New Kid Read online

  The game ended, and it took Brock a long while to fall asleep. He wanted to play for Liverpool Elite more than anything he could ever remember. Watching the game only fueled his fire. The thing about Coach’s drinking too much and howling in the night kept gnawing at him, even waking him up several times so that when he walked into school the next day, he was bleary eyed.

  Bella stood waiting for him outside their homeroom. She didn’t look happy, and Brock assumed his typical mask of indifference, letting his face sag into a complete blank page.

  “What happened last night? I couldn’t even text you to find out if you were okay.” Bella poked out her lower lip.

  “I’m sorry. I had to go home.”

  “That’s it? That’s the explanation?” Bella paused. “I don’t get you. Do you want to be friends, or not?”

  “Yes, Bella, but being friends with me isn’t easy. That’s just the way it is. I’m sorry, but I can’t even explain.” He started to push past her.

  She grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to explain, you mean.”

  Brock spun on her and put his face right down into hers. “No, Bella. I can’t. Take it or leave it. This is me.”

  “Can I at least get your number to text you?”

  “You can, but you won’t like it,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I won’t answer the way people like, especially girls.” Brock was thinking of Allie and the way she used to chew his ear off about him not responding to her texts fast enough, or sometimes not responding at all.

  “Okay, fair warning,” she said. “Give me your number.”

  He did, then said, “Can’t somebody just be shy?”

  “Some people can.” She gave him a curious look. “But I don’t think you are shy. I think there’s a lot going on up there. I think you’re hiding something.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He trembled inside and was then saved by the bell from any further questions, at least from Bella.

  They both scooted into homeroom before the bell stopped ringing so they wouldn’t be marked late. Nagel sat in the seat behind Brock’s, looking guilty and forlorn. Brock sat sideways in his seat so he and Nagel could talk in whispers during the announcements.

  “Holy moly,” Nagel said, “you weren’t kidding about your dad, right?”

  Brock shook his head. “Why would you do that?”

  “I told you. For my brother. He was whining about not having any beer and I said for a price I could get him some.”

  “A price?”

  “Dude, you think money grows on trees? I got to buy my own clothes. I’m saving up for a pair of Wolverines.”

  “Wolverines?” Brock wrinkled his nose.

  “Yeah, those steel-toed work boots. Waterproof. Nice, and when you get in a fight? Man, you don’t want to catch a kick from one of those bad boys.”

  “Bad boys.” Brock said the words almost to himself and shook his head. What was he thinking? Maybe his father was right. Maybe his judgment was shot. No, not when it came to Coach. He was a teacher, right?

  “Anyway, I guess he was kind of cool,” Nagel said. “I mean, he let me go. How serious was he about that ‘never see you again’ stuff?”

  “What do you mean, ‘how serious’?”

  “Like, how long will it take him to cool off? I’ve had parents blackball me before. They get over it.”

  “Nagel, do you know how close you came to getting spread out all over the garage floor like peanut butter?”

  “Was he, like, a boxer or something?”

  Brock shook his head. “I don’t even know. He doesn’t talk about things like that.”

  “My dad has this, like, dark period in his life too, but my brother swears it’s because he went to jail. I don’t know. But we can hang out at school, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Atta boy.” Nagel slapped Brock on the back.

  “But you leave Bella alone. That I’m not standing for.”

  “Whoa.” Nagel glanced over at Bella and simpered and lowered his voice even more. “You got goo-goo eyes for Bella Peppe . . .”

  Brock snarled. “Cut it out. She’s part of the travel team. You take care of your teammates.”

  “Team? Dude, she’s a girl.”

  “Yeah, but she keeps the stats book for the team, and Coach lets her practice. She’s good too.”

  “Coach.” Nagel’s mouth twisted up like he’d sucked on a lemon. “C’mon. Enough with that already.”

  “He saved you the other night.”

