M AX S WINGS FOR THE F ENCES
BY ANNE URSU
I t wasnât as if Maximilian Funk didnât know that things were going to go badly. After all, thereâs no good that can come out of being a new kid in school, especially when youâve just moved halfway across the country, especially especially in the middle of the year. Nothing says Give me a wedgie and hang me from the flagpole like waltzing into a new middle school in February at a time when there are no other new kids to hide behind.
He knew things were going to go badly. If he knew just how badly they were actually going to go, though, he would have faked some illness that would keep him out of school for the rest of the year. Like Ebola.
So Max slowly got ready for his first day at Willard Middle School, spending more time than anybody ever had trying to decide whether it would be better to wear a sweater and T-shirt or a sweater and button-down shirt. He just wanted to get it right. Max had spent his middle school life thus far working hard to be the sort of kid no one ever noticed, except perhaps to say âOh, I didnât see you there.â Because there were only two ways to get noticed in middle school, and Max was never going to be the kid who got noticed in a Good Way, like if he were a basketball stud or did something amazing like winning an ice creamâeating contest or solving one of Mrs. Bjorkâs extra credit word problems. So that left the Bad Way. Better not to be noticed at all.
When he got downstairs, his mom presented him with a Minnesota Twins cap, flashing him a huge I-know-I-ruined-your-life-but-I-bought-you-this-fabulous-hat-so-itâs-all-better-now smile. âNow youâll look like a native,â she proclaimed.
Max frowned. He did not wear baseball caps. Baseball caps only served to emphasize his ears. Which were already doing a fine job of emphasizing themselves.
âMom,â he said, not trying to keep the exasperation from his voice, âbaseball hats are for jocks. I canât stride in there pretending Iâm a jock.â Middle school kids could smell posers like a T. rex could smell a lame triceratops. It was a biological fact.
âYou are a jock!â
âI play tennis , Mom.â
âThatâs a sport!â
âTrust me. Itâs not the same thing.â
âCome on, honey. Donât be nervous. Everyoneâs going to love you.â
âItâs February, Mom. Nobody cares.â
âOf course they care!â she said. âYou have so much to offer them!â
Max tried to keep from rolling his eyes. Every mother thought her kid was extraordinary. By definition, at least 75 percent of them had to be kidding themselves.
âAnyway,â she added, putting the cap on his head, âthis townâs nuts about baseball. Just tell everyone at school youâre from Beau Fletcherâs hometown. Theyâll think youâre a celebrity!â
Max sighed. Beau Fletcher was the veteran All-Star third baseman for the Minnesota Twins, a two-time MVP, future Hall of Famer, and the greatest thing to come out of New Hartford, NY, ever. People in New Hartford said Beau Fletcherâs name with this dazed reverence, like heâd invented soup or something. It didnât matter whether he was a nice guy or anything. All that mattered was that he hit a jillion home runs. After Beau donated some money to help rebuild Roosevelt Highâs athletic fields, there was a movement to rename the school after him. After all, what had Franklin Delano Roosevelt done for them lately? In New Hartford, Beau Fletcher mattered so much that the universe needed to make people who didnât matter at all just to keep everything in balance.
People like Max.
And then it was time to go. Maxâs dread followed him to the car. It huddled its overgrown body into the backseat and kicked Maxâs seat the whole way to school. It lurked behind him as he went up the steps to the
Learning to Kill: Stories