In the morning, I pull my jersey over my head. It hangs down to my knees and looks more like a dress than a football uniform so I have to tuck it into my pants. When I stand in front of the mirror, my dad’s number eighty-eight is folded over and half-buried beneath my elastic waist, so it looks like a big zero-zero across my front, which is about how I feel.
Dad tells me I look sharp and fast. But I’ve seen the picture of him in this uniform, and he didn’t look like a zero-zero.
“Don’t go breaking my record now,” he says.
I tell him I can’t make him any promises and that makes him chuckle and mess up my already messy hair.
“Meet at Grandma’s after school,” he reminds me. I nod, grab my book bag, and head out the door toward school.
I know he’s watching me again, so when I get to the corner I do that stop-and-catch-him thing again. And this time he doesn’t duck down below the window and try to hide the fact that he’s still got his eye on me. He just smiles a little half smile and raises his big hand, and it makes me feel a little less like a zero-zero.
As soon as I step into school, I hear cheering and see a bunch of maroon jerseys in a big huddle right there in the middle of the hallway like they’re on the twenty-yard line. A few kids wearing soccer uniforms, an eighth-grade linebacker, and Marcus are at the center, and a bunch of other athletes are huddled around. Everyone else is gathering closer and cheering along, even the teachers.
“Give it a Heywood Hurrah!” the linebacker chants, and the rest of the team and everyone else responds.
“Heywood Hurrah! Heywood Hurrah!”
I spot Katherine, wearing her swim team T-shirt and a pair of goggles around her neck. Her hair is down and wet from morning practice, and she’s pumping her fist. “Heywood Hurrah!” she shouts.
DeeDee shakes her head and smirks. She sees me through the crowd and rolls her eyes like this is the dumbest thing ever, but then she gives a little fist pump and mouths, Heywood Hurrah!
Before I can smile and roll my eyes back at her, two of the eighth graders from the huddle are grabbing me by the jersey and saying, “Come on, Olson!” and rushing me into the group and they’re raising my fist in the air and we’re all Heywood Hurrah–ing, and I immediately feel a little taller and a little more like eighty-eight than zero-zero.
Then I see Eduardo. He’s wearing his book bag on his front again, and he’s pumping his fist too and saying, “Give it a Heywood Hurrah!” He’s springing over on his toes and trying to join our circle, but the defensemen keep bouncing him back out like he’s a six-and-a-half-foot tight end trying to raid our end zone, and not the scrawniest kid in the school trying to cheer along with us.
Seeing them shove Eduardo off gives me that rock-in-the-gut feeling. I start to fake a coughing fit and point to the bathroom and try to wiggle out of the circle, but I keep getting nudged back to the middle, stuffed between all the shoulders and chanting. It’s a lot harder getting out than it was getting pulled in by the jersey.
I close one eye and peek out between two linebackers and see Eduardo walk off, with his head down, toward Mr. Hewett’s classroom.
When the bell rings, everyone hustles to their homerooms. Our huddle breaks up, but even when Mr. Hewett closes the door behind us, I can still hear the echoes of a Heywood Hurrah down the hallway.
There’s a color-printed picture of Calvin Can’t Fly stapled to the bulletin board beneath the Classroom Book a Day sign, and my stomach relaxes a little thinking maybe that counts, a picture book we read together, because that’s something I can do.
Before anything else, Mr. Hewett tells us that today we’re getting our lockers. We all say, “Yes!”
“In the sixth grade, you get to share with a locker buddy.” The way he says it makes sharing sound awesome.
Right away I see Marcus and Shane crash their shoulders into each other and say, “Locker buddies!” They stand side by side in their Heywood uniforms. Everyone else is moving toward a buddy, and in a few seconds the whole class is standing two by two around the room. Zander is standing with Benji, and Nora’s with Emily. Patrick is moving over toward Geordie, who almost never talks, and gesturing like they could be good locker buddies.
There are only two people left alone: Eduardo and me. He smiles and says, “I guess we’re locker buddies.”
