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  My heart is racing, and Walter’s eyes are still huge.

  “That thing was a beast,” Walter says.

  “We’re lucky we weren’t mauled,” I agree, and we sit in silence for the rest of the ride.

  I’ve never been so happy to see Gram’s house. I hop out of the truck and look at my phone. It’s five o’clock on the dot. As I head to the side of the house, I see the light in my grandmother’s room flick on. I hurry to my window and boost myself up. I shimmy through my window, kick off my shoes, and hop into my bed just as I hear Gram’s footsteps head down the hall. She pauses outside my room but then continues to the kitchen, where I hear her making coffee.

  Chapter 4

  I drift off to sleep, only to wake up forty-five minutes later to the smell of baking apples and the sound of my Gram’s voice.

  She’s a tiny woman and reminds me of a bird with her puffy, silver hair, her skinny legs, and the bright blue sweater that she always wears around the house.

  “Tobias James,” she says, standing over my bed. “Your alarm has been going off for ten minutes now. Time to get up.” She opens the curtains.

  Light streams in. It hurts my eyes and my head. I feel sick. My body and brain just want to sleep.

  Gram hands me my phone. It’s still beeping. I turn it off.

  “What’s that on your face?” she asks me as I sit up in my bed.

  I touch my cheek.

  “Uh, frosting,” I say. I can’t think of a lie fast enough.

  “Why do you have frosting all over your face?”

  This time I’m more prepared. “It’s, uhh, for zits. I read somewhere it clear ups your skin.”

  Gram looks at me, squints her hazel eyes, and then shakes her head.

  “Why would you believe such a thing? Frosting is all oil and sugar and who knows what else, especially if it comes out of one of those nasty cans.”

  “I read it on the internet.”

  “That doesn’t make it true.” Gram rolls her eyes and turns back toward the door. “Question things,” she tells me over her shoulder as she leaves my room. “Research.”

  As I get out of bed, I notice that my clothes have frosting on them too. I take them off, fold them into a ball, and hide them under my bed. Even my pillow case has brown smudges across it. I rip that off and tuck it under the bed with my clothes. I’ll have to wash them on my own so Gram doesn’t see them like this. For now I hide my pillow under my blankets so Gram doesn’t notice the missing pillowcase.

  I hurry to the shower, and as the warm water washes over me, I feel bad for lying to Gram. I feel bad for sneaking out. I think back to the promise I made to my mom before she was deployed.

  I know Gram would’ve been worried if she found out I was gone, and I know that my mom would be disappointed in me if she found out what I was up to last night. More than anything, I need my mom to stay strong and focused over there. She’s got bigger things to worry about.

  When I enter the kitchen, I see that Gram has already baked four pies and is starting on a casserole. She bakes for the church and the whole neighborhood, delivering food to anyone who’s sick or going through hard times.

  “Come here,” Gram says as I’m about to head out the door. She never lets me leave without a hug. She smells of freshly baked bread and the rosemary she was chopping near the stove, and I try to remember how my mom smells—the scent of the shampoo she always uses—but I’ve begun to forget. It’s been four months since she left and over a week since I’ve heard her voice.

  Gram seems to know I’m thinking about my mom and hugs me a bit tighter.

  “She’s going to call soon,” she says. “Sometime this week, I’m sure.”

  And I nod at this. My mom can’t always call, but this has been the longest we’ve gone without hearing from her.

  Chapter 5

  Walter and I always meet up outside a gas station a few blocks away from our houses and walk to school together. When I get there, he’s holding a box of snack cakes.

  “Cake eater,” he says with a smile as he offers me one.

  “Thanks,” I say. Gram never allows food like this in her house. If she wanted cake, she’d make a cake from scratch. Sifting the flour, whipping the frosting—everything.

  As Walter and I start walking to school, Neko drives by, honks his horn, and pulls over.

  “Want some cake?” Walter holds up the box.

