Free Losers Take All by David Klass Page B

glasses of water and handed them out. “Sorry I don’t have much in the way of snacks.” He began gathering up the file cards and books. “I was just doing a comparison of the differences between Livy’s account of the Battle of Cannae and the way Polybius describes it,” he told us, as if we would know what he was talking about. Actually, Becca probably did. “I’ve always been keen on strategy and tactics in the Second Punic War. That’s Hannibal, right there, by the way.” He pointed to a wall near the window where a poster from the British Museum was taped up. It was a photo of a warrior’s face on an ancient coin. He looked out defiantly from beneath his helmet, glowering across a few thousand years at us. “Of course, nobody knows what he really looked like, but there are a few commonly accepted images…”
    Percy dropped one of his books, and as he tried to grab it he knocked over a stack of file cards, then swatted one of the water glasses, which sailed through the air and shattered on the floor near the window. He hurried into the kitchen to get paper towels, and Becca and I got down on our hands and knees to gather up the fallen file cards.
    â€œQuick,” I asked her. “When was the Second Punic War?”
    She shrugged. “After the First Punic War?” And then she asked me: “Any idea where it was fought?”
    â€œPunica?” I tried.
    She grinned. “Punica?” I smiled back. She looked so cute beneath that table that I was trying to come up with the right strategy and tactics to go in for a first kiss, but Percy had returned from the kitchen with paper towels and was saying, “Frightfully sorry. Please don’t go anywhere near the broken glass. I don’t want the Second Punic War to cause any new casualties,” and he laughed at his own joke, a high-pitched warble that sounded like the call of some weird tropical bird.
    In a few minutes the mess was all cleaned up, and the three of us were seated at the table. “So,” Percy said, “Becca explained that you two are thinking of starting a team. That’s very enterprising of you.”
    â€œWe kind of have no choice,” I told him. “Our school—”
    â€œWith Muhldinger now in charge,” Becca cut in.
    â€œYes, he has certainly let the faculty know that he is sweeping in with lots of enthusiasm and a very new broom,” Percy added, and I wondered what kinds of e-mails Muhldinger had been sending to the teachers over the summer.
    â€œOur school,” I continued, “has a new policy that all seniors have to join a sports team. Most of the teams are super serious and obsessed with winning, and we’re trying to start a soccer team that isn’t.”
    â€œWhich means,” Becca added quickly, “that it will be low-key and dedicated to everyone just having a good time.”
    â€œSplendid,” Percy said. “I was never much of an athlete myself, and I took some ribbing from the other lads who were a bit more serious about their rugby. And they gave me a couple of hard knocks, too, along the way.” His voice held a note of bitterness, as if a few old schoolboy bruises were still healing.
    I tried to imagine Percy playing rugby. I knew very little about the game except that it was like football without pads. This toothpick of a guy must have been smashed seven different ways.
    â€œYeah, that goes on at our school, also,” I told him. “I got some of my teeth cracked earlier this summer.”
    â€œSorry to hear it,” he said. “A friendly soccer team seems like an eminently sensible solution.” He smiled at us. “But I’m not sure how I fit in.”
    â€œWe need a coach,” Becca told him, wasting no words.
    Percy looked back at her in surprise. “You want me to be a football coach?”
    â€œSoccer coach,” she corrected him.
    â€œYour soccer is my