Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware, Page 3

  “All of you will get to stare twice this match. Once in each half. You’ll all have two chances—unless you all lose your first round, all eight of you, in which case there won’t even be a second round.” The coach knocked the board next to a name. “Delaware’s Number Four, Garret Squarmus. Lester Imai, you’ll be facing him in the first round. Keep cool. He does a thing with his eyebrows that makes everyone crack up. When he does it, Imai, I don’t want to see you so much as purse your lips.”

  “Is it really funny, sir?” asked Lester. “Or is it just cheap humor?”

  “Imai, is this a laughing matter? Can you just tell me: Do I bust my butt with you ladies every day of the week because this is a laughing matter?”

  Lester quivered and shrank. “No, sir.”

  “That’s right, Lester. THERE IS NO HUMOR IN THIS GAME BUT THE VITREOUS HUMOR. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now: George Wurst, Delaware’s Number Two. Brinsley, you’re going up against him first round. I checked his medical records: wears contacts. Use that against him.” Coach Meyers tapped another name. “Jaggy Funkstein. Number Seven. Astigmatism in his left eye, and the right one can wander. Be on your guard. Don’t get led astray. Are you listening, girls, or are you too busy combing your dolls’ hair? Huh? Are you too busy wearing dresses and having tea parties with your pandas for a little life-and-death thing we call Stare-Eyes?”

  There was an embarrassed silence. The concrete walls of the locker room boomed with the coach’s voice. A faucet dripped in the bathroom.

  Jasper wished the coach wouldn’t be so harsh with the team; it was making his heart sink. He did not like one bit all the jokes about girls because girls were just not like that, and it felt like Coach Meyers was making fun of Lily and Katie and his mother and every other woman he knew. Jasper believed in winning but even more in sportsmanship. He believed that people would do their best if you just pointed out to them that they were on the side of right and goodness. He imagined sports of the future, which would be played out beneath the oceans of the world by people in finned helmets who would act as chivalrous as knights of yore.

  Jasper could tell that Coach Meyers was only being mean to the team because he was scared. The Delaware team had them all frightened. The Delaware team’s intimidation tactics just made Jasper more determined to win fairly, squarely, and overwhelmingly. He wanted to see Choate Brinsley and Lester Imai and all the rest of them triumph.

  But the Pelt team all sat, sagging, on their benches.

  Choate raised his hand, and Coach Meyers called on him. “I just met these guys,” said Choate. “Just now. We’re dead.”

  Coach Meyers swore and kicked the trash can. “Brinsley! I don’t want to hear that! I kicked the trash can just now, but I was picturing you! Because right now you’re sitting on us like we’re a sleep-sofa! And you’re eating nachos! Making yourself even heavier! Do you get it, Brinsley? You are sitting on our heads with your negativity! Do you get that solitary thought through your pretty little head?”

  The team captain nodded in shame, but when the coach turned around to strike the blackboard again, Choate mouthed to his teammates, “We’re dead.”

  “Okay. Number Three. Keep an eye out for—” The coach stopped. He had glanced at his watch. “There’s no time, boys. No time to go on. We got to get out there.” He turned to his players. “You’re gonna do a great job. Right now. There is nothing between you and victory but your own fears. And airborne grit. So I want you to head out there and kick some butt. Okay?”

  There was no answering yell of “Okay” like usual. No one shouted, “Yes, sir!” and threw their eye-spritzer up into the air. They all just sat in a line on the bench, slumped left or right, their knees and shins near the floor.

  But it was time.

  One by one, they got up and filed out into the gym for the match of their lives.

  6

  Now is when the sports novel really picks up: the description of the match. This is the exciting part where I get to tell you every little detail of what happens on the court. Sit back and relax, my friends, because when we’re talking about Stare-Eyes, you’re in for a wild ride.

  Lily leaned forward as the teams filed out onto the gym floor. There was whooping and catcalls.

