Cobra Strike Page 3

  “Oh,” he said when he saw me, as if I was a tax collector.

  Oh? No big grin and handshake? Last Monday he had greeted me like a long-lost buddy. As a Cobra fan, he’d recognized me and told me how much he was looking forward to this season. In a small town like ours, high school football was a big deal. Almost everybody followed the team’s performance closely. Had I played so badly against the Panthers that he didn’t even want to talk football?

  “Hmmmm, hello,” I said. “I’m here about the w-w-water samples.”

  Sometimes, when I know what I want to say ahead of time, I can practice the words in my mind. By humming a bit, I can loosen up my throat. That makes it easier to get the words started.

  “Yeah,” he said, “the water samples.”

  I waited. I do that as often as I can instead of asking obvious questions. Like, in this case, were the tests done like he had promised?

  “I got good news,” he said. “There’s not a thing wrong with the water you brought me.”

  That surprised me so much I blurted out, “Th-that can’t b-b-be.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” he asked, getting defensive. “I’m telling you, everything tested so pure that I’d drink it myself.”

  “B-b-but under th-the m-m-m-m...” I had said the wrong thing and made him mad, which made me so nervous I was forgetting to concentrate on how to shape the words with my mouth.

  “Under th-th-the m-m-m-m...” I stopped again. I couldn’t think of another word for microscope.

  I pulled a small notepad and pen from the back pocket of my jeans. As quickly as I could, I wrote:

  Under the microscope, it looked different from other pond-water samples.

  While the skinny woman in the red dress snickered at me, I handed the note to Fred. I hated having to use the notebook, but I always keep it handy for times like this. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help me when I have to use the telephone.

  “So now you’re telling me that you tested it yourself?”

  I shook my head. “N-n-not exactly. B-b-but—”

  “Maybe you think you can do my job better than me?”

  Again I shook my head. I wanted to explain that things that should be simple for me to say sometimes weren’t. This was why most people thought of me as a loner. It was too hard to try to talk to others. I found it easier to stay within my own thoughts than to make friends.

  “N-n-no,” I said, “I d-d-don’t. B-b-b-but—”

  “Look,” he said, “wait here.”

  He walked heavily down the hallway. I heard a door open. Seconds later he came back carrying a small box with the jars of water samples I had brought him. He plunked the box on the desk in front of me, scattering a small pile of paper.

  “Hey!” the skinny woman in the red dress said. “Watch it. What if I had important letters and stuff in that pile that I needed to keep straight?”

  “Fat chance, Doreen,” he told her. “You type so slow you don’t do more than a letter a day. Tough to get anything mixed up at that pace.”

  She put her hands on her hips and stared huffily at him. “What’s got into you, Fred? You never talk like that.”

  “Shut up,” he told her. He grabbed a jar and opened it. He lifted it to his lips and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of water. I watched his Adam’s apple bob.

  “See?” he said to me. “Nothing’s wrong with it. Any more questions?”

  I shook my head. The questions I had I wouldn’t ask him.

  But I could tell something was wrong. This man was too defensive. He was rude, talking in a way he usually didn’t. And he was working much too hard to prove to me the water was safe.

  I decided right then and there that I would find another way to get the water samples tested.

  And if it turned out something was wrong with the water from Gram’s creek, I wanted to know why this guy was lying to me.

  chapter seven

  Coach Donaldson kept us busy the next couple of days, so I didn’t have a chance to do much about Gram’s water samples. On Wednesday, Coach even called for a special practice, a half hour earlier than usual. I didn’t find out why until I had on my football gear and practice jersey and had joined a couple of guys on the sidelines of the field.

  “Who’s the new kid?” I heard Michael Shane ask as he gestured toward the coaches.Shane’s a linebacker, built like a bull on steroids and about as smart.

  I looked in the direction he’d pointed. Old Coach Donaldson and Coach Pitt were talking to a tall kid with dark hair, dressed for practice. As they talked, the kid took short underhand tosses from Coach Pitt and rifled the ball twenty yards downfield to Jones and Powell, a couple of wide receivers in their junior year.

