Rocket leaned back in his chair. This was brutal. Three days in a row of eating at his locker and hanging in the library doing homework. He’d never been so up to date on his assignments. The first day hadn’t been too bad, but now it was killing him. To make it worse, looking out the window he could see the guys playing football. No one had told him about it, so no way was he going to show up — not with Kinger dying to burn him, Adam laughing at him and Ty … Well, Ty not doing anything. Rocket would rather eat lunch at his locker for the rest of the year — and grade eight, too — than hang with them.
Ty and Adam hadn’t really said anything to him after he’d quit the Butt Kickers. He’d run into them a few times, of course. They’d say hi, and he’d asked them some lame question to do with school. But usually they avoided each other. It was less awkward to not talk. It was funny: he used to think he had a ton of friends. Now he wasn’t sure he had any.
So here he was, holed up in the library. Bored, he put his pencil between his thumb and his first finger and tried to spin it around through his fingers. It went flying across the table and onto the floor.
“Are you mad at your pencil or practising a self-defence move?”
Rocket looked over.
“Hey, Megan. Didn’t see you there.” She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt again. This time her hair hung down naturally, thick and wavy.
She opened her eyes wide and nodded. “Okay. I’ll buy that. Your pencil?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I was trying to spin it on my fingers. Got to work on it, I guess.”
“You mean like this?” she said. She picked up the pencil, held it between her fingers and began to spin it around and around without stopping.
“Very cool trick,” he said. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Years of geek training,” she said. “It’s compulsory.”
“Well, um, it’s a cool trick.”
She gave the pencil back. “I’ve been looking for you. You missed practice yesterday.”
“Practice?”
“You’ve forgotten the trivia team already?”
He hadn’t forgotten; he just hadn’t bothered to look for them.
“Come on. We’ve got half an hour,” she said. “We’re finishing up with some geography and then we can get to sports.”
She said it like he had no choice.
And it was better than nothing.
“So Nigel was telling us you’re quite the hockey player,” she said.
“Don’t know about that. I play.”
She pushed the door open for him.
“Thanks.”
They walked down the hall.
“I bet the boys would be pretty happy if you played on their floor hockey team,” she said. “They love to play, but the other teams seem to be … better. Bird has a friend who played with them last year, but he’s busy doing the lighting for the school play. They wanted me to play but, frankly, no.”
She stopped and looked at him. “I mean, do I look like a floor hockey player?”
She didn’t really look like anything to him — other than a girl, of course. But some of them played floor hockey, too. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Megan scrunched her eyebrows. “I maybe look like a floor hockey player?”
“No,” he said hurriedly. “Maybe I’ll play. Maybe.”
That was so not going to happen.
She opened a door.
“Capital of Mali?” Des asked.
“Bamako,” Bird said.
“Capital of Angola?” Des asked.
“Luanda,” Daniel said.
“Capital of Zambia?”
“Lusaka,” Nigel said.
“Capital of Senegal?”
“Dakar,” Megan called out.
Four heads spun around.
“Oh, okay. It’s Bryan, right?” Bird said.
“Uh, I was in the library …”
“My fault,” Megan said. “I forgot to tell Bryan about the practice, so no harm. He’s here now. I rescued him from a flying pencil. He could’ve been killed.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t feel you have to thank me. I was happy to do it.”
“I owe you,” Rocket said.
Nigel’s face was hard and angry. Arms crossed, he glared at Rocket. “Things are organized,” Nigel said. “We don’t need another player.”
“We could always use the help,” Bird said.
“We’re allowed six,” Des said. “And we voted.”
“So what? We’re good with five; we don’t need a one-trick pony on sports. It’s stupid.”
This was ten times worse than any library. “Okay. No worries,” Rocket said.
His voice came out sounding sad. He was acting like a loser. Time to man up. “I don’t need to be on the trivia team. I was just killing time.”
“Don’t be silly,” Megan said. “We’re always on the lookout for new members, and there’s nothing wrong with a little extra expertise on the sports side. It’ll let Nigel focus more on geography.”
“We shouldn’t be adding people before the first match,” Nigel said.
“Why not?” Bird said.