  Lily noticed, though, that the Pelt players already looked whipped and uneasy. They stared at the ground, and their mouths were grim. Most people in the stands didn’t seem to notice. The cheerleaders made a pyramid and then, one by one, threw themselves off the top. They hopped up and down and shouted slogans like, “That fist you felt? The punch of Pelt!” But the team didn’t match their excitement.

  Lily caught Jasper’s eye. For a brief second, he smiled to see her sitting there watching—and then his look of utter seriousness returned.

  The teams lined up on their benches. The Delaware team did not look worried or excited. Their eyes were vacant.

  Oscar Lopez was the first man up, matched against Delaware’s #8. The two walked out onto the mats. They sat in plastic chairs facing each other. The crowd was going wild. The ref strolled between the two and measured the distance between their foreheads with a regulation pole. Oscar closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

  The ref retracted the pole, stepped back, and blew his whistle.

  Like a shot, nothing happened.

  The two stared intensely at each other. Delaware’s #8 had slack cheeks. He breathed wetly. He did not move his hands.

  Lopez licked his lips. He settled more firmly into the chair.

  It wasn’t long before people saw him twitching. He was trying not to blink. Something had caught in his eye. His mother screamed encouragement. She offered him pies. Lily crossed her fingers—she liked Oscar—he was in her earth science class.

  But it was not his best round. His head jerked, and his eyes clenched closed, and Pelt had lost their first round to Delaware.

  The next round didn’t go any better. Lester Imai had a good start but ran into some trouble after forty seconds or so, due to Delaware #4’s comic eyebrows—unusually bushy, ironic, and seductively friendly.

  First, the left eyebrow quirked to the side—a sweet little sarcastic twitch as if to say, “We’re both friends here. It’s just a game.”

  Lester was prepared. Hard-faced. He didn’t budge.

  But then #4 began to draw his brows together. They touched, kissed, nestled like woolly worms. It was so stupid, Lester couldn’t resist laughing. And so he lost.

  Round after round went this way. #7 startled Ted Lee with a grimace. Something in #5’s nose made a comic, high-pitched whining noise every time he breathed, and it sent Zeb Barker into hysterical laughter. He lay clutching his gut on the mat as the crowd looked on with horror.

  It was a rout.

  Pelt was getting creamed by the jerkiest Stare-Eyes team in America.

  7

  Meanwhile, Katie stood outside in the bright sunlight. It was a little cold without her jacket. She sat down beside the steps, leaning her back against the concrete. Little brown birds gathered on the steps and fought over crumbs.

  The door to the gym slammed open and shouting ricocheted out into the parking lot. Katie looked to see who was coming.

  The Delaware Team Mom was smoking a cigarette and walking across the grass with a man in a brown blazer and a green necktie. They paused; Team Mom was emphasizing things with her cigarette. She said, “I’m a winner, Mr. Lecroix. I go for the gold. People bite gold to see if it’s real. They bite it with their teeth. You savvy, Mr. L.?”

  He nodded nervously.

  “Smile more. Be a winner. Just this once.” She blew smoke off to the side. “You don’t know what Team Delaware risked to get these artifacts to you,” she said. “Worth a pretty penny, I can tell you.”

  “I have the money.”

  “You better.”

  “I’ll,” he said nervously, “need, you know, to inspect them.”

  “You got it.”

  “I have
my loupe.”

  “I’ll bet you do, Mr. Lecroix. Step into my office.” She gestured toward the van, spat nicotine on the grass, and said, “Huh. I spend so much time flexing my hands, they’re like mittens of muscle. FYI.”

  Katie pressed herself against the side of the stairs where she squatted. Something strange was going on. She didn’t know what, but she could tell that this was not your normal sports mom selling things out of the back of a van to raise money for uniforms.

  She had forgotten Choate, forgotten crushes. Her Horror Hollow instincts took over, and she began to Detect.

  She craned her neck around the edge of the concrete steps. The two were at the van, looking around suspiciously. Katie pulled back to conceal herself.

  In a minute, she looked out again. They had opened the van’s back door. They were intent on something inside. So intent that Katie could creep out and run, hunched, down the line of cars.

  She could try to catch a glimpse of what was inside.

