The Swap (4 page)

My mom cuts me off. “Ellie, all I can say is,
my
friends don't treat me like that.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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IT'S THE NIGHT BEFORE MY
first day of Thatcher, and my brother is blasting slap shots at my head. We are in the basement, or The Cage (that's what we call it), the empty unfinished room down the steep stairs off the kitchen. We are down here practically every night.

The Cage is awesome. My dad put wire up over the windows, flipped over an old wooden table we use as the goal, and he basically lets us destroy the room.

When we were little we used tennis balls down here, but now we're older and the walls are covered with a million marks from the black rubber pucks dinging the white paint. There's nothing in here besides weights, a squat rack, a bench press in the corner, and our old washing machine pushed up against the wall, covered with black polka-dotted puck dents. It's unreal when it's all four of us, but most of the time it's me and Stryker, because we're closer in age and Gunner and Jett are usually away more for hockey.

As far as The Cage goes, with my brothers, they always make me the automatic goalie because one, I'm the only one crazy enough to stand in front of a firing squad, and two, I'm the youngest and that's what happens when you have three older brothers—you don't get much say in the matter. They like to play around, toughen me up.

“You're nails, Jacko!” my brothers tell me when I stop their shots.

It's a compliment.
Nails
is the opposite of soft. And if you're a boy, especially if you're a boy in my family, you do
not
want to be called soft. That's about the worst thing someone can call you.

Tonight I strap everything on—helmet, mask, chest protector, the works—and Stryker starts firing. We don't really talk.

We just go like that forever.

Target practice.

Stryker could snap pucks at me all day and all night. And he does. We stay down in The Cage until we hear The Captain.

“That's enough, boys!” he yells from the top of the stairs.

My dad isn't the type of guy who likes to ask more than once.

I take off my helmet, but Stryker catches me off guard. He fires a puck and—
BAM!
I throw the gloves off and drop to the ground, covering my eye with both my hands, pressing my forehead up against the hard cement floor. No, I don't cry. I'm not a girl! You think I want my brothers to harass me for the rest of my life? Malloys don't cry, okay? I'm not saying it doesn't hurt like a . . .

Stryker crouches down next to me. I can feel his breath on my neck.

For a second I think he actually feels bad.

Then he whispers into my ear, “Aww, you gonna die, princess?”

“Screw you,” I say, but he can barely hear me, because I can barely speak.

“Don't be a girl,” Stryker says, laughing. “Get up!”

If I was a girl, I'd burst into tears.

No way am I going to cry.

We don't quit, and we don't whine.

“Meow,” says Stryker. He thinks this is hilarious. “Meow, meeeeeeeeeeeeow. Let's go, Sally!” He's standing over me now. My brothers love to do this. They call me Sally, or Nancy, or Mary, or Pansy, Wuss, or Baby, or Butter—as in you're as soft as butter, or even worse, Butter Baby.

“Come on, Butter Baby! Don't be soft! You're a tough guy. Let's go! Get up!”

I want to elbow his face in, but by the time I stumble to my feet and stand, Stryker's already upstairs. He's gone. Somehow I make my way up the stairs too. I slip past The Captain (reading the paper), past Stryker, Jett, and Gunner (watching hockey), and hide out in the upstairs bathroom, where I almost puke, it hurts so bad.

“Oh, you're nails, buddy,” Stryker yells up after me.

Then I hear him outside the door. “Hey, you okay, bud?”

I don't answer.

“You're gonna rock a nice shiner, Jacko!”

I stay in the bathroom splashing my face with cold water until I can't feel my eye anymore. Pretty quickly it starts getting a little bit swollen and purple. I stare at myself in the mirror for a good long while.

There's no blood.

Nails
, I think, and sort of smile. Honestly? I'm kind of proud. I got a black eye, and it's my first, and it won't be my last.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

AS SOON AS I WAKE
up on the first day of school, I begin tearing through my closet trying to find something, anything, to wear that doesn't make me look like I still sleep with my teddy bear (I do). No matter what I try on, I just look in the mirror and think I look dumb. I strip it off and try something else again. But I feel like I look terrible in
everything
. Plus I hear Sassy's voice, a running fashion-commentary in my head:

That yellow shirt? Ughhh, gross! You look like a walking highlighter!

Flared jeans? So. Not. Okay.

Leggings? Leggings are not pants!

When it comes to fashion, I have no clue. I mean, when did this suddenly become such a
huge deal
? Nobody cared about this stuff before we got to Thatcher. I have no idea how you're supposed to look stylish and cool. Before this summer, I never even cared. But now, suddenly, one hour before I am officially in seventh grade, I care. I care, and I
hate
that I care. Do you know what I mean? And did I even mention my hair? No, I think I did not. Not a good situation happening up there.

I finally settle on my favorite T-shirt and jeans, tie my messy, red, crazy hair back into a ponytail, and give up.

