Games (review)

Mick and Boot are two different kinds of bullies: Mick goads with his words, and Boot leads with his fists. Two weeks into eighth grade, they've already fought each other twice, and a new principal decides to try a new strategy. Since suspension hasn't worked to stop their fighting, he tells them that they have to spend a couple of hours each day playing games together. Their unusual punishment garners them an unprecedented popularity; everyone, including Tabitha, the girl both boys fantasize about, wants to know how they are getting along. It turns out that Tabitha's interest isn't romantic, as both boys hope, so much as mercenary—she's booking bets on their fights. The fights escalate into dares that threaten to destroy what matters most to each boy, but it isn't until Boot hits bottom that Mick realizes just how vulnerable his favorite target really is. The boys take turns, appropriately, chapter by chapter, narrating the action, and although Mick's well established as the bookish one, his vocabulary and assessments of the situations the boys face, including his motivations for bullying Boot and his responses to his father's alcoholism, are a shade too adult for first person narration. Boot, on the other hand, is believably sullen and stubborn, caught in a physically abusive situation that he expects to survive, as his brother has, through becoming as tough as his dad. Gorman puts various models of masculinity on trial here, with the principal emerging as the clear winner balancing strength, sensitivity, intelligence and a sense of fair play. Boot and Mick, despite their bullying tendencies, come across as ultimately sympathetic boys responding to tough home lives by making things tough for those around them, and readers will be heartened when they finally reach détente.