  “He saved you. He’s lucky my parents can’t half stand my brother. If coach’d pulled a stunt like that on anyone else he coulda got sued. Arrested, even.” Nagel nodded his head like he knew just what he was talking about. “You can’t throw a baseball at somebody. You should have seen the bruise on my brother’s back.”

  Nagel snickered to remember it.

  “He didn’t mean to hit him. But he deserved it,” Brock said. “You can’t throw rocks at people. That’s stupid.”

  The bell rang ending homeroom, and they got up to go to class.

  “Yeah, still.” Nagel followed Brock out the door. “Hey, by the way, you know my brother’s half-crazy, right?”

  Brock stopped to study Nagel’s face.

  “So?”

  “So, you see him coming, run the other way,” Nagel said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re not the only one who thinks of you and Coach as a team,” Nagel said. “And my brother believes in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a bruise for a bruise. So, just watch out.”

  52

  When Brock got home from school, he found his father reading in the living room.

  His father spoke without looking up from his book. “I spoke to your coach’s wife. Nice lady, and she agrees with me.”

  “About what?” Brock set his backpack down on the kitchen table and took out his math book.

  His father closed his book and looked up. “That I should meet them.”

  “Okay.” Brock sat down and slipped some review sheets out of his folder, opening the textbook to the correct page. When he looked up, his father was still staring at him from the recliner chair in the corner of the living room. The brass doors on the fake brick fireplace winked with sunlight from the sliding glass door.

  “What?” Brock asked.

  “I found out some interesting things . . . about your coach.” His father studied him.

  “Oh.” Brock looked down and pretended to start his work. “He had a boy your age who died in a car accident. It was a while ago. Sixteen years.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you?”

  “Mrs. Hudgens did.”

  Brock didn’t look up because he had stopped to see Mrs. Hudgens and already knew about his father’s visit.

  His father confirmed, “He really did coach Barrett Malone. That’s where the funding for this travel team comes from.”

  “Yup,” Brock said, glancing up because he wanted to judge how much more his father had learned. Nothing would surprise him. After all, when you spent your life hiding who you were from everyone else, it only stood to reason you’d be good at finding out who other people were. “What else?”

  “Well, except for Barrett Malone, no one else seems to think much of his coaching, so I’m not sure why you’re so bent on working with him.”

  “Maybe I remind him of Barrett.” Brock drew a star on the corner of his work sheet.

  “Maybe you remind him of his son,” Brock’s dad said.

  “Mrs. Hudgens said her son didn’t have what I have. She said Coach told her that.”

  “I just don’t want you being part of someone’s therapy, Brock.” His father got up out of his chair, stepped up into the kitchen, and put a hand on the back of Brock’s chair. “It sounds like he self-medicates.”

  “What’s that mean?” Brock wrinkled his face and looked up.

  “Alcohol is a drug.”

  “We learned tha
t in health class.”

  “Losing a child?” His dad shook his head. “Well, I’ll know more real soon.”

  “How’s that?” Brock asked.

  “I’m going over to the Hudgenses’ house to have coffee.”

  “When?”

  Brock’s dad looked at his watch. “In about forty-five minutes. You want to join us?”

  53

  Brock didn’t get any work done. Not real work. He lined up the numbers, even wrote down some answers, but the thoughts spinning around in his head had nothing to do with math. His father had retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and returned to his own book in the corner of the living room. It was hard for Brock to keep his eyes from searching out his father’s face. He sensed this was a close call.

  If his father had found out anything totally bad about Coach, they wouldn’t even be bothering to go for coffee. On the other hand, the light talk about therapy and alcohol were some serious warning bells. When it was time, his father closed his book and shut off the reading lamp beside the chair.

  He stood at the door to the garage. “I’m glad to see you working hard on your studies. You’ve got finals coming up, I guess.”

  “For the second time.” Brock sighed and thumped the math book shut.

  “That won’t hurt you.” His father turned the doorknob and it shrieked in complaint. “Coming?”

