Total Knockout Read online

  While I waited for Nicole, I nibbled on some Cheese Nips I had in my coat pocket. When I saw her coming—still wearing those Tevas, even though it was freezing and the socks couldn’t be helping that much—I tried to wipe the crumbs off my fingers on the inside of my pocket. The headache I’d been nursing pounded with new strength, and I wondered if it was from all the junk food that I’d been gorging on.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I said as Nicole and I sat down.

  She took a tape recorder out of her bag and set it on the grass between us, then pushed the record button. With the red light glowing, she said, “All right. So, what’ve you got?”

  I took a deep breath. I hadn’t expected to be so nervous. “Well, uh, I just want you, and everyone else at this school, especially the other members of the student council, to know how sorry I am about the vote. It’s true, I did know the research-period rule of seven days before casting a major vote, and I said nothing when I asked my council for a quick vote. So for that, I’m really sorry.”

  “Fine,” Nicole said. “What else?”

  What else? I wasn’t sure what else I was expected to do, so I said, “Just, you know, I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Nicole said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “But it was a onetime lie. Not even a lie. A not-tell. And it won’t happen again.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nicole muttered, as if she didn’t quite believe this. “Will you step down from your presidency if the school demands it?”

  I paused. I meant it when I said I was sorry, but I also felt the student body would understand that I’d made a mistake, that I was trying to fix it, and then everything would go back to being okay. They’d never paid me much attention before, so now I was sort of hoping they’d keep not doing what they hadn’t been doing all along.

  “I’m confident that the students will accept my honest apology, and that it won’t come to that,” I said.

  “If you are forced down,” Nicole persisted, “what kind of president do you think Melanie O’Hare will be?”

  I felt a tightness in my chest, and the pounding in my head intensified. I didn’t want to hear about Melanie as president or any sort of resignation of mine. I tried to unclench my jaw as I said, “She’s not even an issue because I won’t be stepping down.”

  “So, you don’t think the school will force you down?”

  “Like I said, Nicole,” I said slowly, “I have every confidence that—”

  “Lucia, everyone’s angry.” Nicole’s tone turned; it was more forceful, yet with a measure of pleading, like she really wanted me to listen. “You understand that, right? They don’t trust you. In the halls, people are saying it’s not fair that you get to bend the rules when no one else does. It’s like,” she said, “cheating on a test. If you cheat on a test, you get a zero plus detention. But you cheated on something major, and people think you should be punished.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to process what she was saying, feeling desperate. “I just . . . I’m really sorry. I think I deserve a second chance. I hope that people will—”

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t step down even if called to?” Nicole interrupted.

  I couldn’t believe it. She was serious. After all the hard work I’d done for the student body, and after years of getting zero recognition for trying to do good stuff, they only took notice when I’d done something wrong.

  “No one is calling for me to step down,” I said, working overtime to keep my panic in check.

  Nicole looked me dead in the eyes. “But they are.”

  I stared back at her. “If it comes to that, I’ll do the right thing.”

  I tried to use the rest of my time with Nicole in a grasping-at-straws attempt to encourage people to use the vending machines. She finally cut me off and said she needed to get back to the newsroom, which was actually just Mrs. Troxel’s classroom, and transcribe the interview.

  But it turns out I didn’t even need the interview with Nicole to redeem myself. I got a note in seventh-period physical science to go to Ms. Jenkins’s office—stat. As I approached the administrative offices, I saw Melanie coming out, but she turned in the opposite direction before she saw me.

  I walked into Ms. Jenkins’s office and found she had company. Mrs. Peoria sat in my usual chair, pushing back her cuticles. Beside her sat Mrs. Lack, our school counselor, her hands folded in her lap and a look of overstated concern on her small face.

  “Have a seat, Lucia,” Ms. Jenkins said. She didn’t look at me.

  My legs shook as I sat in the extra chair that had been brought in, next to Mrs. Peoria. She didn’t acknowledge me, but she did stop bothering with her cuticles.

