded with a volleyball, after all. I was the one under attack.
Someone could have said, “Hey, leave her alone, Chris!” But no. They yelled: “Come on, Mallory!” “Don’t just stand there!” “Hit it!” (Maybe they felt they had to fill in for Ms. Walden since she wasn’t there at the moment to torment me.)
Then came the last straw. “We were winning,” said Helen, groaning loudly. Then she sighed as if she couldn’t bear the pain of losing at volleyball.
That was all I could take. “Listen, Helen,” I snapped, untying my pinny. “You don’t have to worry anymore. Win your idiotic game. I’m leaving!”
Throwing my pinny on the ground (and stepping on it just for good measure), I stomped over to the bleachers.
I’d tried. But it hadn’t worked. Volleyball and I simply weren’t a match. There was no way I was willing to subject myself to it for another minute.
After about thirty seconds on the bench, Ms. Walden was by my side. Today she took a different approach with me. Instead of biting my head off, she sat down beside me.
“Okay, Pike. Let’s talk about this. What, exactly, is bugging you?”
Looking down, I tried to think of a way to explain. But all I could do was notice how white Ms. Walden’s sneakers were. And what thick ankles she had.
“Pike! I asked you a question,” Ms. Walden pressed.
“I can’t play volleyball, and I don’t see why I should have to,” was all I could think to say.
“Maybe if you tried, you’d learn how to play.”
“I just did try,” I said, trying not to sound too disrespectful. “It didn’t work.”
“Quitting isn’t going to get you anywhere in life,” said Ms. Walden. “This is a bad pattern. First you quit at volleyball, next thing you know, you’ll be quitting college if it gets tough. Or you’ll be quitting jobs you don’t like. I’m telling you, don’t start this quitting stuff now. Life eats up quitters.”
Okay. I know that, in theory, what she said was true. Quitting is not a good habit to get into. But I’m not a quitter! I’ve done lots of difficult things in my life.
I simply could not play volleyball.
It drives me crazy that sports people think life is like sports. Life is not sports! Life is life and sports is sports.
Ms. Walden’s telling me that I would end up some huge failure in life just because I didn’t want to play volleyball made me even madder and crabbier than I already was. “I’m not playing volleyball, Ms. Walden,” I said calmly. “I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll go to detention every afternoon if I have to. But I’m not playing.”
“What do your parents say about this?” she asked.
I studied her sneakers. Did she have some secret for keeping them so white? Did she have many pairs? Maybe she threw her sneakers out the minute they got smudged and bought new ones.
“Your parents, Pike! What do they think of this?”
“They say it’s okay,” I lied. “They don’t think I should have to play if I don’t want to.”
“Is that so?” Ms. Walden muttered. Then, without another word, she stood up and walked back to the volleyball games.
Now I was really confused. Had I won? Was she going to leave me alone? She hadn’t mentioned detention or anything.
When gym ended, I headed for the locker. “Just a minute, Pike,” Ms. Walden called, approaching me. “Instead of detention today, I have a different idea. See those pinnies?” She pointed to the pile of colored cloth that was growing as the girls filed by, each throwing her pinny on. “I want you to come by after school and pick them up. The boys’ pinnies, too. They have to be washed. You can use the washing machine in the home ec room.”
My jaw dropped. This was inhuman.
“But … but …” I stammered. It was no use. Before I could get any more words out, Ms. Walden was on her way into the locker room.
“What happened?” Jessi asked, from behind me.
“I have to wash all those stinky pinnies this afternoon,” I said, still stunned by the news.
“Pew.” She looked at me sympathetically. “I’d stay and help you, but I have a ballet class this afternoon.”
“That’s okay,” I told her as we trotted into the locker room. “It’s not the end of the world.”
That’s what I said. But when I was standing in the home ec room with a reeking, steaming, pile of sweat-stained pinnies, I decided the end of the world might have been preferable. They were so stinky I didn’t even want to touch them.
“I’ll be in the classroom across the way, doing some paperwork,” Ms. Walden told me. “Keep this door open.”
