One Shot Away by T. Glen Coughlin

Author:T. Glen Coughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Diggy

AT LUNCH, JANE’S GETTING EXTRA HELP IN GEOMETRY, SO DIGGY has no choice but to sit at the wrestling table. He can’t sit alone. As he approaches, Gino’s eyes flash at Diggy, then dart over to Trevor. Diggy knows Gino’s a walking, talking time bomb. Diggy sits and lets out a long, slow breath.

“To what do we owe this honor?” asks Jimmy.

“Is the little lady on the rag?” asks Bones. “Or maybe she’s trying to wash Africa off her face.” Everyone erupts into laughter.

Diggy grabs Bones’s sandwich and squishes it until wheat bread squeezes between his fingers. “Next time, that’s your face.”

“You ever touch my lunch again, I’ll break your jerkass hands.” Bones isn’t laughing. “You’ve got to learn how to take a joke.”

“You’re a joke.” Diggy dumps his own lunch, turkey sandwich, an apple, a protein bar, and a slice of cake, from a brown bag onto the table.

“That’s like a week’s worth of food,” says Jimmy.

“If you’d move up a weight class”—Diggy bites his sandwich—“then you could eat too.”

Pancakes holds a “lost dog” flyer with Whizzer’s picture on it. Bones snatches it from his hand. He cranes his neck around to Trevor. “Sorry to say this dude, but he’s got to be roadkill by now. Why would anyone steal a mutt? He was a mutt, right?”

“He was half Lab,” says Trevor.

“That’s a mutt, yo,” says Bones. “And a mutt is a mutt, right, Gino?”

Gino fixes his eyes on his square of cardboard pizza from the cafeteria kitchen.

“Who made you the expert?” says Gino.

“If he was going to be a big dog,” says Jimmy, “maybe somebody needed a guard dog. Trevor, you ever think of that?”

“Yeah.” Trevor nods. “The police mentioned that.”

Diggy chews his sandwich, barely tasting it. His stomach feels like it’s on a seesaw. He looks at Gino, who has tears pooling in his eyes.

“Principal Anderson is going to make an announcement tomorrow during homeroom,” says Trevor.

Diggy puts his sandwich down. He’s lost his appetite. “Trevor, he’ll probably show up when you least expect it,” he says.

The wrestlers look at Diggy.

“He was a puppy,” says Bones. “How’s a puppy just going to show up?”

“I don’t know, anything’s possible, right?”

“Thanks,” says Trevor. “I’m not giving up either.”

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