When you really break it down, the entire focus of kid life centers on one specific goal: having fun. All drive and brainpower is dedicated toward the purpose of playing. It's a relentless battle waged against grownups of all shapes and sizes, one that consistently begs the question: How can I, the kid, maximize my ability to play? How can I stretch the parental five-minute warning at Show Biz Pizza into ten minutes? How can I put the least amount of time acceptable into responsibilities so I can play? I just want to play. Can I go play now? Can we go upstairs and play? Can Evan come over and play? Can I go out back and play? Can I play hockey in the street? Can we play football in my room? Is Dad in a better mood now so Lizzy and I can play? Is church over yet? Is Grandpa's story finished? Is dinner done? Is practice over? Can I be excused? On all that is good and holy, I just want to play!

So picture this. You're an eight-year-old kid. You like sports and baseball cards, action figures and TV. Occasionally you get a book out of the library about Bigfoot, but that's pretty much it. But then one day this thing called Nintendo comes along. It speaks to you like nothing has ever spoken to you before. In playing terms, it's off the charts. It's like an arcade that lives in your family room. You don't even need quarters or a birthday excuse to be there. It's better than TV, better than any book at the library because each game is like your own little story that you control. It's filled with magic flutes and airplanes and guys named Piston Honda. Nintendo made Choose Your Own Adventure books seem like finger painting.

Sure, there was Atari before Nintendo, but only weird older second cousins who lived in Indiana, and babysitters' boyfriends, cared about Atari. Atari was boring, the graphics were weak, even the design of the system itself looked hokey. Frogger was probably its best game, and the object of that was to not get hit by cars. Seriously? I could do that out on Fabyan Parkway anytime I wanted. Nintendo games were different. Each one was its own new experience.

Take Super Mario Bros., for instance. You're playing along, getting the hang of it, jumping over little mushroom men and smashing blocks with your head, when, out of nowhere, level 2.2 comes along and suddenly you're underwater. Underwater! No way you saw that one coming. Holy cow! What'll they think of next? Look at those graphics! Look at those little bubbles coming out of Mario's mouth! Look at that lobster thing. It looks exactly like a real-life lobster thing! This is amazing!

With books or TV shows, even with your own imagination, results came without any required effort. You want to see what James does with that giant peach of his? Just turn the page and find out. You're not sure how Mr. Belvedere will keep Wesley from being a little asshole this week? All you gotta do is sit in front of the tube for another twenty minutes and watch. But with Nintendo, if you wanted to see what happened next, you had to work for it. Nintendo rewarded playing. Sure, winning a game of touch football brought a sense of satisfaction, but beating a level of Super Mario Bros. meant you got to lift the curtain on a whole new 8-bit world, filled with what felt like infinite possibility. This was completely different from anything we'd ever experienced before. Nintendo was more than a toy; it was a playing utopia. The only catch was Timmy Kleen working the door.

In the beginning, the games were limited. Kleen's NES came with just the standard dual-game cartridge of Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros., and we played those two until our thumbs were raw and we saw flying turtles in our sleep. It wasn't until Kleen got himself sent to the principal's office for throwing a stapler at a hall monitor that his parents placed him on the decidedly effective Games for Good Behavior program. It was quite possibly the greatest disciplinary action of all time.

Every week that Kleen didn't poke his sister in the eye, every week that he didn't throw his music book at Ms. Powers, every week that he didn't cry at karate lessons, he got a new Nintendo game. It was unbelievable—a carrot on a stick that gave half the school good reason to fess up for crimes we hadn't even committed. We became Kleen cover-up artists and ADD deflectors of the highest order. Who put paste on the carpet? Not Timmy, that's for sure. Who called Lisa Kowalski a stink face? Sure wasn't Timmy. Who knows the answer to number two? That would be Timmy, Mrs. Hugo, because ten of us just whispered it to him. Within three weeks of the Games for Good Behavior program, Timmy Kleen had become the most popular, sociable, well-adjusted kid at HC Wilson. And the spaz didn't even have to lift a finger.

The initial game reward in the Kleen program was Excitebike. It lived up to its name and then some. Set in the apparently high-stakes world of Japanese motocross, Excitebike tested our reflexes against ramps, pits, straightaways and the clock. It was you versus the computer—three to four other bike racers all hell-bent on knocking you down and making your life miserable. Excitebike also introduced us to "power conservation"—a very foreign concept to a nine-year-old. If you went too fast all the time, your excite bike would become overexcited, crapping out and sending you headfirst into the dirt. This was a very difficult idea to grasp. I mean, what nine-year-old boy doesn't want to go fast all the time? Especially a nine-year-old boy who should be on medication? Needless to say, Kleen was not good at Excitebike. Both he and the bike spent about ninety percent of each race squarely "in the red." The only reason he didn't smash the cartridge against the wall three rounds in was because we'd usually manage to tackle him to the ground.

After taking the fall for a fogged-up-bus-window drawing of a stick figure picking his nose, Matt Mahoney got Kleen through his second week of the program unscathed. The reward was RBI Baseball. It was most definitely a game changer. Made by a company called Tengen, RBI Baseball didn't look like a regular Nintendo game. It wasn't gray with grooves on the side; rather, it was black and shaped like the hood of the Knight Rider car. At first we weren't even sure if it would work in the NES. But from the first crack-of-the-bat ping, we knew we were in for a treat.

Up until this point, all the games we played were one-player games. Your competition was the game itself. Sure, Super Mario Bros. allowed both Mario and Luigi to play, but that was never at the same time and certainly never against one another. RBI, or "Ribbie," as we quickly grew accustomed to calling it, changed all that. Upon the start of the game you were able to select one of eight Major League Baseball clubs as your team and you could go head-to-head with another club of your opponent's choice. You controlled an entire roster of batters, pitchers and fielders, who, despite all looking like the white version of Kirby Puckett, each had their own stats and skill levels. It seems simple now, but back then, to think that a video game could make some batters better home-run hitters than others, or give some pitchers a better curveball, well, that was mind-blowing. Years later, RBI would no doubt become instrumental in the popularization of fantasy sports. For if RBI Baseball taught us anything, it was that the key to success lay heavily in statistics. As such, we gradually composed a list of Ribbie dos and don'ts. They were: 1. Never throw strikes to Tony Armas. Ever. It doesn't matter that you've never heard of him or that his baseball card is worth seven cents. In RBI Baseball he's Babe Ruth.

2. The California Angels suck.

3. Pressing the buttons extra hard directly correlates to extra bases.

4. In the fifth inning Fernando Valenzuela will suddenly start to pitch thirty-seven miles per hour. Remove him immediately.

5. Kent Hrbek is a beast.

6. Ellis Burks should always pinch-hit for Bill Buckner.

7. Vince Coleman is a professional thief. He steals bases.

8. Roger Clemens is an asshole, even in video game form.

9. In RBI Baseball sometimes home-run balls go straight through the wall. And sometimes outfield throws get stuck in the bleachers.

10. At the end of the day, the Tengen newspaper never lies.

Down in Kleen's basement, epic round-robin Ribbie tournaments were waged. Athletic attempts normally reserved for Little League failure could now be played out with a little hand–eye coordination and a quick pair of thumbs. We became baseball professionals, turning double plays, hitting sacrifice flies, and throwing wicked knuckleballs. It didn't matter that your batter ran faster to the dugout when tagged out than he did running the bases, RBI Baseball felt as real as baseball itself.

But the good times didn't last. The "Pheasant Wood Meltdown," as it later became known, put the Games for Good Behavior program in serious jeopardy. On a Saturday night sometime in September, Timmy Kleen went out to dinner with his family to the St. Charles Country Club, Pheasant Wood. It was a location that none of us had ever been to—a middle-class pipe dream only glimpsed through minivan windows in passing. So Kleen was left to his own devices that night. If there were any other kids dining there, they most certainly had their own Nintendos, because nothing was done to keep Kleen in line. Perhaps in some St. Charles show of superiority, the country-club kids had even encouraged Timmy's spastic behavior just so they could keep the deprived children of Batavia from receiving their precious games. Lousy St. Charles kids. I wouldn't put it past them.

The facts of that night never got out completely, but this much is known. Kleen's hamburger, his mother's plate of linguini, two deckchairs and a teenage waitress were thrown into the Pheasant Wood swimming pool, all compliments of Timmy. Did he not like his burger? Was he upset with the service? Had his sister questioned the styling of his creased dress pants? We were never sure. But the legend of Timmy Kleen's rage had now spread to the far reaches of Kane County, and his parents certainly weren't going to take it lightly. They banned new games for a month. It was a crushing blow to us all.

Over the next few weeks we did our best to get by. We concerned ourselves with getting to the last level in Super Mario Bros. and seeing how slow we could make Valenzuela throw through extra innings. The record was nineteen miles per hour—a rate at which a batter could swing three full times before the ball reached the plate. Fascinating stuff.

When we weren't trying to keep Kleen out of trouble, we spent much of our time petitioning him on what game to get next once the ban was lifted. There were plenty to choose from. We'd heard great things about a game called The Legend of Zelda from our Tri-City soccer opponents. And Olsen's Canadian penpal had nothing but glowing reviews for Tecmo Bowl, 1943: The Battle of Midway and, of course, Ice Hockey. Proving that even Canadians had better access to games than we did. It was decidedly frustrating.

But one sunshiny day during the middle of lunch, Kleen announced the unexpected.

"Double Dragon."

"The arcade game?"

"Yep. They turned it into a Nintendo game. It's brand new. My dad's buying it for me on the way home from work. I'm back on the program."

