Scrubs Forever! (2 page)

“Don't worry, Dad. It's totally safe. But how about those pull-ups? Should I?”

“Sure. Hey, I'll join you. I think I need to do some of those.”

chapter 4

AVOIDING EASY

Dan climbed up a cliff of overhanging gray rock. Mr. Kwan and Dan's friends watched from below. Ten feet . . . twenty feet . . . Dan was climbing fast. He was near the top when he suddenly slowed down.

“You can go to your right now,” Mr. Kwan called up to him. “It's not as steep there. It's a lot easier.”

“Too easy!” Dan called back and climbed straight up the steep part.

He was thirty feet up now. The wind blew through his hair. A bird flew by below him. He was almost at the top. Dan stretched up and tried to grab a big knob of rock above him, but he couldn't quite reach it. His foot started to slip. He jammed it back into place again.

“You can do it!” called Rufus from below.

“Go, go, go!” shouted Clara.

“Go, you Scrub!” shouted Willy.

All of a sudden, Dan fell. “Agh!” he cried as he dropped off the rock and into the empty space below.

Rufus gasped. Willy started to yell something, then cut it short. Mr. Kwan moved his right hand behind him. In that right hand Mr. Kwan held a bright purple rope that went through a metal belay device. The rope ran from Mr. Kwan up to the top of the cliff through a link they called a carabiner and back down to where it was clipped to a harness around Dan's waist. Dan couldn't fall very far, because he was attached to the rope that Mr. Kwan was holding. With the belay device set, the rope couldn't slip. It stretched for a few feet and then held. Dan was brought to a gentle stop, still twenty-five feet off the ground. He hung there beside the cliff, catching his breath.

“Can I try that part again?” shouted Dan.

“No, we're running low on time,” Mr. Kwan called back. “We have to give Rufus a turn.”

“Just once?”

“Sorry, Dan. I'm going to lower you down.”

chapter 5

DAN GUESSES

When Dan was at the bottom of the cliff beside the others, he unclipped himself from the rope. Rufus clipped in and started to climb, very slowly, up the rock.

“Have you ever climbed that part where I was?” Dan asked Mr. Kwan.

“Put your right foot in that crack,” Mr. Kwan said to Rufus. “Sideways!” Then to Dan: “Yes, I have.”

“Yeah, but you're tall,” said Dan. “You could have reached that last hold easy.”

“Well, sure, sometimes being tall helps,” said Mr. Kwan. “But a lot of top climbers aren't very tall. Somebody told me that girl, Elisabeth whatever-her-name-is, climbed that route. She's not tall.”

“Who's that?”

“A girl who moved here from Colorado. I saw a TV special about her.”

“She's been on TV?” asked Clara.

“Yeah.”

“I want to be on TV,” said Dan.

“You're too ugly,” said Willy. “You'd break the camera.”

Dan just rolled his eyes.

Mr. Kwan frowned, but he didn't take his eyes off Rufus, who was halfway up. “Listen, Willy,” said Mr. Kwan, “no insulting allowed, not even in kidding. That reminds me. You shouldn't call Dan a ‘scrub,' either.”

“No, no, that's not an insult,” said Willy. “Rufus and Dan and I were so bad at football last year, other guys called us ‘scrubs.' We decided we liked it. We're the Scrubs. Clara's an official Scrub, too. Right Clara?”

“You bet,” said Clara. “And proud of it.”

“Is that right, Dan?” asked Mr. Kwan.

“Yeah, true story,” said Dan. “But . . . .”

“But what?” asked Mr. Kwan. “You don't like being called a ‘scrub'?”

“I guess it's all right.”

“What do you mean, ‘you guess'?” asked Willy.

“I mean,
I guess
.”

chapter 6

LOUD LUNCH

As usual, the lunchroom was crowded. Rufus and Dan were holding their trays, trying to edge over to where Willy was sitting.

“Hey, guys, . . . wait up,” said a voice behind them.

It was Clara, standing with a girl named Lisa—a new girl in school that year. They looked funny standing together. Clara was tall and wore her blond hair in pigtails, while Lisa was the smallest kid in the class and had dark, curly hair.

