GIVING MOM THE SLIP

That night at dinner with Mom, I felt like a real two-face. Or at least a one-and-a-half-face.

I didn’t want to lie, exactly, but if I told Mom the whole truth about why I needed to join the football team, she probably wasn’t going to sign that permission slip. She’d give me a big lecture about my “choices.” And then she’d go talk to Coach Shumsky or Mrs. Stricker—or even worse, Miller’s parents. All of that was just a one-way ticket back onto Miller’s hit list.

So I had to think creatively.

“This is so sudden,” Mom said. “You’ve never expressed an interest in football before.”

“I’ve never had a best friend on the team before,” I said. Which was true.

“What about school, sweetie? You’ve got all your classes, plus Learning Skills—”

“Flip is in Learning Skills. And he plays football,” I said. Also true.

Mom was looking at me the way a detective stares down a shady suspect. “I don’t know, Rafe. Why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

I wanted to say—BECAUSE THERE’S TWO MORE TONS OF STUFF YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT! I wasn’t telling her about my stupid deal with Miller, but I also wasn’t telling her how dumb I felt in Learning Skills. Or how invisible I was to girls. Or how most of the kids at HVMS still thought I was just as big a loser as Loozer.

I don’t know how long I could have lasted with Mom staring at me like that, but luckily, I didn’t have to find out. That’s when the doorbell rang. Talk about saved by the bell!

“I’LL GET IT!” Georgia yelled, and practically threw her chair across the room trying to get to the door first. My sister just loooves to answer things. Doorbells. Telephones. Math questions. It doesn’t matter—she’s an all-purpose answering machine.

A second later, she was back. “Rafe, your teacher is at the door.”

“Huh?” I said, and I got this lumpy feeling in my stomach. A teacher coming all the way to your house is never a good sign. All I could think was, What did I do now?

I wondered if it was Ms. Donatello, but when Mom and I went to see, Mr. Fanucci was standing on the other side of the screen door.

“Hey, Rafe,” he said, and held up my Learning Skills notebook. “You left this in my room today.”

I don’t know if he saw I’d crossed out the first S in Skills, but he didn’t seem mad, anyway.

“Well, that was awfully nice of you,” Mom said. “You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.”

“It’s better if Rafe keeps up with the notebook every night,” Mr. Fanucci said.

Then Mom gave me one of her looks. The told you so kind.

“We were just talking about keeping up in school, weren’t we, Rafe?” she said.

“Okay, well, thanks a lot, Mr. Fanucci,” I said. I was trying to move this along, but Mom kept talking.

“In fact, I’m glad you’re here, Ed. Rafe was asking about playing football, and I was saying I didn’t think it was such a good idea.”

I knew what Mom was doing. She was looking for some backup—but then Mr. Fanucci really surprised me.

“I think most of my students can benefit from extracurricular activities,” he said. “And football could be a great outlet for you, Rafe. But not if your mom thinks it’s a bad idea right now.”

“It’s not that,” Mom said. “I just don’t want him falling behind at school.”

Mr. Fanucci gave this big smile. “That’s what I’m there for,” he said.

Mom smiled too. I just kind of stood there.

“How about if we make it provisional?” Mr.Fanucci said.

“What’s that mean?” I asked him. It felt like we were moving in the right direction, but you know what they say about chickens and counting and hatching, right?

“It means you play only as long as your grades keep up. If they slip—no more football. And I’ll work with you to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Mr. Fanucci said.

“I can live with that,” Mom said. “How about you, Rafe?”

“Sounds like a deal,” I said, because what else was I going to say?

I’d already dug my way into a hole with Miller the Killer. The only thing to do now was keep digging, not look back, and hope for the best.

’Cause, you know… what could possibly go wrong?