  Coach Donaldson beamed like a proud father goo-gooing and ga-gaaing over a new baby as he watched the kid throw. Coach Pitt was so happy, he didn’t even yell at Powell for dropping two passes in a row.

  “The new kid? Are you kidding?” Jamie McGuire, another linebacker, answered Shane. “Can’t you tell by the guy’s arm? That’s Waymen Whitley. You know, all-state quarterback from Lexington.”

  Shane whistled. “Get out. Whalin’ Waymen Whitley? What’s he doing here?”

  As always, I stayed at the edge of the conversation. Unless I was asked a direct question, it was easier on everyone if I just watched and listened.

  “I heard his family just moved to Johnstown. Coach Donaldson must be thinking he just won the lottery.”

  That was an understatement. I’d read the newspapers too. They called this kid Whalin’ because of all the lickings he’d laid on opposing teams. Waymen had taken Lexington High to the state finals in his freshman year. Whatever he had learned in losing the championship game that year had sunk in and stayed, because in his sophomore and junior years, he had taken the team right back to the finals and won both times. All three years he had been voted the league’s Most Valuable Player. Sports Illustrated magazine had even featured him in a four-page article, predicting he could turn pro after only two years of college.

  Michael Shane nudged me with his big elbow. “Good news for you, hey Linden? Finally a quarterback who can get you into the end zone.”

  I nodded. But I had worries. We were just a bunch of small-town players. What would a star like Whalin’ Waymen Whitley think about us—especially about a receiver like me who could barely talk?

  Coach Donaldson noticed me on the sidelines. He waved me over.

  I guess I was about to find out.

  I had my helmet under my left arm as I trotted out to the center of the field.

  When I reached Coach Donaldson and the others, Waymen glanced over at me. He didn’t have a Hollywood kind of handsome face; his nose and chin were a little too big. But there was something in his eyes—a hunter’s stare—that made him seem larger than life. Or maybe my imagination was just playing games with me because of all I had read about him.

  “Waymen,” Coach Donaldson said, “meet Roy Linden. Roy, meet Waymen Whitley, our new quarterback.”

  Waymen grinned. The hunter’s stare disappeared as his eyes gave me a friendly twinkle. He stuck out a hand. I shook it. It felt big and rough with strong fingers. I found out later that he spent his summers working with bricklayers because his family didn’t have much money.

  “Roy Linden,” Waymen said, “good to meet you.”

  I nodded. He’d find out soon enough that I stuttered; I’ve never been in a hurry to make people wait for my slow replies, even with simple sentences.

  “Coach Donaldson says you’ve got great speed and good hands,” Waymen said. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  I smiled and nodded again, still silent. I hated my stutter. Here was one of the greatest quarterbacks in high school football, and I looked like a dummy.

  A few seconds later, Waymen just shrugged.

  Coach Donaldson coughed to break the awkward moment. “Linden,” Coach said, “run an out-pattern against Jones and Powell. I want to see if Whalin’—I mea
n, Waymen—can get you the ball against double coverage.”

  “Sure, Coach,” Waymen said. “You want us to line up?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.”

  As I put on my helmet, Waymen squeezed my shoulder. “Knock ‘em dead, sport. If you’re half as good as I hear, we’ve got no problems.”

  In my mind, I answered, Thanks. I know we’ll knock ‘em dead. But my mouth said nothing.

  Waymen frowned slightly as we walked to the thirty-yard line and seemed puzzled by why I was acting so rude.

  The four of us stood all alone on the field—me and Waymen against Powell and Jones—with the coaches and the rest of the team watching.

  “What kind of pattern you want to run?” Waymen asked me. He said it loud enough that Steve Powell overheard.

  “Shoot, Whalin’,” Powell said, grinning like he was eating stolen watermelon. “Last thing you want to do is ask Linden a question. We’ll be here all night w-w-w-aiting for th-th-the answer.”

