The three Dead Mangoes were draped in various poses around the cramped quarters. The Quick brothers were strumming madly on their unplugged guitars. That awful Void person slouched all over the desk, drumming on the blotter, and using the IN/OUT tray as cymbals. Most amazing of all, Mr. Fogelman was perched on an overturned wastebasket. All his concentration was aimed at the small electric keyboard that rested on his knees. They were jamming!
And it was great! The best thing about it was Mr. Fogelman. The Wallace vein was nowhere to be seen as his fingers danced over the keys. He looked as young and carefree as Joey. With a sweep of his hand, he brought their song to a close.
I clapped as loud as I could. “That was fantastic, Mr. Fogelman! I didn’t know you could play!”
He seemed kind of embarrassed to be caught in the act. “Oh, you know, I was in a band in college. I’m not very good anymore.”
“Are you kidding?” crowed Joey, punctuating it with a power chord. “You’re awesome! You’re going to be the ultimate Dead Mango!”
Mr. Fogelman laughed gently. “Thanks for that, Joe, but I’m not really free to join your band. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a job.”
“No, he means for the play!” Owen explained. “We need your keyboard to get a really big sound for Old Shep, My Pal.”
“That would be fun,” Mr. Fogelman admitted, “but it’s impossible. I’m the director.”
The Void raised both hands to part the curtain of hair away from his eyes. “You’re the director?” He frowned. “I thought that guy Wallace was the director.”
“No,” I said sarcastically. “He’s in charge of everything else in the world.”
Mr. Fogelman laughed. And I thought to myself, if the Dead Mangoes could put our director in a good mood (even when the W word was mentioned), then they were well worth having in the play.
“Come on, Mr. Fogelman,” Joey pleaded. “Without you we’re just fantastic. With you, we’d be, like, out of control, ballistic, steamroller, wow!”
Suddenly, I blurted, “You should do it, Mr. Fogelman! Wal—other people can look after staging and cues.” (I’d almost said…well, you know.)
I could practically see our director’s brain working as he talked himself into it. Finally, he sighed. “The play has changed so much; I guess it can change a little more. Boys, you’ve got yourself another Mango.”
The Bedford fall fair was that weekend. Trudi and I had been going as long as we’d been friends. Yeah, sure, we were getting a little old for the games and the rides. But it was still fun, with the best junk food on earth. My favorite part was the show tent, which really appealed to the actress in me.
“Let’s go early like last year,” I urged as we walked to homeroom.
“Go where?” asked Trudi airily.
(Earth to Trudi…) “Hello! The fair is Saturday.”
“The fair?” she repeated. “We’ve got no time for that. Wallace is raking leaves on Saturday!”
I stared at her. “And I should care about this because…?” I prompted.
“We can’t let him do all that work by himself,” Trudi reasoned. “It’s a big yard. And his dad doesn’t live with them, you know.”
“You don’t live with them either,” I reminded her.
I didn’t care that my dizzy friend was starting to believe Parker Schmidt’s article. Anybody with eyes could see how she laughed at Wallace’s jokes, hung around his locker, and even invited him to a cast party at her house (one guest: him. He stayed about forty-five seconds). No, what bothered me was that she was blowing me off, breaking our tradition, to do some jock’s yard work!
All day I simmered just below boiling. I looked longingly at the posters advertising this year’s fair as the biggest we’d ever had. I must have overheard twenty people from our play alone making plans to meet bright and early Saturday morning:
“Be at my house by eight-thirty. My mom’s giving us a lift.”
“We’ll meet at the Main Street bus.”
“Don’t be late. There’s so much to do.”
I thought it over. Why should I miss the fair because Trudi had gone crazy? I had other friends at this school.
I approached Leticia. “Hey, is it all right if I tag along with you guys on Saturday?”
“Sure!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm. “The more the merrier. Don’t forget to bring your rake.”
My rake?!
