treat me like the boy whose dog died. All sympathy all the time. At handball, if I get out on a clean slicey, somebody calls “blockies” and I get a second chance. If there’s a line at the cafeteria, I get moved to the front. After school, girls in seventh grade come up to me and offer to carry my backpack. It’s nice and all, but what I really want is to be treated like a normal kid.
Mr. Hill is treating me like a normal kid. Thursday at recess I sneak into the multi-purpose room. I sit at the piano and am about to play when he leans in and says, “I’m sorry, Sam, but the piano is reserved for students who will be in the winter program.”
At lunch the Fab Four land at our regular table. Jaesang pulls out his tray of Korean sushi, and Catalina unwraps a burrito. Then they trade.
I have my same old peanut butter and Nutella sandwich.
Alistair’s lunch usually starts with him spreading a cloth napkin on the table, taking the lids off various Tupperwares, and “plating” a meal of fabulous leftovers he cooked the night before. Today he unwraps—
“A PB and J? Where’s my friend Alistair, and what have you done with him?”
“I didn’t feel like cooking last night, Sam. Now that we lost the case, I’ve lost my appetite for fine food.”
He crunches a celery stick. I take a bite of my soggy sandwich and think, What have I done?
And to make things even worse, my teachers all assigned un montón of homework, due tomorrow.
In the afternoon when I walk home, I notice Mr. Kalman’s LA Times still sitting in the gutter. I pick it up and walk it to his front door. On the porch I look through the window and see a candle burning. It’s one of those tall, fat candles in a glass holder with Hebrew letters on it. Last year around this time he lit one too, but I don’t know why.
I knock on his door. No answer. I ring the bell. No answer. I leave the paper on the porch.
At home, we eat dinner together. Even Sadie’s been eating with us every night since we lost in San Francisco. I ask Mom if she found a new job yet and she says, “Not yet, but I’ll keep looking.”
After dinner, in the living room, Sadie sits on the couch opposite Dad, their socks touching, feet to feet. He watches Thursday Night Football while she works on her Common App essay.
I know I’m not supposed to look over her shoulder, but I’m curious to see what she’s writing about, so I pretend to be sweeping the floor.
“What are you doing, Sam?” she asks.
“Sweeping the floor.”
“Since when?”
“I ate a cookie in the general vicinity of the couch. Probably dropped some crumbs.”
I sweep around the back of the couch and peek at her yellow pad. The title of her essay is “My Greatest Failure.”
Halfway down the first paragraph I see the words “my brother” and “lawsuit.”
Bernice says failure is the greenhouse of success. Right now it feels more like the doghouse.
Or the outhouse.
I want to say something, but I’m not allowed to because I’m only sweeping, not snooping. I don’t want Sadie to feel like she’s done anything wrong. The loss is my greatest failure, not hers. In Prisoner when you yell “Jailbreak!” and then drop the ball, whose fault is that?
Later, I hoist my backpack into my bedroom. I have math review exercises, notes on a science chapter, chapter 12 of Black Ships Before Troy to read, and a current event due because I missed Monday to be in San Francisco.
At my desk, I flick on the light and start my work. I’m my big sister’s greatest failure, so I decide that from now on, I’m going to work hard and get good grades and make her proud. Besides, we lost. We gave it our best shot. It’s time to get my priorities straight.
I wake up in a puddle of my own drool. It’s still dark out. Across the street I see candlelight flickering in Mr. Kalman’s window. My cell phone tells me it’s 3:35 in the morning. Plenty of time to get things done.
Eight scoops. That’s what I remember Mom counting out every morning when she makes her coffee. Eight scoops and water to the ten-cup line. Or is it ten scoops and water to the eight-cup line? Yeah, that sounds more like it.
I wait for the coffeemaker to gurgle and hiss, and that’s how I know it’s ready. I reach for a mug, see that it’s Mom’s Coldwell Banker top sales mug, and put it back. I’m still mad at the company, so I take an ordinary white one instead.
To tell you the truth, I’ve never tasted coffee before. Everyone says it’s a required taste. Required for what, I always wondered. Now I know.
Mom drinks hers black. Dad loads his up with cream and sugar. And Sadie puts soymilk in hers. With enough milk and sugar, anything goes down easy. And once it’s down, I’ll be up and ready to work.
Ready to show my teachers that I’m not a slacker, not a lazy complainer who lost his lawsuit. Ready to show them all that I can get back on their field and win.
I hold the mug to my lips and blow. Even with cream and sugar, this smells gross.
“What are you doing?”
I spin around. Sadie is standing in the kitchen doorway, holding her laptop and a stack of books. She eyes the mug of coffee in my hand.
“Since when do you drink coffee in the middle of the night?”
“I’ve got five things due in four hours.”
I take a long, sweet, milky, and bitter sip. Sadie sets down her laptop and her books and charges over.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
She grabs my arm.
“No way an eleven-year-old is going to get jacked up on caffeine just to do his homework.”
“Why not? You do it all the time.”
“I’m practically an adult.”
She starts to twist.
I resist.
She twists harder.
I let go.
She dumps the coffee into the sink.
I reach for the pot and pull it off the warming plate.
“I can drink it straight from the pot,” I say.
