Sidetracked (3 page)
“How can I turn down an offer like that?” I say with a smile. I shoot one last glance over my shoulder. Shauna is staring at me. When our eyes meet, she looks away.
All through lunch, Kat and I babble away about school stuff, and avoid the subject of who will be chosen for the girls' 100 meter. But the question hangs over our heads like a thought bubble in a comic strip. Will it be her, or me? When Kat asks for help with math, it makes for a good distraction. Poor Kat. We sit beside each other at the table, our heads together. I try to explain the Pythagorean theorem. I can tell she's totally lost by the way she stares into space instead of at the page. She's not even listening to me.
“Oh, who cares about the sides of a triangle?” she finally groans. “How is this going to matter in my life? Will you tell me, Maddy? Why do I even need to know this!”
“Well, to pass math this year, for starters,” I remind her.
“Too true. I'm doomed!” Kat throws herself dramatically across the table and fake-sobs. “There's one thing for sure, Maddy,” she says from under the crook of her arm. “When it comes to you and me and math, you're guaranteed to win!”
I'm not sure Kat will ever fully understand the Pythagorean theorem, even though she pretends to so we don't have to do math anymore. We check out some YouTube music videos for a while, which is a relief. It's hard explaining math to someone with a non-mathematical brain.
Afterward, I run home at a nice easy pace. Running fills me with peace and is a great stress burner. And right now, I almost wish I could run away from all the stuff that's been bugging me about my brother and Shauna, who I still can't figure out. I take a shortcut through Eastwood High and across the football field.
It's completely deserted now that everyone has gone home and the school is locked up. In fact, it kind of creeps me out. I jog along the side of the building, peering into vacant classrooms. I've almost reached the athletic field and the track when I hear a shout, and I stop.
My first instinct is to hide. My heart is hammering inside my chest, as if I've just run a race. I have a bad feeling about this. I'm almost afraid to look. Breathing hard, I back up against the school and peer around the corner.
At the other end of the field, there's some sort of scuffle going on. A bunch of guys are giving someone a hard time, pushing and shoving. Whoever is getting shoved pushes back hard. They're all so far away, I can't make out any of their faces. I glance over my shoulder. There isn't a soul in sightânothing but the empty teachers' parking lot. The only one here to witness this is me. There's nobody to call to for help. I wish I had my cell phone, but I didn't bring it to practice today.
One of the guys is shouting. I can't hear what he's saying. The person getting bullied yells something back. I can't help but think about who was the last to leave after practice. My brother stayed behind with Shauna, Justin, a few other kids and Carter.
I press myself against the cool bricks and try to figure out what I should do. When I take another look, someone is sitting on the ground in the middle of the field as the others run off. I know what I have to do next. I have to pretend I'm just arriving. And act as if I have no clue what happened.
Why didn't I yell or call out? There's no denying I was too chicken. But now, I have to make sure this person is okay, so I sprint across the field. When I get there, I can hardly believe who it is.
“What are
you
still doing here?” is the first thing I ask Zenia.
She's sitting on the grass blinking, as if she can't believe what just happened to her.
“I wiped out on the track when I was running,” Zenia says, avoiding any eye contact with me. She tries to flash one of her bright smiles as she pushes her tangled mane of sandy hair out of her eyes. I'm proud of her for sticking up for herself, but I can't tell her that.
“No way! How did
that
happen?” I try my best to sound surprised. I reach out to help her to her feet, and she slowly heaves herself up. “I was just taking a shortcut home from Kat's place. You're not hurt or anything, are you, Zenia?”
“I don't think so,” she says in a dazed voice. “I just feel really stupid I let it happen. Iâ¦I guess I wasn't paying attention, and I tripped over my backpack. What a total klutz!” Her eyes are locked on the direction the other kids took off in.
Zenia is totally lying. I can't believe it. She doesn't want to tell me what really happened to her. Probably because she's too proud. And I can't tell her what I saw, or she'll know I did nothing to try and help her.