  8

  Meanwhile, in the gymnasium, the excitement was…

  Oh. Pelt’s still losing. Frank Minello versus Delaware #5. Noontime dazzle off the basketball backboard.

  Sniffle. Sniffle. Blink. Frank Minello’s eyes flapped shut. He screamed, his mouth a lima bean of agony. He threw himself forward, his face buried between his knees.

  Groans. 0–5.

  Really not very exciting at all.

  Forget it. Let’s go back outside.

  9

  Team Mom and Mr. Lecroix stood by the back of the van. Mr. Lecroix bent forward to see what was in the shadows. Katie couldn’t see a thing. The two conspirators were in the way.

  Katie craned her neck. Still she couldn’t see whatever it was that lurked in the dark. Luckily Katie had hidden beside a battered Oldsmobile Delta 88 jammed diagonally in a compact-car parking space with its front tires up on the curb. The Oldsmobile Delta 88 was a car so enormously long that Katie could have slunk down its tawny side with a whole SWAT team gesturing to each other behind her and still have been masterfully concealed. She thanked the stars above for good old-fashioned gas-guzzlers with room for twenty clowns and a hurdy-gurdy and snuck forward in a crouch, her fingertips padding along the car’s pockmarked surface.

  When she raised her head again, she could see through the car’s clouded windows, through the side windows of the van.

  Team Mom was removing blankets or a tarp from something in the back.

  There was a gleam.

  Gold.

  Something gold and jeweled and sharp was being unveiled.

  Katie gasped when she saw it.

  10

  Inside, the crowd sat slumped on the risers. No one bothered to shout or scream. It was a massacre. The cheerleaders were no longer shouting and had given up human pyramids. They were off in the corner, playing Go Fish and mashing wads of Big League Chew into their mouths. It wasn’t any use pretending that spirit or fight could win the day.

  The day was basically lost to Delaware.

  The score was 0–6. Choate Brinsley was up. After him, just Jasper, and then it was the end of the first half. If none of the Pelt team had won a round before then, there wouldn’t be a second half. At 0–8, there was no way Pelt could win, so the game would be declared in favor of Delaware. It would take at least one Pelt win in the first half before there was even a fighting chance of bringing home the gold, seated, bug-eyed trophy.

  Combat was joined between Choate and Delaware’s #2. No one moved. Pupil seized on pupil. Retinas glistened.

  For a long time, there was no sound in the room except the clanging of the heaters, over which the air rippled and churned.

  There is no thrill like the description of a game of Stare-Eyes.

  Looking down at the players’ bench, Lily considered how miserable Jasper must be, sitting there, straight-backed, waiting for his round and watching his beloved team fail again and again.

  Suddenly, Choate got a look of horror on his face.

  He shied away from his enemy’s glance. He quivered, repelled by something—what?—that he saw—

  He yelped and closed his eyes.

  An angry growl rolled through the gymnasium. Two minutes and fifty-six seconds. That was all it had taken for the captain of the Pelt team to crumble. Two minutes and fifty-six seconds.

  #2’s eyes were mobile again, and full of ugly triumph.

  Everyone was abuzz.

  And Jasper was up.

  11

  Palms sweating, Jasper rose from the bench, dismally slapping palms with a teammate as he walked the long walk out onto the floor.

  It was all too much for him. Though his team members had mocked his cushionized suit’s hydraulic rump—just as they had mocked his eye-weights, his pinnies, his jetpack, and his sandwiches of nutrient fungus-roast—still, they were dear to him. He was thrilled when they won a round, and they were overjoyed when he stared at an opponent unblinking for one, two, three hours. They were his team, through thick and thin, and he hated to see them lose. He knew Choate would take it hard. He looked up sadly toward the scoreboard. 0–7.

  As he came forward, the town mustered some applause for Jasper Dash, their hometown hero, the Stare-Eyes champ they all could count on.

  He was just about to step onto the court when Choate grabbed his arm. “Jas!” said Choate. “Something’s going on!”

  “I know,” agreed Jasper dolefully. “The breaking of my defiant young heart.”