Hell yes! Double Dragon was maybe the coolest, and definitely the most violent, arcade game we'd ever come across. And violence, to a nine-year-old American boy, is more addictive than crack. At All Seasons Ice Rink, I'd once taken five dollars from my dad, meant for hot dogs and Cokes for the family, and feverishly spent it on twenty minutes of Double Dragon bliss. Pumping in quarter after quarter, I managed to make it all the way to level four, registering electronic immortality with a top-ten score. So incredible was the accomplishment for a novice like myself that I was sure my father would see the value in his five-dollar investment. Sadly, he did not and I was grounded for a week. (It should be noted that denying John Doyle hot dogs was never a good idea.) But it was worth the punishment. As an arcade game, Double Dragon had the uncanny ability to suck you in no matter what the consequences, and the NES version ended up being just as addictive.

Whips, aluminum bats, metal pipes, throwing knives—these were all weapons of choice in Double Dragon. But the weapons didn't just magically appear as they did in other games. No sir, to get a whip in Double Dragon, you had to kill a whip-wielding bad guy first. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn't even a bad guy with the whip. It was a girl. You had to kill girls in Double Dragon! With your own bare hands! Once they were dead, then the whip was yours. Then you could kill other bad guys with whips, like slightly Asian-looking bodybuilders and dudes named Lopar, eventually moving up to big rocks and dynamite and so on and so forth, leaving a bloody 8-bit trail of demise behind you. There were no gold coins to gather or enchanted mushrooms to gobble up in Double Dragon, just straightforward, unadulterated, two-fisted violence. It was glorious.

So from Halloween through Thanksgiving we gorged ourselves on a steady diet of curveballs and jump kicks. While other new games made their way into the Games for Good Behavior rotation, like Mega Man, Double Dribble and John Elway's Quarterback, RBI and Double Dragon remained our favorites.

But as the temperature continued to drop outside and Kleen's basement rules became more obsessive, we grew more and more fed up with the situation. The constant grind of standing in line and taking turns was wearing on us all. We wanted our own Nintendos. Badly. Surely the Christmas season would be the answer. Surely Santa Claus or a favorite grandparent would step up to the plate, and Timmy Kleen's Nintendo tyranny would come to an end. It had to.


video games
historical fiction
Christmas
slice of life
pop culture
child protagonist

Two raisin eyes stared up at me. They were oozing with Elmer's and loosely attached to a mismanaged tapestry of pipe cleaners. This was my donkey, the shining centerpiece of my art-class manger-scene ornament. The fact that the donkey was three times the size of the manger itself didn't concern me. Nor was I concerned that my ornament project in no way resembled an actual "ornament." These were minor details, trifles in comparison to the masterpiece unfolding before me. Already there were art critics in my head peppering me with baited-breath questions.

Would you say you're an artistic genius, Jake?

Genius? Prodigy, maybe. I just create what I feel, you know? But I owe it all to my third grade art teacher, Miss Ciarocci. We're getting married in the autumn, actually.

"What the heck is that?" Mahoney asked, looking over the apparent bomb that had just exploded on my desk.

"It's a manger-scene ornament."

"It looks like my butt."

To the untrained eye, maybe. I brushed him off. "Just wait till it's finished." I didn't have time for the inquiries of common folk. I was on a mission here. Step one: Create genius art project. Step two: Make out with Miss Ciarocci. Step three: Get her to buy me a Nintendo.

All around me kids cut and pasted, while Christmas music played cheerfully in the background. These were the days when you could actually play Christmas music in a public school. Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had yet to be deemed dangerous religious icons. It was a simpler time.

In the corner, by the cleanup sink, I could see a group of boys reviewing wreath-selling numbers. In the past week, grades had dipped considerably among Cub Scouts. All academic thinking was now solely focused on selling wreaths. Rumor had it that Josh Farmer was still in the lead, but I wasn't sweating him, because, ladies and gentlemen, as of forty-eight hours ago, Jake Doyle had uncovered a secret weapon.

On the night when my own mother bought two wreaths from my sworn enemy, I'd had a nice little talk with my parents. It went something like this:

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?"

"What's he crying about?" my dad asked, setting down his briefcase.

"Oh, I just bought a few wreaths from the Farmer boy."

"The Farmer boy? I don't trust that kid."

"See!" I yelled. "He's a total dipstick!"

"Watch your mouth," my dad yelled back.

My mother tried to explain. "You always hated selling wreaths, Jake, I didn't even think you were selling them this year. I'm sorry."

"I knew he was selling wreaths," Lizzy interjected from the stairs. "It's because the top wreath seller gets a Nin—"

"Night in Chicago." I glared at Lizzy. She was one slippery little snot. She must have seen the take-home note. This was going to be tricky. "I—I thought it would be nice for the whole family to go. It's at a hotel or someplace. It's supposed to be expensive."

My mom wasn't buying it. "A night at a hotel? That's a weird prize."

"Yeah, I think the Kleens donated it or something."

"Figures," said my dad, hanging up his coat and immediately switching gears to more-pressing matters. "So, what's for dinner?"

Thirty seconds later I had Lizzy cornered at the kitchen sink as we washed up.

"What the heck are you doing?" I hissed, throwing in a few soapy elbows.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You saw the take-home note. I know you did. Why are you trying to tell them about the Nintendo? Don't get me in trouble!"

"You're the one getting yourself in trouble."

I was not amused. "I will seriously tear off the heads of every single one of your Barbies. Don't think I won't do it."

"Go ahead. I'll just tell on you."

"Don't mess with my Nintendo!"

Lizzy shut off the sink and dried her hands. There was something else cooking in that giant brain of hers, I could tell. She looked me straight in the eyes.

"Look, you don't even have it yet, okay? You probably won't even win it."

"So?"

"So I have a way you can do it. A way you can win the Nintendo."

"What is it?"

"You have to help me first."

"With what?"

"Getting a Cabbage Patch. If Santa doesn't get me one, I need Mom and Dad to do it. I can't depend on Santa anymore. He didn't get me Strawberry Shortcake last year like I asked. The system is broken. I want you to help me get one. A redhead one named Dawn."

"How am I gonna do that?"

"Just tell Mom and Dad how much I want one. It looks bad if I say it all the time."

"And what are you gonna do for me?"

"I won't say anything about the Nintendo."

"And?"

"And I have a way to win the Cub Scout contest."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Well, what is it?" I wiped my hands on my pants.

"Every year you sell wreaths to Miss Sherman, right?"

"Yeah."

"She buys a lot, right? 'Cause she's old."

"Uh-huh. Maybe."

"No, definitely 'cause she's old. So what you need is a bunch of other old people to sell to. Ones that are all in the same place so you can go door to door really fast and you don't have to go all over Batavia hunting them down."

"What's your point?"

My mom yelled from across the kitchen. "Dinner's ready!"

"Coming, Mommy," Lizzy called back. Still standing on the stool, she put her hand on my shoulder and laid it on me.

"You need to go to Prairie Pines, Jake. The nursing home. You'll clean up."

Prairie Pines. Man, Lizzie was smart. Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't anyone think of that? There must be two hundred lonely old saps up there, easy. Most of them waking up every day just hoping some kid comes by to visit them. They'd all want wreaths. This was genius!

"So, do we have a deal?"

"Yeah," I said, still a little stunned. "We got a deal. Redhead named...?"

"Dawn. With freckles. Don't mess it up."

Prairie Pines Nursing Home had been an institution in "half-dead living"—as my dad put it—for decades. It sat on the corner of Route 31 and Fairview Parkway, an intersection serving as the border between Batavia and neighboring thug town—Geneva. At the edge of the Prairie Pines property stood the prominent, hand-carved "welcome to Batavia" sign, which read, BATAVIA CITY OF ENERGY, an ironic slogan considering the monumental lack of activity that lay directly behind the sign. Not to mention a very loose interpretation of the word "city."

Over the years I'd probably passed Prairie Pines a thousand times, but until that Saturday morning, I'd never been inside the place. As I pedaled my Team Murray up its winding sidewalk, I could already smell that hospital smell. It was something of a cross between hot-lunch vegetables and my great-aunt Bertha. Not a very palatable mix. But it didn't matter. I had work to do. There were only six sales days left in the wreath-selling competition and I was nowhere near the head of the pack. I ditched my bike in the snow, stomped down on the automatic doormat and forged ahead inside.

The first thing you learn as a nine-year-old walking into a nursing home is that you are a very rare commodity. Like a life jacket on a sinking ship or the last brownie at a Phish show; everybody wants a piece. Before I'd even finished telling the nurse at the front desk my story, two elderly men in wheelchairs approached me. They were dead eyed and mush mouthed, smiling and wheezing nonsense. They made the old guys from the Muppets look like New Kids on the Block. To be completely honest, they scared the crap out of me.

"That must be Charlie's grandson!" one of them coughed.

"Look at how big you've gotten!" said the other one, tugging at my arm.

"It's Charlie's grandson!" the same guy coughed again.

"I heard you the first time," said the other guy.

"What?"

"I said, I heard you the first—"

"Hey everybody! It's Charlie's grandson!"

And that was how I became Charlie's grandson. I never did meet Charlie, but it didn't matter. I could have been a convicted juvenile delinquent and it wouldn't have mattered to these people. Before I knew what was happening I was surrounded by a dozen drooling half-deads, all smiling and petting me like a puppy. This little trip to Prairie Pines was definitely going to cause a few nightmares in the coming weeks. It reminded me of the time I made the mistake of going through Jaydee's Haunted House alone on a bet. Every molecule in my body was screaming at me to run, but my Nintendo brain kept me locked in position. The time to sell was now.

"Hi, my name's Jake... I'm a Cub Scout."

"A little Cub Scout, how wonderful!" a bald lady chirped.

"Charlie's grandson's a Cub Scout!"

"That's right. My grandpa Chuck taught me well."

"I was a Cub Scout before there was such a thing," the guy who was still tugging my arm slobbered. "I could whittle you a canoe!"

"Fascinating, sir."

Another one bellowed out from behind me, "What kind of merit badges have you got, sonny?"

"Only a couple..." I paused for effect. "I still have to get my American Business Badge. You know, for selling Christmas wreaths. Do any of you know someone who might like to buy a Christmas wreath?"

Wrinkled hands shot up all around me and cash register bells immediately went off in my head. Or maybe that was just the sound of someone flatlining in the next room. Either way, these people were definitely buying what I was selling.

