“First time I met you, I thought you looked familiar, but I didn’t figure it out until after your party,” Amanda told Javier as they stood together under the bleachers. They were waiting for Pat and Carrie to buy soda at the concession stand across the yard. “You went to the same science camp I did two years ago.”
He shifted his weight as if he had stepped on a hot sidewalk. “You went to prep camp, Amanda?”
“Yeah, well, I quit after the first month.” She shrugged and gave him a little smile. “Prep camp interfered with my swim team practice. I like math and science, but I had the chance to train with an Olympic swimmer, so I dropped out.”
His feet started to cool down. If Amanda didn’t remember that stressed-out phony he had been there, maybe he had a chance to make a better impression. “With that choice, I might have done the same thing. Have you always liked swimming?”
She laughed easily. “My friends swear I was a mermaid in my past life.”
Javier smiled. Amanda wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous like Feliz. She didn’t wear make-up, and her streaked hair had been cut way too short to be attractive. Still, she had been nice at his birthday party after he thought Feliz had ruined it. He decided he could be a wing man for Pat and be nice to Carrie’s friend tonight.
“Swim team is one of my favorite things about school,” she was saying. “What about you, Javier?”
He remembered awkward conversations with girls because he had never done anything but study, but now he could happily say, “I’m taking a new elective this semester in Media Broadcasting. We televise the school announcements every morning.”
“Oh, yeah. We do that where I go to school,” Amanda said. “They even show student films. Have you made any movies yet?”
“I’ve got a lot to learn before I can do that,” he answered honestly and then smiled at her again. “I seem to be a pretty good scriptwriter and editor, but I hope to get more experience shooting film too.”
By then, Pat and Carrie had come back. They all walked up the ramp into the section of the St. Peter’s football stadium where the students sat. Javier felt relaxed as he climbed up the bleachers behind Amanda, Carrie, and Pat. It was always better to sit with girls. They stopped midway and settled in among other sophomores to watch the game. It wasn’t too crowded, so they had space to sit together comfortably.
“Look, there’s Kenny,” Pat said, pointing toward the field.
As the referees lined up with the school captains from both teams for the coin toss, Javier also noticed Kenny standing on the sidelines. Kenny spun the camera on the tripod as he talked to an older man with an even bigger camera.
He leaned around Amanda to tell Pat, “I bet that’s a TV sports reporter. Can you imagine what Kenny is probably telling the man?”
“That he’s the only one in our media class who knows how to work a camera.”
“Do you think Kenny knows he has to pan the camera to follow the moving players?” Javier said. “He can’t just point and focus like he does during a school broadcast.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Pat answered and then jumped up with the rest of the students when the band began playing the school fight song.
Sadly, the Guardian football team didn’t provide any outstanding plays, and by the second quarter, they were losing 28-3. When Javier saw the band lining up for the half-time show, he also realized Kenny wasn’t on the field anymore.
Javier turned to Amanda. “I’ll be back. I want to be sure someone films the half-time show for our morning broadcast.” He stood up and started to pass in front of the girls. He got past Amanda, but he tripped over Carrie’s feet and toppled toward her.
“Aw, man!” Javier gasped just as Pat’s strong hands pushed up and kept him upright. Here he was with two nice girls, and he looked like a stupid klutz! Ugh!
“Where are you going?” Pat asked. He had stood up to keep Javier from falling.
Javier felt grateful to have a buddy with quick reflexes. He glanced down to be sure he didn’t trip again before he stepped forward. Then he looked up at Pat. “Kenny’s not on the field. Just because we’re losing doesn’t mean he can take off.”
“Wait … I’ll come with you.” Pat gave Carrie a smile. “We’ll be right back.”
The two of them quickly walked down the bleachers in search of Kenny García. They found him at the concession stand, drinking a Coke and talking to a couple of the senior basketball players. The zipped camera case hung over Kenny’s shoulder. The tripod was leaning against a trashcan.
Javier walked purposefully toward him. Only for a moment, he feared the confrontation with Kenny; his desire to present an entertaining broadcast was stronger.
“Kenny,” he said when he was close enough to be heard, “aren’t you going to film the half-time show?”
“What?” Kenny turned and frowned. “What’s your problem, Ávila?”
