Jack Strong Takes a Stand (3 page)

“Um, okay,” I said.

“More important than Cathy Billows's party,” Lucy added.

“Uh-oh. Speak of the devil,” Leo mumbled. I looked up and saw Cathy's bright green eyes, jet-black hair, and flawless bone structure.

“Hi, Jack!”

“Hey,” I tried to say.

Alex Mutchnik was standing right behind her, which was completely unsurprising, since he had a thing for her. Alex nodded at me, but not in a good way.

Cathy smiled, and I could swear one of her teeth actually sparkled. “So, I just wanted to make sure you were coming to my party tomorrow night!”

“Did you have to invite the
whole
homeroom?” Alex butted in.

I decided to stand up and take my punishment like a man. “Well, here's the thing,” I began. “I would love to go, I completely and totally would, but as it turns out I have this major cello recital, and my parents won't let me skip it.”

Alex reacted first by sneering, “Your
parents
?”

Cathy was frozen. It was like she couldn't process the fact that someone would turn down an invitation to one of her parties. Finally, she blinked once.

“A cello recital?” she asked, as if I'd said it in Swahili.

I nodded. “Yup. I know, it's a bummer.”

“A bummer for YOU,” offered Alex.

“Why don't you stay out of it,” Leo said to Alex bravely.

“Why don't YOU stay out of it,” Alex responded uncreatively.

Meanwhile, Cathy was beginning to process the fact that I would not be attending her party. Her smile faded and was replaced by a stare that was so cold it's probably illegal in several countries.

“Fine.”

No exclamation point this time.

Then she shook her head and walked away without another word.

Alex had one word left, though.

“Loser.”

 

5

 

The cello recital,
like all recitals, had a strict no-escape policy. Which basically meant, if there were twenty-eight musicians performing and your kid was third, you didn't get to sneak out the side door after he or she performed.

I think they might have even locked everyone inside.

I was twenty-third on the program, so by the time I went, most of the audience was tired and resentful. People were staring out the window. Cell phones were burning holes in pockets. And there was a lot of coughing and shuffling.

I began to play one of Bach's unaccompanied sonatas. And here's the funny thing: even though I was so mad at my parents—and mad at my cello, mad at basically everything and everyone—when I started to play, I forgot all about it. I got into the music. Like I said, I really like the cello. And I sounded pretty darn good.

Until I looked up and saw Mrs. Fleck.

Mrs. Fleck is Lucy Fleck's mother. I told you Lucy was quiet, and an amazing piano player. But I didn't tell you that she has the craziest mother in America.

Mrs. Fleck is the most intense person I've ever met, by far. She makes my dad seem like a marshmallow. She goes everywhere her daughter goes, watches her do everything, screams the loudest at her soccer games, claps the loudest at her concerts, complains the loudest when her grades are less than straight A pluses.

And not only that—she's one of those parents who doesn't like it when other kids do well.

So when I was playing my cello and I happened to look up and see Mrs. Fleck, she was staring at me and making this face that basically said,
I hope you drop your bow
.

So what did I do? I dropped my bow.

Yup. I did. It slid right out of my hand and clattered across the wood floor. Everyone gasped. Even the parents who had fallen asleep were suddenly wide-awake.

I sat in my seat for a second, not sure what to do. Then I mumbled “sorry,” went and got my bow, sat back down, and finished the piece. But the magic was gone.

I hated the cello again.

Afterward I went back to my seat, my ears burning with embarrassment. Two people later, Lucy Fleck performed some incredibly hard Beethoven piece on the piano and was amazing. She actually got a standing ovation. Mrs. Fleck jumped up and down like a kangaroo on steroids.

Meanwhile, all I could think about was that somewhere across town, Cathy Billows was having a party that I'd been invited to. Alex Mutchnik was there, probably telling dumb stories that everyone was laughing at, because I wasn't there to tell funny ones.

What was wrong with this picture?

Everything.

 

6

 

After the recital,
there were snacks and juice in the lobby. Kind of like a reward to the audience for making it all the way through.

“I thought you were fantastic,” said Nana, chomping on a cookie.

“Thanks, Nana.”

She could tell I was upset, so she tried to cheer me up by smacking me on the head, which was kind of an unusual method. “What the matter? So you dropped the bow? I'm sure Casals dropped his bow all the time!” Pablo Casals was like the most famous cellist of all time, and I'm pretty sure he never dropped his bow in his entire life.

“I guess so,” I mumbled, more than ready to change the subject.

My mom and dad were a couple of feet away, talking to some other parents about how wonderful we all were. Eventually they made their way over to me.

My mom hugged me. “Fantastic, honey!”

My dad was smiling, but I could tell he was thinking about the bow incident. “Great job, Jack.”

“Sorry about the bow,” I said.