Yes, they would all like to buy a Christmas wreath, but first I would have to come back to the lounge or the dining room or their living quarters to see pictures of their grandkids and play checkers and hear stories about the Hoover Dam. (What is it about old people and the Hoover Dam?) So that's exactly what I did. I went door to door, I smiled and laughed, I ate stale pieces of fudge. I got schooled in checkers. I gave hugs and handshakes. I listened to stories about FDR and whistled along to Benny Goodman. I took buffalo nickels as gifts. I raised beds. I turned on lights. I lifted spirits.

By lunchtime word had gotten out. There was a nine-year-old boy in the building who had manners and the Christmas spirit. He wasn't selling wreaths; by God, he was selling America! And what war vet or former Depression-era teenager didn't want to buy himself a nice little piece of that? Folks came out of the woodwork. Grumpy old men who hadn't been out of bed in months suddenly found their legs. I was magic tonic. I was Ponce de León. I was Willy Wonka's friggin' golden ticket, dangling over Grandpa Joe's face. I told stories of Pinewood Derby triumphs. I explained the intricacies of the Star Wars trilogy. I pledged allegiance to the flag. And I sold wreaths, a truckload of them. I was in Prairie Pines for exactly six hours, and I left with just under three hundred bucks in sales. It was a triumph of Eagle Scout proportions.

Later that night, back at home, I sloshed up the stairs weighed down with dollar bills and change. As I passed Lizzy's room I poked my head in.

"A redhead, right?"

She turned and nodded smugly. "With freckles."


Dumpsters make great hiding places for three reasons. One, they're usually readily available. Two, they're almost always tucked to the side somewhere, hidden from view. And three, most importantly, they smell, which keeps whoever you're hiding from at a safe distance. So if you do it right, you don't even have to get into the dumpster itself, you can just hang out behind it, which is precisely what my girls' boots and I had been doing for the past five recesses.

Hiding my boots was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. The recess bell would ring, I'd take my time putting on my coat and hat, making sure that all the guys were already on their way down the hall. Then I'd slip on my boots, walk past Huge-Blow's room so she was sure to see them, and head for the door. Once I was there, I'd wait for the right moment and then sprint past the jungle gym and dive behind the dumpster. The whole operation took less than fifteen seconds, with only about five or six seconds of actual girl-boot exposure. Those were odds I could live with. And why would anyone pay any attention to me anyway? It was recess, time to play blacktop football and monkey-bar chicken and tag, and whatever the hell it was that girls did out there. Conceivably, I could keep this dumpster thing up well through March.

Sometimes Zilinski would give me a hand or cause a distraction on my way out the door. He was the only one who had first-hand knowledge of my plight. I'd kept my mouth shut about a preschool pants-peeing incident of his for years, so he owed me one. He was the best kind of friend, loyal and sneaky. Sometimes he'd even stop by the dumpster for a visit during the football game, just to see how I was doing.

"You see Temple of Doom last night?" he asked. We were both propped up on a snowbank, balanced between the wall and the dumpster.

"On a movie channel?"

"Yeah. A guy rips out a guy's heart, right out of his chest. It's great."

"Indiana Jones' heart?"

"No, some loser Indian. You gotta get the movie channels."

"My dad says cable makes you fat."

"Yeah," he contemplated. "I guess. My dad's a pretty big fatso."

Out on the blacktop, Delund was marching his team down the field, changing the rules to suit his needs as he went along. In recent weeks he had grown tired of the lack of physicality in two-hand touching and had resorted to one-armed forearming, usually to your face. Without Zilinski out there, Team Loser was getting massacred. Ronnie Dobber had been given a full-body snowsuit wedgie and was now lying prostrate at midfield. He'd been there for several plays now.

Steve sat up. "I guess I should get back out there. See ya later, Jake."

"Yeah. See ya, Steve."

Zilinski trotted back to the blacktop. I hawked a loogie and watched it drip down the side of the dumpster. I could feel a presence lurking; one that I'd hoped was only my imagination. I was wrong.

"Steve's cool," Conor Stump projected philosophically. He was sitting three feet away from me at the side of the dumpster, where he'd been, conceivably, since August. He was chewing on an icicle. "This dumpster's cool. Sitting back here's cool."

"Uh-huh..."

In a word, Conor Stump was weird, the kind of antisocial personality that probably still played with GI Joes in high school. He was a born chewer and overall creepy little kid. He ate eraser heads by the gross, gnawed on Highlights magazines, pen caps, the thumbs of his rainbow-patterned Freezy Freakies, whatever he could get his mouth on. His overuse of the word "cool" was also troubling.

"This snow's cool."

And he had nothing better to do than sit behind the dumpster with me.

"We should build a fort back here. A secret Christmas snow fort for Christmas. Christmas is cool."

"Yeah..."

But I'd sold a whopping thirty-seven wreaths last week. There was a Nintendo on its way. I could feel it. And when it came, my days in hiding would be a distant memory. I closed my eyes and slowly let my imagination get me through the rest of recess. For there are no dreams bigger than those conjured up behind a dumpster...

Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" blasted from the fifty-pound boom box resting on my shoulder. There was a party going down on 120 N. Watson Street, and it was bumping. I strolled down the stairs in a Rad Racer T-shirt and a sport coat with the sleeves rolled up. Pausing on the landing for effect, I surveyed the Doyles' new, modern Nintendo living room. Big screen TV. Check. Half a dozen beanbag chairs in place of the couch. Check. Nintendo Entertainment System on marble pedestal. Check. Yes indeed, this dream sequence was going to work out nicely. Elwood gave me a fist bump in agreement as he floated by on a hoverboard.

The whole crew was in attendance: Mahoney, Olsen, Zilinski, Hartwell, the Gruseckis, even that little kindergartener Brett from down the street. Half the town had come to bask in the glow of my Cub Scout victory. Lizzy was passing out glasses of Tang to Batavians and celebrities alike, who mingled around the house, talking Zelda high scores and Mega Man strategies. And what was this? Oh-ho! Miss Ciarocci in a red miniskirt, how nice of you to make it. At the moment, she was talking to Double Dare's Marc Summers. I didn't like the looks of this. I gave a quick nod to the suit in the corner—Dan Delund, my new head of security. He scurried over and lowered his shades.

"Yeah, boss?"

"I think we got a problem with Mr. Messy over there. I don't like the way he's talking to the guests. You catch my drift?"

"He's already gone, sir."

"Good man."

As I walked through the crowd, I felt a new sense of purpose. There was a bounce in my step, a tingle in my thumbs. I was officially a Nintendo Owner—a man worth talking to. The eighth grader who just yesterday had tossed my lunch in a tree was now tossing me high fives. Perks and benefits, the likes of which I could only dream about before, were suddenly within my grasp.

But with great power also came great responsibility. I'd become both Gatekeeper and Key Master to a Nintendo kingdom, and now everybody wanted a turn. I pushed through the crowd of well-wishers and down the red-carpet gauntlet leading toward the TV. Celebrities and pop idols were coming out of the woodwork. I had to pick my spots wisely.

No, Mr. Wizard, you can't have next game, I don't care about the volcano experiment you're holding. You, on the other hand, William "the Refrigerator" Perry, yes, I will take one of those Pudding Pops. You and me got a Tecmo Bowl date in a half hour. What's up, Max Headroom? Cool, man. Uh-huh. Maybe if you'd just stop stuttering for a second, we can have a conversation. Seriously, you're scaring Spuds MacKenzie. Oh, wow, Alanis from You Can't Do That on Television? No way, that's such a coincidence, I think you're super cute too. You should hang out for a while in case this thing with my art teacher doesn't work out. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman! That's seriously how tall you guys are? For real? Tell you what. You see Mike Tyson over there hitting on Mary Lou Retton? If you guys can get him to tell you how to beat King Hippo, I'll give you next game on Punch-Out!! For reals.

My parents stood in the kitchen doorway, proudly taking it all in. My father put his arm around my mom. "I'm telling you, Patty, that Nintendo Entertainment System is the best thing that's ever happened to this family."

"His test scores are up too," she added.

I finally made it to the center of the crowd, where the Gruseckis were in the midst of a heated game of Ice Hockey. Team Poland was trailing Team USA in the third period.

"You know," I said, chomping down on a candy cigarette and exhaling sugar vapor, "some guys go all medium-sized players in Ice Hockey. I say mix it up a bit. Me, I like to live on the edge."

"Totally, Jake, totally."

"When it's your turn to play, I wanna see a team of all fat guys take on a team of all skinnies. You know, really go for it. It's a party." I turned to the crowd. "A Nintendo party!"

Thunderous applause.

At the door, Delund shook off the cold and gave me a nod. Marc Summers was no longer in the building. Outside, rummaging around in the snow, Josh Farmer and Timmy Kleen could only pick up more poop in the hope that doing my chores would gain them entrance. The two pressed their faces up against the window.

"Jake! Let us in, man!"

I leaned up against the glass. "Cold out there, eh, Kleen?"

"We've been out here for an hour!"

"No skin off my nose, is it?"

"How much more poo do we gotta clean up?"

"Let me ask you a question, Farmer. Do you love your country?"

"Yeah."

"Then pick it up. All of it."

I pulled the curtain shut and turned around. Ciarocci was now standing right in front of me, softly blowing on a Super Mario Bros. cartridge.

"So, Jake. How 'bout a little two-player?"

I popped in another candy cigarette and exhaled. "I'm your Mario, baby."

"Mario? Like Super Mario?"

"Huh?" I shook off the cobwebs. I'd been off in space for a good ten minutes. The crowds were already heading back inside and lunch ladies were barking out orders. Recess was winding down. Conor Stump had finished off his icicle and was now sucking on the strings of his sweatshirt. He was also seated about three inches from my face.

"Back off a bit, Stump, will ya?"

"I was just watching you stare at your breath. Staring at your breath is cool. It looks like smoke sometimes. Smoke is cool."