  “Yup.” Brock grabbed a banana off the counter and followed his dad out the door, through the garage, and into the late afternoon warmth.

  “Looks like a storm.” His father looked in the direction of Coach’s house. A dark sky brewed over the treetops in the west. Except for a pale yellow glow, the sun already hid behind a blanket of high white clouds.

  “Maybe it’ll miss us,” Brock said.

  “This isn’t like some places you’ve been,” his father said.

  Brock noticed how carefully his father never mentioned a specific place.

  “In the south, you can get thunderstorms popping up. Pouring rain on one side of the street. Sunshine on the other. Not here. Everything comes in from the west like the tide, sure and steady. No, we’re gonna get it. In fact, maybe you should run back and get your glove. If you and Coach are going to get any pitching work in today, it’ll have to be before dinner.”

  Brock looked back at their house. They were halfway down the street. He didn’t know if there was another motivation his father had for this, but he couldn’t think of a good reason not to jog back to the house for his glove. When he came out with the glove under his arm, he saw his father at the end of the street, on the Hudgenses’ front porch. The front door opened and the house swallowed him whole.

  Brock took off, running as fast as he could, and he was out of breath by the time he stood at the door ringing the bell. When the door opened, he tried to peer past Mrs. Hudgens for a glimpse of his father in the kitchen, maybe sitting with Coach.

  “Come in.” Mrs. Hudgens waved him through.

  Brock hurried into the kitchen, where his dad sat by himself. “Oh.”

  “You’re out of breath,” his dad said.

  Brock looked around for Coach. “Just . . . didn’t want to be rude.”

  Mrs. Hudgens took three mugs down from a cupboard and began filling them with coffee. “He’s a very polite young man, Mr. Nickerson. You’ve done a fine job.”

  “Please, call me David.”

  Brock heard feet thumping down the stairs and Coach appeared from the front hallway, extending a hand to Brock’s dad. “David? Blake Hudgens. Pleasure to meet you. Welcome to the neighborhood. You’ve got a fine son.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hudgens.”

  Coach narrowed his eyes. “I call you David, we’re Blake and Margaret, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Coach clapped his hands together and sat down. “No need to mince words. Your son is a heck of a baseball player. I’m hoping I can convince you to let him play on my team. We’re sponsored by—”

  “Barrett Malone. I know.”

  Coach blinked and forced a smile. “So, you’ve asked around about me?”

  “It’s hard without a mother for Brock.” His dad took a steaming mug from Mrs. Hudgens. “Thank you. I try to keep a close eye on him. I’m very—maybe too protective. I’m sure you understand better than anyone.”

  Mrs. Hudgens looked down into her coffee mug. Brock didn’t know if his father was intentionally pressing on their old wounds or not, but discomfort filled the room.

  Coach cleared his throat. “If you’re referring to the son we lost, you couldn’t be more right. ‘What if’ is an incurable cancer.”

  Brock’s father gazed at Coach and Brock knew it was a good sign. “I’m concerned about stories that you drink, Coach. I don’t drink at all, so it’s kind of a hot button with me.”

  “That’s a personal choice.” Coach stared right back at Brock’s dad.

  “How good do you think Brock is?” his father asked.

  “I think he’s very unusual. I suspect you already know that I’ve compared him to Barrett Malone.”

  “I do, and I would think you’d go to great lengths to have him on your team. I understand and respect that. And I’m willing to try this out, but I have to know where he is at all times, and that you’re in total control. I guess for me to feel comfortable, I’d need you to tell me that you’re not going to be drinking. I know this is kind of personal, but I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “What I do in my private time shouldn’t concern anyone.” Coach sipped his coffee.

  Mrs. Hudgens reached over and patted his hand.

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d agree,” Brock’s dad said. “And, trust me, I don’t want to dig into your personal life.”

  “Except you bring up our dead son.” Coach’s voice teetered on a growl and his face began to turn red.

