I am a wrestler
who loves to win,
an animal lover
and walker of dogs,
specifically Grover,
our chubby old beagle.
Sometimes, I pretend
that I do amazing things,
win the Olympic gold medal
in wrestling, get invited
to the White House,
shake the president’s hand.
What does the future
hold for me?
My pencil stops moving. Mr. Vanderhoff wants us to finish writing our poems, but I’m stuck. The only future I can think about is wrestling. The season starts next week. This year, I’m making it all the way to States.
“I have big plans for you, sixth graders. As soon as the first quarter concludes, we are beginning a new project. Writing! Creativity! Invention!” Mr. Van says in his booming voice, because he is incapable of talking like a normal person. Still, he’s my favorite teacher at Meadowbrook Middle School. “Who wants to read a poem?”
I sit on my hands so I won’t be tempted to volunteer. Bryan Hong, my best friend, gives me a sideways look. He’s trying not to laugh at me, but I don’t see his hand going up.
Emma Peake waves her arm in the air. Marisa Zamora raises hers slowly. Bryan’s face turns pink. I’m not supposed to know he likes Marisa, but it’s obvious.
Then Nick Spence puts up his hand. He’s the only other serious wrestler in our grade. It’s Nick’s fault I didn’t make it to the Maryland state tournament last year. He ruined my chance to qualify. Then he ruined my life at school by telling everyone I cried when he beat me.
We were on the playground. One minute, I was rounding the kickball bases, and the next, kids were asking if it was true that Nick made me cry at a tournament. The girls didn’t seem to care. Especially when Emma shrugged and said, “We’re humans. Our bodies wouldn’t make tears if we weren’t supposed to cry.”
But the fifth-grade boys did care. Kids who would have taken my side and told Nick to stop being a bully at the beginning of the year, they laughed. A couple of weeks later, I quit playing kickball. Every time I missed a play, the guys would say, “Don’t cry, Lev,” and rub their eyes pitifully. Bryan stopped playing too. He’s that kind of friend.
I’m not going to let it happen again. Half the kids at Meadowbrook Middle don’t know me. And the ones who do? I’m going to show them that I’m tougher than Spence, on the mat and off.
Bryan and I roll our eyes at each other when Mr. Van calls on Nick.
Nick stands next to his desk, the way Mr. Van taught us. He’s got this weird haircut—shaved on the sides with longer hair on top. He picks up his notebook and tilts his head in Emma Peake’s direction. His blond hair flops over to one side.
Not wrestling, I think as Nick opens his mouth to read. Not wrestling. I don’t want him to accuse me of copying his poem. That would be a Spence thing to do.
“ ‘I Am,’ ” Nick says, so loud and sure, no one in the room makes a sound.
I am an eagle who dives at my prey.
I am an athlete. My body obeys me.
I want to win, no matter what the prize is.
When it’s time to compete,
I pretend I have wings.
I’m above the world,
watching, waiting for my chance
to strike.
I don’t applaud with the rest of my class. Instead, I slip my wrestling notebook out from under my language arts journal. I always carry the notebook with me. When I need a break at tournaments, or when school gets me down, I find a quiet spot and start sketching or writing.
Mr. Van starts complimenting Spence on his eagle metaphor. Big deal. The Eagles are Nick’s wrestling team. Of course he wrote about being an eagle. I tune out and focus on my notebook.
I had him, I write, remembering.
Third period, up by one. I step back, circle, waiting out the clock.
The ref holds up a fist. He knows I’m stalling.
I can’t give Nick the point. Coach screams SHOOT!
I grab Nick’s leg, pull it in, but instead of spinning,
falling to the ground, he pushes off, rolls like a log on a river,
with me dancing, trying to stay afloat. I twist,
but I’m stuck on my back. His chest covers mine
like a log jamming a river. I still hear the S L A P
when the ref’s palm hits the mat.
