Home Games by Benjamin Markovits

Author:Benjamin Markovits
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

FOR A FEW DAYS AFTERWARD, kids are talking about Pete and what happened at LBJ. There’s a rumor going around that he might be suspended from the basketball team. It’s a big deal—it’s one of those things that kids get angry about, where they get mad at the principal. Some people want to start a petition. I hear them discussing it as I wait in the lunch line for my carton of milk. Mabley doesn’t say anything to me—we haven’t really hung out since the tournament. I don’t know if she blames me, if she thinks I told on them.

Finally, on Friday morning, I manage to sit next to her on the bus. She makes me nervous now, but I say, “I didn’t tell on you. I don’t know what you guys did or who . . . found out or whatever, but it wasn’t me.”

“Tell on me about what?”

“At LBJ. When you guys . . .”

“That was my fault. I wanted to do something stupid, to see what it’s like. Now I know. It’s no big deal. If you do this kind of thing,” she says, “you have to face the consequences.”

“What about Pete?”

“What about Pete?” she asks.

“Nothing, I don’t know.”

When Mabley doesn’t want to talk about something, there’s nothing you can do—she just looks at you like everything’s great.

“How’s Laura?” she asks, changing the subject.

We’re pulling into the parking lot. But parents are dropping off kids in cars—there’s always a traffic jam coming into school. Kids on the bus are getting their backpacks ready, but we have to wait, even though the stop is just a few yards away. When the driver turns off the engine, the whole bus shakes and sighs.

“What do you mean?”

“Laura Kirkup. I thought she was your math buddy. I thought you liked her.”

“Like her?” I’m not sure what Mabley is talking about. “She kind of scares me. You never know what she’s thinking.”

“Who knows what anybody’s thinking,” Mabley says.

The doors are open now; everybody’s streaming off, heading for their lockers before school—but I’ve got all my books with me and head straight to homeroom.

Laura waits for me after math class—she eats lunch with her own friends, but we walk to the cafeteria together. “I hope they do suspend Pete from the basketball team.” She’s normally a quiet kid; she’s normally a bit like me. It’s funny to hear her talk like that, like she has all these strong feelings all the time.

“I don’t even know what they did,” I tell her.

“They just had lunch at KFC. But to get there, you have to cross over the highway. We weren’t even supposed to leave the campus. They could have gotten run over. Real stupid,” she says.

But saying it like that makes me want to stand up for them. “They just wanted to get away from that gym. Don’t you think there was something . . . all of us sitting there, taking tests . . .”

“Nobody made them sign up,” Laura says. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel bad for Pete.

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