  “I’m sure you know why we’ve brought you in,” Ms. Jenkins said. I tried to swallow. “Lucia, I know that it may seem that what you did isn’t that big of a deal, but I’m afraid it is. After looking more carefully at the bylaws, I’m afraid I can’t let something like this be glossed over.”

  “I talked to Nicole Jeffries,” I told her. “I did what you told me to do—I fixed it. I apologized to everyone. The article comes out first thing next week.”

  Ms. Jenkins looked at me sadly. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  “But I said I was sorry. I acknowledged my mistake.”

  “Lucia, I’m sorry.” Her brows were furrowed in a pain-filled scrunch. “I don’t want to do this. As president, you’re in a position of trust.”

  “I went to everyone individually and apologized,” I quickly said.

  “Not the trust of just your student council,” she said gently, “but of your entire class. This is about more than just your friends forgiving you. You do understand that, don’t you?” Her watery eyes looked between me and Mrs. Lack, as if looking for guidance, or a way out. “Lucia, you know how much I admire you. And I feel awful for my part in this. That’s why I’m giving you the chance to resign. Otherwise, we’ll have to impeach you.”

  My heart dropped. Impeach me? I never thought I’d hear those words spoken about me. Impeachment meant having the student council vote on whether or not I got to stay in office. If I’d been thinking clearly, I might have taken my chances with their vote. Cooper would never vote me out, Jared probably would, and I was pretty sure Melanie would never do that. But right then my mind was so scrambled that I couldn’t think straight. Talk about needing time to think it over.

  “I can accept your resignation right now,” Ms. Jenkins said. “Mrs. Peoria and I can.”

  No, I wanted to say. I don’t want to resign. I shouldn’t have to resign. Why were they doing this to me? The students had never liked me, even though they’d voted me in, and they’d been waiting for a chance to take me down. Which, I guess, is why I said what I said next to Ms. Jenkins.

  “I don’t want to be impeached,” I said, a huge sob building in the back of my throat. “It’s not fair,” I cried like a big baby.

  “Can you give us a moment?” Ms. Jenkins said to Mrs. Lack and Mrs. Peoria as I began a full-on crying fit. Once they had shut the door behind them, Ms. Jenkins said, “Lucia. Honey.” She handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose, trying to pull myself together. “I see a lot of myself in you. Did you know that I am this school district’s youngest principal?”

  “Of course,” I said through great gulps of air.

  “I know this is hard,” she said. “But in politics—in life sometimes—you have to be firm, even when being firm doesn’t seem fair. You did do the right thing by apologizing immediately, and I’m glad you spoke to your council directly. In fact, I’m having to do the same thing right now to the school board about the vending machines. They’re questioning the whole thing. . . .”

  “The sales are getting better! They will!”

  “Lucia.” She looked at me sadly, like when you have the unfortunate luck to watch an animal die but there’s nothing you can do to save it. “Listen to me carefully: Those vending machines a
re not your fault. I made the decision to move forward with them. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t have that much power.” She was trying to be funny. I wiped my nose.

  “I don’t want to be impeached,” I said. I wasn’t totally sure, but in my mind, right then, I knew that I’d rather resign than be impeached, even if my impeachment didn’t result in being kicked off the council. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose one final time. “I’ll leave. I’ll resign.”

  With that, I stood up and left Ms. Jenkins’s office as she called my name. I didn’t want to look at the faux-sympathetic faces of Mrs. Lack and Mrs. Peoria. I was no longer president of the Angus Junior High student council, and that was all that mattered. The count was over, and I was out.

  “Attention, Angus Blue Jays, for a late-day announcement.” Mrs. Peoria’s voice came over the loudspeakers before I could get back to my class. “Please note that effective immediately, Melanie O’Hare will be stepping up as student council president. Have a good weekend.”

