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  For an instant Mike wanted to let the bar drop on Ryan’s leering face. Can’t you be serious for one second and listen to me? But maybe he just couldn’t. Afraid to open up, let loose. Coach was right about Ryan. Wonder if he’s right about me and Billy.

  There were voice and text messages from Lori. She was in Boston and she was nervous. The twins were going to do a fire stick routine they had never done in competition before. The other girls had awesome routines. Tori had a sinus infection that was throwing her off. Please call me.

  He called. Need to talk to somebody. He got her voice mail. He wasn’t sure if he was sorry or glad.

  Not sure of much these days, are you?

  He watched the Yankees game downstairs. The cat sat across the room and glared at him. He wouldn’t have minded if she climbed into his lap. You really must be lonely, Mike.

  Billy’s timing seemed off, he was hitting on top of the ball, choppers instead of his usual line drives. But some of them were going through for base hits. Even when he’s off, he’s on. Mike heard the garage door opening. He didn’t feel like talking to his parents. He got up. The cat swiped at his bare foot as he passed. Nicked him.

  In his room, on the Buddsite, he read EmoBaller’s theory that Billy was being distracted by that model. Catchergrrl reminded him how Billy had played out of his skull the week his grandma died, setting a record for postseason hits. As usual, EmoBaller agreed with her.

  An alert popped up. The A Day With Billy contest closes Sunday, right after the doubleheader! Get those videos in! He wondered if Coach had really known Billy in Little League. Would Coach make up something like that to motivate me? To play better? To spy for him? Could be. But not a lot of people knew about that name change. Nothing about it on the Buddsite. Mike had read about it once, years ago in a baseball magazine, then it never came up again. He wondered what Coach had been about to say when he said, “and I’m here at…” Did he wish he were somewhere else?

  Lori still wasn’t answering her phone. For a moment he thought about calling Andy. Talk about Coach’s jock-puke theory. What’s that all about? But Andy would turn it into a lecture on politics. He realized he didn’t really have anyone else to talk to. But what did he have to say?

  The cat scratch on his foot stung. He thought of Tigerbitch. I’ll see her tomorrow.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Kat drove the van toward the city, swiftly, confidently, one hand on the steering wheel, the other gesturing at Zack, who sat shotgun, tapping on his laptop. Mike couldn’t hear most of what they were saying. It sounded more political than personal. He wondered if she was driving too fast as she gunned out of a toll booth. But she seemed in control, happy.

  Mike was in the third row between two pukey-looking guys, one fat, one skinny, who were text messaging each other. How had he gotten between them? He had climbed into the van and suddenly they had appeared, one at each door, and sandwiched him. He didn’t think they meant to do it, they just did it in that uncool dorky way. A jock might let a classroom door close on you, but never by accident. He thought he had seen these two around school, but it could have been two other kids who looked like them, wore lame band T-shirts, and walked on their heels. He never paid much attention to geeks and nerds. When jocks gave them a hard time, he walked away. He felt bad one time when some football players trash-canned a puke, stuffed him into one of the cafeteria garbage baskets. He thought that Billy would have stopped the bullying, but Mike didn’t feel strong enough. Maybe didn’t care enough. Coach was right. Pukes are different.

  In the bench seat in front of them, a Chinese kid was sleeping against the window and Nick the Goth was leaning into a girl with a Mohawk and nose rings. She wasn’t bad-looking. He hadn’t talked to Nick this morning when they met at the van. Still trying to figure him out. Does he really think I’m a spy for Cody, or is he pulling my chain?

  They crossed the bridge and Kat swung the van down an exit ramp into the city. The Hudson River sparkled on their right as tall apartment houses loomed on the left. The city always made him a little nervous. It seemed dangerous, mysterious. They had rarely traveled in as a family except for the occasional Yankee game or Broadway show. There were class trips to museums. There were kids who went to dance clubs in the city, a druggie crowd he avoided.

