Bystander (16 page)

At recess, Eric shot around on the basketball court. Pat and Hakeem joined him, along with a few other guys. “Are you trying out for the modified team this year?” Pat asked.

“You think I have a chance?”

“It's hard to say,” Pat said, feeding a pass to Hakeem. “I think it's good to try out, you know, even if you don't make it, just so the coach sees you and learns your name. That's what my father says.”

“It's mostly eighth-graders,” Hakeem interjected. “Last year, I heard they took three seventh-graders, total.”

Eric dribbled, spun, and dished to Pat.

“Open gym starts next week,” Pat said. “We could check it out, you know. Guys just show up and shoot around. But the coach watches, I think. Real tryouts won't start for another two weeks.”

Eric nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Eric popped the ball out of Pat's hands, then dribbled to the far corner of the court. “Five, four—down by one, time is running out—three, two . . .” He hoisted up a long shot, an orange rainbow that ended with a metallic
swoosh
at the bottom of the net.

“Hayes makes the shot! Hayes makes the shot!” Eric called, his hands cupped around his mouth. “Bellport wins the championship! And the crowd . . . goes . . . wild!”

TIME PASSED
,
BECAUSE THAT
'
S WHAT TIME DOES
,
IT
'
S A
river that keeps pushing forward. November came, and with it, basketball season. Eric had miraculously survived the final cuts; he made the team, one of only two seventh-graders on the thirteen-member squad. It was one of his happiest days in a long time. His mother took him and Rudy out for enormous ice-cream sundaes to celebrate.

“Music helps,” his father had once told him. And for Eric, that was so totally true. Through everything, he had his guitar and his amplifier. He played almost
every night, headphones on, just fooling around, trying to figure out the chords to the songs in his head. That's what guitar meant to Eric. He was determined to learn the techniques, the difficult fingering and chord progressions, practice those scales until he could hammer each note without looking or even thinking. Because he knew there was a song trapped in his heart, an inchoate melody swelling in the dark, and he had to find a way to release it, to open that song up and cast it out into the world.

During those times, guitar in hand, Eric often thought of his father. It was when he felt most connected to him. They shared that love, undiminished, come what may. Eric had written more letters to his father, and mailed them, too. They weren't anything special. Nothing deep or particularly meaningful. But it was a beginning—a new beginning—and Eric was eager to discover where that might lead. He signed each letter the same. “Love, Eric.” And maybe that was all that was necessary, that one true thought that said it all.

He thought about Griffin Connelly. They never talked anymore, never spoke of Eric's theft, or Griffin's new sneakers. It was like they made a silent pact.
Somehow it was all wiped clean, like chalk from a blackboard.

Eric figured that in the end, Griffin just got bored. They say people are supposed to forgive and forget, but in Griff's case, he just seemed to forget. So. Just like that, it was over. No final curtain. No big letters,
THE END
, flashing across the screen.

One day, not long ago, Eric walked down the hall and saw Griffin. He was with a new batch of friends, boys and girls Eric barely knew. Griffin was at the center, holding court, talking with that same cool confidence, beaming that golden smile. There was a girl by his side: Alexis Brown. They made a perfect couple.

Griffin didn't seem to see Eric. But Eric saw him—for he always kept a watchful eye on Griffin Connelly, never trusted him enough to feel completely safe. But for one split second, Eric saw Griff's eyes slide toward him. He saw Eric . . . and had no reaction at all. Eric was just another kid in the halls. A nobody. Not his enemy. Not his victim. Not his little side project, or his target.

That day, and every day since, nothing happened.
No “thing” at all. Eric kept walking, Griffin kept talking, both headed in different directions.

For the first time since he moved to Bellport, Eric wasn't a bully, a target, or a bystander. He was just Eric Hayes. A seventh-grade boy living on Long Island, trying to sort through a whole range of things, the teen years coming on hard, the challenges and confusions, maybe now on the verge of his first girlfriend, his first real kiss. All the while quietly hoping—in that place of the heart where words sputter and dissolve, where secret dreams are born and scarcely admitted—to score winning baskets for the home team. To take it to the hole and go up strong. Fearless, triumphant. The crowd on their feet.

His father in the stands, cheering.

THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN WITHOUT
the help of many people, most especially: Chris Bergere, Jody Monroe, Andy Baker, Jen Steil, Bruce Oliver, and Matt Farnan. Thank you for opening your doors, answering questions, offering insights, and, in a few cases, reading early drafts.

To everyone at Feiwel and Friends, and most especially my editor and great pal, Liz Szabla: I feel like that guy who strolls under sunny skies and thinks, “Gosh, what a lucky fellow am I!” You've given me that feeling and I'm grateful for it, every single day.

While doing research for this book, different lines from Martin Luther King Jr. keep popping up in books, blogs, and Web sites—all speaking to what King termed, “the appalling silence.” Though there are many salient quotes from King, one in particular had to find its way into this book: “In the end, we'll remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Let's all make some noise.