Two Caps: A Tale of Unlikely Friendships

By Elizabeth R Breen

When sports-loving Charlie is partnered with the weird new school in an after-school writing program, he complains that he no longer wants to be in the class.  He blames everything except Jack, the new kid.   He claims that his mother just wants to keep him busy every afternoon until she returns from her own teaching job and that she t

• Language: English
• Publisher: ELIZABETH R. BREEN
• Release date: May 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641118620

Book preview

Chapter 1

Thwack! It sounded like something smashed against the front door. My eyes popped open and the first thing I noticed was darkness. My iPhone read 6:15 a.m. How crazy was that? I wanted to stay hunkered down on this worst of all days. But the more I hid under the covers, the harder it was to ignore the crash outside.

I scrambled downstairs, stumbling into my Red Sox sweatpants as I hopped over the squeaky third stair we all try to avoid when someone is still sleeping. Dad always means to fix the loose tread, but he spent a lot of the summer finishing my new room instead of working on his to-do list, and I’m glad he did. I love the way he turned the old second floor porch into my personal sports den. When the work was almost done, we celebrated my birthday and everyone gave me huge sports posters. It’s great! Now the Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and Patriots cover the walls. It’s like they’re all right there with me in my own room. Sometimes I dream of being in the team picture. I just haven’t decided which sport I like best yet.

I was still creeping quietly when I passed the kitchen and heard the old coffeepot grumbling. Without turning his back, Dad whispered, Hey, Charlie! I never thought you’d be up so early on the first day of school.

You thought right, I told him. "But that wild Tommy Winter woke me up with his firing arm. I thought I’d grab the newspaper so you and I could check out the sports pages before Mom and Annie get up.

But how did you hear me? I skipped that stupid step. Do you have eyes in the back of your head?

Nope, he said, It’s just something I do with those lazy sophomores in my science lab. They think I was born yesterday. But I’ve trained them to think I can sense them. Remember. I was a kid once, too. So is that the only reason you’re up so early?

No, I mumbled. There’s no sense trying to go back to sleep when it sounded like Tommy might have broken a window or something, I said. You know how upset Mom was when one of his wild throws broke all her chrysanthemums.

I sure do. But I, for one, can’t wait for Tommy to get to the high school. I just might recruit him for the baseball team if I get that head coaching job.

But don’t you like track better than baseball? I asked.

Not so much anymore. I’m getting tired of those early morning runs with kids half my age. Some of them have started to lap me, he said.

That really surprised me. Last year Dad beat his whole track team in the high school 5K fundraiser, but I guess he never liked the long runs that much. And there was that morning last August when he tried to catch Tommy and ask him, in his best schoolteacher voice, to please just leave the paper on top of the mailbox, but he never caught up with him.

When I came back inside with the South Cape Gazette, I noticed the griddle was sizzling. Pancakes? I asked hopefully.

Special treat for the first day of school, Dad said. I thought chocolate chips and bananas might boost your energy and help get you ready for school. But speed it up, kid. We’re going to have to hurry this year if we’re all going to get out the door at just about the same time. It was a lot easier when you and Annie were going to the same school. But this year we’re all going in different directions. We should change the name of our town from Harborview to Mapville.

Huh? I asked.

Well, with you heading north to the Williams School again this year, Mom teaching music at East Middle School, Annie carpooling to that new school way over on the south side of town and me still stuck in West High, we’re pretty much covering the whole town.

I groaned at all the madness Annie had caused. Ever since she won a scholarship to that fancy prep school across town, every conversation in the whole house seemed to revolve around her new school and uniforms, her hair, the upper-class girls who had a history of tormenting freshmen and more, blah blah blah, about her hair. When I told her to just cut it all off, Mom gave me a time-out.

While you’re wolfing down those pancakes, check and see if your uncle Rob has a story about last night’s game in the paper, will you? Dad asked as he put some plain batter into a separate bowl for Annie who only eats plain pancakes now that she’s an official preppie.

Wow! I said a little too loudly as I opened up the morning news, Uncle Rob has three whole columns.

Read what my evil twin has to say, but keep it down. Once we hear those dreaded hair dryers, you know we won’t have much time before Annie and Mom are down here turning on the blender and the TV and chatting about their schools.

I think Dad calls his brother the evil twin because he’s a little bit jealous that Uncle Rob goes to all the big games and has a super neat life. He even gets free sports stuff sometimes, like team shirts and hats. Last year he took me to a Bruins game, and I sat in the press box with him. I wished that night would never end.

Sure enough! As soon as Dad put a stack of steaming, oozy pancakes in front of me, the lights dimmed just like they do every time Mom and Annie use their hair dryers at the same time. Dad always complains that they’ll burn the house down sometime if they’re not careful. He’s been worried about having a house fire ever since he found the curling iron still turned on when he came back from a late-day track practice at the high school last spring.

But instead of wasting time worrying about fires and hair, I read my uncle’s story out loud as quickly and as quietly as I could. Twice. It was great! Uncle Rob even mentioned my favorite player, Zander Bogaerts. Boy! I’d love to get a job like that.

Then it happened! Just as Dad predicted, as soon as we finished discussing the story, Mom and Annie arrived and turned the blender on, drowning us out and spewing out some green gook while Annie chatted about Annie. Dad and I shook our heads and gave up on discussing sports.

But that’s Annie. She always gets all the attention. You’d think she was an astronaut going