  Tiffany had disappeared into the city for a couple of days when she was fifteen. Mom and Dad freaked. When the police brought her back, she’d seemed different, spacey. Mike was too busy playing ball to pay much attention, but he remembered her fighting with Mom, screaming, doors slamming. Scotty had just left for college. Now he was in Indiana and she was a single mom living in the East Village with her little daughter. And I’m in left field. Remembering that made his stomach ache.

  The pukes on each side of him started laughing through their noses at something they were messaging back and forth. Mike was getting more and more frustrated between them. He was too large for this group. If they were jocks he would have elbowed some more space for himself. If they were jocks the van would be noisy and friendly. Mike started digging into a pocket for his iPod, trying not to poke them.

  He heard Nick say, “Ask him yourself. He’s housebroken.” When the girl murmured something, Nick turned around and said, “Syl wants to know why you’re here.”

  Tell her I’m spying for Coach Cody. Mike put on a tough Law & Order voice. “Zack thought you needed security.”

  The fat kid snorted, thumbs flying, and a moment later the skinny kid laughed so hard Mike thought he was going to choke. Smart-ass pukes.

  The Chinese kid turned around. He’d only been pretending to sleep. “You take steroids?”

  “You take smart pills?” said Mike.

  “You got any?” said Nick. He was laughing. “Smart pills are the only ones I never took.”

  “Figured,” said Syl.

  The Chinese kid turned to Nick. “You took steroids?”

  Mike thought, I’m in a reality show. An alternate universe. These people are weird. They are definitely not housebroken.

  “I took them one summer before football camp,” said Nick. “It helped a little I think but you need to be a physical freak like Mike here for it to do any real good. And then you have to lift like crazy. I never cared that much.”

  “You were a football player?” The fat kid’s fingers were frozen in midair.

  “He was a good receiver,” said Mike. “I couldn’t keep up with him.”

  “Thanks.” Nick looked pleased. “Maybe I should’ve worked harder. I couldn’t deal with those fascist coaches.”

  “The suppression of any dissent,” said Syl.

  I’ll channel Andy, thought Mike. “It’s all about keeping us off balance and maintaining totalitarian control.” He thought he had said it sarcastically, but the way Syl and the others nodded and seemed to look at him differently, he realized they thought he was serious.

  Except maybe Nick. He had a smirk on his face. Either he wasn’t totally buying or he was giving Mike a hard time. “So, comrade, how come you decked Zack?”

  “He wouldn’t get out of my way.”

  The Chinese kid said, “Why didn’t they suspend you?”

  “Rules are not for stars,” said Nick. “If you’re as good as Mike you do what you want.”

  They were driving past Chelsea Piers now. The varsity and JV had gone there for last year’s hitting clinic with Dwayne Higgins, the Yankees’ right fielder. There was a rumor Billy would show up to support his bud but he didn’t. Higgins mostly talked about himself. The minor league coaches who came with Dwayne gave the high school players batting tips and actually worked on individual stances and swings. One of the coaches said Mike needed to get his hips open sooner. He had worked on that and it helped. He wondered what good advice he was missing today at the Meadowlands. Maybe some tip that could get him back into center field. But according to Coach, that’s not what will get me back.

  If I understood what Coach was talking about.

  Mike followed Zac
k and the others into an old factory building near the river while Kat screeched off to park the van. A hundred kids, mostly high school guys, were packed into an auditorium. The kids seemed pretty psyched by what they were hearing, tech jargon Mike had trouble following. They recorded, videotaped, and made notes in their laptops as speakers up front droned on about something called On-High dot org that was going to revolutionize education in America by making high schools accountable to the students. That part Mike understood but not how they were going make it all happen with the help of backdoors and packets and sniffers and tunneling. Speakers made jokes about scooters and pinheads. Mike sat behind Fatty and Skinny, who laughed and elbowed each other continually. Mike got some of the Matrix, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica references, but that didn’t help much since the speakers seemed to think that was all ancient culture anyway. He kept looking around for Kat but didn’t see her.

