FROM SLUGFEST

Chapter One

Arnie Yashenko

 

Too bad Yash only has four letters. Because having your name spelled out by a squad of cheerleaders feels pretty great—and it’s over practically before it starts.

Mom and Dad should have named me Maximiliano or Demetrius.

I crouch over the plate, dig my cleats into the dirt, and point my bat at the sky. I have the most aggressive stance of anybody on the Comets—bat high, crowding the plate, daring the pitcher to brush me back.

Even though I’m in middle school, I’ve been playing on the high school’s J.V. teams since November. The only J.V. team I’m not on is football, since there is a rule against eighth graders competing at the high school level for that sport. Bummer.

That’s why I love hearing that Y-A-S-H from the cheerleaders. But they’re high school girls—so to them, I’m just a kid.

At least, that’s what they thought till they saw me play.

I let the first pitch sizzle by, right over the plate. Strike one.

I back up just a little and lower my bat a couple of inches. It gives the pitcher the false sense that he’s got me scared. The second pitch is off the plate. Like I’m clueless enough to swing at a bad one.

And the third—that’s my pitch. I swing through the ball, not at it. When the bat makes contact, it jars me all the way to the shoulders. That’s when I know.

I don’t even have to watch the ball soar past the outfield and over the fence. I can tell by the roar of the crowd: it’s a walk-off home run. I trot around the bases at a leisurely pace, enjoying the moment. The cheerleaders are going bananas. Middle school kid? What middle school kid? I’m the guy who won the whole game!

My teammates are gathered around home plate to spray me with their water bottles—team tradition. They definitely don’t consider me just a kid. The home runs help. I hit a lot of them. I was also second leading scorer on the basketball team. And when I’m finally eligible for J.V. football in the fall, I’ll be a touchdown machine for sure. I’m great at all sports, but football’s my number one.

I play it cool though. You have to act like you’ve been there before and you expect to be there again. That’s when I notice Principal Carmichael—he’s the only person in the bleachers who isn’t celebrating. Typical. His face is grim, and he’s looking straight at me.

To be honest, it makes me a little nervous. Carmichael’s my principal—the middle school one. Which means he’s probably here to see me. But why?

I break away from the team and head over to Carmichael, whose droopy face looks even sadder as I approach. He’s probably depressed because the middle school Comets are riding a seven-game losing streak. With me playing J.V., those guys have lost their best player. But it’s not my fault! He’s the one who went along with it when the J.V. coaches wanted to claim me for their teams. He’s the one who scheduled me in ninth-period P.E. all year so I could ride the minibus to the high school in time for practice.

“See that, Dr. C?” I venture. “Another walk-off dinger.”

It’s like he’s not even listening. “Come with me, Arnold. I have to speak with you.”

I hate being called Arnold. Arnie is better, but only my mother uses that. To the rest of the world—even most teachers—I’m Yash.

The principal leads me into the field house, and we go straight to Coach Basil’s office.

I keep talking. “I wish I could play for the middle school too, but most of the games conflict . . .”

He seats himself at the coach’s desk, leaving me standing, like I’m in trouble or something. I know I’m not, but that’s how it feels.

“It’s just better for me to play J.V.,” I forge on. “It’s more my skill level. . . .” I let my voice trail off because I sound like I’m really full of myself. Nobody likes the guy who toots his own horn—even when he’s got a lot to toot about.

“That’s the problem.” The principal raises a hand to signal I should stop talking. “We always scheduled your gym classes at the end of the day so that you wouldn’t miss any academics when you went off to practice with the junior varsity.”

“Right. Who cares if I do P.E. with my own grade or over here at the high school?”

The principal looks stricken. “It turns out that the state does. Eighth-grade P.E. is now a required credit in order to graduate from middle school. And you’ve missed too many classes to qualify for it.”

“But,” I argue, “it’s only because I’ve been doing different P.E. that’s a million times better.”

“I agree with you,” Carmichael tells me honestly. “The problem is that the education department has changed the rules. If you don’t have this credit, you have not completed the eighth grade.”

