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  Speaking of Hollis, he had grown steadily taller each year and, according to the mark for his last birthday, had grown at least a head taller when he turned thirteen. But if the price of getting taller was turning into the teenage monster his brother had mutated into, maybe Ollie would pass.

  With a sigh, Ollie headed into the kitchen. Hollis, barely awake, spooned soggy cereal into his mouth but kept missing and spilling on his shirt.

  “Morning,” said Ollie. Despite not growing, he was determined to have a great birthday, and not even his brother could get him down. He took his seat at the table. “Got anything to say to me?”

  “Yeah,” grumbled Hollis. “Keep it down.”

  “Happy birthday!” bellowed their mom from behind. She leapt into the kitchen. In one arm she had a handful of wrapped presents and in the other a huge stack of buttery pancakes with eleven lit candles jabbed into them.

  Ollie nearly jumped out of his seat.

  “Now, it appears to me as if we have a pretty major violation at this breakfast gathering,” said his mom as she placed the presents and pancakes in the center of the table.

  “I didn’t do it,” said Hollis as he furiously wiped his shirt clean.

  “You can’t start your birthday without a happy birthday song!”

  Ollie’s mom walked over, belting out the song heartily. Hollis, embarrassed, sank into his chair in an attempt to hide as their mom sang each note.

  “There ya are. Make a wish!”

  Ollie thought about it.

  “I wish that wrestling was every day of the—”

  “No!” said his mom, cutting him off. “Don’t waste your wish! If you say it out loud, it won’t come true.”

  Hollis rolled his eyes. “Oh, please! Wishes aren’t real,” he insisted. “And why would saying them out loud make them not come true?”

  “Hey, I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them.”

  Ollie was hungry, so instead of finishing his wish, he blew out the candles.

  His mom scooped up the candles from the table and started running them under cold water. Ollie knew she’d make sure the full recommended rinsing would be done before the candles were rolled up in a health-and-safety-approved, fire-resistant wrapper.

  “Come on, birthday boy. Dig in! Now that you’re an eleven-year-old, you need to make sure you eat like one!” She served them both a wobbling stack of pancakes and poured a waterfall of syrup on top of the fluffy, golden pile.

  Ollie dug in, shoving pancakes into the corners of his mouth and slurping up every drop of syrup. He peered at Hollis over the pancake tower and watched as his brother inspected each present. Ollie could tell he was trying to guess the contents and already formulating plans to somehow say that it was “theirs” and therefore they should share.

  What was Hollis’s was Hollis’s and what was Ollie’s was also Hollis’s.

  Ollie tore open the packages: Some new clothes that would quickly find their ways into various piles on his bedroom floor. An extensive homework organizer he planned to use to prop up his desk, which had started leaning a bit. And a whole new set of drawing notebooks and pencils!

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said, giving her a kiss.

  “You’re very welcome, young man.” His mom’s face broke into a smile. “We should do this again sometime. What do you say? Same day next year?”

  Through the window, Ollie saw the school bus turn onto their street. He hurriedly tossed the gifts into his room, grabbed his bag, and ran toward the door.

  “Hold up,” said his mom, blocking Ollie’s path. “Good luck at school. Pay attention. Don’t run in the halls. Listen to your teachers. I want a good, clean fight—erm—school day, understood?” she asked.

  “I’ll try!”

  The driver, idling in front of their house, honked the bus’s horn angrily.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” said his mother sternly. “And this is extra, super, duper important . . .” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight. “I hope you have the best birthday ever! I love you!”

  “Thanks, Mom. Love you, too,” he gasped, struggling to breathe through her loving iron grip.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ollie’s teacher sighed. Mr. Fitzgerald always looked tired. But today he looked downright exhausted. He ran his hands through his thin gray hair, fluffing a few stray strands to cover his bald spot.

  Ollie had messed up. Again. When he had been called on to comment on the short story they’d just read in class, he had (of course) been busy thinking about wrestling. So, instead of giving the correct answer, he dreamily blurted out what was on his mind. “Daring Donna’s Dive of Doom?”

