by E K Ballard
The clock ticked closer to dismissal, and when class was over, Kristin stood up.
“Hi, I’m Kristin.”
Jamie cleared her throat and stood up, trying to speak. Finally she managed to say, “I’m Jamie.”
Kristin had to look up to talk to Jamie.
“Wow, you’re tall.”
Jamie was used to getting comments about her height, and slipped into the familiar conversation.
“So I’m told.”
“How tall are you?”
Did Kristin think she was a freak at the carnival or something?
“Around six feet.”
“No way, my dad is six feet tall, and you’re taller than him.”
So Kristin thought she was a freak and a liar. Great.
“You caught me,” said Jamie, trying to be funny.
“So, when can you meet to go over this project?”
“I have lunch 5th period and 8th period free.” Jamie felt like she was having an out of body experience, talking to Kristin.
“Me, too,” said Kristin. “Why don’t you meet me in the library 8th period?”
“Okay.”
And just like that, Jamie officially met Kristin.
* * *
“You won’t believe what just happened,” Jamie said when she sat down with Lissy at lunch.
“The principal made you student of the week?”
“Sure. No really, you won’t guess.”
Sam slid in next to Lissy and kissed her cheek. “What are we guessing?”
“You won’t believe what just happened!” Jamie could barely contain herself.
“Kristin asked you out?” Lissy said.
“Not quite.”
“No way! What?” Lissy leaned forward to hear Jamie.
“She got transferred into my American Lit class!”
“No!”
“Yes. And she sits in the chair in front of me, but that’s not even it.”
“What! Tell us!”
“Remember how I said I got Andrea Freeman as a partner?”
“Yeah, for the big group project. And?”
“She dropped the class, and guess who Kristin’s new partner for the project is?”
“No freaking way!” Lissy screamed. “Oh my God, is that fate, or destiny, or whatever? Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. I have to go meet her during 8th period and go over what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Wow.” Lissy dug into her lunch. “That is so random.”
* * *
Kristin got to the library first and set up at a table where she could see the entrance to the library. She took out her computer, turned it on, and got out her notebook for American Lit. She went through the packet for the group project. They needed to choose two works from the same author and compare and contrast the two using different criteria. The final product could be their own design, but it needed to be presented to the class before the first semester was over.
Jamie walked into the library and saw Kristin sitting at a table by herself. Jamie felt like her lungs were paralyzed. She made herself breathe, and walked up to the table.
“Hi,” she said as she put her bag down.
Kristin glanced up at Jamie. “Hi.”
Jamie sat down across from her and felt her heart racing.
“So,” was all she could say.
Kristin looked up at her, as if she expected Jamie to say something, and when she didn’t, Kristin said, “Do you have any ideas on what you want to do for this project?”
“Um, no.”
“What do you like to read?” Kristin asked.
“I don’t,” said Jamie.
Kristin looked up, dismayed. “You don’t read?”
“I can read. I don’t like to read anything.”
“Okay, then, what are you thinking for this project? We have to decide on an author, read two pieces of work and come up with a final project. Are there any authors who you like?”
“No.”
Kristin rubbed her temples with her fingers.
“Is there any particular type of writing that you don’t dislike as much as everything else? Fiction, nonfiction, short stories, poetry…?” Kristin asked hopefully.
“Short stories sound good,” Jamie said.
“What about Vonnegut?” suggested Kristin. “He has at least one collection of short stories and plenty of shorter novels, and it would be an easy connection to what the project asks for.”
“A collection of short stories?” Jamie asked. “Couldn’t we just read two short stories?”
“Are you being serious?” Kristin asked. “No, we can’t just read two short stories! Have you even looked at the assignment yet? This project is forty percent of our first semester grade!”
“If you say so.”
“Why don’t we do Arthur Miller?” asked Kristin. “His plays aren’t long. They are pretty easy to read, interesting, and there is a lot we can draw from to do a project on.”
“Sure,” said Jamie. “Aren’t you a junior?”
“Yes.”
“How come you aren’t taking 11th grade English?” asked Jamie. “Only seniors take American Lit.”
“Because I already read everything they are going to read in 11th grade English last year or the year before, and the AP Lit classes were full.”
“You mean you could have taken the same class twice and just turned in your papers from last year for the whole year?” Jamie asked.
“What would the point be in taking the same class twice?” Kristin asked.
“No homework,” Jamie said. “Where are you from?”
“Sarasota. Florida.”
“Do you play any sports?”
“Uh, no,” Kristin answered absently, shuffling through the paperwork. “I used to compete on a traveling dance team.”
“Dancing isn’t a sport.”
Kristin narrowed her eyes and glared at Jamie.
“How come you stopped?” Jamie asked.
“How come you ask so many nosy questions?” Kristin retorted, her face turning red.
Jamie was nonplussed at Kristin’s rebuke. “Sorry, I was just wondering if you played any sports, that’s all.”
“I played volleyball in middle school. My high school didn’t have sports.”
“What!” Jamie exclaimed. “What’s the point of going to school if there aren’t sports teams?”
