Free Plunked by Michael Northrop Page B

upset or whatever.
    He looks back at me and then lets out one small bark, almost like a whoop. See? It’s like he agrees. His eyes are all over the trail, looking for squirrels.
    â€œI got hit in the head, boy,” I say. “It hurt.”
    It would be funny if he said ruff . He really does say that sometimes, but he doesn’t say anything now. He just looks back at me again. His eyes are big and wet and blank, so I go on.
    â€œI guess it was dumb. I mean, the pitcher had zero control, and I didn’t even really think about that….”
    But Nax isn’t listening anymore. He hasn’t seen a squirrel yet, and he’s getting antsy, pulling harder on the leash.
    â€œUntil I got hit,” I say, wrapping it up.
    I touch the side of my head. It’s a little sore and a little swollen, just in that one spot. Tender , that’s the word. It feels a little tender.
    Thank God for batting helmets. What if I hadn’t been wearing one? I picture the ball bearing in on me. No, not picture: I remember. I remember the ball coming straight for me, and I have to shake the thought out of my tender, stupid head. I need to forget about that.
    Nax jerks on his leash, and I snap back to reality. “All right,” I say. “Let’s find you a squirrel.”
    Nax jumps at the end of his leash. Squirrel is another word he knows.
    â€œA fat gray squirrel,” I say, and he spins around in excitement.
    Then he squats and takes a dump, so he can move faster, I guess. He doesn’t move off the paved part of the Rail Trail this time, so I reach into my pocket for the Baggie.

It’s Saturday night: time to start my homework. I’m up in my room, pushing around the pile of books and notebooks I dumped out onto my bed.
    Then I make individual piles. I put my notebook for English on the bottom of one pile, put the textbook on top, and then the little paperback copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau on top of that. The whole thing forms a little pyramid. Doing this does not help me get my homework done at all, in any way.
    I’m just putting it off. What’s the word, procrastinating ? And see, right there, I think I should get credit for that, like vocabulary credit. And maybe something for the pyramid. Isn’t there a class called geometry, in high school, maybe? I should get advanced placement credit!
    And then I have another thought: Maybe I won’t have to do homework this weekend. After all, I got hit in thehead. Apart from the batting helmet and my skull, I got hit in the brain . How could they ask a kid who had practically been hit in the brain to do homework so soon?
    Maybe I can’t even read right now, I think. But then I realize I’ve been reading the sports ticker at the bottom of the screen on ESPN all day. And right after that I realize it’s still only Saturday. People might cut me some slack for my “maybe a minor concussion” today, but that still leaves all of Sunday and Sunday night.
    I’m stuck. I look at the piles. I’ll have to do all of it. Not tonight, though. I can give myself a break on that, even if it means more for tomorrow. I reach over with both hands and mess up all of the little piles.
    Then I get a phone call.
    â€œYuh?” I say.
    â€œDo you have a big bandage around your head?” says Tim, instead of hello. “Did they give you a brain transplant? Do you look like Frankenstein?”
    â€œNo, no,” I say. “They said my brain was already too damaged to operate on. Even before the game.”
    â€œI could’ve told ’em that,” he says. “But how are you, like, really?”
    â€œI’m OK,” I say. “Except I don’t want to do my homework.”
    â€œI must’ve been hit in the head, too,” he says. “Because I don’t want to either.”
    Then he tells me about the game. Even though I already know about it from Andy, it’s still cool, because Tim