A High Five for Glenn Burke Read online

  3

  THE WADE FAMILY

  I’m standing on my bed with my laptop resting on my hand when my bedroom door starts to open, and even before I see Mom’s face, I slam the laptop shut.

  “Silas, please tell me you weren’t someplace you weren’t supposed to be,” she says.

  “Oh, hi, Mom.” I give her a look that says I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It’s also a look that says I really wish she wouldn’t ask me that every time I close my laptop when she’s around. “Nice to see you, too,” I say. “Glad you’re home.”

  “Hello, Silas,” she says.

  I kick out my legs and drop to my bed. Then I bounce backward until I’m leaning against the wall behind my pillows and facing Mom in the doorway.

  “And how was your day, Mom?” I ask, still giving her a look.

  “It was a Monday,” she says, waving her phone.

  Ever since Mom left her job last year to open the Jump & Grind, the coffee shop and performance space she’s always wanted, her phone’s been permanently attached to her hand. She’s always reading or sending a text, talking to someone, leaving a voice memo, or adding another to-do item to a to-do list on the to-do app she never closes.

  “Silas, do we need to talk about your internet usage?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, do we?” I hold out the laptop. “Would you like to check my history?”

  “Your best friend builds robots and programs computers,” she says. “You know all about private browsers, going incognito, deleting your history, and doing whatever you need to do to hide where you’ve been the instant your father or I appear.”

  “I was on YouTube,” I say.

  “I’m still scarred by that zit-popping video you and your sister made me watch over the weekend,” she says, shaking her head and smiling.

  I smile, too. “Yeah, that was pretty nasty, especially when the guy—”

  “Stop,” she says. “I don’t need to relive it.”

  With her free hand, she presses the pushpins holding my Renegades schedule to the bulletin board hanging next to my door and then runs her fingers over the baseball stickers my younger sister Haley has stuck to the frame. Then she starts straightening the Houston Astros bobbleheads on the shelf above my dresser. They’re already perfectly straight because she straightened them last night—and the night before and the night before—when she came in to say good night.

  “This looks nothing like José Altuve,” Mom says, tapping the bobblehead on the end. She points to the next one. “And this looks nothing like Carlos Correa.”

  “And that looks nothing like George Springer,” I say, nodding to the next one. “And that looks nothing like Alex Bregman. You say the same thing every time you’re in my room.”

  “Not every,” she says. “Grace is taking you to practice tomorrow?” It’s more a statement than question.

  “Yes,” I say. Grace is Zoey’s older sister.

  “Be ready when she comes for you. And be sure to tell her thank you for me.”

  I strum my laptop. “Always am, always do.”

  Dad used to take me to baseball practice on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but his new boss won’t let him leave the office. Dad really wants to quit his job and find a new accounting firm or maybe even start his own—he’s a CPA—but he can’t because we get our health insurance through his work.

  “I don’t think I’m going to see you at all tomorrow,” Mom says, checking her phone. “I’m opening in the morning, and then by the time you get home from baseball tomorrow night, I’m going to be dead to the world.”

  I flip the hair off my face. “Sounds like a Tuesday to me.”

  “Sounds like any day that ends in day to me.”

  When Mom opened the Jump & Grind, her plan was to hire someone to run it for her, but she hasn’t been able to find anyone reliable, so she’s been working twelve-hour days, six and seven days a week since last August. Tuesdays are the worst, because in the afternoon, she has to get Haley to gymnastics and my other younger sister, Semaj, to physical therapy. Then she has to get back to the Jump & Grind to close and set up for tomorrow.

  “I do like this new woman I hired,” Mom says.

  “I’ve heard that one before,” I say.

  “I think this one’s different. She’s showing more initiative than the others. A lot more initiative.”

  I retie the drawstrings on my navy sweats. “We’ll see.”

  “That we will. You’re still going to Zoey’s on Wednesday?”

  “When do I not go to Zoey’s on Wednesdays?”

  “I’m just checking, Silas. The last thing I want is to show up at her house after working all day and find you’re not there.”

