Cure for the Common Universe (10 page)

Damn. Scarecrow was in square one. I was in square three. Scarecrow had to be eliminated and I had to survive two rounds to even have a
chance
at scoring.

Scarecrow spun the ball. “The ball can only bounce into your square once, and then you have to hit it into another square. We keep going like that till someone screws up. Like this.” Scarecrow dropped the ball, let it bounce once, and then punched it into my square. My knees pinched together a second too late as the ball flew right between my legs. The crowd
giggled as someone tossed the ball back to Scarecrow.

“Filthy casual!” Lion secretly called into his hand.

Why do you hate me?
I wanted to ask Scarecrow. I stood there like an idiot instead.

“We cool?” Scarecrow asked.

“Cool!” Soup said.

“Cheefs get a handicap,” the coach said. “Minus fifteen seconds for every minute spent in the serve square. Sefs get plus fifteen.”

At least I wasn't in the Cheefs.

“Forty-five minutes,” the coach called, and held up a stopwatch.

“I'm taking you out first,” Scarecrow said, pointing at me.

“More like . . . No,” I said. “You aren't.”

His neck was covered in hickeys, as dark as blackberries.
He
didn't have to worry about getting to a date on Thursday. A breeze kicked up from the east, blowing sand across the court. I closed my eyes. If I could experience a miracle at a car wash, I could experience one on a Four Square court. That ball would bend according to my Gravitational pull.

Again I got low, dangling my arms between my legs like Donkey Kong.

It happened in a matter of seconds. Scarecrow gave the ball a little lift and gently bumped it into Dorothy's square. Dorothy clasped her hands and smashed it as hard as she could into Soup's. Soup lunged and was
just
able to tap it into my square. This gave me plenty of time to . . . awkwardly slap the ball back to Dorothy.

She must have been the one who'd given Scarecrow those hickeys, because she politely tapped it to him. And Scarecrow, well, he did exactly what he'd said he was going to do. He waited until the ball was an inch off the ground and then nailed it into my square.

My body dove. My arm swung. My fingers skimmed the rubber.

I missed.

The whistle screeched and the coach pointed his thumb over his shoulder.

“P'wnd!” Lion cried.

Dorothy high-fived Scarecrow.

Numb, I walked off the court. Meeki held up our egg child, which somehow looked disappointed in its father. That was it. Two hundred and fifty
thousand
points out the window. I didn't even get third place, which was the minimum I needed to be free by Thursday. Game over. No date for me.

I began the walk of shame back to Video Horizons.

The whistle screeched again. “Hey, dummy.”

I turned around. The coach pointed to the corner of the number four square where a line of players wrapped around the court. “You're not out. You just get back in line.”

“Oh!” I said, hustling back to the court. “Okay, sorry. I don't know how to . . . Okay.”

Soup moved up a square into my spot, while Meeki handed the egg abomination over to Aurora and cycled into the number four square.

“Too pretty to game!” Lion called sarcastically.

Tin Man chuckled into his hand.

Fezzik frowned at the coach to see if he was going to do anything about it. He didn't.

There were six players ahead of me in line. Usually I'd relish this spot. Not this time. It would take forever to get back into the game. My fate could be decided long before then.

Aurora stood outside the line, cradling her egg like it was a real baby.

“Why aren't you playing?” I asked.

“Fingers,” she said, showing me her hand sores again.

“Right. Yeah.”

That was too bad. I thought I could probably beat her at Four Square.

On the court Soup looked at me like he'd just dropped my goldfish down the disposal, because he hadn't kept me from getting out.

I'm sorry,
he mouthed.

I mouthed,
Stay in.

He looked confused.

Stay!

I had to hand it to him. Soup sure knew how to obey. I'd never seen a kid so stressed. Every time he hit the ball, he bared his teeth like he was receiving electroshock therapy. I'm pretty sure he didn't blink for seven whole minutes.

Meeki, meanwhile, was unstoppable. She seemed almost bored, swatting the ball into the other squares like it was a cartoon
bird that wanted to sing to her. She got Dorothy out, and she and Soup moved into the three and two squares. While I rocked from foot to foot in line, every other player who stepped into the four square—including Tin Man and Lion—wilted under the awesome power of mekillyoulongtime.

“Meeki the Destroyer!” Fezzik called, then grinned at the Sefiroths' silver-haired guild leader.

The coach checked his stopwatch. “Scarecrow in the lead with eleven minutes. That's with the handicap.”

I was up again. It was Scarecrow, Soup, Meeki, and me—squares one through four. I needed to take Scarecrow's place in the first square and then remain there until the
end
of the tournament. It was time to get aggressive. It didn't matter how low the ball came into my square. It didn't matter how fast. I hit it back with every ounce of me that had to see Gravity again.

The game raged on. My fate bounced between the four of us like a raspberry-colored lightning bolt. I was Ryu, heroically punching back everything that came at me. Soup was stretchy-limbed Dhalsim. Meeki was blurrily fast E. Honda. And Scarecrow used the same move over and over again, like Blanka's cheap-ass electric attack. It was frustrating, but now I'd figured out his trick. Low and to the left. Every time.

Finally Soup fell. He couldn't have been happier, though, because it meant I stepped into the three square.

The coach blew the whistle. “Twenty-four minutes left! Crow in the lead with twenty-one!”

Only two minutes before Scarecrow took the gold. Every fiber of my being was electric with terror. I was going to lose. I knew I was going to lose.

The whistle screeched, Scarecrow lifted the ball, and we began again. In the crowd Soup started up a lively commentary. “Scarecrow hits it to Meeki! Meeki nails it back! Scarecrow powerhouses it to Miles, and Miles
devastates it
to . . . some kid I don't know. The kid misses! Boom goes the dynamite!”

