Losers Take All (17 page)

“You and three million other people,” I said. “Isn't it freaky?”

“‘Freaky' is the word.” He nodded. “The football team is not amused.”

“Amusing the Fremont football team isn't something I spend too much time worrying about,” I told him.

Rob stepped closer. “I get that. Just be careful. Some people are pretty pissed off.”

“I've done absolutely nothing,” I told him truthfully.

“But you're the captain?”

“Because nobody else wanted the job.”

He glanced around and then lowered his voice: “Hey, I'd like you to think about something a little radical.”

I looked back at him over the orange flame of a Bunsen burner. “What's up?”

“I should be starting at quarterback,” he whispered. “Instead Muhldinger put me on special teams, knowing I'd have to sacrifice my body. Every time I breathe now it hurts. That bastard set me up. He's always had it in for me. Because I do a little modeling he thinks I'm soft. He calls me Goldilocks.”

“You'll get playing time at QB,” I told him. “Everyone knows you have a gun.”

“If I want it,” he muttered. “Here's a thought. But don't tell anyone.”

“Sure. What's up?”

“You got this really cool thing going,” he said. “Soccer's not my sport but I could definitely contribute.” He flashed me his ten-thousand-megawatt grin. “Not to mention I could enhance the team's, ah, social profile.”

There was no doubt of that, but I couldn't understand what would be in it for him—Rob was one of the five best athletes at our school, and certainly one of the most popular kids, too. “Why would you want to join our lousy circus act?”

He glanced around warily, but no one was listening. “It might be fun,” he said with a careless shrug. “I'm tired of getting my nuts busted by Muhldinger. I'd like to bust his nuts for a change. And maybe I could even help you guys win.”

“My team doesn't want to win.”

“How can they not want to win?”

“My dad asked me the same thing. I couldn't explain it to him, because I'm not sure I understand it myself. But they don't.”

“So they want to lose? Isn't that easy? You just give up.”

“Not necessarily,” I told him. “They want to be what they are, which is a lousy soccer team. They don't want to play the game Muhldinger's way. And when they do lose, they want style points.”

Rob thought that over for a few seconds and then glanced up at the front of the room. I could almost see him tense up and pull away from me. “Watch your back, captain,” he whispered.

I turned to follow his gaze, and saw that Muhldinger's tall personal secretary with the orange hair had just walked into the lab and was talking to our chemistry teacher, jabbing one of her long, silver-painted fingernails in my direction.

A minute later I was following the secretary down the hall at power-walking speed. She was wearing heels and her steps clicked off the marble floor. She didn't say one word till we reached the administrative offices, and then the long silver nail of her index finger sliced out at me like a switchblade. “Sit,” she commanded, pointing toward the waiting area where Coach Percy was already waiting, looking tense, his fingers knitted together on his lap.

I headed over, and he gave me a nod. “Hello, Jack. Sorry you've been called onto the carpet, too. I'm afraid this won't be much fun.”

“What's going on?” I asked.

“I assume the principal's going to let us know once and for all that our season has been officially terminated.”

I looked back at him, and remembered that I hadn't seen a TV or a computer in his apartment. Maybe Classics teachers are behind the curve when it comes to new technology. “You don't have a clue what's been happening?”

“When I arrived at school, I got a message to come here,” Percy said. “I've been waiting for twenty minutes.” He looked at my face. “Did I miss something?”

“You did,” I told him. “You have a tiger by the tail. Or a lion. That would be the Fremont Lion.”

“I still don't understand,” he said. “Maybe you'd better start from the beginning.”

I tried to explain to him what had happened, with our team's story exploding on the Web, but I didn't get through much of it before the secretary with orange hair told us to follow her. She ushered us into the conference room, where four people were waiting around a big table.

