Stupid Fast - By Geoff Herbach Page 0,22

when we were little. Can you catch a football, you think?”

“I can catch pretty well,” I said. Then I said something dumb. It just popped out. “Are we big now?” I immediately wanted to take it back, but Cody didn’t respond like a jerk.

“You are,” he said. “You seem big. Bigger than me, I think. We’ll find out because Coach is going to measure you and take your weight this morning.”

“It’s possible I’m big,” I said, nodding, thinking. Even with all the growing and eating and hair growing I’d done over the months, it hadn’t exactly dawned on me that I might be “big.” I mean, I knew I was bigger because my clothes didn’t cover my body. But actually big? I’d always been small or at best average, and I’d always felt tiny.

We drove through town high off the road, and I felt big.

At school, we walked along the west side on a sidewalk I’ve never been on before to a side entrance I didn’t know existed. From there, we climbed up a back stairs to a loft overlooking the gym. (I’d noticed this place before from the gym floor but had never been in it.) This was the weight room.

I almost folded right then and there.

I can’t even begin to say how bad it smelled. Oh, to smell that terrible smell. I’ve never in my life smelled anything so terrible, not even when we visited the Milwaukee Zoo and all the monkeys in the monkey house took dumps within like thirty seconds and then started flinging it around on each other, which got the poop smell thick in the air, which means we were getting monkey poop particles in our mouths and noses. I mean, that was totally gross, but this jock-o weight smell was even smellier. (I couldn’t even tell what kind of particles I was getting in my nose and mouth, like nut sack particles? Yeeeeeek.) The smell burned my eyes. But I knew I would have to power through it. No folding. I couldn’t gag, although I wanted to. I couldn’t turn around and run back down the steps. Where would I go? Over to Peter Yang’s fish-smelling house to hang out with his sisters and his mom?

Everywhere I looked, pee-smelling honky jocks and poop-stinking farmer boys, who are football players, sweated like crazy and screamed and pushed all kinds of weight up on bars.

“Gaaaaahhhh!”

“Push it! Push it!”

I’ve known every one of these people for as long as I can remember but haven’t talked to any directly in several years and had no idea that they spent any of their time doing this weird thing, pushing weight up on bars, while sweating animal smells and screaming “Gaaaaaahhhhh!” I stood there blinking. Cody said, “Smells terrible up here, doesn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“Let’s find Coach.”

Coach Johnson wasn’t in the weight room. We ended up downstairs in the coaches’ office in the locker room. And, oh, shit, his son, that jerk Ken Johnson, was in the office with him. Ken crossed his arms and curled his lip when Cody and I walked in. I thought about Aleah Jennings pounding on piano keys. I smiled at him big and fake, which made my heart pump. Take that, honky!

His dad, the large-assed Coach Johnson, was happy to see me though. He said as much.

“Reinstein, I’m sure happy to see you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re the missing link, we believe.”

“What?”

“You’re a weapon. Potentially. A big gun.”

“Big gun,” I said.

“Frederick, you’re showing great leadership for this team. Thanks for bringing Reinstein in.”

“Yes, sir,” Cody said.

“Reinstein. First things first. Pull off your shoes and socks. Let’s get your measurements.”

I did what he said and then stood against a wall with a bunch of numbers on it.

“Yes, sir, just about what I figured,” Coach Johnson said. “Six feet, one and one-quarter inches.”

“What?” I shook my head. “Say that again?”

“Six feet, one and one-quarter inches,” Coach Johnson repeated.

“I’m six-one?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. “Are you kidding me?”

“That’s right,” Coach Johnson said. “You’re an inch taller than Kennedy right now.”

“Who?”

“Ken Johnson? My son? You ever hear of him? Ha ha ha.”

“Yeah. Hah,” I said. Ken glared at me. I smiled back, heart pounding. This time, my heart wasn’t pounding because of conflict with Ken Johnson though. This time, it was pounding from non-squirrel-nut adrenaline. I had no idea I’d gotten so tall.

“Get on the scale, son.”

I walked over and got on the scale. Coach Johnson kept moving things around, weight things, to put the scale in balance.