Free Plunked by Michael Northrop Page A

something good. “Of course, you know: I woulda made it.”
    â€œOh, by a mile. No doubt.”
    Andy laughs and so do I, even though that doesn’t feel so great, either. Mostly, I’m just glad we won.
    People look over at me. A kid sitting there in the hospital lobby, laughing into a cell phone while his mom signs some forms up at the desk. They probably think it’s “insensitive” or whatever. I don’t see it that way: I’m injured. Totally legit. I have as much reason to be here as any of the people looking over at me.
    But I’m leaving now. The sooner Mom can sign her name, like, seventeen times, the sooner we’ll be out of here. Dad has already gone to get the car.
    â€œJ.P. was really mad after you got hit,” Andy is saying. “They just had no shot at him after that. If it was possible to score less than zero, they would have.”
    I feel good about that, like I contributed. Mom finishes the last form and pushes it across the desk to the lady. I say bye to Andy and hand the phone back to her.
    â€œGot everything?” she says.
    â€œExcept for the pieces I left on the field,” I say.
    She doesn’t think that’s funny.

We pull into the driveway. It sort of catches me by surprise that we’re home already. I’m thinking about one of things Dr. Redick said: “No structural damage.” That just seems so funny to me because the “structure” he’s talking about is my head!
    By now, Mom and Dad have figured out that it’s mostly good news and are in a much better mood.
    â€œIt never really worked right in the first place,” Dad says to Mom in the front seat, still talking about my head.
    â€œNothing to be done at this point,” Mom says. “Maybe we should think about boarding school.”
    Yeah, ha-ha-ha. Everyone is having fun now. I want to say, Hey! I got hit in the head here. But they’re just relieved. I can hear it in their voices. They’d been insanely tense, like seriously crazy, on the drive to the hospital.
    â€œHome again, home again,” Dad says as the car comes to a stop.
    Jiggedy jog, I think, because that’s the rest of it.
    I get out and start up the walkway. I look at our yellow house, not big but not little. I look up at my bedroom window on the second floor. It feels like I’ve been away for a long time because so much has happened since I left.
    I try to remember what games are on TV today and what snacks we have in the kitchen. Chips definitely, but I don’t know if we have any dip left. Then Nax appears in the window of the front door, barking and going crazy.
    â€œSomeone needs to be walked,” Mom says behind me. Normally, that would be my cue, but today she says, “I’ll take him.”
    â€œNah,” I say. “I’m fine.”
    The TV can wait.
    â€œDo you want to eat before or after?” Mom says once we’re inside.
    â€œAfter,” I say, because I already have the leash out, and Nax goes into hyperdrive when that happens.
    He bursts through the front door like a horse busts out of the gate at the Kentucky Derby. He doesn’t really settle down until we get to the Rail Trail behind our house. Then he comes up and rubs the gunk in the corner of his eye off against my pant leg and licks my hand.
    â€œHey, boy,” I say.
    A bicyclist comes whizzing by, and I have to hold Nax back so he won’t cause an accident. Then it’s just the two of us for a while. The day still isn’t that warm, so I grabbed my favorite sweatshirt before I left. It was so big for me when I got it on vacation a few years ago, but now it fits perfectly and has been softened up by a hundred washes.
    â€œLittle chilly, huh?” I say, because, yeah, sometimes I talk to my dog. It’s not that I think he can understand all the words, but he can understand some words, like walk . And he can definitely tell when I’m happy or