  “When have I not been there?”

  She walks over to my bed. “I need to go check on your father and sisters,” she says. “Do you need me to come back to tuck you in?”

  “I’m okay.” I strum my laptop again.

  She untwists the strap of my gray tank top undershirt and kisses the top of my head. Her hair smells like coffee. It always does. She always does. Mom’s like a human coffee-scented air freshener these days.

  “Please don’t stay up too late.” She motions to my laptop.

  “I won’t.”

  She starts for the door and stops. “Oh, Silas, we still haven’t talked about your project. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “It’s okay,” I say again.

  “No, it’s not okay.” She smacks her phone against her leg. “It’s really not.”

  “Sounds like someone needs a self-care day.”

  “You got that right,” she says. “I really … I can’t keep going like this.”

  “Then take a self-care day.”

  “If only it were that easy.”

  Mom’s big on self-care, and she’s always saying that when you take better care of yourself, you’re more productive, less stressed, and better at decision-making. But lately, she hasn’t exactly been taking her own advice.

  “You gave that presentation three days ago, Silas,” she says. “I want to hear about it. I really do. Let me finish getting everything organized for tomorrow, and as soon as I—”

  “Monster!” Semaj runs into my room. She’s dripping wet and completely naked. “Monster!” she shouts. “Monster!”

  I cover my laptop with my pillow because out-of-control and soaking wet four-year-olds don’t get near my Chromebook.

  “I’m going to get you!” Dad jumps into the doorway and flicks the light switch.

  “Must you, Gil?” Mom makes a face.

  “I’m going to get you!” he says, ignoring Mom. He shakes the Moana bath towel like a matador and charges in. “I’m going to—”

  Semaj screams, a painful, high-pitched, top-of-her-lungs screech. My hands shoot to my ears.

  “Semaj!” Mom shouts. “No!”

  Semaj keeps screeching.

  “Semaj!” Dad yells. He wraps her in the bath towel and holds her against his body. “Semaj! Semaj!”

  Finally, she stops.

  Semaj is a screamer. The first time it happened was over Christmas break at the Olive Garden, which was the last time we ate at a restaurant as a family. Then it happened at Kroger, and then it happened outside the Jump & Grind, and when it did, Mom cried. It won’t happen at baseball, because I’ve made them both promise not to bring her.

  Semaj is James spelled backward. (It’s pronounced SE as in second and MAJ as in majesty.) Semaj was supposed to be a boy—at least according to every sonogram—and my parents were going to name her James. But a few weeks before delivery, they found out she was going to be a girl, which was the same time they found out she was a breech baby, coming out feet first instead of headfirst. Since everything about the new baby was backward and unexpected, my parents decided to reverse the name they’d chosen.

  “Why do you encourage her like that, Gil?” Mom glares.

  “I wasn’t encouraging her, Erica,” he snaps.

  “You
weren’t exactly helping.”

  “I wasn’t exactly helping?” He’s still holding Semaj and trying to dry her off. “What do you think I’ve been doing since I got home?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Mom says.

  “She’s taken all her meds, her teeth are brushed, and I’ve given her the bath you ordered me to give her the second I walked in.” He shakes his head. “Cut me a break, Erica.”

  Mom turns and dips her head into the hall. “Enough with the cartwheels, Haley!” she shouts. “I don’t want to spend the night at urgent care.”

  Whenever my parents argue, Haley always starts doing backflips, handsprings, and cartwheels because she knows how much they hate it when she does gymnastics in the house and she thinks it will distract them.

  “How’s it going, Swade?” Dad finally greets me.

  “Fine.”

  “How was school?”

  “Good.”

  Swade is a combination of my first and last name, Silas Wade. Dad’s the only one who still calls me it, and I really wish he wouldn’t, but I know how much it means to him because he’s the one who gave me the nickname when I was little. Mom knows I can’t stand that he still calls me Swade, but she won’t say anything because she says it’s my place to tell him, not hers.

