Usually, jocks are the norm and nerds are the minority in high school. RDA, however, was a small school that recruited academically gifted students from all over the city. In essence, one could call RDA a school of nerds where Chester was the odd man out. Physically more mature than the other students, Chester had the beginnings of a moustache, and the rumour ran that he had a tattoo of a crouching panther on his back. No one had ever seen this tattoo as Chester rarely took off his shirt and scrupulously avoided bathing. He tossed the ball playfully in the air and leered at Brendan, who trembled in terror, waiting for the blow to fall.
Brendan was on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, physically. Where Chester was already well on the way to adulthood, Brendan’s body was still teetering on the edge of adolescence. He was thin and gawky. He had to wear thick glasses if he didn’t want to run into walls and furniture. As an added bonus, he wore braces on his crooked teeth. Yes, indeed. Brendan had definitely won the Teenage Affliction Lottery.
He pushed his glasses up onto his nose. Why do we even play this stupid game, anyway! Brendan thought miserably. Who, besides Chester, even likes it?
“CHES-TER! CHES-TER! CHES-TER!”
Murderball 18 is a game that is ideal for bullies. Why bother picking on the weaker kids in the schoolyard when you can just whack them in the head with a ball during gym class? Every gym teacher on the planet fails to see how humiliating and often painful it is to let these bullies have their way. Gym teachers the world over believe that Murderball is a great way to instill character in their young charges and allow the kids to blow off some steam. 19 Most schoolkids would rather leave their steam where it is and live without the giant purple welts on their backs.
“CHES-TER! CHES-TER! CHES-TER!”
Murderball is a game for sadists 20 and masochists. 21 Chester definitely fell into the former category, while Brendan liked to think of himself as neutral. How he’d ended up lasting to this point in the game he couldn’t quite understand. Maybe his desire to avoid being the recipient of a smack from Chester Dallaire had infused him with some hitherto unknown agility.
Usually, Brendan could barely avoid tripping over his own feet. He was famously clumsy. All his classmates teased him mercilessly. Butterfingers, Thumbs, Trippy McFallstein-they were always dreaming up new names to mock him with. Yes, Brendan knew he was a danger to others and to himself. At home, his father had gently but firmly banished him from the basement art studio after the nine-hundredth time he had accidentally crushed some delicate sculpture or piece of art. His mother said he was just growing too fast and he would eventually grow out of his clumsiness, but Brendan had his doubts.
Knowing all this, it was hard to believe that he was the last person in the game, backed into a corner, waiting for Chester to pulverize him. How? he asked himself. Why? But he knew the reason. The reason was Marina Kaprillian, a ninth-grader of surpassing beauty who was currently leaning coolly against the wall with a tittering group of her friends watching the action. The students who had been eliminated from the game early watched with relish as the humiliation continued, relieved to escape relatively unscathed. The audience grew as more were knocked out and so did the humiliation. The added opportunity for embarrassment was the fact that gym classes, due to the small number of students, were co-ed. Unlike most high schools, gym class and sports were a low priority compared to academic pursuits at Robertson Davies Academy. As a result, physical education suffered from funding shortfalls in favour of Chess Club and the Debating Team. Brendan was desperate to impress Marina or at least make her notice him. Staying in the Murderball game seemed like the way to catch her eye. So, despite all his physical shortcomings, he had made a superhuman effort and here he was on the verge of devastating personal injury.
There’s an old saying: be careful what you wish for. Now he was standing in the middle of the gym, wishing she would look anywhere else. Chester was going to cream him and he would look like a total goof.
Brendan looked to the sideline where his friends gathered, faces screwed into varying expressions of horror on his behalf. Harold’s chubby hands half-covered his round face as if he couldn’t bear to look but at the same time couldn’t pass up a chance to witness such exquisite carnage. Dmitri, small and blond, shook his head and motioned for Brendan to just play dead. Beside Dmitri, Kim gave Brendan a thumbs-up. The expression on her face suggested she wished she were in Brendan’s place. She was a true tomboy and loved physical contests. Of all his friends, she was the only one who was at home in the gymnasium: her shorts and T-shirt actually fit, and she stood with one hip cocked, looking quite sporty. She kept her hair cut in a trim little bob that framed her oval face neatly. One graceful eyebrow was arched as she slowly shook her head in disbelief. Apart from Kim, Brendan’s little gang of nerds lived mainly in their minds and found physical activity difficult at best and distasteful at worst.