He attempted to keep his tone even and reasonable. “Kenny, I know there hasn’t been much to film tonight of the football team, but the half-time show’s about to start. Don’t you need to get back on the sidelines and film that too?”
Kenny straightened up to his full six-foot-three height and glared down at Javier. “My job’s done. The game’s over, man. It ended two touchdowns ago.”
“That’s a loser’s attitude,” Pat said, stepping up beside Javier. “You don’t have much faith in our football team, do you?”
“I got Omar kicking the field goal,” Kenny snapped out his words. “That’s good enough.” He turned to the two tall boys beside him and gave them a grin. “We’ll have great highlights when our season begins, won’t we?”
Javier ignored the conceited chuckles and said, “If you’re done for the night, Kenny, then let me have the camera.” He heard the referee’s whistle that ended the first half of the game. The band would march onto the field in the next few moments. There was no time to be polite.
“Kenny, you can’t show up on Monday without highlights.” His voice held firm. “If we can’t show the team making a touchdown, then we’ll show the band marching or show pictures of the cheerleaders. So, if you can’t do the job, get out of the way and let someone else take over.”
One of the seniors jeered. “Man, you gonna take that?”
That’s when Kenny’s tone grew nastier. “So when did Mr. Seneca die and put you in charge?” He kept up his intimidating stance, but Javier didn’t let it faze him.
“You just can’t stop filming because it doesn’t interest you, Kenny. That’s not the way it works! How would you feel if someone stopped filming you because the basketball team was losing?”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “Fine! I’ll get back on the field and get more footage.”
“Good! Do that! Now we need to leave. Two pretty girls are waiting for us. Come on, Pat. Let’s go.” He turned away with a smile of self-satisfaction. With Pat at his side, he walked away from Kenny and the others. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Brother Calvin was so wrong about his lack of passion.
“That was great, Javier,” Pat told him. “I don’t think Kenny knew what hit him. And when you mentioned the girls? That was genius.”
“It wasn’t genius—just the truth. Kenny had a job to do, and you and I have girls waiting for us in the stands.” He tried to sound like it was no big deal, but on the inside Javier was jumping around like his nephew Trey on Christmas morning.
As they reached the top of the ramp, the band played its first number and marched across the field. Kenny was running across the track, camera and tripod in hand.
Pat clapped Javier on the shoulder, and both of them started cheering for their friends. The band played well as they began an intricate pattern of circles on the field.
There was a lot of moving around in the stands during half-time as parents got up to stretch or visit with others and kids ran for the concession stand. Even the cheerleaders came up to mingle with their friends. Javier walked behind Pat, half-watching the half-time show and trying not to trip over his own feet.
When they climbed the steps and got back to their seats, they were surprised to see Javier’s cousin Natalie sitting between Amanda and Carrie.
“Okay, now what kind of primo are you that you don’t call me and invite me to the game?” Natalie scolded, wagging her finger at Javier. “I got to hear it from my girlfriends that this game’s the place to be tonight. What’s up with that?”
Javier jerked his thumb toward Pat. “He set this up, not me. Blame him.”
“Can’t!” Natalie jumped up and hopped over to give Javier a quick hug. “He’s not family. I can blame anything on family.” She laughed and grinned, her braces now striped with blue rubber bands. “Remember how I used to tell Miss Canales you were the one stealing the pencils off her desk?”
“You stole pencils from my locker too. Nat, you stole pencils from everybody!”
She laughed and playfully pinched his arm. “I’ve missed you, Javito. We could have some really good times if you went to my school.”
“You’d probably have me sitting in detention with you,” Javier answered, breaking into an easy grin. He enjoyed how relaxed he felt—no itchy feet, no fear of feeling like an idiot. He slipped into the row without tripping and sat down beside Amanda. He smiled at her, thinking She has pretty eyes and good taste in friends.
Javier looked out the backseat window of his mom’s car. They were on their way to eleven-o’clock Mass, his father taking the route he favored around the lake toward the basilica. How many Sundays they had followed the routine of church, cooking hamburgers on the grill, and the family eating together, and watching the Cowboys football game. He didn’t know how to tell them he had other plans for the afternoon.