  I didn’t want to go back to class. I didn’t want to go to my locker, and I didn’t want to take the bus home. After hearing the announcement, I just wanted out, but I’d never skipped a class in my life and I wasn’t about to start now, even though now seemed like the best time to do it. I forced myself to go to class, never once looking anyone in the eyes even though I could feel them all staring at me. When the final bell rang, I walked out of the school and all the way home. Halfway home I just wanted to call Dad and have him come pick me up, but Mom had recently taken away my cell phone, saying it wasn’t a necessary expense. So I kept walking.

  When I finally got to my room, I pulled the covers over my head, Paddy close at my side, and the promise of a pint of whatever was the most fattening and bad-for-you ice cream waiting for me in the freezer.

  I tried to understand how I’d let this happen to me. And then I realized that I had asked for it by wanting it too badly. I had let my emotions get in the way of my rational mind. I was like Mike Tyson when he bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear when he was losing their huge rematch. Or worse, I was like Prince Naseem Hamed, the arrogant, showboating British fighter who had no problem tackling fighters to the mat when things weren’t going his way. I guess that’s who I’d turned out to be. Cheating when I wanted my way instead of figuring out the proper way to handle things. And all for health-food vending machines that no one liked anyway.

  I didn’t stay in bed long. My mind couldn’t stop working over what had happened, so I got up and went to the kitchen. No surprise we had no ice cream—that was now a luxury in our house—but I did find a box of cookies way in the back of the cupboard that had an expiration date of two years from now, obviously loaded with preservatives. I realized that even my own family was stashing junk food, much like Coaches Fleck and Ryan at school.

  As I worked on my third cookie, Dad walked into the kitchen.

  “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.” He wore jeans with holes in the knees and an Austin City Limits T-shirt. “You have an okay day?”

  I almost sputtered out my cookie in a sarcastic laugh. I went to the refrigerator and found a can of Dr Pepper, which I cracked open and gulped.

  “That bad?” Dad asked.

  Dragging my feet back to the cookies, I said, “I’m no longer president.”

  Dad let out a little laugh. Then, realizing I wasn’t joking, he said, “No. Seriously?” I nodded as I shoved a whole cookie into my mouth. I felt nauseous, but I didn’t care. “What happened?”

  Spitting crumbs, I said, “I cheated a vote. I’m out. Ms. Jenkins told me I had to either quit or get kicked out.” I knew this wasn’t entirely true, but just then the details didn’t seem to matter.

  “Lord, honey.” He ran a hand through his hair. “When did it happen?”

  “Seventh period.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Just like me.” I looked at him, and he gave me a sheepish look. “When people are let go, they usually do it late in the day on Fridays. Causes less commotion, they say.”

  This angered me, his comparing my being forced out to his getting sacked. I had worked hard to save my job while he had sat back and watched his get taken away. “Nothing about this is standard,” I said. Unable to control my temper any longer, I said, “So what did you do today?”

  “Not much,” he said.

  He was about to say more, but I yelled, “Surprise, surprise!” and grabbed the rest of the cookies and stormed off to my room, slamming my door.

  Later, after having cried so hard that my head pounded with the effort, I thought of going to the school’s website to see what was written about me in the polls. Only, I wasn’t sure I could handle it right then.

  Instead I went to Henry’s room. There was always an aura of calmness in there, and it smelled good too, especially considering he’s a ten-year-old boy. I figured it was just what I needed when I had nowhere else to turn.

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  Henry sat on the floor, leaning against his bed and writing in a journal. “Sure,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” I said, sitting across from him.

  “Homework.”

  “On a Friday night? Even you’re not that big of a dork.”

  Henry shrugged, like maybe he was. “We have to write about a significant moment in our lives.”

  “You’re in fifth grade,” I said. “What’s happened to you that’s significant?”

  “I’m writing about Dad.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I already yelled at him today.”

  “You shouldn’t be too hard on him,” Henry said. “He just needs to find his center again.”