Marcus muscles over quick between us and yanks me by the zero-zero. “Wait a second. Mr. Hewett, can we have three in our locker group? We don’t mind squeezing in.”
Eduardo looks down at his Velcro shoes and Shane says, “Yeah, we can share with Cyrus.” We stand three in a row like we’re getting ready to attack the end zone.
I’m waiting for Mr. Hewett to say no and make me go back to sharing with Eduardo because it feels like Marcus and Shane are being more mean to Eduardo than nice to me, and that’s what teachers are for: stopping kids from being mean. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he’s looking at me. He’s looking deep down to my queasy stomach where the right thing to do is flipping and flopping around, and he’s waiting. Waiting for me to tell Marcus and Shane that I’d rather share with Eduardo. Waiting for me to do the right thing. Everyone else is quieting too, and looking at me, because they want to get into the hallway already to start unpacking and decorating their new lockers.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I try to say that it’s OK, I’ll stick with Eduardo. I really do, but I’m just silent. My cheeks get hot.
Mr. Hewett points to a few pairs of locker buddies and says they can go choose their lockers first. They rush out the door, and Marcus and Shane sigh and say, “Come on already, Cy.”
Eduardo is still looking at his shoes.
“I—I . . . It doesn’t matter to me,” I say.
Then I think of the lockers at the firehouse and how Leo made a big stink about getting locker number two and how ridiculous he sounded and how I was thinking the whole time, it’s just a locker. And I’m guessing that if Leo were me, he’d go with Marcus and Shane faster than it takes to slide down the pole in a five-alarm fire.
Mr. Hewett gives me three more seconds to say something, and just as he’s about to tell me what to do, I blurt, “Actually, I’ll buddy with Eduardo.”
Eduardo looks at me and says, “Well, I could have used the extra space, but I guess being your buddy is fine too.” He says it with a big smile that spills into a giggle and makes me laugh with him.
Marcus rolls his eyes and I stuff my laugh away and kind of shrug my shoulders at them like I’m taking one for the team this time, and that makes my stomach get uneasy-queasy all over again.
Mr. Hewett dismisses the rest of the pairs to the hallway to get their lockers, except Marcus and Shane. “You guys can wait,” he says. They argue that that’s not fair and sigh and slam their book bags on the table and I’m wondering what happened to them because they were never-slam-your-book-bag kind of people.
Eduardo and I choose the locker closest to Mr. Hewett’s room and we divide it in half.
“I’ll take the bottom. I’m tiny,” he says and sits right down on the floor on his knees like he’s a kindergartener. He takes a Ninja Turtles magnet out of his book bag and sticks a picture way down on the inside of the door. In the picture, a boy who stands a whole head taller than Eduardo, with wide football shoulders, a little darker skin, and long hair pulled up in a bun on top of his head has his arm around Eduardo. The picture looks old, but Eduardo looks exactly the same.
He catches me glancing. “First day of fourth grade,” he says.
“Is that your—”
“Twin,” he says. “I know, I know. He looks nothing like me and three years older. But actually, I’m two minutes older than he is.”
I bend down and sit on my knees too to get a closer look. “Your twin?” I ask.
“Alejandro,” he tells me. “He’s in Ms. Freeman’s homeroom.”
I want to ask him one hundred more questions. Like why didn’t his brother try out for football? And do they get along? And why haven’t I seen him yet? And where did they live before this year? And how can they be twins and look so different?
But Mr. Hewett is opening the door and letting Marcus and Shane out to pick the last locker, the one with the handle that sticks unless you wiggle it hard, and calling us all back to the room.
When we get in from the hallway, Mr. Hewett asks us to come over to the rug area and he’s holding another picture book.
“Seriously?” Marcus mutters.
I fake that I have to tie my shoelaces and let Marcus and Shane go ahead and sit in the back corner of Mr. Hewett’s purple reading rug. Benji, Chris, and Zander fill in around them and stick their legs out long, leaning back on their hands, and the only space wide enough on the crammed rug even for my skinny little frame is right between the edge and Eduardo.
He pats the spot with his hand and scooches over, inviting me to sit.
