Stick Read online

  Also by Michael Harmon

  Under the Bridge

  The Chamber of Five

  Brutal

  Last Exit to Normal

  Skate

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Michael Harmon

  Cover art copyright © 2015 by Jenifer Heuer

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon

  are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Harmon, Michael B.

  Stick / Michael Harmon.—First edition.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “Stick, a star football player who’s become disenchanted with the game, becomes friends with Preston, a nerdy kid who fights crime by night.”

  —Provided by publisher

  ISBN 978-0-385-75436-1 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-385-75437-8 (lib. bdg.) —

  ISBN 978-0-385-75438-5 (ebook)

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Football—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Spokane (Wash.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H22723Sti 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014041400

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  eBook ISBN 9780385754385

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Michael Harmon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This book is for all the

  superheroes out there,

  on and off the field.

  Thank you for making

  the world a better place.

  I was there. In the zone. Midair, my body stretched, flying right along with the football. I loved the feeling. Those few seconds when nothing was touching me. When I was free. When I was doing what I loved and the rest of the world disappeared. Game winner. Touchdown. Cheering crowd. We would put another notch in the belt, show the league who would dominate. Just like last year. State champions. First time in school history to take it twice in a row. Second time in state history any school had swept two years.

  It skimmed my fingers. Fell away. Like a dream you could barely grasp after waking: there, but not there.

  I hit the field, thudding and skidding on the turf, the ball tumbling away uselessly. Dream over. Game over. Back to real life.

  Driving home, I replayed it in my head a million times. Our first loss of the year. Me picking myself up. Feeling the bruises forming, the adrenaline leaving my veins. The crowd quiet. Coach with a slack-jawed expression. My dad on the fifty-yard line, four rows up in the stands, manning the video camera. His face wasn’t disappointed. No. Not one bit disappointed.

  He was sitting in his recliner when I got home. Four empty beer bottles, and a fifth, half full, sat on the table next to him. I shut the door. He hit the pause button on the remote and nodded toward the couch. “Sit down, Brett.”

  I took a breath, walked across the carpet, and sat. Of course he was replaying the game, and of course it was paused exactly at the spot where I missed the pass. The past three years of my life—since I’d made it onto the Hamilton team at the start of freshman year—had been paused on every mistake I’d ever made on the field. He took a swig of his beer. “Perfect pass, Brett. Perfect.”

  “I couldn’t get to it.”

  He grunted, then jabbed the remote at the TV like he was poking a fire. He rewound the tape. “No. Watch.” He hit the play button, and we watched the down from beginning to end. “See? What do you see?”

  My shoulder ached. “Me missing a pass.”

  He looked at me, never happy with anything but total perfection. His eyes went back to the screen. “Why, though? Why did you miss it?”

  My knees were killing me, and the only thing I wanted was to zone out, but no, he had to teach me. Show me everything I wasn’t. Show me everything he’d never been. “I’m tired, and I’ve got to train in the morning. Can we do this tomorrow?”

  He nodded, chugging the rest of the beer and getting up. “Yes, we’re going to do this tomorrow. But we’re also going to do this tonight.” He pointed at the screen as he passed to get another beer. “What did you see, Brett?”

  “I saw a long pass.”

  I heard him pop the cap on a fresh one. He walked back in and sat down, tipping the bottle at me. “It can’t always be somebody else’s fault. You were late on the snap. Look.” He hit rewind and played it again. “See? That half second meant you would have been where you should have been. It wasn’t a long pass. You should have been there.”

  My father was an avalanche of ice spilling over me, but instead of stinging and burning, I was just numb. He was relentless. Obsessed.

  “It was one pass, Dad.”

  He finished his beer. Less than three minutes from full to empty. He shook his head. “Exactly. One pass. Losers lose, and you lost because you didn’t pay attention.”

  I grunted, glancing at the beer bottle still clutched in his hand. “You didn’t happen to notice the four I caught? Or maybe that I went for ninety-seven yards? Or maybe that my room is full of trophies?”

  “Don’t start with the bullshit, Brett. I’m tired of your attitude, and on top of that, I know you’re failing math, which means no football.” He shook his head and tried to take a swig of the bottle, which was empty. He looked at it, irritated, then tipped it at me. “Yeah, Coach called. You’re failing. I don’t know what your problem is, but we’ve got a scout from UCLA coming to look at you next week, and I’m not going to let anything ruin that. Including tonight. What if he’d been here? What if he’d seen it?”