“You mean—” I’m horrified. “I flunk?”

He chuckles humorlessly. “Nothing as drastic as that. But the fact is, you can’t start high school in the fall unless your record includes eighth-grade P.E.”

“That means I flunk!”

“Of course it doesn’t. There’s plenty of time for you to earn that credit—in summer school.”

“Summer school?” I practically howl. “You want me to go to summer school? For gym?”

“I don’t want that, Arnold,” the principal tries to explain. “It’s the state. They’re giving me zero flexibility here.”

“But couldn’t you—like—lie? You know, sauce me a free credit? I did way more gym with J.V. than I ever could have in one middle school class.”

He shoots me a look that would scorch metal. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just suggest that. Our summer school offers a program called Physical Education Equivalency, or P.E.E.—”

“Pee?” I echo.

“P.E.E.,” he corrects me pointedly. “It’s for students who, for whatever reason, need to fill in a missing piece of their physical education curriculum.”

“You mean”—I can barely form the words—“Slugfest?”

Carmichael’s expression is blank. “I beg your pardon?”

“Like—you know—I mean—” Okay, I’m babbling. When you’re a top athlete, you can’t talk about how you’re great and everybody else has two left feet. But you know the kind of person who has to retake gym in the summer—the kind who was too uncoordinated to pass it in the fall, winter, and spring! The kind who can’t bounce a ball without knocking themselves unconscious! Who would trip over a chalk line on a football field if they ever went near one! Who think sports are for dolts and cave people and that anybody with a brain would rather spend their time playing chess and solving equations!

There’s a name around here for the people who end up in that class—slugs! That’s why they call it Slugfest!

I can’t be a slug! I’m Yash! That means something in this town. But how can I tell that to the principal without sounding like a stuck-up jerk?

And suddenly, I have the answer. “Dr. Carmichael, I can’t do summer school. Everybody knows I’m going to quarterback the J.V. Comets this fall. I have to be at their summer workouts.”

The principal seems exhausted now. “I’m sorry, Arnold. It’s out of my hands. I’ll talk to Coach Basil and explain that you’re going to be in summer school.”

“No, no, no!” I wail. “If I miss the workouts, I won’t qualify for the big seven-on-seven flag football tournament in August!”

He frowns. “Football tournament?”

“It’s the ultimate showcase for eighth graders to break onto the high school scene. It was supposed to be my launch party!”

Carmichael’s skin is practically gray. “We owe you an apology, Arnold. We thought we’d created a perfect schedule to accommodate your special talents. We were wrong.”

“If you’re the one who’s wrong, how come I’m the one who has to go to summer school?” I can feel my eyes prickling and I’m trying really hard not to cry.

“I understand how disappointing this must be.” He folds his arms in front of him, like the subject is closed.

My mind is spinning. There has to be a way out of this! The mayor is a J.V. basketball fan—his son is on the team. A benchwarmer, sure, but maybe his dad can put in a good word for me. Or my great-grandfather—he won a bronze star in World War II. You can’t make a hero’s great-grandson be a slug. Or my mom—she was second runner-up for Miss Clarington as a high school senior. Yeah, I know it’s bad to use connections to get your way, but aren’t some things so terrible that you have to do anything you can to avoid them?

The worst part is I can’t even blame Carmichael. He’s only pushing me around because the state is pushing himaround.

That’s when it starts to sink in: This is a law. Nothing is going to change this. Not being good at basketball or baseball or even football.

Slugfest, here I come.

 

 

Chapter Two

Cleo Marchand

 

My parents are fans of this old-people band called the Beach Boys. They sang about summer and surfing and fun in the sun. The music is actually pretty good. If you go by the Beach Boys, summer is the greatest thing in any kid’s life, the whipped cream on the ice cream sundae of the universe.

Know how I’m spending my summer? Sitting in a hot classroom in a building with no air-conditioning. I have to go to summer school.

