The rest of the Cub Scout meeting was a blur. I couldn't tell you a thing that happened. I don't think anybody could. Eventually Halberg realized we were a broken bunch and let us leave early. We filed out of the school and into the night, numb to the world, each of us finding his own small section of the sidewalk to whimper on in private.

I sat down on the curb and waited for my dad's headlights to make their way up the circular driveway. The air somehow felt colder than usual. There was no socializing tonight, no snowball throwing as we waited for our parents, no ice sliding, no loogie spitting. Troop 101 was in mourning. The Gruseckis sat at the bottom of the jungle gym tearing pages out of their encyclopedias and tossing them into the wind. They went as far as to try to hide the books in the snow when their mom pulled up, but she made them take them home anyway. It was a cruel world.

My dad finally sped up the circle, and I trudged over to the front door and got in.

"What's with you?"

"Nothing."

I sat there fiddling with my yellow handkerchief. The Chicago Blackhawks were playing on the radio. Not even the witty on-air banter of my favorite announcers, Pat Foley and Dale Tallon, were going to cheer me up. And why should they? I was born a Hawks fan, and as such, I was born to lose. Winters with the Hawks, summers with the Cubs, and all of it without a Nintendo. It was a painful existence.

"Hey Dad, did you ever have a Christmas where you didn't get what you wanted?"

"Just a sec, just a sec." He turned up the game. The boys had been on a tear lately, and the old man was in the thick of it. Chicago Stadium was buzzing from the ice to the rafters. Pat Foley's voice danced over the airwaves.

"A minute left in the power play. Larmer down the near side, back to Savard, over to Wilson, back to Savard..."

"Come on, come on..."

"Back to the point, cross-ice pass to Larmer, fakes the shot, over to Savard, spinarama—he shoots—he SCORES! Denny Savard!"

"Alright!" The old man banged on the wheel. "Ha-ha! Dipsy-do to you, Lemieux! Would have been nice to catch that one on TV, Wirtz. You putz!"

Every man has his nemesis. My father's was "Dollar Bill" Wirtz, the twisted, money hungry owner of the Chicago Blackhawks. A man so evil that he refused to televise home games in the hopes that it would somehow increase ticket sales. My dad was not so much a Hawks fan as he was a Wirtz enemy. A fact that the pile of smashed-up radios in our garage could attest to.

"You can't run an organization like this, you fathead! Ha-ha!"

"And Claude Lemieux did not like that goal one bit, partner. He gave Savard a shot right in the back and is still jawing at him."

"Quit your whining, Claude, you Sally!"

My dad also hated the decidedly French Canadian winger/wuss, Claude Lemieux.

"You're all talk, no walk, Lemieux. You hear what I'm saying, Jake?"

"Uh-huh."

"Always remember, a big talker like Lemieux isn't worth a hill of beans. All talk, no walk, worst combination a man can have. Now... what do you know about Cabbage Patch dolls?"

Um... what? I stared at him blankly.

"Cabbage Patch dolls. What do you know about them?"

"I don't want a Cabbage Patch doll, Dad."

"Yeah, I know, Jake, but you're a kid, you know what they look like, right?"

"I guess."

"Good."

What was going on here? I looked out the window. We weren't on the way home. In fact, we were fast approaching Kirk Road, headed toward neighboring Aurora, the future home of Wayne's World and current home to rampant gang-related violence, as seen on the nightly news. Aurora was like that creepy neighbor's yard you never went into, not even if your baseball was lying just over the fence in plain view. It was too dangerous. Josh Farmer said he saw a guy get stabbed in the knee in Aurora once. I was scared of the place.

"Where are we going?"

"To see a guy."

"About what?"

"Cabbage Patch dolls."

"A guy about Cabbage Patch dolls? Dad, I don't wanna—"

"For crying out loud, it's not for you, it's for Lizzy. I need your help. Do you know how hard it is to find one of them at this time of year? Especially one with red hair and freckles?"

"What about Santa?"

My dad struggled with that one a bit.

I'd been well aware of the relationship my parents had with the big man. They had final say over Santa on any gift choices, which is why I was out of luck with a Nintendo, but I couldn't imagine my father having concerns of a doll making you fat.

"Even Santa's having a hard time with Cabbage Patch dolls this year, Jake."

Outside, the houses and picket fences had turned to deserted buildings and dark alleys. Even the Fox River looked scary here in downtown Aurora. My dad turned a few shady corners and pulled to a stop outside of an old factory.

"Alright. This is it. Stay close and let me do the talking."

We got out of the minivan and stood there waiting, for what, I wasn't sure. My dad split a stick of Wrigley's between us, trying his best to look like he knew what he was doing. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, John Doyle was not about to have his street cred tarnished by suburban Aurora, even if his reason for being here was, in fact, to purchase a doll for a five-year-old girl.

After what felt like an eternity, a man walked out from the shadows across the street. He wore a Members Only jacket and tight leather pants. I specifically remember the leather pants because they looked like they would be extremely uncomfortable when it dropped below freezing outside. And it was definitely below freezing right now.

Leather Pants walked up to my dad cautiously—and stiffly because of the pants. As he got closer he outstretched his arms, as though he was about to be cuffed and taken to jail on the spot.

"Alright, alright, officer, what is it this time?"

My dad looked him over. "I'm not a cop."

"You know, if you're a cop, you gotta tell me, right? That's the law."

"Look, pal, I'm not a cop, alright? I got this address from—"

"What about the kid?"

"The kid?" My father was not amused. "Yeah, that's it. The kid's a cop. I got a whole team of 'em down at the station. Ponies and puppy dogs too, undercover ones."

"Alright, alright, just playing it safe, is all, no need to get testy. So, whaddya want?"

My dad tugged at his collar and took a quick look around. He leaned in. "Word is, you've come into a little cabbage."

The man lit a cigarette and smiled. "Step into my office, gentlemen."

He brought us around to a side street and down an adjacent alley to his parked '79 Cutlass. Now, I'd never been down an alley before, so this was very exciting to me. I kept a lookout for Oscar the Grouch and stray cats eating fish bones, but none of them materialized. When we got to his car, he got down to business.

"You got cash on you, right?"

South Side Johnny Doyle was way ahead of him. "Let's see the stuff first."

Leather Pants walked us around to the back of the car.

"I'm gonna need a girl with freckles, you know. Or no deal."

"Not a problem." The man took out his keys and popped the trunk. "Best patch in the Tri-Cities." He pulled off a tarp, revealing what must have been two dozen Cabbage Patch dolls. They were lying neatly in two rows, covered in blankets, with only their heads poking out—almost as if they'd all been tucked into bed for the night in the trunk of the car. It was a little unsettling, actually.

The old man gave me a look. Were these authentic? I leaned in a bit closer and gave them the once over. Real Cabbage Patch Kids, as I'd been told by Lizzy time and time again, could be easily identified by their nose and their smell. Their noses were quite intricate, as these were, and they smelled remarkably like a newborn baby. I took a whiff. Yep, these were the real McCoy. I gave my dad a nod.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, Dad. But there aren't any freckles on the redhead."

"No," said Leather Pants. "The freckles are on the blonde over there."

"It's gotta be on a redhead, though."

"You got a thing for redheads, kid?"

You got a thing for size-three Walter Paytons up your nose?

"The doll's not for him, it's for his sister."

"Well, I ain't got a redhead with freckles. Not right now, anyway."

"Listen, Mac, I need a redhead with freckles or we don't have a deal."

"Well, this ain't a make-your-own-pizza-pie here, pal. This is all I got."

My dad stood his ground. Leather Pants adjusted his leather pants and tried another route. "Okay, look, I had this lady once, few weeks ago, she was lookin' for a black-haired, green-eyed bit. All I got is a blonde with green eyes. She says she'll just dye the doll's hair... badda-bing, badda-bip-bip-boop, she's got a black-haired, green-eyed Cabbage Patch. Eh?"

"That worked?"

"Like a charm."

"How much?"

"A hundred."

"A hundred!"

"Where else you gonna find one, man? This close to Christmas? Every store from St. Charles to Schaumburg's out of 'em."

"I'm not paying a hundred dollars for a doll, and that's final. Sixty bucks, maybe."

"Ninety."

"Seventy bucks, and that's as high as I go. I got the name of three Mexican brothers at the train station in West Chicago selling for sixty, and I'll go there right now if I have to."

"The Diaz brothers? You don't want their baldheaded junk anyway. Seventy-five dollars, and that's my final offer."

The old man quivered and rubbed his chin. "Fine. Seventy-five. Maybe you can buy yourself a real pair of pants."

Nice one, Dad.

The old man pulled out the money from his pocket and lifted the doll from under the blanket, only to uncover a shocking revelation.

"What the—?" To our surprise, the Cabbage Patch Kid had no clothes on. None whatsoever. My dad put a hand over my eyes, shielding me from the indecency. "What the hell is this?"

"What?"

"Whaddya mean, what? Where the hell are her clothes?"

"Hey man, you didn't say nothin' about no clothes, clothes are extra, you gotta go see Victor down on Route 31 for clothes."

"Jiminy Cricket! I can't give my daughter a naked doll, for crying out loud! My wife will kill me!"

"I don't do clothes, man. It just complicates things. 'I want this dress, I want that dress. I want a stinking space suit.' No, you want the doll, you get the doll. That's it."

"This is bullshit!"

Yeah. Bullshit.

"What do you want me to do? I ain't got no clothes."

"Sixty bucks, then, or I walk."

"We'll make it seventy. Final offer. Look, I can see how much your boy wants the doll."

"It's not for me! Dad, this is stupid!"

"It's okay, Jake. Sixty dollars. That's all you're gonna get. Yes or no?"

Leather Pants wavered for a moment, then grabbed the money. "Deal."

My dad stuffed the doll in his coat, grabbed me by the shoulders and walked me out of the alley. A small smile made its way onto his face. "Down from a hundred bucks to sixty. You see that, Jake?"

"What about her clothes and her hair?"

"We'll get it all straightened out. Don't you worry. Just keep this whole thing a secret, alright?"

"Alright."

"Your sister's gonna love it."

Of course she would. Like always, Lizzy was going to get exactly what she wanted for Christmas, while I was probably going to get nothing but books and clothes. Somewhere off in the cold distance, a Christmas concerto could be heard. Compliments of Lizzy Doyle, once again playing the parental unit like a fiddle.