Downstairs, my mom is in much too good a mood for the first day of school.

“Morning, sunshine!” she sings.

“I have no clothes!” I say. I sit down at the kitchen table. “Seriously, I have, like, nothing to wear! Can we please, please, pleeeeeeease go shopping? Pretty please?”

“Ellie,” says my mom. She's standing by the stove, and I can tell by the way she says my name I'm about to get some sort of lecture. “I'm not going to argue with you this morning, but really, sweetheart, you sound a little bit ridiculous. If you went through all your clothes on your floor, you'd probably find loads of cute outfits you don't even know you have!”

“Oh, forget it,” I say.

But she's not done.

“Also, Ellie, if this needing new clothes business is about a certain someone, I don't think you need to change your clothes, I think you need to think about changing your friends.”

“Oh my gosh, Mom,” I say. “Forget it!”

My mom places a plate full of my favorite homemade waffles with maple syrup and melted butter in front of me. “Let's focus on the positive.” Her smile grows. “Can you believe it? Seventh grade!”

I push the plate away. “Whatever. I'm not hungry.”

“Don't be silly and don't be rude. Please, Ellie. You need to eat, it's not good to go all day without breakfast. Do you want to take a bagel and eat it on the bus?”

“Sure.” I shrug.

My mom sits down at the table across from me. “Your attitude needs a little bit of work,” she says, smiling. “Sweetheart, really, I promise you, you are going to make friends today, I just know it, and everything is going to turn out much better than you think.”

“Sure, whatever,” I answer.

I cannot possibly begin to explain how much I am dreading going back to school today. At the door, before I leave, my mom tucks the bagel into my backpack and gives me a hug. “Honey, really, try to not take everything so seriously.” She closes her eyes and takes this huge deep breath. When she opens her eyes, she exhales, cups my cheeks, and kisses my forehead.

“Ellie, I wish you'd realize even a teensy bit how amazing you are.” She looks at me like she's so positive. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

I'm standing half inside the door and half outside the door.

My mom reaches out and moves the hair out of my eyes like she always does. “Don't forget soccer, okay? I'll pick you up right after school.”

“I'm
not
playing soccer,” I announce. I decided this right that second.
I already have to see Sassy and Aspen at school . . . I cannot possibly face having to deal with them at soccer too.

“Nonsense,” says my mom. “Ellie, you can't just quit things when the going gets tough. If you want something, you have to work for it. You can't give up. You've always had so much fun at soccer.”

“Yeah, well, it's not really fun right now,” I say. “And I'm
not
playing. I'm just not!” I turn and start marching down the driveway toward the bus stop.

This does not discourage my mom. She follows me. She follows me right down the driveway in her lavender kimono bathrobe and fluffy bunny slippers.

“Ellie,” she calls after me, “I'll pick you up at three by the back near the gym. And I expect you to clean your room this weekend. Seriously, Ellie, I can't even step foot in there. . . .

“And, Ellie!”

I stop and turn back. My mom is holding her cup of coffee in the air as if she's toasting me. I'm pretty sure she's smiling as she hollers out, “You can do it, honey! You so got this!”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

IT'S PRACTICALLY A KNOWN FACT
—almost a solid rule—that Malloy men do not speak to each other until breakfast. That means that, during our five a.m. bed check (hospital corners, sheets tucked in, perfectly smooth blanket), our three-mile still-dark-out run, our strength and conditioning session in The Cage, more often than not, nobody says a word. It's work. And we do it.

“Effort is a measure of a man,” my dad likes to say.

And breakfast? No junk food. No Lucky Charms. No Froot Loops. No Cocoa Puffs. Only whole grains, lean proteins, greens, fruit, and nuts. Welcome to the Malloy training table: fruit, egg-white omelets, oatmeal, and my dad's famous morning smoothie (fish oil, peanut butter, almond milk, spinach, blueberries, wheatgrass, raw eggs, and frozen banana). Yep.

“Food is for fuel and performance, for power, not pleasure. Your body is a temple,” says The Captain. “You don't take Pop-Tarts into a temple, do you?”

I would if I could!
That's what I wish I had the guts to say back.

The Captain leaves for work right after our room inspection. After six a.m., the four of us are on “honor code.” In some ways it's kind of nice. At least I'm not walking around on eggshells, trying not to be yelled at. With my brothers, I can hold my own. I fend for myself.

After I shower and throw on some jeans, a belt, and a blue polo shirt, I head downstairs and make my lunch (peanut butter, grape jelly, banana slices, whole wheat bread #snackofchampions) and join my brothers at the kitchen table. Today is the first day of school, and Gunner, Jett, and Stryker are all grinding my gears. Saint Joe's doesn't start till next week, so they get to eat and go back to sleep. Why Thatcher bothers to have one day of school before the weekend is beyond me. But whatever. It is what it is.