  Part of me didn’t blame Powell. He was probably nervous around this star quarterback and wanted to make an impression by picking on me.

  “What do you mean?” Waymen asked.

  “I s-s-s-t-tut-t-ter,” I said. I tried to stand up straight and tall, like it was just a fact and I wasn’t ashamed of it. If Waymen was going to laugh at me, I wasn’t going to run from him like it hurt my feelings. I had done my best for years not to let people see my feelings get hurt.

  “Not only does he stutter,” Powell said, “but he’s a loner too. Doesn’t make friends with anyone.”

  Of course not. Friends meant having to talk. It was easier to stay in my own world, even if it was a little lonely.

  Waymen didn’t say anything to me. But the hunter’s stare was back in his eyes when he spoke again.

  “Here’s the deal,” he told Powell and Jones. “Linden’s going to score a touchdown against you two. This play. This throw. He doesn’t, and we owe you each a milk shake. He does, and you guys owe us.”

  Powell grinned, not noticing how cold and deadly Waymen’s voice had gotten. “Deal.”

  Powell high-fived Jones, and they lined up opposite us.

  Waymen stood close to me and spoke in a low voice. “Run an out-pattern, cut back. All you need is a half-step on them. At the hash mark, right side of the field on the other thirty-yard line, the ball will come in over your left shoulder. This’ll be as easy as rolling out of bed.”

  A fifty-yard pass? As easy as rolling out of bed?

  He banged the back of my helmet with his hand. “Ready?”

  I gave him a thumbs-up.

  It happened exactly as he had called it. He barked out a short signal, picked up the ball and shuffled his feet as he waited for me to break loose. Powell and Jones backpedaled a few yards. I ran out, cut back in at three-quarter speed and, just as they relaxed, put on the rocket burners and beelined at an angle toward the hash mark at the other thirty-yard line.

  As my front foot crossed the line, Waymen’s perfect spiral carried over my left shoulder and settled into my open hands. I let my speed carry me into the end zone, untouched.

  I trotted back toward the center of the field. Powell and Jones stood hunched over, breathing hard.

  I reached them about the same time as Waymen did.

  “I’m a vanilla man when it comes to milk shakes,” Waymen announced. “And I’m guessing you are too—right, Linden?”

  I nodded.

  Waymen looked at Powell. “I got two things to say,” Waymen said. “You can bring me and Linden our shakes at lunch tomorrow where everyone can see the payoff. That’s the first thing.”

  “And the other?” Powell asked.

  “Don’t bother Linden here about the way he talks again.”

  The hunter’s stare filled Waymen’s eyes. Enough so that Powell shrank back.

  “Believe me,” Waymen told him, “you don’t want to find out how angry I get when someone bothers a friend of mine.”

  chapter eight

  With permission from Mr. Engle, the biology and chemistry teacher, I was in the science lab at seven thirty the next morning. He set me up with the chemicals I needed, and then he went to the next room to grade some papers. If I needed him for anything, he was close by. But I was glad to have the lab to myself.

  The lab was so quiet I could hear the large clock ticking above the door. Classes wouldn’t start for a while yet, and the hallways were deserted except for the janitor and a couple of teachers.

  I was still in the good mood that had stayed with me long after practice had ended. In fact I fell asleep last night thinking about how it suddenly looked like the football season wouldn’t be a disaster. I woke up this morning looking forward to lunch and the milkshakes that Waymen and I earned from Powell and Jones.

  What a dream, I thought, Whalin’ Waymen Whitley throwing me touchdown passes all season. University scholarship, here I come.

  I also felt good about the fact that Waymen didn’t seem bothered by my stuttering.

  I was in such a good mood, I almost forgot how mad I was at the county health inspector for trying to make me believe nothing was wrong with the water from Gram’s property.

  Which, of course, was why I had gotten up so early to spend time in the science lab.