The whistle blared.

“Shut up, kid,” the coach said to Soup. “No one wants to hear that.”

Soup swallowed his lips and stared at the concrete.

Fezzik patted his sad little shoulder. “Um, Coach?” Fezzik said. “May I speak to you privately for a second?”

The two stepped away from the court to the edge of the Coliseum so that the players couldn't hear their conversation.
Get 'im, Fezzik,
I thought. Also, it was nice to catch my breath for a minute. My heart was going crazy.

While Scarecrow spun the ball on his finger, Soup cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Psst. Meeki,”
he whispered
way
too loudly.
“Let. Miles. Win.”

Scarecrow dropped the ball. “The fuck is this?”

I gave a little shake of my head and tried to communicate death to Soup with my eyes.

Scarecrow pointed at Meeki and stared at me. “You make an alliance with the Great Wall of China here?”

Meeki's mouth fell open. Lion stifled a laugh with his fist.

“Her grandparents are from Vietnam,” Soup said.

“I don't give a shit,” Scarecrow said. “You guys are cheating.”

“We're not,” I said.

Meeki's mouth still hung open.

“Whatever,” Scarecrow said. “I'll beat your asses anyway.”

The smirk on his face twisted my insides. He couldn't say something like that and still be allowed to win.
I
should win. This kid was getting in the way of my date and looked like he knew it. Like he could taste my heart breaking.

I didn't want my anger to throw the game, so I channeled it into my hands. I picked up the ball. I'd get my revenge by beating Scarecrow in Four Square. . . .

But then I threw the ball at his face instead. I was expecting him to flinch and block it. I was expecting to maybe throw him off a little, make him regret messing with me. I was
not
expecting the ball to crunch his nose, making blood explode all over his white gangster tee.

Scarecrow covered his face and doubled forward. “Fuck!”

“Oh my God,” I said, reaching out to help. “I'm
so
sorry. I am
so
sorry.”

“Got him!” Soup said, and held up his hand.

I did not high-five him.

“Yo, Coach!” Lion called across the Coliseum.

Oh God. What had I just done? I'd just lost the game and thrown away every point I'd earned so far.

Lion kept trying to get the coach's attention, lifting his hand high and pointing at me, but Scarecrow caught his arm
and pulled it down. He pinched his nose and gave Lion a look. Then he spit blood onto the concrete.

“Hey! Miles!” Soup said, hand still raised for a high five. “You avenged Meeki's honor!”

I still didn't high-five him. “Scarecrow, I didn't mean—”

Meeki shoved me.
Hard
. She pointed in my face and yelled, “Nobody puts princess in a castle!”

“Huh?” I said.

She grabbed Scarecrow by his collar and socked him in the mouth. He dropped to the ground like a rag doll. The whistle blared from afar as the coach and Fezzik came running. I quickly stepped behind Soup as Fezzik grabbed Meeki's arm and the coach helped Scarecrow to his feet.

Fezzik shook his head. “Come with me, guys.”

“He called me Great Wall of China!” Meeki yelled.

He escorted her and Scarecrow to Video Horizons . . . leaving me on the Four Square court.

The coach blew his whistle. “Double disqualification. Meeki and Scarecrow.” He looked at me and pointed into the serving square. “Game on.”

I stepped up, took the ball, and awkwardly tried to spin it between my hands as three new players stepped into the two, three, and four squares.

My odds of winning had just
dramatically
increased.

The two best players had been disqualified.

Soup would cycle in, ready to throw the game.

The Master Cheefs times would be halved.

I lifted the ball, and . . .

TOOK BRONZE!

In a sporting competition!

The coach snorted and grudgingly stamped my scroll.

+150,000

A
t five o'clock a loon gave a mournful cry, and Soup and I triumphantly returned to Video Horizons for guild therapy.

When we arrived, the Nest was dark. The lights were out, the blinds shut.

I paused in the doorway. Soup peeked under my arm.

“Welcome,” Fezzik's voice said from the darkness. “Join the circle.”

I took careful steps forward, blindly feeling in front of me. Soup followed, touching my back. I was too exhausted to push him away. My knee cracked into a chair. I sucked in through my teeth, carefully felt my way around the chair, and sat down.

Soup sat next to me and put his mouth to my ear. “Miles, why did you crunch Scarecrow's nose for Meeki?”

“Shh!” I said, glancing at Fezzik's giant form. In the darkness I couldn't tell where the guild leader was looking.

“Do you
like
her?”
Soup whispered.

“She's
gay
.”

I didn't tell him I hadn't even been thinking about Meeki when I'd thrown the ball at Scarecrow. I'd only been thinking about winning at Four Square. It had felt heroic, smashing the nose of an asswipe who'd clearly deserved it. That feeling had only lasted a second, though—after Soup had pointed out that I'd stood up for Meeki and before she'd decided to take the moment for herself.

Aurora's blurry white hair floated through the darkness and joined the circle. Zxzord snoozed in the bunks. My eyes adjusted, and I saw that Meeki was already sitting across from me, arms folded tightly around her chest. I swallowed.

What had happened in G-man's office? Had she told him what I'd done? If being unsportsmanlike lost a player 1,000 points, how many would I lose for possibly breaking someone's nose?

“Are we ready to begin?” Fezzik asked.

No one answered.

All I knew was that if the blame for Scarecrow's bloody nose fell solely on Meeki, then I would get to keep the points I'd earned in Four Square. That would mean I'd only need two golds and a silver in the remaining tournaments.

Pff.
Only.

There was a click, and a flashlight illuminated Fezzik's giant pale face. His mouth hung slack. He spoke in a haunted voice.