“Eric, hey!” Paul says and gives me a five-star right between my shoulder blades. Uoof—the air is forced out of my lungs. Thankfully, I hadn’t started eating yet. I return the greeting by punching him in the arm—hard.
“Yow! You been working out?” He feels my biceps. “Coach Swenson says we’ve got a great team this year.” He’s talking through a mouthful of garlic toast. “We’re stoked to have you on varsity.” Paul’s a senior and team captain. “When do you find out if you’re starting?”
I swallow a mouthful of spaghetti before responding, “I don’t think we’ll know until the first game.” I’d thought about it all weekend. I am going to beat out the other keeper. My dad’s real big on visualizing the outcome that you want, and I’ve read some sports psychology stuff about it, so I’ve been imagining myself making great saves in practice and walking out on the field to start in the first game. I’m not sure how effective it really is, but what the hell? Our first game is a home game on Friday night. Will and Cole join the table and sit across from me.
“So, what do you think about AP Enviro? That internship sounds interesting. And Renee is definitely interesting,” Will says.
“Yeah, it could be cool. It would definitely look good on a college application.” I ignore his comment about Renee. I know he’s baiting me.
“Well, I have something interesting to share,” says Cole. “I’ve already paid a visit to the dean’s office.” He looks almost proud of himself.
“What?! We’re not even through the first day of school. What happened?” asks Will.
“During the Pledge of Allegiance in third period home room, I exercised my right not to stand and say the pledge. Mr. Smitson insisted that I do so and when I respectfully refused, he sent me to the dean’s office.”
“Oh, man! On the first day,” exclaims Will.
“He must not know that your mom’s a civil rights attorney,” I say, laughing.
“Apparently not.”
“Why didn’t you just stand and say the damn pledge?” asks Paul.
“It’s my right not to, as an American citizen, granted by the Constitution.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You object to the pledge using the rights granted to you by the Constitution?” Paul says.
“It’s ‘the man’ that I object to, the establishment, the right wing government. Not the Constitution.”
“OK, whatever, let’s not get off on that tangent. So what did the dean do?” I ask.
“Well, on the way down to the office, I called my mom to alert her to the situation. When I arrived at the dean’s office and explained my position, she laughed and told me to go easy on Mr. Smitson. She sent me back to class with a note. On the way back I called my mom to tell her the situation was handled.”
“Wow. This would only happen to you, Cole.” I lean back in my chair and balance it on two legs while holding on to the edge of the table. “You just can’t go with the flow.”
The bell rings. “Man, they only give us like ten minutes to eat,” Paul says and shovels the last few bites of spaghetti into his mouth.
“Paul, that is just gross. Would you at least close your mouth?” says Will. He pushes back his chair and picks up his tray. “See you guys at practice.”
“Adios,” I reply. I walk over and deposit my tray on the conveyer belt piled high with trays and trash slowly disappearing through a flapped window into the kitchen. Our first team practice is after school today. The hard part about competing with the other keepers for the starting spot is that most of the time we all train together, separate from the field players, since our position is so specialized. I’ll have to strike the right balance of competitiveness and cooperation to make the cut, I think as I make my way to my afternoon classes.
3
MY MOM IS in the kitchen when I get home from practice. I toss my backpack on the kitchen table, open the fridge, and take out a gallon of milk.
“How was your day?” She asks me the same thing every day.
“Good.” I pour myself a glass of milk and rip open a package of Oreos from the pantry.
“Anything interesting happen? And don’t eat too many of those; dinner’s in about half an hour.” This question must be from one of her parenting books, designed to elicit conversation, since she uses it a lot.
“Well, Cole wore rainbow-striped toe socks and got sent to the dean’s office,” I reply, pulling a stool out from under the counter at the island and sitting down.
“For wearing toe socks?” She’s rinsing green beans in a bowl at the sink and turns to look at me incredulously.
“No, for refusing to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
“Oh, please. Don’t they have more serious discipline problems than that? Really.” My mom’s actually not that bad, just kind of lame. She and my dad are pretty easy to talk to about stuff—when I want to talk, that is. They don’t freak out too much when you bring things up.
“Yeah, the dean just laughed about it and sent him back to class.” The back door to the garage opens and my dad walks in. He puts his keys and wallet in one of the cubbyholes over the desk and his briefcase on the floor, then comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey! How was the first day back at school and the first day of practice?” He sits down on the stool next to me and takes a cookie.
“Not you, too! No more cookies, please! Dinner’ll be ready soon,” Mom exclaims as she fills a pot with water and dumps the beans into it.
We ignore her and keep eating. “It was OK. AP Environmental Science seems pretty good. Lots of field trips.”
“Where to?”
“The Benton County Wind Farm and the Coal Gasification Plant. Maybe some others.”
“The wind farm is pretty amazing. I drove past it last spring on my way to one of our satellite campuses. All of a sudden in the middle of the cornfields, these giant turbines appear. There must be hundreds of them. I’ve read that it’s going to be the biggest wind farm east of the Mississippi when it’s completed. Not what you’d expect from the coal belt. Makes you proud to be from Indiana.” He puts his hand over his heart in an exaggerated gesture of pride.
“I guess so.” I’m about to tell them about the internship when my dad asks where Marcie and Drew are.
“Drew’s down the street with some friends and Marcie should be dropped off from cross country practice any minute now,” my mom answers. Marcie is my fourteen-year-old sister—she’s a freshman this year, and Drew is in third grade.
“All right, then. Is there time for me to go for a run before dinner?” Dad asks.
“Sure, if you swing by the Reeds’ on the way back to get Drew.”
“Consider it done.” He starts getting up from the island.
I quickly say, “Have you heard anything about an important physics professor visiting at the university from the Overet Lab in France? He’s going to teach a couple of AP Enviro classes.” I pause. “And he’s offering an internship in his lab for second semester.”
“Wow, really?” My dad sits back down. “So, you’re interested? I haven’t heard about him, but I wouldn’t in the English department. What about you, Jill?”
“I might have heard something, but archeologists don’t mingle too much with the physics department, either.” I have their full attention now. My mom’s leaning on the island, dish towel in hand. As professors