Marcus snickers, but I pretend I don’t hear and sit down.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Mr. Hewett holds up another picture book and I hear lots of giggles behind me and a few big huffy sighs. Eduardo does a small little fist pump behind the book bag on his chest and whispers, “Yes!” just loud enough for me to hear. That’s how I’m feeling too.
“Are we going to read a picture book every day?” Hadleigh asks.
“Now, isn’t that a great idea!” Mr. Hewett responds, and he sounds serious and excited and like maybe he had that plan all along. Everyone calls out, “No, no, no,” and, “Hadleeeeeeeigh,” like she just gave him this idea and now we’re going to have to suffer a zillion more picture books because of her.
Mr. Hewett doesn’t even wait for the class to quiet down; he just starts right in reading and everyone kind of stops talking and moaning and listens, because I think deep down every one of us actually wants to hear the story, and maybe Mr. Hewett is like Grandma and can see that far into all our secrets.
I hope not.
The main character of the book’s name is Ramón, and Mr. Hewett knows how to pronounce it so the R rolls and the ó hammers down hard. The way Milly sounds when she calls me muchacho. The way Eduardo sounds when he says his own name.
Ramón’s big brother laughs at his drawings, so he crumples them and gives up on art. But Ramón has a little sister whose name is Marisol, which sounds so good when Mr. Hewett says it that I wish he would read the whole book over again as soon as it’s done. Marisol collects all the crumpled drawings and hangs them in her room and tells Ramón that drawings don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. They can be ish. So Ramón draws a fish-ish and an afternoon-ish and then he starts to write poetry-ish.
It’s hard to explain, but I just like the way this book sounds. Not only how the names roll off Mr. Hewett’s tongue, but also the repetition of ish ish ish and the way it feels light and easy at the end, like I could float away on the last page and not have to worry about being good at anything ever.
Eduardo raises his hand and asks, “Habla español?”
Mr. Hewett smiles and nods his head. “Sí. Hablo español-ish.”
“Tiene un buen acento.”
Marcus humphs and mumbles something about gibber-ish beneath his breath and a few kids laugh. Mr. Hewett stops talking with Eduardo and gives Marcus a look like he better quit it. Marcus says, “My bad,” but he doesn’t look like he means it.
When everyone is getting up from the rug, Eduardo leans over and whispers, “I can teach you a few words if you want.”
When he says it, Marcus and Shane are staring right at me in their matching maroon Heywood jerseys. I pretend not to hear Eduardo, and when I stand up to return to my table in the back of the room I can feel how long and heavy my jersey hangs.
Mr. Hewett tells us that instead of going to first- period science class, the whole fifth grade is going to the auditorium for a presentation from the band teacher.
“Band?” Shane asks. “We have to be in band?”
“It’s voluntary,” Mr. Hewett says. “It meets Monday, Tuesday, and Friday after school. I know because they practice right above my room.” He points to the ceiling and it makes us laugh. “Mr. Fletcher will tell you everything you need to know about how to sign up, and then he’ll give you a little demonstration of each instrument.”
I see Eduardo’s shoulders jump when he hears that, and I’m pretty sure he did another one of those fist pumps under his book bag again.
“The A Team has practice anyway,” Marcus says loud enough for everyone to hear.
Addison calls out, “What if I want to play soccer and be in the band?”
Mr. Hewett shrugs and says he’s sorry, and that we might have to make some tough decisions. “Just keep your ears and minds open in the assembly. You’ll know what to do.”
He leans Ish in the tray of the chalkboard next to Calvin Can’t Fly.
The bell rings and we all start packing up.
Through all the chairs dragging across the floor, I hear Nora say to Emily, “I’m going to play the flute. You should too so we can sit next to each other.” I hear Chris and Geordie talking about the drums.
Marcus is the first to the door, but before he opens it Mr. Hewett raises his voice over us and says, “Don’t decide your instrument right now. See if any get your foot tapping. Then choose.”