“So you're going home now, right?” I say. “I'll walk with you, okay?”
“Sure, that would be cool,” Zenia says.
She grabs her backpack and flings it over her muscular shoulder. Zenia works out all the time, and she's tough and wiry. She stood up to those jerks even though they completely outnumbered her. I think I know who was shoving her. I heard Carter's voice. But I don't know why it happened.
We wander home, talking about the track team and the dance coming up next Friday night. We talk about everything except what just happened to her. I can hardly concentrate on what she's saying. There's a sick knot in my gut that
isn't
from running on a full stomach.
On Saturday night, I stay home and try to forget the horrible scene I witnessed today. The memory of it eats away at me. Watching a
Shrek
movie with Abuelo and Mom helps. Abuelo loves the Puss-in-Boots character. He laughs at him the entire time, which makes me and Mom laugh too. My grandfather's laughing is funnier than the movie.
Of course, Matt isn't home. “Going to a buddy's place to work on an assignment,” he mumbled and left before dinner late this afternoon. But I could see the lie in his shifting eyes. Why hasn't my mom figured it out, when it's so obvious?
As soon as the movie ends, Abuelo says good night and heads to bed so he can get up early to make breakfast for everyone. Now that I have a chance, I decide it's time to ask my mom about Matt. I kneel on the sofa beside her, cup her chin in my hand and look into her eyes.
“Mom, haven't you been wondering what's up with Matt lately? How come you never freak out over some of the stuff he's been doing?” I ask.
“Of course I've been wondering, Maddy. You think I should be freaking out?” Mom asks. “Why should I be freaking out?”
Is my mom totally blind, or what? “Because of the way he snaps at us all sometimes, and how he comes and goes and never really tells us what he's up to. Plus he breaks his curfew. Aren't moms supposed to worry about stuff like that?”
Mom sighs and stretches her legs. “Oh, Madina, of course I worry about your brother. All parents worry about their children. But my day starts at five thirty in the morning. I work hard with the kids at day care. My feet are always sore. And I'm exhausted when I get home. If I let myself worry about Mateo
all
the time, then I wouldn't sleep at night. I need my sleep!”
“But sometimes Matt doesn't show up for track practice,” I say. “And his coach starts asking me questions I don't know how to answer.”
“Sweetie, it's not your problem, is it?” Mom gently pushes my long curtain of hair behind my ear so she can see my whole face. “Your brother is sixteen now. I have to start trusting him, don't you think? I never get calls from the school. He's polite most of the time. He helps out around the house when I ask. So I let some other things go.”
I smile at my mom and hope she's right about trusting Matt.
It's hard to focus on my homework on Sunday. I can't stop thinking about what I saw and how I hid. I regret doing nothing. Maybe if I'd yelled, they would have taken off sooner. Then I might actually be able to face Zenia again without feeling utterly lame.
The other thing bugging me is that my brother suddenly has an iPod! He had the earbuds plugged into his head this morning. When I asked him where it came from, he just shrugged and said he saved his allowance.
Abuelo gives us each twenty bucks a week. No way Matt could have saved enough money for an iPod. He's always got new T-shirts and hoodies. I wonder if he actually bought any of the stuff, like he said he did. It makes me queasy just thinking about how else he might have gotten these things. When I put all the pieces of the Matt puzzle together, I don't like the shape it's taking.
I can't wait for Sunday to end so I can go to school Monday and start thinking about something else for a change.
During the peak of track-and-field season, the coaches are relentless. They regularly call early-morning practices on top of the after-school practices. And they like to see us all out on the field by 7:30. So it's early to bed for Matt and me Sunday nights.
On Monday morning, I pound on his door at 6:45 to make sure he gets his butt moving. All I get is a growl. When I leave shortly after seven, I still can't hear my brother moving around in his room. My grandfather promises he'll get Matt up.