Timmy Kleen may have been a spaz and an asshole, but he was no dummy. He was the only Cub Scout in the cafeteria who smiled when Halberg pulled the sheet back on those encyclopedias. Because that meant his Nintendo had become twice as valuable. This deep into December, there was no way any of us could get our own Nintendos before Christmas now. It was an impossibility, a pipe dream, one that Kleen knew he could capitalize on big time.

The following Saturday morning, the line to get into Kleen's house was no longer a line. It was a mob. Half the school had descended onto his front yard like a swarm of locusts, pushing and shoving and generally trading unpleasantries. Not only did Kleen still have the only Nintendo in town, but word was that he had just gotten the Power Glove as an early Christmas present. This was very big news.

We'd been reading about the Power Glove in Nintendo Power magazine for months, staring at pictures, drooling over the technology. Its engineering was revolutionary. It was as though the future had decided to grace the Nintendo Corporation with a gift: a glove that you wore on your hand that allowed you to control the game with a flick of your wrist. The thing made Luke Skywalker's metal hand-replacement look like a Tinkertoy. As far as we were concerned, it was the missing link to humans finally becoming man-robots. And there wasn't a boy among us who wouldn't run over his own family to become a man-robot. That went without saying.

Farmer tapped me on the shoulder. "I heard the Power Glove has a suction cup thing that sticks right into your brain."

"Does not."

"Does too. It makes moves for you before you even think of them. My uncle works for Nintendo."

Of course Josh Farmer's uncle worked for Nintendo. Of course he did.

"Stop talking, Farmer, would ya?"

I was pinned up against the bottom of the porch steps, between a few second graders, trying to figure out what I would offer Kleen as payment to get inside. With the addition of the Power Glove, free admission into his Nintendo lair had gone out the window. You had to pay to play from now on. "One Micro Machine or higher," as he put it. That meant that unless you had at least one Micro Machine to pony up you weren't getting in. I was not a Micro Machine guy myself, so I could only guess at its toy equivalent. I came armed with a couple of M.U.S.C.L.E. Men (small plastic figures of bizarre character) and a shitty paddleball thing I got from my aunt after she went to Mexico. It said something in Spanish on it, I think.

"Hey kid!"

I looked up to see Kurt Marshall skidding up on his bike. His sack of Kane County Chronicle newspapers was slung across his shoulders. Kurt was thirteen, with a real job—practically an adult. He had real-world responsibilities and a serious social obligation not to be seen with a bunch of third graders, but it appeared that even he wanted in on this Power Glove action. "How many people do you think this kid's gonna let in today?"

"I dunno, gotta be more than ten this time. Gotta be. What about your papers? Don't you have to deliver them, still?"

"You kidding me? Getting fired's worth it if I get a look at this glove."

The door opened and the crowd forced its way forward. Kleen stepped out onto the porch, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his bathrobe. We all stopped pushing, and a few kids actually kind of bowed down before him. This was getting ridiculous.

"Good morning, children of Batavia!" I'm not kidding, this was seriously how he talked. "I suspect that many of you have heard a rumor regarding an early Christmas present..."

You could hear a gumball drop. We leaned forward. Yes? Yes? Did he really have a Power Glove? Was he going to let us use it?

"I'm here to tell you... that rumor is true!"

Kleen pulled his right hand from his bathrobe pocket and thrust a clenched fist high into the air. It was the Power Glove, alright. My God, it was even more beautiful in person. Its metallic plastic sparkled in the morning sun. Zilinski shrieked with delight. It was practically a religious experience.

The offers immediately began pouring in.

"Over here, Kleen! Lemme in! I got a Madball for ya!"

"I got a brand-new Cobra Commander!"

"Three Ewoks!

"Take my little brother!"

"I brought my fish!"

Evan Olsen held up his pet goldfish, Rick Sutcliffe, in a Ziplock bag. I couldn't believe it. He loved that fish. Everyone pushed and shoved as Kleen, one by one, had a look at what we had to offer. My paddleball thing and M.U.S.C.L.E. Men didn't seem very promising anymore.

"You there." Kleen pointed his Power Glove at Jeff Hartwell. "What do you got?"

"I got a five-dollar bill from my First Communion."

"Get inside."

Hartwell slapped down the fiver and scurried through the door. The bar had been set. Five bucks. The Grusecki twins got in next with a silver Zippo lighter they'd stolen from their older brother. It had a picture of a naked lady on it, supposedly, but they wouldn't let anyone else see it.

Kurt Marshall ditched his bike and pushed to the front of the line. He'd had enough waiting around.

"Alright, kid, let me inside. I got papers to deliver."

"What did you bring me?"

"Just let me inside. I'm in eighth grade. I want to try this thing out."

"I said, what did you bring me?"

"Yeah," said Mahoney, inching forward. "What did you bring him?"

"Listen, little man—"

"No, you listen to us," said Zilinski, pulling off his mittens. "We got rules here."

"Yeah," yelled Evan Olsen, shaking his fish. "Rules."

Jesus, even Evan Olsen was taking a stand.

"I'm thirteen, you dork, what the—"

*WHACK.* A snowball hit the back of his head.

"Who threw that? Which one of you babies threw that snowball? Which one of you is gonna get—"

*WHACK. WHACK.* The crowd moved in closer. He was surrounded.

"Hey! I'm older than all of you!"

*WHACK. WHACK.*

"Lemme inside to see the—ouch—hey. Hey!"

"Get him!"

"Kick him in the groin!"

"Punch his face!"

"Grab his hat!"

"RHAAAAH!"

Before Kurt Marshall knew what was happening, a bunch of nine-year-olds were seriously kicking his ass. His bike got tossed in a bush and his papers were thrown up and down Cypress Avenue. Not even an eighth grader with a job was going to scare us away from our Nintendo. I karate-chopped the back of his thigh with my paddleball thing as he ran away. Mahoney took note.

"What is that thing?"

"It's a paddleball thing from Mexico."

"It looks like my butt."

"Yeah... I know."

"I don't think you're gonna get inside today, Jake."

Mahoney was right. Kleen took one look at my Mexican paddleball thing and didn't even bother with the M.U.S.C.L.E. Men.

"Next."

It took a good five minutes for Kleen to weed out the best loot in the yard, but eventually he found the ten toys he liked most. Mahoney and Olsen were the last two to get in, on the strength of their Hulk Hogan sweatband and pet fish, respectively, and I was stuck sitting out in the cold. I hadn't missed the cut like this in months. A handful of other rejects hung around for a few minutes just in case something went wrong inside, but after a while they all went home too.

I sat down on Kleen's porch and pulled a piece of Trident out of the pouch of my Walter Paytons. At least I could honestly tell my dad I'd spent the morning outside for a change. That would make him happy. I watched my breath in the cold for a bit and pulled up my collar.

I was a little worried that Kurt Marshall might come back and pummel me, but I knew that if I stayed out there long enough I might have a shot at getting back inside. Hartwell always had to go home at noon for lunch. Kleen didn't break until one, so that gave me almost an hour downstairs, and depending on where Hartwell had ended up in the rotation, possibly even a quick game of Double Dribble. The slam-dunk graphics alone were worth the wait.

I looked into Kleen's house for any signs of life. I'd heard rumors that his sister would walk around in her underwear from time to time, but I didn't see anything. There used to be two foundation windows with a view into the basement, but too many kids were jumping down into the window wells to watch us play, so Kleen had to board them up with cardboard. Now you couldn't see anything.

I glanced over to their family room. Through the bay window you could see their Christmas tree set up next to the fireplace. It was one of those fake ones, the white kind that looked plastic. I never understood that. Why were rich people so intent on buying fake trees? Wouldn't they want the real ones? Shouldn't it work the way it did with everything else? Like with cologne or sunglasses? You didn't see Donald Trump buying fake Ray-Bans from Wal-Mart. I, for one, was glad it was the other way around with Christmas trees. The real ones went to the working class.

My family always got a real tree. My father wouldn't have it any other way. A plastic Christmas tree to him was an abomination. Both he and my mom took the tree-purchasing process pretty seriously, actually, albeit for decidedly different reasons. My dad's goal was to buy the biggest tree on the lot every year, while my mom's goal was to find the cheapest Christmas tree in the history of Christmas. It was a conflict that caused all kinds of holiday cheer for the Doyle family. The whole procedure, from purchase to decoration, somehow managed to turn John and Patty Doyle, two normally loving and rational people, into a heated, bickering, Midwest version of George's parents on Seinfeld. It usually went something like this: MOM: Hey John, what about that one over there? It's only ten dollars.

DAD: It's brown.

MOM: It just needs a little water.

DAD: It's a dead tree, Patty. That's why it's ten dollars.

MOM: Oh, right, 'cause we're made of money, I forgot.

DAD: So I'm the bad guy here? God forbid I want the kids to have a nice Christmas, God forbid.

MOM: Don't yell at me.

DAD: I'm not yelling!

MOM: Well, we're not getting the fifty-foot one you want, or whatever. It won't even fit in the door. Are you crazy?

DAD: Yes, I'm crazy. I'm an insane person. Nuts, actually.

MOM: Fine. Get whatever tree you want.

DAD: And get that guilt trip? You sound just like your mother. You know that?

MOM: I'm waiting in the car.

DAD: Fine.

MOM: Fine!

DAD: Fine! Jake!

ME: Yeah?

DAD: Help me pick out a medium-sized, cheap-ass tree that no one wants.

But this year's trip to the tree lot had been a little different. For the first time in Doyle family history, my parents had found a compromise: a colossal seven-foot Douglas fir selling for half-price. It was missing about a hundred branches on one side, but because it was so big and so cheap, neither of them seemed to care. When my sister quite earnestly pointed out that the giant hole in the back would probably have to face the living room window and anyone passing by could easily see it, they both told her to shut up. It was the only thing they'd agree on for the rest of the day.

Unlike my sister, I knew better than to get involved. It was far better to stand back and watch, a lot funnier that way too. Most kids would probably find it troubling when their parents fought, but for some reason, at least when it involved Christmas trees, I found it hilarious.

"You gotta cut it at an angle, kid!" my dad yelled, hovering over the anemic Boy Scout who was using a chainsaw to slice off a fresh layer on the trunk. We were in the parking lot next to Batavia Junior High, where the local Boy Scout troop sold trees every year. It was one of the main reasons I would eventually quit the Cub Scouts. I didn't ever want to move up to selling trees. Wreaths were bad enough.

"If he cuts it at an angle it won't stand up straight," yelled my mom over the noise.

