THE NEXT DAY WE PLAYED dodgeball in gym.
I know some schools don’t allow dodgeball. They think it makes kids more violent or something. But luckily our gym teacher, Mr. Radonski, disagrees. He says the opposite is true: If you let kids burn off their aggressive energy playing sports, then they’ll be less aggressive in life. That could be true. But I think the main reason Mr. Radonski lets us play is because he loves seeing kids peg balls at each other as hard as they can. Mr. Radonski is a little crazy.
“Okay, split up into two teams!” he barked. “Manning and Collins, you’re captains.”
Phil Manning was an obvious choice for captain, considering he was the strongest kid in the grade and wore a football jersey to school every day. Eliza Collins was a little less obvious, since the closest she came to playing sports was driving by soccer practice on the way to the hair salon. (Sure, I know some people consider cheerleading a sport, but as far as I’m concerned, if it doesn’t involve a ball, it doesn’t count.)
“Yay!” Eliza squealed. “I love being captain! Ladies pick first, right? I pick Pete.”
“Me?” I said. I would have fallen off my chair, if I’d been sitting on one. In the old days, she was ready to have me arrested for stealing her pom-poms. But this wasn’t the old days. This was the new days.
Charlie Joe chuckled. “Seriously? No offense, Eliza, but Pete’s worse than me at dodgeball. And I’m pretty bad.”
“He may even be worse than me,” Jake added. “And dodgeball is like my forty-third best sport.”
“What does that even mean?” Timmy said, scratching his head.
“It means I stink at dodgeball,” Jake said.
I took my place behind Eliza and tried to ignore the chatter.
“I pick Jeff,” Phil announced. Jeff Santore was known for having the best arm in the grade. When he nailed you, it left a mark.
Eliza and Phil kept picking until the teams were set. Then Mr. Radonski blew his whistle, and the fun began.
“Gotcha!”
“Ow!”
“You’re out!”
“That missed!”
“You’re dead meat!”
“My sister throws harder than that!”
And so on.
Finally, we were down to four people. By some miracle, I was one of them. My teammate Eric Cunkler was still in, too. On the other side, Charlie Joe and Jeff Santore were left.
“Five minutes to the bell!” Mr. Radonski hollered. “Let’s get this thing done!”
Eric and I were hugging the back wall, basically hiding, while Jeff and Charlie Joe were busy making a plan.
Mr. Radonski saw us and blew his whistle. “Hey! Milano and Cunkler, no cowering! Get out there and play the game like men!”
Oh, sure, that was easy for Mr. Radonski to say. He was on the sidelines, far away from Jeff Santore’s deadly right arm.
Eric was clearly thinking the same thing. “Too bad we can’t peg Mr. Radonski,” he said.
Which gave me an idea.
It was a pretty crazy idea, but I was known for my crazy ideas. At least, I used to be. At first, I told myself to forget it. But then I thought about Mareli saying I’d changed … That I matured …
Well, I’ve got news for you.
No one says I’ve matured until I say I’ve matured.
“Mr. Radonski!” I whispered. “Come quick. I think there’s blood on the floor!”
That scared Mr. R. The last thing he needed was for a kid to get hurt on his watch. As he hurried out to the floor to take a look, I threw the ball as hard as I could toward Jeff, who was still huddled up with Charlie Joe, but I missed—on purpose. The ball whacked against the back wall. Then, as Jeff whirled around and got ready to fire back, I ducked behind Mr. Radonski. Not only would Jeff miss me, he’d nail Mr. R. Now that’s what I call a win-win.
I was already congratulating myself. It had seemed like a great plan thirty seconds earlier, when I’d thought of it.
The only problem was, even though Mr. Radonski didn’t see any blood on the floor (because there wasn’t any), he did spot what appeared to be a three-year-old piece of chewed gum.
“That’s disgusting!” he thundered. “Who did this to my gym?”
Then he kneeled down to try and scrape it off … which left me standing there.
Just in time for Jeff to fire.
As that bright red rubber ball screamed through the air, I did what anyone who sees something coming right for them would do.
I screamed.
THWACK!
I think the whole school heard the sound of that ball hitting the right side of my face.
“OOOOOWWWWW.”
I crumpled to the floor. A few girls screamed. Everybody ran over.
“Stand back!” Mr. Radonski bellowed. “Give him some room!” He bent down. “You okay, kid? You took quite a shot there.” Then he set his sights on Jeff Santore. “You nailed him right in the face! What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m really sorry,” Jeff said, petrified. “He fired and I just fired back. I didn’t mean it.”
“Go tell Mrs. Sleep you didn’t mean it,” Mr. Radonski ordered.
Poor Jeff.
But also, poor me. I sat there, rubbing the side of my face. I was just glad it was still there.
“Are you okay?” Eliza said, bending down.
“I said give him room!” yelled Mr. Radonski.
“I’m his captain!” Eliza fired back. That one stumped Mr. Radonski, so he let her stay.
“Can I ask you something?” Eliza said to me.
I continued rubbing. “Sure.”
“Are you shooting your movie today?”
That seemed like a weird, irrelevant question. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
She took out a little mirror and handed it to me. (Why she had a mirror in her gym shorts, I’ll never know.)
I looked into it and saw that my cheek and eye had swollen up to approximately the size of Colorado.
“I think you’re gonna need a little extra makeup,” Eliza said.