An uneasy itch crawled down his back and he rubbed it against the backseat. He tried to recover the positive feelings from last night. Even though the team had lost, he had come home feeling like a winner. His showdown with Kenny made him proud, and having a girl beside him at the game felt good too. Natalie’s presence helped take pressure off Javier and Amanda to act like a couple, especially when Pat and Carrie took off and stayed out of the stands for most of the fourth quarter. Natalie had kept them laughing with stories about elementary school, and when Pat and Carrie finally came back, it was Natalie who had a suggestion for getting together again.
“Be sure to invite Ignacio and Drummer Boy!” Natalie had called out before she walked away with Amanda and Carrie after the game.
Javier smiled as he thought about his funny cousin and suddenly remembered what Natalie had said. You can blame anything on family. “Hey, Mom, did I tell you that Natalie was at the game last night? She invited me to a Diez y Seis festival. I told her I’d go downtown later and meet her.”
“Just you and Natalie?”
“Ignacio and Andy are going to meet us there. Pat too.”
His mom lowered the visor as if she was checking her appearance in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her brown hair, but Javier saw her sharp gaze checking out the backseat. “And those girls Natalie brought to your party? Will they be going too?”
“I suppose,” he said, shrugging like it was unimportant.
His father suddenly straightened up in the seat. He glanced into the rearview mirror as he called, “Has Natalie gone into the matchmaker business on the side? Do I need to start negotiating for goats with another girl’s father?”
Javier swallowed his embarrassment, thought quickly, and replied, “If you can’t get at least six horses, don’t make a deal. Mom wants to plant a bigger garden next year.”
When his parents laughed, he gave a confident smile to an invisible TV audience.
And it was a good thing he kept practicing that TV audience smile, because on Monday morning when Javier walked into the media classroom, he was told to substitute in the anchor chair for Ram, who had a terrible cough. After Mr. Seneca told Ram, “You can’t be coughing during the broadcast. Go to the library and come back after announcements are over,” he told Javier to take his place beside Dylan.
“But what about editing the film and using the switcher?” Javier replied.
The teacher merely raised an eyebrow. “Get your priorities straight, Mr. Ávila. We can add bells and whistles later. Get busy on the scripts now.”
Javier took a deep breath and mentally switched hats from editor to broadcaster. He walked over to the desk area and started reading over the announcement papers. He didn’t even notice Kenny had come up to him.
“I shot all that film, and now you’re not going to use it?” he complained.
Javier felt his own irritation coming to the surface. “I’ve got something else to do this morning. I’ll get to it after school.”
“Why can’t Porky do it?”
“What did you say, you jerk? You can’t be talking about my friend Pat, can you?” Javier’s head shot up. His eyes burned holes into Kenny García. “Omar’s letting Pat work the camera this morning. We’ll get to it after school. Now go away.”
He looked back at the announcements, ignoring the string of profanity Kenny muttered under his breath as he walked off.
Dylan came back to the desk area with other papers. “Okay, Ávila, let’s do this right. My team lost the game. I don’t want to look like a loser on TV.”
“That makes two of us,” Javier answered, sounding more efficient than he felt. “Let’s start practicing, Dylan. We’re going to be the first sophomore-senior team, and I want us to sound good.” He glanced over at Pat and saw him listening intently to Omar. He whispered a prayer to Saint Peter and took his seat beside a new partner.
“You and Dylan weren’t too bad on announcements this morning,” Ignacio told Javier as they walked with Andy out of the building after second-period.
“Except he’s tall and you’re not,” Andy said. He gestured with his pencils, pointing one of them below his knee. “Jack, you looked really short on TV.”
Javier let the teasing go because as soon as he had seen himself on tape, he knew how to fix the visual imbalance. “Tomorrow we’re going to lower Dylan’s chair and raise mine so we’re equal height on the screen. Pat should have spotted that during rehearsal, but it was his first time on the camera,” Javier replied. “Dylan’s reading better, and the juniors got all the visuals right this morning.”
“Didn’t Kenny shoot film at the game? When are you going to use it?” Andy asked as they climbed up the steps of Mr. Seneca’s classroom.
“Pat and I are going to edit this afternoon.” A secretive grin appeared on Javier’s face. “We have a surprise for morning announcements tomorrow … just wait.”