"A slight angle, a slight angle, to help take in the water."

"That doesn't make any sense, John."

"You cut it straight on, it doesn't suck up the water because it—oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand. Gimme the saw, kid, you're doing it wrong."

A handful of curse words and a few hundred scratches to the roof of the car later, we were jamming the small forest through our front door, scattering a bed of needles throughout the house that would last until Easter.

"Lift it! Lift it!"

"I'm lifting!"

"You're not lifting, you're pushing. There's a big difference, Patty."

"This tree's too big. I can't grab it!"

"You can't grab it because there's a giant hole back there! Not because it's too big!"

Getting the tree straight on its stand was also quite the ordeal. My dad would scrunch down under the base of it and fidget with the rusted screws as the three of us kept it from falling over. It was like being in one of those silent Charlie Chaplin movies where everything runs at double time and nothing works the way it's supposed to.

"How's it look?"

"It looks okay to me."

"Lizzy?"

Lizzy was buried inside the branches, holding on for dear life. "I can't see."

"Hold it up."

"I'm holding it up!"

"It's wobbling all over the place!"

"Just screw it in, Dad!" I yelled, with sap in my mouth.

"Is it straight or not, Patty? I don't want to get back up there and see that it's crooked again."

"The only reason it would be crooked is because you cut it at an angle."

"No, the only reason it would be crooked is because you won't let me buy a new G-dang tree stand!"

"That tree stand is perfectly fine!"

"This tree stand is a hundred and fifty years old!"

I caught a smirk from my sister through the branches. She was catching on. See? This whole thing was hilarious...

I smiled slightly to myself, catching my reflection in Kleen's bay window. I'd been outside for well over an hour, and I was finally starting to get cold. Why did my dad think staying outside was so much fun? This was ridiculous. But just as I was about to grab my bike and hightail it back home, I heard a noise. It sounded like shouting. It was coming from inside. I could barely turn around before— CREAK-BANG! The door shot open and ten kids tumbled out onto the porch. They looked like they'd seen a ghost.

"Hey. Hey! Where're you going?"

No response whatsoever. A few of them hopped on their bikes, some just took off running. No one bothered to zip up coats or put on hats or anything. Olsen wasn't even wearing his shoes. It was like a fire drill, except for real. Within seconds, all ten boys who had worked so hard to get inside were nowhere to be seen. Poof. Gone. Just like that.

I sat there for a moment thinking about what to do. Clearly, something had gone wrong inside, perhaps something dangerous. But there was still a Nintendo and a Power Glove downstairs. So downstairs I went.

"Hey Kleen? Kleen? I took off my shoes! I'm coming in!"

I called out again as I made my way down the steps. I could see a light flickering in the basement, so I knew he had to be down there. Maybe he just told everyone to beat it. Maybe his dad came home. Maybe there were free pop refills today at Burger King and I didn't know about it. Maybe that's why everyone left. Yeah, that's it. Heh, heh, you can have your free pop refills, fellas, I'm getting me some free Power Glove. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for sticking around, actually. But as I rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs I knew I was in way over my head.

It was only when I saw her lying there that I realized how odd it had been that Lacey Dog wasn't at the door to bark incessantly when I walked in. She hadn't been on the stairs to nip my heels or hump my leg either. And the reason she hadn't been on the stairs or at the door was because she was currently lying under the weight of a fallen three-hundred-pound, forty-two-inch television set.

"Holy shi..."

Shih Tzu is right. The TV had fallen forward on top of her. The dog's hind legs were sticking out, Wizard of Oz –style, like the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy's house. There was no movement whatsoever. Ding-dong, the dog was dead.

"Holy shi..."

I looked over to see Kleen cowering in the corner, biting the fingers of his Power Glove.

A bad report card, swallowed marble, broken stained-glass window—they were a Show Biz Pizza party compared to this. There was glass shattered all over the carpet, There was even a little blood trickling out from under the TV.

Kleen looked up at me, scared out of his tree, desperate for help, something, anything. I stood there for a second frantically trying to think of what to do. All I got out was: "Trrroubbble..."

With that, my kid instincts kicked into gear and I came to my senses. I sprinted right back up the stairs and right out the front door, barely remembering to grab my KangaRoos on the way out. When it came to danger of this magnitude it was always best to run. Always. The ten kids inside earlier knew it as well as I did. I hopped on my bike and pedaled madly away to safety.

About five blocks down the street, I ran into Zilinski, who was still running at a competitive jog. His shoes weren't even tied.

"Zilinski! Zilinski! Slow down."

He stopped for a second and caught his breath.

"Your bike's back at Kleen's, dipstick."

"Oh. Oh yeah. I guess I forgot it."

"What happened back there?"

"The dog. I think it's dead."

"It's definitely dead. What happened?"

"Whaddya think happened?"

"Kleen?"

"Yep."

"Did he go crazy?"

"Yep."

"On what game?"

Zilinski sat down on the curb, still nervously scanning the area.

"It was Kung-Fu."

"Oh no..."

I knew right away what he meant. For years Timmy Kleen had lived under the fantasy that he was, in fact, a kung-fu master, both in video game form and in real life. He was the only kid we knew who was rich enough to get real karate lessons, and because of this, when agitated, he would often threaten, using vague generalizations, to employ his mysterious powers of Tae Kwon Do. A recess incident usually went something like this: "Don't touch me, I know Tae Kwon Do!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Let's see it then."

"I'm not gonna show you. It's not worth it."

"Oh yeah?" said Hartwell, pushing him in the chest.

"Don't push me."

*PUSH. PUSH. PUSH.*

"I said don't push me!"

Under normal circumstances, a kid who took karate lessons would earn himself some instant street cred on the playground, but in Timmy Kleen's case it mostly just made us yell, "GO, KLEEN, GO! TAE KWON DO!" over and over again until we got him mad enough to spaz out.

It usually took about thirty seconds.

"GO, KLEEN, GO! TAE KWON DO!"

"Shut up!"

"GO, KLEEN, GO! TAE KWON DO!"

"Don't make me use my powers!"

"GO, KLEEN, GO!" The whole playground was chanting now. "TAE KWON—"

"ARGHHHHGHH!"

With that, Kleen would begin chopping and kicking the air wildly, spinning and dodging imaginary assailants as he chased after whoever was antagonizing him. The more he chopped and kicked, the louder we laughed and chanted. More often than not, the "fight" would end with him lying on the ground in a heap from exhaustion, without having landed any punches at all. Unfortunately for Lacey Dog, it didn't look like it had gone as peacefully in the basement.

Zilinski continued the story.

"So, Kleen's on the third-to-last level of Kung-Fu. The last guys."

"The midgets?"

"No, those elves with the knives."

"I thought they were midgets."

"They aren't midgets, alright, they're kung-fu elves. It says so in the booklet. Anyway, he's on the third-to-last level, standing up, he's wearing his yellow belt on his head, going crazy, yelling at the screen. Lacey Dog is barking all over the place..."

"STUPID MIDGETS! WHY WON'T YOU DIE!? DIEEEEEE!"

The other ten kids in the room sat on the couch, waiting for the game to end, carefully passing the naked-lady lighter between them.

"You gotta kick the midgets quicker," Mahoney advised.

"They're not midgets, they're elves," corrected Zilinski.

"WHY WON'T YOU DIEEEEE?"

"Why don't you use some of your karate, Kleen?"

"I don't take karate. I take Tae Kwon Do, idiot."

"Oh, right."

"STUPID GAME! STUPID MIDGETS!"

"Elves. They're elves, I'm telling you. Do you want me to get the book?"

"WHATEVER! THEY'RE TOTALLY STUPID!"

Kleen took a direct hit. Then another. He was losing power. Everyone on the couch sat up a bit. Lacey Dog kept barking and yipping.

"STUPID GAME! STUPID DOG!"

Kleen jumped over a bearded wizard, but when he landed, an elf's knife stabbed him right in the leg.

KLANG-ANG-ANG-ANG-ANG! The death noise in Kung-Fu was especially annoying.

Kleen was now out of lives. His turn was over.

"WHHHHHHYYYYY! I DODGED IT! I DODGED IT! STUPID! ARGGGHH!"

He whipped his controller against the couch and began throwing wild kicks in the air. He flailed about the room looking for something to beat on. Evan Olsen clutched his fish protectively. Lacey Dog just kept barking at the TV.

"STUPID KUNG-FU! STUPID GAME!"

Maybe it was because he was bored, or maybe it was because the naked lady on the Zippo distracted him, but it was then that Zilinski yelled the unthinkable.

"GO... KLEEN... GO! TAE... KWON... DO!"

Suddenly Kleen centered himself and found his martial arts balance. He chopped the air twice and took off in a dead sprint toward the TV.

"HIIIIIIIIIII-YYYYAAAAAA!"

The boys on the couch could only watch in horror as he propelled himself feet first into his father's forty-two-inch RCA, a double-leg jump kick that rocked the set back and forth on its foundation.

"Jesus Christ, Kleen!"

The TV hung in the balance for a brief second. Lacey Dog got out one last vindictive yip and then it came crashing down.

"Lacey Dog! NOOOOO!"

*THUMP.*

Game. Over.

I handed Steve my last piece of Trident. He chewed it thoughtfully as we walked toward my house.

"We're in some serious shit, Jake."

"Yeah."

"And you know what's worse?"

"What?" What could possibly be worse?

"The Power Glove. It didn't work at all. It sucks."


It took almost six hours for Timmy's parents to learn of their crushed family dog and destroyed television set. There was a rumor that Timmy had unsuccessfully tried to board a bus to Detroit for a clean getaway, but was apprehended by his sister when he asked her how long it would take him to ride his bike to the bus station. When Kleen's parents finally did see the damage in the basement, they wasted no time finding someone else to blame. They were going all the way to the top of the food chain for this one: Nintendo.

By that night, news of Lacey Dog's violent death at the hands of a video game had spread all across Batavia. My parents grilled me for twenty minutes on my involvement in the incident. I lied through my teeth, quite heroically I might add, and managed to convince them that I was playing snow football at Mueller Crest Park during the time of the accident. After all, I had ten other witnesses who could back that story up. They were the same ten guys who'd made it into Kleen's basement that day. It was Zilinski's idea to get our stories straight. He'd gone house to house that afternoon spreading the word before our parents got to us. Evan Olsen, who had scraped his knee fleeing the scene of the crime, was now brilliantly blaming the injury on the imaginary football game. But it didn't matter. We were doomed anyway. This was worse than getting the blame for something. This was Nintendo getting the blame for something. It affected all of us.