  He became alert when Zack got up to speak. The crowd seemed to know and respect him.

  “High school is a prison and Ridgedale is maximum security,” he said.

  The crowd howled. Fatty and Skinny bumped foreheads. I’m in a nuthouse, Mike thought. Nick was whistling and cheering Zack on.

  “We’re running a two-pronged operation right now, an outreach program to bring in marginalized users, older folks and disabled teenagers, that’s being funded by the school board. That money’s also helping expand our internal operation. We have a site called RidgedaleReform dot org making students aware of how we’re being controlled by the system, where the money goes, and how educational decisions are made against our best interests.”

  Zack was getting excited now, talking faster. Mike could see the spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. He remembered their confrontation in the hallway.

  “We’ve got chat rooms on Ridgedalesucks dot com that disseminates information on teachers and students, particularly certain government types and the jockocracy, how athletes run the school.” Mike remembered Craig and Eric complaining in the locker room about something they’d read online about favoritism in grading for jocks. Mike had barely paid attention. Craig wanted to trash can the Cyber Club but Todd had talked him out of it.

  “We’re constructing a new site, Codywatch dot com. Cody is our vice principal.”

  “The head Cylon,” yelled Fatty. Skinny looked like he was wetting his pants.

  “Hack Cody,” shouted Nick.

  “That’s the plan,” said Zack. “We’re going to expose him, drill into his…” He stopped himself, as if he thought he might be going too far. He took a breath, went back to his deep, even voice. “I know a lot of other schools have similar programs and if we all link up with On-High dot org we will be invincible.”

  Nick leaped up and thrust a fist into the air. Other kids stood up and cheered. This was what Cody was talking about, the clear and present danger. Coach wasn’t entirely paranoid. Am I supposed to tell him about this? What about Kat?

  Mike stood up and scanned the room until he found her, crouching along a wall, shooting video of Zack. He watched her. She was graceful and quick. Like a cat, he thought. When she turned her head, her ponytail bobbed through the back of her baseball cap.

  Watching her took his breath away, pushed out other thoughts.

  The lead speakers took over then, quieted them down, and started talking about committees and networks. The meeting broke up. Zack and a dozen other kids stayed up front talking. Kat stood a few feet away, shooting them. Mike walked up to her casually. The way she looked over her shoulder and smiled, he had the sense she had been waiting for him.

  “I’m walking over to the East Village,” she said. She held up her camera. “I want to shoot some stuff.” She was wound up, full of energy.

  “I’m actually heading in that direction, too,” he said. “My sister lives there.” He didn’t want her to think it was about her, even if she looked oddly excited.

  TWENTY-TWO

  They walked for a long time, through Tribeca and Chinatown and Little Italy, stopping for Kat to shoot, and then into a huge restaurant on Houston Street called Katz’s.

  “Best deli in the world,” said Kat.

  It was crowded, noisy, and dingy. He didn’t feel so hungry anymore. There were fading signs on the wall. SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY! Was that supposed to be a rhyme? And which war, he wondered. Sharp, spicy smells brought his appetite back.

  Kat led him to a counter where grumpy men were slicing huge hunks of fatty meat. She said, “You have to try the pastrami and corned beef.” She seemed so sure of herself. She ordered two sandwiches, extra pickles, cream soda. One of the men punched Kat’s ticket.

  They carried the food to a greasy table. “You see the movie When Harry Met Sally?”

  He nodded. Tori and Lori loved it, made him and Ryan watch it with them and then talk about whether men and women could be friends. Ryan had said it was impossible. Mike had no opinion. He hoped Kat wasn’t going to ask him about that.

  She pointed to a table where a couple were laughing. “In the movie, that’s where Meg Ryan did her fake orgasm. Remember?”