I didn’t fail—not technically. If you look at my report card, it’s all incompletes. I broke my foot skiing on spring break. It was supposed to be no big deal. Guess what? It was a big deal. I needed surgery, and after that, it got infected. Then a second surgery so the doctors could fix what went wrong in the first one. You get the picture. There are so many nails and screws in my foot that I have to carry a special card to explain to the T.S.A. guys why I keep setting off their metal detector at the airport.

I was in and out of the hospital for six weeks, and by the time I was able to get back to school, I’d missed more than three months. That’s too many absences to graduate. Worse, I don’t just have to make up a class or two. I have to make up everything—English, math, science, social studies. Believe it or not, I even have to take gym in summer school. Real talk: I didn’t know that was even a thing! Physical Education Equivalency, they call it. P.E.E. I know. Eyeroll.

There’s a bus to summer school, but only one, and it stops every sixty feet to pick up some other poor kid. It takes forever. I ride my bike, not just because I hate the bus but because it’s the only athletic thing I do anymore.

After my accident, I gave up sports for good. No more soccer. No more volleyball. No more lacrosse. I used to love sports, and I was good at them. Nothing is worth what I’ve been through these past few months though. Correction: What I’m still going through. This lost summer is 100 percent courtesy of my skiing accident. I’m officially hanging up my skis and skates and sneakers and cleats. Well, I’ll wear sneakers. But it’ll be because I want to, not because they’re part of a team uniform.

My mom is a big fan of me making this change. Dad—not so much. “Athletics have always been such a major part of your life. It’s going to leave a hole.”

Mom is unconcerned. “There must be something kids can do at a school that doesn’t involve running around a field or a gym, risking their bones. Remember in fifth grade when you were in that play? You had such a good time!”

How could I forget? The elementary school did Willy Wonka. My character, Veruca Salt, was a spoiled brat, and I really leaned into it, overacting my head off. It was a blast. So when I found out that summer school has a drama program, I signed up for that too. Why not? Just because this is a lemon summer doesn’t mean I can’t try to make lemonade.

And, hey—my foot seems pretty strong on the bike, although I can’t escape the sense that it’s somehow fragile. Like one pedal too many could start a chain reaction and my whole leg will fall apart like a Jenga tower.

Still, I have to admit I’m enjoying the bike ride after months of crutches and walking boots and being flat on my butt. The breeze blowing through my hair is a pretty rare treat these days. I even find myself humming the Beach Boys—“We’ve been having fun all summer long . . .” I get pretty into it—until I pull up in front of Clarington Middle School.

The parade of faces filing into the building is something straight out of The Walking Dead. There are no zombies, but the prospect of an entire summer of school while other kids are sleeping in and lazing and swimming and going on trips turns you into the closest thing to it. Suddenly, I blame the Beach Boys for reminding me how miserable I should be. Maybe that was okay back in the sixties, but people today are smart enough to know when they’re being jerked around.

I stash my bike in the rack and join the unhappy procession inside. The creepiest part is that nobody’s talking. You can hear the shuffling of feet like we’re a parade of prisoners in leg irons. In regular school, kids are chatty. There’s usually an assistant principal skulking in the front hall, handing out detentions for being too loud. Not here. Not today.

Hanging in the atrium is a giant banner that declares “WELCOME TO SUMMER SCHOOL!” It’s decorated in bright colors, with pictures of suns and flowers and butterflies. If resentful stares could start fires, that thing would be a three-alarm blaze.

Principal Carmichael is directing traffic in the atrium. “Clarington students, use your regular lockers. Everyone else, report to the office and you’ll have a locker assigned to you.”

As I trudge along the hall, I nearly trip over a lone figure lying on the floor in front of his open locker, using his backpack as a pillow. My bad foot boots him in the leg, and he comes out of a deep sleep and rolls over.

To my surprise, it’s Arnie Yashenko, the last person I ever expected to see in summer school. Not because he’s a genius—believe me, he’s not. But Yash is kind of like Superman when it comes to sports around here—quarterback, basketball star, home run king. Basically, the entire Clarington School District would have to shut down if there was no Yash. The students worship him. The teachers treat him like he’s doing all of us a gigantic favor just by showing up. I can’t imagine who around here has enough authority to tell Yash he has to go to summer school. God, probably. Or maybe the president—but only if he has both houses of Congress behind him.