Dylan's mother smiled and said good morning to me— I assumed she was there because she was on the school board, not to mention the mom of one of my teammates. The president of the board, Mr. Bryce, was there, too, in a dark suit. He was an attorney in town and a big football booster. I think he had been a Fremont halfback three decades ago, and he had championed the idea of making Muhldinger the new principal. Mrs. Fritz, our school's athletic director, sat very erect with a black ballpoint pen poised over a blank notepad. And at the head of the table, sweating despite the fact that our school was air-conditioned, sat Muhldinger, looking uncomfortable in a jacket and tie.

The secretary with the orange hair left and pulled the door closed. Muhldinger cleared his throat. “Good morning, guys,” he said to Coach Percy and me. “Take a load off.”

We said good morning back and sat down. There was an awkward silence. Mr. Bryce nodded to Muhldinger.

Muhldinger swallowed and took a big breath. “When it comes to sports I'm a very competitive guy,” he noted, “and sometimes I may take it a little too far.” He focused his eyes at a point on the white wall between Percy and me. “We're used to winning at Fremont, but of course winning isn't everything. Even more important is…” His voice trailed off and his face showed baffled surprise, as if he'd had something in his pocket a minute ago but he'd somehow managed to lose it.

“Personal growth?” Dylan's mother prompted.

Muhldinger nodded slightly, as if there was no need to repeat the phrase. “So to cut to the chase, I've decided that your soccer team deserves to play out its season.”

“Thank you,” Percy said, and held out his hand.

Muhldinger shook it without speaking and glanced at me.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said.

“Don't thank me,” Muhldinger grunted. He forced a terrible smile, as if he wanted to bite something in half but could only flash his teeth. “I'm new to this job, and running a school teaches you a lot about yourself.” He reached up with two fingers and pried his collar away from his stub of a neck. “In the heat of battle, I said some things that I regret.” He looked like he would rather be chewing on glass, but he managed to spit out the rest of it. “Please let your team know that I hope everyone feels included and proud, no matter what it says on the scoreboard.”

Dylan's mom nodded. “I think it's very important to get that message out.”

Muhldinger glanced at Mr. Bryce, who told her: “We just
have
gotten that message out, Elaine.” Then Bryce turned to Percy and me. “As I'm sure you know, this story has become a bit of a cause célèbre. A video was posted on the Internet that has attracted considerable attention.” He paused, took a sip of ice water, and gave me a smile. “I assume the video was made by one of your teammates, Jack.”

It wasn't a question, but everyone was looking at me. “No idea,” I told him.

He studied my face carefully. “Whoever did it certainly has the right to free expression. But they should understand that there are limits to that, both legally and when it comes to our own school rules. Taping someone without their knowledge and posting it for the world to see exceeds those limits, in my opinion.”

“If Jack says he doesn't know who did it, I believe him,” Percy spoke up bravely. “This boy has a sterling character and I've never known him to dissemble.”

“I agree,” Dylan's mom said. “There's no reason to interrogate him, Paul.”

Mr. Bryce smiled at her, took another sip of ice water, and set his cup down on a trivet. He turned his head and fixed his gaze on Percy and me. “This school system may decide to hire an expert to figure out who posted it. In the meantime, we have a long-standing policy at Fremont of not talking to news organizations about students and sports teams and what's going on inside our school family. We've always tried to keep a low profile because that's usually best for everyone. So if any members of your team are contacted by the press my strong advice is the less said the better. Mary?”

Mrs. Fritz tapped her pen on her blank notepad. “From now on your soccer team will be practicing and playing on the south field, where the grass is a little better.”

Mr. Bryce added, “It's also more private. We've had a few requests from news organizations to film your practices, which we've turned down.”

“Why on earth would anyone want to film our practices?” Percy asked.

Mrs. Fritz went right on. “Your games for the rest of the year will continue on the days and times previously scheduled. The five schools you're playing have been contacted and the dates reconfirmed. I think that's all. Oh, one more thing—the varsity cheerleaders want to perform at your home games, unless you have a problem with that?”