“My school was a magnet school for gifted students. Kids who wanted to play on a team could go to their district school and try out.”
“That sounds like the worst school ever,” Jamie said.
Kristin put her papers down and leveled her gaze at Jamie. “It has been ranked one of the top ten public schools in the entire country for the past five years.”
“For what? It didn’t have any teams!”
“We had an Academic Olympics team,” Kristin said.
Jamie burst out laughing. “Academic Olympics? What’s that?”
“Nothing you’d know anything about,” said Kristin coldly. “I’m going to put down that we are going to do The Crucible and Death of a Salesman.”
“Okay.”
“It says here we should have one book read by the third week in September, and the second one done by the Tuesday after Columbus Day.” She looked up. “We get Columbus Day off?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you?”
“No, we didn’t celebrate the birth of a pedophile who made sex slaves out of children and committed genocide on the indigenous people of South America.”
Jamie stared blankly at Kristin, trying to decipher what she had just said.
“I just like having the day off,” Jamie said. “I can’t believe you had to go to a school with no sports teams. Did you get Thanksgiving and Christmas off?”
“Are you always this obtuse?” Kristin got up and put her papers in her bag. “I suggest you check the two plays out and get started reading.”
Jamie watched her go, trying to figure out how her meeting with Kristin
had gone so badly.
Chapter Twelve
Kristin loaded all her books into her bag and went to the bus loop to find the bus that would take the soccer team to the away game. When she got on the bus, she showed her press badge and sat in the very first seat closest to the door. She took out her AP US History textbook and started reading. She didn’t pay any attention to the players as they came onto the bus.
Jamie was one of the last ones to get on the bus, and she caught her breath when she saw Kristin sitting in the first row. What was Kristin doing on the bus? Jamie noticed Kristin was wearing a press pass and put the pieces together. Jamie immediately got nervous knowing Kristin was going to be watching the game.
She swung herself into the second seat behind the bus driver and put her bag down next to her. She watched Kristin, who kept her eyes on her book and turned another page as she read. The bus pulled out, and Kristin kept her head down reading. Jamie finally leaned over.
“Hey.”
Kristin raised her eyes from her book with a look of annoyance on her face.
“Oh, hi,” she said when she saw it was Jamie. She put her book down.
“So you just read page after page like that without stopping?” Jamie marveled.
“Is there a better way to do it?” Kristin asked, amused.
Jamie couldn’t believe she had said something so moronic to Kristin.
“No, that way is probably best,” said Jamie, who picked her bag up and went and sat in the back with the team.
She told herself she was not allowed to speak to Kristin unless it was absolutely necessary.
* * *
Kristin took a seat in the bleachers and took out her laptop. She had downloaded and saved the fall sports program from the school athletic site earlier. She brought up the girls’ soccer team and scanned the names quickly. She saw that #14 was Jamie Chase, who was listed as a senior co-captain of the team and played forward.
Kristin hoped Jamie Chase was a better soccer player than student.
Kristin took out the school camera she had signed out and trained the lens on the field. She watched as Stowe warmed up and saw Jamie running down the field. She followed her as she received a pass in stride and fired a shot past the goalie.
Once the game started, Kristin went down to the field to take pictures. She stood on the sidelines and tried to get a good shot, but the ball was down by the other team’s goal a lot, so Kristin walked behind the goal and started snapping pictures.
The ball was crossed in front of the goal, and Kristin was ready. She took a succession of quick pictures and captured Jamie running at full speed to head the ball past the goalie for the first goal of the game. Jamie saw Kristin taking pictures as she ran past the goalie, and their eyes met.
Kristin went back to her spot on the bleachers and made sure the pictures she took were clear. They were good, especially the ones of Jamie scoring the goal. She walked around the field and tried to get action pictures of all the players, then returned to the bleachers to watch the game and upload the pictures to her laptop.
At halftime, the score was 2-0 Stowe. Jamie was clearly the best player on the field. Kristin noted how much bigger and faster she was than all the other players. No one on defense could keep up with her. She scored two goals in the second half.
Kristin was impressed.
Kristin looked for Jamie on the bus to interview her, but Jamie didn’t get on.
“Where’s Jamie?” she asked another player.
“She probably went home with her parents.”
“Which one is the coach?” Kristin asked.
“Coach Abbott. She’s up front, in the green jacket.”
Kristin got up to talk to the coach. “Can I ask you a few questions?” Kristin asked.
“Sure.”
After speaking to the head coach, Kristin wrote her article. Reading it over, she saw it was really about Jamie and her prowess on the soccer field.
She figured she told it the way it was. Besides, the coach was the one who brought up Jamie so much. She uploaded three of the best pictures she had taken and submitted her article when she got back to school.
Chapter Thirteen
Jamie didn’t know what to do with herself during 8th period. She had a free period, and it didn’t make sense to sign out early and go anywhere because she had to be back for soccer practice after school. She was afraid of going to the library, seeing Kristin, and saying something stupid. The cafeteria was being cleaned. The gym and PE fields were full of PE classes, so she had an idea and went over to the middle school gym.
