CHAPTER 7

WORD OF MOUTH

People in business are always talking about “word of mouth.” When someone talks about your store or your restaurant or your amusement park or whatever, that’s the best kind of advertising. And there’s no better place for “word of mouth” than the halls of a middle school. All these people under one roof? Gossip and rumors travel at Mach 3.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when a line had formed near my locker and there was a mob of kids surrounding it waiting for the “Rookie Bookie” and “Mitch the new kid” to take their football bets. It had taken precisely two class periods for “word of mouth” to spread throughout the entire school.

I took everyone’s ten dollars and made a mark next to what team they wanted. At one point I looked over my shoulder and saw Jamie at her locker. Our eyes met. She winked at me. I guess this is what it feels like to be popular.

“Why don’t you just pay me now?” Noah Raymond said, smiling.

“Why’s that?” I said.

“Because it’s beyond obvious that Chicago is going to beat Atlanta.”

“We’ll see,” I said, taking his money and checking his name. “Actually, you’re probably right,” I added. I wanted him to keep betting after all.

“Hey, I know you’re Mitch, but I don’t think we’ve really met,” said a seventh grader with a buzz cut, his hair standing straight up like freshly mowed grass. “I’m Max. You sure’ve brought, like, an exciting vibe with you. Is that how they would say it in California?”

“Yeah, sure. I guess. Thanks,” I said, trying quickly to think of what a cool California kid might say. “Thanks, dude… man.” Ugh. Awkward.

“Okay. Go, Dolphins!” said Max. “Catch you later, dude-man.”

Maybe not so awkward?

It went on like that until I took the last bet. By the time the bell sounded, I had five hundred dollars bulging in my pocket. Assuming Jamie did her job and found people to make bets on the other side, we were in business. Serious business.

In Mr. Rafferty’s class, we were still studying percentages. Standing in front of the class, he looked like a mad scientist from a horror movie. What was left of his hair was shooting in all sorts of different directions, like he had put his finger in an electrical socket. His shirt had a giant crease in it. His wool pants looked like they had been made of leftover fabric from the drapes, and I noticed that his belt had bypassed one of the loops. I didn’t care. He was such an awesome teacher.

“… so a fraction can also be expressed as a percent,” he was saying. “If there are twenty-four of you in the class and twelve of you get A’s on the test, what percent gets A’s?” he asked.

A few hands shot up. Mr. Rafferty ignored them.

“Gabby, want to try it?” he asked, pointing at a girl in the front row who seemed really shy. She hardly ever talked, and she walked around with her head down. Now she didn’t answer.

“We can do this, Gabby!” Mr. Rafferty said cheerfully. “Can you reduce twelve over twenty-four?”

“Half,” she mumbled.

“Right!” Mr. Rafferty practically shouted. “And what percent is half?”

“Fifty?” Gabby said meekly.

“You got it!” Mr. Rafferty gushed. “Fifty percent will get A’s. And I bet you’ll be one of them, Gabby.”

Even as she tucked her head, I could tell she was smiling.

“Okay, time for another one,” said Mr. Rafferty. “Let’s say Mitch has been going to a new school for twenty days. He’s been a great kid for nineteen days. On one of the days, he made an error in judgment and did something he shouldn’t.”

The class giggled and looked at me. I smiled. It was pretty cool Mr. R. was using me as an example, but I also got kind of a funny feeling in my stomach.

“What percent of the days has Mitch made the wrong choice?”

Okay, I got it. This was Mr. Rafferty’s way of warning me: I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but I know you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing.

But as the rest of the class was figuring out what percent of my days at Jonasburg had been spent making wrong choices, I was still thinking about making more money. I had five hundred dollars in my pocket, and Jamie and I were going to get to keep—here you go, Mr. Rafferty—ten percent of it. So fifty dollars was going to be ours. And, if Jamie also got five hundred dollars in bets, that’s one hundred dollars in total. Fifty for me, fifty for her.

Fifty dollars!

And this was only the beginning.

Jamie and I were on our way.

While Jamie and I had figured out a way not to lose at football, the Jonasburg High football team wasn’t so fortunate. Even against teams that were clearly weaker, they kept putting up the smaller numbers on the scoreboard. In one game, they were winning easily going into the fourth quarter, but then gave up three touchdowns. In another game, they lost 13–12 because their kicker, Tom Denzel, missed a field goal. (“Clint Grayson could have made that kick,” said Kevin.)