  He did. That scene had embarrassed him and Ryan. Lori and Tori thought it was hilarious and did their own imitations.

  “You come here a lot?” As soon as he realized he had made a pun he felt heat rise in his neck.

  She laughed loudly and slapped the table. He’d never seen her so up. “That’s pretty good for”—she flashed the smile—“a dumb jock.” She split the sandwiches. “I like them both so if you don’t, we can switch back.”

  He didn’t like either of them, thick, tangy meats that fell into his gut like lumps of fat. The cream soda tasted like dessert. He didn’t like that either, but he smiled and nodded as if it were pizza and Dr Pepper. He watched her eat. She didn’t nibble at her food like Lori, she really dug in. There was grease around her lips. He relaxed.

  “And you were giving Andy a hard time for a cheeseburger.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.” She laughed and talked with her mouth full. “Besides, I hardly ever eat like this.”

  “What are you shooting?”

  “It’s a project for Social Issues.” The sharp edges of her face seemed to soften. “I want to shoot a lot of faces, different generations, races, ethnic types, then match them up in a montage.” The words spilled out rapidly, almost breathlessly. He was caught up in her high spirits. “I want to show how people are more similar than different.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Never thought about it.”

  “Neither did I until I hurt my knee and had to stop running,” she said. “I was really down. Everything was about track till then. You know, when you’re running hard you’re not looking around at the world. You’re so focused in competition, you can avoid everything else.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “I started talking to Zack and reading websites he suggested, and I got out of myself. Saved my life.” She said it matter-of-factly.

  He wanted more. “Saved your life?”

  “Literally. I was…” She stopped. “Some other time.” She jammed the sandwich into her mouth. With her mouth full, she said, “You close to your sister?”

  “My sister?” It took him a moment to remember he had mentioned his sister back in the auditorium. “Not really. She left home when I was about eleven.”

  “She a lot older than you?” Kat looked interested. Or maybe she was just changing the subject.

  “She’s twenty-two. When she was around sixteen she kind of went crazy, had like a breakdown. Drugs and stuff.” He talked fast. He had never told anyone this much about Tiffany before. Or about anything this personal, really. He wondered why he was now. “They needed to kidnap her out of the house and take her to a camp in Utah to straighten out.”

  Kat winced. “How long was she there?”

  “Almost three years. There and another place.”

  Kat looked as if she we
re in pain. “It all worked out?”

  “I guess so. She’s got a job, her own apartment, a daughter.”

  “She’s married?”

  “No.”

  “You and your parents see her?”

  “Yeah, we come in, she comes out to the house with the kid for holidays, but everybody’s pretty busy these days.”

  She looked serious. “Just don’t lose that relationship.”

  He wondered why this all seemed so important to her. What did it have to do with her? He kept pushing the sandwich into his mouth. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t like it.

  After a while, to get the conversation started again, he said, “You running this season?”

  It took her a moment, as if his question had come over a satellite phone from a different continent, like in live TV news. But when her head came up, she seemed happy to answer. “I don’t know. I’m pretty far behind in my training. And I’ve been thinking a lot about why I started to run in the first place.”

  “Why did you?”

  She looked at him as if the answer were obvious. “So I could blot everything out. When I run hard, I don’t think of anything else, don’t feel anything except the pain in my body.”

  He thought of the Ranger Runs. Was that why I liked them so much?

  When they finished, Kat turned in their tickets and paid. Mike tried to give her money, but she brushed it aside. “Yours next time.”

  He liked that. Next time.

  They walked to a park along the East River. Latino families were barbecuing and playing ball. She moved among them, asking for permission to shoot them. She was friendly but bold. They smiled at her. No problemo.

  While she shot, Mike sat on a bench, watching her and the games. A lot of talented ballplayers. Some of them looked like Oscar. After a while she joined him on a bench. “Andy said you were pissed because that new Dominican kid took over center field.”

  “Andy talks a lot.”