"Yeah."

"Are you gonna go back inside?"

"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute."

Conor just sat there, staring.

"So, where'd you get those boots?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Those boots are cool."


Chrysler's 1987 Dodge Grand Caravan was one fine piece of engineering. It was like the Trapper Keeper of cars. There were enough storage compartments and gadgets in that minivan to make any kid want to buy American for the rest of his life. The night my dad brought it home from the dealer's, I cried when my parents wouldn't let me camp out in it overnight. Lizzy and I were fascinated by it. That new car smell, that interior—the car was nicer than our living room. We went from not even knowing what a cup holder was to suddenly having six of them. Six cup holders! Imagine the possibilities! Up to six pops open at the same time, and all comfortably stored throughout the automobile. You could throw a birthday party in there. There was an overhead compartment for the garage-door opener, even one for sunglasses. Cruise control, seat pockets, armrests—it was better than being on a plane. Even Elwood was impressed.

The evening before our first Chrysler road trip, my dad stayed up all night making Steely Dan tapes for the open road that lay ahead, one that he would now, undoubtedly, be cruising in comfort. This was a first for John Doyle. We'd never seen him actually get excited about driving somewhere, at least not in a vehicle with us. The year I was born he'd been forced to put his beloved Triumph TR6 convertible away for good. It was a two-seater and notoriously bad in the snow—not exactly a family car. He'd built a little shed for it in our backyard, and sometimes, late at night, I'd catch him staring at it from his bedroom window. He missed that car.

But it only took one family road trip to Rockford for the Chrysler to lose its magic touch on my dad. Within a few weeks he was back to his old self again: white-knuckled at the wheel, hating traffic, hating construction, hating the weather and hell-bent on getting to his destination as fast as humanly possible. Whoever said getting there was half the fun has never been in a moving vehicle with John Doyle. With our family, getting there was far from fun, it was a seventy-five-mile-per-hour nightmare. My dad needed to drive fast like most other dads needed to watch football on Sunday or go bowling. It kept him sane. Where other parents might place automobile emphasis on seatbelts or antilock brakes, my father's only concern was for speed. The faster the better. And good luck to anyone who got in his way.

You had to hand it to him, though: my dad had a knack for getting from point A to point B. In all the vacations and road trips we'd taken over the years, we'd never once been in an accident or gotten seriously lost. And I'd never seen him get pulled over by the cops either. An early pioneer in fuzz-buster technology, John Doyle always managed to stay one step ahead of the law. Over the years he went through at least a dozen radar detectors, each one supposedly better than the last. The earliest versions were about the size of a VCR. They sat up on the dash, perilously mounted on giant strips of Velcro, constantly chirping and beeping, so much so that the sounds eventually became nothing more than white noise to us. But every so often the thing would reach a blaring frequency, alarming enough to confirm a speed trap, and my dad would slam on the brakes and inconspicuously merge into slower traffic. Chuckling to himself, he'd proudly tally up another point in a decades-long score. "That's Doyle: one-fifty-eight; cops: zero." Those marked the happy moments of our family car trips.

Right now, however, was not one of those moments. Today was our annual Christmas shopping trip into Chicago—hands down my father's least favorite day of the year. It meant getting up early, sitting in traffic, finding parking, shopping, waiting, listening, spending money and driving a minivan—pretty much a grocery list of pain for the man now barreling down the highway.

"God bless it! What the— Come on!" he hollered over the wheel in short bursts of anger, his fury only temporarily cooled by pressing harder on the gas.

My mom was in her normal crash position, bracing herself against the dashboard. Lizzy and I were in the middle and back seats flipping through Sears Wish Book catalogs, doing our best to zone out and think about Christmas. It was nine a.m. on a Saturday, but even the smallest amount of traffic heading into the city was too much for the old man. We were currently on I-88 stuck behind a semi. My dad was tailing it close enough to read the button-sized sticker on its bumper, which read, almost tauntingly:

 HOW'S MY DRIVING?

To which my father replied:

"GO EFF YOURSELF!"

"Honey. Not in front of the kids." My mom hated it when my dad swore in front of us, even when it was just implied swearing. But reminding him of her disapproval only ever made things worse. My dad was swearing because he was mad. My mom's nagging made him madder, which directly resulted in more swearing. It was a hilarious cycle of escalating tension that they never really seemed to figure out.

"The kids don't need to hear—"

"God bless it! Look at this yahoo! Oh, would ya look at that, Patty? Wisconsin plates. What a shocker. Get the cheese outta your eyes, Oshkosh!"

"Just go around him."

"Go around him?" HONK! HONK! "He should be letting me pass!"

Some fathers find refuge fishing; others, sanctuary on the golf course. In my father's eyes there was nothing holier than the left-hand lane. Those somehow unaware of his divine right to it were met with a barrage of incessant horn patterns and verbal assaults poetically expressing the dairy idiosyncrasies of Wisconsin. A state, we'd learned, where no one ever used turn signals and often let cattle sit shotgun.

HONK! HONK! Doing his best to lighten the mood, my dad yelled over his shoulder, "Hey Jake? Why'd the doctor from Green Bay send his patient to the nut house?"

"I dunno."

"Because he diagnosed him lactose intolerant. Ha!"

"That means he can't eat cheese," Lizzy explained.

"Oh."

HONK! HONK! "LEFT-HAND LANE! Son of a—"

The truck driver had now confirmed what we'd all known for years: that there was a genuine asshole on his tail. He slowed down to a cool forty miles per hour just to piss my dad off.

"Mother— God BLESS IT!"

"Just go around him, John. There aren't even any other cars on the road."

The odds of my dad giving any vehicle, save maybe the Popemobile, the courtesy of a right-hand pass were about as good as my mom flicking you off. We stayed three inches from the semi's tailgate for another twenty minutes until, thankfully, the driver got off at Harlem Avenue in Oak Park. As we passed by, Lizzy gave him a little apologetic wave, my mom avoided eye contact, and my dad just plowed ahead toward the Sears Tower on the horizon. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You see?" He pointed back toward the semi. "Doyle: nine thousand seventy-seven. Wisconsin: zip."

Although we might have an occasional laugh at the expense of a few cheeseheads on I-88, once we reached the outskirts of downtown Chicago, the jokes were over. City driving was a different animal altogether. As soon as we merged off the Eisenhower Expressway onto Congress Avenue, you could feel my father's blood begin to boil. The traffic, the noise, the tourists, the one-way streets—Christmas in Chicago was a virtual biological assault on the old man. The closer we got to Lake Michigan, the higher his threat level rose, usually jumping from orange to red as we made the left past Buckingham Fountain. At that point my mother would turn to us with her index finger firmly pressed to her lips and initiate the "bleeding rule." The rule meant that under no circumstances (unless you were bleeding—hence the name) were you to ask questions, request to go to the bathroom, laugh, cry, talk or otherwise make any noise whatsoever until the car was safely parked. We hated the bleeding rule, but looking back it probably saved lives.

"God bless it! Look at this! Look at this traffic already. I told you we should have left earlier."

"The stores don't even open until ten, John."

"Which street is the turn again? Look on the map, will ya?"

"Um... just a second, just a second." My mother, who couldn't find her way downstairs with gravity and a firm push, was for some reason always in charge of navigation. She flipped our ancient city map over and over on her lap, somehow hoping that might help her decode it. "Um... I think we make a right."

"On which street?"

"I can't tell."

"Whaddya mean you can't tell?"

"I don't know, John, I don't remember what turn it is. I think we go right."

"If we make a right we're in the lake, for crying out loud!" He grabbed the map, flipping it over and pointing. "See, the lake is east. Right there, the big blue thing. I need to know which street it is. You know the one I'm talking about? The street where I found the spot that one time."

"The spot that one time" was in 1973, and I believed, along with everyone else in the car not named John Doyle, that it was a figment of his imagination. Apparently, while on a date with my mother back in college, he claimed to have found an unmetered spot on a side street off of Michigan Avenue (spitting distance from Water Tower Place, no less), where he was able to park his car for eight hours at no cost, and a little Italian man had "kept an eye on it for him." He had been searching for the same spot unsuccessfully for almost fifteen years.

"Walnut. I think it was Walnut. Remember? Right by that pizza place."

"They tore that place down, John. Let's just park it in the parking garage."

"A parking garage! For eight dollars? Are you crazy? Kids, keep a lookout for Walnut. We're not parking in a garage. No way in hell."

An hour later, sad and defeated, John Doyle pulled into a parking garage, just like he'd done every year since 1974. The good news, though, was that by this point the drive had taken so much out of him that he wouldn't be much of a problem for the rest of the day. Like a little baby tuckered out from crying so much, he was too tired now to make a fuss. Lizzy, on the other hand, was charged up and chomping at the bit. Her fifty-plus minutes of forced silence was a new record. She shot my mom an evil eye as she hopped down from the minivan.

"That was ridiculous."

"Thank you for being so quiet back there, Lizzy. I'll make it up to you."

"You better, Patricia."

Lizzy had to watch her step, though. Over the past few weeks her Christmas plight had taken a turn for the worse. Cabbage Patch fever had gripped the nation and stores could hardly keep the orphaned dolls on the shelves. Grandmother riots were breaking out all across the country. It was a nightly news story. The demand got so high that when two disc jockeys in Milwaukee joked on air that a load of the dolls would be dropped from a B-52 bomber over County Stadium, two dozen minivans actually showed up. If Lizzy didn't make some progress with my folks soon, her window of opportunity would be closed for good. So this was an important shopping trip for both of us—a rare hour of sibling solidarity in an otherwise tattletale relationship. We had to be on our best behavior, with our eyes peeled and our sales pitches ready, poised for that perfect moment when we "just happened to" stumble upon a Nintendo display or a stocked Cabbage Patch aisle.