When the ref raised Nick’s arm, I couldn’t drag my eyes off the floor. He’d been taunting me the whole tournament. But wrestling is all about leaving it on the mat, so I shook Nick’s hand as hard as I could, jogged over to shake his coach’s hand, and rushed back to Coach Billy.
“Why’d you tell me to take a shot?” I asked Coach. I was still up by one. A few more seconds and I would have made it to States.
Coach Billy put an arm around my shoulders. “Sometimes you’ve got to be aggressive, Lev,” he said. “You can’t always play it safe. Especially in a close match.”
I left the school gym and found an empty hallway where I could kick the wall and, yeah, I may have cried a little. But that’s how wrestling goes. Some losses are tough. Nick knows that, but he told the guys at school anyway. He and his friends boo-hooed at me for weeks, rubbing their eyes and making ugly frowns.
Bryan and Emma told me to ignore them, but Nick is still my nemesis. I learned that word from my father, who I call Abba, which is Hebrew for “Dad.” A nemesis is someone like Lex Luthor, whose only purpose is to destroy Superman and take over the world. Except, in my life, Nick’s only purpose is to destroy me and ruin my chance of making the state wrestling championship.
I read over the words in my notebook. Bryan’s kicking my foot. I don’t look up. He kicks harder, but it’s too late. A huge shadow falls across my desk.
“What’s grabbed your attention there, Mr. Sofer?” Mr. Van peers down at my notebook.
I look at the board. “ ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?” Wrong answer.
When the bell rings, Mr. Van calls me to his desk. “It’s not like you to daydream in class, Lev. What’s on your mind?”
Before I can get out the word nothing, my mouth is saying, “Nick Spence. He’s on our rival wrestling team.”
“I see,” says Mr. Van. “The poet Rumi said, ‘Bestow your love, even on your enemies. If you touch their hearts, what do you think will happen?’ ”
“I can barely shake hands with the guy, Mr. Van. There is no way I’m touching his heart.”
Mr. Van loves quoting poetry. Other language arts teachers have posters like AMAZING ADJECTIVES on their walls. Mr. Van’s ceiling tiles are painted with lines of poetry and book covers. I look up and spot The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, which we’ve been reading for our horror unit. I shudder, wondering if Nick would be the guy stashing my heart under some floorboards, or if I’d get to him first.
Mr. Van walks me to the door. “I noticed you working in a notebook today, Lev. Your poem caught my eye.”
“The ‘I Am’ poem?”
He shakes his head. Bryan thinks Mr. Van’s black-and-white beard makes him look like a badger. His deep voice recites my words back to me.
“ ‘He pushes off, rolls like a log on a river, with me dancing, trying to stay afloat.’ ”
“Sometimes I write down lists and stuff to go with my drawings,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
“I hope you’ll come see me if you ever want to talk about those ‘lists and stuff,’ ” Mr. Van says. “It is a gifted poet indeed who can draw such vivid pictures with words.”
He writes me a hall pass and sends me to algebra. When I take out my math binder, I think about opening my wrestling notebook too. Maybe Mr. Van is on to something. But this is one of the few classes I don’t have with Spence. I decide to pay attention.
When the last bell rings, I rush to pack up, slam my locker closed, and run outside. Instead of getting on the bus, I wait on the grass in front of school until I spot Bryan in the crowd.
I act like I’m going to give him a friendly slap on the back, but before he can blink, I’ve got his neck wrapped up in the crook of my arm. My leg hooks behind his brand-new Vans. Bam! He’s on the ground, shoulders in the grass, our backpacks tossed aside.
“I give!” Bryan says.
I laugh and pull him to his feet before one of the bus monitors can yell at us for fighting. Meadowbrook Middle should have wrestling time built into the school day. I feel better already.
We pick up our backpacks and run for the bus. Miss Janice has sports radio blasting. She closes the bus door behind us. “You got grass in your hair, Lev. You two wrestling again?”
“Unfortunately,” Bryan says. He brushes a leaf off his hoodie.