Kenny had started basketball practice after school so it was only Javier, Pat, Landry, and Steve who worked together on editing for Tuesday’s broadcast. They planned carefully how to use rock music behind the film clips. The next morning, Javier expected to feel like he had stepped into a scorpion’s nest, but sitting beside Dylan, he felt tall and proud, and not just because their chairs were better balanced, but because the team of sophomores had produced a music video.
“Cool highlights!” a freshman said as Javier walked down the hall after first period, and he even gave Javier a quick high-five. So did a half-dozen other guys.
“Javier, what a great video you sophomores made!” Ms. Maloney told him when he walked into English class. “Did you know there are student film contests you can enter? You could win a scholarship.”
“Your video was so good that nobody noticed that the team lost!” one of the football players told Javier and Pat at lunchtime.
Compliments from random students and all his teachers about the new-and-improved look of announcements on Guardian TV left Javier smiling all day long.
Ram was back in the anchor chair by Wednesday, and he asked Javier, “What do you think of me and Dylan taking a camera during first period and interviewing Coach Delgado about the next game? Can you use that for Friday’s announcements?”
“Why can’t we show the girls running for Homecoming Queen on Guardian TV?” one of the juniors asked after Wednesday’s broadcast. “We could make a video of them.”
“If we do that, I know the perfect music we could use for audio,” Landry said.
“Nothing too loud,” Mr. Seneca replied. He almost smiled when he said, “Brother Lendell said that music we used on Tuesday almost took the paint off the walls.”
“Alright!” they all cheered, slapping each other on the back.
“We should start painting a new backdrop,” Pat said as they left Mr. Seneca’s room that afternoon. “Javier, can we haul the compressor and my paints in your truck over to my grandma’s house this weekend?”
“Sure,” Javier replied, learning to welcome new ideas as fast as they appeared. His cluttered mind shuffled between visuals images, script writing, and new technology, as well as algebra problems, chemistry equations, American poets, ancient cultures, and world religions. He always did his homework, but any “extra” time now involved reading about new software or watching amateur films online.
As Javier sat in front of a big chemistry test on a Thursday afternoon, he tried to clear his head of the funny film showing chimpanzees riding miniature ponies. He had described it in detail to Pat, Ignacio, and Andy at lunch. He began to read the exam directions. Mrs. Alejandro had given them a two-part test: a section of multiple-choice questions and the major part that began with one large reaction that had to be repeated with different concentrations of reactants.
He tapped his pencil against the second page, flipped back, and got started on page one. The teacher’s multiple-choice questions stumped him at first, but he felt confident about all but two of his answers as he completed Part One of the test. He turned to page two and started reading. He wrote down a couple of numbers, shook his head, and erased them. He nodded when he had settled into a comfortable pace for working through the chemical equations.
When Mrs. Alejandro called for the tests at two minutes before the bell rang, Javier ignored the itch between his toes and told himself, Even if I missed a couple of questions on page one, I should still get a high grade. No worries.
Andy’s pencil tapped his shoulder and he turned around to see his friend frowning. “I hate those kinds of tests when it’s all or nothing. What if I didn’t start with the right equation on the reaction? It’ll screw up everything.”
“Don’t worry about it. Mrs. Alejandro’s one of those teachers who gives extra points when you show your work,” Javier answered, offering his usual pep talk.
For as long as they had been friends, Andy’s grades had been up and down, but he usually pulled off a solid B average at the end of the year. Ignacio was the same way.
He knew both guys wanted a music scholarship to get them into a major Texas university. Andy and Ignacio worked hard enough to earn decent grades but took their true enjoyment from band instruments they played so well.
As the bell rang to end sixth period, Javier realized he finally understood his friends’ attitude. Now that he had felt the excitement of writing words people listened to and putting together images that told a story, he couldn’t wait to do again. It had to be the same feeling when Ignacio and Andy played an instrument or when Pat painted with his airbrushes. He walked out of the classroom feeling like he had stopped thinking in only black and white. Shades of color, light, and sound had filtered into his mind as different options to explore, combine, and discard in any way he wanted.
Javier was in a great mood when he walked into Mr. Seneca’s room and couldn’t wait to get started on the next project for Guardian TV.