Yash gazes up at me through bleary eyes and spits out a little fuzz that somehow found his mouth. “Let a guy sleep, will you?”

“Well, I would,” I say sarcastically, “but you’re blocking the way to my locker.”

For just a second, he looks so blank that I wonder if he even remembers he’s in a school. Then he scrambles out of my way. I open my locker and start unloading my backpack into it.

By the fifth textbook, he’s bug-eyed. “What, are you opening up a bookstore?”

I feel my cheeks reddening. “I missed three months of school. I have a lot of credits to make up.”

“Stinks to be you,” he says with real emotion.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snap.

“I only have to make up one class, and that’s bad enough,” he informs me.

Hefting my math book—first period—I shut my locker and spin the dial. “Which one?”

“P.E.”

I glare at him. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But don’t stick your nose into my business.”

“Honest,” he insists. “It’s true.”

“You flunked P.E.?”

“I didn’t flunk it,” he defends himself. “I didn’t do it. I spent my gym classes at the high school, working out with J.V..”

That doesn’t seem fair. “Didn’t you explain that to Dr. Carmichael?”

“It isn’t Carmichael’s fault,” he explains dejectedly. “There are new rules at the state. You can’t graduate without eighth-grade P.E.”

“Stinks to be you,” I blurt, and really mean it.

“I know.” He nods in resigned agreement. “The worst part is I’m stuck here all day, even though I’m only in one class. My parents both commute, so they’re not around to give me a ride. And we live way over on the far side of town. So it’s the bus or nothing.”

My own parents weren’t surprised that I landed in summer school after all the time I missed. They even tried to sell it as a lucky break—à la Isn’t it great there’s a summer program so kids like you don’t end up losing a whole year? But there’s no way the Yashenkos took the news well. They probably worship their son even more than everybody else around here.

“What about your folks?” I probe. “Didn’t they complain?”

He nods miserably. “Oh yeah—complain, yell, freak out, tear their hair, pound the table, threaten to sue. I never realized there are so many people you can sue. Did you know you can sue a whole town?”

“And?”

He glares at me. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Funny—I always thought Yash was an overprivileged jock who has the whole school eating out of his hand. And here he is, in the same crummy situation I’m in. I never thought I’d say this, but I feel bad for him.

“Anyway, sorry to block your locker.” He settles his tall frame back on the floor and rests his head against the backpack pillow.

“Wait, you’re just going to go back to sleep? P.E.E. doesn’t start till”—I check the printout of my schedule—“almost eleven!”

“I knew it,” he says with a triumphant grin. “You’re in Slugfest too, aren’t you?”

I refuse to give him the satisfaction. “You don’t have to waste your whole day lying around,” I persist. “There’s all kinds of stuff to do here.”

“Such as?” he demands.

“You can take other classes,” I insist. “Summer school isn’t just to redo what you flunked during the year. Pick something that interests you. They offer things like video game design and investigative journalism. I’m going to be in drama—we’re putting on a show.”

He sticks out his jaw. “It’s bad enough that I have to be here for Slugfest. I’m not going to make it worse by signing up for a bunch of extra school I don’t need.”

I know I walked into summer school with a pretty negative attitude. But just listening to this jerk dumping all over everything makes me see things differently. The Beach Boys have another song called “Be True to Your School.” Even though Yash is supposedly this big hero, he isn’t being very true.

“So you’re saying you’d rather lie here on a filthy hard floor than use your time to do something interesting.”

His eyes burn into mine. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Well, lots of luck with that.” I storm away to my math class. By the time I turn the corner of the hall, he’s already snoring.

I won’t try to sugarcoat it—math and social studies after that are pretty depressing. I’m actually a good student. I bet I could blow off the three months I missed and head into high school just as prepared as anybody else. So no matter how hard I try to pay attention in class, sooner or later, my mind wanders to where I am and why. I’m wasting my summer in school for no reason, just because of what happened to my foot.