The Catholic guilt hung heavy the next morning at Holy Trinity Church. I was an altar boy with the Grusecki twins, and we spent much of the ten a.m. Mass trying to figure out how best to pray to God to get us out of this one. We whispered back and forth at the side of the altar.

"I heard they had to pry Lacey Dog out with a crow bar."

"Father Joe says dogs go to limbo."

"Pass the holy water."

"We're screwed."

Being an altar boy was kind of like being a batboy for God. That's the way I thought of it at least. It got you close to the action and you didn't have to sit in the stands bored out of your mind like the rest of the chumps. I loved being an altar boy. You got to light things on fire (candles and incense), you got to help the priest spray people with water (with the aspergillum-thingy), you even got paid every once in a while (funerals and weddings). Plus, Father Joe was a pretty cool guy. He'd crack jokes all the time and he knew more about the Chicago Bears than anyone I'd ever met. He even called their kicker Kevin Butler "butthead" sometimes. I thought that was hilarious. So if there was one person of authority who would understand our Nintendo Christmas plight, surely it was Father Joe.

He stood before the congregation, calmly adjusting his spectacles. "We ask that these prayers and all the prayers listed in our book of intentions be heard. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

Father Joe nodded slightly to have the bread and wine brought up from the back of the church. That was the cue for Tommy to pick up the cross and lead the gift bearers up to the altar. And it was the cue for Ryan and me to come over and wash Father Joe's hands with the holy water. Ryan was on bowl and towel duty, I was in charge of the pitcher—which is the much tougher job, I might add. I took great pride in pouring it slow and steady.

"Lord, please wash away my iniquities and cleanse me from my sins."

When Father Joe pulled his hands up a little bit, that meant to stop pouring. This was my favorite part of Mass. As Father Joe dried off his hands he'd always lean in and have a private word with us. Usually it was a knock-knock joke or something. But as he leaned in, the smile on his face vanished. Today the joke was on us.

"I heard about the dog, gentlemen."

"Uh..."

"It wasn't our fault, Father, we—"

"I expect to see the three of you in confession later. No questions asked. Nintendo-no-friendo, lads, Nintendo-nooo-friendo."

Sweet Jesus. This was worse than we thought.

The sign posted outside HC Wilson Elementary the next morning said it all.

 EMERGENCY PTA MEETING, 7 p.m. TONIGHT.

 VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE MUST STOP!

There was an exclamation point and everything. And I knew that was a big deal, because Mrs. Hugo had repeatedly told us never to use an exclamation point unless it was absolutely necessary. The PTA wasn't screwing around.

I begged my parents not to go.

"The Kleens are crazy, Mom! Nintendo didn't have anything to do with it! He's a spaz!"

"That little dog died, Jake. We have to go. I told you those games were violent."

She was even dragging my dad along. He did not look happy. He hadn't been to a PTA meeting since I was in kindergarten, when he spent the whole time playing H-O-R-S-E with Mr. Grusecki in the gym. He had not been asked back since.

The cafeteria that had held forty-five Cub Scouts just a few days prior was now packed to the gills with parents. The Kleens had recruited some of the most important people in town. Coach Capudo, the high school football coach, was there. So was Mayor Sheehan, along with a few members of city council. There were local newspaper reporters, photographers, even a scientist from Fermilab (and those guys never went anywhere).

Mr. Kleen sat on stage in a tweed jacket and spectacles. Mrs. Kleen was next to him, dressed completely in black, still in mourning. She had on a giant button with a picture of Lacey Dog's face on it, and had generously passed out others to the crowd. She dabbed at her eyes with some of Huge-Blow's Kleenex.

Apparently, before getting his MBA and taking over his father's wing of ComEd, Mr. Kleen had studied child psychology at Northwestern. Don't ask me why, but he had made it very clear that he was an expert on the subject, even going as far as to list his qualifications at the bottom of tonight's program:

 TERRENCE KLEEN

 Vice President—Sales, Commonwealth Edison MBA: University of Chicago BA: Northwestern University (Child Psychology) Parent: Batavia, Illinois (15 years) Our principal, Mrs. Smart, stepped up to the podium. She took crap from no one and smoked approximately seventy-two packs of Winstons a day. You could always tell who had been sent to the principal's office, because they reeked of cigarettes afterwards. It was a well-known fact that if you were ever running from the scene of a crime and caught a whiff of Winstons, chances were you were about to be busted. Which is why, even to this day, I equate the smell of smoke with punishment. It's probably why I never took up cigarettes in the first place.

"Good evening, parents..."

The crowd shuffled in their seats, still chattering. Smart wasted no time.

"That means quiet down!"

Everyone shut up. Smart coughed a few cancerous coughs and continued.

"As you all know, tonight is a special meeting of the PTA. I'd like to thank all of the teachers for remaining here at school, on a school night, to discuss your children's well being. The teachers will not, I repeat, will not, be sticking around to talk about little Suzie's and little Johnny's report cards afterwards. That's what teacher conferences are for, so don't hassle them or you'll deal with me."

Huge-Blow sniffled in solidarity.

Mrs. Smart continued. "Now, tonight's speaker has a degree in child psychology—whatever that is," she muttered under her breath. "And he has asked to talk to you in detail about an incident that affected his family this past weekend. So pay attention. And if there's any Mickey Mousing around in the back row back there, you're outta here. Don't think I'm not watching. So, without further ado, I give you Mr. Kleen."

"Mr. Clean? Heh, heh," my father chuckled, singing the floor-cleaner jingle to himself. "Mr. Clean. Mr. Clean..."

My mom elbowed him in the ribs.

Mr. Kleen took to the podium.

"Parents of Batavia, thank you all for coming. I would like to start tonight by inviting each and every one of you fine people to ask yourself this very important question. How much do I value the safety of my children? It's an important question. One that I thought was at the very pinnacle of my pyramid of priorities."

The microphone popped with each "p," but you had to hand it to him. Mr. Kleen knew how to speak to a crowd. Everyone was fully tuned in. You could tell where Timmy got his vocabulary, as well as his overall assholeness.

Kleen continued. "I thought I was a great parent. But then one day, I come home from a long day at the office to find my dog crushed to death, my child crying and my forty-two-inch television set in pieces."

"Forty-two inches..." My dad was impressed.

"A tragic loss to both the family and the pocketbook. And it was an accident that several of your children took part in. Because of that, Julie and I feel it is important that you see it firsthand."

Kleen clicked a slide-projector remote and a blown-up color image flashed onto the screen. It was a close-up of Lacey Dog's bloodied paw sticking out from beneath the TV.

The crowd gasped.

"Take a good look, people. If you're not careful, this could happen to you. As a parent and as a degree holder in child psychology from Northwestern, and then, uh, subsequently an MBA from the, ahem, University of Chicago, I feel that it is my duty to call you here tonight to discuss this gruesome event. Now, I don't blame your children for Lacey Dog's death, and I most certainly don't blame my son, Timothy, who has been the victim of disabilities his entire life. Imbalances that often cause him to become upset, and on more than one occasion, head butt many of the authority figures in the audience here tonight. But in my professional opinion, last Saturday's incident was not caused by some behavioral problem. I'm afraid it was caused by something much worse. Something that, if you're not careful, may infiltrate your own homes this holiday season. Parents, teachers, there is an evil entertainer in our midst. A social swindler of values, a violent video villain that is snatching up our children's morals and significantly stifling their physical fitness."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh." My dad liked the fitness part.

"This dog-killing crime has a culprit, ladies and gentlemen, and it goes by the name..."

The slide changed.

"...Nintendo!"

The crowd gasped again.

Projected ten feet high was our beloved Nintendo, splattered in blood and lying on a bed of shattered glass, all juxtaposed against the comfortable backdrop of a suburban basement. It was a gruesome ad campaign if I ever saw one. The Nintendo might as well have been wearing a burglar mask and holding a knife to your daughter.

"Nintendo is the reason for this! And this!"

Another picture. Lacey Dog's dead eyes filled the screen.

"And this!"

A stained and ruined Empire carpet flashed before them.

"And this!"

Timmy Kleen's wailing face filled the frame.

"The question is, are we prepared to do something about it? Are we prepared to do something before it's too late? Dr. Umberto, you're a man of science. What do you think about all of this? What's your professional assessment?"

The Argentinean physicist adjusted his glasses timidly. "Em... No es good. No, no. No good. Thanks you very much."

"You see! You see! He can barely speak the language and he knows this is a problem. The smartest man in the room says it's a problem. Mr. Mayor? How about you?"

Mayor Sheehan stood up, adjusting his waistline. "Well, Terry, it's downright frightening, I'll tell you that much. The good children of this fair city should not be subjected to this kind of violence. And as your mayor, I propose we—"

"We should ban it!" Mrs. Zilinski yelled from the front row.

"Yeah. Ban it!"

"Ban it!"

"Japanese take-over tactics!" my dad shouted into the fray.

"Nintendo-no-friendo!"

"I say, no more," Kleen continued. "No more Nintendo. Not in Batavia! Not ever again!"

The crowd roared. A PTA posse was beginning to form. Mrs. Zilinski clutched her umbrella like a burning torch. "The video game killed his dog! We need action!"

"It smashed his TV!"

Officer Masejewski rose from his seat. "No more dogs are dying in my town, God damn it. Who's with me?"

"That's what I'm talking about!" Kleen banged on the podium. "Justice must be served! Our children must be protected!"

Kleen's panicked propaganda continued on well into the night, leaving even the most liberal and skeptical members of the PTA petrified that their television sets might suddenly be jump-kicked onto toddlers, immobile grandparents, Buffalo Springfield record collections. By the end of the meeting there wasn't a parent in the audience who wasn't fully convinced that the devil himself had taken the form of a Super Mario Brother. Poor little Conor Stump, who'd been dragged to the event, sat amid the hysteria and wept openly.

It was virtual Nintendo Armageddon.


For the first time in my life I woke up depressed on a Saturday morning. Four days had passed since the infamous PTA witch-hunt, and things had gotten significantly worse. The front page of the Batavia Republican on Thursday ran the headline "NINTENDO NO!" with an accompanying story explaining how all local shops and businesses would no longer be selling Nintendo Entertainment Systems this Christmas. I'd sensed it coming for years, but it had finally happened. The grownups had officially gone crazy.