  You could give my dad a penny less than a million dollars and he’d bitch about the penny.
And I knew he really didn’t want to know what my problem was. If he knew, he’d flip. “He would have seen me miss a long pass.”

  He shook his head, his eyes bleary. “You want to be a smart-ass? Fine. Grounded for the weekend. Forced manual labor. Go to bed.”

  “Dad—come on. So I should have caught the pass. I’ll watch the tape tomorrow, and I’ll work on the snap.”

  He shook his head. “Grounded. At least until you buck up.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “And lose the attitude, huh? This isn’t Little League. You’re not playing with a bunch of little pukes with no talent. You’re a champion.”

  Relentless. It never ended. “There’s a party tomorrow night. The whole team is going to be there. Please?”

  “I said grounded.” He held out his hand. “No phone, either. Not until you bring that grade up.”

  I bit my lip, tempted to stuff the phone down his throat, but I handed it over. He threw it on the table, then went back to watching the screen. I watched him watching me fail, and I knew why I was in trouble. And math had nothing to do with it.

  Three years of waking up at five in the morning, seven days a week, rain or shine, vacation or not, has a tendency to create a habit. I didn’t need an alarm anymore. Every day of my life began the same, and I looked forward to it. Roll out of bed, throw on whatever gym clothes I had lying around, and run five miles along the bluff overlooking the Palouse hills. Then it was back home, eat breakfast, head to the gym, hit the weights for an hour, shower, dress, and go to class. After school I’d hit the gym or the field, depending on the time of year, and train more.

  It was grueling, but I loved it. I loved working my body, because I could see a difference. I could run faster, lift more, go longer. The more I worked, the better I got. My dad and my coach couldn’t take that away from me, and when I ran those miles and worked those weights, the hollow pit in my stomach that I got from thinking about how much I hated football disappeared. Just like when I hit the field at the beginning of a game.

  How I could hate something so much and love it at the same time escaped me. Insanity at its best.

  After a weekend doing forced manual labor to pay for the ultimate sin of not catching a ball, I caught up with Mike Jackson, otherwise known as my best friend and teammate. Sixth period was over, and he stood with Jeff Lions and Tilly Peterson, both linebackers, laughing, talking, and joking their usual bullshit. I joined them, slapping five. School was out, and we were free. Hundreds of students hustled through the indoor courtyard, streaming down the stairs, milling around and talking before leaving for the day.

  Mike and I had met in detention, of all places, back in sixth grade. He’d mouthed off to his teacher, and I’d been busted for flicking a carrot at Naomi Wilson during lunch. We’d discussed our punishments in whispers, each coming to the conclusion that our crimes had been well worth the punishment. I’d scored a direct hit on Naomi’s forehead, and Mike just plain liked mouthing off to teachers.

  Since then, we’d been glued at the hip. Sixth-grade summer camp, trips to the mall, hanging at the skate park, walking around downtown looking for hot girls. When I’d tried out for the football team in seventh grade, Mike joined me, and even though he didn’t know a touchdown from a field goal, he made it. Big for his age, he was pretty agile, and knew how to hit naturally.

  “Yo, Stick,” he said, holding his hand out.

  I slapped him five. They called me Stick because I had sticky fingers. Good at catching things, which meant everything at this school. “Sorry I missed the party.”

  “Dude, I tried to call you like five times. It was awesome.”

  I shrugged.

  He knew the story without me having to tell it. “The pass? He really grounded you because you missed the pass?”

  I nodded.

  Jeff laughed and punched my arm. “Check it. Show’s about to start.”

  “What show?”

  He leaned close and pointed across the way. “See Donny Dorko over there?”

  I looked, and a kid, a freshman by the looks of him, sat on a bench near the foot of the stairs. Skinny, small, and with blondish hair, he sat with one knee crossed over the other, reading a comic book. He absently bit his fingernail, head down and intent on the magazine. “Yeah, so?”

  Tilly, his big face eager, gave me a devious look, then pointed up. Four more guys from the team, one of them Lance Killinger, our infamously egotistical quarterback, stood at the railing of the second floor, looking directly down on the kid. Tilly made eye contact with them, barely nodding. They laughed and gave a thumbs-up. Tilly put two fingers to his lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle. Everybody in the place stopped, the whistle echoing off into nothing. Everybody stared at the huge linebacker.