“CHES-TER! CHES-TER! CHES-TER!”
The chant-ing of the crowd took on a feral edge. 22 They sounded less like high school students and more like a pack of hyenas baying for blood.
Brendan looked away from the little knot of supporters and back to his inspiration. His eyes sought out that special face…her face. There she was! She was looking at him! In spite of his pimple, she was looking at him.
“I am so gonna smear you all over this floor, Brendan Clair!” Chester’s heavy voice cut through Brendan’s daze. Brendan turned to see Chester sneering at him from across the floor.
“No need for taunting, Chester.” Mr. Davenport, the gym teacher, his voice nasal and piercing, chided over the noise of the crowd. “That’s poor sportsmanship.” Mr. Davenport was thin and wiry with a horrible comb-over. He wore a red sweatsuit with “Robertson Davies Academy Philosophers” stencilled on the front. Mr. Davenport was a physics teacher but he doubled as a phys. ed. teacher because he had a secret desire to be an athlete, a desire that had no hope of ever being fulfilled. As a result, he took grim pleasure in inflicting physical exercise on his students.
“Whatevs.” Chester shrugged and wound up his massive arm. The inflated rubber sphere was clutched in Chester’s banana-like fingers, the surface dimpling as he reared back to launch a massive throw at Brendan as he squatted, cornered.
Suddenly, Brendan felt a surge of anger. He was tired of being sneered at. He was tired of having a giant pimple on his forehead. He was tired of being afraid. How dare this big guy humiliate him in front of his friends and, more importantly, in front of the girl of his dreams? He shouted in his mind, NO! He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Gathering himself like a panther, he let loose with a feral cry.
“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Brendan launched himself across the floor at Chester, driven by all the pent-up frustration of being a nerd. Chester’s eyes opened wide in surprise. At first, the lunge was quite impressive. The onlookers held their collective breath as Brendan surged forward. Unfortunately, Brendan was unaware that his shoelace was untied. He stepped on the offending lace and tripped himself spectacularly. He face-planted on the hardwood and slid with a skin-erasing squeak on the waxed surface, ending up spread-eagled at Chester’s feet.
Brendan rolled over onto his back, blinking up at his adversary. Chester grinned evilly and cocked the ball back for the coup de grace.
“Nice one, dorkmaster!” Chester said with relish. He slam-dunked the rubber orb squarely into Brendan’s upturned face.
Fifteen minutes later, Brendan was assuring the nurse, Mrs. Barsoomian, that he was fine. His nose had stopped bleeding and the ringing in his ears had subsided. His face, normally somewhat pale and spotty, was an angry red welt from ear to ear. He looked like the recipient of an intense and localized facial sunburn. His glasses hadn’t broken but they had been mashed into his skull, leaving a welt around his eyes. He held up his hand to ward off another cold compress. “I’m fine, really, Mrs. Barsoomian.”
“Are you sure? You can lie down and rest a while longer if you wish.” The thin dark face of the nurse was full of concern. “I can put some lotion on your face. Or a bag of ice, maybe.” Mrs. Barsoomian was a sweet little woman with dark hair and kind brown eyes. Brendan felt embarrassed by the attention.
“No thanks.” Brendan smiled and winced at the sudden pain. “Really, I’ll be fine.”
“I get more patients from Murderball than from any other source.” Mrs. Barsoomian shook her head in irritation. “It should be outlawed.”
“Yes, ma’am. In a perfect world, I’d never play again but Mr. Davenport wants to make a man out of me.”
“Someone should make a man out of Mr. Davenport,” Mrs. Barsoomian said darkly.
Brendan pushed himself off the examining table and stood, woozily. “Can I go now?”
Mrs. Barsoomian eyed him critically, then nodded. “All right. Come back if you feel any dizziness.”