  The response had sent Tamiko tumbling out of her desk with laughter. It took some time for Mr. Fitzgerald to settle the class and get everyone back to work. Now Ollie sat at his desk after the class had been dismissed. Mr. Fitzgerald gazed down at him.

  “Sorry, Mr. Fitzgerald,” he said.

  “I know what’s going on here, Ollie,” said Mr. Fitzgerald.

  “You do?”

  Mr. Fitzgerald produced Ollie’s most recent quiz. Across the top, a drawing showed The Bolt about to drop a shock elbow on the elderly—but ripped—Lil’ Old Granny.

  “This is pretty good,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, pointing to the drawing. Ollie had been doodling wrestlers on his quizzes and homework for years. At first they had started out as stick figures, but recently he’d really started to advance his skill. “But this? This isn’t so good.” He pointed to a series of wrong answers and the quiz grade: 60 percent.

  “Ouch,” whispered Ollie.

  “You need to focus.” Mr. Fitzgerald held up his hand. “And to be super clear, you need to focus on something other than wrestling.”

  “Okay,” Ollie mumbled.

  Mr. Fitzgerald sighed. “There’s a time for everything. When you’re at Slamdown Town, you can think about wrestling all you want. But when you’re here, in school, you should leave wrestling in the ring. You can really go places, if you apply yourself.”

  Mr. Fitzgerald wanted Ollie to apply himself. His mom wanted him to follow “the rules.” And Hollis wanted him to take the first available flight to Antarctica.

  “Only you can get yourself there. And hey,” said Mr. Fitzgerald as he handed the quiz back to Ollie. “Maybe consider signing up for an art class after school or this summer. I think you have some real talent.”

  As long as there was where wrestling was, that would be fine with him.

  Ollie spent math class studying how often The Bolt performed specific moves. During history, he doodled muscular bodies and wrestler outfits on top of the portraits of presidents. At lunchtime, he imagined his fries were wrestlers and made them pile-drive and perform a suplex into ketchup.

  “Incoming!” yelled Tamiko as she dodged ketchup splotches from the collision.

  But not everyone was so lucky. The impact had sent ketchup flying into the air, across the lunchroom, and smack into the back of the head of the biggest kid in school.

  Hollis.

  Hollis was sitting, as usual, at the eighth-grade table with his eighth-grade friends. They were all big—to Ollie, they practically looked like adults—and they were always making fun of everyone else who wasn’t them, because everyone else wasn’t cool.

  Why?

  Well, because everyone else wasn’t them.

  Ollie never really liked any of Hollis’s friends, because, well, none of them liked wrestling. And Ollie couldn’t trust anyone who didn’t like wrestling.

  Ollie noticed that Hollis didn’t really talk to his eighth-grade friends about his love of wrestling. Probably because they didn’t think it was cool. And because it wasn’t cool, it wasn’t discussed. When it did come up, he’d say he went to the matches just because his mom was a referee. He didn’t like it, but his younger brother did, and hey, isn’t he dumb?

  The eighth graders were insufferable, annoying, and just plain jerks.

  Especially to the sixth graders
.

  Hollis turned red, and not only because he had ketchup all over his head. His friends howled with laughter as he wiped it off and turned around to see who he had to beat up.

  He saw Ollie and the pile of ketchup in front of him, and he squinted his eyes.

  Ollie felt his throat fall into his stomach.

  Hollis and his group of eighth graders got up from their seats, walked over to Ollie and Tamiko’s table, and sat down around them like a pack of hungry hyenas.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the birthday butthead,” said Hollis.

  Hollis’s friends giggled.

  “Sorry, Hollis,” said Ollie. “It was an accident.”

  “Yeah! Get lost, you zit-faced teen loser,” said Tamiko.

  “Not helping, Tamiko,” whispered Ollie.

  Hollis grabbed a fry, dunked it into the pile of ketchup, and ate it.

  “Get lost? But I haven’t even given Ollie his birthday present yet.”

  Ollie didn’t like the sound of that.