Our class is the first one there. We walk through the big double doors to the auditorium and file into the first row. I’m sitting between Eduardo and Marcus and looking at all the instruments on the stage. I don’t know the names of a lot of them, but my eyes get caught on the silver and brass ones that look complicated with buttons and tubes that twist around big horns. And I wonder how breath can travel through all of those bends and turns and make the squealing surges that blare from Grandma’s records.
Eduardo sits up on his knees and leans forward like he’s been waiting for this. Then someone taps him on the shoulder and I turn to see the boy from the picture. He still wears his long hair in a bun on top of his head, but he seems even taller now than in the picture.
Eduardo turns and smiles bigger than I’ve seen before and they speak quick words back and forth in Spanish. He introduces me and I say hi.
“Hi,” Alejandro says. “Eduardo told me you like dogs.”
I smile and say, “He did? Yeah, I do.”
Onstage, Mr. Fletcher unsnaps another big music case and pulls out two parts of an instrument. He starts putting them together into a long shiny round slide that I’ve seen move back and forth in the parades at Defeat of Jesse James Days.
Then he taps the microphone and starts telling us about the Joseph Lee Heywood band. He’s going on about how you don’t have to know anything about music to join and learn and he encourages us all to listen and then talk it over with our parents.
“The returning seventh and eighth graders will play this weekend at the Defeat of Jesse James Days football game. We play at many of the sporting games to boost team spirit,” he tells us. “Because nothing lifts us up like a good beat.”
Then Mr. Fletcher hands a stack of forms to the kids sitting at the ends of rows and tells us to each take one and pass it.
“There’s a list of instruments on the back,” he says. “I’ll demonstrate each one. You can take notes about what you hear and what you like.” He turns the form back over. “If you decide you want to join the band, fill in your instrument of choice and have your parent sign. First rehearsal is Friday.”
Then he picks up a guitar that’s plugged into a big amp and strums the strings. Everyone starts cheering, and then they cheer even louder for the drums.
I see Nora and Emily draw big hearts around the word flute on the backs of their forms.
Mr. Fletcher keeps moving down the line of instruments. He tells us what a tuba is and an oboe. And I even like the way the names of the instruments sound. And every time he starts to play, he taps his foot and says, “One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and.” I like the way that sounds too.
But when he picks up the long slide and tells us, “This is a trombone,” then, “One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and,” and starts buzzing his lips in the mouthpiece and gliding his arm out and back and that whaawooo! comes out of the horn, something happens, and it feels more like team spirit than wearing the same jersey and huddling up for a Heywood Hurrah. It feels like the music’s coming straight in my body through my ears and pressing on my lungs and beating with my heart and gliding all the way down to my feet and making my toes tap too, like Mr. Fletcher’s, like Grandma’s, and with the notes climbing up the slide and blaring out the horn, it feels like this is right where I belong.
I see Marcus looking over at me, so I try to ease the smile off my face and keep my body from bouncing along with the rhythm too much. But then Mr. Fletcher makes the sound go way down low, then scream back up the slide to a high, long sing. He lets the sound fall again, the notes tumbling down the slide. And when I look down at my scaredy-skateboard-braking-worn Vans, I see they’re tapping harder than ever, and I think they might even be tapping right on beat.
Eduardo points to my shoes and says, “Seems like you’ve got your answer.”
I shake my head. “I can’t play that.”
Mr. Fletcher does one more long slide—whaawoo!—and puts the trombone down, and Eduardo looks at me again.
“Maybe you could play-ish.”
That makes me smile. “I have football practice on Tuesdays and Fridays,” I say. Eduardo looks at me and kind of shrugs, and even though I don’t really know Eduardo, I think I know what he’s saying. I think he’s saying Sorry.
On the way out of the auditorium, Marcus and Shane crumple up their forms and toss them into the garbage. Eduardo folds his twice and slides it into his pocket. I look back at the stage, and Mr. Fletcher is taking apart the trombone and putting the big pieces into the velvet-lined case. I can still hear the whaawooo! sliding down and up, and it makes me walk different. Like one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and.
On our way out of the auditorium, I crumple the form and toss it in the garbage can with the others who won’t be joining band.