Lizzy and I exchanged game-face glances as we marched through the parking garage. Above us you could hear the sounds of Michigan Avenue: steel drums playing "Silent Night," Santa Clauses ringing Salvation Army bells, and cabbies yelling at tourists. As we emerged and waited for the crosswalk light to change, I watched a man in a Cubs jacket trade smiles with a woman in a White Sox hat. Christmas in Chicago—it was a beautiful thing.

By the time we crossed the street, Lizzy was already sprinting toward the Santa in front of the Water Tower entrance, a reconnaissance mission, no doubt. My mom chased after her, leaving my dad and me to bring up the rear. It was a shopping position we were accustomed to. My dad took a deep breath as we moved through the crowd.

"You smell that, Jake?"

"Hot dogs?"

"Nope. Bum piss. That's why your mom and I moved to the suburbs. Tell me something, you know about yellow snow, right?"

As usual, my dad was about five years late with any kind of helpful advice. And as usual, he picked the strangest moment to dispense it.

"Yeah, Dad. I know about yellow snow."

"Good. Just checking."

Up ahead, Lizzy ran up to Santa, grabbing his bell mid-ring.

"Is this store currently carrying redheaded Cabbage Patch dolls with freckles?"

Santa was slightly taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Redheaded Cabbage Patch dolls with freckles. Preferably named Marcy May or Dawn Rebecca."

"How old are you, little girl?"

"That's irrelevant, Kringle. Whaddya got in there?"

"Well, uh, I'm not really sure what they carry inside here, Santa doesn't always know what—"

Lizzy cut through the BS and dropped a quarter into the bucket. A bribe. "Cabbage Patch, yes or no. The clock's ticking."

My mom finally caught up to her and scooped her up. "Lizzy, don't run away like that."

"Sorry, Mommy. I wanted to give Santa my allowance. For the poor kids."

"Oh, what a sweet little girl you are."

Lizzy faked a smile to my mom and stared daggers at Santa. Like most bell ringers, this one had not been particularly helpful. My mom carried Lizzy into the building and my dad and I followed. As the palpable wave of shopping-mall hell washed over the old man, I could hear him mutter hopefully, to no one in particular, "I wonder if they put a bar in here yet."


In size and scope, Water Tower Place wasn't much different from any other Midwest shopping mall. It was the atmosphere that set it apart from the rest. Situated as the focal point of the Magnificent Mile a few blocks west of Lake Michigan, Water Tower Place symbolized all that was still classy about Chicago. Escalators ran smoother, robotic elves in window displays somehow looked more elf-like, the Christmas tree was three stories high, stuff like that. People dressed up to go Christmas shopping here. It was an event. From Wheaton to Winnetka, moms dragged their families through its revolving doors to pump cash into a well-oiled Christmas machine. The Doyles were just one of the many thousands of cogs in the wheel.

Even as a kid it was pretty easy to classify me as an anti-shopping guy. Most guys fall under that stereotype, I guess. But it's not necessarily a fair one. It's not that men as a whole don't like shopping, it's that we don't like shopping for crap that we don't want. And we don't like doing it under the rules and standards that are often enforced upon us. Men like to buy friends and loved ones gifts just as much as women do, they're just rarely given an opportunity to do so on their own terms. Heck, if you gave a guy a hundred-dollar bill and a stopwatch and dropped him off at the front of a mall and said, "You have five minutes to buy whatever you want. We're timing you for the record," then shopping might become our new favorite pastime. It's the hours and hours of waiting and walking and choosing and asking opinions and trying things on and looking for better prices that make most men hate it. That's madness. That's why guys hate shopping. My dad and I were no exception.

"What about this sweater? It's on sale," my mother shouted over racks of pleated pants.

"Eh." I shrugged. I was slumped over a fourth-floor railing next to my dad, contemplating jumping.

"What do you mean, 'eh'? What's wrong with it?"

"I dunno."

"Don't you think it would go nicely with your green turtleneck?"

"Eh..."

Over the years, I'd learned that giving indefinite answers to all apparel questions was the best way to combat the ever-increasing clothes-to-toys gift ratio. It was a strategy my dad also subscribed to, except he feigned even less interest and refused to ever try anything on. To the Doyle man, clothes did not count as a gift; they were more of an anti-gift—a deterrent to getting real gifts like fuzz busters and Nintendos. Our thinking was simple: The more clothing information they got out of us, the more clothes we were sure to get. So you had to be vague and indifferent at all times. Because if it ever got out that you actually liked a particular brand or a particular style, then you were sure to receive nothing but clothes for Christmas. And what could possibly be worse than that?

"Jake. Now what am I supposed to tell Grandma Doyle and Aunt Connie when they ask about clothes for you?"

You could tell them to get me RBI Baseball for my new Nintendo Entertainment System. That would be a start.

"John, what am I supposed to do here?"

"Eh. I dunno, honey."

After a few agonizing hours in the County Seat and—holy Christ—the goddamn Buster Brown shoe store, we stumbled back into the mall's main foyer to regroup. I had contracted one of my mall headaches—a pain that I was convinced could only be healed with a slice of Sbarro's, which no one would ever buy me. My dad wasn't doing much better. He was comparable to a pack mule by this point, shuffling sadly with the weight of almost a dozen bags. He'd now stopped talking altogether and had taken to closing his eyes whenever he sat down. Lizzy, on the other hand, was acting like a true professional. She'd been remarkably patient so far, humoring my mom with every clothing option she offered up. So when she mentioned maybe heading over to the toy section of Marshall Field's, my mom felt compelled to say yes.

The line in Marshall Field's to pay for a Cabbage Patch Kid stretched from the Frango mints all the way to prenatal care. It looked like something out of a Soviet filmstrip. Serious people with deprived and hardened faces, staring at nothing in particular, standing in line, clutching their dolls like loaves of bread, shuffling forward a few inches every couple of minutes. Security guards patrolled the area, keeping the peace and enforcing the "one Cabbage Patch Kid per customer" rule, conceivably in place to keep the dolls from being resold on the black market.

Right on cue, Lizzy's eyes got misty and she reached for my mom's hand. "Look at all these mommies buying Cabbage Patch dolls. Some girls sure are lucky."

"You know, Cabbage Patch dolls are very expensive, Lizzy."

"Maybe I should ask Santa."

"Why don't you just show me and Dad which kind you want, okay?"

Lizzy quickened her pace and headed to the toy section, passing untouched My Little Ponies and She-Ra action figures. From a distance you could tell that an entire wing of the toy department had been dedicated to Cabbage Patch Kids. A giant cut-out head of one of the dolls marked the area of the store dubbed "The Cabbage Patch." As we approached it, Lizzy began her pitch.

"You know what's most interesting about Cabbage Patch dolls, Daddy?"

My dad was now walking with his eyes closed. "What's that, dear?"

"Each one is an individual. Like snowflakes. You don't buy them; you adopt them. They come with their own papers. They even have real belly buttons."

"Yeah," I added. "I bet they'll be collector's items."

Collector's items? Nice one, Jake. Lizzy gave me a look that seemed to suggest I could do better. She continued with her pitch.

"So, the Cabbage Patch I want has red hair and freckles, preferably named Marcy May or Dawn Rebe—" She stopped dead in her tracks. The first Cabbage Patch aisle was completely empty. Four levels of shelves on either side completely bare. We moved to the second aisle—nothing. The third one was the same. Gone. They were all gone. Only one sad Cabbage Patch girl whose arm had been ripped off and three bald-headed boys were left. That was it.

Lizzy stood there with a scowl on her face, teetering between rage and sadness. Marshall Field's had been her last-ditch effort, the only store we'd heard of that still had dolls left in stock. There was nothing else she could do. She punched the one-armed girl in the head and promptly sat down on the floor.

My mother tried to make the best of the situation. "Look at all those nice Care Bears over there, Lizzy. Look how many of those they still have in stock."

"Yippee."

My dad picked her up and gave her a hug. Lizzy rarely ever cried real tears; usually they were prefabricated ones reserved to get me in trouble, but this looked like it might be the real deal. Her mouth quivered for a moment, she held her finger in the air as if to ask for more time, and then began to sob uncontrollably. It was a sob I could relate to, a sob of obsession and disappointment. I gave her a look of encouragement and thought about maybe going over there and patting her on the back or saying something nice. But just as I began to walk toward her, a flash of familiar gray plastic caught my eye... Nintendo.

Thirty yards away across the store was a state-of-the-art interactive Nintendo display. Blinking sensors and high-tech gadgetry surrounded it, lighting it up like some kind of Japanese Christmas tree. It was beautiful. All the familiar faces were there: Mario, Luigi, Mega Man, Donkey Kong, Zelda, that midget wizard from Kung-Fu —everybody. They were all arranged as cardboard cutouts around a monitor. A crowd of probably twenty kids was gathered around it, chomping on free samples of Nintendo cereal and playing Double Dragon. As though pulled in by a tractor beam, I felt myself drifting toward the display. I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs and sprint over there, but I knew better. I had to be smart. I had to act casual about it. If my folks saw how gung-ho I was about the thing, they'd never buy it for me. I could just hear my dad's reaction: "Look how crazy about it he is in the store, for crying out loud! Imagine if he had it at home!"

But a familiar voice called out to me. Looking back, he sounded a lot like Kevin Spacey. It was the Nintendo.

Hello Jake. How are you feeling?

Fine.

I think you're more than fine. I think you're about ready to scream. I think you want to run over here and cradle me in your arms. What are you waiting for?

I gotta play it cool.

Play it cool, huh? How's that been working out for you so far? Look into my monitor, Jake...

My eyes began to widen and turn into little pinwheels.

That's it. Succumb to your emotions.

Don't mess with me, man, my folks are watching.

Forget about them, they're worthless. Run over here. Get in line before someone else does...

My arms began to stiffen and outstretch before me. I felt my feet move forward. My mom grabbed me by the shoulder. She hadn't noticed the display. "Jake. We're going to head to the bookstore upstairs. Watch your sister while we're gone."

"Uh-huh."