The week leading up to Christmas break was supposed to be the best school week of the year. No homework, happy teachers, classroom parties, videos with no conceivable educational purpose whatsoever, you name it. But our hearts weren't in it anymore. Even watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas was painful. All those bratty Whos down in Whoville were getting Jingtinglers and Floobflobbers up the yin-yang, and we weren't getting squat. Screw you, little Cindy Lou Who, I don't care if you're no more than two. That whole "We Are the World" impromptu singing in the square at the end? That was no accident. You knew what you were doing. You knew it would bring the Grinch back down from Mount Crumpit with all your presents. I'm not falling for that crap for a second. I denounce you, Whos! You're all a bunch of Christmas phonies!

My Nintendo depression had gotten to the point where I couldn't even enjoy pizza anymore. The free personal pan pie that was awarded to me for months and months of pretending to read books in the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program now tasted like cardboard. This was pizza we're talking about here, the holy grail of kid food, and I was feeding it to the dog. What kind of parallel universe had I entered?

And it wasn't just me. A black cloud had settled over HC Wilson. Second graders had taken to rushing up the Mound in a continuous stream, kamikaze-style, with no regard for life whatsoever. They didn't care anymore. Delund's once-manic laugh, which had accompanied each kick and wedgie, had turned into a work-like groan. The bleeding-snake pen tattoos on his forearms now dripped despondent tears. Even the most optimistic of us had lost hope. It got so bad that normally devout Jeff Hartwell, who had the lead as Joseph in the church Christmas pageant, ended the play by rising from the manger and exclaiming to parents and clergy alike, "There is no God."

It was enough to make you want to run away.

I tumbled out of bed and made my way downstairs. Lizzy was already awake, planted in front of the TV watching Saturday morning cartoons. Thank God for Saturday morning cartoons. I'd certainly missed them during the months I'd spent lining up in front of Kleen's house. Saturday morning cartoons were a ritual, an '80s and '90s rite of childhood. GI Joe, ThunderCats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles —they would never let you down. Cartoons were like a best friend or a favorite blanket. You could always count on them.

I often wonder if kids today even have Saturday morning cartoons anymore. If they do, do they still have to wake up super early to watch the really good stuff? Or do they just DVR it? Can you imagine what our lives would be like as adults if we could've just watched Saturday morning cartoons at three in the afternoon? We'd be an even lazier generation than we already are.

Saturday morning cartoons, in my opinion, helped to nurture a whole generation of Cold War kids. They introduced a society of little blue men who could exist in harmony with only one little blue woman; a land where turtles and rats could get along; a place where even a smartass like Garfield had friends. Cartoons gave us hope. Not to mention, some of the most important technological advancements of our generation. Don't believe me? Watch Inspector Gadget and tell me that Penny's computer book doesn't look a hell of a lot like an iPad. Brain's telephone ear thing? Totally an early version of the Bluetooth. And that berry juice from the Gummy Bears? Sure looks like Red Bull to me. Hipsters might still be drinking Tab if it wasn't for cartoons.

I plopped down on the couch above Lizzy. She was on the floor watching Muppet Babies. Muppet Babies was a sticky subject for us boys. Clearly it was an entertaining show, a Jim Henson creation, and you couldn't argue with that creative pedigree. But you didn't quite know if you could watch it and still keep your masculinity. It was sort of like watching women's tennis. Yes, you were watching a sport, but you probably shouldn't talk about it with your buddies the next day. The show was about babies. It was set in a nursery: little piggies and froggies and tiny bears wearing diapers, and puppies playing pianos, all whining to a giant-legged nanny when things got tough. That's no Transformers, let me tell ya. That's Dan Delund knuckle-sandwich territory. You couple that with a pair of girls' boots and you could wind up in the hospital. So, my policy was just to watch it and never talk about it. Ever. Ironically, it probably ended up becoming my favorite cartoon. It also helped me score points with Lizzy.

"We're watching GI Joe after this, Lizzy."

"Yeah, I know."

"You can watch Muppet Babies, but we're definitely watching GI Joe next."

"Yeah, Jake, I know, jeez."

"Good. Just so we're on the same page here—wow, is Piggy scaling the Eiffel Tower? Ha! How's she gonna—"

"Shh! I'm trying to watch this!"

"Sorry."

Just then the cartoons cut out and a local CBS logo shot up on the screen.

"We interrupt this program to bring you a breaking story from Kane County."

My sister and I looked at each other. They never interrupted cartoons. And they most certainly never interrupted cartoons to go a breaking story in Kane County. Kane County was the most boring county in the greater Chicagoland area. Hands down. Nothing ever happened here. Was it a tornado? It was the middle of December, couldn't be. What the heck was going on?

"Thank you, Walter. We're coming to you live from the Kane County Courthouse here in Geneva with a fascinating story taking place."

In the background, behind the reporter, you could see dozens of picketers parading around with signs and banners. I couldn't quite make them out.

"The people behind me are all parents who are staging a county-wide petition to ban the popular video game Nintendo."

Oh... God. It had made the news.

"An incident in Batavia last week has sparked outrage in parents, citing video game violence as the reason for—well, why don't you explain it to us, Mr. Kleen?"

The camera tracked over, and sure enough, there was Kleen, wearing a "Nintendo" button with a big red circle and line through it like the Ghostbusters logo. I took it to mean "No Nintendo."

"What happened exactly, sir?"

"Well, Nintendo killed my dog. Crushed it to death."

"My condolences. That's frightening."

"Yes. Yes, it is. And it can happen to anyone."

"I have to say, though, Mr. Kleen. All these parents here, the impending ban on the sale of, well, essentially a popular children's game right before Christmas—don't you think you folks are taking it a little too far?"

"Tell me something. How would you like to come home from work and find your dog's skull crushed and bleeding on your carpet under the weight of the thousand-dollar television you'd purchased not six months ago?"

"Doesn't sound like a very square deal, I guess."

"You guess? Let me explain something to you and your viewers out there. The people here in Batavia and the Tri-Cities, we have spoken. We will pass this ban. We will pass it and Kane County will never let video games within its borders ever again! Never, ever again! Nintendo-NO! Nintendo-NO! Nintendo—"

I grabbed the remote and quickly changed channels. Lizzy didn't even offer a complaint. She could tell I was about to lose it. A cold sweat washed over me as I frantically searched through the stations. Could I not even watch my Saturday morning cartoons in peace? Was nothing sacred anymore? Suddenly, every show I turned to had an anti-Nintendo message. I was beginning to hallucinate.

*CLICK.*

MR. T: I pity the fool who plays Nintendo. I catch that fool, I'll pound him. Pound him to the ground! Pound him till he calls for his mama!

*CLICK.*

MAX HEADROOM: Ni, ni, ni, Nintendo. Ni, ni, ni, Nintendo-no-friendo.

*CLICK.*

McGRUFF: So, remember, kids. A Nintendo house is never a safe house. Get out as fast as you can and tell a grownup. Say no to Nintendo and take a bite out of crime.

*CLICK.*

SHIPWRECK:... that's because playing video games turns you into a giant fat-ass.

SHIPWRECK'S PARROT: Squawk! Squawk! Giant fat-ass!

SHIPWRECK: So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

GI JOE SINGERS: GI Jooooe! A real American Heeeero—!

*CLICK.*

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE: La-la-la. Nintendo smells like poop. La-la-la. Poopy-poopy-poop— CLICK.

EMPIRE CARPET GUY: Five-eight-eight... two-three-hundred—NO-CHANCE-IN-HELL-YOU'RE-EVER-GETTING-A-NINTENDOOOOOO!

*CLICK*

GUY WITH FRYING PAN: This is your brain... This is your brain on Nintendo. Any questions?

When I came to, Lizzy was offering me a glass of Tang. I gulped it down and wiped my eyes. A hundred and two counties in the Land of Lincoln, and I had to be living in the one that had gone off its collective gourd. Was there no end to this anti-Nintendo madness?

"What am I gonna do, Lizzy?"

My dad came in. He'd been working outside on the house. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. Leave it to him to wait until the dead of winter.

"Jake, Mom told me to remind you to get ready for the Gruseckis' birthday party. It's in an hour. Have you been crying? Lizzy, what's wrong with him?"

"Nothing, Dad. He just has something in his eye."

"Oh, okay." He turned and went back outside.

I looked up at Lizzy. "Thanks."

"A redhead with freckles. Don't forget."


Birthdays were a tricky thing. Timing was everything. If you didn't time it right, you could end up sharing the limelight. And there was nothing worse than playing second fiddle on your own birthday. Take summer birthdays, for instance. That meant you didn't get to bring treats to school on your real birthday. Instead, you got lumped with all the other summer-birthday losers and had to bring your treats on the last day of school when no one gave a crud. Plus, you had to try to schedule your birthday party during summer vacation, which meant you had to compete with baseball practices and families taking trips to Florida and the Wisconsin Dells to see Tommy Bartlett's Robot World. And good luck trying to compete with robots, even Wisconsin ones—they'll win every time.

Christmastime birthdays were just as bad. Who cares about your birthday when Santa Claus is coming in six days? I certainly don't. Not to mention, if your birthday was too close to Christmas you also ran the risk of receiving the dreaded "double gift"—a single present that lazy grandparents or cheapskate uncles would try to pawn off as being both your birthday gift and your Christmas present. The horror!

So, growing up, there was nobody who got screwed harder than Tommy and Ryan Grusecki. Not only did they have to share their birthday between them, but they also had to share it with Christmas. They'd been born at 12:30 a.m. on Christmas day. For a while in high school we called them the Jesus Twins just to make light of the situation, but it must've been a nightmare. Their entire kid year was jammed into one twenty-four-hour period. Happy birthday! Merry Christmas! The rest of your year's gonna suck now! Going to bed on Christmas night must have been incredibly depressing. What was there to look forward to after that? Easter? I really felt sorry for Tommy and Ryan. I really did.

The twins were having this year's party at Fun Times Roller Rink. As far as local places of interest went, Fun Times was top notch, sort of like the Six Flags of Kane County. We knew this quite well, since we'd spent a significant amount of time working on our school-assigned Batavia Reports, listing in careful detail all the town's "places of interest." There were about four of them.

1. The Batavia Bellevue Place (aka, the Mary Todd Lincoln Insane Asylum). This was the hospital where Abraham Lincoln's wife went bat-shit crazy after he was assassinated. She lived there against her will for months, slowly growing mad and walking the halls wearing ten pairs of gloves at a time and howling at the moon and whatnot. There was great civic pride in this historic incarceration, as if Batavia had landed the Olympics or won some sort of presidential contest by essentially jailing the First Lady. That's right, Geneva, we're the town where Mary Todd lost her marbles. Not you. Us. We're number one!