The worst, though, came in a game against the Verona Vipers. Late in the game, Jonasburg was hanging on to a slim lead, the way you hang on to the rail of a roller coaster. Verona was marching down the field with a chance to win. But then Nathan Isaac—one of the seniors who sometimes drove Kevin home from school—made a fantastic interception.

The crowd went crazy. Finally, victory was at hand.

Nathan had caught the ball and was hit at the same time by two players, spinning him around. He kept his balance and started to run. But there was this one problem.

In his excitement, he had run down the field in the wrong direction.

Maybe it was because he’d heard all the cheers. Maybe it was because he was disoriented from the collision with the other players. Not only that, but the louder everyone yelled “Nooooo!!” the more it seemed to encourage him. In what was only a few seconds, he scored for the other team.

NOOOO-OOOO!

When he crossed into the end zone, he did a somersault, congratulating himself.

Nathan probably wondered why he wasn’t mobbed by teammates, the way it usually happens when a player scores a touchdown, especially a dramatic one late in the game. When the other Jonasburg players arrived downfield and explained what had happened, Nathan stomped his foot, put both hands on his helmet and… well, wait. Why I am explaining this to you? You can see it all for yourself. Just search for the video called “Jonasburg Wrong Way Touchdown” online. When I last checked, there were more than 1.7 million views.

After that game, Kevin didn’t really seem all that upset. He seemed sort of confused and shocked, like when you wake up in the backseat of a car and aren’t sure where you are. Huh? Wha—? What just happened? Where are we?

The next morning, he was still trying to make sense of it all. “We had that game won,” he complained. “I mean, it was over. O-ver.”

“Maybe your team is just cursed,” I said. For the record, I don’t believe in curses. But they seem to make people feel better. It’s like: Nothing can be anyone’s fault or anyone’s responsibility if there’s a curse. It puts the blame on, like, this supernatural force, not on anyone specific. Maybe that would make Kevin feel better.

Or not.

“It’s not that,” said Kevin. “But all this losing has become like a disease that has gotten contagious. The tacklers tackle a little worse. The kickers kick a little worse. The coaches coach a little worse. The bus driver gets lost on the way to every game. Even the cheerleaders forget their cheers and can’t balance on their pyramids.”

“Maybe that’s the first problem,” said Dad, overhearing. “You need to stop paying attention to the cheerleaders during the games. I know they’re foxy and all, but wait till after the game, would ya?”

“Ha-ha, very funny, Dad,” said Kevin. “I’m serious. I heard from one of the other guys that Coach Williams is worried about his job.”

“Seriously?” I asked. I liked Coach Williams, even if he did call me “Little Sloan” and even if I wasn’t ever going to get to play football for him. He made some bad decisions, but he was a nice person. “That’s not fair. He’s a good coach, right?”

“He’s a great coach!” Kevin snapped, like I was the one threatening his job. “But people want to blame somebody. And it looks like Coach Williams is it unless we can start winning. And, Dad? No one has used the word ‘foxy’ in, like, fifty years.”

We never really planned it, but Jamie and I developed this ritual. On Sunday mornings we would call each other and talk on the phone. The idea was to go over our “venture.” (That’s what I decided to call it.) We would make sure we had people on each side of the bet and be certain we hadn’t forgotten something.

But after we did that, we’d just talk. We’d talk about our weekend. We’d talk about our parents and how they were (or sometimes, amazingly, weren’t) driving us crazy. We’d talk about sports. We’d talk about nothing important.

And it was hard not to notice: Every time I hung up, I was in a good mood.

After one of those Sunday talks, when I arrived at my locker on Monday morning, Jamie was there. So were a cluster of other kids, waiting like baby birds to get worms from their mother. And the thing is, I was loving it. In California, I used to kind of slink into school hoping nobody saw me. All I’d be thinking about was getting to a classroom where there would be a teacher nearby. Here, kids called my name when I walked in. Or shouted out my nickname!

“Hey, Rookie Bookie! See you at your locker?” Mark Sterner yelled that morning. “Catch that game, Mitch?” Rudy Matthews asked me. “Some touchdown, huh?” His girlfriend, Rachel Miller, was holding his hand. “We’re going to the movies tonight to celebrate,” she said, beaming at me. “Thanks, Mitch!”

And there were other kids, saying hi, slapping me high fives. I didn’t even know all their names. I didn’t care that much. It just felt good. Really good.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like having friends. They didn’t invite me over to their houses after school. They didn’t crowd around my table to eat with me at lunch. But they didn’t trip me, or elbow me, or slam me into the lockers, or stick my head in a toilet either.

I’d take it.