"Jake, are you listening to me?" She gathered up her bags. My dad still had his eyes closed. "We're going upstairs to buy a book for the Heffernans."

"The Heffernans?" My dad opened his eyes and set Lizzy down. "What the heck for? They never buy us anything."

"That's not the point, honey." My mom tapped her finger on my head like she was ringing a doorbell. "Jake. Jake."

"Yeah?" I was still staring at the monitor.

"We're going upstairs for a few minutes. You can stay down here with the toys. Just watch your sister, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

I didn't even wait for them to reach the escalator. As soon as they turned their backs I immediately floated toward the Nintendo crowd. Lizzy scurried behind me.

"What about my Cabbage Patch? What about our deal? We need a new plan of attack, Jake. Jake?"

Pay her no attention, Jake. Come closer. That's it...

Two kids about my age were at the Double Dragon controls. They were an odd pair: a preppy white kid in a Hinsdale soccer jacket and a skinny black kid in a Sox hat. Under normal circumstances they probably wouldn't have had anything to do with each other, but here in the toy department of Marshall Field's, they were united in carnage. That was the power of video game violence; it brought us all together. It was kind of heartwarming when you thought about it.

Nevertheless, the South Sider was doing his best to give the Hinsdale kid the business. "Come on, preppy. You gotta use your uppercut there."

"I'm trying." The preppy was having a hard time getting the hang of it.

"What you been playing? Pac-Man?"

"This level's hard."

"A girl with green hair is beating you up."

"She's got a whip."

"So kick her in the face!"

The preppy gave his guy a running start and accidentally jump-kicked himself off a third-story balcony. Instant death.

"Sucks to be you, man. Gotta watch out for that."

Now it was the South Sider's turn. He was approaching the cave section at the end of the fourth level. This was a tricky part where two behemoth baldheaded musclemen suddenly appeared at the cave's entrance. To get past them you had to kill them both with your bare hands. Just last week Mahoney had reached this exact spot.

You know what to do, Jake.

I called out from the back of the crowd. "Hey, use the backward-elbow move!"

"Huh?"

"Use the backward-elbow move. That's the only move that kills them."

"Elbow move?" The South Sider was jump-kicking back and forth between the men, doing his best not to get tossed around like a rag doll. "Don't bother me, man. You can't punch these guys, you gotta kick 'em."

Come closer, Jake...

I pushed my way forward. The kid only had a few life hearts left. "I'm serious. You gotta use a backward-elbow move. Get them both on one side of you and press A and the opposite direction."

"An elbow move's not gonna do—" THUD. A muscleman took one to the gut and stumbled backward. "Dang! That stuff works!" The crowd moved in a bit closer.

"Told ya. Just keep doing that for like two minutes or so. It takes a while, but they can't hurt you."

The South Sider slanted a glance toward me. The crowd was getting into it now. When the first muscleman went down for good, they actually clapped. When the second one went down, they flat-out cheered. Most of them had never seen level five before. Someone patted me on the back; another kid gave me a high five.

I pointed to the screen. "Now go in that cave right there. You gotta dodge the falling pointy rock things and kick the purple ninjas without falling into the lava."

"I don't know how to do that, man. I've never been here before."

"You want me to show you?"

"Not on my turn. Just wait till I—" CRUNCH. The crowd gasped as he was crushed by a falling rock.

The South Sider popped in a stick of gum and looked me over curiously. He turned to the preppy. "Take a walk, Bugle Boy. My man with the elbows is in."

"What? No fair. Come on."

"The Oak Brook game ain't gonna cut it downtown anymore."

"Oak Brook? I'm from Hinsdale."

"And I'm sure you got one at home. Go practice. Go on."

The preppy reluctantly handed over his controller. I cracked my knuckles, took out my retainer and dug in. The South Sider gave me a nod.

"You got one life left. Let's see what you got, Elbows."

The most important thing to note when playing Double Dragon is that there's a cadence to it, like fly-fishing or skee-ball. Once you got in a rhythm it was imperative that you stayed there. You dodge the first falling rock, you wait a beat, you jump-kick the bad guy, and then you hop over the lava. Dodge, jump-kick, hop over lava. Dodge, jump-kick, hop over lava. One, two-three. One, two-three. One, two-three. Before long I was dancing on 8-bit air. Tossing in elbows and uppercuts like a jazzman jamming out a solo.

"Dang, Elbows. You're in the zone."

The crowd began to grow. Little kids passing by started to drag their parents over to the display. People were craning their necks to see. More boxes of Nintendo cereal were cracked open. All around me I could hear people talking. Kids were making sales pitches and parents were starting to buy into it.

"Look, Mom, look how cool this level is!"

"I don't know, Kevin, this looks pretty violent. Is he throwing a knife?"

"It's just a pretend knife. Dad said Grandpa gave him a real knife when he was ten."

"It was a pocket knife, son."

"Kevin's not getting a pocket knife, honey."

"I don't want a pocket knife. I want a Nintendo. It's way safer. Can I get one, Mom? Pleeeeeaaaase?"

"It does look kind of entertaining, Maureen."

The fathers were coming around. The mothers could be next. It was up to me now. The fates of dozens of boys' Christmas hopes and dreams lay within my grasp. I had to give them a show. I jumped on top of a boulder and scissor-kicked three bad guys into a pit of fire.

"Ooooooh!"

Never before had my thumbs maneuvered with such efficiency. My response time was clicking at an all-star rate. Somehow I knew that if I ever found myself in a dark underground cavern crawling with purple ninjas, I'd now be able to hold my own.

Even Kevin Spacey was getting into it, Karate Kid –style.

You're the best... around! Nothing's gonna ever keep you down! You're the best... around! Nothing's gonna ever keep you dowwwnn...

"What'd you say your name was, Elbows?"

"I'm Jake. What's yours?"

"Marcus. You got one of these at home?"

"Nope. You?"

"I wish. Man, you're on fire! You're gonna get to level six!"

All other distractions, worries, responsibilities became irrelevant. My senses had reached a higher being. I'd become one with Nintendo. As I roundhouse-kicked two thugs with ponytails, Marcus started a chant.

"When I say, 'elbows,' you say, 'Jake.' Elbows. JAKE! Elbows. JAKE! When I say, 'elbows,' you say, 'Jake.' Elbows. JAKE! Elbows. JAKE!"

Before I knew it, every kid in Field's was chanting my name.

You see, Jake? You see what Nintendo can do? This is your destiny.

Beads of sweat ran down my face. My pulse quickened. My tongue wagged out of my mouth Michael Jordan–style. Minutes passed like seconds. I was doing it!

Your name is Jake Doyle: Nintendo Master. Say it!

My name is Jake Doyle: Nintendo Master.

Again!

My name is Jake Doyle: Nintendo Master!

Say it out loud, you baby! Say it!

"My name is Ja—"

"JAKE STEPHAN DOYLE!" It was my mother. She was standing next to me screaming in my ear. She may have been doing so for minutes. "Put that thing down!"

My father was there too. He had gone red in the face—a sign that the dragon had been woken. He grabbed me by the collar and in clear, overenunciated diction, bellowed out the four words most feared by older brothers the world over: "Where. Is. Your. Sister?"

Oh dear God in heaven.

All around me, little boys cringed. The proverbial record had been scratched. Fun time was officially over. I looked to Marcus, who was already backing away, doing his best to distance himself from the horror of horrors that I had apparently just gotten myself into. In the realm of punishable kid offences, losing a little sister ranked somewhere above grand theft auto and just slightly below lighting your grandma on fire.

Where was she? Where was Lizzy? The truth was, the last time I had consciously noticed her presence was all the way back at the Cabbage Patch aisle, maybe half an hour ago. I had no idea where she was! None whatsoever. She could be accepting candy from a stranger at this very moment. She could be in the back seat of a Chevy Malibu next to the kid from I Know My First Name Is Steven. She could be jammed in an escalator, metal teeth ripping her from limb to limb. She could be anywhere!

"Where is she, Jake?"

I couldn't get out an answer. I was still clutching the Nintendo controller in my sweaty hands as my body shook violently. "Uh..."

It was obvious I had no idea where she was. My dad dropped me like a sack of potatoes and began rushing around the store. My mom had already taken off in another direction, shouting Lizzy's name in a high-pitched shrill. This was serious.

"You're a dead man, bro," were the last words Marcus muttered before he dashed off down an escalator. The entire kid crowd had dispersed for fear of being guilty by association.

For a brief moment (and I'll emphasize brief ), I considered remaining at the Nintendo display and getting in as much time with the game as possible. The thought being that these might be some of my last hours on earth, so why not make the most of them? But I quickly changed course when I realized where Lizzy could've ended up. If I could get to her before my parents did, there was still hope I would see my tenth birthday.

I took off in a dead sprint toward the Marshall Field's entrance. Under severe duress, moments of clarity often occur. Two such realizations had surfaced. One, allowing my sister to be kidnapped while playing Nintendo might be somewhat detrimental to my chances of receiving the system come Christmas morning. And two, the last thing I'd heard Lizzy talking about were Cabbage Patch Kids and needing a new plan of attack. When all else failed, you always had Santa to turn to. My guess was she was with him right now.

I took a shoulder to the revolving doors and stumbled out onto the Michigan Avenue sidewalk. Sure enough, there was Lizzy, about twenty yards away, chewing the ear off of the same Salvation Army Santa Claus she'd harassed on the way in.

"Lizzy! Lizzy!"

She glanced over and gave a little wave, not so much to say hello as to say, "don't bother me; I'm doing business here." She went right back to questioning Santa.

"...and do they speak English at the North Pole?"

"Yes."

"Even the elves?"

"Yes, little girl, even the elves."

"Even the elves that make the Cabbage Patch dolls?"

Santa was seriously reconsidering his role with the Salvation Army by this point. "Yep. Those elves too, kid."

I ran up beside her. "Lizzy! Where were you? Mom and Dad are gonna kill you."

"No. They're gonna kill you. You were supposed to be watching me. Nintendo-no-friendo, Jake."