  I looked at my younger brother with a bit of awe and admiration. “You never get stressed,” I said.

  “You’re always stressed.”

  I smiled and nodded. “Maybe I should try some of your meditating stuff.”

  “You should!” he said, brightening. He tossed his journal aside. “I can teach you how. It’ll be so good for you.”

  Before I could protest, Henry lit a candle, which smelled like sage, and put in his white noise CD. He showed me how to sit with my legs crossed and guided me in a quiet, calm voice.

  “Empty your mind of all thoughts,” he said. “Visualize your breath going into your lungs . . . relax every muscle in your body . . . feel the worries slide out through your pores. . . .”

  I tried to concentrate, but all I could think was, Don’t think, don’t think . . . Hey! You’re not thinking! Oh, shoot, now you are. . . . The longer we sat, the more fidgety I became, until Henry finally stated, in his regular voice, “You stink at this.”

  I started laughing immediately. “Seriously,” I said. “It’s making me feel more pent up and anxious.”

  “I don’t know why I’m trying to get you to do this. You already have your own way of destressing. Why don’t you go down to the Nixons’ and box?”

  I hadn’t even spoken to Cooper—or, for that matter, to Melanie—yet today. I was sure if I went down there and told him I wasn’t ready to talk about the student council but that I just needed to box, he would understand. “Good idea,” I said, getting up from the floor. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be back in, like, an hour.”

  I changed clothes and grabbed my gear, which Cooper had left on our back porch after I’d caught him with Melanie. As I walked down to his house, I realized how strange it was that he hadn’t called me first thing after school. What happened to his and Melanie’s cheer-up committee, now that things were at their worst?

  Cooper answered the door. He seemed to wince when he saw that it was me.

  “So,” I said, spreading my arms. “Here I am. Angus’s first chucked president.”

  “I meant to call you,” he said. “That was so harsh, the announcement they made. Did they tell you they were doing it?”

  I let myself in, nudging past him. I stopped just inside the door and turned back to him. “What’s that smell? You wearing cologne or something?”
r />   He turned pink as he shut the door. “So, are you okay?”

  “No,” I said, walking into his living room, where Mrs. Nixon called hello to me from the couch. “I’m not. I really, really need to box now. So go change—and please rinse off some of that ick smell.”

  “You about ready, Coop?” Mr. Nixon emerged from his bedroom. He paused when he saw me, then said hello.

  I looked to Cooper, who was turning a darker shade of pink. “Why is your shirt tucked in? And you’re wearing a belt.”

  “We’re going to a Rangers game,” he said. “The beer guy from Dad’s restaurant hooked him up with box seats.”

  Right on cue, Mrs. Nixon stood up and said, “Is Melanie coming up here, or are we picking her up on the way?”

  Now it was my turn to flush, although I’m pretty sure it was a deep, angry shade of red. “Melanie?” I spat. I couldn’t help myself. “You’re taking Melanie to a baseball game?” I couldn’t believe it. First my presidency, now my best friend? She was taking everything from me.

  Cooper shrugged, not looking at me.

  “On a Friday night, with your parents? What is this, a double date or something?” Cooper’s face tensed up, and Mr. Nixon said, “Son, we’ll wait for you out in the car.”

  Once they’d left, Cooper finally looked at me and said, “Yeah, so?”

  “So?” I said. “So, is she, like, your girlfriend now or something?” I felt panicked—I wasn’t in control of anything anymore, and I couldn’t count on anyone.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” Cooper said, his eyes back on his feet.

  “Maybe? But . . . why?”

  “I don’t know. Because I like her,” he said. “She’s cool. Look, it’s no big deal. It’s just a baseball game.”

  “Since when does she like baseball? And it is a big deal. This is only the single worst day of my life.” Feeling a bit desperate, I said, “Look. I need you now, okay?” I instantly felt stupid for saying such an overly dramatic thing—even if it was true.