Her luck was in. The gym was empty, and she found a basketball in the bleachers that hadn’t been put away. She put her bag down and started shooting around. She had been there for a few minutes when a boy in a Stowe PE uniform came out of the locker room. He had a green late pass in his hand.
“Excuse me,” he said. Jamie noticed that his PE shorts hung down past his knees and his shirt was two sizes too big.
Jamie stopped dribbling the ball and regarded the skinny boy.
“Do you know where Mr. Wright’s class is?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Why don’t you check the fields? There are a bunch of classes out there.”
He left the gym and came back two minutes later.
“Can’t find them?” she asked.
“No.”
“You didn’t try that hard,” Jamie joked with him.
“They’re jerks anyway,” he said.
Jamie passed him the ball. He caught it clumsily and took a shot. He missed, chased down the ball, and passed it back to Jamie. She caught it, faked to the inside, pivoted, jumped up high, and banked the shot off the backboard.
“You’re really good.”
Jamie smiled at the compliment.
“So who are jerks?” she asked dribbling the ball.
“The kids in my class. They make fun of me,” he said.
“For what?” Jamie held the ball still in her hands.
“Because I take math over at the high school. They call me a brainiac and a nerd. They took my math book and threw it up on the roof.”
Jamie passed the ball to him and he took another shot and missed. “Don’t shoot out,” she told him. “Shoot up.”
He adjusted his form and took another shot. He missed but was closer.
“Watch,” she demonstrated. “Follow through with your shooting hand nice and high, like this.” She showed him, and he tried again. He made the shot and turned to look at her with surprise.
“Nice!” she said.
While they were shooting around, Jamie saw the name on his PE uniform. Lucas Olson.
“So, Lucas Olson, are you related to Patty Olson?” she asked.
“Yeah, she’s my cousin. How did you know my name?” he asked.
“It’s written on your shirt.”
He looked down. “Oh. Do you know Patty?” he asked.
“I saw her last weekend,” Jamie said.
“She went out with my sister and her friend Izzy and got really drunk,” he said. “I thought my sister was going to get in trouble, but she didn’t.”
Jamie’s jaw dropped open. This was Kristin’s brother.
“Is Izzy the girl who plays volleyball?” she asked.
“Yeah. She was in New Hampshire for a funeral and she came to visit. She’s been my sister’s best friend forever. How did you know she played volleyball?”
“I saw them playing at the beach.” Jamie was glad the relationship between Kristin and Izzy had been explained and they weren’t a couple. “Is Izzy a pro or something?”
“No, she’s just really good. She plays in volleyball tournaments all the time in Florida.”
Jamie showed him how to do a layup, and he was practicing the steps when his class came bursting into the gym from outside.
“Lucas Olson!” hollered Coach Wright. “Where have you been all class?” Some of the boys in the class stopped to watch the teacher yell at Lucas.
“He’s been in here with me, Coach,” said Jamie. “He came in late with a pass and looked all over for you guys, but he couldn’t find you so I told him to just stay in here with me and shoot.” Jamie took a long fade away jump shot and got nothing but net.
“Hey, Jamie, nice shot,” he said. “Is he any good?”
“He’s coming along,” she responded.
Two of the boys who had stopped to watch Lucas get in trouble came out onto the court. “Hey, Jamie,” they said enthusiastically. “Will you play with us?”
“Hey, Marco, hi Blake,” she said, recognizing two of the kids from summer camp. “I can play for a few minutes. Lucas, do you want to play?” she asked. His face lit up, glad to be included and not be in trouble.
Marco and Blake laughed. “Who wants to play with that dork?” Marco asked.
Jamie turned on them. “Hey!” she said sharply. She saw Lucas put his head down. She walked over to Blake and Marco.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” she admonished Marco. “That makes me think you didn’t learn anything we taught you this summer.”
Marco didn’t say anything, but looked upset that Jamie was angry with him.
“Okay, my friend Lucas here and I are going to play against you two.”
“Okay.” Blake and Marco got the ball first. Jamie promptly blocked a pass and tossed the ball to Lucas, who took a shot and made it.
“Nice shot, Lucas,” Jamie said. He smiled his appreciation back at her.
Jamie made sure Blake and Marco didn’t score. She fed Lucas a lot of passes once she drew Blake and Marco over into double coverage.
“We need to go,” said Blake after five minutes. “See you.” He and Marco left to change out of their PE uniforms.
“Don’t you need to catch a bus or something?” Jamie asked Lucas.
“No, I go to the library to study with my sister until we get a ride home from my dad.”
“Well, I have to go to soccer practice. It was nice playing with you.”
“Thanks.” Lucas looked at her with preteen adulation.
Jamie got her bag and started back to the high school side. She saw Blake and Marco walking out of the gym. “Hey, you two,” she called out. They stopped. “I hope that neither of you had anything to do with Lucas’s book ending up on the roof.”