"Wait a second. Just because I didn't help enough with the Cabbage Patch?"

She smiled coyly. "You probably should tell Mom and Dad I'm out here, don't you think?"

"Stay here. Don't move. Santa, don't let her go anywhere."

Son of bitch, Lizzy was sneaky. Why was she always getting one up on me? I ran back into the mall's entrance and spotted my mom talking to a security guard.

"Mom! Mom! I found her! She's outside. Right out here!"

My mom rushed over, practically knocking me to the ground as she ran through the doors and out onto the sidewalk. By the time I got back out there, she was nearly crying.

"Don't ever do that again, Lizzy. You scared me half to death."

"Sorry, Mommy."

"What are you doing out here?"

"Talking to Santa. They might still have Cabbage Patch dolls at the North Pole! Even ones with red hair! Santa just said so!"

"Lizzy, we told you to stay with Jake."

"He was playing Nintendo."

"We'll talk to him. Where is he?"

I was already hiding behind a garbage can, doing my best to tunnel a hole in the ground. I'd heard Australia was nice this time of year. My dad came barreling out onto the sidewalk and made a beeline for me.

"God bless America, Jake! You play that stuff and your head goes to mush in three minutes!"

"Sorry, Dad. I'm really sorry."

"She's your sister! It's not like losing your retainer, for cripes' sake!"

My retainer... Right. Cautiously I ran my tongue over my teeth. Nope. No retainer. I subtly checked my pockets. Wrong again. This was turning out to be quite an afternoon.

My dad took a step closer, smelling the fear. "Open your mouth, Jake."

"Huh?"

"You heard me. Open your mouth."

The actual cost of my retainer had been explained to me in the simple terms of "if you lose it, don't bother coming home." I figured it cost roughly as much as a new car. Carefully, I parted my lips and opened up just enough so you couldn't see my teeth or the roof of my mouth, a slack-jawed look of desperation. I was stalling for time.

"Open it, Jake."

"Hey, did you ever find out if they put a bar inside the mall yet?"

"I said open it!"

My mother shuffled over. "John, do you have the Sharper Image bag?"

It was just the distraction I needed. My dad looked down for a brief second and I took off like a shot down the sidewalk. At first I thought, maybe I'll just run away. You know, for good. Become a hobo in Peoria or something. But then I thought, technically the old man hadn't seen the retainer. He didn't know if it was in my mouth or not, technically at least. If I could find it and get to it before he got to me, I might not be completely destroyed. I took a hard left back into Water Tower Place and began the frantic search for it.

Few truly know the evil that lurks within the plastic mind of a retainer. They're deceitful little objects, far smarter than missing keys or socks. Chances are, if your retainer wasn't in your mouth, it had probably made its way into any one of a number of incomprehensible hiding spots. I'd lost the thing dozens of times before and had stumbled across it everywhere from the pickle jar in the fridge to Elwood's doghouse. It had a mind of its own.

You had to wonder why retainers were removable in the first place. At what drunken dental convention did that sound like a good idea for kids? "I know, Steve, let's give the children the option of taking this gross piece of plastic out of their mouths whenever they see fit! Brilliant!" I'd worn my retainer for over two years now and my teeth still looked like a collection of off-white Legos. So, in my book, retainers were nothing more than an orthodontic ploy calculated to promote ulcers in children. To this day I still don't trust orthodontists.

I galloped up the escalator stairs two at a time, ducking under bags and pushing through packs of shoppers. My guess was that I'd lost the retainer somewhere near the Nintendo display. I didn't dare glance behind me, but I knew my dad was back there somewhere, chasing after me at a competitive jog. This was probably even fun for him, a little excitement in the mall for a change. Once a promising athlete, he relished those moments when he could turn on the old Doyle jets. He was going to catch his son retainerless and take charge of this shopping trip once and for all.

I reached the top of the escalator and scanned the area. A crowd had gathered around the Nintendo again, a fresh crop of boys with no idea of the havoc I'd just caused. They stood around chomping on cereal and genuinely enjoying themselves. Looking up toward the counter, I caught a glimpse of my dad in a surveillance mirror. He was hot on my tail, right at the bottom of the escalator on the opposite side of the Marshall Field's foyer. If I didn't find this thing intact in about ten seconds, I'd be in some serious trouble.

Then I heard it...

The sound of plastic scraping tile. It was a sound I was very familiar with. Whenever Dan Delund got bored during bathroom breaks, he would pick me up, tip me over and shake out the contents of my pockets, kicking everything that landed on the floor directly into the girls' bathroom. That sound I was hearing, it was the sound of my retainer being kicked.

I spun around. Sure enough, there it was, thirty yards away, right in the middle of pedestrian traffic, indiscriminately being knocked about by boots and shoes, sliding in the mush, in danger of being squashed at any moment. As expensive as retainers were, they were about as durable as Pixie Stix. They'd crack on a windy day if you weren't careful. All it took was one direct crunch of a boot and it would be all over.

"Jake!"

My dad had spotted me. He was stuck behind a group of old ladies on the middle of the escalator. Although he couldn't see it, the retainer was lying at an equal distance directly between him and me. It was a father-son standoff. I only had one shot at this. A fire lit deep within me and I made a mad dash for the foyer. Everything else around me went into slow motion. A blur. The only thing I saw was my retainer lying there on the ground. Thirty feet to go... I pictured myself charging home plate at Wrigley Field as the crowd roared. Twenty feet to go... My legs were pistons pounding under me; my arms cut through the wind with each vaulting step. Ten feet... I dove into a headfirst slide, sucking up sludge and dirt, propelling myself under legs and passersby. In one swift motion I scooped up the crud-soaked piece of plastic and popped it into my mouth. Still sliding, I slowed to a stop at my father's feet as he hopped off the escalator. Like an umpire looking for the ball, he pointed to my mouth with authority. I opened wide and smiled a plastic smile.

Safe.


The "Water Tower Fiasco," as it came to be known, blew over relatively easily. My father was dead tired from shopping and from our standoff. My mother was happy with her on-sale purchases, and Lizzy was content with the knowledge that Cabbage Patch Kids were still readily available at the North Pole. So much so that she took mercy on me and decided not to play up my Nintendo obsession as the main culprit behind her disappearance. So, miraculously, I was pretty much in the clear. My dad made great time on the way home; we even made a pit stop for Happy Meals. The Christmas Spirit surely was upon us.

But reality set in again at school the next day. It was the final day of wreath selling and everyone was on pins and needles. The only thing helping me to hold it together was my Christmas ornament project.

Over the past two weeks my "ornament" had grown to such a degree that I was forced to move from my desk in the classroom to the hallway, where I had more room to spread out. Physical constraints should never hinder a true artist.

Recently I had decided to cover my already unusually large donkey in papier-mâché. It was not a wise choice. The donkey was now the size of a small dog, in danger of crushing the manger itself. It looked like Godzilla come to wreak havoc on Bethlehem. The other animals scattered about didn't help matters much. They were all deformed and dripping with glue, sort of an accidental Salvador Dali effect. Furthermore, most of them lacked the ability to stand, so they were all lumped together in a pile next to the manger, as if they'd just been slaughtered. Chickens and horses, and deer for some reason, all piled on top of each other, all overlooking the birth of Christ. The whole thing was a mess. But I was so convinced Ciarocci would love it that I just kept building more and more. Most kids were making paper bells and tiny wreaths with their class pictures on them—you know, ornaments. I was building a village with monsters and deformed religious icons.

The three Wise Men were pretty standard. Gumdrop heads and cotton balls for beards. Their bodies were made from hardened macaroni. Mary and Joseph looked about the same, except without the beards. The Baby Jesus was just one single gumdrop with toothpicks sticking out for arms and legs, giving the appearance of some kind of Chinese throwing star. In fact, I'd had to make several versions of him because Delund kept whipping them across the room at Angela Moran's face.

I think he liked her.

The manger itself, though, was the real work of genius. I'd found an old JCPenney shoebox at home and with magic marker turned the J into Jesus and the C into Christ. Pure genius. Then I cut out the front of the box so it looked like an open-faced building of sorts, a manger, if you will. I'd brought some Lincoln Logs in from home, carefully explaining to everyone that, no, I did not play with them anymore, I just happened to have them lying around and used the logs to create an awning across the front of the box. Then I brought in real dirt and grass and crud and packed it inside the box. Some grass I even glued to the outside of the box to make it really authentic. A true masterpiece.

"Jee-zus."

You said it, man, I thought, holding up the gumdrop.

"What a mess."

I turned around to find Mahoney looking over the carnage. Everyone has a friend who tells it like it is. That friend was Mahoney.

"I thought we were supposed to be making ornaments."

"Yeah, so?"

"So this is the biggest ornament I've ever seen. What's with the giant Goat Man?"

"That's a donkey."

"It looks like my butt."

Things were always looking like Mahoney's butt. Zilinski poked his head into the hallway.

"Hey, how'd you get all those gumdrops, Jake? Can I have one?"

Leave it to Zilinski to sniff out stale candy in the middle of cold-and-flu season. I tossed him a rock-hard gumdrop and he popped it in his mouth. Crunching away, he laid it on us.

"So, did you guys hear about Farmer?"

"No. What?"

"A hundred and twenty-nine wreaths."

"No way."

"Way. A hundred and twenty-nine. Even if he's lying and he only sold half of that, that's still like..."

"Sixty-four and a half wreaths." Mahoney was also very good at math.

"He's lying. There's no way he has that many."

"Well, how many do you have, Jake?"

This was a very tricky question. The only person who was giving up any information about how many wreaths he'd sold was Josh Farmer. The rest of us were playing it close to the vest. Who was to say that by announcing you'd sold thirty-nine wreaths that someone couldn't just go out and sell one more and beat you just before the final buzzer? It did not pay to take chances this late in the game, and all of HC Wilson was keeping its collective trap shut.

"How many do you have, Zilinski?"

"I'm not telling."