“Ignacio, you think I can read that lab report? Maybe Mr. Seneca knows about hieroglyphics, but I don’t. Erase those numbers and start all over!” Mrs. Alejandro’s loud voice echoed around the chemistry lab. “And you two juniors better have your calculations right this time, or I’ll make you both buy new calculators!”
“Man, she’s in a bad mood,” Andy whispered as he stood beside Javier working on a chemistry lab Friday afternoon. “You think it’s PMS?”
“Shut up,” Javier mumbled as he wrote down the results of the experiment the two of them conducted. At least he had gotten that stupid penmanship award in fourth grade, and he used a new scientific calculator that he won in a raffle at prep camp. He and Andy usually had no trouble with Mrs. Alejandro.
She came around to their table, glanced at their lab report, and then grunted. She said, “Well, at least there’s hope. I wondered after what I saw on your test last night.”
As she walked away, Andy looked like he might wet his pants. “I knew it,” Andy whispered. “I blew it on the test. My mom’s gonna kill me.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Javier spoke very quietly, “and it’s only the first test. Come on … let’s get this finished up. Just tell your mom you can always raise your average with good lab grades.”
Minutes before the bell rang, Mrs. Alejandro started passing back the tests, turning them face down in front of each student. She started with the juniors in the back and moved up to where Javier and his friends sat.
At the next table, Javier saw Ignacio wipe the sweat off his forehead before he turned over his test and sighed, “Seventy-two. Well, at least I passed.” And Javier had to smile when he saw Andy receive his test, look at it, and suddenly flop his upper body across the top of the lab table with relief. “Thank you, God, an eighty!”
Then Mrs. Alejandro stopped in front of Javier. On the first day of school when Javier had helped her with the microscopes, she was quick to carry on a friendly conversation, and she always seemed pleased with his answers in class. But at this moment, staring at Javier with her dark eyes peering over her pink reading glasses, she didn’t look friendly or pleased. “I’m incredibly disappointed, Mr. Ávila.” Her words clicked like high heels on a hardwood floor. “I can’t believe you could be this careless—you, of all people.” She set the paper face down with a firm thump on Javier’s desk. Her red polished nails rapped upon it as she said, “I expect corrections first thing on Monday morning.” Then Mrs. Alejandro said even louder, “I expect all of you to turn in corrections to me before first period on Monday, and those who failed this exam know my policy. Your parents need to sign the test.” She gave his paper one last tap and walked away.
Javier sat frozen to his chair, unable to move. He stared down at the test paper, trying to ignore an imaginary drumroll in his head. Ready … aim … fire!
The sound of the bell almost shook Javier off the lab stool. Several guys around him started laughing. Others commented as they left the room.
“Whoa, Javier flunked a test!”
“The smart guy got shot down!”
“How does it feel to be like the rest of us flunkies?”
It felt like he had a relapse of the chicken pox, that’s how it felt. He reached out with an itchy hand and finally turned over the test paper. He stared at a two-inch red 45.
“Jack, that’s an Ignacio grade, not a Javier Ávila grade.” Andy stood next to him.
Ignacio had come around the front of the lab table. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said and scanned the multiple-choice questions. He had missed the two he thought he might, but there were five wrong answers he didn’t plan for. When he flipped to the second page, he groaned at the sight of all the red marks. He guessed that the equation for the initial reaction was balanced incorrectly. That meant all the other answers that followed it were wrong too.
“It was like you said, Andy—all or nothing on page two,” Javier told him as he stood up. He folded the test in half and stuck it inside his chemistry book.
“I can’t believe how I lucked out,” Andy said before he sighed with relief. “Mrs. Alejandro was mad at your test grade, not mine. As for you, Jack, so sad, too bad.”
Ignacio clapped Javier hard on the shoulder. “Man, Javier, this is a first: you flunking a test. Who knew the smartest guy in the whole school could get tripped up by chemistry? And you did all that science camp stuff too. Man, Javier, it sucks!”
“Yeah,” Javier replied, frowning at his friends for stating the obvious.
“You’re lucky that your dad isn’t like my dad. When my father has to sign a test that I flunked, I catch all kinds of hell. Your dad just makes jokes,” Ignacio replied.
“He won’t joke about this,” Javier said. “That F doesn’t stand for funny, you guys. It stands for failure.”