  “How’d that presentation of yours go today?” Dad asks, his arms still wrapped tightly around Semaj. “The one about the guy who invented the high five.”

  “It was Friday,” I say.

  “Friday? Oh, I thought it was … So how did it go?”

  Haley walks in before I can answer. She’s holding Semaj’s polka-dotted onesie pajamas and Croc and Ally, the book she reads to Semaj every night at bedtime. She hands the pajamas to Dad and then does a split on the floor by my workstation.

  “Look at us,” Dad says as he puts the onesie on Semaj. “The five of us together in one room. Who says we never spend quality time together anymore?”

  “Quality?” I say.

  “Well, no one’s yelling at the moment, right?” Dad smiles. He pats Semaj on her behind and taps Haley’s with his foot. “Let’s go, girls. Story time.”

  Haley springs to her feet and races out of my room.

  “G’night, Swade.” Dad picks up Semaj and holds out his hand for a high five.

  I tap it softly.

  “How are Semaj’s meds?” Mom looks up from her phone as Dad heads for the door. “Does she need any refills?”

  “Blue pills, blue pills,” Semaj answers.

  Mom kisses Semaj on the top of her head and smiles. “The blue pills?”

  “Blue pills, blue pills,” Semaj says again, and taps Mom’s head. “Beep, beep.”

  “Beep, beep.” Mom half smiles and taps Semaj’s head.

  “I’ll check to see how many are left after they’re in bed,” Dad says. “If I need to stop off before picking Swade up at practice tomorrow, I will.”

  “Please don’t forget,” she says.

  “I won’t forget.” He walks out.

  I can’t remember the last time I heard my parents have a conversation about something other than needing to pick something up, needing to pick someone up, Haley’s gymnastics, Semaj’s medication, my baseball, insurance companies, Dad’s boss, or the Jump & Grind.

  “You won’t stay up too late?” Mom says to me.

  “I won’t.”

  “I love you, Silas.”

  As soon as the door closes behind her, I flip the hair off my face and open my laptop.

  4

  ZOEY AND GRACE

  “You look hilarious, Silas,” Zoey says from the front seat.

  “So rad.” Grace glances at me in the rearview. “Man, I wish we could stick around to watch this.”

  I shake my cleats off my hands and strum the front console with my sock-covered fingers. “This is going to be nuts,” I say.

  Grace is driving me to baseball practice, but I’m not wearing my usual practice jersey and sweats. I’m wearing my Renegades uniform, but I have it on inside out, backward, and upside down—and by upside down, I mean I’m wearing my pants over my head and arms and my jersey on my legs.

  “You sure you can’t stay for a few minutes?” I say, bouncing in the middle of the back seat of the Kia.

  “Nah, man,” Grace says as she accelerates through a yellow light. “Gotta get to work.”

  “The Playhouse isn’t work,” I say.

  “Yo, I do love my job, but it is work.”

  Grace works at the local theater. She’s in charge of the sets and costumes for the shows, and in a few weeks, they’re putting on Bye Bye Birdie. My teacher Ms. Washington’s actually the one who got Grace interested in theater in the first place. When Grace went to Hughes, she had Ms. Washington for ELA, too, and in high school, Grace was the stage manager of all the shows Ms. Washington directed.

  “I’d stay to watch,” Zoey says, “but I need to get to the rec center for robotics.”

  “I know, I know,” I say. “Three weeks till the big tourney.”

  “The same weekend as Bye Bye Birdie,” Zoey says.

  Later in the month, Zoey’s robotics club is competing in this all-county middle school tournament. Even though she’s only in sixth grade and all the other kids are in seventh and eighth, Zoey’s the best one on her team.

  “I’m not going to wear this,” I say, stuffing the Ghostface mask into my baseball bag. “I can’t get it to stay.”

  “You don’t need it,” Zoey says. “I’m telling you, you look hilarious without it.”