2. The Batavia Museum. This was a museum dedicated to Batavia's rich history, namely the Mary Todd Lincoln Insane Asylum. Inside was a mockup of her hospital room, with pictures of her on the wall looking all puffy and crazy. There was even a pair of her gloves in a glass case, which you were not to touch for fear of being kicked out. Outside the museum was a big red train car that just sat there. You could climb on it and throw woodchips at cyclists riding by on the bike path. And that was pretty much it. That was the whole "museum." One train car and a replica of Mary Todd's nuthouse.

3. The Batavia Windmill. Technically, this windmill wasn't even in Batavia. It was in Geneva, but since Batavia was known as the Windmill City in the 1800s, we still staked claim to it. It was located next to a park on a relatively large hill. Perfect for sledding and, later, tricking girls into making out with you.

4. The Batavia Frank Lloyd Wright house. Definitely the nicest house in town, it was built and designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. We figured he must've lost some kind of bet to build a house here. Some rich family lived in it now. They probably had a Nintendo and didn't even tell anybody about it. I envisioned secret parties where the Kleens would go over there to dine on endangered species and swim in vaults of gold coins, Scrooge McDuck–style.

And fifth on the list of Batavia's places of interest was, of course, Fun Times Roller Rink. The pride of the Fox River Valley! The home of DJ Radical! Come one, come all, and ride the rides—have a ball down at Fun Times! Fun Times was the place to be in Batavia. It was a little too far to ride your bike there in the winter, though, so Olsen, Mahoney and I were getting a lift from my dad. He was doing about seventy on a side street.

"So, what do you guys do at Fun Times besides play more video games?"

Olsen was sitting in the back with his eyes closed, hanging on for dear life.

"They're arcade games, Mr. Doyle," Mahoney corrected. "But there's a roller rink too. This kid, Josh Farmer, said they're building a go-kart track in the back, but I think he's full of it."

"You know, when I was growing up we didn't go to the roller rink to skate, we went ice skating outside. We played hockey on an outdoor rink all winter. The Chicago Park District would flood the baseball fields. When's the last time you guys played outside?"

"The day Timmy killed his dog, Mr. Doyle." Even with his eyes closed, Evan was dutifully sticking to our Nintendo alibi. Well done, Olsen.

"Well, maybe with no more Nintendo you kids will be playing outside a bit more."

"It's too cold, Dad."

"Too cold? If it was up to me I'd make you ride your bikes here. Too cold..." He shook his head. "I'll give you too cold."

My dad was always "giving" me things. I'll give you sorry. Or, I'll give you not hungry. How could you give me "not hungry"? I once asked him about it. He was not amused.

"It's fresh air out there!" he continued. "Your dad would say the same thing, Evan. Matthew, yours too. You kids don't know what you're missing."

By the time we got to the rink, the Grusecki twins were already fighting. I'd been to enough of their parties to know the drill. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year the two got on like gangbusters, but on their birthday they turned into Noel and Liam Gallagher. You couldn't blame them. It's a lot of pressure, sharing your birthday. Who blows out the candles first? Who gets top billing in the birthday song? Just the year before, they'd almost gotten kicked out of Show Biz Pizza when Ryan threw Tommy face-first into the animatronic gorilla piano player. Fighting on your birthday, it was understandable.

I had other friends with siblings who fought all year round. Mahoney and his younger brother, Pete, for instance. Violence straight out of a slasher film. I can't believe neither of them ever died or at least went to jail. I once watched Pete Mahoney try to decapitate Matt with baseball bat during a heated game of home-run derby in their backyard. Literally, bat to neck full swing. To which a shrieking Matthew retaliated by stumbling into the garage and emerging with a tire iron. A good seventy percent of our games ended because they'd start fighting and one of them would gore or stab or maim the other one, and that would set off a tattletale chain reaction that would get both of them, and their Easton aluminum bat, sent inside. But the Gruseckis were different. They always got along. Except, like I said, on their birthday. Currently, they were stomping on each other's shins with roller skates.

"That's my skate! Quit stealing my skate!"

"It's my skate!"

"What difference does it make? We're the same size!"

The two were sitting on a bench overlooking the roller rink. The rink was essentially a big slab of concrete with a metal railing around it. It was painted crimson and gold, Batavia colors. Up in the DJ booth was local favorite and three-hundred-pound disc jockey DJ Radical, better known to us as DJ Fatical. Fatical was enjoying himself immensely as always. A Pepsi the size of a bucket of chicken sat next to the PA microphone, which he would slurp on in between outbursts of "Oooooh yeeeeah!" and "Heeeeeey duuuuude!" Fatical's musical stylings consisted mostly of Wham! and Cyndi Lauper, but ever so often he'd throw in a little Poison just to keep the guys on the floor.

Fatty slobbered into the mic. "Let's give a big birthday shout-out to Tommy and Ryan Grusecki! The big one-zero! Ooooh yeeeeah!"

The Gruseckis paid little attention. They were still fighting over a rental skate.

"Give it!"

"You give it! Mommmm!"

I sat down next to them with my gift.

"Hey guys."

They looked me over.

"Only one gift again, Doyle?"

"Sorry."

"It better not be a book."

It was a book, probably The Whipping Boy again. My mom had wrapped it, in Christmas paper of course.

"Yeah, I think it's a book. Sorry."

"Figures."

We looked up to see a bunch of other kids our age walking toward us. They had their shirts tucked in, a good indicator they were from neighboring St. Charles. They looked us over.

"You guys from Batavia?"

"Yeah, what's it to ya?"

"Well, we're from St. Charles."

"Sucks to be you," Mahoney piped up, skating into the conversation. "Don't you guys have your own roller rink to go to?"

It was a ploy. Everyone knew Fun Times was the only roller rink for miles. It was the only category, besides maybe particle accelerators and, later, semi-promiscuous girls, in which Batavia actually had a leg up on St. Charles.

"You know there's no other roller rinks around here."

"So whaddya want, then?"

"We wanna know which one of you buttheads got Nintendo banned."

Buttheads? These were fighting words.

"None of us got it banned," I said. "Only one kid has it and he's a spaz. He kicked his TV and it fell on his dog. And it's not banned in St. Charles, anyway."

"Wanna bet? My parents just took mine away from me. You guys ruined it for everybody! What are we supposed to do now? I was gonna get Mega Man Two for Christmas!" The kid was almost crying. One of his crew had to hold him back. "I already saw it hiding under my parents' bed! You guys suck! I hope none of you ever get one ever!"

Then he really did start to cry. He was sobbing right in the middle of Fun Times. We all just sat there, not sure of what to say. It was pretty hard to start a fight when someone was already crying. And the thing of it was, we knew exactly how he felt. We'd just had a little more time to become numb to the pain.

Zilinski stood up. He walked over and put his hand on the kid's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, man. Really."

The crying kid's buddy gave Zilinski a little push.

"Just don't do anything else stupid, like get TV banned. And don't ever come to St. Charles. We see you there and you're dead."

With that, the group walked off toward the arcade games.

"Jee-zus." Mahoney shook his head. "I can't believe they banned it in St. Charles."

Olsen took off his shoes. "Yeah, it's banned in Geneva too. My cousin told me Viking Toys stopped selling it."

"Well, it's not banned in Elmhurst," said Hartwell. "My cousins said they were getting it."

Tommy grabbed his skate from Ryan. "That's because Elmhurst isn't in Kane County. That's DuPage County."

"How do you know?"

Ryan grabbed the skate right back. "Cause we got encyclopedias."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry."

"Let's just get this birthday party over with."

Ryan took to the floor and we all followed. "Walking on Sunshine" blasted over the speakers as we rolled around the rink. It's a funny thing to be completely and utterly depressed while listening to "Walking on Sunshine," especially in a place called Fun Times. Kinda makes you want to kill yourself.

We skated around, weaving in and out of packs of giggling girls and older kids, who were all oblivious to our pain. This really was the end of the Nintendo line, and we could all sense it. It was six days until Christmas. We only had one more day of school before break. Over the past six months, every single attempt at gaining favor with our parents and the community at large in our quest for Nintendo had failed. Miserably. We really weren't going to get Nintendos for Christmas. Defeat had finally set in.

After a while we finished moping around on the rink and got down to birthday business. At the back of Fun Times' main floor was a roped-off cluster of tables where you got to go if you were having a birthday party. They would put a little Fun Times crown made out of roller wheels on the birthday boy—or boys, in this case—and DJ Fatical would trudge over and take a few sweaty pictures with you and your friends. No one ever asked for or wanted these pictures, but they came with the birthday package, so you went along with it.

I felt bad that I'd gotten the twins another book. I was always giving my friends books. I think my mom thought it might somehow balance out the rest of the mindless junk they were sure to get. But the Gruseckis only ever wanted baseball cards. No toys, no clothes, no candy, just cards. You could never have too many. Asking only for cards was actually a very smart move, because even if you ended up with doubles you could always trade one away. Giving baseball cards as a gift was like giving money, except that instead of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, you had Andre Dawson or Ryne Sandburg. It was like currency with a better personality. You could collect them and save them up for a rainy day, or you could trade them and get something different. Baseball cards were the gift that kept on giving.

"I got a Chris Sabo!" Tommy yelled as he was tearing his way through a pack of Donruss. "And a Ricky Henderson."

"Henderson's worthless." Ryan was plowing through a pack of his own.

"He's not worthless. He's the best base stealer ever."

"Yeah, but his cards are worth zilch."

The twins had waited to open up all their packs at once. They were using The Whipping Boy book as a little table between them to stack the packs on, so at least it was useful for something. Everyone had gotten them baseball cards except me. Donruss, Score, Fleer, even a few packs of Topps thrown in for good measure, compliments of Zilinski, who was already eying the gum.

It was in these small moments of excitement that our Nintendo depression subsided, if only briefly. That was the beauty of baseball cards. When someone was opening a pack, nothing else mattered. It was a surprise every time. Anything was possible because you never knew who you were gonna to get.

"I got a Clemens."

"Mark Grace rookie card!"

Zilinski hovered. "Are you gonna eat your gum?"

"I got a Will Clark."

"I got a Mattingly."

"Seriously, are you gonna eat it?"