  I was armed with a college chemistry textbook and another set of water samples from Gram’s creek and pond. I was ready to do some experiments. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I couldn’t just let this whole thing drop.

  In front of me, in a stand on the table, were test tubes full of different acids. Not the kind of acids bad guys use in horror movies. But acids that mix with different chemicals and cause certain kinds of reactions.

  I planned to mix the acids with small samples of the water. If I was lucky, crystals would form. Then maybe I could figure out what was in the water. Even if I couldn’t get it exact, at least I’d have proof that there was something in the water.

  I set twenty test tubes up in a rack and half filled each with Gram’s water. Then I poured a different acid solution into each one. Nothing happened. But I wasn’t disappointed. Not yet. Sometimes it takes a while to see chemical reactions.

  While I waited, I wandered over to the shelves against the far wall. They were filled with jars of stuff for the biology classes. The biggest jars held preserved pigs’ hearts and cows’ eyeballs—the stuff girls hate to dissect and guys love to joke around with to prove they aren’t grossed out, even when they are. There was a complete snake skeleton and a monkey skull.

  Because I was in such a good mood, I picked up the monkey skull and held it in front of me—like I was the guy in Hamlet.

  “To be or not to be,” I said, starting the famous speech in my deepest richest voice. “That is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.”

  Not that I believe Sha kespea re is everything those literature people say he is. I think those kind of people love going on and on about Shakespeare because the rest of us don’t know much, and it makes those literature people feel smarter. But there are still some cool things worth learning.

  Like this part in Hamlet: The guy is wondering if life is worth living, if he should fight his troubles.

  “‘To die, to sleep, no more,’” I quoted, “‘and by sleep to say we end the heartache.’”

  At this point in the play, Hamlet was really messed up. There had been murder in his family, and he thought he liked this girl but was afraid to like her too much.

  “‘To die, to sleep,’ “ I repeated. “‘To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.’”

  I was really getting into it, enjoying how I could speak without stuttering.

  You see, I’ve learned some stuff about people who stutter. The guy who played Darth Vader, James Earl Jones, stutter
ed horribly when he was a kid. But something about saying someone else’s words helped him not stutter.

  Other people stutter when they speak, but not when they sing. And more often than not, people who stutter can talk perfectly when they’re talking to a chair or a table or anything but another person.

  It’s enough to drive a person nuts. Sure, it takes a hundred muscles to speak. But why can everyone else do it so easily and not me? Except when I was alone.

  “‘To grunt and sweat under a weary life,’ “ I said, gazing at the monkey skull just like Hamlet gazed at a human skull in the play. “‘But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from where no traveler returns, puzzles the will.’”

  I heard applause from behind me.

  I turned, and there she was. A girl I had never seen before.

  chapter nine

  I put the monkey skull down so quickly it toppled sideways and began to roll off the counter. I nearly tripped as I dived to catch it. Somehow I managed to miss banging my chin against the counter, and somehow the skull dropped safely into my hands.

  More applause.

  “Wow,” the girl said, “not only an actor, but an athlete too.”

  She was tall, close to my height. She wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt. Unlike a lot of girls at school, she hadn’t hidden her face behind pounds of makeup. Her long hair was straight and brown. Some people might have thought her nose was a little too strong and her chin not so delicate. But with all of her features put together, and with the deep brown of her eyes, she was beautiful. Not cute. Beautiful.

  I can hardly talk to people I know at the best of times. It’s even harder to talk to strangers. But speak to a beautiful stranger I had never seen before? My tongue and mouth and throat froze.

  I fumbled around as I set the monkey skull on the shelf where it belonged. I made sure it did not wobble or tip. Finally I turned back to her.

  Feeling like an idiot, I gave her a weak grin.

  “I didn’t mean to just barge in,” she said, “but I was walking down the hallway. It’s so quiet I could hear you rehearsing. I like that part of Hamlet too, so I couldn’t help myself. I had to stop and listen. Is that okay?”