"Well, then I'm not telling either."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Okay, then."

"Fine."

"Fine."

There was no real retort to "fine" except to repeat it.

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Will you two shut up. I've sold more wreaths than both of you anyway."

Mahoney was cut short when Miss Ciarocci sauntered out into the hallway. She was wearing her oversized Grateful Dead Summer of 1984 T-shirt as a smock over her blue- and yellow-flower patterned dress. (Not that I was paying attention or anything.) She smiled and patted me on the head. She was always patting me on the head. My God, woman, why must you toy with my emotions!

"Huh-huh, hi, Miss Ciarocci."

"I see you've added more animals to the manger scene, Jake. You must be really passionate about this project."

Yes, I'm a very passionate individual, actually.

"Uh, yeah..."

"How come Jake gets to use gumdrops and no one else does?" Zilinski whined.

"Jake had a very ambitious project in mind, and because of that he needed more ambitious materials. Does that make sense, Steve?"

"Not really."

"Well, tell you what, Steve. On our Valentine's Day project coming up, you can use whatever candy you like." She crouched down at eye level to all three of us. "How does that sound?"

"Okay..."

The three of us were now flush faced and drooling. Years later I would learn that every boy in Ciarocci's class was in love with her. It kind of made me angry, actually. I'd thought I was the only one.

"I like what you've done with all the foliage, Jake."

Foliage? I stared blankly into her eyes.

"You know, foliage. The grass and leaves you put in here. I think many students might make the mistake of putting pine needles for Christmas in manger scenes. But you knew that they didn't have Christmas trees or wreaths in Bethlehem."

Right, right. Actually, speaking of Christmas wreaths... "Hey Miss Ciarocci?"

"Yes, Jake?" She stood up and smiled.

"Um... would you, uh, would you like to buy a Cub Scout Christmas wreath from me?"

Mahoney and Zilinski looked at me like I had balls of steel. Ciarocci gently pushed her hair back behind her ears and smiled. I was practically melting.

"Oh, how sweet. I'd love to, Jake..."

Yes, yes...

"...but I already bought one from Josh."


The rows and rows of metal folding chairs squeaked uncomfortably beneath us. The cafeteria was pitch black, the only light coming from the waxy candles we held in our hands. Forty-five Cub Scouts sat patiently in the dark, fitted in our dress blues and golden handkerchiefs, each one of us thoroughly convinced that by the end of tonight's meeting we'd be going home with our very own Nintendo.

Our pudgy pack leader, Mr. Halberg, stood at the front of the cafeteria, his Vietnam medals and Jefferson Airplane buttons glistening in the flickering light. He too wore a Cub Scout uniform. That always seemed a little odd to me, much the same way it seemed odd that baseball managers had to wear full baseball uniforms. Why was that? Seeing Halberg in a Cub Scout uniform was like seeing Don Zimmer in tight pants and Yankee pinstripes. There was no need for it.

With the mood now set to his liking, Halberg addressed the pack.

"Gentlemen. As the cub ventures further out on his own, he realizes more and more the value of his troop. This candle is a symbol of the courage and unity that our pack instills in us. It is the shining beacon of Cub Scout initiative. It is the hope of a better Pinewood Derby. It is the breath of life in your water-safety merit badges. It is the creative enlightenment that guides your shadow puppetry..."

Oh, get on with it, Halberg. The man was always making speeches. He was just one example in the long list of letdowns that came with joining the Cub Scouts. Initially, we'd all signed up for the paramilitary kid organization with illusions of dagger-sized pocketknives and big-game safaris west of Rockford. So far, all we had to show for it were a few VFW pancake breakfasts and a campout in Olsen's backyard. The entire experience had been a disappointment, but that was all about to change.

Halberg continued. "... Look deeply into the candle's flame. Stare into its dancing light. Make a mental picture of it. Now... close your eyes. What do you see?"

Forty-five visions of Nintendo blazed before us. The moment of truth was about to be had. I gave a quick, nervous look around. Conor Stump was sitting next to me, dabbing blindly at the wax of his candle. Sure enough, he took a little bite, burning his tongue.

"You see the flame, gentlemen. It burns even when your eyes are closed. And even when we blow these candles out. The Cub Scout flame will never fade. It will remain with you forever."

Halberg blew out his candle and flicked on the lights. You could tell he was a little choked up about his speech. He pulled out his notebook as we squirmed in our seats. "A lot to go over tonight, gents. The annual chili cook-off; we're marching in the Batavia Loyalty Day parade; uh, the father-son campout is coming up, which unfortunately will be held in the gym again... Uh, I've got another great 'Nam poem for you boys, entitled 'A Tie Is Not a Loss.'"

A voice yelled out from the back row. "Get to the wreaths, Halberg!" It was Dan Delund. He'd never been to a Cub Scout meeting before in his life.

Halberg shielded his eyes, trying to decipher who the heck the kid in the Mötley Crüe T-shirt was. "I'm sorry? Who is that back there?"

"The wreaths, fatso."

"I beg your pardon? Are you in this troop?"

"I'm here, ain't I?"

Someone else called out. "Just do the wreaths, Halberg!"

"Yeah, do the wreaths!"

"Yeah, wreaths!"

All forty-five of us began a collective chant-whine. "WREATHS! WREATHS! WREATHS!" Chanting was very big in the Cub Scouts.

"Alright, alright, alright. We can do the wreath prizes first."

"HOORAY!"

Oh, this was it! Anticipation gripped us like a Darth Vader choke hold. Everyone leapt out of their seats and piled into a huddle at the base of the cafeteria stage. Halberg stepped into the janitor's closet and wheeled out a large cart with three sheet-covered prizes on it. They were marked First, Second and Third. First prize looked even bigger than a normal NES system. My mind immediately raced through the possibilities. Maybe it came with a selection of games as well, a Power Pad, a couple boxes of Nintendo cereal—the possibilities were as awesome as they were endless.

"I know you boys have really been selling hard this year. And I wanted to make sure we got the best prizes yet." Halberg cleared his throat and checked his list. "So, without further ado. In third place, with fifty-three wreaths sold..."

Yes, yes...

"Joshua Farmer!"

A round of applause was met with a smattering of laughter and snickering. Considering Farmer's self-proclaimed wreath totals had reached somewhere in the high hundreds yesterday, this was a delight to us all. Anybody had a chance now.

Farmer trudged up onto the stage to claim his consolation prize. Halberg lifted the sheet, revealing a small box. Farmer cracked the lid and shook out the contents. A postcard fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and read it out loud. "A two-year subscription to Boys' Life."

More laughter. A lousy magazine subscription? Oh, the irony. Farmer hopped off the stage, grabbed his coat and walked directly out the door, tossing the card in the trash as he went by. A month's worth of hard work down the drain. I cackled quietly to myself.

Halberg did his best to calm us down. "Okay, okay, quiet down now. In second place, with fifty-five wreaths sold, Conor... Conor Stump!"

Applause and shock. Holy cow, Conor Stump! None of us had even seen Stumpty Dumpty outside after school, let alone going door to door selling wreaths. It was the upset of the year. Conor carefully approached the stage, grinning from ear to ear, probably just delighted with the fact that someone actually knew his name. He waved to the crowd.

Halberg lifted the second sheet, revealing a midsized cardboard box. "Second prize is a globe of the Earth that lights up! Compliments of Bulldog Office Supply." Conor ripped the lid open and gasped when he saw what else was inside. The box was packed full with Styrofoam peanuts.

"Cool."

He wasted no time and popped a few in his mouth, chewing happily as he exited the stage. Man, Conor Stump, what a nut. I'd pay a hundred bucks to know what that guy's up to these days. He's probably running a Fortune 500 company.

"And now, the winner of this year's wreath-selling contest, with a prize compliments of Geitner Toys and Books—with an unbelievable eighty-two wreaths sold... Ryan Grusecki!"

Drat! Eighty-two wreaths? That was crazy. I'd tapered off around fifty, but eighty-two? How was that even possible? Ryan Grusecki and his twin brother, Tommy, jumped up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs. It wasn't until later that they revealed their underhanded coalition that combined their individual wreath totals into one lump sum to secure the victory. It was a stroke of genius.

Ryan sprinted up onto the stage, still in shock, gasping for breath like a housewife on The Price Is Right. "I did it! I did it!"

The crowd applauded politely as disappointment sunk in. Not winning my own Nintendo was a tough pill to swallow, but at least someone reasonable had won it. No longer would we have to suffer under Timmy Kleen's Nintendo dictatorship. We immediately began vying for position at the Grusecki household.

"Great job, Ryan!"

"Way to go, man!"

"Sweet gym shoes!"

"You're way cooler than your brother!"

Halberg stood behind the massive first prize, holding the sheet between his thumb and forefinger. What other glorious additions to the Nintendo could be under that sheet? What if it came with a TV too? What if every game ever released was under there? What if there was stuff under that sheet that we'd never even heard of before? There was no telling. Grusecki bounced up and down like he had to go to the bathroom really bad. Halberg shushed the pack and laid it on us.

"And this year's first prize, the best we've had in years..." He tugged back on the sheet like a magician and spread his arms out wide, unveiling the treasure...

"A brand new set of World Book Encyclopedias!"

Shock hit Troop 101—horrible, terrible, dog-run-over-by-ice-cream-truck shock. Encyclopedias? Forty-five of us stood there under the florescent cafeteria lights unable to move a muscle. I dropped to my knees. My guts felt like they'd been ripped out. The world went black and sound ceased to exist.

When I finally came to, all I could hear was screaming. Apparently, Geitner Toys and Books had noticed the stunning demand for toys over books this Christmas and had modified their donation to encyclopedias instead of a Nintendo.

It was like winning more school.

Dan Delund stood up, punched Tommy Grusecki in the jaw and walked out the fire exit. Swear words not even learned yet fired off in my mind. Encyclopedias? How could they? Poor Ryan Grusecki fought off the tears unsuccessfully. And had I known things would only get worse, I might have joined him.