You know how I get through it? Every time I catch myself feeling down, I think of Yash napping on the floor in front of his locker and it makes me feel better. This may be a lousy way to spend my day, but it’s still better than being passed out on a terrazzo floor where people’s dirty shoes have been stomping all day.

Third period is P.E.E., or as Yash refers to it, Slugfest. To be fair, a lot of people call it that. But because it comes from Yash, I decide to be offended by it. Okay, nobody ends up in summer school to redo subjects they’re amazing at. Still, just because you’re not good at sports doesn’t make you a slug.

I step into the gym and take in my fellow students.

Kaden Cooperman is here. If there’s anybody less likely to be in summer school than Yash, it has to be him. He’s the smartest kid in the entire district. The only time I’ve ever heard of him sweating out a grade was when he was arguing with Ms. Olmstead over whether he’d gotten enough of the bonus question to score 110 percent, or if he had to settle for 108.

Not far from Kaden is Fiona Loftus, the second smartest kid in our school. Fiona is Clarington’s tech wizard. One of these days, we’ll be reading about her in Silicon Valley, creating a giant company that’s the next Google or Facebook. For the first time, I notice that she’s pretty tiny. But surely you don’t flunk gym just for being small.

“I give up, Fi,” I tell her. “Why are you in this class? I thought you were pretty good at P.E.”

When she makes a face, all her features distort as if I’m seeing her reflection in a fun house mirror. “I’m here on a swimming rap.”

I’m surprised. “You can’t swim?”

“Of course I can swim. I’m on a water polo team. I can outswim anybody in the school. But I won’t put my face in the water. That’s it—I just won’t. And guess what you have to do to pass the swim test.”

“Don’t you go underwater playing water polo?” I ask.

“Everyone else does. I don’t.”

Because of her size, Fiona has an ability to zip around so that she almost disappears and then winks back into view where you least expect her. She darts in front of Stuart Fidelio, who doesn’t spot her until it’s almost too late. He leaps back to avoid a collision and hip-checks a rack of basketballs, overturning the cart and sending the balls rolling and bouncing in all directions.

I help gather them up with Stuart and his sister, Sarah.

“How did you guys wind up in P.E.E.?” I ask, depositing my armload of basketballs onto the rack.

“It was Stuart’s fault,” Sarah sniffs, tight-lipped.

Stuart is over in a flash. “No way, little sis. You started it, and you know it. You’re the reason Coach kicked us out.”

“Little sis?” I repeat. “You two are twins, right?”

“I’m older,” Stuart says self-importantly.

“Yeah, by twenty-five lousy minutes!” Sarah protests.

“That’s a long time when you’re zero,” Stuart lectures. “And the older we get, the maturity gap just grows.”

Seeing Sarah start a not-so-slow burn, I hurry back to my original question. “Real talk—what could you guys possibly have done to get banned from regular gym and sentenced to summer school?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Stuart insists. “It was her immaturity.”

“You’re not older than me!” his sister snarls.

“Excuses, excuses—”

It happens so fast that I almost doubt I saw it. Sarah takes the basketball in her hands and jams it into her twin brother’s face. Then she places it on the rack with the others. It’s like it never happened—except for the fact that Stuart’s nose is bent to the left, like a compass needle pointing southwest.

Amazingly, he doesn’t seem to be hurt or even a little bit angry that his own sister attacked him with a basketball. He just takes hold of his nose with steepled fingers and straightens it out with a faint crunching noise.

“It bends now,” he says airily. “The doctor says there’s no real damage. I don’t mind. It’s kind of my superpower.”

Well, that’s a relief. At least one of the twins can be mature about things. Maybe twenty-five minutes really does make a difference at age zero.

Jesse Darrowick is next, and I know for a fact that he didn’t fail P.E. Jesse is in summer school as punishment. The administration is always looking for different ways to punish Jesse, because there’s no dungeon in middle school. If there was, he’d be a cinch for it.