She grabs my arm again and pries two of my fingers off the handle. The other two and my thumb stay put.
“Sam, let go of the pot.”
“Make your own,” I snap.
She gives a tug.
I tug back.
She jerks.
I jerk back.
Then she pretends to give up, but I’ve played enough tug of war with dogs to know it’s just a trick. Right when I know she’s about to yank my arm, I fling it away from her.
She wasn’t supposed to let go. The coffeepot goes flying out of my hand, soars over the island like a wild, glitching robotic bird, and crashes into the fridge.
There’s an explosion of glass. A siren of dogs. Coffee streaks down the stainless steel door of the fridge, all over the treehouse plans, and onto the floor.
Both parents come running.
“Sadie!” Mom screams. “What is going on?”
“Don’t come in here! There’s broken glass.”
Mom stops at the edge of the crime scene. Dad gets a dustpan and broom.
“I was trying to get the coffeepot away from Sam,” Sadie explains.
“What was he doing with it?”
“Pouring himself a second cup.”
“What?! Since when are you drinking coffee?”
“I have a lot of things due tomorrow.”
“You’re eleven years old! You need sleep!”
“But Mom,” I say, “if I get it all done by tomorrow, they won’t take off points. If they don’t take off points, I might be able to get As in three out of four classes. If I can get As in three out of four classes—and keep it up next semester—I might make honor roll. If I make honor roll five out of six semesters in middle school, they’ll let me start taking AP classes right away in ninth grade. Miss Lopez told us that in high school you get extra GPA points for AP classes, which means I’ll have a head start on other kids when I apply to college.”
I look at Mom’s face. It’s perfectly still, except for the tears falling down her cheeks.
“I told you there should be no more homework in this home,” Dad says cheerfully, sweeping up the glass.
That’s when the phone rings.
“I’ll get it,” Sadie says. She tiptoes over to the telephone and answers. “Mr. Kalman,” she says. “I’m glad you’re up.”
Sadie lights our way with the flashlight app on her cell phone. When we get to Mr. Kalman’s front porch, I see the newspaper I picked up yesterday afternoon still sitting there.
The candle in the window, near the end of its wax, is flickering.
The door opens, and Mr. Kalman stands there wearing his fur slippers and plaid robe.
“Do you know what I caught Sam doing?” Sadie says.
“Poisoning the dogs, I hope.”
“Drinking coffee. At three thirty in the morning.”
“I could use a cup right now.”
He turns and heads inside. We follow him in.
When we go past the candle, I ask him, “What’s with the candle, Mr. Kalman?”
“It’s for my wife, Miriam. Yesterday was her Yahrzeit.”
“Is that like a birthday?”
“It’s the opposite of a birthday, Sam. We light a candle on the anniversary of the person’s death. A person we loved.”
“Do you know why my eleven-year-old brother was drinking coffee at three thirty in the morning?”
Mr. Kalman shakes his head.
“Homework.”
Mr. Kalman looks at the candle. He shakes his head again and says, “They’re supposed to burn for twenty-four hours. I lit hers twenty-eight hours ago. She does that to me every year. Refuses to burn out.”
“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Sadie says.
“What, that I ought to go over there and blow out the candle?”
“That you ought to keep on burning too.” She looks right at Mr. Kalman and says, “Don’t we have one last appeal, to the US Supreme Court?”
“It’s not so simple, Sadie. We’ve made our best arguments before two federal courts. Four justices shot us down.”
“So you’re giving up?”
Mr. Kalman looks away. “I told you I wouldn’t be able to see it through.”
“Mr. Kalman, if Oliver Brown in Brown v. Board of Education had given up, black and white students might still be going to segregated schools. If Miranda had given up, people could be arrested without being told their rights. If Jim Obergefell had given up, people couldn’t marry the person they love. If we give up, nothing will change for this generation of kids. Nothing will change for Sam.”
Mr. Kalman just stands there, looking at the candle.
“And Goliath wins,” I say.
A saying pops out of Sadie’s mouth. “You can’t tear down a wall if you don’t take a swing.”
Mr. Kalman looks at her. “What’s that?”
“One of Bernice’s advice pills.”
“Who’s Bernice?”
“Our mom’s parenting teacher,” I explain. “She’s always handing out little sayings.”
“Tell me another.”
“You can’t prepare the path for the child, so prepare the child for the path.”
He thinks about that one, tilts his head, then nods as if he agrees.
“Another.”
“Failure is the greenhouse of success,” Sadie says.
“Sleep or weep,” I say.
“A consequence builds character.”
“Follow through and you won’t have to follow up.”
Mr. Kalman looks at me. He looks at Sadie. He looks over at Mrs. Kalman’s candle. Twenty-eight hours and still dancing.
“You can’t tear down a wall if . . . ?”
“You don’t take a swing,” a voice says from across the room.
We all turn around and see Mom standing in the doorway.
She and Mr. Kalman exchange a long look. It’s like they’re having a whole conversation with just their eyes. Finally, he says, “Who wants to take a field trip?”
“Where to, Mr. Kalman?” I ask.
“Our nation’s capital.”
“We all do,” Mom says.
Would you trade her to another team? I wouldn’t.