  At the sudden quiet, the kid looked up, his eyes going to Tilly. Then Tilly smiled and pointed a massive arm at the kid. All eyes went from Tilly to the boy, just as the guys upstairs released what they were holding. I watched as four eggs fell, glinting white in the afternoon sun like silent and graceful missiles.

  If one thing is true, most athletes are above average when it comes to hand-eye coordination. All four eggs exploded on the kid’s head and shoulders, the cracking noise echoing as the slimy yolks cascaded over him. Tilly slapped his hands together, pumping his fist and bellowing through the courtyard. “Ladies and gentlemen, now that is a DIRECT HIT! FUCKING AWESOME!”

  Laughter erupted, and I stood there as it continued. Some people, mostly girls, voiced their disgust, but nobody did anything about it. Of course they didn’t. This was school. Nobody ever did anything. I looked at the kid, expecting him to do what he didn’t do.

  He didn’t do anything. He sat there, unmoving, egg dripping from him, no expression on his face, his eyes on Tilly. Then he looked down to his comic book, slowly turned the page, and resumed reading.

  Jeff laughed. “Awesome.”

  Tilly was so typical, it was disgusting. I shook my head, hating myself in an instant for being just another person who didn’t do anything. Tilly was the joker of the team, but after three years of it, the thin line between fun and just plain mean was blurring. “What did he do to deserve that?”

  Tilly crossed his eyes at me. “He was born, dude. That’s why. Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Hey, Till? You’re an asshole.”

  He laughed, slapping my shoulder just hard enough to let me know who was running the show. “Jesus, Stick, put your angel wings away, huh? Stop being a bitch.”

  I looked at him, and suddenly I hated him. I’d never really had much respect for the guy, but now, looking at how much enjoyment he was getting out of what he’d done, I would have loved to see him go head-to-head with a speeding train. I faced him. “I got a question for you, Till. Why do you always do stuff to guys who can’t possibly beat the living shit out of you?”

  It took a few seconds for him to understand that I’d questioned the basic rule of what being a complete dick was all about.

  I nodded when he didn’t answer. “You know Darren Sanwick? He was in science with us last year? The guy with five black belts in jiu jitsu? Fights in the cage every month out at the casino? Yeah—him. The guy who could destroy you in less than a minute,” I said, staring at him. He still didn’t answer. I went on. “Why don’t you pull that crap on him?”

  Tilly smiled, but there wasn’t a smile in his eyes. Our football team, just like any other team, had a pecking order, and I’d just pecked the wrong way. “It’s just a joke. Come on.”

  “Not really, Till. It’s not. It just shows you’re a pussy. And you’re mean,” I said, then turned around and walked away. As I did, I glanced at the kid. He stared at us, a completely neutral look still on his face. He had no chin, big dark eyes, and pale skin. Then he slowly closed his comic book, put it neatly in his egg-splattered backpack, got up, and walked out the doors like nothing had happened.

  I imagined him walking or taking the bus home, a public example of what happens when you’re born to be slowly beaten int
o nothing more than a warm bag of humiliation. I knew what the kid’s life was and what it had always been. One look at him and anybody would know he was the butt of every joke, the target of endless pranks, and I couldn’t imagine how he could live with it every day. The eyes on you. The laughter. Always expecting something to happen and knowing you were too weak to do anything about it. A part of me understood why guys like him came to school and put bloody holes in things with high-caliber weapons.

  I heard running feet from behind and turned. Mike came up to me. “Hey,” I said.

  He glanced back at the guys. “Hey. What’s up with you and Tilly?”

  I pointed out the doors, where the kid had gone. “You’re good with that?”

  “What? The kid?” he said, shrugging. “Lighten up.”

  I wondered if Mike was changing into something I didn’t know, or if I was the one who was changing. “So, you are good with that?”

  “I’m not the bad guy here. I didn’t have anything to do with it.” He smiled then. “Watching isn’t a crime, bro.”

  “No, it’s not. But I don’t think it bothers you, and that bothers me.”

  He smirked. “Since when does anything bother you? You’re like a little tin soldier doing exactly what he’s told. Can’t you ever just have some fun?”

  I could have fun. But I wanted to walk up to that kid. Make him somehow feel better. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I never did. I just shut my mouth and did what was expected. Mike was right. I was the best high school wide receiver the state of Washington had ever seen, and I needed to protect that. “That’s not fun to me.”