  “His eyes changed!”

  “Who?”

  “Number Two!”

  Jasper regarded his captain carefully. “How do you mean?”

  “I was sitting there—completely fine—and then his eyes changed. I mean, totally. They changed into snake eyes or cat eyes. Like he wasn’t even human. You know, slitty pupils.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “I don’t think anyone else did. It’s something weird. It completely freaked me out.”

  Jasper protested, “But surely there must be a league rule against this kind of thing. Mid-round eye substitution.”

  “I’m telling you, Jas, dude, it happened. It made me blink.”

  Jasper looked distraught. “But then that means…, ” he said, stammering at the implication, “that means they didn’t follow league regulations.”

  “And no one can see but us.”

  The referee blew his whistle.

  It was Jasper’s turn. It was all up to him. If he won, the game went on to a second round. If he lost, the town lost too.

  He took his chair to meet his opponent.

  12

  Sun-blots struck from gold quivered on the walls of the van. Katie’s eyes were wide with startlement.

  Team Mom held some kind of sacrificial knife. It was covered in gems.

  Lecroix took it from her hands and, fixing a little lens in his eye, inspected it closely. Team Mom smoked. She dawdled by the side of the van.

  Lecroix nodded and handed it back to her.

  She placed the knife in a wooden box and closed the lid. Now she took out some kind of idol. A dancing woman with a lute in her hands and a coral carnation blooming where a head should be. Lecroix squatted and peered at the statue.

  Meanwhile, Team Mom uncovered another treasure. A boxy something…

  Katie swiveled from side to side, trying to see through the row of windows. She ducked and slithered back along the side of the Delta 88.

  She popped her head up near the trunk. Team Mom had taken out the artifact and held it in her arms for Lecroix’s inspection.

  It was a model of a building. On each of its many square towers there were little antennae.

  Mr. Lecroix looked it over. He seemed very excited. He nodded again and again, and once kissed his fingertips. He rubbed his hands on his pants.

  Katie shifted to try to see more clearly. Mr. Lecroix was obviously thrilled. The artifact looked like it was made out of cardboard. The antennae were plastic spoons.

  Mr. Lecroix smiled. Tea
m Mom slid the model back into the van. While she draped a tarp over the objects, Lecroix got out his wallet.

  He was counting money. A lot of money. Katie held her breath. She didn’t know what was going on, but she could tell it was not legal.

  Lecroix held a stack of bills out for Team Mom to take. She licked her finger and reached for the money. Her hand—

  “Hey! Katie!” yelled Mrs. Mulligan. “Yoohoo, honey! What are you doing crouched over like that?”

  Katie jolted with surprise. So did Lecroix and Team Mom.

  Katie’s mother called, “Straighten your back, darling! You’re beautiful! Is crouched over next to a Delta Eighty-eight the kind of posture they teach at this school?”

  Team Mom’s eyes were trained on Katie Mulligan. They were suddenly very thin and evil.

  Katie tried not to meet the woman’s gaze.

  Katie’s mother pushed the passenger-side door open. “Hop on in, honey!” she said. “If you’re done giving yourself scoliosis.”

  Katie slid into her mother’s car.

  “Are you okay?” asked Mrs. Mulligan.

  “Yeah, but I just—”

  “Your girl was spying,” said Team Mom, her face huge in the window.

  “No I wasn’t,” said Katie.

  “I’m sure she was,” said Katie’s mom, scraggling Katie’s hair with her hand. “You might not recognize her, but my daughter solves mysteries and fights evil? Famously?”

  “Mom, you really don’t have to—”

  “Toot your horn? Are you kidding? I am so proud of you. You are my little angel.” Katie’s mother explained to Team Mom, “My daughter is named Katie Mulligan. Katie Mulligan? Maybe you recognize her from her series of books, Horror Hollow?”

  “Katie Mulligan,” said Team Mom. “Hm.”

  “Ring a bell?” said Mrs. Mulligan. With a cheerful little laugh, “Well, she’ll be ringing plenty of bells soon enough if she stays hunched over like that.”