He shook his head. “Hey, it happens. You didn't let it get to you; you plowed right through it. That takes guts. I'm proud of you.”

Then he hugged me, too. I felt like I had disappointed him, and I was mad at myself for caring that I disappointed him, but I hugged him back.

“Let's get ice cream,” Nana announced, and I immediately felt better. Ice cream is a much better way to cheer up a grandson than a smack on the head, by the way.

On our way out we passed Lucy Fleck, surrounded by her family. Mrs. Fleck was taking pictures and shouting at her daughter, trying unsuccessfully to get her to smile. Lucy saw me and came over.

“I'm sorry you dropped your bow,” she said.

“Thanks. You were awesome tonight.”

“Thank you.” Lucy still didn't smile. I'm not sure she knew how to smile. Maybe because Mrs. Fleck was her mother.

“LUCY, WE NEED YOU! EVERYONE WANTS A PICTURE OF THE STAR PIANIST!” shouted Mrs. Fleck.

“I have to go,” Lucy said to me, and went back to her mom.

Nana shook her head at Mrs. Fleck. “Something is wrong with that woman,” she announced, way too loudly.

My mom went white. “Mom, sshhh!”

My dad chuckled.

“What?” said Nana. “She's a whack job, and I don't care who knows it.”

Luckily, the whack job was too caught up in her daughter's amazingness to hear a word my grandmother said.

 

7

 

“How was the party?”

It was later that night, and I was on the phone with Leo, who wasn't actually at the party, but who had talked to David Cussler, who was.

“David said it was pretty fun, until Alex pushed Becky into the pool with her clothes on, and her cell phone was trashed,” Leo reported. “Then Becky started to cry, and when her brother came to pick her up and found out what happened, he smacked Alex on the back with his lacrosse stick, and Alex got so mad he left the party and just started walking down the street and never came back. Apparently his dad ended up picking him up at the Stop & Shop on Westlake.”

I whistled. Wow, there was a lot of action at these parties. And I was no fan of Alex Mutchnik's, but walking all the way to Stop & Shop by yourself on a dark night sounded pretty scary.

“How was your cello recital?” asked Leo.

“Horrible,” I answered, without going into details.

“That's too bad. What are you doing tomorrow? Do you want to meet downtown or something?”

I sighed. “I don't know. I have orchestra at nine, Chinese at noon, and baseball practice at one-thirty.”

“Dang,” Leo said, “I thought I had it bad.”

After I got off the phone, I lay down on my bed and tried to make myself think that it was good I didn't go to the party after all. I imagined spilling a drink on some fancy rug, and then knocking over a lamp while trying to clean it up.

But then I imagined Cathy Billows trying to cheer me up and help me forget about my clumsiness by dancing with me and holding my hand.

Ugh. The last thing I wanted in my imagination right then was a happy ending.

 

8

 

There were twelve kids
in my Chinese class, and half of them were Chinese-American. I guess their parents wanted them to speak the language of their ancestors. I already spoke the language of my ancestors, at least going back to my great-grandparents. My great-great-grandparents were from Europe somewhere, but according to my dad, Chinese is a more important language to learn than French or German, or even Spanish.

“It's the future,” my dad said. “Did you know the United States owes more than a trillion dollars to the Chinese? If you know the language, you'll be able to write your own ticket in this world. Yup, China is where's it at.”

Yeah, well, China may be where it's at, but Chinese class was where I was at on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I wasn't too happy about it. Neither was anyone else. Even the Chinese kids.

Oh, and did I mention that Chinese has its own alphabet? As if learning a foreign language isn't hard enough.

“Okay class, let's review last week's lesson,” said our teacher, Ms. Li. She was okay I guess, but very strict. I was obsessed with her glasses. She wore them so close to the tip of her nose that I kept staring at them, waiting for them to fall. But they never did.

I opened up my book and stared down at the page. We were in the middle of a unit about items in the house.

“Lamp,” said Ms. Li.

“
Deng
,” we all chanted.

“Table.”

“Ji.”

“Brush.”

“Hao.”

“Window.”

“Chuang.”

BUZZZZ!!!

No,
buzzzz
is not a household item. It's the sound a phone makes when a text is coming in.

More specifically, it's the sound MY phone makes when a text is coming in.

BUZZZZ!

I froze, a little shocked that I actually forgot to turn off my phone. If there's one thing Ms. Li can't stand, it's phones going off in the middle of her class.

Everyone turned around to stare at me.

The teacher's eyes narrowed. “Well, Mr. Strong, are you going to tell us all what's so important?”

“You mean, you want me to see what it says?”

“Please.”

I fumbled for my phone and opened the text. It was from Leo. I read it quickly, swore a little under my breath, and then put the phone back in my pocket.