Jamie took out her notebook and crossed off the names as I paid everyone. Or started to pay them.

“Hold on, hold on,” I said to Josh Burke. Or I kind of said it to his shirt collar. He was an eighth grader and (like my good pal Carl Lake) he played basketball. And he was tall. Big all over, really.

“Hold on?” he asked. “Hey, Rookie Bookie, I don’t want to hold on. I won. Where’s my money?”

“I know you won. I’ve got your money,” I said, irritated. “I just don’t have change.”

This kept coming up, just like that first day. Most of the kids placed their bets with ten-dollar bills. Sometimes they handed me or Jamie twenties and expected us to have change.

But we had to give each winner eighteen dollars. That meant a ten and a five and three ones. Or three fives and three ones. Whatever, it meant ones. I was always running out of ones.

I didn’t want to go back to Irma again. She hadn’t looked too happy about making change for me. And that had been when I only needed about eighty dollars’ worth. Business had expanded since then. I was actually carrying around hundreds of dollars now, every Monday morning. Me and Jamie both. (Jamie and I. Sorry, Mom.) Irma was sure to get really suspicious if we asked for that much.

I asked my dad and mom and Kevin sometimes, but they were starting to wonder what I needed so many singles for. Whenever I went into a store, I tried to pay with a twenty and squirrel away the change. But it was never enough. And now I was out of ones. Again.

“Look, I’ve just got twenties,” I said to Josh.

“No problem,” he said. And before I could stop him, he reached over and grabbed a twenty-dollar bill from my fist.

“Well, okay.” He could at least have waited until I handed it to him. “You’ve got two bucks?”

“Nope.” He was chewing gum, and he kept chewing it and smiling.

“So how are you going to give me my change?”

“Sorry, Rookie Bookie. I’m just like you. I don’t have change.” Josh grinned and chewed and started walking back down the hall.

I was stunned. At least he was our last customer that day, so nobody else got the bright idea of stealing from us. But—hey!

Jamie had her hand on my arm.

“Better let him go, Mitch,” she said quietly.

“But he—he can’t do that! That’s our money! He stole our money!”

“So what are we going to do about it, Mitch? Start a fight? Go to a teacher?”

She was right. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

Should we knock on the door of the principal’s office? Oh, Mr. Pearlman, Josh Burke just stole two dollars from our gambling business.

What gambling business, Mr. Sloan? Ms. Spielberger?

Right. Time to cut your losses, Mitch.

“Just forget it,” Jamie said, stuffing her money into her backpack. “But we’ve got to come up with a better way of making change!”

That Friday, Jonasburg played a game on the road. The opponent was Gas City, a town name that had made me laugh all week. I told Jamie that I figured that the motto was something like “Excuse me, I don’t know what I ate.”

“Actually, I think it’s ‘It wasn’t me; it was the dog,’ ” she said. “Or maybe ‘Pull my finger.’ ”

Besides us, no one else laughed much. I guess they’d all heard this for years and just took it for granted. Besides, Gas City had a lousy team, and everyone was more concerned with the idea that Jonasburg might win a game, which they hadn’t done yet this season.

Mom, Dad, and I got into the car to drive to Gas City for the game. Right after we pulled onto the highway, the car started making this funky noise, like there was a squirrel in the engine compartment, trying to get out.

“Oh no,” Dad groaned. “I’m going to have to call Walter again.”

It’s never a good sign when you’re on first-name terms with your mechanic. “Didn’t Walter just fix something last month? The fuel pump or whatever?” I asked.

“Yes, Mitch,” Mom said.

I knew that tone in her voice. That Mitch is being annoying tone. But there was still something I wanted to know.

“Why don’t you trade this car in, then?” I asked. “If you’re always fixing it up. That costs a lot of money.”

“Of course it does, Mitch,” Dad said. “But we’ve paid for this car already. We’ve got to keep it running.”

“But—”

“Not now, Mitch. Okay?”

It was crazy. Just like Ben Barnes and his Tater Tots. If you bought something, you had to keep it. Or eat it. Even if you didn’t like it. Even if it was actually costing you more money. It made no sense at all, but nobody wanted to hear it from me.

“Maybe there’s free gas in Gas City,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Or at least discount gas.”

“I doubt it,” Mom said, either not getting my joke or choosing to ignore it.

I could have bought the gas. By now, I had a thousand dollars in my desk drawer since Jamie and I were offering bets on almost every game. But how was I supposed to explain to my parents where I’d gotten that much money?

Even though I was just taking a few bets, I still couldn’t see myself explaining it to them. Or my new nickname at school.