  “I want to get things out on the table is all,” Brock’s dad said. “I meant no offense in any way, nor any disrespect.”

  “You don’t mean to?” Coach sneered.

  “Look, I’m sorry. If you want Brock to travel with your team, you have to agree not to drink. I don’t know how to say that any nicer. It’s important to me for a lot of reasons, and from what I hear, it would make things better for you too.”

  “You think I need you to make things better for me?” Coach raised his voice.

  “Now, Blake.” Mrs. Hudgens took hold of his arm and tried to keep him in his seat.

  Coach shook free and pointed at Brock’s dad. “I’m offering your son the chance of a lifetime. Do you know how we even ended up here? You think you’re doing such a bang-up job as a parent? You’re so overprotective and too involved. Ask Brock what he did. Ask him what he threw, and it wasn’t any baseball, I can tell you that.”

  Brock’s stomach plummeted. The visit had made him nervous to begin with, but he never envisioned the whole thing coming unraveled.

  His father scowled at him. “Brock. What’s he talking about?”

  54

  Mrs. Hudgens jumped to her feet and pushed her husband back into his seat. He looked up at her, stunned.

  “A dodgeball,” Mrs. Hudgens said. “He threw a dodgeball in gym class at our niece’s head.”

  Brock’s dad twisted up his mouth, confused. “And that’s Brock’s fault? Who let them play dodgeball in the first place? I thought they stopped doing that in public schools.”

  Coach sulked at his wife, but she was in control now. “He’s right, Blake. You can’t blame Brock. He’s the new kid and you roll out your dodgeballs and he plays the way maybe they did in his last school. Now, both of you just take a deep breath.”

  Mrs. Hudgens scowled at them, looking back and forth. “Shame on you both. What’s important here is the boy, and if you’ll both just think about that, you’ll agree.”

  Neither man spoke. Mrs. Hudgens stared at them, and her fierce looks seemed to bring them to their senses. “Now, Coach, David has a legitimate concern, and while you don’t li
ke it, he’s not the first parent to ask about your drinking. You know how I feel about it and I think he’s making an important point. How bad do you want to work with Brock? You said he’s got everything Barrett had, even more. Has that ever happened before?”

  Coach looked down at his hands.

  “Has it?” Mrs. Hudgens raised her voice just a bit.

  “No.” Coach kept his eyes on his hands, working his fingers now as if to ease some kind of discomfort.

  “David.” Mrs. Hudgens turned her attention to Brock’s dad, and Brock hoped she wouldn’t go too hard because he knew his father wasn’t in the habit of taking guff from anyone. “Whether it’s right or wrong, the way we’ve attempted to cope with our son’s death is not to talk about it. Maybe that’s not healthy, or normal, not after sixteen years, but that’s what it is. I’m sure you’d have chosen your words differently if you’d have known.”

  “That’s true.” Brock’s father met her eyes. He tightened his lips and nodded. “Honestly, I understand. We lost Brock’s mom, too, and we don’t talk about it either. I should have known better. I apologize if I was insensitive. I hope you both will forgive me that.”

  “Of course we will, right, Coach?” Mrs. Hudgens poked his shoulder.

  Coach looked up with a sad smile. He took a deep breath and nodded his head. “Yes, and Brock is special, and I will give you my word that if you let him travel with the team, I won’t be drinking on our trips.”

  Brock’s dad got to his feet and offered a hand across the table. “Then we have a deal. Please don’t think me rude, but I’ll be going now. It’s going to rain and I know you and Brock probably want to practice and . . . I guess you know this from my behavior already, but I’m not very social.”

  “You don’t have to be.” Mrs. Hudgens walked around the table to put a hand on Brock’s dad’s shoulder. “But, we are here if you need us. Not just for Brock, but for you too. That’s what good neighbors do.” She smiled. “I’ll see you out.”

  “Brock, I’ll see you for dinner.” Brock’s dad pushed his chair back into the table and headed for the front door.