  Hollis pulled out a small gift from his pocket. At least, Ollie assumed it was a gift. When he looked closer, it appeared to be a slightly dented gift box wrapped in a wad of dirty newspaper.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Hollis wagged a finger. “You gotta open it to find out.”

  The eyes of the eighth graders fixed on Ollie. Opening the gift felt like walking into a trap, but curiosity got the better of him. Ollie lifted the lid. He squinted as he peered closely at the object within, then pulled it out of the box and held it up to his eyes. It was a piece of already-been-chewed gum. The color had been chewed out of it. It looked hard and crusty, and it was covered in bits of food and hair and dust and who knows what else, like it had spent way too long on the ground and been stepped on too many times.

  “Gum?” he asked, holding it up for Tamiko to see.

  The eighth graders snickered.

  Good joke, Hollis, thought Ollie. You found a piece of gum under a desk or something and wrapped it up to give to me for my birthday. You’re sooo clever . . .

  “Not just any gum,” Hollis declared proudly. “That gum belonged to—drumroll please—Professor Pain himself.”

  “No way. You’re lying,” said Tamiko.

  “Me? Lie? Here.” Hollis shoved a certificate of authentication into Ollie’s hand.

  Ollie skimmed the paper. Blah blah . . . “official” . . . blah blah blah . . .

  It was uncanny. An official Slamdown Town letter proved that Hollis was, remarkably, telling the truth. The gum he was holding had belonged to the legend himself, Professor Pain. The self-proclaimed instructor of the ring dealt homework in the form of head kicks and extra credit as body slams. Hollis knew that Professor Pain was Ollie’s favorite wrestler of all time. He wouldn’t mess around with this. Would he?

  Ollie stopped himself. Of course he would.

  “How—” he started.

  “Bought it on eBay,” interrupted Hollis. “Cost me a whole dollar, plus three dollars shipping and handling. You like it?”

  The eighth graders snickered even harder.

  Ollie did. He really liked it. A piece of wrestling history sat in his hands.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” he said.

  “And you know what gum is meant for, right?”

  “Um, duh. Wait. Do you not know what gum is for, Hollis?” said Tamiko with mock concern.

  “Gum is for chewing,” Hollis continued, ignoring Tamiko. “Don’t you wanna chew it?”

  The eighth graders crowded closer, straining to get a good look at Ollie. They raised their phones up to film him. He wanted to climb under the table and hide. But that might attract even more attention than he already had.

  “It’s a wrestling collector’s item, not a—”

  “Chew the gum! Chew the gum!” Hollis chanted, turning to his friends.

  They joined in.

  “Chew the gum! Chew the gum!”

  Ollie looked more closely at the wad of gum. He groaned. A strand of hair, a piece of corn, and something green that caused him to turn his head away were only a few of the items stuck to the gum that he was able to identify. His stomach clenched.

  Ollie raised the gum to his lips. He felt the eighth graders lean in.

  He took a deep breath. Then lowered the gum. “No . . . I’m not doing it.”

  The eighth graders shook their heads. Some tsked; others laughed. Everyone watched him, leaving him feeling as though he’d forgotten to put pants on.

  He wished he could turn invisible.

  “Happy birthday, butthead,” said Hollis, looking gleeful. “Enjoy your crusty, old gum.”

  Hollis walked away, and everyone else dispersed, leaving Ollie and Tamiko alone.

  Ollie may have grown an olliemeter this morning, but now he felt smaller than ever.

  CHAPTER 7

  The rest of the day plodded on. No matter where Ollie went, the eighth graders whispered and giggled and pointed. And since the eighth graders did it, that meant that the seventh and other sixth graders did it, too. They didn’t even know why they were whispering and giggling and pointing at Ollie. If the eighth graders were doing it, then it was cool.

  “Ignore them. They’ll find something else to talk about soon,” Tamiko said.

  As Ollie lay in bed later that night, he couldn’t escape the embarrassment. He’d tossed the gum on his bed stand as soon as he’d set foot into his room.

  The incident played out like a bad movie over and over in his head.

  So instead of replaying the bad memory for the thousandth time, Ollie whipped out his phone and pulled up one of his favorite videos of Professor Pain. The person who uploaded it seemed to have originally recorded it themselves using old tapes. The footage was choppy and slightly out of focus. But Ollie loved it. The bad quality made it feel more authentic.