Jesse’s not a bad guy. He isn’t mean or anything. But he’s never met a practical joke he didn’t like. And no one, from Principal Carmichael down to the assistant custodian, appreciates Jesse’s sense of humor—especially not when he cherry-bombed the boys’ locker room. That stunt knocked out the plumbing and created a torrent of water that roared down the hill and flooded out the basement of Bosco’s Discount Furniture. Continuing with the plumbing theme, the discipline committee threw the kitchen sink at him. He served detentions; he cleaned whiteboards; he put on a hairnet and helped the lunch ladies; he wrote letters of apology. It never seemed like enough. And it wasn’t. Turns out, the school has one more element of revenge to throw at the guy. They’re taking his summer.

“You shouldn’t be here, Cleo!” Arabella Hopp marches into the gym like she’s at the head of a vast army. “You shouldn’t either, Kaden! Or you, Sarah! None of us should be here!”

“I’m for that,” comes a sleepy voice behind her.

Well, look who woke up just in time to attend his only class. It’s Yash, his unruly dark hair flattened on one side after his long nap on the backpack.

“You see?” Arabella is triumphant. “Even this jock agrees with me! The Clarington School District has no right to make us take this class.”

“No one’s making us, Bella,” I point out. “They’re just saying we have to do it if we want to graduate from eighth grade.”

I should know better. You can’t argue with Arabella. She’s a professional arguer.

“They can’t tell us what to do with our bodies! I haven’t been to a gym class since I left elementary school, and what are they going to do about it?”

“They did it already,” Yash tells her. “They sent you here.”

“But they can’t make me exercise,” Arabella vows. “I’m going to stand and defy!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Sarah Fidelio tiptoeing out of the gym and rush over to her. “Don’t leave,” I advise her. “Nobody listens to Arabella.”

“That’s not it,” she whispers. “Stuart hasn’t gotten back at me yet. I think I should lie low for a while.”

“He’s probably forgotten the whole thing,” I scoff.

She looks at me like I have a giant sunflower instead of a head. “You don’t know him like I do. I’m going to hide in the bathroom.”

She slips out the door, only to return a moment later, escorted by a little old lady in a pink tracksuit and a droopy wide-brimmed sun hat. The lady pops a whistle in her mouth, and out comes a blast powerful enough to lift us all six inches off the floor.

“Good morning, everyone,” she announces in a voice that’s somewhat lower energy than the shriek of her whistle. “Welcome to Physical Education Equivalency. I’m your teacher, Mrs. Finnerty. But I guess you can call me Coach.”

She chuckles to herself a little at that one. She must be as old as my grandmother—at least seventy—but she has a young smile and even a couple of dimples.

Fiona raises her hand. “My dad told me to say hi—Freddy Loftus. You were his second-grade teacher. He still talks about the cookies.”

She beams, and there are the dimples again. “I remember Freddy. I taught second grade for fifteen years and then middle school home ec.” Her smile fades a little. “At least that’s what they used to call it. It’s family and consumer studies—F.C.S.—now. I never expected to wind up in P.E., but I guess they were having trouble finding someone to cover this class. The school came calling, and here I am.”

Translation: No self-respecting gym teacher would be caught dead running summer school P.E.

We learn pretty quickly that you can take Mrs. Finnerty out of second grade, but you can’t take second grade out of Mrs. Finnerty. She lines us up beneath one of the basketball hoops and stands on the opposite side of the gym.

“Now, when I say ‘Red light . . .’”

We stare at her. Yash’s jaw actually drops open—like a character in a cartoon.

Red light, green light? Is that her idea of P.E.? Kiddie games? She can’t be serious.

Guess what? She’s serious as a heart attack. We play red light, green light; musical chairs; tag; and duck, duck, goose.