“Where were you last week?” I ask Bryan as I slide into our seat and crack a window. “You said you’d tell me on the way home. I’ve been waiting all day.” Bryan was out for five whole days, and he never misses school.
He pushes his gelled bangs off his forehead. It’s his new, middle-school style. I told him it looks ridiculous, but he says he’s not taking fashion advice from a guy who wears a wrestling singlet.
“My uncle died,” he says.
“Sorry.” I look down at my backpack. Am I supposed to hug him now? We’ve been friends since second grade, but we’re not big on hugging.
“We went to California,” Bryan says. “That’s where Uncle Steven lived.”
“Wait a minute. Is this the uncle you used to watch pro wrestling with?”
Bryan nods. “He promised we’d go to WWE Raw next time he came to Baltimore. And before you say anything, Lev, I know it’s not real wrestling. But that’s what we liked about it. Uncle Steven said it was like watching the Three Stooges with a turbo shot of pain.”
I groan. “Wrestling’s not supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to be staged.”
In real wrestling, there’s no script. Your opponent can throw anything at you. That’s why we practice three times a week. I can hear Coach Billy’s voice in my head: You win right here, in the practice room. When we step out on the mat, he wants us to be ready.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bryan says, rubbing his glasses on his hoodie. “I know. It cheapens the sport. You told me a million times.”
Maybe if I tease him, he won’t be so sad about his uncle. “If you love wrestling so much—”
“No way. I am not joining your team. The minute wrestling season starts, you have exactly zero life.”
A grin takes over my face. We’ve had this argument so many times, it’s turned into a joke between us. “That’s the way I like it. School. Boom! Homework. Boom! Practice. Boom! Sleep like a rock and do it all again.”
“What’s wrong with goofing off?” Bryan asks.
Sometimes I wonder how we stay friends. Bryan’s allowed to do what he wants with his free time, as long as he practices clarinet and keeps his grades up. Not me. My mom thinks the more scheduled my life is, the better.
I stand up and put my face by the window. “I smell the tang of winter.”
Bryan snorts. “That’s not the tang of winter. That’s bus exhaust and your pizza breath.”
“That smell is the taste of me wrestling at States.” I sit and lean closer to Bryan. “This is my year. I’m going to train. I’m going to run every day before school.” I shove Bryan’s shoulder to wipe the smirk off his face. “Laugh all you want, doofus. I’m serious.”
“Reality check: You’re eleven years old. You’ve got more baby chub than muscles.”
“I was this close last year.” I hold my fingers a centimeter apart. “One move. I lost by one move.”
“It was six months ago, is all I’m saying.” Bryan isn’t paying attention anymore. There’s sheet music in his lap. He runs a finger along a line of notes.
“Nine,” I say. I shake Bryan’s arm. “I’ve had nine months to plan my revenge.”
He makes an exasperated sigh. “Dial back the drama, Lev. Forget about Spence. If States is your goal, it should be your goal.”
I shake my head. “All the good kids on our team go. I have to be one of those kids or Spence will never shut up about it.” I lower my voice. “I can’t lose again.”
“You’re bugging out and the season hasn’t even started yet.”
“Hello? Have you met me?”
“Yeah. But I like you better when you’re regular Lev, not Wrestler Guy.”
“If I make it to States this year, will you come watch?” Bryan never comes to my matches. Not once since Mrs. Torres made us reading buddies in second grade and we got to be friends.
Bryan halfway frowns, so I know he’s faking. “I don’t know. There’s no costumes.”
“Nope.”
“No masks. No flying suplexes. No battle cages.”
“Anything else?”
“No cheerleaders.”
“Ew. Are you really going to come to a match?”
“If you get to States, I’ll be there.”
I don’t even have to close my eyes to see it. I’m on the mat at the state wrestling championship. The ref raises my hand in the air while Nick Spence cowers next to me, defeated. And there, in the stands, is Bryan, pumping a fist in the air.