  Professor Pain was an old-school wrestler from years ago, even before Ollie’s mom’s time as the Brash Banshee. Other than videos he’d watched online, Ollie had never seen him wrestle. But Professor Pain was a Slamdown Town legend. He’d enjoyed a long and accomplished wrestling career before retiring to spend more time sleeping on tropical beaches and being paid to make terrible local business commercials.

  “Hey, you,” barked Professor Pain in his signature, raspy tone. “Yeah you, the one sitting right there watching this video at this very moment. You seem kinda small and afraid. Tell me. Do you wanna be big enough to stand up to your bullies?”

  Ollie nodded. “Sure do.”

  “Do you find that growing up changes people and wish you could just get into some sort of ring and wrestle all your problems away?” asked Professor Pain.

  “Yeah,” squeaked Ollie. It felt like Professor Pain was talking to him.

  “Well, I ain’t talking to you,” snarled Professor Pain. “I’m talkin’ to the future you. The one that’s destined to become a ’rassler. Welcome, friend, to my Anyone Can Be a Wrestler series,” barked Professor Pain.

  In addition to his deep voice, the speaker managed to emit Professor Pain’s smacking noises; he was always chewing a piece of gum.

  “Just do everything Professor Pain does, friend,” said Professor Pain as he worked the gum, “and you’ll be a gen-u-ine ’rassler in no time. Because remember—”

  “—anyone can be a wrestler if you believe in yourself,” said Ollie in time with the video. He had seen this enough times to recite nearly every line, memorize every loud smack of the gum.

  The very same gum that Ollie now owned. The gum that Professor Pain chewed during his championship match against Mega Maniac. The gum he’d chomped on when he’d fought both Lieutenant Freedom and Captain Dependence. The gum he’d munched on when Rick Colossal had shockingly offered his hand in a tag-team alliance before they both defeated the Dreadful Five.

  And all of a sudden, the overwhelming urge to chew the gum came over Ollie. The gum may have been disgusting. Yet something was pulling him to the gum. Maybe it was the connection to hi
s idol. Maybe it was the desire to one-up his brother; to prove to Hollis that he was tough enough to try it. Or maybe it was the gum itself, seemingly calling to him . . .

  “Like I was saying before,” continued Professor Pain, “there’s a ’rassler waiting inside each and every one of us.”

  Wrestling was everything to Ollie. Maybe even beyond everything. And with one cruel gift, Hollis had turned wrestling into humiliation. When Hollis had asked to move into his own room, Ollie had been hurt. But now Hollis had crossed a line. Using wrestling against him was just flat-out wrong. It was a betrayal Ollie hadn’t anticipated.

  The sound of Professor Pain chomping away on the gum echoed out of his phone.

  “And if you’re willing to follow my five-part Anyone Can Be a Wrestler series and do everything—and I mean everything—I say, then I promise you, your wish of being a ’rassler will come true. Chew on that, and you’ll be as big and strong as ol’ Professor Pain himself.”

  Ollie shot out of bed and scooped up the box that contained the gum. He was surprised thirty-year-old gum could still be that sticky. He was not surprised thirty-year-old gum could be that gross.

  Sticky or not—disgusting or not—he had made up his mind. Today was his eleventh birthday, after all. He wouldn’t let Hollis push him around anymore. It was time to grow up.

  After all, Professor Pain had said to chew on that. Maybe “that” was a piece of knowledge gained from a self-help series. Or maybe “that” was an already-been-chewed piece of bubble gum.

  “I wish I was as big and strong as Professor Pain,” said Ollie to the gum.

  And with that, he popped the gum into his mouth and chewed.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ollie had prepared his mind and mouth to taste the most horrible thing ever.

  Instead, it was kind of flavorless. Like that time his mom had let Hollis cook spaghetti and he forgot to turn off the stove and they had watery, limp noodles for dinner.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. After all, this was thirty-year-old, already-been-chewed gum. Of course it was going to be flavorless.