Nigel pushed back in his chair. His eyes burned in fury, but they were also glossy, as if he were on the verge of losing his temper and crying at the same time. “I come here to get away from guys like him, and now he wants to join the trivia team?” He glared at Rocket. “I know what’s going on. Don’t think I don’t. You’re not part of the cool kids anymore, so you’ve decided to lower yourself to our level. That’s totally it. I say no way. Get your own team.” Nigel was shaking with rage, his hands gripping his knees tightly.
Rocket was stunned. He’d barely said a word to Nigel in his life. “I never did anything to you,” he began. “Why the—”
“No, not the Rocket!” Nigel cut in. “Not Ty or Ad-man or all the rest. You’re all so nice.” He leaned forward and pointed at Rocket. “My name’s Nigel, not Big Red, and your crew has made my life a nightmare since I got here, so don’t give me the Mr. Wonderful act.”
Rocket started to get angry, too, but then he thought back to a gym class near the beginning of the year. They’d had to choose sides for a game of soccer, and Nigel was the last kid to be picked. Adam had made a big deal about having to pick him. He’d called him Big Dead, because, as Adam said, Nigel didn’t move on the field. Another time, Nigel had been accepting an award at an assembly, and Adam called him Big Red the Egg Head, and then Eggie. Then last week …
Rocket stopped. There were too many times. And he may not have made fun of Nigel, but he’d done nothing to stop it. Nothing. In fact, he’d usually laughed along. He’d never thought about how Nigel felt, because he hadn’t cared.
His face hot with shame, Rocket made himself look Nigel in the eye. He saw a lot of library time in his future.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” Rocket said. “I’ve been a jerk, and so have my friends. We thought we were being funny. I know it won’t help, or maybe it won’t make sense, but honestly, we weren’t trying to be mean or bully you. We were just goofing on you, like we do to everyone. It’s like we don’t think about how it might bother other people. We just don’t, as long as our friends laugh. That doesn’t make it okay, I know. Anyway, you’re right that me and those guys, well, we’re not such good friends anymore.” Rocket looked out the window. It had only been a few weeks, but his life had turned completely upside down.
“Why aren’t you friends with those guys?” Bird said.
“It’s kind of complicated.”
They waited for him to continue.
Rocket sighed. “I was cut from a hockey team, the Huskies. I played on it with Ty and Ad-man, I mean Adam, and since I don’t play in that league no more …”
“It’s ‘anymore,’” Nigel said.
“Shh!” Megan and Bird snapped.
Nigel flushed. “Well, it is,” he murmured angrily.
“It’s okay, Nigel,” Rocket said. “I’m leaving.” He turned and reached for the doorknob.
“Quick question, Bryan,” Megan said. “Just so I get this straight, you’re not friends with those guys anymore just because you don’t play hockey with them?”
Rocket turned back, keeping his hand on the doorknob. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“I really don’t get boys,” she said.
“He has to be on the team,” Bird said to Nigel. “He’s a bigger misfit than you.”
Des and Daniel burst out laughing.
“This is a special moment: our first member who can actually play hockey. This is historic,” Bird said.
Megan lowered her head and looked at Nigel. “I think Bryan apologized,” she said.
Nigel slowly uncrossed his arms. He looked down at the floor. “Okay. We could try it.”
“I am sorry,” Rocket said. He really was, and he tried to say it as sincerely as he could. He walked over, his hand extended. Nigel hesitated, then shook it.
“Should we finish up with the African geography?” Des said. “I have a few more questions, or do we want to move into sports since Bryan is here — or is it Rocket?”
“Bryan’s good,” he said.
“You may as well finish up the geography,” Megan said.
Des began to fire out questions, and the others answered as fast as they could.
“The trick to this isn’t to just know the answer,” Megan whispered in Rocket’s ear. “We practise to train our minds to think fast. Speed is the key, not the knowledge.”
Rocket sat and listened, and every so often, a chuckle forced its way out. Bryan Rockwood was on the trivia team and playing hockey for the worst team in AA.
He looked over at Nigel. He couldn’t imagine having to come to school every day scared that some kids were going to embarrass you in front of everyone.
Although, maybe he could imagine it now.