I let out a sigh of relief when I spot Matt loping across the field as the coaches step out of the school. I know he can be a jerk, but I don't really want him to get in trouble. Shauna and Justin showed up a couple of minutes before him. Justin gives Matt a salute, which Matt returns with a half grin and a raised eyebrow.
As soon as he reaches the track, Coach Reeves blows his whistle, and the entire team gathers around. Usually he's smiling, full of pep and armed with sayings to try and inspire us on a Monday morning.
“
Awards become corroded, friends
gather no dust
,” are the first words out of his mouth. His face is stony. “Anyone know who said that?”
We all stand in stunned silence. “Only one of the most brilliant American track-and-field athletes ever, Jesse Owens,” he says. “Surely you know who
he
is, don't you?”
We all nod, even though I'm positive half the kids don't really know who Jesse Owens is.
“His running-broad-jump record stood for twenty-five years,” says Coach. “He won four medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Do yourselves a favor and google him, okay? Anyone want to try and guess what Owens meant by that?”
We stare at the ground, our shoes and then each other. Nobody wants to meet the coach's eyes for fear he might ask them to answer. Plus he's acting pissed off about something.
“Here's a clue,” he says. “It's about friendships forged on the competitive athletic field. It's about how much more important those friendships are than the actual award you win. Because that's what's important in the long run, right?”
We nod like puppets controlled by strings. Because that's exactly what we know he expects us to do.
“Yeah, that's what I thought,” Coach Reeves says. “So how is it that during practice Saturday morning, when you're with friends and teammates you supposedly trust, how is it that a smartphone and an iPod can disappear from a couple of backpacks?” Coach Chapman and the assistant coaches look as pissed as Coach Reeves.
It's as if someone cracked an egg over my head and something slimy and gross is dripping down me. I review Saturday morning in my mind. Everyone left their backpacks, with water bottles and energy bars, in a heap under the goalpost. Kids wandered over now and then to grab something from their backpack, and nobody thought anything of it.
I feel sick when I glance at Zenia. She's staring at the ground. It's all starting to come together. Zenia must know who ripped off the backpacks during practice. Which is why she got pushed around on Saturday. Whoever did it wants her to keep her mouth shut about it.
“We aren't going to blame anyone or point any fingers,” Coach Reeves adds. “You know who you are, and it's up to you to make this right. Got it, everyone?”
“Got it, Coach,” we murmur
.
I glance around uneasily at the solemn faces to see if I can figure out who did it. If only I could get Zenia to tell me. But her mouth is a tight line. She won't be letting that information out anytime soon.
My thoughts are spinning faster and faster. I can't stop thinking about the new iPod Matt has and all his other new stuff. How he's been out so much lately. How he skips track practices and comes up with weird excuses for getting home late. But he wouldn't have, would he? Surely not my brother.
Kat is standing beside me, wide-eyed. “Isn't it brutal,” she says. “Who the heck did it, Maddy? That's what I want to know!”
“Me too,” I say, as my gut begins to churn. I quicken my pace. It makes me sick to think about any of it anymore.
It's hard to concentrate during class. I can't help glancing at my classmates on the track team. It seems as if everyone who got lectured by Coach Reeves this morning is distracted. Who got ripped off? And who did it? And please don't let it be Matt!
Kids from the team that I pass in the hallways all have the same glum faces. When our eyes meet, we each know what the other is thinking. Our eyebrows raise in question. No one knows who to trust now. How can a team function properly with
that
going on? It's like an ugly mark has been tattooed on all of us. And it's marred everything teamwork is supposed to stand for. I'm furious and worried at the same time. All sorts of nasty thoughts won't stop doing laps in my mind.
We're all solemn at practice after school. When something like this happens, you can't stop thinking somebody out there thinks
you
could be the guilty one. If you babble too much, it makes you look like you're covering up. If you're too quiet, it makes it look as if you're hiding something. But someone
is
hiding something!
No one leaves their backpacks in the change room, as we usually do. Not after what happened on Saturday. We line them up alongside the track, where they're in plain view.