  Neko laughs and holds out his hand. Walter tosses him a wrapped-up snack cake.

  “Get in,” Neko says pointing to the passenger door.

  “Front seat this time,” Walter says to me as we walk around the truck and slide into the cab.

  It’ll be a big deal to show up to school with Neko. He’s got a specific spot in the parking lot. Nothing official from the school says it’s his, but no one else ever dares to park in it. A crowd of players and friends linger there in the mornings waiting for him to arrive.

  “That was a great night!” Neko says.

  “Wish I could see their faces this morning,” Walter laughs.

  “Yeah,” Neko says, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel. He’s quiet for a moment and then he looks over at us and says, “Let’s drive there. Right now. Let’s go check it out.”

  “You’re never supposed to return to the scene of a crime,” I say, looking at the clock on the dashboard. I don’t want to be late to school. I have a Spanish quiz first hour.

  “No crime committed,” Neko says. “Just a little prank, and we’ve got time.”

  I don’t know what clock he’s looking at, but I know there is no way we’ll make it to Winfield and back in ten minutes. I look over at Walter, but he just shrugs at me and finishes off another snack cake. Neko does a sudden U-turn just before we get to our school parking lot.

  I look back at the building as we drive away from Edison High. I think about how it looks nothing like Winfield High. Our school was built back in the seventies. It’s a long, rambling building with a flat roof that leaks when the snow melts in the spring. And we definitely don’t have a glass lobby—just small, narrow windows with a view of the dammed-up river that powers the Edison Hydropower Plant. That’s why our team is called the Eddies and our mascot is a lightning bolt. It’s all pretty lame.

  We cross over the highway and head into Winfield. We drive through the same neighborhood where we were last night, but this time we don’t pull into the parking lot by the park. Instead, Neko turns down a road that leads to the school. I expect him to just drive down the road, but he turns right into the school’s parking lot and drives up to the very front of the school.

  Winfield’s parking lot is filled with shiny, expensive cars. As we get closer to the school, we see a crowd gathered out front. We slow down and idle right in front of the school. A custodian is spraying the windows with a hose. Frosting slides down the glass. Brown chocolate puddles stain the white sidewalk.

  I see a bunch of football players in their letter jackets, standing off to one side. They’re big, meaty guys, and they look mad.

  Neko honks his horn and tells us to roll the window down on our side.

  “The Eddies are going to kick your butt!” he shouts at the players.

  The expressions on the Winfield players’ faces harden when they realize who we are. Two of them run toward the truck, and another one launches a coffee cup. It goes right through the open window and splashes all over the dash and windshield. We’re lucky the cup was almost empty—the coffee is barely lukewarm.

  As the football players chase after us, Neko squeals his tires, racing out of the parking lot and onto the road.

  “Wipe it up!” Neko points to the dashboard and windshield.

  Walter and I look around for a towel or paper towels or even a kleenex, but there isn’t anything.

  “Use your sleeves,” Neko says.

  Walter and I look at each other. I’m wearing a light gray US ARMY sweatshirt my mom got me before she left. I’m not going to use my sleeve, so I tear a cou
ple of pieces of paper out of a notebook in my backpack and use them to soak up the mess.

  “You’re just smearing it around,” Neko shouts. “Use your sleeves!”

  “No!” I yell back.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever stood up to Neko, and he looks over at me like he wants to slug me. But I’m not going to back down about this. Just as things are probably going to get nasty, Walter pulls a wad of napkins out of his backpack and wipes up the mess.

  Neko blasts through one yellow light after another. I keep looking in the side mirror for cops as he speeds across the highway and into Edison, but nobody catches us. He’s lucky again, I think, when we drive into the school’s parking lot.

  No one is outside. By the time we enter the building, the second bell has rung and everyone is already in class. We’re ten minutes late.

  “Put it on my tab,” Neko says with a smile as he saunters past Mrs. Murray, the woman at the front desk. Mrs. Murray doesn’t smile back. Instead, she holds up a hand, makes him stop, and gives him a pink detention slip.