I’m sure she would have claimed she wanted the door open for safety reasons. I think it was really part of her scheme to punish me, though. As I stood there tossing pinnies into the machine, everyone who passed by could see me. Since it’s not usual to see someone doing wash in the home ec room after school everyone looked in.
With my head down, I pretended to be unaware of the kids gawking at me. And I was able to do some homework while the machine ran through its cycles. After a while, I had a bunch of clean but soaking wet pinnies. I began throwing them into the dryer.
When I looked up, I was face to face with a bunch of boys hanging in the doorway. Apparently they had been watching me work and were getting a huge kick out of it.
One of them was Robbie Mara. “Hey, Mallory. Don’t get pinny-washer’s elbow,” he teased. “You wouldn’t want to throw off your volleyball game.”
“Ha, ha,” I said with as much disdain in my voice as possible.
“Yeah!” Noah Fein chimed in. “It would break Chris Brooks’s heart. He wouldn’t have anybody to smash with the ball.”
“Get lost, jerks,” I muttered.
That just made them laugh. “Hey, Mal, don’t fall into the washing machine!” Tom Harold called as the boys moved on. “But maybe you should go soak your head. It might help.”
Yuck. Sports and Stoneybrook boys. I couldn’t think of any two things I hated more!
There’s no arguing with evidence. And the evidence against boys was mounting. That’s what Kristy discovered when she sat for her younger brothers and sisters.
Watson and Kristy’s mom were going to some fancy black-tie awards dinner and they’d invited Nannie along. Kristy’s older brothers were both busy, so Kristy was left in charge.
Since Karen and Andrew only live at their father’s every other weekend, Kristy was glad to spend time with them. She was looking forward to an evening of playing board games, popping popcorn, and telling jokes. That’s not what happened, though.
Emily Michelle, who you might expect to be the problem since she’s so little, was great. She sat on the floor, stacking blocks or playing with her current favorite game, Shark Attack. (Emily doesn’t really know how to play but she likes to fool around with the game pieces.) Karen, who adores Kristy, decided to be her baby-sitting helper.
But Andrew and David Michael acted like … like boys. David Michael hogged the TV. He insisted on watching G.I. Joe videos and threw a fit when Kristy insisted that he let Emily watch The Care Bears. After sulking, he dragged out his small plastic jets and began flying them across the family room.
“Stop it!” Kristy cried as a jet skidded off the top of the TV and crashed into the wall.
David Michael didn’t listen. He was still mad about losing control of the TV. He hurled another plastic jet over Kristy?
??s head.
“That’s enough!” Kristy shouted, pulling the jets from his hands. “I think you better —”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. A blood-curdling scream from Emily Michelle stopped her cold. Andrew had taken away Shark Attack, which she was playing with while watching The Care Bears.
“She doesn’t play it right,” Andrew whined. “She’s too little to play this game.”
“That’s okay. She likes it anyway. Give it back to her,” said Kristy.
Andrew sat down in a huff. “I’m going to show her how to play it right.” This involved setting up the pieces and scolding Emily every time she grabbed for one of them. “No, Emily, you’re doing it wrong!” he’d shout.
“Just give it back to her. Please,” said Kristy.
“No! I’m showing her,” Andrew insisted angrily.
Kristy slid the game away from him and back in front of Emily. “She doesn’t want to be shown,” Kristy told him. “She was happy playing the game her own way.”
Andrew stood up and stomped out of the room. “Her own way is stupid!”
“Emily is little,” Kristy called after him. “She doesn’t know how to —”
Again, Kristy was cut off. Her attention was diverted back to David Michael who had taken a tape player off a shelf and begun playing it at top volume. “Turn that down!” Kristy yelled over the noise.
“I want to drown out the Care Bears,” he said. “I can’t stand the way those characters talk.”
“Turn it down or take it to your room,” Kristy told him.
“No,” said David Michael. “I have as much right to be here as anyone else.”
Kristy turned it down for him.
David Michael turned it back up.
Kristy turned it down.
David Michael wrenched the box away and turned it to full volume.
Kristy pulled it back and took out the batteries. “Give me those!” David Michael shouted, grabbing at the batteries Kristy held.
Finally, Kristy took the batteries and threw them out the window into the yard.