  I take out my phone and peep myself in my camera. I really do look hilarious. My pants are on backward over my head and pulled down to below my shoulders so that the belt is around my chest. My head is up one of the pant legs so you can see the outline of my face in the fabric, and I’m able to see because I made tiny slits where my eyes are. I’m wearing my jersey backward over my legs so that my number three is upside down over my crotch, and the word RENEGADES is upside down over my butt. I wanted the Ghostface mask in the neck hole below my crotch, but no matter how far I stuffed it in, it kept falling out. And under my jersey, I have on a long-sleeve shirt that reaches all the way to my bare feet.

  “Glenn Burke always used to do stuff like this when he was on the Dodgers,” I say.

  “Who’s Glenn Burke?” Grace asks as we stop at a light.

  “The guy who invented the high five,” Zoey answers.

  Grace glances at me in the rearview again. “Someone invented the high five?”

  “Glenn Burke,” I say.

  “Silas did his presentation on him,” Zoey says. “He turned it into this whole performance. Ms. Washington ate it up.”

  “I bet she did,” Grace says.

  “Glenn Burke was an outfielder for the Dodgers in the 1970s,” Zoey says. “A five-tool talent.”

  “Just like me,” I say. I hoist myself up and motion with my sock-covered hands to the number over my crotch. “And he wore number three just like me.”

  “Dopeness,” Grace says.

  “But I don’t wear number three because of Glenn Burke,” I say. “I wear number three because Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez wore number three when he played for the Dodgers in The Sandlot.”

  “Which, according to Silas Wade,” Zoey says, double-dimple grinning, “is the greatest film ever made.”

  “Pow!” I say. “Did you know there’s a huge mistake in The Sandlot? In the opening scene, after Benny gets out of the pickle, Ham and Bertram—”

  “The pickle?” Grace says.

  “A rundown,” I say. “He gets in a pickle between third and home, and after he gets out of it, Ham and Bertram, and I’m pretty sure Smalls, give Benny high fives. So does either Timmy or Tommy Timmons—it’s hard to tell.” I strum the front console again. “Hello! That would’ve been impossible in 1962 because the high five wasn’t invented until 1977.”

  “Right on,” Grace says, changing lanes. “I love finding anachronisms in movies and shows.”

 
; “Anach-cro-say-what?” I ask.

  “Anachronisms,” she says. “Chronological errors. Like in the movie Back to the Future, in the scene where Marty McFly plays ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ the Gibson guitar he’s playing didn’t exist in 1955. Anachronisms.”

  “Glenn Burke loved doing imitations,” I say, laughing. “This one time, he stuffed pillows under his jersey and waddled around the dugout like Tommy Lasorda, the Dodgers manager.”

  “So he liked to goof around, he liked to imitate people, and he liked being the center of attention,” Grace says. “Yo, I’m beginning to understand this connection.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I say.

  “What do you mean?” Zoey asks.

  “Nothing, nothing,” I say quickly.

  I don’t know why I said that. Then again, I do know why I said it.

  “Um, thanks for taking me today,” I say to Grace as she turns in to Field of Dreams, the sports complex where we have all our practices and games.

  “Yo, you never have to thank me for driving you,” Grace says. “You know that.”

  “Erica says I do,” I say.

  “She knows you don’t either.”

  “Dolores appreciates that you say thank you,” Zoey says. Dolores is Grace and Zoey’s mom. “She knows you always—”

  “Is she shooting any parties this week?” I ask.

  “Every weekend from now till the end of June,” Grace answers. “Wedding season has begun.”

  Dolores is a photographer. She shoots all kinds of parties and events—weddings, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras, graduations, anniversaries, sweet sixteens. She also has her own studio.

  “Instead of letting me out in the usual spot,” I say as Grace pulls into the drop-off circle, “can you leave me over there by the batting cages?” I motion with my socked hand. “I don’t want anyone to see me yet.”

  “Right on,” Grace says.

  “You need help getting out?” Zoey asks as we pull up to the curb.

  “I think I’m good.” I grab my cleats off the floor, loop my arm through my bag, and open the door. Then I slide out and hip-check the door closed. “This is going to be nuts!”