Rivals by Tommy Greenwald (top 100 novels of all time .txt) 📕

behind me. I go back and find him in the living room, staring at the walls.

“What is all this stuff?” he says, his eyes wide.

I shrug. “Art, I guess. My mom is really into it.”

Carter starts walking around the room, checking out the paintings, which makes me realize that I’ve never really looked at them before. They’re all really modern, which means they’re a bunch of shapes and colors that seem pretty random to me. But I guess they’re cool or important or something, because when people come over, my parents always bring them in here to ooh and aah.

Carter stops in front of a sculpture of an eagle. “What’s this?”

Amazingly enough, I actually know a bit about this one. “Oh, yeah. We were in Santa Fe a few years ago and my mom saw that in an art gallery. I think it’s by some famous artist.”

“Santa Fe? Where’s that?”

“New Mexico.”

The way Carter looks at me, I may as well have said Mars. “Huh,” he says. “I’ve never been out of the state.”

He goes to pick up the sculpture, but I stop him. “Whoa, you can’t touch it, sorry,” I say quickly. “My mom freaks out about stuff like that. Especially with this one, because of what happened.”

Carter steps back. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, there was this thing a few months ago where some worker guy dropped it and it chipped.” I point at the eagle. “See? It looks like it’s got an injured wing. I think it looks kind of cool, but my mom totally lost it. She was so mad, because I guess it’s worth a lot of money.” I start walking toward the basement door. “Come on, let’s go play. Isn’t your mom picking you up in, like, twenty minutes?”

But Carter doesn’t move. He’s just staring at the eagle sculpture. Then he slowly sits down on a couch.

“Dude?” I say. “You good?”

He doesn’t look at me. He just stares straight ahead.

“Nah, man. I’m not good. I’m not good at all.”

CARTER

I’m not sure what to do, but I know I can’t stay in this house another minute.

I bolt up from the couch and start running toward the front door.

“What is happening, bro?” he asks. “Why are you freaking out?”

I really want to get out of there, but I know he’s not going to just let me leave without telling him why, and part of me wants to tell him anyway. So I do. “That ‘worker guy’ you’re talking about is my dad,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “He’s a painter. He paints houses. Or, at least he used to. He lost his job. Because of your mom. And it wasn’t his fault. He told her she needed to move the stupid freaking sculpture thing, but she refused. And then after it fell, she goes running to my dad’s boss and the guy had to fire my dad. So yeah, I need to go. Now.”

But Austin is blocking the door. “That was your dad?”

“Yes. I just said that.”

“Dang, bro, I had no idea.”

“Well, now you know. He told me the whole story, and I know he was telling the truth, but he said no one would believe him anyway because you guys are so loaded and rich people always get their way and treat other people like crap.”

I wait for him to say how bad he feels, to say he’s sorry. But that’s not what happens. Instead, his face turns angry. “Listen, Carter, I don’t know exactly what your dad told you, but he was careless and screwed up. He knocked over the sculpture. I know you want to believe him, but I know what happened. Just because we live in this, like, big house, people want to blame us for everything, but my mom didn’t do anything wrong.”

We stare at each other, and it feels like all the blood in my body suddenly catches fire. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not blaming your mom because you have artwork all over your house and travel to places I’ve never heard of and your dad bought your way onto the AAU team. I’m blaming your mom because my dad doesn’t lie. He told me what happened.”

Austin looks stung, like I just slapped him or something, but he doesn’t back down either. “My mom doesn’t lie either. You can believe what you want to believe.”

“So can you.”

“AND BESIDES, YOUR DAD WAS DRINKING ON THE JOB!”

It feels like time stops. “What did you just say?”

He stares down at the floor. “Nothing.”

My eyes start to fill with tears. There’s nothing left to say, really, but that doesn’t stop me. “I should have known,” I tell Austin. “I should have known this was a dumb idea, coming to your house. We go to different schools. We live in different worlds. Our schools hate each other. We’re playing you in two days. This whole idea of being friends was so freakin’ dumb.”

Austin stands up as straight as he can, which is still about five inches shorter than me. “I agree.”

I get out my phone and check the time. “My mom is going to be here soon. I’m going to wait at the end of the driveway.”

“Fine.”

“Thanks for the power bar.” I open the door and walk out.

Halfway down the driveway, I hear Austin slam it shut.

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Wednesday at 7:20 pm

Janeece Need to make sure everyone comes out tomorrow night to the game against North . . . last game before playoffs

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Wednesday at 7:24 pm

Sandra I’ll be there babe you know it

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Wednesday at 7:31 pm

Antoine What time’s the game

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Wednesday at 7:33 pm

Janeece 7

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Wednesday at 7:37 pm

Carter I’ll be there and I’m bringing all the boys, we’re so ready for this

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Wednesday at 7:42 pm

Sham Everyone wear red

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Wednesday at 7:45 pm

North4Eva What if we don’t want to wear read

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Wednesday at 7:48 pm

Briscoe Oh here we go

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Wednesday at 7:52 pm

Kevin