Slugfest is a 2024 Gordon Korman middle-grade comedy story with mystery and sports elements. The eponymous "Slugfest" is the Embarrassing Nickname for a summer school class for kids who, for one reason or another, didn't pass their eighth-grade physical education course. The group bonds and develops under the guidance of a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher who seemingly knows more about cooking than P.E., causing the students to wonder if she is properly certified and if their graduation is in jeopardy if she isn't. A subplot features one of the students, a Big Man on Campus who missed his P.E. classes while playing for the high school teams, struggling to prove his worthiness to the athletic program as a mysterious new athlete (whose playing eligibility some of the kids also question) becomes a contender for his coveted quarterback position.
Tropes
- Academic Athlete: Fiona is the second smartest student in the school, but is also a great water polo and flag football player due to her speed and agility.
- Accidental Athlete: The Fidelio twins are capable of their most stunning athletic feats while attacking or running away from each other and barely register just how fast they can get while doing that.
- Am FM Characterization: Cleo frequently reflects on how much she likes The Beach Boys and about how life is more disappointing than in their songs.
- Class Clown: Jesse views pranks as an art, and once spent months engaged in a Long Game of claiming that he got free food from his dad the baker, only his dad isn’t a baker, and he was buying the cookies to lull people into a false sense of security so he could serve them play-Doh. He has become a minor pariah and been sentenced to summer school after one of his pranks caused thousands of dollars of plumbing damage. His journalism class project is posting a silly fake news story online and seeing how many people buy it.
- He's Not My Boyfriend: Whenever people bring up how much time Arrabella is spending with her new friend Nate, Yash’s football rival, she denies in a very unconvincing way that they are dating.
- Hero of Another Story: The unnamed new coach of the Falcons, a nearby running joke football team, has spent a lot of time training them to be formidable players who actually have a shot at winning.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yash has entitlement issues and admits that he has been a Jerk Jock who picked on people in the past, but is a lot closer to a Lovable Jock than a Jerk Jock for most of the story. He can accept most setbacks and disappointments quickly and knows better than to make efforts at invoking Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!. More importantly, he starts doing nice things for most of the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits in his summer school gym class (such as stopping his teammates from destroying a model one of them is carrying) until they evolve into True Companions.
- Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Mrs. Finnerty, the remedial P.E. teacher, has spent forty years teaching second grade and home economics, and most of her classes involve kiddie games like musical chairs and duck, duck, goose, or cooking (such as a relay race filling a pitcher with lemonade ingredients). This becomes Played for Drama when the kids start worrying that she may not be certified as a gym teacher, which would force them to take the class all over again to graduate if they wait too long to address this (whereas bringing it up too soon might deeply hurt a teacher they like). It turns out that she is certified, and is even a former Olympian swimmer, and is just a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and has been imposing such strange activities to adjust for her pupils' wide range of skill levels.
- Scandalgate: Arabella titles her journalism exposé about a potentially unaccredited teacher “Teachergate.”
- Sports Dad: Nitro Nate's father is obsessed with his son being a college player before Nate has even started high school and has him lie about what town he lives in so he can attend the school with the best football program.
- Supreme Chef: Mrs. Finnerty is the best baker any other character in the book has ever encountered, and is constantly making sweets for her students while being mindful of not giving them too much unhealthy food.
- Tranquil Fury: When Arabella learns that the bickering Fidelio Twins no longer want to play on the same flag football team as each other (which would disqualify them), she doesn't raise her voice or make threatening gestures or statements, but her angry words are still enough to intimidate the twins into changing their minds.Arabella: Today is the worst day of my life! Every single thing I've tried to do has turned to garbage! All I have left is this stupid football game right here, right now. I didn't want to play it, but I'm playing it. And listen to me—It. Will. Happen.
- Underdogs Never Lose:
- Mrs. Finerty is a firm believer in this after having won her most notable past athletic experience (an Olympic swim race), despite being ranked forty-ninth among the competitors. She credits much of her success to the original favorite getting sick and wearing a borrowed swimsuit that was two sizes too small and made her swim faster so she could get out of the tight garment faster.
- The Slugfest team at the flag football tournament is the only novice team to the competition and is being led by a School Idol quarterback, but is otherwise made up of inexperienced players. These players are the Class Clown, a geeky kid who only recently developed his first (small) bicep, a potentially germaphobic and very short water polo player, twins who are preoccupied with fighting each other, a Soapbox Sadie, and an athletic girl who broke her foot the previous spring and could break it again if she gets hit too hard. After a poor first half of the first game, they start doing well, though, and ultimately face off against the powerhouse Comets team. They lose by two points but get the trophy anyway after the Comets' quarterback confesses to being an ineligible player who lives outside of town limits.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: Arabella's father visits near the end of the book and is proud of her being on a flag football team. This does nothing to dampen her constant stream of anger toward him for divorcing her mom after she helped him get through college and giving Arabella and her brother's college funds to his baby with his new wife.