  “That’s three tardies in three days,” she says. “I’ll see you after school.”

  “I can’t do detention.” He leans against her desk. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but we’re going to state and the team needs me at practice today.”

  “You can study your playbook in detention,” Mrs. Murray says. “I’ll make sure your coach knows where you are.”

  ***

  When I get to class, my teacher is already collecting the Spanish quiz.

  I hand her the slip.

  “Unexcused,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Can’t let you make up the quiz.”

  “Really?” I ask, half surprised, half pleading.

  “Really,” she says. “Be on time.”

  I slump down at my desk and pretend to pay attention to the conjugation of verbs. But I’m mostly just staring at the whiteboard, trying hard not to let my eyes close.

  Chapter 6

  After school, I meet Walter at the side doors. He’s chugging a soda.

  “So tired,” he says.

  “Me too,” I agree.

  He opens his backpack and hands me a can. I drink it.

  “Hey, Toby, Walter, heard you got Lars’s car good,” a senior from our team says as we head to the locker room. “Nice job.”

  I nod at this and Walter grins. I don’t know what else to do. Usually the upperclassmen act like they don’t even know our names.

  A couple more guys give us the nod, and for the first time this entire year, I feel like a part of the team. I figure the prank wasn’t all that bad. We didn’t do any real damage.

  In the locker room, Coach Wilcox comes out of his office and says, “I want you all dressed and out on the field in five.” His jaw is clenched. Most of the time Coach is a positive guy, but not today. I wonder if he has heard about what we did last night.

  “Move it!” He shouts and then slams his office door. Yeah, I’m guessing he knows.

  We hurry into our uniforms. Just as I pull my jersey on, I see Neko saunter into the locker room. I’m not sure how he got out of detention, but that’s typical Neko.

  Some of the guys high-five him, and Jason tells him what Coach just said. But Neko takes his time and is the last one to arrive out on the field.

  “Take a knee,” Coach says, pacing in front of us. “Got a call from the principal of Winfield High early this morning.” He pauses and just lets the moment hang there. “It sounds likes some guys from this team made a mess at their school.”

  A couple of the seniors laugh, and I know by Coach’s face that it was a mistake.

  “You and you,” he points to the guys. “Give me twenty. Now.”

  The two huge lineman move to the side and start doing pushups. I look down at my hands. I still have frosting under a few of my nails.

  “The Wildcats deserved it,” Neko says. “They started this whole thing.”

  “Enough,” Coach says. “No more pranks. Got it? These things can get out of control. Put an end to it. Now! The best revenge is to work hard and beat them at state. Have I made myself clear?”

  We nod.

  “Look at me,” he says and then waits for all of us to look up at him. “Did you hear what I just told every one of you?”

  “Yes,” we all mumble.

  “Louder,” Coach says. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Yes, sir!” we all yell back.

  “No more pranks. Focus on state.”

  Coach blows his whistle and orders us to run laps.

  After my first lap around the field, Coach calls me over. I think I’m going to get in some kind of trouble, but instead he hands me a red jersey. “You’ll be taking Neko’s place at practice today.”

  Then he calls Neko over. I keep my head down as I jog out onto the field. Behind me, I can hear Coach yelling at Neko for skipping detention and being disrespectful to Mrs. Murray. He sends him over to the stands to run the stairs.

  Coach blows his whistle and we all gather around.

  He sets up a scrimmage and tells everyone I’ll be playing quarterback.

  We hit the field and run play after play.

  It feels strange to have the older guys huddle around me, and I’m glad I’ve spent so much time studying the playbook.

  I’m playing with the starters, and these guys are a machine. They run each play with precision and speed. When I throw, there is a receiver there waiting to catch the pass. When I hand off, no one fumbles the ball. Everyone is focused, and no one makes a mistake.