“Hey, Clara,” said Biff, coming out of the lunch line to stand beside them. “Does she really play basketball? I mean, she's not much bigger than the ball.” Biff's friends behind him laughed.

Lisa frowned, but she didn't say anything.

“You're no giant yourself, Biff,” said Clara, looking down at him. Clara was almost a half-foot taller than Biff.

“Maybe she's the team mascot,” said Dan. “Little Lisa, the mascot.”

“Don't you start talking trash about Lisa!” said Clara angrily.

“It doesn't matter,” murmured Lisa.

“Dude,” Clara said to Dan, “she's one of the Scrubs, too, you know.”

“Since when is she one of the Scrubs?” asked Dan.

“Since I say she is,” replied Clara.

“Come on, it's not some exclusive club. She tries hard, just like you.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa.

“Yeah, but she's the way the Scrubs used to be,” said Biff. “Dan won over half his matches this year.”

Dan looked at Biff in surprise. He wouldn't have thought Biff was keeping track.

“Okay, great, but so what?” asked Clara. “I was high scorer on our basketball team. Who cares? I'm still a Scrub at heart. And so is Lisa.”

“Come on, Dan,” said Biff. “Sit with us. That table's going to be too crowded anyway.”

Dan hesitated. But he decided he just couldn't turn Biff down.

“I'll see you around, guys,” Dan said to Rufus and Clara.

So he had lunch with Biff and his loud friends. Clara glared at him from their nearby table. Rufus and Willy looked puzzled. Lisa just kept looking down at her lunch tray.

chapter 7

COOL OR CREEP

The next day was the day the Scrubs went kayaking together. Now that winter sports were over, they were alternating climbing with kayaking.

When Dan got into the van, Clara said right away, “I'm mad at you, Dan.”

“Huh?” said Dan. “What did
I
do?”

“You made fun of Lisa for being small, of all things. You know how idiotic that is, coming from you? It was also mean.”

“It was just a joke.”

“And then you wouldn't sit with us,” said Clara.

“The table was crowded,” said Dan. He turned to Rufus and Willy. “Come on, guys. Was I being mean?”

Rufus shrugged.

Willy said, “Well, yeah. Kind of.”

Dan stared out the window and watched the trees go by for a minute. “Okay,” he said finally. “If I was mean, I'm sorry. Tell her I'm sorry.”

“Since when do you hang out with Biff, anyway?” asked Willy.

“Hey, we wrestled on the same team all season,” said Dan.

“Yeah, but it's Biff! The original jerk!”

“He's changed,” said Dan. “Ever since I started beating him in practice every once in a while. And winning some of my matches.”

“Is that what you want?” asked Willy. “Friends who only like you when you win?”

“Maybe I want friends who are cool,” said Dan. “And popular.”

“Like Biff?”

“Yeah, like Biff.”

“The whole reason we started the Scrubs was to stand up to creeps like Biff,” said Willy.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “That was fine then. But now, I'm starting to think the Scrubs thing is so . . . so grammar school.”

“What do you mean?” asked Willy.

“I mean, Rufus is getting good at football and—we're getting better at wrestling and kayaking and—we're just not ‘scrubs' anymore!”

“I was always good at basketball and soccer,” said Clara, “but I was still a Scrub. Being a Scrub is a state of mind. It means we don't care what everybody else thinks. It means we go for it, no matter what—like you did yesterday, going for the hard part of that cliff. It means we're not afraid to go out for ballet, like Rufus did last fall.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Dan. “That was fine. Now I think it's time to make some new friends.”

“Be careful you don't lose the old ones along the way,” said Clara.

Just then they pulled up beside the river. Everyone got out before Dan could think of anything to say.

chapter 8

MYSTERY GIRL

It was raining the next time climbing practice was scheduled, so Mr. Kwan took them to the climbing gym. People were climbing up the walls all around them. Some were in the “cave,” where the walls curved up into a low ceiling and thick pads covered the floor. There were holds bolted in the ceiling, and climbers clung from them, hanging upside down like spiders.

Mr. Kwan took them to a place where the wall was built out at the bottom so the climb was at an easy slant.

“Come on, can't we do something steeper?” asked Dan.

“No, this is the best place for us.”

“Best place for Rufus, maybe,” said Dan.