It’s the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. And if you think I hate it, you should see Yash. His face is the color of an overripe tomato, and his expression—well, I wasn’t alive in the days of the guillotine, but I bet even people who were about to be executed didn’t look that miserable. He’s tearing himself in two. Part of him wants nothing to do with these babyish activities. But the other part insists on being the best at everything and wiping up the floor with the rest of us. And I have to admit that Arnie Yashenko is the greatest kiddie-game player I’ve ever seen. His blazing speed makes him unbeatable at red light, green light, he can get in and out of a musical chair with the dexterity of a firefly, and his long arms enable him to tag you from another zip code. He’s never “it” for more than a second or two.

If he has one flaw, it’s being too good. In duck, duck, goose, he sprints around the circle before poor Kaden can manage to pick himself off the floor. For the first time, I see hesitation in Yash’s eyes. He’s supposed to slip into the spot left open by the player who’s chasing him. But since Kaden isn’t even on his feet yet, there is no spot. And it’s not like any of us has played this game since kindergarten, so he isn’t exactly up to date on the finer points of strategy.

Out of options, Yash makes another loop. And he’s still fast enough to complete it by the time Kaden stands. The smaller boy reaches out a hand, and Yash runs right into it.

“Gotcha!” Kaden declares, pleased.

“Hey, that’s not right—” Yash begins, and for a second, I think he’s going to argue duck, duck, goose like he’s disputing a referee’s call in one of his games.

“Well, wasn’t that exciting!” Mrs. Finnerty declares.

And maybe because it so obviously wasn’t exciting, Yash gives up on his complaint. But his face is the picture of frustration. He can’t lose at anything—not even duck, duck, goose.

That’s a level of competitiveness that’s almost a sickness. Or maybe it’s his ego, which is almost as big as his muscles.

Whatever the reason, when I see Yash coming at me in our next activity—tag—I’m determined to escape him or die trying. I may not be Yash level, but I played midfield in lacrosse before I broke my foot. I can run.

I turn on the afterburners and streak across the gym, with Yash in hot pursuit. Uh-oh, he’s even faster than I thought, he’s gaining on me with every stride. One of those long arms reaches out, and I know it’s only a fraction of a second before I get tagged.

In desperation, I stop on a dime, execute a little spin, and take two steps in the opposite direction.

Yash sprints right past me, wheels around, and stares in stunned amazement. “You juked me!”

I’m panting with exertion, practically gasping. But nothing can hide my pride and delight in having beaten him in this one small moment. “I guess I did.”

We’re standing there, heaving breathlessly, when a Tarzan yell rings out across the gym, and Stuart swings past us on one of the climbing ropes. He sails over the group, missing everyone, and wipes out his sister with a flying kick.

I guess Sarah was right. I don’t know Stuart like she does.

Another powerful whistle blast brings the class to order. Stuart helps his victim back to her feet—like he didn’t just go to great lengths to knock her down in the first place.

Either Mrs. Finnerty has no problem with a swooping attack from above or she missed the whole thing. “Excellent workout, people!”

She calls that a workout? I survey the gym. Everyone is panting and sweating. Kaden is massaging his shoulder from when he sideswiped the wall. Even Arabella is too breathless to manage any protest. Maybe it was more of a workout than any of us realized.

Coach Finnerty opens a picnic basket and pulls back a red-and-white-checkered linen cloth. “Everyone take one brownie as a reward for putting in such a good effort today.”

I bristle. Okay, I’m no local legend like Yash, but when it comes to girls’ sports, I’m as good as it gets around here—at least I used to be. I give her a pass on the kiddie games because she’s used to little kids. Real talk: Here’s your reward, chew on a brownie? Who does this retired F.C.S. teacher think we are?

My annoyance evaporates with the first bite. The explosion of flavor is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe it. I see Kaden’s eyes widen with wonder as he nibbles the corner of his. All around me, there are echoes of “Mmmmm!” Even the twins agree on something: if there were royalty in desserts, this brownie would be emperor.

“Yo, Mrs. F.!” Jesse exclaims. “This is the best brownie I’ve ever tasted!”

“Fantastic!” Arabella pronounces. “But if you think you can buy us off with great food, you can forget it.”

Surely even Yash has to admit that this is a brownie among brownies.

I look around just in time to catch a glimpse of him slipping out the gym door.