  After a few plays, Coach calls Zander over to work with special teams, and Walter takes his place as wide receiver. The first play Walter’s nervous and drops the ball. The other guys give him a hard time, but when we run the play again, he catches the ball and runs it in for a touchdown.

  I see Coach watching us.

  “Nice job,” Coach yells, nodding at Walter. “But Gibson, you’ve got to keep moving your feet. Move faster. A quicker release.”

  I nod at this and push myself to act faster, but when I do, I overthrow the ball. Walter is able to make up for this with his long arms. It’s like he’s made of elastic out there, reaching and catching balls thrown too high or too wide. He’s making me look good, even though I know my aim is off.

  Near the end of practice I step back to throw one last pass, when suddenly I’m hit and taken down by Cam Jensen, one of our best defenders. I saw him barreling toward me, but I didn’t think he’d knock me to the ground.

  I slowly get up and look around. Coach’s back is to us. He’s working with Zander. He didn’t see a thing.

  “What are you doing?” Walter yells at Cam. He walks up to Cam and pushes him in the chest. “He’s wearing a red jersey. You don’t hit the guy wearing a red jersey.”

  Cam pushes Walter back. They’re the same height, but Cam has at least eighty pounds on Walter, and Walter stumbles backward.

  “He waited too long,” Cam says getting in Walter’s face. “You wait too long, you get sacked. I was teaching him a lesson. Now I’m teaching you one. Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “What’s going on?” Coach asks as he walks toward us.

  “We’re good,” Cam says, raising his hands up in the air and looking at me as if to say, Keep your mouth shut. When I look over at the bleachers, I see Neko nodding at Cam.

  As we head back to the locker room at the end of practice, Neko comes up behind me and says, “Gibby, my boy, you have to move faster out there. You think too much, wait too long. Do that and you’ll get a smackdown.”

  I hear Cam laugh at this. He’s behind me too, but I refuse to turn around.

  In the locker room, I hurry to get undressed. I’m covered in sweat and mud. I wrap a towel around my waist and head to the showers.

  Just as I’m about to turn the corner into the showers, one of our linebackers—a 240-pound, six-foot-four guy—runs past me, barely holding onto his towel, yelling, “Skunk!”

  “What?” My ques
tion echoes off the locker room walls around me.

  When I look into the shower room, there isn’t just one skunk, there are three. They all look scared and trapped, and their tails are raised.

  I slowly back away and realize the skunks are following me.

  We all run outside. Some guys are holding towels around their waists; some guys are half-undressed. Neko is standing there in a pair of tighty-whities and nothing else.

  Suddenly there is a flashing of light. Three people I don’t recognize are holding up phones and taking pictures. Then they jump into a car that is idling just a few feet away.

  On the sidewalk outside our locker room, written in white chalk are the words: The Eddies Stink.

  “No!” Neko yells. “No way!”

  Coach comes running out the door after us. One of the skunks follows him out the door.

  Everyone backs away.

  “Hold the door open,” I yell. “The other skunks will follow.”

  But no one goes near the door. So with one hand still firmly holding onto my towel, I open the door, and sure enough, the other two skunks scamper out.

  The three skunks head down a small hill and across a field—straight toward the Edison Hydropower Plant that rises behind our school like a metal spider.

  “Well,” Coach says, looking down at the sidewalk, “I guess Winfield’s coach didn’t give his guys the same talk.” And then he looks at us all standing there shivering in the cold night air and says, “There will be no revenge, except for beating them at state next week. You will not retaliate. Am I clear?”

  “Yeah,” we mumble. Neko is standing next to me, but says nothing. He’s staring off to the place where the skunks disappeared.

  “Woooheee, it reeks in here. Plug your noses, boys,” Cam says as we head back into the locker room.

  The skunks sprayed all over our locker room. We dress as fast as we can and head out, but we can’t get away from the smell of skunk. It’s all over us.

  Halfway home, Walter’s phone starts buzzing.