"I got a Ripken... Billy Ripken."

"Who gives a crud about Billy Ripken?"

"'Cause if you're not gonna eat it, I'll—"

"Here. Take the gum, Zilinski, jeez."

Tommy glanced over at his brother, who was still staring at the Ripken.

"It's just a Billy Ripken, Ryan. It's, like, seven cents. Cal's not even worth two bucks in the Beckett."

But Ryan just kept staring at the card with his mouth open. It looked like he was witnessing an act of God or something, like one of those Nazis staring at the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Indiana Jones just before their faces got melted off. It looked like Ryan's face might go at any moment.

"What is it?"

He could barely get it out. "You guys... you guys aren't gonna believe this."

"What?"

We all crowded around to have a look. What could possibly be cool about a Billy Ripken card? He was the mediocre brother of future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken. He had a lifetime batting average of like.247. He looked like a chipmunk. What was the big deal? Was Cal in the card too? Was it an error card? Maybe that was it. Sometimes when a statistic was off, or a number, or the spelling of a last name, it could increase the value of the card by a buck or so. But still, Billy Ripken?

"Right there. On the bottom of his bat, look..."

It turns out Ryan Grusecki really was witnessing an act of God. Because there on the bottom of Billy Ripken's Louisville Slugger, tilted slightly toward the heavens, was the single most hypnotizing image any of us had ever seen. Just below the knob of his bat, written in black marker, perhaps as a practical joke by another Ripken, was the word "FUCK." And not just "FUCK." Directly under it was the word "FACE."

FUCK FACE.

It was clear as day. FUCK FACE.

"Holy shi..."

We looked around quickly to make sure Grusecki's mom hadn't seen it. DJ Fatical had her cornered at the other end of the table, so we seemed to be in the clear.

There was a swear word on a baseball card. A swear word! It was almost incomprehensible. This changed everything.

"How could they not see that?"

"This is the biggest error card ever!"

"Lemme see it!"

"Don't nick it!"

We were bouncing in our seats. Olsen patted Ryan on the back. "You're rich, man. You're totally rich! Do you know how much that card's gonna be worth?"

"Nick's gonna lose his mind. I've never seen a card like this!"

Zilinski chomped on another piece. "Maybe he'll even pay a fair price."

Tommy flipped through his Beckett. "I bet we could get fifty bucks for that card."

"We?"

"You know what I mean. There's never been anything like this. Fleer's gonna pull all the cards from the shelves when they find out. Fifty bucks, easy."

Olsen took another bite of cake. "You're rich, man. Rich."

"Yeah, Ryan, a couple more Billy Ripkens and you can buy your own Nintendo."

And that's when it hit me like an '85 Bears blitz. We didn't need parents or Santa or anybody anymore. We were going to buy our own Nintendo for Christmas. The A-Team theme song was already playing in my head. I had a plan...


When things got hairy in third grade, there was only one place to regroup and reorganize. That was Mueller Crest Park, specifically the woods behind the jungle gym. "Woods" was a loose term. It was more a cluster of trees, probably only a few acres, but it was secluded and mysterious and all ours. This was where we'd play war for days on end and where we'd bet each other during sleepovers to run through without a flashlight. No one had actually done it yet, but it was always fun to talk about. When you "ran away from home" you went to the woods. When you found yourself with some type of contraband, like fireworks or Playboys, you brought them there to share. When you had to take a leak in the middle of a football game, you went to the woods to do your business. It was a one-stop shop, an equal opportunity lender, a hideout of Tom Sawyer proportions. So when my Nintendo operation needed the involvement of every boy in third grade, I knew just the place to hold our secret meeting. To the woods!

I stood high atop a tree stump in the cold. Below me gathered the huddled masses of the Nintendo-less third grade class, their breaths cutting through the air in short, pensive puffs. They were expecting a miracle here, one that I had promised to deliver. Months of Tetris were finally paying off as I began to fit the intricate pieces of the Nintendo puzzle together. Our jingle bell had yet to toll.

Carefully I searched for the precise words to put my plan into action...

"Uh, you guys still want Nintendos for Christmas?"

Delund hawked a loogie at my feet. "What are you, stupid?"

"No, see, it's just, I got this idea—"

"If I gotta sell more wreaths, Boyle, I'm throwing you off the landfill. What are we doing here?"

"I have a way to get our own Nintendo."

Zilinski piped up, "How can we get our own Nintendos now?"

"We can buy our own."

"With what?"

"Our baseball cards. We can sell 'em."

The crowd gasped.

"We can't sell our baseball cards, Jake!"

"Why not?"

Grusecki shook his head. "'Cause they're worth money, duh."

"Who are we gonna sell cards to?"

"We can sell them to Nick."

"Nick? He never buys them for anything close to what they're worth in the Beckett. This is stupid."

"Yeah, Jake," Zilinski added. "Even if we do get the money, where are we gonna get a Nintendo anyway? Nobody sells them around here anymore."

"They still sell them in Chicago. We're going there on Monday for the field trip. We can buy one there."

They weren't buying it. Delund was already rolling up his sleeves to pound me. Stump headed for a patch of ice to lick. A few kids began to file out. I was losing them.

"Just hold on a sec and listen. Wait!"

"You're crazy. We can't do it now, we'd get in big trouble," quivered Olsen, always quick to point out his disciplinary concerns.

"Yeah, Jake." Even Mahoney had his reservations. "It's almost Christmas."

"Forget about Christmas! This is serious!"

I hopped down from the stump and pulled the Gruseckis back into the circle. "Don't you guys want to get a Nintendo? This is our last chance. Can't you see that? We can't depend on our parents or Santa or anybody anymore."

Farmer piped up. "Actually, some of the sixth graders told me that Santa isn't a real guy. He's really just your par—"

"Shut up, Farmer!" I dug down deep. "Now's our chance to get our own Nintendo that we can share and not have stupid rules about ten people and taking your shoes off and all that stuff. It'll be just for the third graders, just for us. Our very own Nintendo. Use your imagination!"

Stump stopped licking the ice for a second.

I grabbed Mahoney. "Matt, you've still got that camping generator right? The one your family uses when you go on trips?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So we bring that into the woods. We set up our own little fort. Like a Nintendo fort. Olsen, you bring that TV you've got in your room. We buy a Nintendo and we bring it here. We hook it all up right here in the woods, right under the big willow tree, maybe. We can hide out here after school every day."

Stump wiped his mouth. "Like a secret club?"

Eyes rolled.

"Yeah, Stump, like a secret club, I guess. If we sell enough cards we can get games and—"

"A secret club like in The Goonies."

"Yeah, Goonies..." Mahoney was coming around.

"Goonies..." the Gruseckis chimed in unison.

They were buying it now. The movie reference had done it. A few smiles were registering. Maybe this really was like The Goonies. That's what it felt like, at least, like this was our last chance at the rich stuff, our last chance to have an adventure. A real Nintendo adventure.

I looked to Delund. He was the tipping point. If I got his approval, I'd get the rest. "Well, Dan? Whaddya say?"

He snapped a branch over his knee.

"Okay, Boyle. Fine. We're the Goonies. But I get to be Mouth."

"I wanted to be Mouth," whined Farmer.

"You're Chunk, Farmer." Dan pushed his sleeves back down. "Alright, Boyle, what's the plan?"

Less than two hours later, the scene at the Bullpen rivaled a sellout on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. A surging crowd of nine-year-old traders had overtaken the place, yelling, screaming—flashing hand signals back and forth. Nick could barely pound numbers into his calculator fast enough. The next-door owner of Scoop's Ice Cream had to come over just to make sure Nick wasn't being robbed and beaten by a prepubescent mob.

But despite the chaos, it was all going according to plan. Our mission was simple: money. Money got us a Nintendo. Cards for cash. It was as straightforward as that. The Gruseckis were in their element here. It was their moment to shine.

"I need the Fleer '84 Puckett! Who's got it?" Ryan called back into the crowd. The twins had taken pole position at the counter, serving as our brokers for the feeding frenzy.

"PUCKETT!" Tommy shouted, flashing eight fingers, then four, then an F for Fleer. Kids began tearing through their shoeboxes and binders filled with cards.

"I got one!" Kramer called out from the back of the crowd. He hustled up to the counter next to us. "It's his rookie card, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, Kramer, we know. That's why we gotta sell it."

Ryan placed the card gently on the counter. "It's mint. Twenty-seven fifty."

Nick lifted his glasses. "Eight bucks."

"Eight bucks?" Kramer yelled. "You gotta be kidding me! It's his rookie card."

Tommy approached the bench. "It's twenty-five bucks in the Beckett, Nick. Let's get real here."

"Eight bucks."

"If you think that my brother and I are gonna stand here and sell you a guaranteed future Hall of Famer rookie card for eight bucks, you might as well take those glasses and shove them up your butt. Twenty-two seventy-five."

"Nine dollars."

"Eighteen."

"Nine fifty."

"Sixteen bucks, and that's our final offer. And you're gonna take it, Nick, because this Kirby Puckett is the only card you're missing in that '84 'complete set' of Fleer over there that you've been trying to sell to us for years. Sixteen bucks."

"Fine."

The crowd roared. Nick handed the money over.

Kramer shook his head in disappointment. "It's a twenty-five dollar card, I just..."

"It's for a good cause, Kramer. You're a good man."

Kramer moped back into the crowd. Josh Farmer pushed his way forward. We'd been waiting for him for forty-five minutes.

"Where the heck you been, Farmer?"

"Sorry I'm late. I had to help my dad put an ejection seat in our Fiero."

Oh God...

"Your dad drives a Buick, Farmer. Gimme a break."

"Nuh-uh, we just got a new Fiero, a red one with a turbo fuel inject—"

"Okay, fine, whatever, let's see your cards."

Farmer handed over a rubber-banded stack. We shuffled through them. He'd promised us some real blue chips.

"Chuck Cottier, Bob Dernier, Jody Davis, Leon 'Bip' Roberts? This collection is awful. Where's the mint-condition Hank Aaron?"

"Couldn't find it."

Tommy continued through the stack. "Hector Villanueva, Dan Quisenberry, Kent Tekulve?"

Conor Stump's head popped up from out of nowhere. "Kent Tekulve's cool," he said, sucking on a Lego.

"Stump, do you even have any baseball cards?"

"Oh no. I collect bottle caps. Do you need any bottle caps?"

"Get outta here, Stump."