Percy glanced at me for help. Cheerleaders were clearly outside his level of experience.

“The more cheering the better,” I said.

We all shook hands and Percy and I headed out of the administrative offices together. “That was damned decent of Muhldinger to give us our season back,” he said. “I don't think it could have ended any better.”

“He was forced to do it, but he still hates us,” I told him softly. “This isn't over by a long stretch.”

Coach Percy nodded. “I suppose you're right, but let's hope for the best. By the way, why do the varsity cheerleaders want to perform at our games?”

“For the same reason Bryce and Muhldinger don't want us to talk to reporters,” I told him. “We're the hot story at Fremont High.”

 

23

I'm not sure that Mrs. Fritz was right about the south field having better grass, but it was certainly more private. The field was sandwiched between the swimming pool and the tennis courts, so there was no view of it from any street. The two TV news trucks that pulled into our school's parking lot in the early afternoon couldn't get close. Dylan heard from his mom that the reporters were brought to the conference room, denied permission to film on school grounds, and asked not to bother any Fremont students.

When we headed out for our afternoon practice, a school guard was patrolling the field, making sure reporters and strangers stayed away. But he couldn't stop other students from coming to watch, and more than twenty were waiting for us. They ranged from freshmen to seniors, from soccer fans to sports haters. The south field had no bleachers, so they sprawled on the grass and waited to see what all the fuss was about. I was surprised to see Rob Powers saunter over with two pretty girls and sit down gingerly. With his cracked rib and punctured lung it was clear that he couldn't run any football drills, but surely he had better things to do than watch our pathetic soccer practice.

We now had a nickname—the Losers—and my teammates seemed to be embracing their own breaking story with excitement and a weird kind of pride. It was as if they were thrilled at becoming famous for being lousy. When we circled up for our yoga stretches, they compared notes on how our story kept getting hotter on the Web.

Chloe was tracking our numbers. She claimed that more than four million people had seen us on different sites. “That's more than watched the president's press conference last week,” she informed us.

“We're more entertaining than the president's press conference,” Meg said.

“Yeah, the president never collides with anyone or falls into a lake,” Dylan agreed. Meg smiled at him. I didn't think they were dating yet, but my shy friend was now relaxed around her and could even crack lame jokes, which was a big step forward.

Frank described a site that featured an unflattering photo of Muhldinger—his big bald head shiny under fluorescent lights—labeled
THE MUSCLE-HEAD OF MUSCLES HIGH
. The site was running a Meanest Coach contest, inviting students to post pictures of their own nasty coaches.

Becca stretched out next to me and asked softly: “Did you and your dad talk?”

“Not really.”

“You don't look like you got much sleep.”

“Just a few hours.”

“I didn't get much either,” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “I kept reading the comments of people who say they're going to come to our game on Tuesday. It's insane. They're carpooling from Brooklyn, and there's a group biking over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan. There's even a weird men's soccer club in Hartford that claims they're worse and more out of shape than we are, and they may drive down in a van to prove it.”

“We'll show them what it means to be out of shape,” Pierre proclaimed. “I can boot again if necessary.”

“I hope it's not necessary,” I told him. “I doubt that's what they're all coming to see.” Then I asked Becca, “How many people total do you think are really gonna show up on Tuesday?”

“Maybe a hundred,” she guessed. “They sound pretty serious about it. They're mostly people who hated high school sports and felt pushed around and bullied, and they see coming out here and cheering for us as an opportunity to get some of their own back.”

“Once a revolution starts, the real power rests with those who have been most abandoned,” Shimsky contributed grimly.

“Who said that?” Meg wanted to know.

“Danton,” Shimsky told her.

“Don't you mean Dante?” Becca asked.

“Georges-Jacques Danton,” Coach Percy explained. “A leading firebrand in the French Revolution who was eventually guillotined. Let's take a lap around the field. It's not a race, so feel free to go at your own pace.”