Enter…
WALLACE WALLACE
I was a Giant again, in my usual spot on the bench. The halftime show was going on in the middle of the game. It was “Old Shep, My Pal,” starring Nathaniel Spitzner on Rollerblades, with musical guests Mr. Fogelman and the Dead Mangoes.
Rick took the snap, and whipped the ball over to Laszlo, who took off on his moped, mud kicking up behind the spinning wheels. But Everton Wu was a wizard with his remote control, and the stuffed dog made a beautiful tackle.
I was about to jump on the fumble when marbles and pepper and pancake syrup started raining down on the field. It was another attack on the play! My loyal wife Trudi had the culprit in a headlock. He wore a Giants’ uniform with a question mark where the number should be. His face was hidden by a cheerleader’s megaphone.
“Wallace!”
I knew that voice! Was it Rick? Feather? Kevin? Cavanaugh?
I pushed away the megaphone to reveal the face of…
“Wally!”
My mother was calling me from downstairs.
“I couldn’t see who it was!” I roared out loud.
“Wally, come down. Your friends are here.”
I sat up in bed. “Rick?” I asked hopefully. “Feather?” I couldn’t believe those guys were talking to me again after I’d quit the team.
I ripped open the curtains to see whose bike was here. I gawked.
It wasn’t Rick or Feather, but it seemed like everybody else I knew. Most of the cast and crew of Old Shep, My Pal was swarming over my yard, raking.
Laszlo stood guard over an enormous pile of leaves. Vito held open green garbage bags while Rory and Leticia were in charge of stuffing. They were so organized down there that they even had a twist-tie specialist, Everton, who was also responsible for piling the full bundles by the curb. It was like the Giants times a hundred. But I’d always invited the team. I hadn’t invited anybody for today.
I threw on some clothes, and raced downstairs. It was really nice of everyone, but I was mortified. I mean, the job was half done before I even opened my eyes to start the day.
Trudi was there to greet me as I burst out the side door. “Hi, Wallace! Guess what we’re doing!”
Like I wouldn’t notice forty people slaving on my lawn. “But why are you here? How did everybody know I was raking today?”
She looked mystified. “You told me.”
“I told you?” But then I remembered. Ever since that moron Parker Schmidt reported that Trudi was the love of my life, she’d been trying to bamboozle me into acting like it was true. When she hit me up to take her to the fall fair, I was stuck. I couldn’t lie, so I made up my mind to rake leaves, and used it as an excuse.
My mother sidled over. “Thanks a lot, Wally, for letting me know you were expecting company.”
“I didn’t know anybody was coming!” I whispered. “I’m as surprised as you are!”
She pushed a pitcher and a stack of paper cups into my hands. “See that everyone gets juice. I’ll go in and throw together a few thousand sandwiches.” The look she left me with pretty plainly said that for what this was going to cost us in food, we could have hired Lorenzo of Beverly Hills, Leaf-Raker to the Stars.
Feeling stupid and more than a little ashamed, I became the drink guy. These drama nerds—my fellow drama nerds; I was one of them now—they acted like I was doing them a favor by allowing them to work their fingers to the bone in my yard.
“It’s the least we can do to thank you for making our play so fantastic,” Vito said emotionally.
I have to admit that it f
elt good to be appreciated. The appreciation level from my former teammates on the Giants had dropped to zero. I glanced around the yard at my rakers and baggers. I definitely wasn’t friendless. I’d just made the switch to a different type of friend. While the Giants had all been pretty much the same type of personality, the drama club provided an unbelievable variety. Just in my backyard, I had a piece of work like the Void raking shoulder to shoulder with happy-go-lucky fifth grader Everton Wu. Or a hot dog like Rory working alongside a serious, straitlaced girl like Rachel.
Rachel? I did a double take. It was Rachel, all right. She hated my guts. Why would she come over to do my yard work?
I went up and offered her a glass of apple juice.
“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 k
ill 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.”