Without anything good from Farmer, we were still running about fifty bucks short of our goal. I'd sold five of my best cards already. It was time to pull out the big gun. I gave a nod to Tommy. He knew what to do. He turned to his brother.

"I think it's time, Ryan. Nick's only got a few more buys in him, he's getting nervous. Just look at him."

"Stand back from that counter!" Nick yelled at Delund, who, incidentally, had been stealing Lemonheads a handful at a time for the better part of an hour. "I said stand back!"

"I didn't do nothing."

"I'm watching you, kid!"

Tommy continued with his brother. "Fifty bucks more and we can pretty much get all the games we want, Ryan—the Power Pad too, maybe. You gotta bring out the Ripken."

Nick pounded on the counter as he scanned the back of the shop. The scene was starting to turn ugly. A few kids were now jumping on windowsills, making fart noises with their mouths on the glass, all hopped up on Topps gum and Nintendo fever. This was turning into Nick's worst nightmare.

"Alright! That's it! All of you, I want you all out of here unless you're gonna buy something! I want you all gone!"

Ryan took a deep breath and pulled out a heavy plastic case from his pocket. He stepped up to the counter. Old Fuck-Face was ready to throw down.

"One more trade, Nick."

"No. No more trades today. You're tearing up my store."

"I think you're gonna change your mind." Ryan slid the card across the counter.

"A Billy Ripken? Why do you have it in hard plastic, this is a common—holy cow..." Nick lifted his glasses and looked closer. "Did you write that?"

"Nope. It's an error card. Nobody even knows about it yet. They'll probably start taking packs off the shelves."

Nick swallowed hard and wiped his brow. "I'll give you thirty bucks for it."

"Don't insult me, Nicholas."

"Thirty-five."

"There's a swear word on a baseball card, Nick. This isn't a spelling mess-up here. Come on."

"Forty bucks."

Grusecki shook his head. "I'll sell this thing to Grand Slam Sports this afternoon if I have to. I'll ride my bike all the way to St. Charles right now. Don't think I won't do it."

"Fifty dollars. That's my final offer, kid. Take it or leave it."

A hush fell over the store. Ryan Grusecki tightened his gaze and stared into Nick's Coke-bottle glasses. Like Michael J. Fox ordering a keg of beer, his Teen Wolf was about to come out.

"Sixty bucks," he growled. "Or none of us here ever buys a card from you ever again."

And that's how we finally got a fair deal at the Bullpen.


There's something magical about getting into mischief. It's a very distinct feeling. Part fear, part excitement, in many ways it's the essence of being a kid. I could barely sleep the night before the field trip. I lay there in the dark shuffling through the cash from the great baseball card sellout. Two hundred and sixteen dollars, we'd ended up with. A fortune. It was now tucked safely inside the Velcro flap of my Trapper Keeper.

Nods of solidarity shot my way as I walked down the halls of HC Wilson on Monday morning. In a few hours I was going to ditch out on the field trip in the middle of downtown Chicago, head for the nearest toy store and buy us a Nintendo. Our moment had come. This was all really happening.

But first, there was some secret business to attend to with Miss Ciarocci. I had a Christmas present to give her.

I walked up to the common area outside the classrooms. Our Christmas ornament projects were lying there on desks and chairs, drying off to be brought home today. However improbable, my "ornament" had grown even bigger over the past week. It now took up the entire table at the center of the room.

At the last minute, I had decided that a star was needed, one that could guide my macaroni Wise Men to Bethlehem. That one star turned into many stars and then a solar system of sorts. So now, sticking out of the shoebox manger on wire hangers, dangling dangerously over the Baby Jesus, were a cluster of a bell- and star-shaped Jingles cookies. They were one of the old man's favorite Christmas treats, and it had taken some sneaking around to get the cookies out of the house undetected. But it was worth it. I was now staring at a masterpiece, a work of art—a true creation of the Christmas spirit. I was already planning on inquiring about space for it at the Art Institute of Chicago later this afternoon.

My plan was to find Ciarocci and let her know that my entire creation was for her. It was hers to take home and admire for the next two weeks while we were apart, no doubt convincing her of my talents and cementing our romantic relationship. I had specifically asked for breath mints in my stocking this year to get ready for the first day back at school in January.

The trickiest part about this whole gift thing, though, and the thing that I was most nervous about, was anyone else catching wind of it. Male elementary-school behavior is bizarre when it comes to girls. You can't like them. Ever. You can't like boys either, obviously, but you most certainly can't like girls. Instead, you were supposed to operate in some kind of strange neutral zone, one that rewarded disinterest and, whenever possible, cruelty. So, let's say you really liked a girl. The best course of action was to push her down the stairs or shove gum in her hair, thus proving that you didn't like her. I wasn't doing that here. I wasn't mouthing off to Miss Ciarocci, or acting out in class. I was giving her a gift. I was crossing the line into confirmed heterosexuality and overall niceness. If caught, this was an offense punishable by years of torment and ridicule from my peers. I really had to watch my step.

"I'm eating your Jingles, Boyle."

I looked up to see Delund pawing at my solar system. This was not good.

"Hey, quit it."

He plucked up a few bells, tossing them in his mouth.

"Come on, quit it."

"Make me."

"That's my ornament project, Dan."

Over the past week, Delund and I had developed enough of a relationship for me to start calling him Dan. Or at least that's what I thought.

He hit me in the arm and we were back to square one again.

"I don't give a crud." He snatched another cookie. "We already got our grades, what do you care?"

"I'm giving it as a gift."

"To who?"

"Uh, nobody."

"Nobody?"

He had me now. It would be years before any of us would learn not to give "nobody" or "nothing" as an excuse. It always backfired.

"Who is it?" He crunched away.

"Nobody, alright?

"A girl?"

"No. Shut up."

"Oooh. Boyle's got a girlfriend. Boyle's got a girrrllfriend. Boyle's got a girrrllfriend!"

He was singing now. This was getting serious.

"A girrrllfriend. A girrrllfriend!"

"I do not. It's just a gift. I don't even like it. I just gotta bring it home."

Just then, Miss Ciarocci rounded the corner at the far end of the hall. My face went red as I looked up. She waved to us. Delund put two and two together.

"You're in love with Ciarocci, aren't you?"

"Am not."

"Are too. That's why you're always asking her questions and stuff. Holy cow, you love her!"

"I do not!"

Delund called out down the hall. "Jake Doyle's in love with you, Miss Ciarocci!"

Luckily, she hadn't heard. She was still too far away. I watched her duck into a classroom. How could Delund know I was in love with her? Was it that obvious?

"You want to marry her!"

"SHUT UP! I don't like her! She's stupid! This whole project is stupid. I hate it!"

My face was burning now. Ciarocci exited the classroom and was now heading straight toward us.

"I'm gonna tell her you're in love with her, Boyle."

"No. Don't. I hate her."

"Gimme your Trapper Keeper."

"No way."

"Give it to me or I tell her you want to marry her."

"It's got all the money in it."

"I know. Your plan's stupid. I'm in charge now. I'm buying the Nintendo. Give it to me."

Delund snatched the binder from my hands and dangled it over my head.

"Give it back!"

"No way. I'm telling her you love her."

Ciarocci was seconds away.

"Don't say anything. I don't like her at all. She's gross. I hate her."

"You gotta tell her that, then."

"No!"

"Tell her you hate her. Or I'm gonna tell her you love her."

I could feel my stomach churning. I was sweating. This was the most scared I'd ever been in my entire life. Ciarocci floated over to us, as cheerful and sweet as ever in her Christmas sweaterdress.

"Good morning, boys. Isn't Jake's project great?"

Delund nudged me and stared me down.

"It's stupid," I heard myself say.

"Why would you say that? I think it's great. It's very creative."

"Jake has something he wants to tell you, Miss Ciarocci."

"No, I don't."

I couldn't even look at her. I kept my head down and just stared at the pipe-cleaner donkey next to the manger. Even the donkey seemed to sense the severity of the situation. His two little raisin eyes looked up at me in desperation.

Delund wasn't backing down. "Go on, Jake. Tell her what you were going to tell her, or I'm gonna tell her."

"What is it, Jake?"

"I… hate you," I whispered.

"What?" Miss Ciarocci bent down.

"I hate you, Miss Ciarocci."

Pain registered on her face, the pain of a young teacher not fully grasping the code of honor between nine-year-old boys. Suddenly I hated everything. Delund, school, Nintendo, field trips, being embarrassed, liking a woman twenty years older than me, the barnyard animals and their stupid gumdrop heads, everything.

"Jake, why would you say—"

And then I lost it.

"I hate this whole stupid thing! I hate it!"

WHACK. I kicked the table. SMACK. I hit the manger to the ground. CRASH. I splattered the Wise Men and the animals all across the floor. I stomped on the Baby Jesus's head. I threw Mary and Joseph into the wall. I went bonkers.

"Jake! Stop! Stop it!"

"I hate it! I hate it!" Before I knew it, I was on the ground, screaming and banging my fists on the floor.

Miss Ciarocci grabbed me and picked me up. I was shaking. Delund's smirk was gone. My art project was in ruins.

"What's wrong? Why would you do that?"

I started to cry—thick, heaving, snotty sobs—the kind of tears that won't let you catch your breath. Kid tears.

"Dan, go to your classroom. Right now."

"But I—"

"Now."

Delund left. Down the hall, kids were already putting on their coats and lining up for the bus to Chicago. I watched my Trapper Keeper round the corner, and then it was gone. It was all over. All my months of hard work had been ruined in the span of seconds. No money, no girl, no genius art project, it had all gone to pot. Miss Ciarocci wiped my face with the sleeve of her sweater and waited patiently for me to regain my composure.

"What's wrong, Jake? You can tell me?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Ciarocci. I'm really sorry. I, I..."

"What's going on here?" It was Huge-Blow. She was standing over the mess. "What in God's name happened here? Jake Doyle, did you do this?"

Ciarocci stood up. "Everything's fine, Mrs. Hugo. Jake just had a little moment, that's all. Everything's fine."

"Well, we're leaving for the field trip now, so I want this mess cleaned up immediately. He's got a check after his name today. No excuses."

Great. A check. Now I'd have to stay after school on the last day before Christmas vacation. I'd probably have to take down Christmas decorations or clean up Huge-Blow's Kleenex or do some other soul-crushing chore. Could things possibly get any worse?

"And Jake."

"Yes, Mrs. Hugo?"

"Don't even think about forgetting your boots this time. No boots, no field trip."

Son of a bitch.